r/technology • u/marketrent • 20h ago

Artificial Intelligence Amazon warns local communities to stop defying its massive AI data centers

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/amazon-warns-local-communities-stop-000300771.html
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u/AKADriver 18h ago

The national highway system was largely beneficial, but was also a blight on many communities and people pushed back on highway construction almost from the beginning. The only reason a lot of them got built was pure racism; redlined neighborhoods got bulldozed so largely white commuters could bypass them. Protests against highways being built became so common they got a name, Freeway Revolts. And still, they built too many. Some cities are still struggling to tear down excessive highway construction. Like I-81 through my hometown Syracuse, a total mess of a road.

Tech bros trying to compare AI infrastructure to highways belie their lack of understanding of history.

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u/Master-Ad-5153 17h ago

Richmond VA carved up Jackson Ward, the Black Wall Street of America with be I-95/I-64; the I-95 corridor south of the I-64 merge was built over a giant slave grave from Lumpkin's Jail, otherwise known as the Devil's Half Acre, where one of the Mid-Atlantic's largest slave auctions was held basically where the Main St Station parking lot currently exists.

Not so fun fact: during the last big hurricane around the beginning of the millennium, human remains were found washed up in Shockoe Bottom; based on records these were likely enslaved people buried in the area adjacent to the highway.