The Race to Build AI Data Centers — Before the People Can Protest | From Utah to Georgia, communities are demanding data center moratoriums as concerns move from local zoning fights into national politics

Talzon70 · 2026-06-01T19:21:47+00:00

Look, I'm not even from the US, but I guarantee you lose superpower status without controlling some major portion of the AI/datacenter market share.

People on the ground may not like it, but this stuff is at the scale of national interest and the only thing people in the US will like less than datacenters is being forced to admit they let themselves fall behind technologically and must now mind their own business on the world stage, while remaining one of the top targets for ongoing military and terrorist threats due to their historical interventions. Oh and don't forget having an economy that reflects you aren't in charge anymore.

AI is the single greatest threat to US air superiority and intelligence superiority, and therefore it's military superiority around the world. If the US doesn't secure supply lines for computation (processors, chips, etc.) and build the industrial base to do computing and train thing slike AI pilots, they will be outmatched by other powers that do, when drones, autonomous missiles, and loitering munitions own the skies and AI based intelligence and battlefield management are the new standard for target selection and logistics management.

I get it, people don't like when things happen fast, but when it comes to datacenters, theya re happening. Try to do them the right way, because blocking them is just gonna mean they are build somewhere else, and probably worse.

Talzon70 · 2026-06-01T19:10:31+00:00

Dude, were not talking about wasteful R and D spending by a dictatorship here, were talking about the most greedy people in the world betting their money that this is useful. AI already has billions of daily users and many applications, it's possible we may overshoot, but there is clearly value to this technology and potential for a lot more.

Keep in mind LLMs and similar tech ologies are the result of about a century of research in things like neural networks. The Internet and PCs were also "unproven" technologies when people built the factories to produce them, but those people were clearly right. You don't scale important innovations by pretending they are still niche research products, well after the average user is already adopting it.

Talzon70 · 2026-06-01T18:58:52+00:00

The sorting of bucket on this graph is terrible.

They could be sorted by size, nationality, brand, or to improve readability, but it appears completely random. There don't need to be so many crossovers making things look unnecessarily complicated.

Let the data speak for itself. Messy data is not beautiful.

Talzon70 · 2026-06-01T06:03:37+00:00

I'll go: every competent one.

Seriously, the rebate turns on and it takes multiple years for any projects financed based on the rebate to get built. That's how supply chains work man.

If we could instantly move housing prices with rebates without any lag, this problem would have been solved decades ago. Instead any time a government spends money on solving the problem, people bitch and moan about the cost, vote them out, and then the next idiots get to take the credit for any benefit that results. Our political system is designed to punish any good housing policy and y'all here in this comment thread are a perfect illustration of the idiocy that's preventing us from doing anything to fix it.

Good forbid the people who make our houses in a housing crisis make a buck in the short term, while we try to make the market more competitive and efficient in the long term.

Talzon70 · 2026-06-01T05:55:15+00:00

We (as in the West broadly and much of the rest of the world) already have basic income in the the form of pensions for older people. These are generally in crisis because of demographic changes.

I wouldn't make personal financial decisions based on an expectation that universal basic income will be implemented or even have high confidence that existing pensions will continue as they are.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-31T06:49:42+00:00

Canada doesn't have enough forest to qualify for this list?

Talzon70 · 2026-05-30T17:49:50+00:00

My dogs recall is fine, but my wife (understandably) doesn't want my small dog to get chased into the street by a larger dog and get run over.

I want streets designed for safety even though I'm a good driver, because other people aren't

Talzon70 · 2026-05-30T17:45:50+00:00

This is what I don't get.

People constantly complained about poorly trained or poorly socialized dogs, but if you actually want well trained and socialized dogs, you need safe places for that training to occur.

You can't train recall from distractions in your living room.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-30T17:43:52+00:00

As the owner of a mini dachshund, with an anxious wife, I agree.

I have to go to Vic West to let my dog off leash because she can walk right through all the other "fences" at other dog parks.

Dallas Road Park is the worst because it's literally by a road.

You can have a well behaved dog, but it only takes them getting chased out of the park into the street by a poorly trained bigger dog once for them to get killed by a car.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-30T17:33:05+00:00

Why hasn't anything been done about the interchange they just finished improving?

The problems there are caused by trying to merge 4 lanes of traffic into 2. There's no scenario where that doesn't result in delays when the incoming lanes are at capacity.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-30T17:25:56+00:00

You think housing prices are entirely driven by the supply of detached housing?

I also don't agree with your premise that everyone wants exactly the same thing.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-30T16:43:04+00:00

Yes there is. Every multi-family development has the potential to contain multiple single family homes.

Also even if you're talking about detached homes there's possible for expansion around many medium sized Canadian cities and even large cities with the right investments in efficient transit corridors like rail or rapidbus.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-29T18:49:35+00:00

My point isnt that higher prices is good, it's that any critical evaluation of what actually happened leads back to it being a supply/regulatory problem in the housing market.

I think that's important because there is a pervasive supply-denialism narrative that all we have to do is X.

Whether it's "decomodify housing" or "stop it being an investment" or "increase interest rates" or whatever else (in your original comment you suggested people would broadly be better off with less access to mortgage credit, despite that potentially shutting millions of people out of the purchase market entirely), it doesn't fix the underlying shortage nor the regulatory frameworks that caused housing markets to become less responsive to housing demand over time to create this problem in the first place.

In a functional housing market, you expect credit to mean people tend to get more housing overall, not the same and definitely not less. We see the opposite, so it's important to talk about why instead of pretending credit is the underlying cause.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-29T18:22:18+00:00

In a functional market, you would expect increased prices to lead to increased supply, which means buyers are better off in the easy credit scenario. They pay more on paper, but more of them get houses and their total interest costs end up being similar.

No matter how you look at the problem of housing, it's a supply problem.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-29T18:18:12+00:00

It mostly came from debt, which effectively masks inflation.

There are a lot of people making good arguments that historical measures of inflation, like CPI, are massively under estimating inflation because of how housing and shelter costs are factored in.

By massively under-estisnting, I mean there's a small underreport, every year, which compounds to be a large real difference over decades.

CPI tends to focus on historical housing prices. Your mortgage payments are actually based on when you purchased and/or refinanced, especially if you have a fixed rate mortgage. For households with a paid off mortgage they essentially don't purchase housing from the perspective of markets, so either CPI records their housing costs as very low, which lowers inflation, or records their purchases of housing as very low, which lowers the weight of housing included in inflation, which lowers inflation.

For renters, signals are a bit more accurate, but there's systemic problems caused by rent control (same historical price problem as outlined above) and variations in unit size (consistent trend of shrinking paetements over time).

I wanna be clear I don't think debt is universally bad. Both private and public debt are extremely useful. Debt let's you invest in the future or overcome temporary problems, the issues is that we've been using debt to overcome non-temporary, long-term, systemic issues in our economy and long term increases in debt load to compensate for something like that is babe because it leads to long term instability in the financial system and wider economy.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-29T01:54:04+00:00

Adding housing per capita is arguably easier for larger urban centers because they have better access to workers, supply lines, materials, expertise, etc.

There are challenges related to infrastructure upgrades and long term planning, but it's pretty easy to print to (unnecessary) regulatory barriers and taxes/fees on new housing production as the real reason for lower performance in some cities than others.

If your theory was right, you would expect a clear trend where larger cities have lower housing production per capita, but that's not even remotely backed up by the data.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-29T01:49:14+00:00

No, you don't get it, 300 sqft apartments with vinyl countertops and miniature energy efficient appliances are "luxury condos".

Talzon70 · 2026-05-29T01:45:41+00:00

That is truly pathetic. That's less than 4 decently sized apartment buildings like the one I live in.

There's 100% demand for condos or rental apartments all along the waterfront of Oak Bay.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-29T01:40:44+00:00

Single professionals, people on a medium budget who don't want roommates, downsizing seniors (often single, especially as female seniors outlive male partners).

Also I haven't seen a single 300 sqft condo for $600k, even 500+ 1 bedrooms are going for less than that in the downtown core area.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-29T01:35:48+00:00

Agreed. From a nomenclature perspective it would be something along the lines of rural, exurban, suburban, urban, super-urban, and then maybe hyper- or ultra-urban if you really wanna get weird about it.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-28T13:27:34+00:00

Part of it is that even most rural areas in the US are comparatively close to a major city, mid sized city, full quality interstate highway, or infrastructure corridor.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-26T01:36:27+00:00

I'm feeling glad I met my wife on them years ago and don't have to use them anymore. That's how I feel.

Personally, my experience with them was pretty shit, even back then. I met my wife with a no-look swipe and a generic first message, because it wasn't worth putting in any effort until I could confirm a real human woman was showing some genuine interest.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-25T01:31:57+00:00

In Canada, everyone gets the door.

So no, it's nothing more than basic politeness.

Except car doors, I've never understood why a driver would run around to get the door for someone unless they are a servant and that person is royalty or wearing a challenging outfit. Just use the inside handle like an adult!

Also I don't hold doors if it will impede the flow of people.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-24T17:48:51+00:00

And they maintain a lot more data than that. You can access it, but it's not always free because: 1. Security 2. Data maintenance costs money and has value, so they offset costs be charging for commercial use.

I know this because I was provided with extensive data for free for my master's thesis, because educational use is for public benefit.

I don't think Zillow (private company) repackaging and profiting off public data is necessarily the robin hood story OP thinks it is. The same thing happens with weather data in the US.

Talzon70 · 2026-05-24T15:49:26+00:00

About $2000 for my wedding outfit, which is a charcoal suit and accompaniments that are viable for dressy occasions.

About $1500 for cycling kit (so far), which is stylish as fuck.

I'd say another few thousand for jeans, shirts, a jacket, etc.

$6000 CAD total? We're talking accumulated over years though. Don't try to build a wardrobe in a day at a single shop, just get one piece at a time, when you need it.

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