TechTakes

But just hear me out: if you delete your old emails, you won’t be roped into paying for extra space, and Microsoft or Google will have a little less money to buy water with!

Switch to Linux and avoid using any Microsoft products to conserve even more water.

Another day, another case of "personal responsibility" used to shift blame for systemic issues, and scapegoat the masses for problems bad actors actively imposed on them.

Its not like we've heard that exact same song and dance a million times before, I'm sure the public hasn't gotten sick and tired of it by this point.

Probable hot take: this shit's probably also hampering people's efforts to overcome self-serving bias, as well - taking responsibility for your own faults is hard enough in a vacuum, its likely even harder when bad actors act with impunity by shifting the blame to you.

Boss: "did you read my email?"

"Nope, sorry saving water, they all go to dev/null."

My boss is now looking for the developer called null.

E: fun fact, we will not have this problem in the Netherlands, not because our water supply is well maintained, I actually do not know much about that. But because our electrical networks are so invested upon by years of neoliberalism that we are now reaching the point where the maintainers were warning for years ago (according to people I spoke to who worked in that industry, so low N, and im not a journalist etc). There just isn't enough capacity, esp with more and more people installing solar(*). So people who are building datacenters are trying to leave the Netherlands, or at least that is the 'risk' now. So well done government and everybody, but foreigners and fatbikes... (I wonder if somebody is tracking poweroutages over time in the Netherlands (ow and fatbikes are a risk for younger people, it just gets a weirdly high media attention, prob because poc kids)).

*: one more point for the 'you can't individually get yourself out of structural issues'.

It's a bit tangential, but using ChatGPT to write a press release and then being unable to answer any critical questions about it is a little bit like using an app to climb a mountain wearing shorts and flip-flops without checking the weather first and then being unable to climb back down once the inevitable thunderstorm has started.

Missed opportunity for "It's a cruel, cruel summer."

You can't fool me! I'm gonna start hoarding my emails so when the collapse happens, I'll have plenty of water for myself!

This whole story is unhinged. Thanks for chasing it down!