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My point was that google generates hundreds of billions of dollars from the same water that $34 million in alfalfa. It’s absurd to complain about their usage.
by bradleyjg 3mo ago
My point was that google generates hundreds of billions of dollars from the same water that $34 million in alfalfa. It’s absurd to complain about their usage.
Water use policy is about agriculture, agriculture, and also agricultural. Everything else is a distraction.
- bix6 3mo agoHow is everything else a distraction? We are overusing our water budget so every little piece on top is extra impactful.
- bradleyjg 3mo agoI don’t really know how to rephrase it. It’s a distraction. This article could have been about shipping alfalfa to the Middle East and Asia, but instead it was about this.
- bix6 3mo agoThat’s not a distraction. It’s one of the many ways in which data centers are problematic. Why shouldn’t it be talked about as such?
- senordevnyc 3mo agoBecause it's not really problematic, in the same way that the pollution from campfires isn't a problem. Sure, there's some theoretical pollution from that, but there's about a billion things on the list above it, and you clearly don't give two shits about any of those. You're on a crusade against campfires, not actually interested in pollution, and thus you can be safely ignored.
- loudmax 3mo agoAgriculture uses orders of magnitudes more water than data centers. A 50% cut in water use by data centers will have nowhere near the impact of a 5% cut in water use by agriculture. But data centers can generate orders of magnitude more revenue. Say rain water is leaking into your house from two holes in the roof: one is 1 meter in diameter, the other is 1cm. Any effort you spend plugging the 1cm hole is a distraction from the 1m hole you really need to focus on. You could make an argument that agriculture is different because we need agricultural products to live. But we don't need those specific products to live (alfalfa, almonds, etc), and they could be grown far more efficiently if water were priced by market rates.
- lostmsu 3mo ago> data centers can generate orders of magnitude more revenue You can't eat data.
- karahime 3mo agoYes, just like you can't eat trucks, roads, grocery stores, tractors, combines, crop dusters, grain silos, mills, or the FDA. Any system needs many components, most of which aren't directly consumed by someone.
- lostmsu 3mo agoMissing the point. There's absolute bare minimum food that you need to eat regardless of everything else.
- bluefirebrand 3mo ago> My point was that google generates hundreds of billions of dollars from the same water that $34 million in alfalfa Food is more important than whatever google does. :/
- bradleyjg 3mo agoRadical Luddite posting on the internet is … something.
- defrost 3mo agoIt wasn't the Looms / technology they hated - it was being put out of work and discarded.
- bluefirebrand 3mo agoWhat's your argument here? I would love to hear why you think food is not actually more important than data centers.
- FloorEgg 3mo agoRandom passerby here... There is a term for your argument, it's called a "suckers choice".