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I am sure this topic will be full of whataboutism - what about x, y, z industry's emissions? Here's the thing - Bitcoin hung the energy albatross around it's n

I am sure this topic will be full of whataboutism - what about x, y, z industry's emissions? Here's the thing - Bitcoin hung the energy albatross around it's neck long back - First by choosing SHA based PoW, then the one of the early transactions in US being calculated using the energy required to mine those and then most of the sold equipment focusing on hashes per watts consumed. No other industry other than automotive has tied itself to energy so strongly. So, it is quite disingenuous to not answer this criticism without devolving into whataboutism. There has been a solution in form of Proof of Stake but that has it's own issue. I am sure there will be more energy efficient PoW in the future, so let's wait and see if Bitcoin is going to cost the future or not.

colordrops 9y ago
Calling out "whataboutism" only makes sense if the supposed "whataboutism" is meant to distract and bring up an unrelated topic. But the argument here is that no one comments at all on other "frivolous" pursuits that take similar if not more amounts of power. As I've mentioned in other posts, no one complains about the energy usage of video games and porn. It can be argued that video games, porn, and Bitcoin all have utility. So why is it a problem for Bitcoin and not porn and video games? That's not whataboutism, that's calling out inconsistent logic by detractors.
- thisisit 9y ago
  So...saying (but what) "about the energy usage of video games and porn" is not whataboutism? Got it.
  - colordrops 9y ago
    No. As I tried to explain, whataboutism is to distract from the topic to avoid addressing the issue, which is not what I am doing here. What I am saying is that no one sees any problem with using energy on porn and video games, and I think Bitcoin has as much utility as those, so I don't see why anyone has a problem with its energy usage either. My point is that sometimes pointing out people's narrow-minded tunnel vision, in this case applying an inconsistent standard to something they dislike, is mistaken as whataboutism. Now if I thought Bitcoin's energy usage was a bad thing, this would be whataboutism, but I do not.
    - thisisit 9y ago
      In my first post, just after the whataboutism I have explained why this has happened. You cannot attach yourself to a metric which Bitcoin did with energy and then complain saying - attaching energy metric is wrong/unfair to us. Pron and Games didn't do that to themselves. Still I digress.
iainmerrick 9y ago
Maybe I'm over-interpreting "work", in the physics sense, but won't any proof-of-work scheme have the same problem? To get more coins, miners need to do more work, and that takes more energy. I can't see that it matters what the hashing scheme is, the work will always expand to use the available energy.
- thisisit 9y ago
  Depends on the incentive scheme to stop malicious actors. Current form of "PoW" relies on computational hahsing to stop the attacks. PoS, an alternative "work" scheme, relies on staking and risk of losing coins to stop bad actors. The person who gets to mine the block is still hashing and creating the block. Ethereum, as an example, started out with PoW but soon moves to PoS. So, it is trying to avoid a situation like Bitcoin were highpowered hashing (a word coined by Satoshi) and electricity is in focus.
  - iainmerrick 9y ago
    I'm probably just nitpicking over words then. If it's not PoW don't call it PoW. Somebody mentioned the use of SHA as a specific problem, as if a different hash function could be better. My point is just that any work function at all would be just as bad. PoS sounds worth investigating.
- TYPE_FASTER 9y ago
  > Maybe I'm over-interpreting "work", in the physics sense, but won't any proof-of-work scheme have the same problem? To get more coins, miners need to do more work, and that takes more energy. Only if we assume mining, in it's current BTC implementation, is the only acceptable PoW. I think there are other PoW alternatives that could be used. And they'll be identified and implemented soon, in the next couple years, as people realize we can swap out SHA hashing for an algorithm that does something productive, and use the output of that algorithm to be the proof of work. The amount of computing power in ASIC miners running today is quite large, and has grown quickly. If we think of those computing resources running something else, and verifying work across nodes, then this is quite possible.

colordrops 9y ago

Calling out "whataboutism" only makes sense if the supposed "whataboutism" is meant to distract and bring up an unrelated topic. But the argument here is that no one comments at all on other "frivolous" pursuits that take similar if not more amounts of power. As I've mentioned in other posts, no one complains about the energy usage of video games and porn. It can be argued that video games, porn, and Bitcoin all have utility. So why is it a problem for Bitcoin and not porn and video games? That's not whataboutism, that's calling out inconsistent logic by detractors.

thisisit 9y ago
So...saying (but what) "about the energy usage of video games and porn" is not whataboutism? Got it.
- colordrops 9y ago
  No. As I tried to explain, whataboutism is to distract from the topic to avoid addressing the issue, which is not what I am doing here. What I am saying is that no one sees any problem with using energy on porn and video games, and I think Bitcoin has as much utility as those, so I don't see why anyone has a problem with its energy usage either. My point is that sometimes pointing out people's narrow-minded tunnel vision, in this case applying an inconsistent standard to something they dislike, is mistaken as whataboutism. Now if I thought Bitcoin's energy usage was a bad thing, this would be whataboutism, but I do not.
  - thisisit 9y ago
    In my first post, just after the whataboutism I have explained why this has happened. You cannot attach yourself to a metric which Bitcoin did with energy and then complain saying - attaching energy metric is wrong/unfair to us. Pron and Games didn't do that to themselves. Still I digress.

iainmerrick 9y ago

Maybe I'm over-interpreting "work", in the physics sense, but won't any proof-of-work scheme have the same problem? To get more coins, miners need to do more work, and that takes more energy. I can't see that it matters what the hashing scheme is, the work will always expand to use the available energy.

thisisit 9y ago
Depends on the incentive scheme to stop malicious actors. Current form of "PoW" relies on computational hahsing to stop the attacks. PoS, an alternative "work" scheme, relies on staking and risk of losing coins to stop bad actors. The person who gets to mine the block is still hashing and creating the block. Ethereum, as an example, started out with PoW but soon moves to PoS. So, it is trying to avoid a situation like Bitcoin were highpowered hashing (a word coined by Satoshi) and electricity is in focus.
- iainmerrick 9y ago
  I'm probably just nitpicking over words then. If it's not PoW don't call it PoW. Somebody mentioned the use of SHA as a specific problem, as if a different hash function could be better. My point is just that any work function at all would be just as bad. PoS sounds worth investigating.
TYPE_FASTER 9y ago
> Maybe I'm over-interpreting "work", in the physics sense, but won't any proof-of-work scheme have the same problem? To get more coins, miners need to do more work, and that takes more energy. Only if we assume mining, in it's current BTC implementation, is the only acceptable PoW. I think there are other PoW alternatives that could be used. And they'll be identified and implemented soon, in the next couple years, as people realize we can swap out SHA hashing for an algorithm that does something productive, and use the output of that algorithm to be the proof of work. The amount of computing power in ASIC miners running today is quite large, and has grown quickly. If we think of those computing resources running something else, and verifying work across nodes, then this is quite possible.