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I ran out of HN time yesterday, so here's my delayed response. > Most modern banks also don't manage transactions with employees anymore, they use computers to

I ran out of HN time yesterday, so here's my delayed response. > Most modern banks also don't manage transactions with employees anymore, they use computers to transact. so, there's some of that carbon expenditure going into computers and networks to manage these transactions? Banks also use your money to make more money for themselves, does that bother you at all? considering that this thread started out by looking at things "holistically". In any case, my point here isn't that crypto currencies are the best thing ever, but they're definitely a step in the right direction. I hope you can see the potential in these ideas and what they're trying to achieve. Basically, we need a system that can't be defeated with fraud, if everyone was honest we could just pass around a piece of paper and ask everyone to write down how much money they have and we'd be good, unfortunately that's not the case, as I see it, most of it is a just the cost of preventing cheating, we can certainly observe the current networks and come up with better ones in the future. > Making a human is a net increase in entropy. Burning fuel is a net increase in entropy. > This is not a fight you can win as the amount of energy you need to expend is magnitudes larger than the amount of entropy you decreased, actually, by the law of thermodynamics, any energy you expend to reduce entropy will produce an equal or larger amount of energy as a result. > Entropy may decrease temporarily in a locality but overall it will always increase inevitably. so, are you suggesting that we stop reproduction and burning fossil fuels and slow down the "advance of entropy"? (or is it just bitcoin you want stopped?) Also, "net increase" in what system?

zaarn 9y ago
>so, there's some of that carbon expenditure going into computers and networks to manage these transactions? Yes, but a bit less, with high confidence. >Banks also use your money to make more money for themselves, does that bother you at all? Not really, miners in bitcoin also make money, don't they? Additionally, European Banks announced they're starting SCT Inst, SEPA transactions which are confirmed in 15 seconds instead of overnight. My bank doesn't charge me fees for it. Why bother with bitcoin's immense carbon footprint when it can't beat the lower effective carbon footprint of banks if they are faster and cheaper? >but they're definitely a step in the right direction. I can agree with that, but they need to fix things to be applicable for a wider audience. > we can certainly observe the current networks and come up with better ones in the future. I'm currently somewhat invested in Ethereum since they plan to go into PoS which would be immensely more efficient. >so, are you suggesting that we stop reproduction and burning fossil fuels and slow down the "advance of entropy"? (or is it just bitcoin you want stopped?) No at all, just refuting that you can decreaser net entropy. >Also, "net increase" in what system? In the closed system that is the reachable universe. In any closed system, net entropy increases over time. That's nothing inherently bad, just a property of closed systems. You can somewhat "cheat" and decrease entropy in some parts of the system but the entire system will increase or not decrease it's entropy.

zaarn 9y ago

>so, there's some of that carbon expenditure going into computers and networks to manage these transactions? Yes, but a bit less, with high confidence. >Banks also use your money to make more money for themselves, does that bother you at all? Not really, miners in bitcoin also make money, don't they? Additionally, European Banks announced they're starting SCT Inst, SEPA transactions which are confirmed in 15 seconds instead of overnight. My bank doesn't charge me fees for it. Why bother with bitcoin's immense carbon footprint when it can't beat the lower effective carbon footprint of banks if they are faster and cheaper? >but they're definitely a step in the right direction. I can agree with that, but they need to fix things to be applicable for a wider audience. > we can certainly observe the current networks and come up with better ones in the future. I'm currently somewhat invested in Ethereum since they plan to go into PoS which would be immensely more efficient. >so, are you suggesting that we stop reproduction and burning fossil fuels and slow down the "advance of entropy"? (or is it just bitcoin you want stopped?) No at all, just refuting that you can decreaser net entropy. >Also, "net increase" in what system? In the closed system that is the reachable universe. In any closed system, net entropy increases over time. That's nothing inherently bad, just a property of closed systems. You can somewhat "cheat" and decrease entropy in some parts of the system but the entire system will increase or not decrease it's entropy.