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Imagine all these people wasting time, energy and power, the last of which is a crime against the environment and an affront to good sense at a time of global c

by throw2016 9y ago

Imagine all these people wasting time, energy and power, the last of which is a crime against the environment and an affront to good sense at a time of global concern. But when it comes to money, greed and self interest always triumph and there will be dozens stretching logic and apologism as far as it can go. 'Proof of work' has to the most hare-brained, wasteful, anti-environment scheme ever thought of. Responsible people should not just be wasting electricity in this manner.

literallycancer 9y ago
Why don't you do the calculation, and come back when you figure out just how tiny fraction of the whole energy spending this represents.
- rothbardrand 9y ago
  He also needs to do the calculation for credit cards, the banking industry and central banks, for comparison purposes.
  - tedunangst 9y ago
    Going to go out on a limb here and predict credit cards have a better $/watt ratio than bitcoin.
    - slyfocks 9y ago
      According to a recent estimate, ~4000 times more energy intensive. It’s an incredible waste of resources for most current use cases. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ypkp3y/bitcoin-is-still-unsustainable https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ypkp3y/bitcoin-is...
      - rothbardrand 9y ago
        Silly. Comparing the entire infrastructure of bitcoin to just a tiny sliver of the credit infrastructure. You need to include on the other side, all the energy the employees use, the buildings, the gas in their cars, the computers they run, and all of this for the related companies and the like. Or you just look at the cost in energy of finding the one correct hash for that block-- which again is going to be two or three orders of magnitude less than a credit card swipe (and the communications systems it needs for an auth) Further, the cost per transaction in bitcoin a year from now will be about 1,000,000 times lower due to Lightening Network. I know there's a political desire to demonize bitcoin (this is vice, not exactly an objective source) and that ignoring one side of the equation to try and make bitcoin out to be an environmental evil seems the best approach you can get but its' absurd on its face.
        rothbardrand 9y ago
        Downvotes galore but no counter arguments. Whatever bitter bunnies.
jdavis703 9y ago
If proof of work is being done during peak solar load times the effect on the environment is negligible.
- kristianp 9y ago
  No, mining has to be done 24 hours a day to be profitable.
- freeflight 9y ago
  It's not just the electricity, it's major wear and tear on lots of hardware with no real purpose. This get's worse the more different currencies there are and the more people are farming them. While I like the basic idea behind Bitcoin, I really don't like this development of "Let's invent a couple of dozen more of those!". It also shows the ugly face of how what we as human societies actually value. While I haven't compared any numbers, I'm pretty sure Folding@home or Seti@home can only dream of having the kind of computing power available to them that some of these cryptocurrencies manage to mobilize. You want my cycles to find a cure for cancer? Nah, I'll keep my cycles to myself. Using my cycles to make the imaginiary profits? Sweet, let's buy warehouses full of hardware!
  - rothbardrand 9y ago
    You say "no real purpose" but what you mean is "a purpose I don't value". That's fine, don't do it. The problem comes when you think that people doing things you don't like is somehow wrong. People have attempted to make scientific computing good for proof of work-- GRIDCoin is an example. But it doesn't work for actually securing the network, due to the nature of how blockchains work. You're free to work or mine or do whatever you want and then donate that money to scientific research. But what makes you think you know better how I should spend my money? You don't even know how I'm spending my money.
    - freeflight 9y ago
      > The problem comes when you think that people doing things you don't like is somehow wrong. I should have clarified that more: As I said before I have no issue with the basic concept behind cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is a great thing and will hopefully do even greater things in the future. And of course, everybody is to free to do with their time and resources as they please, never suggested otherwise. What I have an issue with is how new currencies seem to be popping up like mushrooms because they've become the current "thing" to do if you want to make a quick buck. From the outside, it just looks like a bunch of pump and dump schemes, with no purpose besides offering a couple of early adopters the chance to make temporary huge profits, comparable to a digital Wall Street. Originally I imagined BC as the solution to all the exchange rate shenanigans and whatnot, have one global and digital currency for everybody. Instead, we are now forking currencies like software, I'm not sure I like the possible long-term ramifications of that. Do we really want a future with hundreds, if not thousands of different, and competing, cryptocurrencies? Is such a future even viable?
KGIII 9y ago
Yet, here we are - wasting resources to post trivialities online. Their consumption is generating value, yet our comments are just yelling into the wind.
- everheardofc 9y ago
  Proof of Work is inefficient by design. The transaction speed of the entire network is equivalent to that of an average node. Adding more hardware increases inefficiency. A centralised service like HN on the other hand could be designed to scale linearly with the amount of hardware resources. Edit: Now that I think about it I wouldn't be surprised if someone makes a cryptocurrency based around "digging holes" keynesian style. I've even found a name for it: captchacoin.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    And our comments are creating no value. We're just ephemerally yelling into the wind. If the claim is about resource usage, the concern is about value. If nothing else, they are at least creating value - something we both aren't doing. Hell, I don't even expect you to agree with me. I'm just posting to speak my point of view and amuse myself. This conversation is pretty much the most wasteful thing we are going to do today. Real life is less utilitarian than many people wish. Even if our conversation is more efficient, it generates not one bit of value - at least financially. It does amuse me, but I'm not really sure that's very valuable.
    - Qwertious 9y ago
      >It does amuse me, but I'm not really sure that's very valuable. That's valuable. It lowers the demand for jetskis and cocaine, at a fraction of the price. Also, there's not much point in life if being entertained isn't valuable.
  - Shorel 9y ago
    All previous attempts at centralized services failed, except the ones backed by banks. Bitcoin works because it is not centralized. You are free to design a better alternative. If you do it, you will be rich.
johanneskanybal 9y ago
This is one of those positions I'm always baffled by. It's like complaining about Bell wasting copper wire or encryption wasting space and computation power. If this crowd still don't get it I guess we're further from mainstream than I imagined. Also by Q1 2018 this will be a non-issue for Ethereum.
emiliobumachar 9y ago
I didn't do the math, but I think Bitcoin has a lower environmental impact than gold. Literal mining is very messy. Would your criticism extent to gold?
needlessly 9y ago
why stop there? Why not complain about the wealthy individuals over at Wall Street or Silicon Valley syndicates? Or how about the amount of food waste that occurs everyday? You're argument barely makes a blip. Perhaps if you should choose not to browse reddit or hacker news at least 3 times per week to save the environment.

literallycancer 9y ago

Why don't you do the calculation, and come back when you figure out just how tiny fraction of the whole energy spending this represents.

rothbardrand 9y ago
He also needs to do the calculation for credit cards, the banking industry and central banks, for comparison purposes.
- tedunangst 9y ago
  Going to go out on a limb here and predict credit cards have a better $/watt ratio than bitcoin.
  - slyfocks 9y ago
    According to a recent estimate, ~4000 times more energy intensive. It’s an incredible waste of resources for most current use cases. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ypkp3y/bitcoin-is-still-unsustainable https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ypkp3y/bitcoin-is...
    - rothbardrand 9y ago
      Silly. Comparing the entire infrastructure of bitcoin to just a tiny sliver of the credit infrastructure. You need to include on the other side, all the energy the employees use, the buildings, the gas in their cars, the computers they run, and all of this for the related companies and the like. Or you just look at the cost in energy of finding the one correct hash for that block-- which again is going to be two or three orders of magnitude less than a credit card swipe (and the communications systems it needs for an auth) Further, the cost per transaction in bitcoin a year from now will be about 1,000,000 times lower due to Lightening Network. I know there's a political desire to demonize bitcoin (this is vice, not exactly an objective source) and that ignoring one side of the equation to try and make bitcoin out to be an environmental evil seems the best approach you can get but its' absurd on its face.
      - rothbardrand 9y ago
        Downvotes galore but no counter arguments. Whatever bitter bunnies.

jdavis703 9y ago

If proof of work is being done during peak solar load times the effect on the environment is negligible.

kristianp 9y ago
No, mining has to be done 24 hours a day to be profitable.
freeflight 9y ago
It's not just the electricity, it's major wear and tear on lots of hardware with no real purpose. This get's worse the more different currencies there are and the more people are farming them. While I like the basic idea behind Bitcoin, I really don't like this development of "Let's invent a couple of dozen more of those!". It also shows the ugly face of how what we as human societies actually value. While I haven't compared any numbers, I'm pretty sure Folding@home or Seti@home can only dream of having the kind of computing power available to them that some of these cryptocurrencies manage to mobilize. You want my cycles to find a cure for cancer? Nah, I'll keep my cycles to myself. Using my cycles to make the imaginiary profits? Sweet, let's buy warehouses full of hardware!
- rothbardrand 9y ago
  You say "no real purpose" but what you mean is "a purpose I don't value". That's fine, don't do it. The problem comes when you think that people doing things you don't like is somehow wrong. People have attempted to make scientific computing good for proof of work-- GRIDCoin is an example. But it doesn't work for actually securing the network, due to the nature of how blockchains work. You're free to work or mine or do whatever you want and then donate that money to scientific research. But what makes you think you know better how I should spend my money? You don't even know how I'm spending my money.
  - freeflight 9y ago
    > The problem comes when you think that people doing things you don't like is somehow wrong. I should have clarified that more: As I said before I have no issue with the basic concept behind cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is a great thing and will hopefully do even greater things in the future. And of course, everybody is to free to do with their time and resources as they please, never suggested otherwise. What I have an issue with is how new currencies seem to be popping up like mushrooms because they've become the current "thing" to do if you want to make a quick buck. From the outside, it just looks like a bunch of pump and dump schemes, with no purpose besides offering a couple of early adopters the chance to make temporary huge profits, comparable to a digital Wall Street. Originally I imagined BC as the solution to all the exchange rate shenanigans and whatnot, have one global and digital currency for everybody. Instead, we are now forking currencies like software, I'm not sure I like the possible long-term ramifications of that. Do we really want a future with hundreds, if not thousands of different, and competing, cryptocurrencies? Is such a future even viable?

KGIII 9y ago

Yet, here we are - wasting resources to post trivialities online. Their consumption is generating value, yet our comments are just yelling into the wind.

everheardofc 9y ago
Proof of Work is inefficient by design. The transaction speed of the entire network is equivalent to that of an average node. Adding more hardware increases inefficiency. A centralised service like HN on the other hand could be designed to scale linearly with the amount of hardware resources. Edit: Now that I think about it I wouldn't be surprised if someone makes a cryptocurrency based around "digging holes" keynesian style. I've even found a name for it: captchacoin.
- KGIII 9y ago
  And our comments are creating no value. We're just ephemerally yelling into the wind. If the claim is about resource usage, the concern is about value. If nothing else, they are at least creating value - something we both aren't doing. Hell, I don't even expect you to agree with me. I'm just posting to speak my point of view and amuse myself. This conversation is pretty much the most wasteful thing we are going to do today. Real life is less utilitarian than many people wish. Even if our conversation is more efficient, it generates not one bit of value - at least financially. It does amuse me, but I'm not really sure that's very valuable.
  - Qwertious 9y ago
    >It does amuse me, but I'm not really sure that's very valuable. That's valuable. It lowers the demand for jetskis and cocaine, at a fraction of the price. Also, there's not much point in life if being entertained isn't valuable.
- Shorel 9y ago
  All previous attempts at centralized services failed, except the ones backed by banks. Bitcoin works because it is not centralized. You are free to design a better alternative. If you do it, you will be rich.

johanneskanybal 9y ago

This is one of those positions I'm always baffled by. It's like complaining about Bell wasting copper wire or encryption wasting space and computation power. If this crowd still don't get it I guess we're further from mainstream than I imagined. Also by Q1 2018 this will be a non-issue for Ethereum.

emiliobumachar 9y ago

I didn't do the math, but I think Bitcoin has a lower environmental impact than gold. Literal mining is very messy. Would your criticism extent to gold?

needlessly 9y ago

why stop there? Why not complain about the wealthy individuals over at Wall Street or Silicon Valley syndicates? Or how about the amount of food waste that occurs everyday? You're argument barely makes a blip. Perhaps if you should choose not to browse reddit or hacker news at least 3 times per week to save the environment.