13 ms·

There is nothing baseless in saying that using 0.1% of the entire world's energy in order to do 3 transactions per second is beyond ludicrous, and an environmen

There is nothing baseless in saying that using 0.1% of the entire world's energy in order to do 3 transactions per second is beyond ludicrous, and an environmental disaster of massive proportions.

olah_1 6y ago
> using 0.1% of the entire world's energy in order to do 3 transactions per second is beyond ludicrous In comparison to what? What do we get in return? Many consider the benefits to be worth it.
- yerwhat01010 6y ago
  > What do we get in return? Fantastic question. I've been waiting 10 years for a convincing answer; still waiting.
  - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
    There are millions of people who use it, trade it, store their value in it, program more software for it etc. They see the answer, they get the point. Can you please just answer this - do you suppose they all halt what they are doing and wait for an undeterminate amount of time for you to also get it, before they can go on with their businesses and lives?
    - notahacker 6y ago
      I think the more pertinent question is, if they all halted what they are doing for an indeterminate amount of time for other people to get it, would the world [in future] be a worse place? And how?
    - threwawasy1228 6y ago
      I would upvote this a hundred times if I could. I don't understand where this kind of demand for further understanding even comes from we are well past the point where it could have been written off as a fad and it is obvious there is value to it. There is no reason why everyone should feel the need to "get it" or get value out of it to understand that other people do get it and do get value out of it. It is such a weird sentiment to me because it would never occur to me to devalue the value others get out of things I don't understand. I hate bonds, I don't "get" why anyone would want to buy bonds, people have tried to explain it to me. I decided that I will never buy a bond in my life because they are just the dumbest form of investment. I can hold that sentiment whilst saying "I don't get why they buy them but clearly there is a lot of value from the vehicle and it is clearly a valid form". I don't see why I should need to understand an monetary vehicle or like an investment vehicle to understand that some people do, and those people have a valid opinion.
    - yerwhat01010 6y ago
      Can we at least acknowledge how far the goal posts have moved? I can remember what people were saying about Bitcoin in 2013 - that it was a revolutionary technology on par with the creation of the Internet; that it was going to completely transform our global financial system; that it was going to replace fiat currency; that it represented a dazzling new future that you’d have to be an insane Luddite to not go all-in on. Well, where are we now? What significant advancements have occurred since 2013 as a result of Bitcoin (other than the catastrophic climate impact)? What new technologies are powered by crypto other than niche, nerdy shit which no-one outside of a handful of enthusiasts cares about? Bitcoin is now 12 years old - if Bitcoin is the next World Wide Web, then who is the Google of crypto? Who is the Amazon? Hell, does Bitcoin even have a Lycos or a Yahoo? And yes, I acknowledge that millions of people own Bitcoin and are trading it. But what reason is there to believe in Bitcoin, other than the fact that other people believe it? Yes, I know that you could say the same of fiat currency: dollars only have value because we believe they do. But the difference is that I use fiat currency every day to accomplish real things that have an enormous material impact on my life. The only thing I’ve ever used Bitcoin for is to buy drugs - what else am I ever going to do with it, except hope that the value increases so I can sell it to another speculator? Maybe the crypto enthusiasts are laughing at me for asking these rhetorical questions as if there isn’t an obvious answer - in which case, let me know! I don’t want to miss out on the crypto wave if it really is as big as people keep telling me. But I’ve read books about Bitcoin, delved into crypto-related code, and spent many hours of my life studying blockchain technology and trying to understand what all the fuss is about. That was a couple of years ago, and I got bored and gave up. I’ve been telling myself to take another look given the recent price surge, but I just can’t motivate myself. What am I missing? Why do people act as if this is all so obvious?
    - user-the-name 6y ago
      If bitcoin disappeared tomorrow - just completely disappeared - then beyond some people losing their unwise investments, nobody would be significantly inconvenienced in any way whatsoever. For any task (beyond speculation and illegal activities) that bitcoin is used for, there exists other, usually much better services that can be used instead.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- ben_w 6y ago
  What benefits? Bitcoin isn’t fundamentally better than a database running on a fraction of the power (i.e. every modern bank). The claimed benefits of BTC are (1) to remove government control of money, and (2) to eliminate the need for trust, but (1) ignores why we have chosen to give governments control of money in the first place when gold still exists (and can be traded electronically), while (2) requires you to ignore the other half of the transaction where you buy something with the money rather than just putting it in someone else’s account — reports of being ripped off by a vendor goes back to Akkadian cuneiform, and things like chargebacks and courts are there to deal with this, putting rules on what was once anonymous shiny rock that anyone could mine in a literal rather than metaphorical sense.
  - olah_1 6y ago
    > being ripped off by a vendor [...] things like chargebacks and courts are there to deal with this Third party escrow services, the better business bureau, the police... all of these can (and should in many cases) exist with bitcoin. It doesn't have to be either/or.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      When you have a society where those work, “trustless” is no longer a benefit. It’s a catch-22: to be useful, it can’t be useful.
      - olah_1 6y ago
        Unfortunately, the powers that be have ensured that we will never again be allowed to live in high trust societies because “diversity is our strength”.
        ben_w 6y ago
        I don’t recognise the world you’re describing.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  In comparison to literally anything in the world.
arbawk 6y ago
Now do the gold mining industry, and then how USD is backed by armies. And then you can research Lightning Network on top of Bitcoin and how it can process an unlimited number of transactions.
- casi 6y ago
  "unlimited" surely you mean limited? theres rarely tech with no limits. also the military/police/law/government defend you from being killed for your bitcoin.
  - Vecr 6y ago
    Pretty close to unlimited, if you imagine a channel as slider or a bead on an abacus, as long as both nodes using the channel agree where it is, the position can be updated an infinite number of times without touching the blockchain. Timelocks let a transaction pivot through many of these.
- derethanhausen 6y ago
  This is just whataboutism. Gold isn't used as a currency. Seems a stretch to claim the armies exist solely for the USD. And until the Lightning Network is actually implemented it will remain theoretical.
  - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
    Not sure where you get your news but LN is implemented and functional. There are wallets, services, software, etc, downloadable, functional, used every day. If what you mean to say "get all the marchants that support BTC to accept LN", then yes, there is still some progress needs to be done.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      > there is still some progress needs to be done That's an understatement. There are two restaurants within 100 miles of my home that accept BTC, let alone use LN.
doomroot 6y ago
Here me out. What if it was the only way to defund the US military? Would you be interested then? Why do we waste so much energy building killing machines? Why is there not a daily hackernews thread complaining about the energy consumption of the US military? Because it’s a necessary to ensure you can buy and sell things when you want to.
- neatze 6y ago
  > Why do we waste so much energy building killing machines? In analogy, it is same reasons why we lock our doors and don't leave keys in parked car. Do you seriously assume that some nations and some organization, do not, actively seek, how to take things that do not belong to them ?
- ben_w 6y ago
  If that was the argument, I would ask in response: if it could do that, why would the combined vested interests of the US military-industrial lot allow Bitcoin to succeed? It’s not beyond the reach of governments to ban unwanted trade, and even though bans are not magic, even a half-arsed enforcement of such a ban is enough to prevent a currency becoming endemic.
  - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
    > It’s not beyond the reach of governments to ban unwanted trade Yeah, right, it worked so well for alcohol... It DOES (/s) work so well for drugs in the US right now... And hey imagine whether it's easier or harder to ban something that doesn't take any physical space in your suitcase and can be transacted with only internet connection.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      Did anyone in Prohibition USA purchase a house or car or pay their bills with a literal barrel of whiskey? """and even though bans are not magic, even a half-arsed enforcement of such a ban is enough to prevent a currency becoming endemic."""
    - 6y ago

There is nothing baseless in saying that using 0.1% of the entire world's energy in order to do 3 transactions per second is beyond ludicrous, and an environmental disaster of massive proportions.

olah_1 6y ago

> using 0.1% of the entire world's energy in order to do 3 transactions per second is beyond ludicrous In comparison to what? What do we get in return? Many consider the benefits to be worth it.

yerwhat01010 6y ago
> What do we get in return? Fantastic question. I've been waiting 10 years for a convincing answer; still waiting.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  There are millions of people who use it, trade it, store their value in it, program more software for it etc. They see the answer, they get the point. Can you please just answer this - do you suppose they all halt what they are doing and wait for an undeterminate amount of time for you to also get it, before they can go on with their businesses and lives?
  - notahacker 6y ago
    I think the more pertinent question is, if they all halted what they are doing for an indeterminate amount of time for other people to get it, would the world [in future] be a worse place? And how?
  - threwawasy1228 6y ago
    I would upvote this a hundred times if I could. I don't understand where this kind of demand for further understanding even comes from we are well past the point where it could have been written off as a fad and it is obvious there is value to it. There is no reason why everyone should feel the need to "get it" or get value out of it to understand that other people do get it and do get value out of it. It is such a weird sentiment to me because it would never occur to me to devalue the value others get out of things I don't understand. I hate bonds, I don't "get" why anyone would want to buy bonds, people have tried to explain it to me. I decided that I will never buy a bond in my life because they are just the dumbest form of investment. I can hold that sentiment whilst saying "I don't get why they buy them but clearly there is a lot of value from the vehicle and it is clearly a valid form". I don't see why I should need to understand an monetary vehicle or like an investment vehicle to understand that some people do, and those people have a valid opinion.
  - yerwhat01010 6y ago
    Can we at least acknowledge how far the goal posts have moved? I can remember what people were saying about Bitcoin in 2013 - that it was a revolutionary technology on par with the creation of the Internet; that it was going to completely transform our global financial system; that it was going to replace fiat currency; that it represented a dazzling new future that you’d have to be an insane Luddite to not go all-in on. Well, where are we now? What significant advancements have occurred since 2013 as a result of Bitcoin (other than the catastrophic climate impact)? What new technologies are powered by crypto other than niche, nerdy shit which no-one outside of a handful of enthusiasts cares about? Bitcoin is now 12 years old - if Bitcoin is the next World Wide Web, then who is the Google of crypto? Who is the Amazon? Hell, does Bitcoin even have a Lycos or a Yahoo? And yes, I acknowledge that millions of people own Bitcoin and are trading it. But what reason is there to believe in Bitcoin, other than the fact that other people believe it? Yes, I know that you could say the same of fiat currency: dollars only have value because we believe they do. But the difference is that I use fiat currency every day to accomplish real things that have an enormous material impact on my life. The only thing I’ve ever used Bitcoin for is to buy drugs - what else am I ever going to do with it, except hope that the value increases so I can sell it to another speculator? Maybe the crypto enthusiasts are laughing at me for asking these rhetorical questions as if there isn’t an obvious answer - in which case, let me know! I don’t want to miss out on the crypto wave if it really is as big as people keep telling me. But I’ve read books about Bitcoin, delved into crypto-related code, and spent many hours of my life studying blockchain technology and trying to understand what all the fuss is about. That was a couple of years ago, and I got bored and gave up. I’ve been telling myself to take another look given the recent price surge, but I just can’t motivate myself. What am I missing? Why do people act as if this is all so obvious?
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    If bitcoin disappeared tomorrow - just completely disappeared - then beyond some people losing their unwise investments, nobody would be significantly inconvenienced in any way whatsoever. For any task (beyond speculation and illegal activities) that bitcoin is used for, there exists other, usually much better services that can be used instead.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ben_w 6y ago
What benefits? Bitcoin isn’t fundamentally better than a database running on a fraction of the power (i.e. every modern bank). The claimed benefits of BTC are (1) to remove government control of money, and (2) to eliminate the need for trust, but (1) ignores why we have chosen to give governments control of money in the first place when gold still exists (and can be traded electronically), while (2) requires you to ignore the other half of the transaction where you buy something with the money rather than just putting it in someone else’s account — reports of being ripped off by a vendor goes back to Akkadian cuneiform, and things like chargebacks and courts are there to deal with this, putting rules on what was once anonymous shiny rock that anyone could mine in a literal rather than metaphorical sense.
- olah_1 6y ago
  > being ripped off by a vendor [...] things like chargebacks and courts are there to deal with this Third party escrow services, the better business bureau, the police... all of these can (and should in many cases) exist with bitcoin. It doesn't have to be either/or.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    When you have a society where those work, “trustless” is no longer a benefit. It’s a catch-22: to be useful, it can’t be useful.
    - olah_1 6y ago
      Unfortunately, the powers that be have ensured that we will never again be allowed to live in high trust societies because “diversity is our strength”.
      - ben_w 6y ago
        I don’t recognise the world you’re describing.
user-the-name 6y ago
In comparison to literally anything in the world.

arbawk 6y ago

Now do the gold mining industry, and then how USD is backed by armies. And then you can research Lightning Network on top of Bitcoin and how it can process an unlimited number of transactions.

casi 6y ago
"unlimited" surely you mean limited? theres rarely tech with no limits. also the military/police/law/government defend you from being killed for your bitcoin.
- Vecr 6y ago
  Pretty close to unlimited, if you imagine a channel as slider or a bead on an abacus, as long as both nodes using the channel agree where it is, the position can be updated an infinite number of times without touching the blockchain. Timelocks let a transaction pivot through many of these.
derethanhausen 6y ago
This is just whataboutism. Gold isn't used as a currency. Seems a stretch to claim the armies exist solely for the USD. And until the Lightning Network is actually implemented it will remain theoretical.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  Not sure where you get your news but LN is implemented and functional. There are wallets, services, software, etc, downloadable, functional, used every day. If what you mean to say "get all the marchants that support BTC to accept LN", then yes, there is still some progress needs to be done.
  - UncleMeat 6y ago
    > there is still some progress needs to be done That's an understatement. There are two restaurants within 100 miles of my home that accept BTC, let alone use LN.

doomroot 6y ago

Here me out. What if it was the only way to defund the US military? Would you be interested then? Why do we waste so much energy building killing machines? Why is there not a daily hackernews thread complaining about the energy consumption of the US military? Because it’s a necessary to ensure you can buy and sell things when you want to.

neatze 6y ago
> Why do we waste so much energy building killing machines? In analogy, it is same reasons why we lock our doors and don't leave keys in parked car. Do you seriously assume that some nations and some organization, do not, actively seek, how to take things that do not belong to them ?
ben_w 6y ago
If that was the argument, I would ask in response: if it could do that, why would the combined vested interests of the US military-industrial lot allow Bitcoin to succeed? It’s not beyond the reach of governments to ban unwanted trade, and even though bans are not magic, even a half-arsed enforcement of such a ban is enough to prevent a currency becoming endemic.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  > It’s not beyond the reach of governments to ban unwanted trade Yeah, right, it worked so well for alcohol... It DOES (/s) work so well for drugs in the US right now... And hey imagine whether it's easier or harder to ban something that doesn't take any physical space in your suitcase and can be transacted with only internet connection.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    Did anyone in Prohibition USA purchase a house or car or pay their bills with a literal barrel of whiskey? """and even though bans are not magic, even a half-arsed enforcement of such a ban is enough to prevent a currency becoming endemic."""
  - 6y ago