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If you're advocating that we innovate an alternative to bitcoin, which has the same decentralisation and censorship-resistance properties, but a greatly reduced

If you're advocating that we innovate an alternative to bitcoin, which has the same decentralisation and censorship-resistance properties, but a greatly reduced energy footprint (for the same level of security), then I agree and support that transition. If, instead, you're suggesting that some (global?) central planning committing should decide which technologies are allowed to exist, based on some subjective determination that a given technology uses "too much" energy compared to how "useful" it is, then I think such a system of control is likely to be abused. For comparison, 2nd generation cryptocurrencies (like Litecoin and Ethereum) are comparable in their energy usage (per unit of economic value created) to mining rare earth metals, and over 10 times more energy efficient than producing aluminium: https://s3.cointelegraph.com/storage/uploads/view/728accd6772be6566fab7621b469f2da.png https://s3.cointelegraph.com/storage/uploads/view/728accd677...

sparkie 8y ago
No better alternative is going to be found for Bitcoin. Bitcoin's security depends on it being super expensive to attempt to hack. Electricity is perhaps the most in-demand good (aside from food and water) over the globe. Those other systems like PoS do not have the same irreversible commitments as the commitment to exhaust energy. No matter what you do, you aren't going to get the energy back. Bitcoin miners will force innovation in cheap renewable energy sources because without them, they will be out-competed and will not stay in business for long, because someone else will make the investments. Bitcoin mining will eventually be run on low cost, low maintenance renewable sources. Some of it already is. Real business needs end up producing results. Virtue signalling middle classes who won't put their own money where their mouth is do not.
ForHackernews 8y ago
The Chinese government could effectively end bitcoin mining tomorrow if they decided to. Aluminium is useful. Rare earth metals are useful. Bitcoin (see top question) is not useful (citation: after 10 years, almost nobody is using it).
- dane-pgp 8y ago
  > The Chinese government could effectively end bitcoin mining tomorrow if they decided to. So you do want a central planning committee to control which technologies are allowed to exist in the world. ;-) You're right, though, the Chinese government could greatly reduce the global hashing rate of bitcoin, which would make blocks much harder to mine (temporarily), and slow transactions down. The network would continue operating though, and perhaps Iceland would become the predominant location for bitcoin miners: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/13/how-iceland-became-the-bitcoin-miners-paradise https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/13/how-iceland-be... With their clean energy supplies and greater internet freedom, that might not be such a bad outcome (except for China's economy, potentially). > Bitcoin (see top question) is not useful (citation: after 10 years, almost nobody is using it). The top comment I see in this discussion is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19146037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19146037 and it contains multiple examples of use cases. Maybe "almost nobody" cares about WikiLeaks, or weed, or porn, or Venezuelans, or privacy, or having an alternative to PayPal, but "almost nobody" needs a cure for a rare illness, that doesn't make it useless. Similarly, nobody actually needs Facebook (or Hacker News, for that matter), which also uses a lot of electricity, so if we're going to start banning technologies for being not useful and using energy, then why don't we start there?
  - ForHackernews 8y ago
    Are you kidding me, or just kidding yourself here? Orders of magnitude more people care about weed and porn than care about bitcoin. Your comparisons are all ridiculous. Bitcoin is like curing a rare illness? This is why nobody takes breathless crypto-boosters seriously. Bitcoin is MLM for tech boys.
    - dane-pgp 8y ago
      You seem to be arguing against positions I'm not taking, so perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I don't dispute that orders of magnitude more people care about weed and porn than care about bitcoin, but the reason I mention weed and porn is the same reason "lawn" did in the comment I linked: There are people who wish to buy or sell these legal (in some jurisdictions) products but who are limited in their practical ability to do so due to a lack of financial freedom. For such people, crypto-currencies are a possible solution. https://news.bitcoin.com/indospace-io-cannabis-merchants-accept-bitcoin/ https://news.bitcoin.com/indospace-io-cannabis-merchants-acc... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbqwwj/patreon-suspension-of-adult-content-creators https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbqwwj/patreon-su... https://bitcoinist.com/librepatron-btcpay-patreon-bitcoin/ https://bitcoinist.com/librepatron-btcpay-patreon-bitcoin/ The fact that bitcoin is used in these situations (even if for a minority of purchases) shows that it is a useful technology (assuming you think that these products aren't inherently illegitimate, even where legal). Similarly, I accept that bitcoin is completely different from curing a rare illness, in terms of the effect it has on its beneficiaries, but that was not the comparison I was trying to make. I was trying to point out that just because only a minority of the population benefit from a technology (whether a medical technology, or a financial technology), that doesn't make the technology useless. To pick, perhaps, a better example, suppose there were a new financial technology that helped only the poorest people (and I'm not claiming that bitcoin is such a technology). A wealthy critic of the technology might claim "almost nobody is using it", and they might be correct, but they would be missing the significance of the technology. Full disclosure: I have never bought any crypto-currency, and have no intention of buying any in the next 24 hours. :-)

sparkie 8y ago

No better alternative is going to be found for Bitcoin. Bitcoin's security depends on it being super expensive to attempt to hack. Electricity is perhaps the most in-demand good (aside from food and water) over the globe. Those other systems like PoS do not have the same irreversible commitments as the commitment to exhaust energy. No matter what you do, you aren't going to get the energy back. Bitcoin miners will force innovation in cheap renewable energy sources because without them, they will be out-competed and will not stay in business for long, because someone else will make the investments. Bitcoin mining will eventually be run on low cost, low maintenance renewable sources. Some of it already is. Real business needs end up producing results. Virtue signalling middle classes who won't put their own money where their mouth is do not.

ForHackernews 8y ago

The Chinese government could effectively end bitcoin mining tomorrow if they decided to. Aluminium is useful. Rare earth metals are useful. Bitcoin (see top question) is not useful (citation: after 10 years, almost nobody is using it).

dane-pgp 8y ago
> The Chinese government could effectively end bitcoin mining tomorrow if they decided to. So you do want a central planning committee to control which technologies are allowed to exist in the world. ;-) You're right, though, the Chinese government could greatly reduce the global hashing rate of bitcoin, which would make blocks much harder to mine (temporarily), and slow transactions down. The network would continue operating though, and perhaps Iceland would become the predominant location for bitcoin miners: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/13/how-iceland-became-the-bitcoin-miners-paradise https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/13/how-iceland-be... With their clean energy supplies and greater internet freedom, that might not be such a bad outcome (except for China's economy, potentially). > Bitcoin (see top question) is not useful (citation: after 10 years, almost nobody is using it). The top comment I see in this discussion is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19146037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19146037 and it contains multiple examples of use cases. Maybe "almost nobody" cares about WikiLeaks, or weed, or porn, or Venezuelans, or privacy, or having an alternative to PayPal, but "almost nobody" needs a cure for a rare illness, that doesn't make it useless. Similarly, nobody actually needs Facebook (or Hacker News, for that matter), which also uses a lot of electricity, so if we're going to start banning technologies for being not useful and using energy, then why don't we start there?
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  Are you kidding me, or just kidding yourself here? Orders of magnitude more people care about weed and porn than care about bitcoin. Your comparisons are all ridiculous. Bitcoin is like curing a rare illness? This is why nobody takes breathless crypto-boosters seriously. Bitcoin is MLM for tech boys.
  - dane-pgp 8y ago
    You seem to be arguing against positions I'm not taking, so perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I don't dispute that orders of magnitude more people care about weed and porn than care about bitcoin, but the reason I mention weed and porn is the same reason "lawn" did in the comment I linked: There are people who wish to buy or sell these legal (in some jurisdictions) products but who are limited in their practical ability to do so due to a lack of financial freedom. For such people, crypto-currencies are a possible solution. https://news.bitcoin.com/indospace-io-cannabis-merchants-accept-bitcoin/ https://news.bitcoin.com/indospace-io-cannabis-merchants-acc... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbqwwj/patreon-suspension-of-adult-content-creators https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbqwwj/patreon-su... https://bitcoinist.com/librepatron-btcpay-patreon-bitcoin/ https://bitcoinist.com/librepatron-btcpay-patreon-bitcoin/ The fact that bitcoin is used in these situations (even if for a minority of purchases) shows that it is a useful technology (assuming you think that these products aren't inherently illegitimate, even where legal). Similarly, I accept that bitcoin is completely different from curing a rare illness, in terms of the effect it has on its beneficiaries, but that was not the comparison I was trying to make. I was trying to point out that just because only a minority of the population benefit from a technology (whether a medical technology, or a financial technology), that doesn't make the technology useless. To pick, perhaps, a better example, suppose there were a new financial technology that helped only the poorest people (and I'm not claiming that bitcoin is such a technology). A wealthy critic of the technology might claim "almost nobody is using it", and they might be correct, but they would be missing the significance of the technology. Full disclosure: I have never bought any crypto-currency, and have no intention of buying any in the next 24 hours. :-)