7 ms·

> interrogating whether the benefits outweigh the costs What does this mean, in practice? Who investigates and what is the outcome? Do the things OP listed ab

> interrogating whether the benefits outweigh the costs What does this mean, in practice? Who investigates and what is the outcome? Do the things OP listed above warrant a similar investigation?

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> Who investigates and what is the outcome? The public? Something that benefits a few at the expense of the many is the canonical case for regulation. (I don’t think we should ban or even really regulate Bitcoin. Not at this point.)
- sombremesa 6y ago
  > at the expense of the many I think you've misunderstood something. Those people are buying their own electricity...at their own expense. So, you want to bring arbitrary restrictions to electricity - as if we didn't have enough issues with net neutrality already.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    The market could solve this problem properly if there were a global carbon tax, but unfortunately, there isn't.
    - devlopr 6y ago
      Assuming bitcoin is using carbon poluting sources. Some of the bigger miners in China use hydro/dam energy. The miners in Iceland are using geothermal.
  - beckingz 6y ago
    Except that most of the energy is subsidized by China or other countries.
  - jevgeni 6y ago
    Ah, so they are paying for the adverse effect on the climate. That's alright then. /s
    - sombremesa 6y ago
      We have solar power, hydroelectricity, nuclear power, wind turbines...if the mere fact of electricity existing has an adverse effect on the climate, I can tell you one thing: It's not bitcoin's fault.
      - jevgeni 6y ago
        Cool. 63% if electricity still comes from fossil fuels: https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix So, ca. 76 of those TWh/year are still carbon heavy.
  - dumbfounder 6y ago
    from @umanwizard: >The market could solve this problem properly if there were a global carbon tax, but unfortunately, there isn't. "Solve it"? How so? Crypto mining is largely powered by renewables (40% according to one source in Sep 2020). It is a race to find the most energy efficient way create power to make it worthwhile to mine, which has some positive effect on society by driving innovation. No idea if that is a net positive, but this is not black and white issue at all the way many here are framing it.
    - acdha 6y ago
      > Crypto mining is largely powered by renewables (40% according to one source in Sep 2020). That’s one source and less than half does not mean “largely” in standard English usage. More importantly, almost nobody uses Bitcoin so a key question would be how that’d change if usage could be scaled up to, say, even 0.1% of daily transactions.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      For bitcoin to use an equivalent amount of carbon as visa per transaction, it'd need to be 99.9999% powered by renewables and visa would need to be 100% powered by fossil fuels.
Grustaf 6y ago
I don't think it matters who you ask to investigate it, everyone except bitcoin users themselves will realise that it's an absurd waste of electricity, for very little added value.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- thebean11 6y ago
  So things that the majority don't like / understand should be illegal because they use resources? You can't see the issue with that? And that still doesn't really answer whose job it is to ban all these things, and what mechanism would be used to enforce it.
  - jevgeni 6y ago
    You conveniently omit the social cost. Enforcing could be done via banning any payment with bitcoin.
    - devlopr 6y ago
      Well not really. Most people buy coins because they believe the price will climb and never use them for buying. For the retailers who accept bitcoin many are in smaller countries where the law wouldn't apply and many semi-legimate uses (ordering weed by mail) would continue to accept payment this way because their activity is more illegal (carrys a bigger punishment) than the new bitcoin law would.
      - jevgeni 6y ago
        What is the point of BTC price climbing if you wouldn't be able to convert it to cash or pay for goods?
  - jeromegv 6y ago
    It is good practice to question if a technology is worth the social cost of wasting so much electricity. This is literally how Bitcoin is built, as it keeps growing, it keeps consuming an insane amount of electricity, for a very little amount of transactions per day. This is call ethics, doesn't mean it should be illegal, but there is value in questioning it and investigate if perhaps there are better solutions than wasting energy.
RobinL 6y ago
Yes - nowadays I think pretty much everything that uses a lot of energy comes under scrutiny, and, in particular people look to see if the same outcome can't be achieved with less energy

> interrogating whether the benefits outweigh the costs What does this mean, in practice? Who investigates and what is the outcome? Do the things OP listed above warrant a similar investigation?

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> Who investigates and what is the outcome? The public? Something that benefits a few at the expense of the many is the canonical case for regulation. (I don’t think we should ban or even really regulate Bitcoin. Not at this point.)

sombremesa 6y ago
> at the expense of the many I think you've misunderstood something. Those people are buying their own electricity...at their own expense. So, you want to bring arbitrary restrictions to electricity - as if we didn't have enough issues with net neutrality already.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  The market could solve this problem properly if there were a global carbon tax, but unfortunately, there isn't.
  - devlopr 6y ago
    Assuming bitcoin is using carbon poluting sources. Some of the bigger miners in China use hydro/dam energy. The miners in Iceland are using geothermal.
- beckingz 6y ago
  Except that most of the energy is subsidized by China or other countries.
- jevgeni 6y ago
  Ah, so they are paying for the adverse effect on the climate. That's alright then. /s
  - sombremesa 6y ago
    We have solar power, hydroelectricity, nuclear power, wind turbines...if the mere fact of electricity existing has an adverse effect on the climate, I can tell you one thing: It's not bitcoin's fault.
    - jevgeni 6y ago
      Cool. 63% if electricity still comes from fossil fuels: https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix So, ca. 76 of those TWh/year are still carbon heavy.
- dumbfounder 6y ago
  from @umanwizard: >The market could solve this problem properly if there were a global carbon tax, but unfortunately, there isn't. "Solve it"? How so? Crypto mining is largely powered by renewables (40% according to one source in Sep 2020). It is a race to find the most energy efficient way create power to make it worthwhile to mine, which has some positive effect on society by driving innovation. No idea if that is a net positive, but this is not black and white issue at all the way many here are framing it.
  - acdha 6y ago
    > Crypto mining is largely powered by renewables (40% according to one source in Sep 2020). That’s one source and less than half does not mean “largely” in standard English usage. More importantly, almost nobody uses Bitcoin so a key question would be how that’d change if usage could be scaled up to, say, even 0.1% of daily transactions.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    For bitcoin to use an equivalent amount of carbon as visa per transaction, it'd need to be 99.9999% powered by renewables and visa would need to be 100% powered by fossil fuels.

Grustaf 6y ago

I don't think it matters who you ask to investigate it, everyone except bitcoin users themselves will realise that it's an absurd waste of electricity, for very little added value.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
thebean11 6y ago
So things that the majority don't like / understand should be illegal because they use resources? You can't see the issue with that? And that still doesn't really answer whose job it is to ban all these things, and what mechanism would be used to enforce it.
- jevgeni 6y ago
  You conveniently omit the social cost. Enforcing could be done via banning any payment with bitcoin.
  - devlopr 6y ago
    Well not really. Most people buy coins because they believe the price will climb and never use them for buying. For the retailers who accept bitcoin many are in smaller countries where the law wouldn't apply and many semi-legimate uses (ordering weed by mail) would continue to accept payment this way because their activity is more illegal (carrys a bigger punishment) than the new bitcoin law would.
    - jevgeni 6y ago
      What is the point of BTC price climbing if you wouldn't be able to convert it to cash or pay for goods?
- jeromegv 6y ago
  It is good practice to question if a technology is worth the social cost of wasting so much electricity. This is literally how Bitcoin is built, as it keeps growing, it keeps consuming an insane amount of electricity, for a very little amount of transactions per day. This is call ethics, doesn't mean it should be illegal, but there is value in questioning it and investigate if perhaps there are better solutions than wasting energy.

RobinL 6y ago

Yes - nowadays I think pretty much everything that uses a lot of energy comes under scrutiny, and, in particular people look to see if the same outcome can't be achieved with less energy