Uh, fair enough. Yeah I guess that’s a good hook. But still, I can only see the correlation between the exponential increase in Flock cameras and datacenters. Clearly it’s all for surveillance, precrime and the like. If we center discussion around water we move it away from the actual harm being done. Policies become about “ensuring water isn’t wasted” instead of “ensuring datacenters don’t get built”. It’s a distraction, no? Or rather, it’s co-optation.

I mean…I don’t disagree with you

But there’s a hard truth I know I’m still grappling with

None of it matters. Most of our allies are not at a level they will engage with the truth of the matter. If their faucet is blocked by a tree root, they’ll be further convinced, and if they always have water they won’t be unconvinced

So if they care about water, good messaging means that water becomes the stand in for the right to privacy. Nothing you say (or at least nothing I have tried to say) will make them understand the privacy implications. I haven’t convinced a single person that privacy is actually critical to democracy. And trust me, I’ve tried a lot of angles with many different people

We just have to accept they’re pointed in the right direction, and that trying to educate them can only hurt the cause. They won’t be ideologically won over, but on the flip side, it’s not really about water for them either

Even if we did reach them on the issue, that wouldn’t wake them up. They won’t care about the next issue, like the cameras, until they’re worried that agents are laughing over their genital pics or something, whatever they latch onto next

So just let water be the metaphor. They’ll cheer with us, they’ll march with us, and they won’t blink when you tell them AI water usage is eroding their rights