> Even if you ignore ALL other tax spending (which is a huge ask) the best possible outcome is $1 in = $1 out. That breaks even at best. The government isn't creating value it's just moving money around.
It is possible to spend money that gets more money back later. Think of investing in infrastructure that creates more economic activity. Imagine how much better the economy grew once we connected the transcontinental railroads and electrified towns. These were huge projects that no one could have funded on their own, but with coordination with all the money from everyone else. I can't think of any other way to coordinate that much money without getting taxes involved.
I understand. And I get it. I also want the best infrastructure and economy possible. The theory is getting taxes and master planning a big project will eventually pay off more than it costs. But you have to remember, when taxes are involved you're really talking about how to spend other people's money. I would argue that the best way to help people is simply to not tax them and let them spend on the things they value the most.
The same argument you're making is commonly used to build tax subsidized sports stadiums. I'm curious if you agree with that as a valid use for local taxes.
In my previous message I mentioned "back door deals with giant corporations and insider trading" as a bad thing. Well, the bigger the master planned project is, the more incentive there is for shenanigans.
I'm interested in it as a means to an end. Supposedly this is to get ready for a lunar base. I would love to see that in my lifetime. Also, while it is not a mission objective, I want to see a space elevator which currently we can only do on the moon. Due to the lower gravity and slower spin, it is possible to make a space elevator out of Kevlar rope, which we can reliably make in bulk.
The famous spoken word poem Whitey on the Moon was on exactly this topic.
"Accompanied by conga drums, Scott-Heron's narrative tells of medical debt, high taxes and poverty experienced at the time of the Apollo Moon landings. The poem critiques the resources spent on the space program while Black Americans were experiencing social and economic disparities at home."
Possible and reasonable don't guarantee anything with big businesses. Around 2008, Atlanta had a major drought, and as the local government asked the citizens to conserve water, Coca Cola was bottling up the local water and sending it out on trucks. When the citizens complained, the government said it would cost too many jobs to stop the bottling.
You are engaging with a straw man that is literally the opposite of what I said. I said it would be possible and reasonable to mandate it, not intentionally look the other way, and not cross fingers and hope for beneficence.
You're still not engaging with what I said. Please see that "this government chose not to mandate" has zero relevance to whether a government mandate would be possible or reasonable.
I said "[datacenters] don't need to [increase electricity costs for others]. It would be possible to mandate...".
I said that because the person I was responding to said "a datacenter increases electricity costs for the region".
It CAN increase electricity costs for the region. It does not NEED to increase electricity costs for the region. And PREVENTION of increasing electricity costs for the region CAN be done by government mandate instead of hoping for profiteers to do less profiteering.
What this particular city council did with this datacenter is neither an inherent property of datacenters nor of city councils.
I wonder if the best way, and something that might be more likely to pass, is something like "progressive pricing".
Like the first N kilowatt hours are the regular price, and would cover the average case for most people (I don't know what the average amount of electricity used by a person is but the power companies absolutely know). Then the next M kilowatt hours are an increased price, and keep going as energy spikes up.
I think this could work just because this is how income tax works. Somehow that managed to get passed by congress and state legislatures.
> I am also saying that they will never choose to do it
If this article were posted when this campaign was just starting, this would be a top HN comment. Unfortunately, lazy nihilism runs deep in tech circles.
It seems like both of you have thoroughly missed the context of my subthread.
If your goal is to point out that people make choices, well, you're in the wrong thread branch and want to instead reply to a different part of the same message that I replied to. Because I never said or implied that they don't. Quite the opposite in fact.
Here is the context of my subthread, extracted, in two parts:
Part 1, the framing.
> "I don't know if [elected officials think a wrong thing about datacenters] or if it's kickbacks."
You see, the kickbacks option is already there. We all already understand that it could be kickbacks. Therefore bringing it up further would just be silly. I certainly have no reason to say that kickbacks aren't a possibility. The only part we need to address is OP believing that [thing is wrong].
Part 2, the [thing].
> "I'm pro-progress, but a datacenter brings approximately nothing to the local economy. It doesn't employ any noteworthy number of people, it doesn't generate any real tax revenue, and it increases electricity costs for the region."
That distills to:
> "a datacenter brings approximately nothing to the local economy"
That statement means either:
A (haven't): datacenters have in the past only ever brought nothing (and therefore they will in the future only ever bring nothing)
or
B (can't): datacenters cannot bring anything other than nothing (and therefore they will in the future only ever bring nothing)
And they're both wrong. A is wrong because past behavior does not imply future behavior. And B is wrong because in fact they can.
I think that they hear "$6 billion datacenter" and think that the town's economy is getting $6 billion in jobs rather than some foreign computer hardware company is getting $6B for computers that are housed in their town.
And unless they also build their own power plant, everyone in town has to pay higher electricity prices to cover the new demand. That is the primary complaint I have been hearing.
If anyone wants to add any other complaints to the list, I'd like to hear them. I might be forced to have this argument in my parent's hometown in the coming years.
I have never used X/Twitter so I don't know how it works, but don't you have to seek out an account in order to read it? X won't just throw a spoiler at you unsolicited, right?
If it catches engagement, the main firehose feed will show it. They've begun using Grok and AI processes, which is hit and miss, but definitely improving.
Having Japanese, French, other countries' tweets automatically translated back and forth has been fun, too. It'll be interesting to see where it gets to in the next few years.
The other day, I looked at the trending topics. Top one was "Lesbians". I was wondering if there was some kind of development in politics. Nope.
It was all porn. I was on a call with a friend and he checked from his account too and it was there as well, so this wasn't some kinda A/B test thing. It disappeared after a bit. My point is the algo is a bit wonky.
Twitter had always been the modern day Playboy mag from Sci-Fi era. So there's Bradbury, Lenna, geopolitics, all bound in one.
The catch is it's a UGC based algorithmic system with instant feedback, which means the fastest adapting contents with most bandwidth absolutely wins, which tends to be, like that.
Does anyone have the solution to this problem anyway? I thought this was always inevitable on WWW.
Not with 600m organic global active users. The platform moral compass must align to the performance weighted sum total of its user, rather than the other way around.
Trying to bend the platform morality to suit your idealisms seriously ruin yours over time.
I don't see how seeing the current feed of words and going "not this one" before they go online is difficult. You could literally filter 10 per minute and clean up the misfires
> Unlike the DMCA notice, where WBD used “video” to describe the content, the declaration to the court by Michael Bentkover classifies the infringing content as “summaries of unpublished, character, setting, and plots of a forthcoming series”.
Isn't that simply about spoiling people, or what's the "crime" here? The article also says "Copyright generally protects the expression of a work, not the underlying ideas or plot descriptions", so I'm still unsure what the actual issue is, besides the misuse of DMCA.
Most likely the culprit is someone on their staff that broke their NDA contract, but the DMCA is about stopping the proliferation of copyrighted material. They are misusing the DMCA because it has higher discovery/subpoena ability.
> but the DMCA is about stopping the proliferation of copyrighted material.
If the videos posted to twitter were just summaries and not actual video of the unreleased show it seems unlikely that there was any copyrighted material being proliferated
Under the DMCA, you can claim copyright over damn near anything and force a provider to take it down. If there is any ambiguity as to whether you are the owner of the allegedly copyrighted material, like for example legitimate fair use, they still are required to take it down—unless the alleged violator files a DMCA counterclaim in which they must supply their legal name and address to the original claimant. This has been used to silence, or deanonymize, people who post unpleasant things about a powerful person or organization.
The crime is that we're living in a society where different laws apply to corporations than to people. If a corporation doesn't like you, you're toast, no matter whether you're wrong or right.
There are enough laws that they'll find something to nail you on.
Unlike the DMCA notice, where WBD used “video” to describe the content, the declaration to the court by Michael Bentkover classifies the infringing content as “summaries of unpublished, character, setting, and plots of a forthcoming series”.
This distinction may matter, as a summary of a plot may not enjoy the same protection as a leaked video. Copyright generally protects the expression of a work, not the underlying ideas or plot descriptions.
I interpret that as they just didn't like that someone posted the summary, and they are trying to use the DMCA to do a job that wasn't intended by the law's creators.
My first thought was that this must be related to the automated weapons issue that got Anthropic on Trump's shitlist. It makes sense that a company that will eventually be asked to build weapons that choose their own targets will want to limit liability when it will inevitably kill the "wrong" person.
Also, I am disturbed by the fact that in all the discussions on this topic during the last month, no one has mentioned the magic word "Skynet". This is clearly a terrible idea. And if a company needs immunity from liability, they know it is a terrible idea.
Skynet's flaw wasn't that it killed humans. It was a military machine specifically designed to kill humans. If it only killed "the enemy", it would have been hailed a marvelous success. It was only considered a failure because it killed the wrong humans.
The technology hasn't changed at all since the 1992 film Sneakers with the blind character Whistler. https://youtu.be/GS3npSv8iuM?t=124
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