4 ms·

I can see your argument up to this point: > If there is a worldwide effort to shut down PoW cryptocurrencies, they will become useless and the deep state won't

I can see your argument up to this point: > If there is a worldwide effort to shut down PoW cryptocurrencies, they will become useless and the deep state won't be able to achieve anything with them that it couldn't do more easily by other means. The whole discussion is about whether PoS is equivalent to PoW in terms of environmental harm, and I'm arguing that PoW is more costly. I don't understand what your general point is. Do you think PoW is more harmful than PoS or not? The parent was saying that it's an externalization problem. I don't think it's realistic to think that the damage to the environment could be charged back to the miner in every case, therefore PoW would always be more dirty than PoS. Could you clarify what your main point is in light of this?

keymone 8y ago
> The whole discussion is about whether PoS is equivalent to PoW in terms of environmental harm it's wrong question anyway because it implies PoW necessarily causes environmental harm. PoW is consumption of energy, just like vast majority of other human activities. consumption of energy is not what harms the environment, at least not as directly as production of energy. the two are only closely related because of unwillingness of political elites to punish harmful producers, because those producers are the political elites or are closely related to them.
- EGreg 8y ago
  This is not strictly true. That’s like saying that in the US where factory farms are the norm, a new game causing people to buy as much veal as they can and throw it in the garbage has absolutely no responsibility for how many calves are raised in terrible conditions, because they COULD have been raised in good conditions, regardless of how many there are. The fact is that human production capacity for energy is finite. The more pressure you put on this production capacity, the more it will cause companies to pop up and produce more energy. AS LONG AS the proportion of FOSSIL FUEL sources among these new companies will be high, you are indirectly contributing, via induced demand, towards more CO2 pollution. Yes if the world had moved to 99% sustainable energy then Bitcoin and Ethereum would not be contributing to the CO2 pollution problem in a meaningful way. But the current disitribution of energy production is relevant in assigning responsibility. Just as if we all moved to fake lab grown veal, then maybe the game of throwing veal in the trash would not be harming animals in any meaningful way.
  - keymone 8y ago
    Nothing is strictly true except truisms, but I still disagree. Unless bitcoin consensus rules necessitated energy source that is harmful for environment, it is not fair to blame energy consumer for environment impact. Energy producer is the villain and spineless politicians that won’t enforce punishment for harmful energy sources.
    - EGreg 8y ago
      I disagree, just as in the food example. Consumers are also to blame. If you know that your induced demand will be filled in the same way that current demand is being filled, then creating more demand is irresponsible, if it can be avoided. What benefit does wasting so much energy have? At least Siberian homes using mining to heat their house in the winter have a good side effect.
      - keymone 8y ago
        > If you know that your induced demand will be filled in the same way that current demand is being filled, then creating more demand is irresponsible, if it can be avoided. What benefit does wasting so much energy have? I think you misunderstand PoW. Energy is not wasted, energy is spent to provide the security level that is demanded by the market. Nobody will spend a joule mining bitcoin unless it is profitable. > At least Siberian homes using mining to heat their house in the winter have a good side effect This is actually a bad thing, because it means mining is inefficient. Primary purpose of mining is to convert energy into PoW, if you get heat doing that - you’re not getting as much PoW as you could’ve got.
        EGreg 8y ago
        You always create heat. That’s where the energy goes. Google “reversible computing” for theoretical approaches for computations that release zero heat. Look, I can come up with a terrible sorting algorithm and get everyone using it as a requirement to participate a network protocol that will never change and then say look, it’s useful, it’s sorting stuff. People have long invented far better things than PoW to secure distributed BFT systems. The transcations they can handle even scale with the number of machines, which is the case with the vast majority of applications on the Internet. If there was no alternative then MAYBE it wouldn’t be a waste (I think it would still be a bad trade-off). But you can literally just have a coin on another protocol which doesn’t use PoW arms race.
cabalamat 8y ago
> Do you think PoW is more harmful than PoS or not? I've no idea. My point was that if enough big states decided that PoW cryptocurrencies were undesirable, they would not find it enormously difficult to prevent much electricity being used on PoW mining, worldwide.

keymone 8y ago

> The whole discussion is about whether PoS is equivalent to PoW in terms of environmental harm it's wrong question anyway because it implies PoW necessarily causes environmental harm. PoW is consumption of energy, just like vast majority of other human activities. consumption of energy is not what harms the environment, at least not as directly as production of energy. the two are only closely related because of unwillingness of political elites to punish harmful producers, because those producers are the political elites or are closely related to them.

EGreg 8y ago
This is not strictly true. That’s like saying that in the US where factory farms are the norm, a new game causing people to buy as much veal as they can and throw it in the garbage has absolutely no responsibility for how many calves are raised in terrible conditions, because they COULD have been raised in good conditions, regardless of how many there are. The fact is that human production capacity for energy is finite. The more pressure you put on this production capacity, the more it will cause companies to pop up and produce more energy. AS LONG AS the proportion of FOSSIL FUEL sources among these new companies will be high, you are indirectly contributing, via induced demand, towards more CO2 pollution. Yes if the world had moved to 99% sustainable energy then Bitcoin and Ethereum would not be contributing to the CO2 pollution problem in a meaningful way. But the current disitribution of energy production is relevant in assigning responsibility. Just as if we all moved to fake lab grown veal, then maybe the game of throwing veal in the trash would not be harming animals in any meaningful way.
- keymone 8y ago
  Nothing is strictly true except truisms, but I still disagree. Unless bitcoin consensus rules necessitated energy source that is harmful for environment, it is not fair to blame energy consumer for environment impact. Energy producer is the villain and spineless politicians that won’t enforce punishment for harmful energy sources.
  - EGreg 8y ago
    I disagree, just as in the food example. Consumers are also to blame. If you know that your induced demand will be filled in the same way that current demand is being filled, then creating more demand is irresponsible, if it can be avoided. What benefit does wasting so much energy have? At least Siberian homes using mining to heat their house in the winter have a good side effect.
    - keymone 8y ago
      > If you know that your induced demand will be filled in the same way that current demand is being filled, then creating more demand is irresponsible, if it can be avoided. What benefit does wasting so much energy have? I think you misunderstand PoW. Energy is not wasted, energy is spent to provide the security level that is demanded by the market. Nobody will spend a joule mining bitcoin unless it is profitable. > At least Siberian homes using mining to heat their house in the winter have a good side effect This is actually a bad thing, because it means mining is inefficient. Primary purpose of mining is to convert energy into PoW, if you get heat doing that - you’re not getting as much PoW as you could’ve got.
      - EGreg 8y ago
        You always create heat. That’s where the energy goes. Google “reversible computing” for theoretical approaches for computations that release zero heat. Look, I can come up with a terrible sorting algorithm and get everyone using it as a requirement to participate a network protocol that will never change and then say look, it’s useful, it’s sorting stuff. People have long invented far better things than PoW to secure distributed BFT systems. The transcations they can handle even scale with the number of machines, which is the case with the vast majority of applications on the Internet. If there was no alternative then MAYBE it wouldn’t be a waste (I think it would still be a bad trade-off). But you can literally just have a coin on another protocol which doesn’t use PoW arms race.

cabalamat 8y ago

> Do you think PoW is more harmful than PoS or not? I've no idea. My point was that if enough big states decided that PoW cryptocurrencies were undesirable, they would not find it enormously difficult to prevent much electricity being used on PoW mining, worldwide.