[ekelsen]

How is this different from farming?

It takes the limited resources of land and water from a community and sells the result for profit as food or fuel. The vast majority of profit is made downstream and outside the community.

Golf courses being a traditional green place where people gather seems a bit far fetched to me when most of them are elite private clubs.

[trollbridge]

Most golf courses around me are open and anyone can go play for a cheap greens fee. The clubhouse has normal low end restaurant prices for a hot dog or a burger.

[ekelsen]

If the clubhouse is your idea of the valuable public good we can provide without 18 holes of grass.

[trollbridge]

As far as "valuable", the golf course is private property that the owners presumably bought and can do with as they see fit. If you want to develop it into something else, make an offer to them?

The golf courses are a business like any other (although we do have some publicly-owned golf courses around here too). The cost to play 9 holes on a weekday is $10 at one of them. I'm not really sure what you're asking for here.

[ekelsen]

Data centers have negative externalities which is why people don't think anyone should just be able to buy land and turn it into one.

Once of those negative externalities is water usage. The parent was commenting on the also high water usage of golf courses.

Perhaps that's the connection you've missed.

[trollbridge]

That's highly dependent on the area it's in. Where I live, golf courses use no more water than anyone else and aren't irrigated.

The proper answer would be to simply charge appropriate prices for large scale uses of water from the water utility, or else this is a discussion about riparian rights and law and possible changes needed to that.

[yosame]

People are more lenient on farming because humans need agriculture to survive. Obviously not all agriculture is necessary for survival, but it's something that in some way provides real tangible benefits for everyone.

On the other hand, if AI data centres all disappeared today, humanity would continue on completely fine.

[ekelsen]

The test of "if it disappeared today, we'd all be fine", would eliminate most of the economy.

[mrdomino-]

In farming, the result is food that can be eaten.

[groundzeros2015]

they are one provider among many. Everybody needs food. But nobody needs that particular farm's food.

[ekelsen]

Golf courses don't do that either...

[shermantanktop]

I associate golf with WASP-y business types who hobnob with their boss in an electric cart to get ahead, and can't stop talking about their hobby of chasing a little white ball.

Is that fair? Probably not. But I don't think golf is a particularly inclusive sport, unless you live in a golf course gated community... in which case everyone is included.