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it is a waste. Bitcoin is an unqualified environmental catastrophe that is literally erasing any progress we've made to combat climate change. Burning away the

by rpearl 8y ago

it is a waste. Bitcoin is an unqualified environmental catastrophe that is literally erasing any progress we've made to combat climate change. Burning away the future, turning useful energy purely and directly into waste and profit by shouting numbers into the void, not even leaving any artifact of value in its wake. There's not anything wrong with having a central monetary authority. There's not anything wrong with having institutional trust.

Arbalest 8y ago
It could be argued that the trust could still be misplaced, but the idea that we can't trust governments for currency is barking up the wrong tree. The fundamental problems of inequality don't stem from Treasury, but rather from the game theory concept of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_ruin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_ruin making barriers to entry for new players always higher than the incumbents. You can take this all the way down to the bottom, in the example of having no car to be a delivery driver, and to get a loan for a car is a tremendous risk.
- hndamien 8y ago
  The same people arguing for trusting the Government for currency (the people that say "wasting electricity") are the same people that are also trusting the Government to solve the climate problem. They have obviously failed at the latter - no price on carbon, which ironically would resolve their complaint about the former since "wasting electricity" is code for "contributing to climate change" which is . not priced into the energy production economics the Bitcoin miners choose.
  - Arbalest 8y ago
    Sort of. It does create an opportunity cost, in diverting electricity away from other, arguably more useful causes. The whole matter there is complicated by economies of scale and baseload demand etc though. It could also be seen in terms of finiteness of the source of energy.
    - hndamien 8y ago
      The measure of usefulness is determined by how much money people are willing to allocate towards it. Given that the money is allocated there, it indicates that for those actors, they see some utility regardless of what other people think. Hence, the only way to modify the unwanted behaviour is to correctly account for those producing the externalities, such that this market signal reverberates all the way through the economic chain.
      - Arbalest 8y ago
        I agree with all of that except the definition of usefulness. As you eluded to with your use of regardless, rationality is not assured. It is expected (or more likely, hope) usefulness, aka speculation. Even funding the status quo is still speculation, because something could suddenly become not useful in the future. I suppose only time will tell what was actually useful, and I'm betting bitcoin is not among them. Maybe if proof of stake comes along, I'll consider that as more potentially useful.
        hndamien 8y ago
        Obviously capital allocation of individuals is not a perfect measure of utility, but it is the best/ fairest metric we have. Conveniently it provides a clear mechanism to sort out this mess. Price carbon pollution at the source and see the rest of the actors seeking profit fall in line. Miners will chose green energy, green energy will get more demand, their economies of scale will increase, pollution will decrease. Bitcoin energy use is no longer a problem and can provide whatever utility it is valued at without externalities.
        Arbalest 8y ago
        If you had a mechanism to price externalities, and it wasn't government, then sure ok. But while we have no effective externality accounting and enforcement, this notion of wastage still exists fairly. If we could price in externalities with a government, then perhaps they would be more worthy of trust for currency too? In terms of my original statement, I was effectively stating that the problem of decentralising currency doesn't really give back power to the people, because of the nature of wealth accumulation and propagation. Sure, it reduces the capacity for regulatory capture, but people with capital in whatever form still exercise a capacity to better maintain their capital base. With regards to waste again, it becomes a moral issue. If we know that our externalities will cause problems, then by letting people continue to capitalise on them, we knowingly undermine the wider system we operate in. We have ethics committees for science and medical experiments, but when it comes to finance, experimentation occurs unimpeded. This leads to socio-economic outcomes which, while not fully understood, are also not complete unknowns.

by rpearl 8y ago

Arbalest 8y ago

It could be argued that the trust could still be misplaced, but the idea that we can't trust governments for currency is barking up the wrong tree. The fundamental problems of inequality don't stem from Treasury, but rather from the game theory concept of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_ruin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_ruin making barriers to entry for new players always higher than the incumbents. You can take this all the way down to the bottom, in the example of having no car to be a delivery driver, and to get a loan for a car is a tremendous risk.

hndamien 8y ago
The same people arguing for trusting the Government for currency (the people that say "wasting electricity") are the same people that are also trusting the Government to solve the climate problem. They have obviously failed at the latter - no price on carbon, which ironically would resolve their complaint about the former since "wasting electricity" is code for "contributing to climate change" which is . not priced into the energy production economics the Bitcoin miners choose.
- Arbalest 8y ago
  Sort of. It does create an opportunity cost, in diverting electricity away from other, arguably more useful causes. The whole matter there is complicated by economies of scale and baseload demand etc though. It could also be seen in terms of finiteness of the source of energy.
  - hndamien 8y ago
    The measure of usefulness is determined by how much money people are willing to allocate towards it. Given that the money is allocated there, it indicates that for those actors, they see some utility regardless of what other people think. Hence, the only way to modify the unwanted behaviour is to correctly account for those producing the externalities, such that this market signal reverberates all the way through the economic chain.
    - Arbalest 8y ago
      I agree with all of that except the definition of usefulness. As you eluded to with your use of regardless, rationality is not assured. It is expected (or more likely, hope) usefulness, aka speculation. Even funding the status quo is still speculation, because something could suddenly become not useful in the future. I suppose only time will tell what was actually useful, and I'm betting bitcoin is not among them. Maybe if proof of stake comes along, I'll consider that as more potentially useful.
      - hndamien 8y ago
        Obviously capital allocation of individuals is not a perfect measure of utility, but it is the best/ fairest metric we have. Conveniently it provides a clear mechanism to sort out this mess. Price carbon pollution at the source and see the rest of the actors seeking profit fall in line. Miners will chose green energy, green energy will get more demand, their economies of scale will increase, pollution will decrease. Bitcoin energy use is no longer a problem and can provide whatever utility it is valued at without externalities.
        Arbalest 8y ago
        If you had a mechanism to price externalities, and it wasn't government, then sure ok. But while we have no effective externality accounting and enforcement, this notion of wastage still exists fairly. If we could price in externalities with a government, then perhaps they would be more worthy of trust for currency too? In terms of my original statement, I was effectively stating that the problem of decentralising currency doesn't really give back power to the people, because of the nature of wealth accumulation and propagation. Sure, it reduces the capacity for regulatory capture, but people with capital in whatever form still exercise a capacity to better maintain their capital base. With regards to waste again, it becomes a moral issue. If we know that our externalities will cause problems, then by letting people continue to capitalise on them, we knowingly undermine the wider system we operate in. We have ethics committees for science and medical experiments, but when it comes to finance, experimentation occurs unimpeded. This leads to socio-economic outcomes which, while not fully understood, are also not complete unknowns.