this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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[–] axx@slrpnk.net 6 points 15 hours ago

Calling it now: won't work, not happening.

How successful was the whole seasteading thing? Yeah.

Half the trick of these rich bastards is to raise money from other rich bastards hoping to become even richer bastards from a good investment. The trick doesn't require the thing you're selling to work, even theoretically.

[–] SleeplessCityLights@programming.dev 10 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

This is just a rebranded data center in orbit. Same goal, be completely outside of the law, this time in international waters.

Lol the space data center crashed, now it's an ocean data center

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 1 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

Right, then they'll have to build 100 aircraft carriers to protect it.

[–] SleeplessCityLights@programming.dev 1 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

There was the same problem in Space. Russia and China have anti-sat weapons in-orbit pointing at targets already.

[–] Munkisquisher@lemmy.nz 1 points 15 hours ago

So put them where Russia and China's navies are a problem, but you also have pirates to worry about

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I'd assume the US too. I haven't decided if it's a problem yet. Just a comment. Still thinking about where this can lead to. I guess what I'm saying is that presumably, naval contractors would support this project, so it has a good chance of going forward.

[–] StillAlive@piefed.world 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The best thing Thiel can do for planet Earth is kill himself and his billionaire buddies.

[–] J92@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Wouldn't be surprised if they all went to the Football World Cup final this year.

[–] nullify3112@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago

What happened to Mars? Why can’t these people go there and build data centers so we can forget about them.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 day ago

Then it's not a startup.

[–] biggerbogboy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 21 hours ago

So I guess the plan is to make a somehow buoyant hyperscaler powered on tidal energy tech which is pretty much still in its infancy, and radiate all the heat in an already too hot ocean?

Lovely idea, Theil, I hope it leaks.

[–] PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago

Another libertarian paradise

[–] voxthefox@lemmy.blahaj.zone 109 points 1 day ago (3 children)
[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 57 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thiel is an enemy of humanity.

[–] biggerbogboy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Wait, didn’t he talk about the antichrist at a conference, and basically describe himself? Pretty fitting honestly

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 points 19 hours ago

No, he described socialists 🙄

(Jesus was a socialist)

[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Germany produced Hitler, Trump and Thiel...

WTF is in the water over there...

[–] littleomid@feddit.org 12 points 1 day ago

Hitler was Austrian.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

So barely being connected to Germany counts as being "produced" by it?

Hitler was born in Austria to Austrian parents and was raised in Germany, sure. You can blame his German upbringing.

But Trump was born in New York. So was his dad. And his mom is from Scotland.

Thiel was born in Germany but his family moved in South Africa when he was an infant and then moved again to the US before he was a teen.

[–] ProfThadBach@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I though Thiel was South African?

[–] new_guy@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Thiel was also raised in South Africa, during apartheid, and was schoolmates with a lot of… shall we say… german speaking individuals

[–] trackball_fetish@lemmy.wtf 1 points 17 hours ago

Another fun fact, they imported a bunch of those white Africans to live here lol

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

You know I'm beginning to think this apartheid thing might have been a bad influence.

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[–] bebabalula@feddit.dk 3 points 20 hours ago

“Reportedly” is carrying a lot of weight here

[–] Zier@fedia.io 39 points 1 day ago

Imagine the noise that will create underwater. What a horrible form of torture for all the animals in the water.

[–] magnue@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ah yes. The time-tested strategy of dumping our shit in the ocean.

[–] Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 2 points 22 hours ago

Don't worry about it. You can't see it anymore so it's surely fine!

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 12 points 1 day ago

May the Orcas rip him apart

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 10 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Didn't Microsoft already try this a few years ago, and it didn't work because it was a frankly stupid idea.

[–] Munkisquisher@lemmy.nz 2 points 15 hours ago

Google did it with containers in the bay, seawater being pumped through heat exchangers. If they couldn't make it work due to the maintenance when tied to a pier in the bay. These muppets will be shocked at the engineering requirements to do it in the open ocean

Microsoft was trying to build something they could sell for practical reasons as a cheaper alternative to land based data centers. For that purpose it is not cost effective.

Peter Thiel is trying to build something that will not be subject to laws so he can continue to develop horrors beyond human comprehension. For that use case it is possibly very cost effective.

[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 1 points 19 hours ago

Wasn't that just underwater data centers that used the surrounding ocean as for cooling?

I don't remember wave power being a notable part of their plan.(though I may have forgotten a detail or 2 over the years)

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 27 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Even though it's renewable energy, it still generates a significant amount of heat.

Can we try cutting down on computing resources wherever possible first?

[–] b161@lemmy.blahaj.zone 33 points 1 day ago

Can we try cutting down on Peter Thiels?

[–] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 14 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Yeah seriously, if we could start making software more efficient rather than throwing more hardware at it, we'd be in a much better position environmentally and economically.

[–] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Imagine only one thing: the web of the 90s/00s with today's hardware and bandwidth.

A wet dream. But actually I loaded some pages faster with a 14k4 baud modem than some pages with 5Gbit today. With 47228 frameworks and captchas and ....

With every iteration of higher power, programs went shittier, more clogged and devs grew lazy.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

The more time goes by, the more I'm interested about software and hardware that tries to do more with less.

Ex: ESP-based projects and products, Meshtastic/MeshCore, eInk-based displays for lower energy consumption, etc

[–] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 points 15 hours ago

I feel ya. I recently did a shopping-list-app. Wonderfully minimalistic, a simple php-backend and a super simple watch-app as a bonus. And I got sad somehow how superfast the shit is and could even sync when Theres no 4g or 5g. Why does everything has to have 5 updates per minute and each one adding another thing noone wanted just because...subscriptions. Until the simple initial thing is a bloatware-abomination.

I'm tired, boss....

Abstraction layers will be the death of us.

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[–] Solaris1220@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Not to mention the devastating environmental impact it could have on the marine ecosystem surrounding it.

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[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 2 points 22 hours ago

Maybe Shady Vance will have a job then, after the inevitable fall from grace.

[–] fuzzyfirefox@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I hope the salt water makes these ocean data centers impossible.

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[–] Mynameisallen@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Somehow this will wind up destroying the ocean

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The year is 2050, massive petawatt scale ocean based data centres are warming the ocean in their immediate vicinity, opening up new breeding grounds for a new killer algae. The algae once unable to grow in regular ocean tempatures thrives in this new ecosystem, and once it matures is able to leave the warmer waters and destroys other marine live it comes into contact with.

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