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demand & offer, if the energy were more expensive, fewer would mine and the difficulty would drop, I wish I could mine on my low powered laptop, but if you want

demand & offer, if the energy were more expensive, fewer would mine and the difficulty would drop, I wish I could mine on my low powered laptop, but if you want to raise the pitch forks against bitcoin, on the same logic, we could stop playing computer games, watch movies/shows/tv etc, even using modern phones, the old nokias that lasted a week one one charge would do fine.

rainbowmverse 9y ago
People have been raising the issue of our civilization's wastefulness for years. Where have you been?
- mark024 9y ago
  Don't remember seeing any article about how many houses we could power by not playing computer games.
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    A bit old, but it's one of the first results on Google. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/video-gamers-use-as-much-energy-as-san-diego/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/video-gamers-use-... >> U.S. homes have about 63 million video game consoles, and together they use about as much energy as San Diego does in a year, according to a 2008 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council
- glenstein 9y ago
  Sure, we talk about plastic in the oceans and CO2 and electricity usage at a general level. But I think the commenter you are replying to is basically right that there isn't a sustained cultural conversation targeting the wastefulness of very particular forms of applied electricity usage. And I don't think a one-off article changes that since you can find one-off articles about practically anything. It seems weirdly specific to talk about bitcoin's energy cost this way when we don't single out, say, Clash of Clans or facebook posts about the Ice Bucket challenge and lament their specific energy costs. And I think the reason for the difference has to do with the idiosyncratic culture surrounding bitcoin rather than bitcoin being a unique harm in terms of electricity usage.
virtuabhi 9y ago
I think you are missing the point that the service which consumes so much energy should provide some value.
- mark024 9y ago
  who decides what value is? you? if it would not provide value people would not be using/buying/mining, "one man's trash is another man's treasure", for a guy in Venezuela bitcoin can be the difference between life and death..

rainbowmverse 9y ago

People have been raising the issue of our civilization's wastefulness for years. Where have you been?

mark024 9y ago
Don't remember seeing any article about how many houses we could power by not playing computer games.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  A bit old, but it's one of the first results on Google. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/video-gamers-use-as-much-energy-as-san-diego/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/video-gamers-use-... >> U.S. homes have about 63 million video game consoles, and together they use about as much energy as San Diego does in a year, according to a 2008 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council
glenstein 9y ago
Sure, we talk about plastic in the oceans and CO2 and electricity usage at a general level. But I think the commenter you are replying to is basically right that there isn't a sustained cultural conversation targeting the wastefulness of very particular forms of applied electricity usage. And I don't think a one-off article changes that since you can find one-off articles about practically anything. It seems weirdly specific to talk about bitcoin's energy cost this way when we don't single out, say, Clash of Clans or facebook posts about the Ice Bucket challenge and lament their specific energy costs. And I think the reason for the difference has to do with the idiosyncratic culture surrounding bitcoin rather than bitcoin being a unique harm in terms of electricity usage.

virtuabhi 9y ago

I think you are missing the point that the service which consumes so much energy should provide some value.

mark024 9y ago
who decides what value is? you? if it would not provide value people would not be using/buying/mining, "one man's trash is another man's treasure", for a guy in Venezuela bitcoin can be the difference between life and death..