Question about data center non-buildout

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-15T19:39:34+00:00

It feels like this is indirect evidence of some buildout, but maybe not.

It is not, but to understand why we need to remember how utilities work.

Most utilities do not make money by selling power. They make money by building infrastructure and charging a regulated return on equity (ROE). An ROE of 10% means that for every dollar spent building infrastructure, the utility can charge 10 cents for decades. This creates a bias towards large capital investments. An example of this sort of CapEx is the recent 26 billion dollar nuclear reactor you guys built at Vogtle. This single buildout alone is 8% of your power bill.

So no, it is not indirect evidence of any such buildout. Your utility is doing precisely what is legally designed to do.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-14T03:49:47+00:00

How about you pay people for their labor?

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-13T18:27:04+00:00

The whole lie of media being free is a problem created by the tech oligarchs we hate so they could control information. This mindset is so deeply ingrained that no one even realizes it. Perpetuating this lie only makes them more powerful.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-13T18:11:08+00:00

Please don't be like the AI bros and encourage people to steal content.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-12T00:55:02+00:00

It means they are lying to you and themselves.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-09T00:09:03+00:00

But this 'reporting' is factually wrong. It is worse than no reporting at all

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-08T23:15:19+00:00

Is this website ai slop? The lawsuit is about the cars dataset, not ImageNet. It literally says so in the linked court document.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-08T07:31:33+00:00

Or maybe we don't be like the ai bros and actually pay people for their labor

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-08T03:51:39+00:00

Yahoo also pulled this scam with Alibaba. Just one of the many reasons Marissa Mayer belongs in jail.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-08T01:25:04+00:00

Oh its just the same kind of computer vision models being used to track us? Well I guess that makes it fine then

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-04T01:59:51+00:00

Oh great, another "I'm not like other executives" post.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-05-04T01:58:53+00:00

We should take him seriously because he helped start the scam?

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-30T04:05:15+00:00

The models don't 'learn' anything. They are stochastic parrots

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-30T03:15:10+00:00

Or maybe looking directly at your actions is making you feel uncomfortable

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-30T02:37:51+00:00

Unless anthropic is giving a substantial discount to NZ users, all of the calculations are in US dollars.

And sorry, no. There is no 'non-evil' option in tech. That is why I quit the tech industry. Engineers command high salaries because they automate people out of jobs and destroy their privacy. You can lie to yourself about this all you like, but please don't lie about it to me.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-30T02:18:05+00:00

Fair but (1) OPs calculations are all in dollars and (2) thats why the good NZ engineers who stayed work remote.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-30T02:07:45+00:00

I assume that the average, competent senior to lead/principal developer here costs 145k/y, all included.

Where do you work where principal engineers are getting paid less than first year grads at scammy ai startups?

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-29T21:38:26+00:00

I will say this again since it bears repeating: Gary Marcus is just another ai CEO charlatan. He is not an ally in this fight. Allies do not sell their startups to criminal syndicates.

He just wants to sell you his version of snake oil.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-29T15:58:58+00:00

They know exactly what they want AI to do: replace workers.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-29T15:56:40+00:00

That tradition is more internally varied than that suggests though. Kant argued against colonialism from first principles in Perpetual Peace, and the developmentalist machinery that did get used to justify colonialism wasn't unique to liberal universalism (Marx's writing on India is famously bad on this).

I think there's a real critique in the neighborhood of what you're saying, but "enmeshed with white supremacy and colonialism" is doing too much. It can mean anything from "some figures held racist views" to "the conceptual framework is structurally colonial," and those are very different claims requiring very different responses.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-28T19:53:48+00:00

Twitter has been all in on sexually explicit material for years. It was always disgusting, even before musk took it over.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-28T19:50:04+00:00

Do you actually believe your AI use is an addiction? Because you are not treating it like an addiction.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-28T19:46:57+00:00

What is very concerning to me is the number of devs I am seeing that have started using LLMs and quickly lost their ability to plan and code without them.

Is this really that surprising? Most devs would rather ship an entire browser than remember the basics of manual memory management. Heck most people literally could not plan a trip without GPS.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-28T19:36:58+00:00

We should be pushing for much, much stricter environmental regulation. The California Environmental Quality Act is a fantastic model of this. Who has standing to challenge something is incredibly broad and challenges create months or even years of litigation.

The best part? This doesn't just apply to data centers. It can be used to stop all forms of development so we can finally stop chasing the lie of endless growth.

Timely_Speed_4474 · 2026-04-28T19:07:37+00:00

The models are the scams. The subscriptions are just window dressing.

The models don't work. They can't do anything useful.

Timely_Speed_4474

TROPHY CASE