YHK - yet another hacker news clone

https://web.archive.org/web/20261022164028/https://www.thegu...

Ah, that is a misunderstanding of economics. It's valuable to everyone who uses AI; the owner captures only part of the value. It's just like a how a factory is valuable to everyone who buys their products.

Trees are cool, but we need infrastructure and fields and cities and many other things too. We're going to have to cut down some trees to make space for them.

What then?

(Source: https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-2000012304991.html)

In the US, if you want to build a shed in the middle of a wetland, you need to go through an arduous permitting process and are unlikely to gain approval. If you want to build it within 100 feet, you can probably do it, but you need to confer with the relevant DEC to show that you won't negatively impact the wetland during construction. If you're more than 100 feet away, you don't even need to talk to the DEC, because you're not in protected land.

Of course, if the DEC decides they don't think your shed is outside the 100 ft adjacent area, they may decide to do a demarcation and figure out exactly where your shed is relative to the wetland, and if you messed up you're in trouble. But if they send out a biologist to demarcate the wetland and you're far enough away, you're fine.

So many people, if they think it's ambiguous, will take the time to go through an abbreviated permitting process to get a certificate of "no permit needed", to save themselves the headache later on.

If you go through a process like this, chances are people with local expertise will tell you you're wasting your time -- the case looks pretty clear cut, and hardly anyone ever has trouble in such circumstances. The clerk at the department responsible for issuing the "no permit needed" certificate may tell you you're wasting everyone's time.

But if you're a big corporation like Google, you don't really have an excuse not to do it. You can afford the lawyers, you can afford to plan years in advance, and so many more people are going to notice if you skip steps. Even if you end up being in the legal clear, no permit was needed, you're so much better off getting it in writing in advance.

It would be very nice if we could have our cake and eat it too.

Apart from this being in a forest, this seems like an ideal place. And places that are not used for agriculture or human habitation but do have water available have a habit of being forests (or mountains)

Yeah, I finished and posted my comment before you had edited yours to add everything below what I quoted, my bad.

> You missed the fact that it's not even clear if they broke the law.

It's news reporting, not the conclusion of a court case, the entire thing is "undecided" right now with no conclusion.

But the story itself is about how they (allegedly) illegally cleared forest, not about what percentage of Finland's forest Google has (allegedly) illegally cleared. The problematic part is the "illegal" stuff, obviously.

Don't focus so much on the HN title, lets discuss the actual contents itself instead of navelgaze about if the title is 100% accurate or what not.

I wonder if we're going to need something similar when AI nukes the economy.

The whole anti-datacenters sentiments is stupid but "profits go to a handful of Americans" is just pants of fire kind of take.

There are a lot of people who are against this, and protest against this. Looking at the polls, seems that it will change in the next elections, like a lot.

An article in Finnish: https://www.uusijuttu.fi/juttu/sCcu9YiY-mjF4UD1O-b66ec

People say that, but users are the ones capturing most if not almost all of the profit.

You don't cut Anthropic a check every time a new user signs up on your platform. You pay them a small slice of the revenue that their models generate for you.

And now he can shake hands with Google executives in a public photo.

People still live in the old world that thinks that doing business with the American corporations is somehow beneficial, especially with data centers. But the country should focus on building their own data centers, providing GPUs for smaller companies and providing cheap DeepSeek for Europeans instead of giving access to Google.

the regulators are the ones refuting google's claims. the headline opens with: "Finland's regulator says the environmental review came too late"

and the second paragraph of the linked article says:

"Google was apparently so eager to build its new data center infrastructure in Finland that it began bulldozing large swaths of forest __before the required environmental review of the full plan was complete__."

typically, doing something before the environmental review gives you a notice to proceed is illegal.

According to https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/06/google-da..., they had to halt the construction because they failed to assess the environmental impact. The same article you say it doesn't refute that the leveling was illegal says that at least four areas that must be protected are now leveled. It sounds to me that Google is playing the card "it is done already, just fine us and let's move on" thanks to their deep pockets.

The title: Google cleared 300 hectares of Finnish forest for a data center, and regulators want answers

The opening sentence: Finland's regulator says the environmental review came too late, Google says it followed the law

I'm going with option #1 here because the article represents both sides here equally and makes no claims that laws were broken, only that an investigation is underway. Point me to where it indicates #2 for you.

EDIT: It's not clear if you're simply pointing out OP's misgivings or stating yours in support. Either way, I would like to see evidence of scenario #2 if that's the contention here.

EDIT 2: the more I think to myself about this, the more silly it seems. This is from a website called techspot.com, they literally report on news regarding tech companies. So while it may not be "investigating deforestation" as you put it (which in itself is a ridiculous starting point and you know it), there's also no indication it's providing false news about Google just to bash on data centers.

Most people are too brainwashed to even start self reflecting about their meat consumption, everybody talk about data centers because we're spending 5x more on them since LLMs became the new messiah: https://ourworldindata.org/cdn-cgi/imagedelivery/qLq-8BTgXU8...

I find that most of their "valid concerns" are actually "confused misunderstandings of social panic"

When we slot in datacenters on any hierarchy of impact, the only thing, literally the only they top the charts in, is "Makes a headline people click on". Everything else they're way down the list on. The stats are correct, the masses are just panicking.

Is "Shovel Purchased for Data Center Construction" an important story? If I say it's not, is it because I find it necessary to dismiss the valid* concerns citizens have regarding data centers? Is it because I find it necessary to protect the beliefs of a corporation over the populace? Is it because I hold loads of secret anti-democratic views regarding people questioning the intentions of American Big Tech™?

[*] Annoying question-begging, please never do this about any subject.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50050097

>> Logging a few hundred hectares was not a problem. Google could have done that without additional permits, if their intention was to plant a new forest afterwards. Environmental impact assessment was only necessary, because they intended to replace the forest with something else.

>> The key question is whether Google can comply with the law after the fact. If they complete the assessment and the government finds nothing that would prevent the construction of the data centers, the project can go on. Maybe there will be some minor sanctions, as well as some delays, as they didn't do things properly the first time. And even if there is something that prevents construction, Google can still probably comply by planting a new forest.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50051670

>> Either way, you need to complete the EIA [environmental impact assessment]. It'd probably show that this was, indeed, a good location for a DC [data center]. Not doing the assessment before starting to chop down the trees is the problem here, not that the forest is particularly ecologically valuable.

>>> Finn here. Not really. You're allowed to log if you resow.

>>> So this seems to be a calculated move: When permits pass, prep is done. Worth paying minor fines for jumping the gun. Permits don't pass, just resow. That's a well informed expected value calculation.

>>> That's a bad calculation, if the risk model failed to account for a political scandal in a small country that's very proud of their tree plantations and deeply suspicious of megacaps [sic]. But even with that tail risk realizing the likely outcome is that permits pass and prep is done.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50062379

>> I found a source [0] claiming that some areas that are important for biodiversity were first spared and then cut down, but this does not mean that they were old growth and the Muhos county official Mikko Kari states "[The areas] are not legally mandated to be protected."

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The takeaway appears to be that LVV hasn't actually stated what they think the problem is, but they want to do an investigation, and that cutting down the trees poses no legal problems. At least, according to local regulators. If doing some earthwork between logging and sowing is a problem, there seems to be no mention of the fact anywhere, including in statements by the agency that wants to stop the development.