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[-] boogiebored@lemmy.world 104 points 2 months ago

At this point I am wondering if the decision makers at these companies are incompetent or malicious and literally don’t know what they are building and just see big number.

(it’s both)

[-] Darnton@piefed.zip 70 points 2 months ago

Malicious of course. They get their data centers, and they don't give a rats ass about the local population. They deliberately choose locations where local leadership is easy to bribe, like the US and other third world countries.

[-] Dagnet@lemmy.world 38 points 2 months ago

I'm from a 'third world country' and I don't wanna be grouped with the US ok? We have free healthcare

[-] Strider@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

They are also very dumb imo. The clever ones fly under the radar to let the dumber ones test the waters for them to follow safely and comfortably.

[-] lemmyng@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

And racist. They're also racist.

[-] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

they don't care. it's not maliciousness or incompetence, it's indifference.

[-] dumnezero@piefed.social 4 points 2 months ago

grid colonialism, coming soon near you.

[-] Fizz@lemmy.nz 46 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The government doesnt have to accept. If this proposal is going to knock out power for half your country and you accept that deal you should be thrown in prison.

[-] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 months ago

It looks like they are pushing back. But when you have neither nukes nor a drone fleet, there are limits to what you can say to a US company.

[-] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago

My list of political figures that should have been thrown in prison but haven't keeps growing, and I'm starting to suspect there are sorely lacking checks and balances on most politicians.

[-] atrielienz@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

I think you have a typo. But I agree.

[-] Fizz@lemmy.nz 3 points 2 months ago

I did thanks for pointing that out.

[-] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

no, how it works is the government accepts, the political leaders get rich, and anyone who fights this gets thown in jail.

[-] Fizz@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 months ago

Corruption can be prosecuted

[-] FireWire400@lemmy.world 39 points 2 months ago

Is it really this hard to just say "no" to Microslop? You're realising that it'll hurt the country and its population (as well as the environment and by extension literally every single person on earth), why the fuck would you put you own personal wealth first?

I don't get that mindset.

[-] crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 25 points 2 months ago

This is why you're not a billionaire. It takes a special kind of cutthroat

[-] plz1@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 months ago

The word you're looking for is sociapth. You need to be a sociopath to become a billionaire

[-] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 2 months ago

They should just say no. Unless Microsoft pays for the construction of the renewable power plants to power the centers. Before they turn it on

That way the country at least has some nice infrastructure when the DC inevitably doesn't actually get built

[-] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 39 points 2 months ago

Anyone who would decide to do this is evil. Like, orphan crushing machine evil.

If Microsoft wants to build that excess capacity, that would be reasonable. If Microsoft wanted to finance that excess capacity so Kenya could build it, that would also be reasonable. This is fucked up.

[-] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 31 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

"Bill Gates is such a philanthropist, he's a 'good' billionaire."

The fuck he is. Also, if you think Bill has nothing to do with the direction of Microslop because he stepped down from the board a few years ago, think again.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who officially left the company in 2020 when he departed from its board of directors has reportedly been a silent advisor for its OpenAI partnership.

"Gates' advice is reportedly treated as gospel, and he also played a crucial role in fostering Microsoft and OpenAI's partnership, and consequently, the success witnessed in the category."

[-] Darnton@piefed.zip 16 points 2 months ago

He also appears to represent Microslop at lots of official functions, like when the techbro oligarchs kissed Trumps ass at a dinner recently.

[-] FunStuffIsFun@eviltoast.org 12 points 2 months ago

Makes sense, he and Orange Chicken are both Epstein pals.

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

it took me a minute to get Orange Chicken. and this is how i feel about it:

if i were to say "makes sense, he and General Tso are both Epstein pals" is that too many layers of abstraction? also is it worth besmirching the anglicized name of Zuo Zongtang? I think i just answered my own question there. but i just had a great idea for a punny thing to eat. we'll call it [Krasnov]'s Chicken. I hate chicken so it'll be hot dogs or boot leather or something, which is appropriate because he's a liar. i'm thinking absolute poverty food. give me a few days. you decide whether that's a possessive or contractive apostraphe i'm not telling. if you have suggestions i am open to them, this can be a group effort just i have some rules (i want to eat it and not die from eating it, that is the rule, tasting good is a plus)

[-] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Bill could drop dead tomorrow and nothing would change. corporate governance involves a lot more than one person.

Come on now, the people want simple answers to complex problems and blaming a single person serves this purpose.

[-] SnarkoPolo@lemmy.world 26 points 2 months ago

A sacrifice the weak should be thankful to make, for Capitalism. /s

[-] zebidiah@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 months ago

For you, the day microslop graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for microslop, it was Tuesday.

[-] TeddE@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

I'm already drooling at the prospect of them repackaging it and selling it back to us. "After acquiring contractual control of the electrical grid and pushing several security updates, we bring you e-power, an NFT driven energy packet exchange market. Now in partnership with DraftKings™."

[-] Frenchgeek@lemmy.ml 21 points 2 months ago

And if you negotiate well, Microsoft will even let you choose which half of the country?

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 20 points 2 months ago

This is why corpos prefer dictators.

[-] zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 2 months ago

Do it like Musk and build your own generators, that harm locals. Problem solved.

[-] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 months ago

Where are all the fucking brain trusts that spent the last year telling me AI data centers aren’t actually that bad and it’s just like watching YouTube?

[-] Microtonal_Banana@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 months ago

And they will probably do it too.

[-] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Half the country? In that case, wouldn't it make more sense to build two data centers?

[-] GamingChairModel@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Original reporting by Bloomberg is here or here for an archive.is version.

Sounds like the talks are stalled about revenue guarantees from the Kenyan government, if demand for the data center's capacity never shows up. The power infrastructure isn't really an issue yet, since the first phase is going to be 100MW and there are plans to build geothermal plants sufficient to cover several multiples of the country's current power usage, including whatever demand comes from this data center.

[-] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago

To what end? Surely the payoff is way less than the resources it consumes. This is pure, unbridled dystopic social "terra-forming". People of the globe, unite!

[-] PotatoPie@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

Spend the offline time learning to make home made bombs and molotov's and buying weapons, the data center will be built, it's about if it'll stay up or not

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Ya but only the poor half? Knowing how things will turn out in America you just have to weight the material wealth of the two sides. Which ever is more wins.

[-] rayyy@piefed.social 2 points 2 months ago

Silly people. AI is bring built by and for the rich folks. Many of you may die by AI but that is a sacrifice the very wealthy are very willing to make.

[-] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago

Who will be left to be poor if they keep this up? It will just be them, and their killbots.

[-] mgtzbos@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Frontier tech companies build algorithmic science experiments, release them to the public as real products that replace applications and people, which we find are not actually applications or effective trustworthy workers, then ask customers and consumers to build the applications tech firms used to create and sell, and now they want us to foot the bill on the infrastructure to let us use the dumb experiment. Tens of thousands of workers that used to transition tech R&D into real products are laid off. And politicians are bribed with billions of dollars to create or block legislation that would make tech firms responsible for and take the burden on of actually delivering a real solution to meet their hype. So what happens when people can’t make a living and recycle money back into a consumer oriented economy? A Great Depression. I guess the tech bros create their new society on the moon and Mars with the money they raided from the government coffers. What a $&!7 show.

[-] Gladaed@feddit.org -3 points 2 months ago

This seems like an outrage optimized article and headline. I would expect them to utilize and build power sources in this context,i.e. not compete with citizen power and potentially cheapen electricity.

[-] Crt_static@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Do you see any credible evidence of that? Above anything, corporations get high off their own farts when they do anything good-will adjacent. If they planned on meeting the demand for power, a huge corporate production would be made of it.

[-] Gladaed@feddit.org -3 points 2 months ago

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/microsofts-african-data-center-falters-payment-demands-bloomberg-news-reports-2026-05-10/

Kenya was supposed to pay for geothermal capacity and didn't. Not suck off them corpos.

Bad publicity is bad for corpos. Cartoonishly evil is usually propaganda.

this post was submitted on 12 May 2026
487 points (98.8% liked)

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