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I wonder how these Bitcoin devs rationalize the environmental impact their ongoing work has. They've created something that started as a revolutionary innovatio
by isoprophlex 6y ago
I wonder how these Bitcoin devs rationalize the environmental impact their ongoing work has. They've created something that started as a revolutionary innovation, but by now is an incredibly wasteful way of turning kWhs into money.
Something that has outlived its fitness as a payment system, but still trundles on due to its own inertia. Like oil execs that refuse to acknowledge that the age of oil is coming to a close, and are now pushing shale oil extraction. A suboptimal waste of effort.
- crumbshot 6y agoProbably the same way most people rationalize consuming the flesh of slaughtered animals, despite the massive negative environmental impact that has, and the better alternatives that are available.
- pawelmurias 6y agoFlesh of slaughtered animals is super tasty and nutritious.
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- garbagetime 6y agoThat seems like a somewhat random point to make. Sure, there are positive characteristics of meat - just like there are of bitcoin. That's part of why the comparison between the two works.
- randomguy3344 6y agoIn terms of conversation you got a point yourself, however you cannot compare food with currency. Food is connected to us on a biological level, currency is a construct of society. They are not compareable imo.
- garbagetime 6y agoI'm not seeing what is about food being "connected to us on a biological level" that makes the comparison fail. Not all aspects of two things have to be similar in order for a comparison to succeed (such a comparison is of course actually impossible).
- crumbshot 6y agoYou provide a good example of this sort of rationalisation: the benefit to the individual is highlighted, the collective harm is ignored.
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- crygin 6y agoThis is a simple untruth. Vegetarianism is possible in specific ecological conditions (e.g. the Ganges Delta) and in those conditions it wins, economically, because as you note it is notionally ideal. In a non-tropic or desert environment, vegetarianism is a wasteful use of resources that typically involves transport of goods from remote locations in the service of performative consumption.
- Quanttek 6y agoVegetarianism outside such regions might be more wasteful, but it is still mich less wasteful and has a much smaller environmental impact than an omnivore diet
- leadingthenet 6y agoCitation needed. It’s not entirely clear to me how that could possibly be the case, when pasture raised animals often graze land that is completely unsuitable for agriculture. They also eat tons of byproducts of agriculture that are not suitable for human consumption. This thing about how vegetarianism is sooooo much better for the environment is such a meme. Especially when you take into account what a tragedy modern industrial agriculture really is, with its monocrops, deforestation, and so on.
- crumbshot 6y agoThis is a decent, well-cited article on the subject: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local It summarises the differences in global greenhouse emissions between various types of food, and the contributions of the different sources of these emissions - farming, transport, land use change, and so on.
- leadingthenet 6y agoEven without going into the details, I can already see a major mistake that is made here. They cite emissions per kilogram, but that’s completely nonsensical. A kilo of meat does not equal a kilo of spinach in terms of calories or macro-/micro-nutrients. This is a mistake that I see very often when these kinds of comparisons are made.
- nolim1t 6y agoProbably still less wasteful than the system it is replacing. Tanks / Fighter jets / drones take more resources.
- spacerocking 6y agoWasteful compared to which other network that manages money and protects property rights? Most popular place to mine bitcoin is the north-west of China where there are unused hydroplants
- gotstad 6y agoI don’t fully understand your argument. Are you saying that a full crypto inplementation would entirely rid the World of the need for military, police, lawyers etc. or what?
- spacerocking 6y agoNo but it removes the need to delegate trust to managing the ledger to a bank. A bank which is required to be highly regulated, audited and with great physical security to earn that trust
- throw2737 6y agoNo rationalization needed. It is all bs. "Greenest" car is Tesla that burns 15 kg of coal per 100km. Crypto dev since 2014.