AI datacenter water consumption does have a footprint (especially when factoring in hydropower used not just cooling), but to say it’s “draining lakes” or destroying the environment while ignoring everything else is just bad faith.
Brushing it aside just because other matured industry does worst is not only bad faith, it’s also whataboutism. These AI datacenter only exists for about a few years, and they’re building more. It’s not only water usage, it’s known to produce noise, and also consume a lot of power that caused a price hike.
Just because wild fire is burning hectares of land every year doesn’t make slash and burn an ok practice.
Or you know, we can try stopping both.
Mordikan@kbin.earth 19 hours ago
I'm highlighting the fact that none of these other points are ever mentioned. Only the debunked one is mentioned. That's by definition is not whataboutism as I don't have to address the validity of an already debunked claim.
FYI for you, if someone raises a point, that point gets debunked, and they keep raising it anyway as if it's still valid, then the other person pointing out "that specific claim was already debunked" is not committing whataboutism. That would be:
Rejecting a straw man: refusing to re-litigate a claim that has already been shown to be false.
Holding the line on established facts: insisting the conversation move past a disproven talking point.