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Comment by pj_mukh | Hacker News Reader

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pj_mukh

tl;dr: Because the power plants they rent power from, and have very little control over, use water too

Is that water cleaned and put back in the environment?

Can the municipalities use the tax cash influx to clean up their power sources?

Not answered or considered which is weird for an org as storied as WSJ.

The bottom line is Heartland re-industrialization will use resources and look different from previous industries.

Can we keep the political focus on the oligcharcal control over our government instead of making something as dry as data centers some kind of new frontline on the Omni-cause

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> Can we keep the political focus on the oligcharcal control over our government instead of making something as dry as data centers some kind of new frontline on the Omni-cause

I imagine every side jumping on the water issue is exactly trying to distract from this. You'll notice you hear about water consumption issues much more than oligarchy and wealth inequality on "progressive media".

> I imagine every side jumping on the water issue is exactly trying to distract from this.

With the planet heating up at an enormous pace and we have a new hip word called "Water Scarcity" with a cool map (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_scarcity#/media/File:Wat...),

I don't think this is a distraction.

It's a real issue, and it feels like a bad faith claim that people are "jumping" on the issue as a distraction.

We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can call out wealth inequality and oligarchy, and also talk about the very real water issue with regard to data centers (and electricity, and loss of rural land, and other many other aspects).

I wasn't trying to make the claim in bad faith. I think as a casual observer, it's fairly obvious when a certain part of a conversation comes to dominate the bigger and more problematic part.

I'm all for responsible water use in data centers and I don't doubt that the cheapest, most environmentally destructive option is the one being used. That should be talked about, pushed back against, etc.

However, let's not argue in bad faith and say that we can walk and chew gum at the same time, and then quietly forget about the walking (oligarchy/wealth inequality/decreasing quality of life/increasing cost of life, etc) while everyone yells and throws water stats around.

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