Driving a massive truck in the city is stupid too and most short flights should be replaced with high speed rail. And AI wastes a monumental amount of resources.
> The environmental argument is frivolous as long as people fly to Vegas for the weekend or drive a F150 to the office. Why is this as special domain?
I keep seeing arguments like this. They sound like a bit like a form of nihilsm. Do you really think we shouldn't worry about risks to the environment simply because we're all hypocrites on that front in one way or another? I get the frustration and have been guilty of using this type of argument myself in the past, but refusing to discuss a problem because the people raising the concern are imperfect human beings doesn't seem like a tenable position.
Charitably, I think you can read into that a not-unreasonable (if unproven) assertion that there are many lower hanging fruits on the tree that would do endlessly more good for the cause to pick than data centers, and AI at least has the arguable potential upside of alleviating some of those specific burdens-- better health care and less environmental pollution through various improved forms of automation. Or at least when addressing the stub claim of the sort in the GP comment, you should assume these fairly straightforward subclaims pre-emptively and respond to this stronger form of the argument. It saves time, at least if you're going to seek out a discussion it does. Plenty of counter claims to them, but it gets the conversational ball rolling in a productive direction and if the response in turn is less constructive then you also know not to bother any more.
I think that form of argument is called "whataboutism". Whether flights waste energy or are environmentally unfriendly is really a separate issue. Both things can be bad.
