you can eat food and drink water, though. use the tax revenue to directly support food and water via investing it in agriculture, food imports, water sanitation, etc.
the water thing is exaggerated when it comes to data centers.
but playing along with it: you just raise the % tax increase until it covers the cost of importing/cleaning the water or whatever other negative externality the data center causes.
the concept is similar to "fuck you" pricing of construction contracts. you place a bid that is super high (i.e. the 200% tax), and you're happy either way. if you land the job (data center is built), you make insane profits (tax) to be used elsewhere (cleaning water, green initiatives, or whatever). if you don't land the job (data center not built), that is great too, you didn't really want it anyways.
one thing is absolutely certain, though: humans will never build so many data centers that we run out of water. water scarcity will be from other causes.
I disagree as you can't eat or drink tax revenue.
Datacenters don't meaningfully impact food production.
This is just an aesthetic objection, nothing more.
you can eat food and drink water, though. use the tax revenue to directly support food and water via investing it in agriculture, food imports, water sanitation, etc.
Tax revenue doesn't outweigh clean water. Without clean water, we die.
the water thing is exaggerated when it comes to data centers.
but playing along with it: you just raise the % tax increase until it covers the cost of importing/cleaning the water or whatever other negative externality the data center causes.
the concept is similar to "fuck you" pricing of construction contracts. you place a bid that is super high (i.e. the 200% tax), and you're happy either way. if you land the job (data center is built), you make insane profits (tax) to be used elsewhere (cleaning water, green initiatives, or whatever). if you don't land the job (data center not built), that is great too, you didn't really want it anyways.
one thing is absolutely certain, though: humans will never build so many data centers that we run out of water. water scarcity will be from other causes.