First of all, thanks for the honest attempt to answer. Second of all, here’s my position, since you haven’t asked, and merely have taken my questions as an argument in and of itself:

I don’t know what I think yet.

I genuinely don’t.

That’s literally why I’m asking follow up questions to the claims people are making about this topic. That’s how I use this place. I crowdsource opinions, claims, and explanations to help me decide how I feel about them. The fact that you haven’t sold me on your view yet is not itself an argument, and your defensiveness isn’t warranted, unless you’re unsure that you thought this through enough before committing so zealously to your position.

I can sympathize with the pollution concerns (including those of light and sound). I can sympathize with the cost concerns. That’s why I asked follow up questions related to them. How much will they realistically impact our energy prices? How much will they realistically impact our air quality? How much will they realistically impact the availability of our water? How loud will they actually be? How much light will they actually put out? How much will that truly impact the area where it’s placed compared to what’s already there? How much will the water that passes through it actually be warned? How impactful will that actually be based on the location? How does that compare with regular building or other buildings of similar size in other industries that serve other purposes so I have some context with which to judge it?

You don’t seem to have any specific answers to any of these questions. And that’s fine, but I live in Utah too, and other Utahns being pissed about it isn’t enough on its own for me to be pissed about it too. I’m open to being pissed about it, should my questions yield truly troublesome data-backed answers, but so far all I’ve gotten is generalized fearmongering based on, by your own admission…feelings. You claim the spiritual gift of discernment, but you haven’t shown me that here in how you’ve responded to me. You sure haven’t proven to me possess any such gift, despite your insistence.

How different do data centers of their size impact the environment compared to other factories of similar size, for example? There are some pretty large factory buildings in Utah. I remember when the city of Vineyard was still just Geneva Steel. Are you as against steel mills as you are data centers? What kinds of industries and buildings would you NOT oppose coming to Utah based on the standards you’ve set forth here? Are you just a tree hugging anti-capitalist who hates any business he doesn’t own or invest in himself? Or is there something TRULY uniquely sinister about these buildings other than the fact they might hurt your favorite view or make a couple stars harder for you or your loved ones in Box Elder to see? Cause I can see why that would bother YOU, but I can’t see why I should personally care down in Utah County.

If you really can’t see how other people wouldn’t just want to jump on this bandwagon with you when you’re not able to answer these questions, I don’t know what to tell you. But I’m not arguing against you. I’m simply giving you an opportunity to help me and others like me care. Maybe if you were able to do so you would have gotten the public support you needed to shut down the project, rather than a few locals accompanied by blue haired liberals who were easy for the state to ignore.

I tell you what though, as a conservative, I’m not very fond of your rhetoric when it comes to the business side/economic potential these centers could have. The whole “only rich people would benefit” schtick? Yeah that’s not my schtick. I have problems with giant corporations too but clearly there’s huge demand for data centers and it’s not because nobody benefits from it. That’s almost childishly ignorant. Maybe if you could sound less like a Democrat right now it might help too, I don’t know. But nothing so far about your side of this argument has appealed to me yet and that’s just me being honest.