4 ms·

Someone's really serious about pushing the "bitcoin is bad" narrative. Too many articles like that recently. Nevertheless, upvoting because HN should see this.

tppiotrowski 6y ago
http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
thatguy0900 6y ago
I mean is it not a good narrative to push? Someone in another comment pointed out each transaction uses so much energy it would be more effecient to just drive 600 miles in a tesla to hand deliver them money. That is awful, and basically for no reason, a digital currency could be designed without that entirely. There is no way to fix it, as proof of work demands that much energy be used no matter how effecient computers become.
- frongpik 6y ago
  An important nuance: such a bitcoin transaction is worth about a billion dollars. It's not a grocery store kind of transaction.
  - fl0wenol 6y ago
    That's also a separate issue, it _also_ requires trusted 3rd parties to broker small, everyday transactions, which has it's own costs (energy and otherwise) and fundamentally requires some centralization and/or escrow, which kind of defeats the purpose.
hannob 6y ago
Maybe it's, you know, people caring about a livable planet. The "Big survival of humanity" lobby.
- insert_coin 6y ago
  Energy is a big part of that. We need as much electricity as possible to combat the effects of climate change.
- frongpik 6y ago
  It's the same people who allow coca cola to poison the planet with plastic so it could make money by poisoning people with sugar. It's the same people who let adtech eat energy budgets of large countries. Same people that encourage the planned goods depreciation economy so we have city sized dump sites. They speak about bitcoin only to remove the spotlight from the real polluters who make some respectable people very rich.
- ur-whale 6y ago
  You're right to focus on the really important issues, it is clearly Bitcoin that's going to ruin it for us all and it should be an absolute priority on every self-righteous internet user's agenda. Oh, btw, did you heat your house today? Or did you happen to drive a car? Or did you fly in a plane prior to COVID? How much fossil fuel was burned to move your 80-ish kg from point A to point B in the air? Energy consumption is on an exponential growth curve. Has been, will be for the foreseeable future. The problem is how the energy is produced, not the fact that we use energy.
  - mithr 6y ago
    Does you personally heating your house, or driving a car, or flying planes, for a year match the energy consumption of an entire country? > At current rates, bitcoin mining uses the same amount of energy every year as the Netherlands did in 2019 Part of the problem is certainly in how the energy is produced. But another part of the equation is that this store of value, by itself, adds very significant amounts of consumption to that growth curve you mentioned. Wish as we may that we could just snap our fingers and switch to clean energy, realistically that will not happen in the near future. Meanwhile, bitcoin mining will continue to consume as much energy annually as entire countries, and much of that energy will come from non-clean energy. I'm not saying "let's burn bitcoin", or saying that I have a way out of this situation. But it's either a bit disingenuous or a bit naive to compare personal use of electricity to that of bitcoin's, in order to imply that only "self-righteous internet users" need to concern themselves with it.
BitwiseFool 6y ago
Probably the same group of journalists always trying to associate Tesla with fires.

tppiotrowski 6y ago

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

thatguy0900 6y ago

I mean is it not a good narrative to push? Someone in another comment pointed out each transaction uses so much energy it would be more effecient to just drive 600 miles in a tesla to hand deliver them money. That is awful, and basically for no reason, a digital currency could be designed without that entirely. There is no way to fix it, as proof of work demands that much energy be used no matter how effecient computers become.

frongpik 6y ago
An important nuance: such a bitcoin transaction is worth about a billion dollars. It's not a grocery store kind of transaction.
- fl0wenol 6y ago
  That's also a separate issue, it _also_ requires trusted 3rd parties to broker small, everyday transactions, which has it's own costs (energy and otherwise) and fundamentally requires some centralization and/or escrow, which kind of defeats the purpose.

hannob 6y ago

Maybe it's, you know, people caring about a livable planet. The "Big survival of humanity" lobby.

insert_coin 6y ago
Energy is a big part of that. We need as much electricity as possible to combat the effects of climate change.
frongpik 6y ago
It's the same people who allow coca cola to poison the planet with plastic so it could make money by poisoning people with sugar. It's the same people who let adtech eat energy budgets of large countries. Same people that encourage the planned goods depreciation economy so we have city sized dump sites. They speak about bitcoin only to remove the spotlight from the real polluters who make some respectable people very rich.
ur-whale 6y ago
You're right to focus on the really important issues, it is clearly Bitcoin that's going to ruin it for us all and it should be an absolute priority on every self-righteous internet user's agenda. Oh, btw, did you heat your house today? Or did you happen to drive a car? Or did you fly in a plane prior to COVID? How much fossil fuel was burned to move your 80-ish kg from point A to point B in the air? Energy consumption is on an exponential growth curve. Has been, will be for the foreseeable future. The problem is how the energy is produced, not the fact that we use energy.
- mithr 6y ago
  Does you personally heating your house, or driving a car, or flying planes, for a year match the energy consumption of an entire country? > At current rates, bitcoin mining uses the same amount of energy every year as the Netherlands did in 2019 Part of the problem is certainly in how the energy is produced. But another part of the equation is that this store of value, by itself, adds very significant amounts of consumption to that growth curve you mentioned. Wish as we may that we could just snap our fingers and switch to clean energy, realistically that will not happen in the near future. Meanwhile, bitcoin mining will continue to consume as much energy annually as entire countries, and much of that energy will come from non-clean energy. I'm not saying "let's burn bitcoin", or saying that I have a way out of this situation. But it's either a bit disingenuous or a bit naive to compare personal use of electricity to that of bitcoin's, in order to imply that only "self-righteous internet users" need to concern themselves with it.

BitwiseFool 6y ago

Probably the same group of journalists always trying to associate Tesla with fires.