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As long as it's green power, who cares how much gets used? If we could put miniature 1 GW power plants in every home that were 100% renewable and didn't pollut
by jude- 6y ago
As long as it's green power, who cares how much gets used?
If we could put miniature 1 GW power plants in every home that were 100% renewable and didn't pollute, we would.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoBecause resources are limited and BTC adds little to support or advance the human experience or preserve any life really. Quite the opposite as people in Iran suffer blackouts.
- NeutronStar 6y agoSo it's bitcoins fault Iran has blackouts now?
- jude- 6y agoBTC has nothing to do with the incompetence of Iran's government.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoBTC amplifies the dysfunction in the iranian government through its energy hungry incentives. I'd say that's more than nothing, regardless of intent.
- jude- 6y agoGovernment competence means hiring officials that do not allow the misappropriation of the people's resources, no matter the upside. It also means structuring the incentives for being official such that doing the right thing is incentive-compatible (i.e. if you steal power, you have to pay it back, go to jail for a while, and get banned from future government work). If the Iranian government was competent, it wouldn't matter whether or not BTC exists or how valuable it was -- it wouldn't be trying to mine it in the first place. Governments shouldn't be so fragile that the mere existence of Bitcoin poses such an existential risk to the wellbeing of the people.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoHyping BTC certainly isn't helping the iranian people solve their government problems. Rather I'd say it's doing the opposite. Anyway, BTC is a bad fit for a modern world in which non-crypto energy needs already outstrip renewable supplies. Maybe we can talk once just feeding and housing the poor and hungry is solved sustainably.
- jude- 6y agoI'm not hyping BTC, btw. I'm correcting misconceptions about it, so we can fix the very real problems with PoW causing pollution. I personally have zero exposure to BTC. Regardless of how we both feel about BTC, it's here to stay, so we might as well figure out a way for it to continue to exist without actively harming people.
- jude- 6y agoWhy the downvotes? If one day we have miniaturized cold fusion reactors that could sustainably give your house 1 GW/hour of clean power over its lifetime, you would you turn them down?