Henrico County is a major hub for data centers in Virginia. Its officials said it expects a 25% rise in electricity costs next year, and advised workers to close the blinds and turn off their computers to make up for it.

  • dan1101@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    We all see this coming, but the billionaires and our state/county/city leaders assure us everything will be fair and fine.

    Same deal with water. It will be 100 degrees and data centers will be draining local water supplies, while residents will be told not to water their flowers or take too many showers.

    Fuck all this.

  • Zink@programming.dev
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    17 days ago

    I wonder if there’s any chance of all the tech speculation helping to fund electrical grid upgrades (including grid scale storage for renewables) that actually benefit regular human society after the bubble pops.

  • stermy4u@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    An interesting one there, how can schools consumption be compared to that of Data centers

    • x00z@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Maybe they just want people to waste time pointing spiderman fingers at eachother for not turning off their computers.

    • knomie@feddit.org
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      16 days ago

      We need Anonymous to do something about data centers.

      Don’t wait for others to save us.

      • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
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        16 days ago

        While I agree, theres nothing I can actually do. Besides inform people of the damage they cause by using big tech, which has gotten me nowhere so far.

        If everyone today quit using meta and google products and openai (and voted on laws to keep data centers out, and voted on laws against monopolies) , the entire industry would crumble.

        • knomie@feddit.org
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          16 days ago

          First of all, thank you for (trying) to inform people.

          It is really important that we do not see ourselves as passive, waiting for other more skilled people to solve the current problems. Everyone of us can do something. Although sometimes it doesn’t turn out as we had hoped, but not trying would bring is nowhere.

          I don’t exactly know about the organization of anonymous, but for most groups there are a lot of possibilities to support. Legal support, social media and website support, giving interviews, food and material, logistics as a few examples.

          You could also join other local groups against datacenters. I think there is a lot of campaigning going on.

          • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works
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            16 days ago

            I just have no idea how to do it. I mean theres a fb group (ironiiiic) for us against data centers in our state. But that gets us nowhere. I’m afraid something real, physical, is going to actually be needed. they know we won’t do anything, and we are too scared of the fascist paramilitary at their disposal.

            • knomie@feddit.org
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              15 days ago

              Sometimes you have to us big tech to reach more people. Many groups also use Instagram, some also mastodon. But you should certainly not use it for organizing. If they don’t have a signal group or similar, I would stay away.

              You could look into environmental groups. On the national level, there are climate defiance and scientist rebellion in the US on a national level (and probably a lot more). Maybe they also have local groups that you could join? Or you could support remotely and start building a local group (that’s hard but someone has to start).

  • rynn@piefed.social
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    17 days ago

    I guess they could light a data center on fire to keep warm and not run their heaters? Win/win?
    (Also I hope it’s very obvious to everyone this is a joke, I’m not trying no to incite or encourage violence in any way at all).

    • gilokee@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      I also hope that data centers “don’t” get burnt down. How "un"satisfying would that be. While I’m at it, I hope no one kills the trillionaire.

    • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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      16 days ago

      I’m just amazed at the grotesquely huge amounts of copper they have in those datacenters.

  • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
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    17 days ago

    In Virginia during the fifa World Cup there are a lot of pro data center ads funded by a group that was created for this purpose called Virginia Connects.

    It’s the usual shitbags lying to the public to make it sound like data centers are good

    • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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      16 days ago

      In Virginia ads are still running about not leaving rural Virginians behind by banning data centers. Claiming that they will bring jobs to the rural community but those nasty politicians are banning the progress of data centers.

    • XLE@piefed.social
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      17 days ago

      Are they in cahoots with the PACs that support pro AI candidates? (Are they the same groups? I really don’t know.)

  • Photonic@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    I guess they’re in the FO part of FAFO. I really hope this kind of stuff wakes people up enough to do something about it.

    • MML@sh.itjust.works
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      17 days ago

      I least they got all that money and jobs (right? I’m pretty sure Facebook skirted that actually)

      • Photonic@lemmy.world
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        17 days ago

        Yeah, those data centers definitely must have employed like, three site managers each! So come to think about: hundreds and hundreds of (… okay a little over 100) people employed in all those centers combined. And all it took was to raise electricity prices by 25% for 350k people

        • MML@sh.itjust.works
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          17 days ago

          They also cut the taxes the corporations pay by 50%, at least they didn’t have to build homes or anything useless.

    • NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca
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      16 days ago

      Educating the kids would be a waste of taxpayer dollars. The only training they need is how to mow the grass around the data centres.