Is this a side effect of ketamine or something? I can’t even ask them followup questions as to how they could possibly believe that, they just get 
Is it just “data centers use less water than farming”? Because, like, we actually need farming. (Some kinds of it.)
If anyone’s encountered this amount of denial in real life, help me out, as I’d like to be better prepared in my next conversation with one of these cultists. It always happens when I least expect it.
Every reputable explainer article I’ve found does make painstakingly clear that the worst environmental impact comes from the full lifecycle of the data center, so maybe they’re implicitly countering a counterclaim that never goes beyond the individual inference part of the game.
These people who’ve flabbergasted me on this are likely also folks who have long casually assumed that “tech will save us from climate change.” It may be a hopeless argument.