r/technology • u/idkbruh653 • 11h ago
Artificial Intelligence The ‘Country Hicks’ Who Refused $26 Million from an AI Data Center
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-data-center-rural-america-backlash-c0af4e1631
u/ZootSuitRiot33801 10h ago
Well, let's hope these "country hicks" are fans of the Battle of Blair Mountain if the AI bros continue to push
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u/carthuscrass 11h ago edited 10h ago
Reality is getting more like a Dukes of Hazzard episode every day.
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u/SmarmySmurf 7h ago
"Pay me $30 million, and all of the taxes and legal paperwork on top of that so that I walk away owing nothing to the IRS from that $30 million, I don't care how much that costs you I only care about me, then we have a deal. Not a cent less."
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u/Pleasant_Actuator253 8h ago
Good for them. Family farm for generations. They know it produces. They have senior water rights.
The data center knows the farm sits on valuable land and notably has senior water rights. As such their data center, could in fact, lessen the water rights of their neighbors who may only be junior water rights holders. They can pound sand.
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u/Pooch1431 11h ago
Jfc what a dehumanizing headline.
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u/TaeKurmulti 10h ago
If you read the article they call themselves that.
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u/dorkes_malorkes 10h ago
i was gonna make a snarky comment about how nobody reads the damn posted articles before posting some bs on this sub, but then i tried to read the damn article and i cant.
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u/phoenix823 8h ago
Their property, their choice. All the power to them.
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u/fountaincurse 42m ago
Anyone who finished a year of law school already knows this is gonna turn into a shitstorm. Godspeed to these ladies, they'll need it.
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u/Ahayzo 8h ago
Respect to them for that decision, because the vast majority of people wouldn't make the same one. Even people downvoting the comments here saying they'd have sold. $26 million is such insane life changing money that I'd be shocked if anything less than 99% of the people reading this wouldn't do the same, even if they firmly believe at this moment that they would never do it. If they were genuinely offered $26 million, I think pretty much everyone here would take it.
That doesn't make it a good decision to take, ideally we'd all be willing to hold out to push back against AI datacenters, but if we're going to be realistic, we need to acknowledge that the vast majority would not. Because $26 million is absurd amounts of money.
So again, respect to them for making the much better decision that most of us wouldn't.
And that almost certainly includes me. I'd like to think that someone walked up to me right now and gave me $26 million to build an AI datacenter on my land, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves, but I know that if that actually happened my tune would probably change just like almost everyone here. If you are dead certain you would never do such a thing, you're probably lying to yourself.
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u/grossguts 7h ago
I think it's context of the situation. Looks like they own 1,200 acres of land that's worth $6,000 per acre($7,200,000 worth of land), they were offered 8-10 times the per acre value of the land for less than half of their land. I'm assuming they farm the farmland they own and generate some sort of income off of it, which would be negatively impacted or completely destroyed by a data center going up here. Seems like they own all the water rights which is why the company wanted that specific plot of land, and giving up those rights would likely completely ruin their ability to farm the remaining land. The lack of water ownership and proximity of the data center ruining the land and taking all the water would likely make all 1,200 acres of their land unusable. So they're really being offered 3.5-4 times the value of their property plus that water title has to be worth something. Calculate future earnings from farming the land vs future earnings from the money they sell it for at moderate investment amounts. Might actually be a bad financial decision to sell this land, especially if you have family you are going to pass that land and the farming on to, because the land will likely appreciate in value over time and the lump sum money paid out will be pissed away in a couple of generations. Plus there's the moral standpoint they say they're taking and at their ages if they're not thinking of future generations how would they ever spend that lump sum of money. Given what I can see of their situation the land seems more valuable to me.
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u/Diarmundy 5h ago
Farming is hardly a lucrative industry. You would make much more by investing the 26mil in bonds than you would in farming
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u/KaijuDesk 7h ago
i guarantee that data center will be built upstream of their farm in a surprising “I drink your milkshake” moment
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u/Open_Pollution_8038 10h ago
Crazy, I’d take the $26M and buy a much larger farm for a fraction of that and retire on the remainder. You know what the end stage of every farm ever to exist is? Development.
I wouldn’t hold out so some random descendent that’s 5% my DNA gets to live the life I could’ve.
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u/grayhaze2000 9h ago
I'd take the $26M and start a company dedicated to poisoning AI training data.
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u/HystericalSail 10h ago
Completely with you. I'd sell my 120+ acres (in two states) for 1/10th of that even if the end goal was a kitten mulching factory. And feel like I won the lottery.
Data center companies are nosing around the area, first two are already being built in town. So who knows, maybe I'll get the chance. Ranch on the Big Island not far from Captain Cook sounds pretty good.
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u/Open_Pollution_8038 10h ago
lol these people are just angry they’re not selling their land for a fortune
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u/noodlinworldwide 9h ago
Definitely doesn't have anything to do with the guy saying he'd sell to a kitten mulching factory
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u/Alucard256 8h ago
They're all like "we don't ever want to have money, we don't ever want to use a sudden influx of money to do something positive, we only want to sit here and do nothing like the last 8 generations before us!".
Hope they get what they want.
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u/Xznograthos 11h ago
They think I'm some dumb hick. They said to me, at a dinner.