You bring up an interesting point for the US to have a first world level of fiber to the home it needs to require diesel.

When I see bad faith arguments like this I earnestly worry that maybe sometimes I do the same and just don’t recognize it.

Did you read my comment about the cost of laying fiber being far different from the cost of digging truck-sized tunnels and make a conscious choice to pretend I was making a nonsense argument about diesel-powered fiber, or did you construct this strawman without realizing it?

I don't think you are trying to look at it rationally but simply in terms of priors where sprawl has cost an immense amount of resources. A tunnel where 2 pallets can cross is not much larger than a sewer, fits bellow a pedestrian/emergency vehicle system and is more valuable than a larger tunnel because it can never be DoT approved.