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technically almost everything beyond food and medicine is wasteful. BUT cars improve the quality of my life (i like to drive). bitcoins floating through the cy

technically almost everything beyond food and medicine is wasteful. BUT cars improve the quality of my life (i like to drive). bitcoins floating through the cybersphere do not. end of story.

notJim 6y ago
> cars improve the quality of my life (i like to drive) And if cars were primarily used as an enthusiast pursuit (like horses in the modern world, actually), this argument would make sense. But cars are not primarily an enthusiast pursuit, instead they are something that we've structured our entire way of life around, and made enormous sacrifices for. Many people need a car whether they want one or not, and we all pay the consequences for it.
solveit 6y ago
That says more about you than it does about cars and Bitcoin. I like having code that nobody can take down but don't drive.
- marshmallow_12 6y ago
  I think most people will agree you have rather singular tastes.
fredfoobar 6y ago
Horses are nice, end of story.
- marshmallow_12 6y ago
  HN doesn't stand for Horse News
  - fredfoobar 6y ago
    It should!
imtringued 6y ago
Wasteful things like space programs still result in training and gaining experience. That experience can then be used on more productive activities once they have been discovered. Human existence is meaningless and thus anything we do is meaningless. However, that also frees us up to do whatever we want since there is no universal authority telling us how to live our lives. Even in the face of an abusive police state we can still decide to resist. The problem with Bitcoin is that if one were to maximize human potential then Bitcoin would be a really, really low bar. It's basically a premium currency for an MMO, except the MMO doesn't exist and there is no item shop and even the idea of creating such an item shop (think of NFTs) suffers from problems mentioned in the article. You can simply copy digital assets. Ownership over a digital asset doesn't protect it from being copied.

technically almost everything beyond food and medicine is wasteful. BUT cars improve the quality of my life (i like to drive). bitcoins floating through the cybersphere do not. end of story.

notJim 6y ago

> cars improve the quality of my life (i like to drive) And if cars were primarily used as an enthusiast pursuit (like horses in the modern world, actually), this argument would make sense. But cars are not primarily an enthusiast pursuit, instead they are something that we've structured our entire way of life around, and made enormous sacrifices for. Many people need a car whether they want one or not, and we all pay the consequences for it.

solveit 6y ago

That says more about you than it does about cars and Bitcoin. I like having code that nobody can take down but don't drive.

marshmallow_12 6y ago
I think most people will agree you have rather singular tastes.

fredfoobar 6y ago

Horses are nice, end of story.

marshmallow_12 6y ago
HN doesn't stand for Horse News
- fredfoobar 6y ago
  It should!

imtringued 6y ago

Wasteful things like space programs still result in training and gaining experience. That experience can then be used on more productive activities once they have been discovered. Human existence is meaningless and thus anything we do is meaningless. However, that also frees us up to do whatever we want since there is no universal authority telling us how to live our lives. Even in the face of an abusive police state we can still decide to resist. The problem with Bitcoin is that if one were to maximize human potential then Bitcoin would be a really, really low bar. It's basically a premium currency for an MMO, except the MMO doesn't exist and there is no item shop and even the idea of creating such an item shop (think of NFTs) suffers from problems mentioned in the article. You can simply copy digital assets. Ownership over a digital asset doesn't protect it from being copied.