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I'm afraid that the moment you chose to use the word "wasteful" it became a philosophical discussion and they don't typically have final words at all. The stri
by krick 7y ago
I'm afraid that the moment you chose to use the word "wasteful" it became a philosophical discussion and they don't typically have final words at all.
The stripped down reason you see it as wasteful is that you have some set of beliefs about what is "right" and "meaningful" (many of which, I'll take liberty to say, most likely likely NOT consciously thought out) and since the core technical principle behind Bitcoin is simple enough, it's easy for you to see it does something that seemingly does not contribute to the fulfillment of what you consider "meaningful" (i.e. performing tons of computation that essentially compute nothing "meaningful").
Technical principles behind markets, industries or your own existence are not simple enough, so you cannot see through them and decide at a glance that they are "wasteful". And since you generally avoid falling into philosophical discussions (rightfully so), this is good enough for you. This doesn't mean that they achieve something that will turn out "obviously meaningful" to you (I'm cynical enough to assume they actually not), it's all just too complicated to tell at a glance.
If this is all too abstract, I'm saying that Bitcoin is actually doing something, and this something is much more complicated than the technical principle you can easily see behind it. You should take this into consideration when thinking about what this giant CO₂ emitting machine actually is. It is not a machine for computing hashes, as it might seem from a purely technical perspective.
- wmf 7y agoOr you could say Bitcoin is wasteful because PoS accomplishes the same thing with 99.99% less energy.
- cwkoss 7y agoPoS opens up new threat models concerning the tyranny of the majority. PoW utilizes the honest indicator of un-forgeable expense to mitigate this class of risks.
- spookthesunset 7y agoA class of risks that the normal financial system doesn’t have. My bank doesn’t expose me to “double spend” attacks.
- aey 7y agoAt the cost of 2 trillion a year. Or 1 trillion if if you only count service fees and not liquidity. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/financial%20services/our%20insights/tracking%20the%20sources%20of%20robust%20payments%20growth%20mckinsey%20global%20payments%20map/mck-2019-global-payments-report.ashx https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/financi...
- spookthesunset 7y agoCare to actually quote where the banks are spending $2 trillion a year to stop double spends?
- aey 7y agoThe world is. There is no engineering reason why it’s so expensive to move numbers around in a bank. In comparison the search engine market is 170 billion. If a google sized company or decentralized network could reduce the 2 trillion global spend on payments to 170b, that would be fantastic regardless of how much it spends on preventing double spends.
- spookthesunset 7y agoDude. That $2 trillion is all of finance. Finance is a hell of a lot more than preventing double spends (which don’t exist outside of bitcoin). On a per transaction and even global domestic product basis, the cost of our financial system is tiny. By comparison the cost of bitcoins financial system by any metric is astronomical.
- aey 7y agoRead the report, it's 2 trillion of revenue for payments only, not all of finance. That report doesn't cover trading, derivatives, mortgages, etc... 1 trillion of payments revenue comes from credit lines, about 1 trillion is fees moving money around. Bitcoin is just one settlement layer. There is no reason for my day to day transactions to settle there. My day to day payments can be settlement on a chain with much higher throughput and faster finality and different security assumptions. There is also no reason why I can't lend my funds to 100m user credit cards directly without a middleman through software either. So whats the cost comparison of moving $100,000 out of China into the the US via bitcoin vs the traditional banking system?
- krick 7y agoOh, does it? Does it accomplish all the speculation, all the drama going on? All the drug deals made with Bitcoin, all the kids that became rich out of nothing because they played with some obscure technology 10 years ago? I'm pretty sure you don't know everything Bitcoin accomplished (or maybe still does). Neither do I, nor anyone. To be clear: if you ask my opinion on technical side of Bitcoin, I wouldn't be really praising it. But, as I said already, Bitcoin is not a technical thing. It is a very complicated sociocultural phenomena that definitely did achieve something. And you need to consider everything X is, to apply words such as "wasteful" to X. Again, if this seems too abstract: if you are living in the USA, you are consuming twice more energy (per capita) than Japanese people, having lower life expectancy (both are far from the ends of the spectrum, BTW). So, the existence of USA citizens is wasteful. Now, doesn't stripping down all the nuance of living different lives in different countries seem a bit outrageous to you? It surely does seem so to me.
- spookthesunset 7y agoBitcoin is absolutely wasteful to the vast majority of the population on earth. It provides no benefit to them, and makes their energy bill (and video card bill) go up.
- aeternum 7y agoThe increased electricity demand may drive research funding resulting in more efficient energy production.
- spookthesunset 7y agoLOL. Sure, but that is only being done because bitcoin gobbled up all the electricity that could have been used doing useful things like running data centers, smelting aluminum, air conditioning homes, etc. Bitcoin is a drain on the electrical system. You are basically arguing that it is okay to litter because it will create jobs and spawn new anti-litter technology. Doesn’t work that way, sorry.
- jron 7y agoI'll shutdown my bitcoin mining operation if you shutdown your AC. I find 21c living to be incredibly wasteful and a luxury only offered to those blessed to be born in the first world. This type of argument goes nowhere fast.
- labster 7y agoOf course I can see. People’s sense of entitlement means we are all doomed. Mass extinction is always someone else’s fault, not my problem.
- billions 7y agoPlease turn off your computer. You're wasting watts shaming first world folk. Go convince the 3rd world to stop burning trash and making babies. Oh, right - they'll stop by themselves when they reach your level of wealth.