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Why tax carbon emissions rather than directly taxing the manufacture of bitcoin? Carbon taxes increase costs for everything. Should we increase the cost of say,
by fergie 6y ago
Why tax carbon emissions rather than directly taxing the manufacture of bitcoin? Carbon taxes increase costs for everything. Should we increase the cost of say, hospitals because some people _really_ want to mine bitcoin?
- cjblomqvist 6y agoYes, because everyone should pay the "real" price stuff costs unless deliberately subsidized. If hospital bills go up because of it (doubt it), then subsidize hospitals. The incentives will be much better in that world. Hospitals can for example optimize for using less energy, which would be a win for the world. Just look at Europe and the effect of the carbon tax there. I don't have links (sorry), but there are lots of studies "proving" that that makes for a more efficient and optimized market aligned with the desired outcome.
- lend000 6y agoWho is to say what is a valid use of energy? How much energy goes into watching television? The pollution tax should be levied such that it provides the government enough to "undo" the pollution.
- admax88q 6y agoBecause Bitcoin is not the sole cause of climate change, carbon is. You can try to play a game of whack a mole by taxing and regulating individual activities hoping to reduce carbon as a second order effect, or you can just target the root problem. There's will always be another wasteful use of carbon intensive energy so long as carbon intensive energy remains cheap.
- fighterpilot 6y agoBecause carbon pollution is an externality no matter what its use case is. The point of the tax is to make the carbon price correct so as to incentivize correct usage across all domains.
- orangecat 6y agoWhy tax carbon emissions rather than directly taxing the manufacture of bitcoin? Because carbon emissions do the same amount damage whether it's the result of bitcoin mining or running a hospital. Carbon taxes increase costs for everything. Everything that produces carbon, which is exactly the point. Should we increase the cost of say, hospitals To the extent that they are significant polluters, yes. Trying to micromanage "good" and "bad" emissions just encourages exploiting loopholes. (e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-loophole-could-lead-to-bigger-cars/2011/12/14/gIQA3bGLuO_blog.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/cafe-lo...)
- kortilla 6y agoBecause carbon is what we want to discourage. Bitcoin would be fine if it was carbon free
- keeganpoppen 6y agolet's just have a committee to decide what uses of electricity are and are not sufficiently meritorious!
- adrianN 6y agoBecause climate change needs to be mitigated as much as possible.