4 ms·

No one gives a fuck about Climate Change

17 points by titojankowski 9y ago

CiPHPerCoder 9y ago
Focusing time on climate change has the benefit of being right. This is good for the collective. Focusing on blockchains has the benefit of being potentially profitable. This is good for the individual trying to get ahead of their competition in the rat race of life. Guess which incentivizes human behavior more?
- nonbel 9y ago
  Proof of work mining always struck me as very close to being ideal energy credits. If cheap energy is available then mining will be cheap, and thus you get cheaper coins and cheaper fees, leading to inflation (and more spending). On the other hand if energy becomes scarce, the currency will become more scarce and expensive so you get deflation (and more saving). It looks like (in theory) a nice feedback that encourages development of cheap/decentralized energy sources.
  - titojankowski 9y ago
    Yea totally, cheap energy = cheap compute = cheap mining
    - nonbel 9y ago
      I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not. If so, what is wrong with the reasoning?
      - titojankowski 9y ago
        Not sarcastic at all! That's how it could work. If you had free electricity, mining would be awesome sauce: http://www.coindesk.com/microscope-economic-environmental-costs-bitcoin-mining/ http://www.coindesk.com/microscope-economic-environmental-co...
- titojankowski 9y ago
  Haha yea totally. How might we make tracking CO2 profitable? One of those betting sites like the presidential election? http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/writeup/us_presidential_election_live_betting_odds.html# http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/writeup/us_president...!
JimboOmega 9y ago
Fousing on CO2 may give that kind of result, but if you focus on another indicator, like say, sea ice, there's also charts for days, e.g.: https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/ https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/ Truth is that CO2, unlike financial indicators, increase monotonously, and even big changes at the national scale only introduce very subtle and gradual changes to it. However, other indicators change much faster (and not as monotonically).
- titojankowski 9y ago
  I wonder how we could build more of a story around "monotonous" datasets. What events could be called out on a monthly chart like https://99bitcoins.com https://99bitcoins.com A volcano? An explosion? A factory fire? A change in fuel policies?
  - jlangemeier 9y ago
    The problem with CO2 is that it's a delayed process. We may not see the results globally of changes in CO2 until years later; unless it's a very localized event that affects the monitoring station https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2016/08/31/brief-reprieve-from-400-ppm-era-may-be-thanks-to-a-hurricane/ https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2016/08/31/br.... And even then, those small blips will be hard to call out/notice on a global scale (i.e. if we factored in multiple monitoring stations). Since most shorter term changes in CO2 will be localized and temporary, you're going to run into https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/. That's not to say that it wouldn't be a good idea to do, if we could attribute local events to local anomalies in CO2 we might be able to get people "incentivized" to get something that monitors it in their area and get some sort of gamification of groups trying to get their numbers lower.
    - titojankowski 9y ago
      Reminds me of those visualizations designed for magnifying tiny changes, Eulerian Video Magnification: https://youtu.be/ONZcjs1Pjmk https://youtu.be/ONZcjs1Pjmk Perhaps a potential application?

17 points by titojankowski 9y ago

Focusing time on climate change has the benefit of being right. This is good for the collective. Focusing on blockchains has the benefit of being potentially profitable. This is good for the individual trying to get ahead of their competition in the rat race of life. Guess which incentivizes human behavior more?

nonbel 9y ago
Proof of work mining always struck me as very close to being ideal energy credits. If cheap energy is available then mining will be cheap, and thus you get cheaper coins and cheaper fees, leading to inflation (and more spending). On the other hand if energy becomes scarce, the currency will become more scarce and expensive so you get deflation (and more saving). It looks like (in theory) a nice feedback that encourages development of cheap/decentralized energy sources.
- titojankowski 9y ago
  Yea totally, cheap energy = cheap compute = cheap mining
  - nonbel 9y ago
    I can't tell if this is sarcastic or not. If so, what is wrong with the reasoning?
    - titojankowski 9y ago
      Not sarcastic at all! That's how it could work. If you had free electricity, mining would be awesome sauce: http://www.coindesk.com/microscope-economic-environmental-costs-bitcoin-mining/ http://www.coindesk.com/microscope-economic-environmental-co...
titojankowski 9y ago
Haha yea totally. How might we make tracking CO2 profitable? One of those betting sites like the presidential election? http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/writeup/us_presidential_election_live_betting_odds.html# http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/writeup/us_president...!

JimboOmega 9y ago

Fousing on CO2 may give that kind of result, but if you focus on another indicator, like say, sea ice, there's also charts for days, e.g.: https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/ https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/ Truth is that CO2, unlike financial indicators, increase monotonously, and even big changes at the national scale only introduce very subtle and gradual changes to it. However, other indicators change much faster (and not as monotonically).

titojankowski 9y ago
I wonder how we could build more of a story around "monotonous" datasets. What events could be called out on a monthly chart like https://99bitcoins.com https://99bitcoins.com A volcano? An explosion? A factory fire? A change in fuel policies?
- jlangemeier 9y ago
  The problem with CO2 is that it's a delayed process. We may not see the results globally of changes in CO2 until years later; unless it's a very localized event that affects the monitoring station https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2016/08/31/brief-reprieve-from-400-ppm-era-may-be-thanks-to-a-hurricane/ https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2016/08/31/br.... And even then, those small blips will be hard to call out/notice on a global scale (i.e. if we factored in multiple monitoring stations). Since most shorter term changes in CO2 will be localized and temporary, you're going to run into https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/. That's not to say that it wouldn't be a good idea to do, if we could attribute local events to local anomalies in CO2 we might be able to get people "incentivized" to get something that monitors it in their area and get some sort of gamification of groups trying to get their numbers lower.
  - titojankowski 9y ago
    Reminds me of those visualizations designed for magnifying tiny changes, Eulerian Video Magnification: https://youtu.be/ONZcjs1Pjmk https://youtu.be/ONZcjs1Pjmk Perhaps a potential application?