There are layers of wrong and stupid to this article.

Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights.

“The cloud” accounts for something like 80% of the internet across the entire planet. I’d be curious what 80% of transportation infrastructure would end being in comparison… no takers? We’re only comparing to (some) flights instead of, I dunno, the vast bulk of our fossil fuel powered transport infra?

In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.

Oh no, the most popular song in the world used the same amount of energy as 40k homes in the US. The US probably has something in the range of a hundred million homes. The efficiency of computing equipment increases by a sizable percentage every single year, with the odds being good the same data could be served at 1/20th the cost today. So why aren’t we talking about, say, heat pumps for those homes? You know, since they’re still using the same amount of energy they did in 2018?

…about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3… Additionally, as these companies aim to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, they may opt to base their datacentres in regions with cheaper electricity, such as the southern US, potentially exacerbating water consumption issues…

What is this idiocy? You realize that a chip fab uses something to the tune of ten million gallons of water per day, right? Ten million. Per day. I’m not even looking at other industrial processes, which are almost undoubtedly worse (and recycle their water less than fabs) - but if you’re going to whine about the environmental impact of tech, maybe have a look at the manufacturing side of it.

Furthermore, while minerals such as lithium and cobalt are most commonly associated with batteries in the motor sector, they are also crucial for the batteries used in datacentres. The extraction process often involves significant water usage and can lead to pollution, undermining water security. The extraction of these minerals are also often linked to human rights violations and poor labour standards.

Man, we’re really grasping at straws here. More complaining about water usage, pollution, water security, labor standards, human rights violations… wait, were we talking about the costs of data centers or capitalism in general? Because I’m pretty sure these issues are endemic, across every industry, every country, maybe even our entire economic system. Something like a data center, which uses expensive equipment, likely has a lower impact of every single one of these measures than… I dunno… clothes? food? energy production? transport? Honestly guys, I’m struggling to think of an industry that has lower impact, help me out (genuine farm to table restaurants, maybe).

There are things to complain about in computing. Crypto is (at least for the time being) a ponzi scheme built on wasting energy, social media has negative developmental/social effects, etc. But the environmental impact of stuff like data centers… its just not a useful discussion, and it feels like a distraction from the real issues on this front.

In fact I’d go further and say its actively damaging to publish attack pieces like these. The last few years I didn’t drive to the DMV to turn in my paperwork, I did it over the internet. I don’t drive to work because I’m fully remote since the pandemic, cutting my gas/car usage by easily 90%. I don’t drive to blockbuster to pick out videos the way I remember growing up. The sheer amount of physical stuff we used to do to transmit information has been and is gradually all being transitioned to the internet - and this is a good thing. The future doesn’t have to be all bad, folks.

Having the political will to do something now has zero to do with having the political will ten or fifteen years ago when it literally wasn’t a problem. Further, this idea that the democrats should just spend all their time and political energy finding ways to prevent all future possibilities of republicans doing bad stuff is stupid on its face, as it’s a flatly impossible task (both in scope and actual ability) and takes away from time spent solving other problems.

Obama had a supermajority in 2009 and could have passed a national law protecting abortion rights, but didnt.

I specifically asked in my prior comment what would stop republicans from repealing such a law when they had control, such as in 2017.

States that swing back and forth could have passed similar laws that protected abortion, or put forth ballot initiatives to defend it, but didn’t. They knew what the Republicans wanted to do, and did nothing to prevent it.

Man, the same thing over and over. Political will rarely exists to fix problems that might happen, it exists to fix problems that are material.

You know, climate change is important to me, so I think democrats should be expending all their efforts to make the EPA more durable so the next republican congress/administration doesn’t ruin it. Oh wait, anything they pass into law can be repealed by the next congress? Executive orders can be revoked? People can be appointed to run government organizations that only have an interest in destroying that organization? Things can be undone?!

Man, maybe prior administrations should have done some sort of magic with the Iran deal/Paris Accords/[any issue the Trump admin undid] so it couldn’t have been undone. I don’t know what that magic is, and its probably anti-democratic, but you seem convinced it exists.

I’m very curious about what the democrats were supposed to do to guarantee abortion access, perhaps you can clarify this for me. Were they supposed to pass a law that somehow would be immune to repeal from the next republican congress? Executive order? Amend the constitution? Some other form of legislative or executive magic I’m unfamiliar with?

And your analogy of a literal arsonist being the same as another person just keeping some resources handy is actually very interesting - because by extension, you think that democrats should anticipate and prevent all possible fire-starting the republicans might do, and when they don’t, they’re just as bad?

Haven’t seen Vault of the Void mentioned here - I’d rate it higher than most of the others.