That's populism for ya, and it's sadly extremely effective.

Meanwhile, both China and India are giving free electricity, providing dollar-for-dollar capex subsidizes, and 25 year tax exemptions to build data centers [0][1].

Love how HN wants to strangle the infrastructure that underlies our entire industry and why HNers get paid. It really highlights how much of the opposition to AI comes from the "chattering classes" and other white collar types as is constantly seen in polling [2][3].

It's funny seeing people who are also part of my party but told coal miners and autoworkers to "learn to code", treated blue collar workers derisively, and ignored concerns by employees in manufacturing and skilled trades which led them to shift to the right now act the exact same way.

Edit: can't reply

> AI Datacenters are not how all or probably even most HNers get paid

Most data centers colo multiple types of compute, not just those dedicated to inference or model training. Additonally, strangling the economics of the infrastructure layer makes entire ecosystems move abroad.

You saw similar opposition to semiconductors fabs back in the early 2010s in the US, and the entire ecosystem virtually out within a decade until the CHIPS act was signed and executed on.

Same with nuclear power in Germany and GreenTech in much of the America.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-offers-tech...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-gives-20-year-tax-...

[2] - https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/02/25/top-earners-are-more-afr...

[3] - https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/07/26/which-u...

AI uses less water than the public thinks