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Charles Stross recently said it should be outlawed based on the environmental impact of Proof Of Work. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/11/unfor
by kybernetikos 9y ago
Charles Stross recently said it should be outlawed based on the environmental impact of Proof Of Work. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/11/unforseen-consequences-and-tha.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/11/unforsee...
- colordrops 9y agoWe should ban video games and porn too then. The amount of electricity going into powering all the consoles and computers around then world toward a useless endeavour is immense.
- knicholes 9y agoVideo games and porn are so precious, though! I wouldn't call them a useless endeavour.
- colordrops 9y agoI'm being facetious to make a point.
- yodon 9y agoReading through the comments it looks like you’re discovering the truth in Poe’s Law [0] which roughly translates to sarcasm inevitably backfires in large persistent distributed contexts like HN or other forums. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
- fatjokes 9y agoI don't play games, but give me something that replaces porn in utility and I'll agree with you.
- coryfklein 9y agoI think you're saying, "give me something that I value as much as porn and I'll agree with you" Bitcoin's utility is about as subjective as porn's utility.
- thehardsphere 9y agoDon't know why this is downvoted; utility and value are subjective under basically every modern economic theory there is aside from Marxist ones.
- fatjokes 9y agoI don't know about that subjectiveness. A lot of people masturbate.
- labster 9y agoPlease explain how video games and porn don't serve a useful purpose. I'm thinking it's possible that porn contributes to a lower birth rate, which would more than offset the amount of power consumed to produce and transmit pornography. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/200904/does-pornography-cause-social-harm https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/200904/do...
- colordrops 9y agoI don't actually think they should be banned. I'm making a facetious analogy to prove a point. Bitcoin is at least as useful as video games and porn.
- labster 9y agoUgh, sorry. In the Age of the Great Orange One, it's almost impossible to tell joking from earnestness.
- LoserNerd420 9y agoLulz, kys cuckboy.
- namlem 9y agoHow is Bitcoin even remotely as useful as video games or porn? It's 99% speculation and 1% buying drugs online.
- colordrops 9y agoTell all the Chinese that successfully expatriated money how useless Bitcoin is.
- leereeves 9y agoJust curious: who's taking the other side of those trades (BTC for yuan) and what are they doing with all the yuan?
- imtringued 9y agoThe difference is that they are optimizing for efficiency. They are trying to maximise uselessness while also minimising environmental impact. Bitcoin maximises uselessness while also maximising environmental impact. If you had a fusion reactor bitcoin would consume all of it's energy output.
- DennisP 9y agoIf we're going to pass a law for that reason, we should pass a meaningful price on carbon. Then all the bitcoin miners using fossil-based electricity will go out of business.
- Frogolocalypse 9y agoIt's true that it's actually the differential in power prices that leads to its rapid expansion. The underlying tech will raise or lower difficulty based upon market incentives. So forcing mining onto renewable sources of energy by putting a price on carbon would benefit everyone.
- aaronhoffman 9y agoExcept the poor
- DennisP 9y agoMake it a fee-and-dividend program and the poor would come out ahead.
- fulafel 9y agoLaws have been passed for that, and we should keep passing them, but it hasn't had the effect you posit on bitcoin mining.
- DennisP 9y agoWe do not have a high, global carbon price. If it's not global, the miners will just relocate to areas that don't have it. But a ban on bitcoin would just relocate miners to places without the ban so I think it's a fair comparison.
- Frogolocalypse 9y agoBy that argument, having children should be outlawed based on the environmental impact.
- 21 9y agoYou are joking, but some people are seriously proposing that. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/children-carbon-footprint-climate-change-damage-having-kids-research-a7837961.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/children-carbon-foo...
- Frogolocalypse 9y agoOh I know. But what these things all share is that the government shouldn't be in the business of regulating freedom. Governments shouldn't be in the business of telling you what you can do, they should be in the business of asking you what's important to you. Freedom is hard. Actually requiring probable cause before being subjected to the justice system used to be a thing. Then the US government started stealing peoples money without ever even charging them with a crime. So now we have crypto. So the government can't do it anymore. "But but but what if they are committing a crime!" they say. Prove it i say. You know. Rule of law. That's what democracies are supposed to be about aren't they? And that attack on freedom now has crypto as a response. The thing that it is counter-intuitive about crypto, is that the solution to electronic anonymous and censorship resistant money, turned out being record everything forever. When someone can flick a switch and take everything from you, you don't have freedom. When you can access the ledger from anyone, prove that it it is valid, and be able to send your money to anyone, for whatever purpose, you do. This technology has been developed as a direct response to the insidious and anti-democratic implementation of AML/KYC laws on a global scale over the past 30 years. The extrapolation of these laws, given a long enough timeline, is slavery. Not figurative slavery, actual slavery. Bitcoin is the technical response to that problem.
- wwweston 9y agoIssues of energy and thermodynamics are pretty darn important: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...
- cwkoss 9y agoI'm frequently annoyed by people who think the unsustainability of exponential growth is somehow specific to Bitcoin, and not the entire global financial system. Global finance consumes a lot of energy and resources, and encourages businesses to harvest natural resources and find externalities to continue a compounding growth rate. It is mathematically impossible for this to continue unabated on a planet with a fixed amount of resources. Eventually, something will have to give. Hopefully markets will find a graceful solution, but the transition will probably be ugly.
- wwweston 9y agoWell, that's pretty much the point of the article, so I'm glad you agree. Bitcoin, of course, actually introduces additional problems, which is why it sometimes gets particular attention.
- disordinary 9y agoProof of stake will fix that though.
- colordrops 9y agoIf a workable version is ever created. I don't think it's a solved problem at this point.
- dnautics 9y agocan we also outlaw dollars since basically a huge chunk of them go to bombing third world countries?
- n8n3k 9y agoAviation causes a hundred times more greenhouse gas emissions then Bitcoin.[1] (And imagine how large you could make that look if you used "more then x countries" rhethoric.) [1] https://medium.com/@cryptarchist/how-much-greenhouse-gas-emissions-does-bitcoin-actually-cause-20febea16214 https://medium.com/@cryptarchist/how-much-greenhouse-gas-emi...
- plaguuuuuu 9y agoso in other words... bitcoin produces as much emissions as 1% of every single flight on earth that's still pretty insane.
- n8n3k 9y agoyeah, sound money is not nearly 1% as important as getting from one place to another a little faster.