The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy

 

Few local issues generate as much heat right now as data centers.

Across the country, communities are debating proposals that promise investment, tax revenue, and a place in the AI economy. At the same time, residents are raising concerns about land use, power consumption, water resources, noise, and quality of life.

What's interesting is that both sides have compelling arguments.

The pro-data-center case argues that computing infrastructure is becoming as important to the 21st century as railroads, highways, and power grids were to previous generations. Rejecting projects may simply push investment, jobs, and innovation somewhere else.

The anti-data-center case argues that communities are not obligated to accept every project presented as "progress," especially when the local costs may outweigh the local benefits.

To me, the debate isn't really about buildings full of servers. It's about who gets to decide what progress looks like … and who bears the cost of it. 

So, instead of writing an editorial taking one side over the other, I thought it would be more interesting (and perhaps informative) to write about 500 words -- opinion, not technical -- on each and then suggest you to read both … as first step in understanding the opposing viewpoints and making a decision about which side of the debate you find yourself on.

PART 1: PRO explores why communities may want to embrace data centers -- while demanding reasonable safeguards and accountability.

PART 2: CON explores why communities may be justified in saying no, even when developers argue the future depends on it.

Whether you're strongly for, strongly against, or still undecided, I encourage you to read both.

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The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy PART 1: PRO

The Fight Over Data Centers That Could Shape the AI Economy PART 2: CON

All about the "!"

I'm not a big user of exclamation points. They feel like the literary equivalent of someone grabbing your arm mid-sentence to shout this matters, pay attention, I’m excited, you should be too! It’s a bit desperate.

Maybe I’ve just been online too long. Everything’s urgent there and the exclamation point has been drafted into service like a cheap confetti cannon: loud, disposable, and mostly covering up the fact that not much actually happened.

As a writer, I’d rather earn the feeling. If something’s funny, let it land. If it’s sharp, let it cut. Slapping an exclamation point at the end seems like an unnecessary short cut. Good writing, trusts the reader to meet it halfway, without all the waving and shouting.

I’m not saying ban them. I use one now and then, like hot sauce. But if every sentence needs a kick, maybe the problem isn’t punctuation. Maybe the writing’s just bland. 

So, I think word processors need a function that only allows one exclamation point to be used every 50,000 keystrokes and I encourage someone more technical that me to build an app that, when you read an exclamation point online, an "applause" sign will appear and flash.

And like author F. Scott Fitzgerald, many writers are very opinionated about this punctuation mark:

I bet when all the punctuation marks have a party, they quietly look at exclamation point's wife and think, that poor woman. – Dana Gould

Never trust an exclamation point. – Linda Urban

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind. – Terry Pratchett

In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semicolon quietly practises the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets overexcited and breaks things and laughs too loudly. – Lynne Truss

People complain about my exclamation points, but I honestly think that's the way people think. I don't think people think in essays; it's one exclamation point to another. – Tom Wolfe

In almost all situations that do not involve immediate physical danger or great surprise, you should think twice before using an exclamation mark. If you have thought twice and the exclamation mark is still there, think about it three times, or however many times it takes until you delete it. –Howard Mittelmark,

So far as good writing goes, the use of the exclamation mark is a sign of failure. It is the literary equivalent of a man holding up a card reading LAUGHTER to a studio audience. – Miles Kington

 Most of us were trained to distrust the exclamation point—at worst, to hate its cheery, unhinged energy. - Ann Handley 

An excessive use of exclamation marks is a certain indication of an unpractised writer or of one who wants to add a spurious dash of sensation to something unsensational. – Henry Watson Fowler

Never use three exclamation points when one will do. – Christine Edwards

And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. – Terry Pratchett

Only one thing more mortifying than having an exclamation mark removed by an editor: an exclamation mark added in. – Lynne Truss

Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. – Elmore Leonard

The exclamation point is a loud party-goer, demanding attention. Overdone, it can be annoying. – James Scott Bell 

Even the lauded TV show Seinfeld weighed in on the exclamation point:

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DEFINITION: The exclamation mark, !, also sometimes referred to as the exclamation point, is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks the end of a sentence, for example: "Watch out!". Similarly, a bare exclamation mark (with nothing before or after) is often established in warning signs.

The exclamation mark is often used in writing to make a character seem as though they are shouting and/or excited/surprised. It can also be used in fiction writing for a person who is doing the same thing but in real life. 

Overuse results in the loss of the excitement or urgency it represents.

I woke up in Tokyo wearing someone else’s pants

After 15 hours on a plane, I took a one hour bus ride followed by a short walk to my Tokyo hotel. The plan: shower, sleep, and leave early to catch the bullet train to Osaka.

 
Let me make a confession: I’m a marketing copywriter, not a travel writer. Which is why I couldn’t pass on the headline “I woke up in Tokyo wearing someone else’s pants”. You see, my hotel, like many others in Japan, supplies pajamas for their guests. So the pants I wore to bed were the hotel’s, not mine. Boring, but the set up for a titillating click bait headline.
 
Which brings me to an important lesson for writers. Especially marketing writers.
 
Make sure that your copy/content delivers on your headline's promise. Otherwise, not only will you lose your audience, but chances are you’ll anger them and never be able to earn their attention, much less their business, again.

Content Creation and Productivity in the Age of AI

 

People keep blaming AI for killing content creativity, but it was already headed toward the food court version of itself long before the robots showed up.

For years, the industry has rewarded speed over thought. More posts. More campaigns. More platforms. Less time to sit with an idea long enough to make it weird or honest or memorable.

Then AI walked into the room like an overqualified intern and said, “You want 400 pieces of acceptable content by This afternoon? No problem.”

The speed and volume were impressive, but the actual content? Technically competent and perfectly acceptable because a lot of modern content already sounded machine-made before machines started making it. AI just perfected the dialect: upbeat, frictionless, emotionally beige. Every sentence polished to the texture of dentist office waiting room furniture.

It’s ubiquitous now: every platform is drowning in words, and somehow almost none of them feel written by anybody.

Because good writing usually comes from tension. Hesitation. Somebody wrestling with a thought long enough to surprise themselves a little. Meaning takes time. Taste takes time. Original thought takes an uncomfortable amount of sitting around staring at nothing, which modern workflows treat like a fire-able offense.

Everything now is optimized to remove the pause. But the pause is usually where the interesting stuff lives. The culture has become deeply impatient with the actual process of creativity: the slow, inefficient part where someone has to think hard enough to say something real.