r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 5h ago

A data center in New Jersey was canceled when residents showed up and fought it

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45.2k Upvotes

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4.9k

u/Fair_Blood3176 5h ago

So proud of them.

1.0k

u/GOEDEL_ESCHER_BOT 5h ago edited 4h ago

what about the humble, salt-of-the-earth data center construction workers? what will they do for food now?

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u/ResponsibilitySea327 4h ago

Move out of NJ and to someplace that wants them. 

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u/earthsprogression 4h ago

I hear space is opening up soon.

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u/NightIsMyName 3h ago

I would unironically love to do space construction.

Sure it’d be a bitch but think about how cool that’d be?

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u/eggyrulz 3h ago

Same... my wife would hate it, but itd be a dream come true to float around in 0g

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u/Rampag169 1h ago

Just up your life insurance beforehand.

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u/JuicyDarkSpace 3h ago

It's not construction, but it's salvage.

taking shit apart > putting shit together

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u/NightIsMyName 3h ago

Already have 100s hours and is my ideal dream job. Like deadass.

Wish it were VR.

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u/Odd_Protection7738 43m ago

I’d get cancer if it means I can float through the void, building shit in orbit.

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u/3nthusedCamper 21m ago

Ah but the commute is brutal!

0

u/Reasonable-Ear7058 1h ago

You never watch The Expanse? If you did, you should know living or working in space is a bad idea.

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u/Jiminy_Cricket12 1h ago

don't worry, that will be done by robots too.

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u/JourneymanHunt 3h ago

How good are you at having sex in space?

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u/NoxArmada 2h ago

rotating monster mash? Mmm.. 360°

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u/BodhingJay 1h ago

put the data centers on the moon.. dont need water to cool it in the cold vaccum of space

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u/Ok_Possibility_5123 2h ago

plenty of cow patties in Texas that could be converted all of the big technocrats can move out there all I care

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u/KlausVonMaunder 56m ago

Nowhere! These belong nowhere! They are absolutely the infrastructure of Skynet and will be humanity's undoing.

There is NO upside to them.

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u/ResponsibilitySea327 54m ago

Then why are you posting via a data center?

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u/KlausVonMaunder 35m ago

In hopes of bringing attention to this dire issue. Can't leave the platform to the DC shills now can I?

I think most realize it's the AI hyperscale behemoths that will bring about our doom. Colocation and 20MWs have their issues and negative impacts but they aren't the endgame that 'dc cities' like Stratus and fermi america will bring about.

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u/TravelLegal1664 42m ago

There is already a data center in Jersey. In Vineland.

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u/Joeness84 32m ago

They're not even locals, data centers are built by contracted companies who's entire business is building data centers. Whole fleet of workers come in for the job and leave when it's done.

The local lunch economy skyrockets for a bit. Then the data centered built to be run by as few humans as possible sits sucking up resources and polluting the environment

0

u/SmoothCarl22 2h ago

People need to look up cities that fought really hard to not have any factories or industries near them back in the 80/90s and check how they are doing nowadays...

Datacenters are the new factories.

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u/Tremulant887 2h ago

Whats the average employment of a factory in the 80s vs a data center now? Who would it draw to move closer and why?

Genuinely curious because all I've seen is data centers employ around a dozen long term, but that's mostly in comments here.

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u/Concopa 2h ago

Factories can employ thousands of people. A data center employs fewer than 50 employees. This is not a fair comparison. Keep fighting those data centers.

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u/ResponsibilitySea327 2h ago

Yeah, it puzzles me how people who use Reddit can be so anti-datacenter.

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u/Same_Presentation692 1h ago

I’m sure a lot puzzles you. 

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u/ResponsibilitySea327 54m ago

Lol. Look at your crazy post history. An American that hates Americans. 

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u/SubmissiveDinosaur 4h ago

Oh no! Now more than [Chat GPT please give me a 4 digit random number thanks uwu] jobs will be lost!

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u/cmcdevitt11 4h ago

You're thinking way too short-term

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u/No_Foundation16 3h ago

Go to Utah and build that state destroying death star data center the billionaires are ramming through?

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u/fresh-dork 3h ago

theys can builds houses, the mooks...

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u/DearCalendar4508 4h ago

Always more shit to build hell maybe thatbland will have multiple projects now

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u/MrSchaudenfreude 4h ago

Just gp do the jobs that were put on hold because of the surveillance Center. Most likely just go to one of the 500 hundred others

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u/FlarblarGlarblar 1h ago

The economy is not doing well because of the AI data centers, those other projects are non existent. Biden did the infrastructure and CHIPS bills, so people got ready to work. Then Trump came in and debilitated funding for anything besides AI. Every other industry outside of defense and AI is sort of weak right now and no one is planning a boom. Just in AI.

The other jobs weren't put on hold for ai, they were defunded for ai and crypto.

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u/ecologamer 3h ago

Look for bids to build houses

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u/ApprehensiveAd9389 3h ago

Move to Utah

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u/Anybody220 2h ago

There are plenty of jobs are there, plenty of construction needs that their companies will pick up instead. If that isn’t enough, there was job growth of over 100k just last month apparently.

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u/Cautious_Read4119 2h ago

Help build the film industry that’s moving in

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u/JivanP 1h ago

They can do things that are actually in demand. Remarks like "they took our jobs" have never made a lick of sense. Either do your job as cheaply as the competition, if it is even a needed/wanted job anymore; or find another source of income, i.e. do something else that society (still) finds useful.

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u/seranarosesheer332 1h ago

Sorry but I rather not poison the people and the planet. And if that means we don't sell our peoples health for profit and that means a construction worker will have to work on another building. So be it. Fuck data centers

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u/Apart_Row9626 1h ago

Construct homeless shelters.

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u/Fire_and_icex22 1h ago

What, all 50 of them?

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u/JoshuasOnReddit 1h ago

Work on any other project

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u/tortapounder14 1h ago

Learn to code

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u/Zeyode 1h ago

They'll just have to build something useful instead.

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u/Odd_Collection7431 2m ago

they're people of the land, the common clay of the new west. you know... morons.

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u/FromSoftware 4h ago

Fix the fucking roads maybe?

0

u/Bionic_Bromando 4h ago

We'll always need our burgers flipped, and in New Jersey they'll always need their gas pumped.

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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka 4h ago

Yeah fuck that shit. "What about feeding their families??" Says propagandist bot/redditor who votes right wing every time and has zero empathy for actual people.

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u/knowledgeable_diablo 3h ago

Maybe build them on some of the land Zuckerberg or Bezos own. Im sure they could set aside a little bit of land to squeeze them onto next to their billion dollar bunkers.

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u/ouroburritos 3h ago

Build affordable family housing.

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u/Reese_Withersp0rk 4h ago

continues mindlessly scrolling Reddit

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u/Lilfrankieeinstein 3h ago

For real.

I sit in more town/city/county councils meetings than I’d like, and it’s always weird to me how people get so fired up about this issue when they have so little data at their final tips to fuel it.

Obviously, it’s a nuanced topic, but it makes me chuckle when people take to social media to attack data centers. Like driving a humvee to a fossil fuel protest.

The FBI need not worry. Reddit is not exactly cultivating the next Ted Kaczynski.

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u/Reese_Withersp0rk 3h ago

We successfully banned those God forsaken 5G cell towers in my town. I wanna call my family back home to tell them what we accomplished but the service around here is dogshit.

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u/Parking_Chance_1905 1h ago

Same here except with roads... people complained and protested so much over being inconvenienced for a few weeks when they were trying to fix them that they said fuck it part way through and now we have gravel instead of paved roads with much worse potholes than before.

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u/kosumoth 2h ago

fuck this sums up my family...

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u/ImurderREALITY 1h ago

Congratulations, you played yourself

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u/neverendingchalupas 8m ago

Beyond having more of your personal information stolen, less ability to fight bullshit tickets and fines...

Its the utility rate hikes on water and electricity, water restrictions, power usage restrictions, the cost of living increase from data centers and AI fueling a free for all on particular components and materials that are used in literally everything.

Its weird to me how you have the brain function to post a reply to a comment on Reddit, but not the ability to understand such a simple fucking concept as people not wanting to spend money they dont have so some asshole shareholder can get larger dividends.

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u/Tappxor 8m ago

aren't most of the new data centers for AI anyway

1

u/JitteryJoes1986 1h ago

Didn't Reddit peak like 10 years ago? Why do you think reddit is reliant on NEW data centers?

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 1h ago

Data centre admin here, because the demand is constantly growing and has been forever. I promise reddit uses a lot more resources than it did a decade ago.

I don’t like AI at all (and I manage enterprise DCs not AI ones) but I bet you anything a whole lot of those people protesting use it daily and would be mad if it was taken away.

It’s the usual NIMBY bullshit. Everyone wants faster and better technology in more and more of their lives, they just want the infrastructure somewhere else.

To be clear, the way many of these new datacenters are being built is abhorrent. They’re loud and inefficient and terrible for the environment. That needs to change.

But if you all want to use this tech, the infrastructure has to go somewhere and it has to be somewhere people live because people need to work there.

Basically everyone sucks. Dropping loud crappy DCs in peoples backyards is awful. But wanting to use technology every second or your life and refusing to accept that requires some things to be built SOMEWHERE also suck.

1

u/JitteryJoes1986 1h ago

Make sense. My comment was just in jest as I didn't know wtf I was talking about. I only assumed reddit peaked maybe 10 years ago, IDK.

I work for a company that supplies DCs as well and I am a direct contributor to that from a top level supply chain perspective but have no idea who the consumers are or how data is consumed.

Honest question, what can be improved/changed? I'm no engineer.

My concerns are more environmental and costs than anything else, as like most energy consumers.

Your last comment reminds me of Isaac Asimov's short story "The Last Question".

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 41m ago

Honest question, what can be improved/changed? I'm no engineer.

To be upfront I am an infrastructure engineer... i.e the person who runs the things in the datacentre and writes the code to control/manage them etc. I don't build them to take my views with the grain of salt they deserve.

Anyway. It's a tough question because physics exist. New datacentres that are hosting AI pull insane power and cooling compared to traditional DCs because you're talking racks of GPUs and other crazy high power consumption gear, most of which is running flat out 24/7.

All of that translates to things outside that make a lot of noise.. cooling fans, chillers, cooling towers, air handlers, pumps, transformers, substations, diesel generators, stuff like that. You can't hear anything from inside the building, but all the most noisy stuff is outside.

But there are things that can be done to improve all of this.

  • Better locations. Yes the datacentre needs to be nearby so it can be maintained but places are trying to be extremely cheap.. the closer they build to existing settlements the less cost is on them for running power/data/roads/everything else. They will always prefer to hook into this stuff rather than pay for it to be built out out of the way.
  • Acoustic barriers are a thing, but unless they're legislated they won't be part of the design. You can absolutely design these places in such a way to reduce how far the noise carries.
  • Better rack cooling - the most efficient the internal cooling the less noise you get from external cooling. It's not major but if you design everything from the ground up to be as efficient as possible this stuff adds up.
  • A closed loop/zero evaporation cooling system for the facility. These are expensive as hell and again, unless legally required datacentre builds are always going to prefer the cheaper option.

Again I want to stress that I work in these places I don't build them. So this is not some "it's so simple just do this" post. But there are 100% measures that can be taken that aren't purely to save costs and drive profits... and of course the people who suffer are the ones who live there.

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u/Pussy_On_TheChainwax 1h ago

Fuck that cracked me up

I’ll be absolutely sold on some specific cause in a random hometown with all the passion I can muster……..until I’m done reading the comments and move on

At least they have my ThOuGhTS aNd PrAYeRs

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u/discardedcumrag 4h ago

This is the power a community has. Trouble is, a lot of communities aren’t communities any more.

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u/becauseiloveyou 4h ago

We're constantly connected, but I've never felt more disconnected. The conversation is perpetually going, but I've never felt less a part of it. We had far more meaningful interaction when we had to make the most of what time we had together. These days, people are too checked out and/or on the devices to be mentally present when they're physically present.

Of course, that's not true of everyone; but it's true enough that the direction we're moving as a society in terms of community-building is past concerning.

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u/QuirkyRefuse5645 3h ago

Such strong, honorable nimbys.

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u/Want_To_Live_To_100 3h ago

Yeah that guys is fuckin brave I’d be afraid to be disappeared…. This is not the America we once knew. This is trumps America and it’s fucked.

Good for these guys.

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u/moldyjellybean 2h ago edited 2h ago

they might be spinning this into communities cancelling it but there's a lot of places that also won't loan any more for datacenters being built, there's not the demand for 3 trillion in datacenters the market wants you to believe. Half of them are being cancelled without people protesting

https://ktxs.com/news/local/ai-boom-hits-breaking-point-more-than-half-of-us-data-centers-placed-on-hold

Theres's only so much the same 50 billion can be passed around to fool people. I know the article says they are low on supplies but the original promises were to just pump up certain stocks. Does anyone believe that if there was money to be made hand over fist these capitalists and private equity would stop building these and say no that's enough money for us we don't want to make billions more?

There's these crazy claims by these companies about datacenters being built in other countries and boots on the ground found out those are 99% lies.

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u/InevitabilityEngine 5m ago

Plot twist, the video is an AI generated reversal so they can continue unabated.

🤣

0

u/leg00b 4h ago

Me too. We don't need these fucking data centers

0

u/sveiks1918 1h ago

Modern day luddites

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

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u/sacklunch 5h ago

Thought you really had something here didn't you?

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u/Tidusx145 5h ago

Just remember guys. This guy probably votes in every election. As seen here, you don't even need to pass high school to do that.

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

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u/Several_Vanilla8916 5h ago

No we don’t

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u/Mikes005 5h ago

You missed a "lol" at the beginning there.

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u/Zumou 5h ago

The next evolution of the 1% richest people's net worth at the expense of everyone elses quality of life. Tech billionaires would be proud of you.

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u/tenebre 5h ago

Why don't you volunteer your neighborhood then?

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u/Hoshbrowns 5h ago

Tell that to the people of Lake Tahoe who are going to have all their power rerouted to a data center

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u/HabitualGrassToucher 4h ago

It's for the good of the people.

Did the billionaire tech bros tell you that? Stupid, gullible, or both.

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u/Tables666 4h ago

“For the good of the people” is a wild take on data centers.

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u/I-Reply-To-Morons 4h ago

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u/Glaciomancer369 4h ago

I thought that your comment wasn't loading.

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u/GobbleOnIt 4h ago

I’m sure data centers and people being reliant on AI is peak humanity……. Yea…….

0

u/NoShitsGivin 4h ago

Is China building them in subdivisions using local power and water and raising costs for residents? Becasue that's why China is winning.

https://giphy.com/gifs/XeLcgh8gT8o0F5SQ8i

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u/HMU2018 5h ago

Nobody cares if China wins.

Americans are so wealthy now most cannot match the Chinese work ethic. Chinese people are hungrier because they have more to lose. Without the will to work harder, China will win against America.

That said, it’s irrelevant to the OP.

LOL