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Again, reading the original comment, you can apply your very same line of reasoning to " Playing video games?" or the rest of the examples. Should all the peopl

Again, reading the original comment, you can apply your very same line of reasoning to " Playing video games?" or the rest of the examples. Should all the people who don't play videogames also get together and ban gaming because they themselves don't benefit from it and it consumes "too much"?

Grustaf 6y ago
I think video games are a silly waste of time but I don't necessarily want to outlaw it. If playing one round of Mario Kart consumed several megawatt hours of energy though, I don't think anyone would want it to be allowed.
newswasboring 6y ago
Why do you stop taking into account scale? Gaming as a whole does provides entertainment to a large number of people and thus consumes large amount of energy. While bitcoin is providing benefits (real or imagined) to a very small fraction of people and consuming more electricity than a _whole country_. If red dead redemption was played by 10 people but consumed electricity equivalent to 100 people's daily life then we would be talking about regulation there too. BTW, afaik bitcoin has 5million users and Argentina's population is 44 million. Also, this energy consumption by 44million people includes all the activities you can think of to add to this argument.
- ctdonath 6y ago
  Scale does not inherently excuse. Energy for gaming could be routed to feeding/warming the poor; should 100 die of starvation/hypothermia so that 1,000,000 can play Fortnite? do you really want to continue such reasoning?
  - newswasboring 6y ago
    Yes I do. This is why my country had a space program before we solved all our social issues. You need to look at how much good an activity actually does vs how much resources it will consume. Entertainment is a good thing so is space exploration. But ISRO did not consume more resources than all other social improvement plans combined. Bitcoin is consuming more energy than the daily lives of a whole country. _Combined_
    - ha4fsd3fas 6y ago
      Gaming is also consuming more energy than the daily lives of a whole country __Combined__. Entertainment is a good thing, but watching a movie consumes a lot less resources than playing games so why are games acceptable? What about VR? VR uses a lot of GPU computations for something a small fraction of people use. Surely people playing VR could use some other form of entertainment that is less resource consuming. Or then we let people use their own resources the way they see fit.
      - Grustaf 6y ago
        Gaming uses vastly less energy per person.
      - newswasboring 6y ago
        I would like to redirect you to @africanboy's analysis[1] of how much energy gaming uses. He did it well. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26091220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26091220
  - africanboy 6y ago
    in your example 100 bitcoin users would let a million of people die of starvation/hypothermia so that they can play blockchain. scale in general does not excuse, but consumption per capita should. A Ps4 consume around 100 watt/hour If you keep it on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is 876 KW/year. Which is not very much. At 120Tw/year with 5 million users BC consumption per capita is an astonishing 24,000kw/year (or 24Mw) Every bitcoin user consumes 27 times the energy consumed by a (quite powerful) gaming console turned on non stop (which is never the case) That's why there have been campaigns around the World to replace incandescent bulbs with the energy efficient ones. Compared to the traditional ones the new light bulbs can save up to the 80% of the energy, compared to a bitcoiner, a non bitcoiner can save ~97% of the energy by simply playing videogames.
    - thebean11 6y ago
      > A Ps4 consume around 100 watt/hour You need to take in the manufacturing costs, costs to develop software, costs to run servers too, otherwise you're only measuring marginal energy consumption for a new user. Marginal energy consumption for a new Bitcoin user is probably small too.
      - africanboy 6y ago
        The website linked is actually measuring the amount of energy that BC is using right now to operate. It's not the total amount of energy used to create the BC network, the software, the HW and everything else. https://cbeci.org/ https://cbeci.org/ > The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) provides a real-time estimate of the total electricity load and consumption of the Bitcoin network. The model is based on a bottom-up approach initially developed by Marc Bevand in 2017 that takes different types of available mining hardware as the starting point. > The first number refers to the total electrical power consumed by the Bitcoin network and is expressed in gigawatts (GW). This figure is updated every 30 seconds and corresponds to the rate at which Bitcoin uses electricity. The second number refers to the total yearly electricity consumption of the Bitcoin network and is expressed in terawatt-hours (TWh). We annualise Bitcoin’s electricity consumption assuming continuous power usage at the aforementioned rate over the period of one year. We apply a 7-day moving average to the resulting data point in order to make the output value less dependent of short-term hashrate movements, and thus more suitable for comparisons with alternative uses of electricity.
boh 6y ago
No you really can't. Gaming employs large amounts of people, sustaining economic growth as well as innovation (GPU development was originally sustained by demand related to gaming) . Bitcoin has little economic impact relative to its energy use.
- ctdonath 6y ago
  The money spent by interested parties indicates otherwise.
  - boh 6y ago
    Feel free to present a case where the economic impact of gaming is less than Bitcoin (feel free to include every crypto-currency ever made in that comparison). Market caps in speculative, unregulated markets aren't indicators of economic relevance. Gaming facilitates billions in production on a yearly basis. Crypto related activity produces very little in comparison. And no, someone buying billions worth of Bitcoin doesn't count (just like people buying GameStop stock doesn't reflect the economic impact of the gaming industry).
    - janoside 6y ago
      Rather than a case, how about a framework to evaluate going forward: the market. Given enough time, I'm pretty sure the market will root out the "real value" of bitcoin and keep assessing the "real value" of gaming. Let's watch for 5-10 years. If you're right about bitcoin, I bet its price will be much lower and you can gloat. If you're wrong, I bet its price will be much higher (because I agree with the basic assessment that gaming "feels" much bigger today). Luckily, we can both place our bets based on our best assessments of the future. How confident are you that you can present a substantive case against bitcoin that matches the diligence that Ross Stevens has done for years? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lczPTYf_tvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lczPTYf_tvA
      - boh 6y ago
        Asset values don't reflect economic impact/relevance (as in a $100MM Picasso doesn't indicate $100MM of economic activity). That's why GDP is used as an indicator for economic growth, not market caps.
lowbloodsugar 6y ago
This is the slippery slope logical fallacy. We already do apply such laws. Car manufacturers are required to sell a certain number of EVs. Emissions must meet standards. Appliances have energy ratings. etc. etc. If Bitcoin were regulated so that those using the excess output of hydroelectric or other fixed output systems could do so for free, but everyone else was taxed appropriately, then that would actually probably do very little because that is largely the situation already: far from being an anonymous decentralized anarcho capitalist future, it is just large organized crime syndicates in China and Russia generating the transactions. And for all these reasons, the US should make it illegal.

Grustaf 6y ago

I think video games are a silly waste of time but I don't necessarily want to outlaw it. If playing one round of Mario Kart consumed several megawatt hours of energy though, I don't think anyone would want it to be allowed.

newswasboring 6y ago

Why do you stop taking into account scale? Gaming as a whole does provides entertainment to a large number of people and thus consumes large amount of energy. While bitcoin is providing benefits (real or imagined) to a very small fraction of people and consuming more electricity than a _whole country_. If red dead redemption was played by 10 people but consumed electricity equivalent to 100 people's daily life then we would be talking about regulation there too. BTW, afaik bitcoin has 5million users and Argentina's population is 44 million. Also, this energy consumption by 44million people includes all the activities you can think of to add to this argument.

ctdonath 6y ago
Scale does not inherently excuse. Energy for gaming could be routed to feeding/warming the poor; should 100 die of starvation/hypothermia so that 1,000,000 can play Fortnite? do you really want to continue such reasoning?
- newswasboring 6y ago
  Yes I do. This is why my country had a space program before we solved all our social issues. You need to look at how much good an activity actually does vs how much resources it will consume. Entertainment is a good thing so is space exploration. But ISRO did not consume more resources than all other social improvement plans combined. Bitcoin is consuming more energy than the daily lives of a whole country. _Combined_
  - ha4fsd3fas 6y ago
    Gaming is also consuming more energy than the daily lives of a whole country __Combined__. Entertainment is a good thing, but watching a movie consumes a lot less resources than playing games so why are games acceptable? What about VR? VR uses a lot of GPU computations for something a small fraction of people use. Surely people playing VR could use some other form of entertainment that is less resource consuming. Or then we let people use their own resources the way they see fit.
    - Grustaf 6y ago
      Gaming uses vastly less energy per person.
    - newswasboring 6y ago
      I would like to redirect you to @africanboy's analysis[1] of how much energy gaming uses. He did it well. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26091220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26091220
- africanboy 6y ago
  in your example 100 bitcoin users would let a million of people die of starvation/hypothermia so that they can play blockchain. scale in general does not excuse, but consumption per capita should. A Ps4 consume around 100 watt/hour If you keep it on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is 876 KW/year. Which is not very much. At 120Tw/year with 5 million users BC consumption per capita is an astonishing 24,000kw/year (or 24Mw) Every bitcoin user consumes 27 times the energy consumed by a (quite powerful) gaming console turned on non stop (which is never the case) That's why there have been campaigns around the World to replace incandescent bulbs with the energy efficient ones. Compared to the traditional ones the new light bulbs can save up to the 80% of the energy, compared to a bitcoiner, a non bitcoiner can save ~97% of the energy by simply playing videogames.
  - thebean11 6y ago
    > A Ps4 consume around 100 watt/hour You need to take in the manufacturing costs, costs to develop software, costs to run servers too, otherwise you're only measuring marginal energy consumption for a new user. Marginal energy consumption for a new Bitcoin user is probably small too.
    - africanboy 6y ago
      The website linked is actually measuring the amount of energy that BC is using right now to operate. It's not the total amount of energy used to create the BC network, the software, the HW and everything else. https://cbeci.org/ https://cbeci.org/ > The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) provides a real-time estimate of the total electricity load and consumption of the Bitcoin network. The model is based on a bottom-up approach initially developed by Marc Bevand in 2017 that takes different types of available mining hardware as the starting point. > The first number refers to the total electrical power consumed by the Bitcoin network and is expressed in gigawatts (GW). This figure is updated every 30 seconds and corresponds to the rate at which Bitcoin uses electricity. The second number refers to the total yearly electricity consumption of the Bitcoin network and is expressed in terawatt-hours (TWh). We annualise Bitcoin’s electricity consumption assuming continuous power usage at the aforementioned rate over the period of one year. We apply a 7-day moving average to the resulting data point in order to make the output value less dependent of short-term hashrate movements, and thus more suitable for comparisons with alternative uses of electricity.

boh 6y ago

No you really can't. Gaming employs large amounts of people, sustaining economic growth as well as innovation (GPU development was originally sustained by demand related to gaming) . Bitcoin has little economic impact relative to its energy use.

ctdonath 6y ago
The money spent by interested parties indicates otherwise.
- boh 6y ago
  Feel free to present a case where the economic impact of gaming is less than Bitcoin (feel free to include every crypto-currency ever made in that comparison). Market caps in speculative, unregulated markets aren't indicators of economic relevance. Gaming facilitates billions in production on a yearly basis. Crypto related activity produces very little in comparison. And no, someone buying billions worth of Bitcoin doesn't count (just like people buying GameStop stock doesn't reflect the economic impact of the gaming industry).
  - janoside 6y ago
    Rather than a case, how about a framework to evaluate going forward: the market. Given enough time, I'm pretty sure the market will root out the "real value" of bitcoin and keep assessing the "real value" of gaming. Let's watch for 5-10 years. If you're right about bitcoin, I bet its price will be much lower and you can gloat. If you're wrong, I bet its price will be much higher (because I agree with the basic assessment that gaming "feels" much bigger today). Luckily, we can both place our bets based on our best assessments of the future. How confident are you that you can present a substantive case against bitcoin that matches the diligence that Ross Stevens has done for years? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lczPTYf_tvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lczPTYf_tvA
    - boh 6y ago
      Asset values don't reflect economic impact/relevance (as in a $100MM Picasso doesn't indicate $100MM of economic activity). That's why GDP is used as an indicator for economic growth, not market caps.

lowbloodsugar 6y ago

This is the slippery slope logical fallacy. We already do apply such laws. Car manufacturers are required to sell a certain number of EVs. Emissions must meet standards. Appliances have energy ratings. etc. etc. If Bitcoin were regulated so that those using the excess output of hydroelectric or other fixed output systems could do so for free, but everyone else was taxed appropriately, then that would actually probably do very little because that is largely the situation already: far from being an anonymous decentralized anarcho capitalist future, it is just large organized crime syndicates in China and Russia generating the transactions. And for all these reasons, the US should make it illegal.