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All technology behaves this way! It generates a significant quantity of non-reusable electronics waste, from that 10 year old laptop to that 3 year old cell pho

All technology behaves this way! It generates a significant quantity of non-reusable electronics waste, from that 10 year old laptop to that 3 year old cell phone. Its ALWAYS a Red Queens race. This is good actually, because our lives are enhanced by the resultant technology to solve our problems. What I feel is missing from these comparisons to waste is a sense of scale. Quoting Gigajoules of usage should be seen as a plus to the scale of any technology. Its never waste. It means its working! Waste is when a finite resource like the atmosphere is ruined. Energy is everywhere. It is everything. We harness it to achieve our goals and solve our problems. Energy is never truly wasted.

user-the-name 6y ago
There exists no technology, and there has never existed any technology, that has such an abysmal rate of utility to waste as Bitcoin does. It is singularly inefficient in the history of mankind.
- rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
  One man's waste is another man's treasure. Ultimately it is a black hole, the black hole that sucks all value from other monetary systems. It provides immutability, permanence and durability like no other data structure that has come before it. This takes a lot of energy. It is best to stop looking at "factories" and "mines" producing "waste", it is more akin to software running in data centers using available energy to secure a ledger. This utility is almost unmeasurable, but we can put a market value to its units based on how useful it is to its users and how willing they are to trade their national currencies for it. Knowing how many SHA256^2's my rivals can hash a second is also pretty useful information. The system is opt-in, permissionless and extremely resilient. You don't have to use it, but if you try it, you might like it.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    Gold provides better permanence and durability; and what immutability Bitcoin does provide is a bad thing rather than a good thing, because it prevents refunds in cases of fraud — something which you need to anticipate and be able to respond to in exactly the “trustless” environment which Bitcoin is supposed to enable. And the environmental consequences of the network are not opt-in, they are born by us all even if we do not use the currency. Thus can energy be said to be wasted: it is bad for us all, not just the spender, when Gigajoules are spend when spending millijoules would have equivalent of better results. > Knowing how many SHA256^2's my rivals can hash a second is also pretty useful information For?
    - rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
      Pretty hard to get your gold back in case of fraud too, especially if they have guns. This is a feature, not a bug. If you want chargebacks, use fiat credit cards. You can do special bitcoin tx's that allow escrow and return of funds, but that is beyond the scope of this point. In general I do not want refund features at all, and think its Bitcoins strongest features and usefulness. It is this that gives it its value. No do overs. Permanence. Gold also sucks because you cant transfer it globally in 10 minutes, move it trivially and takes up no space. Millijoules are insufficient to globally protect the ledger, sorry. If someone wanted to undo my transaction, they need Gigajoules to undo it. I don't think you quite understand what is required to protect a ledger. There is no waste. I'm sorry you don't feel the same way. Bitcoin doesn't care. Re: hash speed? The physical attack price of infrastructure and energy allows a defender to calibrate their defense spend.
      - ben_w 6y ago
        > Pretty hard to get your gold back in case of fraud too, especially if they have guns. In either case you need trust. That’s the point. Thus “trustless” is not a benefit of BTC. Existing systems do literally everything else that Bitcoin can do, and more besides, only faster better and with less side effects. > Millijoules are insufficient to globally protect the ledger, sorry. If someone wanted to undo my transaction, they need Gigajoules to undo it. I don't think you quite understand what is required to protect a ledger. To me it appears that it is you who does not understand. We don’t need the BTC ledger. It adds zero value. It solves no novel problem. There is nothing, at all, which it does uniquely well, including the claim made about it removing the need for trust, which is a false claim because it does no such thing. > The physical attack price of infrastructure and energy allows a defender to calibrate their defense spend. It does not help you calibrate. This isn’t Alice and Bob, nor is the the Cold War nuclear race. The BTC structural worry is any one group gaining more than half the total hash rate, when there are many competing groups. No individual can defend against a big group — just like old money, which again means you need to go back to exactly the kind of financial system we already have with simple non-blockchain ledgers kept by banks and accountants.

user-the-name 6y ago

There exists no technology, and there has never existed any technology, that has such an abysmal rate of utility to waste as Bitcoin does. It is singularly inefficient in the history of mankind.

rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
One man's waste is another man's treasure. Ultimately it is a black hole, the black hole that sucks all value from other monetary systems. It provides immutability, permanence and durability like no other data structure that has come before it. This takes a lot of energy. It is best to stop looking at "factories" and "mines" producing "waste", it is more akin to software running in data centers using available energy to secure a ledger. This utility is almost unmeasurable, but we can put a market value to its units based on how useful it is to its users and how willing they are to trade their national currencies for it. Knowing how many SHA256^2's my rivals can hash a second is also pretty useful information. The system is opt-in, permissionless and extremely resilient. You don't have to use it, but if you try it, you might like it.
- ben_w 6y ago
  Gold provides better permanence and durability; and what immutability Bitcoin does provide is a bad thing rather than a good thing, because it prevents refunds in cases of fraud — something which you need to anticipate and be able to respond to in exactly the “trustless” environment which Bitcoin is supposed to enable. And the environmental consequences of the network are not opt-in, they are born by us all even if we do not use the currency. Thus can energy be said to be wasted: it is bad for us all, not just the spender, when Gigajoules are spend when spending millijoules would have equivalent of better results. > Knowing how many SHA256^2's my rivals can hash a second is also pretty useful information For?
  - rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
    Pretty hard to get your gold back in case of fraud too, especially if they have guns. This is a feature, not a bug. If you want chargebacks, use fiat credit cards. You can do special bitcoin tx's that allow escrow and return of funds, but that is beyond the scope of this point. In general I do not want refund features at all, and think its Bitcoins strongest features and usefulness. It is this that gives it its value. No do overs. Permanence. Gold also sucks because you cant transfer it globally in 10 minutes, move it trivially and takes up no space. Millijoules are insufficient to globally protect the ledger, sorry. If someone wanted to undo my transaction, they need Gigajoules to undo it. I don't think you quite understand what is required to protect a ledger. There is no waste. I'm sorry you don't feel the same way. Bitcoin doesn't care. Re: hash speed? The physical attack price of infrastructure and energy allows a defender to calibrate their defense spend.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      > Pretty hard to get your gold back in case of fraud too, especially if they have guns. In either case you need trust. That’s the point. Thus “trustless” is not a benefit of BTC. Existing systems do literally everything else that Bitcoin can do, and more besides, only faster better and with less side effects. > Millijoules are insufficient to globally protect the ledger, sorry. If someone wanted to undo my transaction, they need Gigajoules to undo it. I don't think you quite understand what is required to protect a ledger. To me it appears that it is you who does not understand. We don’t need the BTC ledger. It adds zero value. It solves no novel problem. There is nothing, at all, which it does uniquely well, including the claim made about it removing the need for trust, which is a false claim because it does no such thing. > The physical attack price of infrastructure and energy allows a defender to calibrate their defense spend. It does not help you calibrate. This isn’t Alice and Bob, nor is the the Cold War nuclear race. The BTC structural worry is any one group gaining more than half the total hash rate, when there are many competing groups. No individual can defend against a big group — just like old money, which again means you need to go back to exactly the kind of financial system we already have with simple non-blockchain ledgers kept by banks and accountants.