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The other day I was alarmed to learn that bitcoin may be killing as many as one person every day. That's based on this gwern estimate of the number of deaths c
by Houshalter 11y ago
The other day I was alarmed to learn that bitcoin may be killing as many as one person every day.
That's based on this gwern estimate of the number of deaths caused by the folding@home project: http://www.gwern.net/Charity%20is%20not%20about%20helping http://www.gwern.net/Charity%20is%20not%20about%20helping
If you assume that bitcoin uses 10x more computing power than folding, and it uses most of it in China which has far worse pollution, than the estimate comes to 340 deaths per year. That's just direct deaths, who knows how much damage is caused by indirect damage and the long term impact of those wasted resources.
- toomim 11y agoIt uses mostly hydropower, even in china.
- CyberDildonics 11y agoImagine how many people per year air conditioning kills? Surely you don't really buy into such an enormous logical fallacy?
- Houshalter 11y agoHow is it a logical fallacy? Do you see any errors with my math? Are you saying that it doesn't kill people? It is true that air conditioning kills people and contributes greatly to pollution. That's why there have been a lot of attempts to reduce its use. But bitcoin is way worse. Fortunately far fewer people use it than air conditioning. According to this article, a single bitcoin transaction uses as much energy as a 1.5 households use in a day: https://motherboard.vice.com/read/bitcoin-is-unsustainable https://motherboard.vice.com/read/bitcoin-is-unsustainable
- CyberDildonics 11y agoHow many people per year does your computer kill?