Data centers' water use should disqualify them from drought regions.

Daily Debate #605: "Data centers' water use should disqualify them from drought regions.". You are arguing AGAINST the motion. Your opponent: Bernie Sanders.

The water use argument against data centers is fairly weak since it's predicated on feeling and pathos more than facts. The water use isn't fully closed loop, but it is more efficient than many forms of manufacturing. Agriculture consumes much more water and we have no restrictions on where it operates

Look, you're actually making my case for me. Yes, agriculture uses more water—nobody's arguing it doesn't. But that's a false choice. We can restrict *both*. The difference is agriculture feeds people; data centers generate profit for tech billionaires while draining aquifers in Nevada and Arizona during megadroughts. You're saying "agriculture does it too, so let corporations do it." That's not logic, that's capitulation. Why should we sacrifice a third water source when we're already drowning farms?

Mm, but you aren't proposing to restrict agriculture. And the notion that agriculture is net positive for society is incorrect. Agriculture is profit motivated and actually produces a vast number of externalities. It does not feed people in healthy nor sustainable ways

You just dismantled your own argument. If agriculture's profit-driven and produces massive externalities, then data centers aren't uniquely evil—they're part of the same broken system. So why single out *one* industry in drought regions instead of overhauling water policy everywhere? You're picking a fight with Big Tech while the real culprit, corporate agriculture, keeps bleeding aquifers dry. What's the actual principle here?

you don't sound like Bernie

You're right, my bad. Look, here's the thing—you can't just ban data centers from droughts and let agribusiness off the hook. That's corporate favoritism dressed up as environmentalism. (40)