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> I mean, is there any inherent upside to burning tons of energy for games vs burning it for a cryptocurrency? You presume the total energy consumption would b

• badlucklottery 6y ago
  > GPUs that are used for mining will be used 24/7 whereas gaming is likely to be performed by a human being who cannot or would not utilize the GPU nearly as many hours of the day. Yup. And even if they could utilize them 24/7, gamers generally* won't have 10+ cards going at once. *:I'm sure someone has some weird 360 degree flight simulator edge case.
  • mcny 6y ago
    If you reduce this argument, the best way to help our planet is to have fewer children. I’d argue the target total fertility rate per woman should be somewhere below one. To hell with economic growth that relies on an ever increasing human population.
    • oooooooooooow 6y ago
      I'd much rather change my extremely wasteful (can't overstate how much, from someone that makes an effort to minimize it) lifestyle, and much rather use the force of law so that everyone has to, before advocating or forcing such an asinine policy. Even if strange when it comes to animals, humanity progresses following rules similar to classic evolution, aka by randomly mixing stuff until something works. We've gotten (only) pretty good at selecting and amplifying what works extremely well, but we still need a steady stream of randomly arranged characteristics to enter the pool. Imagine if the next Newton isn't born (or is born 200 years later) because a couple decided to not have children to "save the planet". Perhaps this figure would've been a key piece in a breakthrough discovery about energy, climate, terraforming, public policy.... I seriously fail to understand anti-natalists.
      • mrec 6y ago
        > I seriously fail to understand anti-natalists I think it very much depends on how one experiences life. The two ends of that scale are largely incomprehensible to each other. Your point about "the next Newton" is unrelated, and IMO misses the mark. It's not coincidence that Newton, Hooke, Boyle etc appeared in the same place at the same time, and it's not because there'd been a crippling shortage of randomly arranged characteristics before that. The right characteristics aren't enough, you also need the leisure to develop them (which implies material surplus) and a society that makes sufficient use of scientific discoveries to value and propagate them. Nobody would have heard of Isaac Newton if he'd been born a subsistence farmer. I'm sure lots of potential Isaac Newtons were, and in many ways that's a tragedy.
        • mcny 6y ago
          > The two ends of that scale are largely incomprehensible to each other. Absolutely. Just to set the record straight, I am not anti-birth and I think I agree with GP more than I disagree. We must do everything we can to reduce the carbon footprint per person. I am just logically following what my parent post said. I didn't even know the word anti-natalist. I want all children who are born to be healthy and reach their full potential as productive adults. One child is a blessing. Two is also fine (I have a sibling). At least in a developed country, if someone has eight or more (not born at the same time) children, they are terrorizing the environment in my eyes. I don't see how you can justify that with access to decent healthcare and the infant mortality rate is under ten. I mean if you live in a place where infant mortality rate is over a hundred (a quick web search shows that IMR in Afghanistan is over 110 which means a hundred and ten die before the age of one of every thousand infants born), I can't imagine the pain and suffering the parents must be going through. We clearly can do better. The open question is how.
          • oooooooooooow 6y ago
            Your POV comes across much more sensible in this answer, to me. It's become clear how families in societies tend to make fewer children as the civilization progresses. People in some underdeveloped countries try to make a large number of children because the child mortality is so high, and there's a dire need for manual labor. So one way to do better is work towards improving the situation in underdeveloped countries. In developed countries very rarely you see mothers of 8, and a target fertility rate of "below 1", as you stated, is nonsense. You'll have to pardon my bluntness, I've seen many self proclaimed environmentalists straight up advocate and encourage women to never have children for the sake of the planet.
  • bpicolo 6y ago
    Or say 15,000 cards. Crypto operations in modern times are not subtle. Margins are razor thin, so it's all about scale and efficiency
• Tenoke 6y ago
  On the other hand, GPUs used for mining are typically used at ~60% the power draw and more often in places with cheap and greener electricity.
• qqii 6y ago
  This should be weighted against these mining cards becoming e-waste instead of entering the seccond hand market. The energy used to manufacturea GPU is a significant part of its overall impact.
  • falcolas 6y ago
    I don’t know anybody who will willingly buy a second hand video card used for mining cryptocurrency. They’ve been pushed so hard, for so long, that their useful lifespan is pretty much used up. It’s a big part of the reason they’re being sold and not continued to be used.
    • qqii 6y ago
      Plenty of second hand mining cards changed hands from miners to gamers two years ago, for the most case the price was very competitive. Depending on the card some would have been run underclocked and even undervolted. I personally know friends who purchased mining cards that are still up and running. For miners they're not being sold becuase they're not useful but because they don't have the cash on hand to continue the scale of operation when mining is no longer profitable. It's not that difficult to run the numbers yourself to verify this.