"I keep coming back to this graph because it’s so eye-popping, almost impossible to believe. As you see in the legend, the blue line is data centers. The grey line is everything else. Everything else. Commercial properties. Rental properties. Single family homes. Multiple family homes. Pick your preferred flavor of development, NIMBY, YIMBY, urban, rural, it’s in there. You basically have rapid data center growth and everything else contracting."
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@jalefkowit during the Biden admin, there were a bunch of frustrated think pieces about the so-called "vibecession" - "the economy numbers are good, why do all the polls say people think it's bad, are they stupid?"
I'm glad we've finally managed to concentrate that disconnect into a single activity by a single sector
@jalefkowit @aeva shiiiiiiiiiiii
@jalefkowit I'm trying to understand this chart. How exactly does one spend negative amounts of money on building things that aren't data centers?
@jalefkowit it looks like this chart is US-specific
it'd be very interesting to see this for other countries - I *think* Australia won't be anywhere near as bad as this, but a few of the medium sized data centre companies have been operating from here (Sharon, Firmus) so I do wonder...
@jalefkowit I'm presuming this in in the USA. If so, you might want to make that clear - not sure the picture is the same globally.
@jalefkowit Crazy fact. It looks like the U.S. is ruining its own economy because of a bubble. AI isn't a business model that can really generate sustainable profits—at least not as much as is currently being invested in it. There are so many good, free alternatives.
@jalefkowit I've been thinking we were in an undeclared recession, but maybe it's actually a depression
@jalefkowit So, basically, the economy is fucked but there's an asset bubble masking the true extent of the problem?
Looks like it's gonna be 2008 all over again. Dammit.
@jalefkowit yes, but the graph doesn't show the actual numbers. Is that information also available?
@jalefkowit I find it unhelpful that we aren't told or shown what the baseline spends in 2024 were: if all other private construction spend was much larger than data centre spend in 2024 it would seem much less worrying, albeit there's quite a big aggregate drop in the sector since 2024.
@jalefkowit
I hope data center buildings will be fit for future habitation. I expect that eventually, data center usage will drop, like that of indoor shopping malls. Malls are now being repurposed as residences and other uses. I hope the same happens with data centers.
I do fear that some great, powerful, unfeeling entity is going roll over us, our neighbors and civilization and grind it into dust.
AI?! That's laughable. The problem is the same as it's been for the last half-century. It's the corporations run by fools that are willing to sacrifice the world on burning pyre of excess so long as they can keep themselves convinced that through some miracle they will be in a position to rule over the ashes.
@jalefkowit Growing a lot of tulips here I see.
@jalefkowit K shaped graph for K shaped economy!