Press Space to continue
Press Space to continue
Manhattan Institute's @CharlesFLehman sees the data center failure as builders being blindsided by local politics: "@jasminewsun has reported that data center builders made all these local government officials sign NDAs, just as a matter of form. That was normal for them." "Then it came out that they had all these NDAs, and it was like, why are you doing that? There was clearly not a level of thinking about you need to persuade, you need to romance the public." "Loudoun County, Virginia, has…
jasmine sun@jasminewsunAug 21
The data center backlash is a product of two mutually reinforcing dynamics: 1) Locally, it's material concerns (noise, water, electricity) and process failure (NDAs, tax subsidies) 2) Nationally, it's broad anti-corporate and anti-AI sentiment (AI companies are screwing you over to get rich off dumb toys) Social media + political campaigns amplify hyperlocal grievances into a broad populist movement, and there's no compelling "pro data center faction" to make the opposite case
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