It doesn't matter what side is the one in the right, people will take sides against goonish and thuggish behavior. That can grow into a stupid PR disaster. Why would they do this? Are they that stupid or hire stupid people for enforcement?
Plenty of prominent billionaires have openly aligned with authoritarian over fairly-elected government. The fact that the media and social media properties they control promote divisive, pitchfork-y content doesn’t strike me as a coincidence.
In a violent revolution, even if successful, based on historic pattern, those billionaires would concentrate economic and political power. It was the fact pattern in the French Revolution. It’s been true for every post-WWII revolution too. It will probably get more and more true and people and assets become more and more mobile. The only exceptions were the pre-WWII Communist revolutions; that pattern ended with jet travel.
Billionaires are providing much less value than we would have if random kids who lost the birth lottery were empowered to reach their potential to help society. We should not allow them to exist.
I can imagine a situation where this is true, like if it was used by some company to train an internal model or a model that never got released.
But even assuming the data center was only used for AI model training, more or less everyone who uses any electronics now either uses generative AI directly themselves or uses services whose employees use generative AI at work to create those services. AI is extremely popular and widespread now among many large and diverse groups of people.
Per polls, ai is pretty hated. And the distaste is growing with growing use.
A lot of ai usage is forced and unwanted. People dont perceive it as source of greatness, but as source of slop, cheap low quality and enshittification and crutially, existential threat.
Sure, people might not like AI by some narrow definition or choose not to use it themselves. But roughly every single service they consume or interact with is downstream of AI at some level now. The demand isn't just for chatbot usage and hasn't been for a long time.
The boom in datacenter construction is driven mostly by the AI boom and most of us are sick everything AI too. We don't want to read AI slop, watch AI videos, talk AI customer service or visit a vibe coded website.
The data center hosting this website is already built, unlike the ones people are fighting against.
I'll grant the general public may not understand enough that they already rely on "datacenters", but there are reasonable arguments against gigawatt buildouts for AI, while still using technologies that run in datacenters in general.
This website is hosted on a single server. I was being hyperbolic sure, but we don't need the number of data centers we have by a huge margin, the primary reason they exist is because building software that runs on people's computers is not compatible with greedmaxxing.
Oh I’m sure. But the comment I replied to talked about data centers in general not a particular data center. In general I like the internet. I assume you too in general like the existence of the internet.
The network infrastructure of the Internet barely takes more space than POTS did. And as for what’s on that network and actually using most of the datacenters, I personally don’t care for the Internet as it is today when compared against what we had 10, 20 years ago with significantly datacenters.
Apart from water usage which can be solved by using recycled water or closed loop cooling i fail to see what all the hysteria is over. Communities dont own power production and if usage causes costs to increase then investment in more production will follow.
The level of vitriol i see in all countries over data centers is looking more and more as a proxy against ai.
You can really see how a terrawatt of ai compute in space will make alot of sense vs on earth.
They are also noisy, polluting, and first and foremost we should endeavor to respect the will of the people in a democracy. Of course on some level it is a proxy against AI, but more importantly it's a proxy against the stratification of society. The problem is the gap between rich and poor.
In addition to what others have already pointed out, these scumbags are also actively choosing to build these things in areas that are in ongoing deep drought conditions (going on years now in some places) and trying to buy up water rights for more water than the entire population of the area already uses just to survive. Why do they want to build these things in the worst possible place they can put them? What's the logic behind that? Oh yeah. Cheap land and corrupt officials... Nevermind...
That is some seriously authoritarian behavior. That board should be removed, and I think jailed. The intent to deprive people of basic civil rights is felonious.
Summary:
The farmer was asked to leave by an officer. The farmer acknowledges the request and then walks to the head table to start handing the members documents. He was asked again to leave a couple of more times replying with “On what grounds” and then comes the “…flat and final ‘Arrest him’” that the article mentions.
Some context was left out between the his three minutes to speak being up and the arrest.
This reminds me of a kid in my college who got "tazed for not using his blinker", but what really happened is he got pulled over for not using his blinker, refused to give ID, refused to get out of the car to be arrested, and then fought the officer as he tried to pull him out of the car
really? that reminds me of the county prosecuting attorney who brings up unrelated stories of people who are obviously guilty whenever anyone questions their motivation and attention to the law
From the Claremore City Council minutes [0] it does show the person mentioned in the article was a speaker, among a group of some 20 other members of the community. They also include the incredible claim
Claremore Data Center will house the backbone of the internet and supports all the functions that occur on the internet.
The minutes mention that many of the council members were accused of not caring, but they do not mention the arrest. I'm not suggesting the story is false as much as highlighting that the city's minutes omit it.
> Claremore Data Center will house the backbone of the internet and supports all the functions that occur on the internet.
That's not incredible; many facilities do that. It doesn't say 'the entire backbone'; there are many pieces in many places, and if it does contain significant transit then it probably does support approximately "all the functions that occur on the internet."
If it's hosting systems building LLMs, than obviously the statement is false.
The article definitely misrepresents what's in the video. He wasn't arrested for speaking 5 seconds over. He was standing right in front of the councilors shuffling papers back and forth for nearly a minute while the crowd was screaming and clapping. Officers asked him to leave, then told him to leave multiple times he categorically refused, all while public order was progressively deteriorating.
If you google "farmer name activist" the results light up like a christmas tree. (Where the actual name is substituted in, of course.)
Regardless of the merits of the actual issue being protested, presenting this as "poor innocent farmer arrested for going five seconds over" doesn't seem accurate.
I previously observed that of course getting arrested wasn't something he would have planned...
OTOH, given that this is the second time the "five seconds over" story has been posted to HN, seems like somebody is leveraging the 'Streisand Effect'.
Oh I guess that makes it okay to arrest a person exercising their human rights. Wouldn't want to upset the "public order" (whose order are we talking about here because the public seems to be on the person's side).
Similarly my Sheriff said during COVID that he would not arrest people protesting once they enter a government building but would arrest anyone obstructing outside the Government building. This seems State specific. The man shouldn’t have been arrested.
I don't have a problem with data centers and would welcome one nearby if it was a good deal for the area. But I'd want binding contractual agreements about environmental guarantees and requirements for building out new renewable energy generating capacity of 100% or even 150% of what the data center itself needs (and not just outbidding buyers of existing grid capacity). Instead we are handing out regulation waivers and tax incentives and telling locals they don't matter.
Problem is that there's always some poorer community, or one with more corrupt government officials, willing to allow a buildout for next to nothing. And when they plug into the grid the next county or state over you're electric rates are going up anyway.
The other problem is the rule of law is breaking down, so those contractual promises aren't really binding - rather the federal regime can always override any such restrictions with tales about energy policy or needing to compete with China (even as they squander our advantages on both). When you're one bribe away from being on the end of a vice signalling two minute hate, it's best to not give them a foothold in the first place.
Okay, and? Just because they'll find some other place to put it with worse terms, doesn't mean you should let them have it in their preferred location with bad terms.
I don't disagree with you. I'm just pointing out that you can make all sorts of demands but you aren't in a very good position to negotiate, and you'll probably still have to pay higher rates even if you stonewall them. Basically, "I drink your milkshake." A lot of local govts would look at this and say "we might as well get some jobs out of this" and approve.
It's a good example of why we need some form of regulation to keep corrupt or incompetent local politicians from selling a community and potentially their neighbors down the river.
Eh, this is a bit fatalist. Every bit of pushback is a tax. If a company applies to build in X location but is threatening to move to Y location where it's cheaper, or they can get away with something, there's obviously a reason they'd prefer X. They wouldn't be arguing otherwise. So if they are "forced" to move to Y, that's a tax.
See also: working at unethical tech firms, fears over the rich leaving NYC, etc.
Depends on what X is worth to them and how badly Y may want that data center. X may have better infrastructure, but Y is offering to build theirs out and waive taxes for ten years, so X has less room to negotiate.
I have been to China for years. I can guarantee you this wouldn't happen in China. You have to have violence initiated to get arrested there. And yes, they do have limited protest (though not for LGBTQ reasons). Sounds very much America is the real CCP. The myth of freedom of speech. Myth.The land of the brave and free is for the super rich. The rest aren't any better than China.
It doesn't matter what side is the one in the right, people will take sides against goonish and thuggish behavior. That can grow into a stupid PR disaster. Why would they do this? Are they that stupid or hire stupid people for enforcement?
The billionaires who are consolidating control over the media and social media would want nothing more.
Plenty of prominent billionaires have openly aligned with authoritarian over fairly-elected government. The fact that the media and social media properties they control promote divisive, pitchfork-y content doesn’t strike me as a coincidence.
In a violent revolution, even if successful, based on historic pattern, those billionaires would concentrate economic and political power. It was the fact pattern in the French Revolution. It’s been true for every post-WWII revolution too. It will probably get more and more true and people and assets become more and more mobile. The only exceptions were the pre-WWII Communist revolutions; that pattern ended with jet travel.
But even assuming the data center was only used for AI model training, more or less everyone who uses any electronics now either uses generative AI directly themselves or uses services whose employees use generative AI at work to create those services. AI is extremely popular and widespread now among many large and diverse groups of people.
A lot of ai usage is forced and unwanted. People dont perceive it as source of greatness, but as source of slop, cheap low quality and enshittification and crutially, existential threat.
Second, there is an obvious difference in scale here which you're ignoring.
Third, a website that can run on a pair of servers doesn't actually need to be, and the world would be better off if fewer were.
I'll grant the general public may not understand enough that they already rely on "datacenters", but there are reasonable arguments against gigawatt buildouts for AI, while still using technologies that run in datacenters in general.
The level of vitriol i see in all countries over data centers is looking more and more as a proxy against ai.
You can really see how a terrawatt of ai compute in space will make alot of sense vs on earth.
Years of higher electricity price is good reason to be against. The communities gain nothing from those data centers, so it is a bad deal.
And yes, AI industry made an extraordinary achievment in making themselves hated. 10/10 success of their own marketing and PR.
Your town gets worse basically forever so the rich can get richer. Queue “hysteria”.
Summary: The farmer was asked to leave by an officer. The farmer acknowledges the request and then walks to the head table to start handing the members documents. He was asked again to leave a couple of more times replying with “On what grounds” and then comes the “…flat and final ‘Arrest him’” that the article mentions.
Some context was left out between the his three minutes to speak being up and the arrest.
0: https://claremore.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/02-17-2026-...
That's not incredible; many facilities do that. It doesn't say 'the entire backbone'; there are many pieces in many places, and if it does contain significant transit then it probably does support approximately "all the functions that occur on the internet."
If it's hosting systems building LLMs, than obviously the statement is false.
Not his first rodeo, it seems.
Regardless of the merits of the actual issue being protested, presenting this as "poor innocent farmer arrested for going five seconds over" doesn't seem accurate.
I previously observed that of course getting arrested wasn't something he would have planned...
OTOH, given that this is the second time the "five seconds over" story has been posted to HN, seems like somebody is leveraging the 'Streisand Effect'.
> If you google "farmer [name] activist"
How do you think public hearings are supposed to work if you have hoards of hecklers exercising their "human rights" by disrupting the meeting?
It's a good example of why we need some form of regulation to keep corrupt or incompetent local politicians from selling a community and potentially their neighbors down the river.
See also: working at unethical tech firms, fears over the rich leaving NYC, etc.
Previously:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47784061
actually I guess civil rights experienced that first a century ago
but now it's been perfected and anticipated by the establishment
I really hope November is a shocking wake-up call but not holding my breath
If dems do not also get the Senate it's just going to be all hot air