this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026

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Microblog Memes

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Tax dollars at work (piefed.cdn.blahaj.zone)

submitted 4 months ago by compostgoblin@piefed.blahaj.zone to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world

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[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 95 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

I mean, the... 'funny?' part... is that there is a significantly greater than 0 chance that that data center was directly involved in target analysis and assignment into the kill chain, for deliniating strikes against Iran.

A number of sites in Iran have been hit, with precision munitions... that make no sense.

Well, they make no sense, unless your man in charge of target assignment.. is an LLM.

'Police Park'.

Its... a park. Mostly empty space.

But it has Police in the name.

So it gets a couple of tomahawks.

... On that note: Gunshots By Computer.

By my reckoning, 2025 was Year Zero.

[–] Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That album has been feeling more and more relevant

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It never wasn't.

Say your name

Try to speak as clearly as you can

You know everything gets written down

Nod your head

Just in case they could be watching

With their shiny satellite

...

Turn it up

Listen to the shit they pump into your head

Filling you with apathy

Hold your breath

Wait until you know the time is right on time

The end is near

let me know if you can hear this image

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They need to kill all the major heads behind Palantir, especialy Peter Thiel.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I mean he definitely is ~~n't~~ the AntiChrist.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If this hypothesis is true, and it does sound plausible to me, it would be interesting to see what counter-analysis emerges, or even if citizens try to change their road address from King Street to Landfill Lane to avoid getting whacked.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I mean... good luck trying to... make yourself innocuous... to a hallucinating machine.

That just makes shit up, sometimes, for no discernible specific reason.

Also I don't think random people can generally just... change the name of the street they live on.

I'm guessing that even in Iran... maps exist, with road names, and... some kind of centralized authority maintains these names.

I guess you could basically 'poison' maps with decoy 'IRGC Regional HQ' type names, and then evacuate the surrounding blocks?

We have also seen missile/drone cams of strikes being done on decoy targets... painted silhouettes, fake/prop missile launchers...

[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 2 points 4 months ago

Ah, Saul Williams.

[–] inari@piefed.zip 90 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Iran targeting hyperscaler data centers would be a decent strategy given how much money is sunk into AI at the moment

[–] LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 50 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Given how heavily nVidia have reinforced their positive position on war, any data center is a valid target. Not even joking.

Literally and completely, wholly valid targets of war.

Thanks Jensen Huang!

[–] hayvan@piefed.world 27 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately it is also pretty profitable for Huang, becuase they don't own the datecenter, they sold the parts for it, and later they will sell more for the new one.

[–] Jayjader@jlai.lu 3 points 4 months ago

I agree that in the short-term, NVidia stand to make more money as a destroyed datacenter prompts it's owners to rebuild it. However, until the armed conflict stops, there might be a pause on datacenter construction in the region - why pay to (re)build a datacenter if it's probably going to be blown up again? From my (admittedly limited) reading of history, most reconstruction only happens in the years following an armed conflict's end.

[+] FishFace@piefed.social -12 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Not how the laws of war work, not even when you don't like the targets.

The USA launched an illegal war, Iran retaliated illegally (targeting civilian infrastructure, of uninvolved countries), USA is escalating illegally.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 17 points 4 months ago (2 children)

American-owned sata centers are actually legal targets, because they're used to process intelligence and provide strike targets. They're basically equivalent to a CIA office. Israel also does this.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Got any evidence of that? If so, then I agree targeting them would likely be legal.

Since when was fucking Israel a guide on how to conduct legal war?!? Christ.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/03/iran-war-heralds-era-of-ai-powered-bombing-quicker-than-speed-of-thought

American tech companies provide cloud computing and AI services to both the US and Israel, and obviously these services work through data centers, meaning that some data centers somewhere are legal targets, but it's impossible to know which. I'd argue that this makes all data centers run by relevant companies for cloud computing and similar services valid military targets.

Since when was fucking Israel a guide on how to conduct legal war?!? Christ.

No no, as in: Israel also uses AI assisted targeting like America.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So, would you say Russia is legitimate in striking infrastructure like power plants which are mostly used for civilian purposes but might power military buildings as a small percentage of their use?

Would Iran be justified, if it had a nuclear weapon, of dropping it on Tel Aviv, wiping out the civilian population alongside the Israeli Air Force headquarters?

Proportionality is a key concept in military planning. It's not the case that one drop of military utility makes something a legitimate target. It's certainly not if you only know that the minority military use is somewhere among many different locations and just bomb any of them on the off-chance.

Oh, and ok, sorry for the misunderstanding.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So, would you say Russia is legitimate in striking infrastructure like power plants which are mostly used for civilian purposes but might power military buildings as a small percentage of their use?

For starters nothing Russia does in this war is legitimate because the war itself is illegitimate, but that aside: No, because as you said there's no proportionality. Depriving civilians of power—a human right—is not proportional to cutting off power from a military building that likely has emergency power anyway.

Would Iran be justified, if it had a nuclear weapon, of dropping it on Tel Aviv, wiping out the civilian population alongside the Israeli Air Force headquarters?

See above, the lives of civilians are paramount. The difference between data centers and these examples is that Amazon data centers aren't necessary for any human rights, nor are they particularly important for civilian life. It's little damage to civilians for little military gain. If you have five empty luxury resorts and one military headquarters and can't distinguish between them (or all six are alternately used as military headquarters at random times), I'd say it's a fair decision to bomb all six. It's analogous to a factory that makes 90% shoes and 10% bullets. I also want to emphasize the importance of these facilities—AI-based targeting produces orders of magnitude more targets than human intelligence officers, allowing for orders of magnitude more strikes. When you're running a mass bombing campaign, running out of things to bomb is legitimately a thing that happens.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 2 points 4 months ago

There are civilians working inside data centers, and they also provide services to civilians - some of which are critical and some are not.

[–] greyscale@lemmy.grey.ooo 0 points 4 months ago

Because they train your guys?

They train your cops too.

[–] BygoneNeutrino@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago

By this logic, schools are valid targets because they are educating future CIA recruits and Walmart is a valid target because it's providing the food to fuel them.

[–] MML@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Great the US also launched an illegal war in Iraq, ever hear about that Sun Tzu guy? Call me crazy but an illegally invaded country no longer has to follow the rules of war, the whole idea of a social contract.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 3 points 4 months ago

Nope, that's not generally how the laws of war work.

I say "work" but because there's no international police force to arrest anyone for breaking it, this is more like philosophical theorising, but that's how it's conceived of, still.

To take the social contract analogy, if someone steals your phone, you generally have the legal right to use reasonable force to get it back, and if the thief gets hurt, tough shit. But if you track him to his house, burn it down and sodomise him, you're a psycho and going to jail.

Domestic law recognises exceptions for actions that are otherwise illegal to try and rectify another cringe; prosecuting a war in self defence is similarly an exception to the general prohibition on war, but "reasonable force" is analogous to "proportionality" - you don't get the right to carpet bomb Dubai because you got missiled by the USA.

[–] Miaou@jlai.lu 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Don't these countries host US bases?

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 5 points 4 months ago

Retaliating with strikes against us bases was not illegal.

[–] ajikeshi@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

yes, bases that are used as springboards for the american air force

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

What the fuck is an "illegal war"? Are there countries out there who give invaders permission to destroy them?

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 3 points 4 months ago

It's politician speak to make the public assume it's morally just.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

There are two kinds of legal war: one sanctioned by the UN, and one fought for self defence. Retaliation is generally understood to be self defence, as a deterrent against further attacks.

So Iran's retaliation has the potential to be legal, but by attacking everyone and their dog, they commit war crimes anyway.

The US and Israel claim the war is self defensive to prevent Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon, but this is not under the purview of self defence, which requires an imminent attack, not an improbable, repeated tale about nukes which could have been dealt with diplomatically. Of course Trump has offered a number of other justifications for the war all of which are even worse.

These are facts, do with them as you please. I see facts are not good enough for the majority who disliked my comment above for having the temerity to point out that Iran, of all countries, was doing something wrong.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Reflecting on this, I think it's fair to consider the International Court of Justice (part of the UN) to be a legal system with legitimate jurisdiction over most countries - even if it's frequently unable to enforce its law. And therefore it's reasonable to describe a war as "illegal", wrt the UN.

But I do believe it's a pointless description - I can't think of any legal wars, especially if one believes committing war crimes makes even a UN-sanctioned war illegal. I consider it a propagandic description used to put spin on a war. (And just adding that on a personal level, I believe legality is irrelevant to morality and acceptability)

Retaliation is generally understood to be self defence, as a deterrent against further attacks.

While the statement may be true, I want to emphasize that a common tactic is for a country to harass or suppress another country until they retaliate, and claim that retaliation is in fact unprompted aggression which must be retaliated against. While there are notable cases of this in the past decade, this tactic is tried and true across centuries. Therefore, we often see wars where both sides claim self-defense, and both their blocs generally understand their side to be justified.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 2 points 4 months ago

I think everything you said is true, except there have been a couple of legal wars. The intervention in Kosovo was sanctioned by the UN for example. The UK carried out a legal war of self defence when Argentina invaded its overseas territory of the Falklands. Ukraine is legally trying to repel Russia.

I wouldn't say that committing war crimes makes the entire war illegal, either.

In the end "it's illegal" is a shorthand; it expresses a certain kind of reasoned opposition but shouldn't automatically be the end of the conversation.

[–] FarraigePlaisteach@lemmy.world 31 points 4 months ago

And compared to the schools the US/Israel target, far fewer civilians.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Considering the valuations are based on non existent future data centers, I don’t see why they couldn’t continue to be based on nonexistent past data centers.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Enron lives on

[–] ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world 38 points 4 months ago (2 children)

If oracle loses enough data centers maybe they will need their people back

[–] Prox@lemmy.world 41 points 4 months ago

If Oracle were deserving of their name, they would have foreseen this whole thing.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 9 points 4 months ago

They laid those people off precisely to afford more data centers. If they lose more, they'll have to lay off even more people probably

[–] Phoenix3875@lemmy.world 27 points 4 months ago

The next phase of data center evolution had missile defence systems built in. ——Skynet origin story, probably.

[–] dethedrus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 months ago

How long until we get a Larry Ellison series on Behind the Bastards?

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

If I was China I'd offer a bounty for every data center.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, if they offered citizenship and a modest pension, they'd have people lining up to take the centers out.

[–] zeca@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 months ago

From every part of the world...

[–] REDACTED@infosec.pub 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Huh? Why? Much of their income is from western data centers housing TikTok, Temu, Alibaba things (including AI), etc. They're milking the west, doubt they want the communications to downgrade

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

Replacing all those datacenters is going to be very profitable.

[–] callouscomic@lemmy.zip 9 points 4 months ago

So the PC parts situation will only get worse.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

What about the poor cat femboy IT people that have to service the data centers? 🥺

[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 20 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Those people may work in IT but in my experience most datacenter employees are vanilla as hell

[–] Kn1ghtDigital@lemmy.zip 9 points 4 months ago

Or the ones that are technophobes when they go home. E.g. "I go home, drink a beer and sit on my lawn with a shotgun for squirrels."

That was common for me, didn't make many friends.

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

It's oracle. They probably have "anti-dei" hiring rules in secret.