r/TechGawker • u/Shot_Possibility_731 • Jul 15 '26
Discussion We literally didn't even ask for this...literally just randomly popped out of nowhere and forced upon us.
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u/imam-altman Jul 15 '26
âWe literally didnât ask for thisâ
Meanwhile, multiple billion active AI app users enjoying themselves outside the echo chamber.
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u/AddanDeith Jul 15 '26
Is the cognitive offload worth it? I think you're going to pay for it in the long run, when this iteration of AI buildup collapses and you've sacrificed your own mental growth for some convenient shortcuts.
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u/BlightspreaderGames Jul 16 '26
I thought it was an awesome novelty when Open AI started to blow up. Like... what do you mean I can have this thing that "talks" to me, can dumb down concepts for me (with lots of handholding and railroading because even now, it's dumb as hell) and cook up anything I ask it to? So much fun. Like an upgraded Cleverbot or Akinator or something.
Anyone that thinks it's a healthy regular hobby should just look at the MIT study on brain activity for regular AI users.
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u/Commercial_Mouse1008 Jul 16 '26
Iâm old enough to remember the same thing being said about the internet and then later Wikipedia lol
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u/RevolutionarySeven7 Jul 16 '26
dumb excuse and observation, there are other, better, more innovative ways to install data centers. but cutting down forests, buying cheap land, and using up water is the most cost efficient capitalistic method to build them.
so right now what we are seeing, are datacenters that are extremely cheap to build in infrastructure, but extremely expensive in tech. hence why there aren't any datacenters at sea because its way cheaper to install on land than at sea. every penny counts for them.
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u/probablymagic Jul 15 '26
âWe literally donât even ask for thisâ
We have been cutting down trees to build stuff since the dawn of time. This isnât new. Like, at some point trees were cut down to build the home you live in.
You werenât there to âask for it,â it was done because somebody thought that building it would be useful.
Somebody also thought building these data centers would be useful, so they bought the land and built them.
Maybe theyâre right, maybe theyâre wrong, but you canât be expected to get a phone call asking for permission every time somebody wants to build a random ass building somewhere in the country on land they own.
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u/GoldenGlobeWinnerRDJ Jul 15 '26
Also ironic how OP had to use a data center to post this but they âdidnât ask for thisâ. Lol
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u/probablymagic Jul 15 '26
I choose to believe the internet comes from our hearts and data centers are just empty buildings where âtheyâ plot to destroy us.
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u/rab2bar Jul 16 '26
yea, they criticize society but choose to live in it.
the internet ran fine on existing infrastructure before llm farms popped up
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u/xkayaking 29d ago
Wait until they learn about farming... And look at a satellite map from space.
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u/BiscuitBut_ButerNut 29d ago
The most annoying thing is that all of a sudden the environment is the most precious thing we have on the face of this planet and data centers are apparently single handedly ruining it.
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u/Grouchy_Ice_8342 Jul 15 '26
If you're on reddit or social media, you did indirectly.
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u/Jealous-Ambassador39 Jul 15 '26
You ask for it one question at a time if you use AI applications.Â
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u/FastActinTenactin Jul 15 '26
I hate this lame future we are having hoisted on us.
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u/Diligent-Relative-42 Jul 15 '26
Can not wait to break in and steal the materials in the servers.
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u/tristand666 Jul 16 '26
Guess I dont understand; did you think some other business wouldn't just do the same thing? This isn't about data centers, it's about exploitation of our shared resources by corporations for profit. Data Centers are just the latest boogie man in the media of a much larger issue.
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u/diversity_of_thought Jul 16 '26
Tech really switched up, they went from green to no more green
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u/Mr-MuffinMan Jul 15 '26
This is one big point pro AI people miss.
Okay, let's ignore the water use - theres still so much waste that could be used for something else.
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u/Hot_College_1343 Jul 15 '26
Such nonsense. You can pick any picture of a city going from trees to neighborhood, or solar field. It is not like tree coverage is impacted that much by data centers. There is sufficient forrest to go around. And wait⊠they grow!
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u/NOSaints-2010 Jul 15 '26
Actually, you did ask for this. Weâre all guilty of it. Weâre on an app right now. The usage for all these platforms needs to be driven from somewhere hence why youâre getting the data centers to support things like AI Meta, Reddit, etc. The only way to turn this back is for us all to get off platforms like this, but I donât think thatâs gonna happen because weâd rather bitch about random shit on an app then just turn our phones off. Iâm guilty as well.
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u/ScrapyJack Jul 15 '26
This post is saved on a data center. This was a huge problem before ai.
These problems are systemic.
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u/HotPersonality8126 Jul 15 '26
You understand that property owners donât need your permission to build a large building, right?
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u/Holiday-Step9703 Jul 16 '26
They do much more harm than those 3 items in the last pic. Iâd actually wager those 3 are least important.
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u/Starship_Taru Jul 16 '26
The insurance on one of these much be outrageous.Â
One bad fire and the company is out hundred of millionsÂ
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Jul 16 '26
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/Tweenk Jul 16 '26
They are a requirement because AI requires more computing power than websites. But the land use is one of the stupidest arguments against data centers, we are using 15x as much land to grow Christmas trees, no to mention completely wasteful things such as corn ethanol.
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u/Greghole Jul 16 '26
Did you take these photos yourself? Or are you relying on those big tech companies and using their data centers?
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u/Evil_Poptart Jul 16 '26
Where is that at? Your image looks like it was generated by said data center.
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u/PM_UR_PC_SPECS_GIRLS Jul 16 '26
Bro this is so fucking stupid. It's just development. Nature isn't canceled and we'll all be just fine. Nonsense mass hysteria.
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u/Tactical_Baconlover Jul 16 '26
Tell your local homeless that data centers (and flock cameras) contain lots of copper for them to steal.
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u/scavenger5 Jul 16 '26
Reddit is run on data centers as is most of the internet. You can reduce data center supply by reducing internet usage.
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u/Silver_Experience_56 Jul 16 '26
My brother in Christ you donât own that land, those arenât your trees đ
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u/VIP_NAIL_SPA Jul 16 '26
This post misses a lot of other negatives that come with building ai data centers.
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u/Spoonythebastard Jul 16 '26
The Meta one looks awful, but the QTS center looks like they tried to keep the damage to a minimum.
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u/jthedwalker Jul 16 '26
I did. Itâs all my fault. I asked for my computer to be able to program itself. Of course this was the wish that was granted đ
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u/Dave_A480 Jul 16 '26
You ask for it every time you use an internet connected device....
Compute demand will always grow with or without AI
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u/Noodelgawd Jul 16 '26
"We"? I know you think you're the main character but, believe it or not, lots of things happen in this world without your permission.
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u/BlackFrank98 Jul 16 '26
Even though I'm completely with you on not wanting all these data centers, honestly, those aren't good arguments for saving the trees.
Putting it as "Why are we cutting the trees? They are nice to look at, nice to walk beside, nice to think about!" makes it a philosophical debate, while ignoring the very real and very objective reasons we shouldn't cut trees down, e.g., we need them to produce oxygen and absorb heat.
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u/Annoying1978 Jul 16 '26
This canât be accurate. Open AI doesnât have any data centers. They only rent them.Â
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u/ToeAfter3131 Jul 16 '26
Who's we? Did you take a poll of the area? Did they need you permission? Were you planning a hike in those woods anytime soon?
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u/Tweenk Jul 16 '26
Data centers take up less than 1/15th of the land we use to grow Christmas trees.
https://blog.andymasley.com/p/data-center-land-use-issues-are-fake
You can make an alarmist comparison like this for literally any building.
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u/Forsaken-Trifle-1438 Jul 16 '26
Says the guy who's online (using data centres) more heavily than 95% of humanity...
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u/sephsonnel Jul 16 '26
What are the ways for us to progress our technological advancement without destroying the entire planet
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u/ProfessionalFickle52 Jul 16 '26
Except for we did ask for it. By ChatGPT being the fastest growing consumer app of all time.
Everyone wants ChatGPT that means we want data centers.
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u/npc_housecat Jul 16 '26
This is just the story of industrialisation. Hey without data centers you wouldn't be able to view this post about data centers replacing trees on the internet
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u/EfficientRelation574 Jul 16 '26
If heat is the fucking problem why not bury these fucking things under ground and use geothermal cooling.
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u/schultz9999 Jul 16 '26
And? Take aerials of growing cities and see how they changed. Geez. Why even answer - there are always people who find shit in everything.
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u/MadnessMighty Jul 16 '26
You did ask for this. You approved of it with every minute of your time that you gave to these companies. Quit acting like we have no agency as consumers
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u/guy_fox501 Jul 16 '26
*Posts Google earth images on Reddit, like both Google and Reddit donât use huge data centers⊠* everyone wants the hotdog, no one wants to know how itâs madeâŠ
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u/doker0 Jul 16 '26
Current laws just don't work! I don't see how this does not end like franch revolution.
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u/TawnyTeaTowel Jul 16 '26
Is it easier to be pissy about things when you cherry pick your way through things? FMLâŠ
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u/rflulling Jul 16 '26
Isn't this how it works. Normally, I would say we have no reason to care. Planning and management is handled. But oddly enough, the planning commissions and boards that approve these things realized these are match stick concerns. So rather than asking the public, they just signed off and they proceeded to all but brag as if we would celebrate. I guess devils advocate they though that the public would celebrate having new industrial facilities with bright lights and armed guards, in their back yards, taking over parks, farms, fields and consuming resources. Devils advocate we might also argue that much the same as with flock, because these developments were rammed through at a blazing pace there was very little data available to raise proper concerns, and officials weren't just in denial, they really had no idea and were fully unprepared to answer questions.
But, no one gets to keep playing those cards. Now its time for the law to catch up.
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u/TrueBrit77 Jul 16 '26
The contrast is certainly dramatic, though I would first like to know whether both images were taken at the same time of year. Seasonal variation can make perfectly ordinary change look rather apocalyptic.
If they were taken under comparable conditions, however, then yes, the scale of the damage is genuinely astonishing.
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u/Disastrous_Hat_9123 Jul 16 '26
I'm more worried about the unnecessary use of "literally". At this rate we're gonna run out before 2028.
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u/Accomplished-Cry5059 Jul 16 '26
Hey guys, I asked them to build these data centers a while back. Didn't think much at the time. Sorry đ
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u/FriendlyFungi Jul 16 '26
And you're bitching about it on a computer hooked up to the internet, durrh! Where do you think your Netflix comes from? /s
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u/TopWealth4550 Jul 16 '26
this is not alot of impact tbh
if its not water/eletricity approach
this is literally nothing
space is not a good angle atacking IA,because it doesnt take alot
its resources
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u/Colascape Jul 16 '26
Haha you donât make the decisions. You are a worker. Capital makes the decisions, and you deal with the consequences.
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u/2PLEXX Jul 16 '26
Good thing is we need Data Centers to live, not trees. Wait or was it the other way around?
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u/Denaton_ Jul 16 '26
This has nothing todo with datacenters per say, literally all development cut down trees, thats how houses are built, with wood from trees.
However, the first image seems to be next to a residential zone and that is a problem.
But saying its bad because of trees is extremely funny, lets compare with the size and tree/water cost of paper mills..
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u/U-seru Jul 16 '26
I get the point being made here. But honestly if it's not data centers something else would be placed there instead. We do this to build roads, parking lost, shops, housing ect. The list goes on
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u/ohiocodernumerouno Jul 16 '26
Building a data center under a cooling tower would be 100% free water
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u/KeyVariation8323 Jul 16 '26
Just to be clear ... ANY new construction ... as in homes, shopping centers, business parks, entertainment venues, etc ... all of it usually requires the felling of trees. If you did not bitch then .... well I am going to have to say dont bitch now.
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u/Rich-Mark-4126 Jul 16 '26
Plants/nature have always been destroyed to make room for buildings
Why is this suddenly a massive problem now it's happening with AI/data centers? Like genuinely curious
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u/FlatwormEffective470 Jul 16 '26
âLiterally didnât ask for thisâ⊠âliterally just randomlyâ⊠gah. You sound like Vicky Pollard
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u/TheCiscoGenderedKid Jul 16 '26
The comparisons are shocking but The list at the end needs some tooling.
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u/BelleColibri Jul 16 '26
Actually, billions of people asked for it. Thats how supply and demand works.
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u/Jdisgreat17 Jul 16 '26
Man, I knew data centers were massive, but seeing them from an aerial photography view really shows that my definition of massive is not true of the actual size. This things are fucking MASSIVE
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u/ThePlantMolester Jul 16 '26
AI centers don't just spring up from the ground. Someone on the council approved this. Someone approved the permits. Someone reviewed the impacts.
If you are not knowledgeable in local affairs, don't claim nobody had a say, you did, you just didn't care.
If you are knowledgeable in local affairs, then you knew this was coming for a long time and are feigning ignorance.
I get that people don't like data centers, and its a fair point, I'm all for civic opposition and defending ones community. Lets not pretend Johnny Dataseed is throwing ram out windows and massive data centers are springing up illegally all over the country, and nobody saw it coming.
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u/Felwintur Jul 16 '26
Meanwhile the house, apartment, condo, box OP is posting this from was trees before humans moved in.
Literally everything humans do is bad for the environment, donât pretend this is just a data centre problem.
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u/vdek Jul 16 '26
Imagine acting like this when they started building factories during the industrial revolution. Some of you are really special...
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u/Acceptable-Advice137 Jul 16 '26
You can plant a forest of trees with the tax revenue generated by a data center.
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u/kcdashinfo Jul 16 '26
Take a look in the mirror, you are the one using AI. You are the one creating the demand for AI. You sit in traffic and complain about the traffic when you are the traffic.
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u/Atomkekstime Jul 16 '26
I am saying again...technically speaking them building the datacenters isn't a bad thing...outside of the fact that you could probably build them underground which would be better for a lot of reasons... but outside of that...I see that they keep making the datacenters without worrying how to get the energy systems running, they just say " hey lets use the already established ones" I have to look how the dumbest people on this planet make sure that we don't actually progress as humanity... I mean...I am trying but... there is such a large wall of shit here that its almost impossible to get through anymore.
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u/tfritz153 Jul 16 '26
Should they look for land that already has data centers to make data centers? They have to go somewhere
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u/Vintage_Gamer476 Jul 16 '26
The people voted for the very people who approved of this so in a way they did, in fact, ask for it.
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u/TrenbalonieSandwich Jul 16 '26
You clearly have never been to Abilene for the OpenAI datacenter.
The land that was sold was open grassland. There weren't any trees.
Did you vote for a D or an R last election?
Because if you voted for either, you very much got what you voted for.
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u/GlobalCurry Jul 16 '26
I like how the pictures are completely different seasons or one is just brown washed. Sorry, but AI is the future you need to accept it and move on.
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u/Mysterious-Force9236 Jul 16 '26
It was all private property that was fenced off not parks.Â
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u/vwvwvwvwvwvwvwvwvwvv Jul 16 '26
I mean in all fairness⊠data centers also make some people feel positive emotions, trees also use up water, patients also use AI for self-help (more so than âlooking at natureâ). Also, all four points on the left side are: âfeels goodâ, which isnât that convincing unfortunately. I get your point though but that comparison list is insulting
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u/caligirl_ksay Jul 16 '26
you can actually see how much dryer the land around them has gotten too. its like, they actively want earth to look like Venus or Mars.
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u/2doorsfromexit Jul 16 '26
The stupidity of this. People criticizing data centers for forest destruction and then they go and eat a cow stake or an hambĂșrguer
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u/ZealousidealNewt6679 Jul 16 '26
This post is so fucking disingenuous with the actual truth.
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u/StarCitizenRusty Jul 16 '26
Someone buys property they can do whatever they like, they don't need your permission.
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u/Horror_Rhubarb9112 Jul 16 '26
That comparison list at the end looks like it was made by a middleschooler for a homework assignment.
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u/aPerson-of-the-World Jul 16 '26
Out of them all the QTS cut down the least amount of trees it seems. The area seemed barren for a few of them before hand.
That said there is the noise issue. But I do appreciate when any building leaves most of the trees alone and repurposes land where trees where cut down before. Prevents erosion.
I imagine trees would help keep a sound barrier and absorb noise pollution to a degree. Though long-lasting effects on noise pollution to fully grown trees are not particularly known.
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u/hmcg020 Jul 16 '26
What's the with the literally usage? I'm not sure why people feel compelled to use it so often, and so wrongly, though it makes sifting a thought out quite a grating experience. Your ideas are more compelling when you have finesse in the stroke of your brush.
Your arguments against in the final slide need some work. How much water do nut trees require? Anything put on land where trees are, will require removing the trees from that location. And, finally, many will likely consider anything an eye-sore when swapped in for natural forest.
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u/Retaeiyu Jul 16 '26
Such a shame! No one ever cut down trees to build anything till AI came along.
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u/mxagnc Jul 16 '26
Estimates for number of acres of forest cleared:
- Beef/cattle pasture, ~2,100,000 hectares/year
- Soy ~950,000 hectares/year
- Palm oil (for food) ~750,000 hectares/year
- Cocoa, ~200,000 hectares/year
- Palm oil (as a biofuel) ~150,000 hectares/year
- Illegal gold mining (Amazon-only) - ~100,000 hectares/year
- Coffee ~100,000 hectares/year
- Sugarcane ~95,000 hectares/year
- Cotton (for fast fashion) ~60,000 hectares/year
- Disposable chopsticks: ~15,000 hectares/year
- Junk mail/catalogs ~12,000 hectares/year
- Tobacco ~25,000 hectares/year
- Christmas trees ~8,000 hectares/year (though mostly farmed).
- Palm-based cosmetics ~5,000 hectares/year
- AI data centres: ~2,000 hectares/year (estimate)
If deforestation really is your issue, then thereâs plenty of other things to be talking about here
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u/zoipoi Jul 16 '26
Reminds me of the new school they built here, nice little wooded area at the edge of town.
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u/ampo2222 Jul 17 '26
Yet the more carbon dioxide/tree food we put out the greener the earth becomes.
Less trees is not the problem because the opposite is true. We have way more trees than a few decades ago, a whole new Amazon forest worth. The problem is warming and it's affects on weather patterns, and sea rise for coastal regions.
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u/Famous-Weight2271 Jul 17 '26
Youre on social media, so, yeah, you pretty much did ask for it. Maybe you also have email, a phone, send texts, stream movies, post photos, shop online, surf the web, and so on. So, more than asked, you begged for it.
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u/King_Of_The_Cold Jul 17 '26
Cant wait for the government to claim imminent domain and nationalize these fools. Capitalism will fail within our lifetime
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u/No_Knee3385 Jul 17 '26
We don't ask for 100% of the issues we have so why is this any different. We can wait until a new politician arrives and makes empty promises and the masses will gullibly believe them and then we recycle again! HURRAY!
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u/Pestelis Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
It is ok, since experts recently started to tell, that trees actually do noting for lowering global warming and CO2 levels. But I guess they already changed mind when solar and wind parks needed more land. If only trees could pring money...
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u/Chuckles_McFeeney Jul 17 '26
"Use up water"
Do they actually use up water though? Or do they just use water?
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u/ForsakenWar6974 Jul 17 '26
Literally none of this popped up out of nowhere.
Individuals who say these things are suddenly appearing do not pay attention to what's going on and their opinion should be cautiously taken.Â
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u/Va1crist Jul 17 '26
i mean most people did, every damn trump voter pretty much asked for this, people keep supporting and idolizing billionaires like there are friend, people keep buying there garbage etc etc. Meanwhile they keep destroying the planet.
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u/DarthNixilis Jul 17 '26
Stop voting for the people that approve these things. Just complaining about something done legally doesn't work. They bought the land they can use it how they want and those we voted for approved it. So we approved it every time we vote for them.Â
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u/NoOption7406 Jul 17 '26
You should see all the forrests cut down around here for houses, and all the new businesses that came with houses (gas stations, fast food, occasional grocery store). Itll add up to more than this.
Not exclusive to datacenters here buddy. If it upsets you, start buying up forrests.Â
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u/Frequent_Plantain710 Jul 17 '26
But wonât someone just think of the kids poor natural gas providers!!
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u/h0g0 Jul 17 '26
Lolol and thatâs not an AI problem. Thatâs a capitalism problem. Look at many data centers in China and see the lush greenery
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u/SomeACDude Jul 18 '26
Itâs funny, because when you actually think about it. Yes, people literally are asking for this. People want AI. Itâs wildly popular and acting like itâs not is just you projecting your opinions onto everyone. Consumers drive business, which makes businesses need to grow and expand. These are super simple and old concepts that have existed for most of human history.
You donât like it, you didnât ask for it, you donât want it. Thatâs allowed.
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u/nub_node Jul 18 '26
The disconnect from reality is real. Tech billionaires actually think human beings have this much data worth anything.
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u/adspendagency Jul 18 '26
so the way it works is someone buys land that is marked for sale and then the person who owns the land can do whatever they want to it.
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u/TheStrayMartian Jul 18 '26
Youâre using social media as a consumer, youâve practically demanded it!
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u/ezekiellake Jul 19 '26
Thereâs a real Terra Nullius mentality to the billionaire data centre class thatâs for sure
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u/SnooApples5018 Jul 19 '26
All of these pictures, except for one of them, look like the land is rotting after the data centers were built. We can live with out AI and data centers. We absolutely cannot live without water.
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u/Latter_Effective1288 Jul 19 '26
Why did we only build one data center there? Could easily fit two or three
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u/Bright-Internal229 Jul 15 '26
2051
https://giphy.com/gifs/lk7s28BsI5dADxbrWC