Laura Wadlin
21.9K posts

Laura Wadlin
@explauratory
@pccffap member, @portlandDSA member, former @DemSocialists NPC, 🍞🌹



So I’ve lived in Hillsboro, Oregon for 10 years. Drove around today and tonight and shot this myself. This is what the “Data Center Plains” looks like.👇 My town sits at the end of 6 transpacific sea cables connecting the US to Asia. That’s why 30+ data centers landed here. They’re everywhere. Spread across the entire north and west end of the city. Road after road. Building after building. Miles of it. And they keep building. Pushing further west every year into farmland that’s been here for generations. Buying up land, Giving mass amounts of money to home owners to move, Tearing down homes. Tearing down historic sites. $7.2 billion in exempted property taxes. Some of these finished buildings are literally sitting completely dark… PGE told them no power for 3-5 years. They still built them anyway. A power plant is now going up right next to the data centers because they maxed the local grid. There are families still living next to construction zones. Old farmhouses directly across the street from data center walls. Nobody asked the people who already lived here. These are the families who refused to leave, so they said we are just gonna put them up next to your houses anyway. A pioneer homestead from 1865, 190 years of continuous farming is about to be gone, NTT Global Data Centers got that land tax-free until 2051. Signed in a single day at City Hall. Intel, the employer that actually brought thousands of real jobs here is laying off locals at the same time. This sound runs 24 hours a day. 7 days a week. My electricity bill went from $80 to $150. Water rates are set to increase 105% over 5 years, critics say to fund data center infrastructure, not residents. Data centers aren’t a joke. Just wanted to share my first hand experience with them. #datacenters

The US is pouring more capital into AI data centers in 6 years (~$930B) than the inflation-adjusted cost of the Marshall Plan, Apollo, Manhattan Project, and the Interstate Highway System — combined. Meanwhile: AI ≈ 45% of the S&P. Energy ≈ 4%. Everyone is overweight the thing that needs power. Underweight the power. H/T @ekwufinance




“Meet the academics refusing to use generative AI.” nature.com/articles/d4158…


Body so iconic you don't even need the face to recognize her



🎯 DSA’s NPC passed a set of four national priorities in April. @breadrosesDSA member @EllaTeevan explains what’s in the priorities, why they’re important, and what it means that it was so hard to persuade the NPC that priorities are worth having. socialistcall.com/2026/05/07/the…




🪧 Strikers can expect risk-averse advice from the “experts.” To win, rank-and-file members must be in on strategy discussions. socialistcall.com/2026/05/03/12-…




