golf courses use much more. But you don’t see massive resistance against new golf courses being planned.
Farms use an order of magnitude more than either. You don’t see any demands whatsoever on agriculture to reduce water usage.
Farms use an order of magnitude more than either. You don’t see any demands whatsoever on agriculture to reduce water usage.
The difference is they already exist while the datacenters don't. And its a lot easier, in a democracy, to stop a thing from being built in the first place than to tear it down after the fact, what with pesky laws about private property and so forth.
Or are you really saying that if we can't solve all water usage problems then we shouldn't solve or prevent any? Is that what you're suggesting?
Instead of replying to your rather silly question I’ll just point to this sibling which I’ll co-sign: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49568295
Perhaps I just struck a nerve.
That's just status quo bias, given that they're an ongoing source of water consumption. "oh it doesn't matter that [thing] is guzzling water, because it's already there!".
This whole thing is a sublimation of vaguer anxieties about AI (which are perfectly rational!) into areas where people feel like they can make more concrete objections that are likelier to succeed. The water thing is completely fake, whether people think so or not.
I think it’s pretty reasonable to conclude that their beef is not really with water usage as much as a general hatred of AI, big tech, etc, and water usage is an easy thing to focus on.