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Increasing bitcoin mining capacity allows the energy provider to “overbuild” solar without wasting energy. Nope. “Free” PoW undermines the whole system. Mining

by hyko 5y ago

Increasing bitcoin mining capacity allows the energy provider to “overbuild” solar without wasting energy. Nope. “Free” PoW undermines the whole system. Mining has to be a sacrifice, otherwise it won’t work anymore. There is no “and I can use the resulting infrastructure for X”. Every joule of energy that goes into proof of work is a joule wasted by design. There is no free lunch. I’m starting to think that maybe cryptocurrency is the great filter. It’s actually pretty terrifying. Edit: we should probably have termed it proof of valueless work to make that clear. There is also nothing to stop a speculative bubble crowding out all other energy uses. Our low-growth world is very vulnerable to these schemes.

sfvisser 5y ago
> I’m starting to think that maybe cryptocurrency is the great filter. It’s actually pretty terrifying. Either cryptocurrency is extremely useful and the energy spent will turn out not to be wasted at all or it is a big useless energy draining scam and the whole thing will soon collapse. I really don't see a scenario were it will still be useless or only moderately useful and consuming so much energy that the human species will slowly die off.
- Hermio 5y ago
  Oversaturated financial markets perhaps? Who the fuck invests in bitcoin? People with too much money and the habit of gambling. No one can tell me that there is a logical argument without flaw and a ton of assumptions that the bitcoin market is in its current state anything than gambling. Because bitcoin is so active and new makes it so interesting for gambling :(
oleganza 5y ago
It could be the opposite: a way out through the great filter. Due to imperfection of gold or any resource-based money (symmetrical security), people can never stop fighting for it and build wasteful political hierarchies with ever-escalating arms race. Bitcoin being cheaper to secure than to steal (asymmetrical security) solves two problems: de-escalates arms race and flattens the hierarchies because now savings can be more organically spread in society. This allows redirecting a lot of energy from wars onto cooperative multi-planetary infrastructure or whatever.
scotty79 5y ago
It's not free, because every Joule of solar energy has a cost, because solar panels are not free and have a finite lifetime. It's a sacrfice but of something we can easily sacrifice, excess of solar energy we have no means to store but we still need to produce if we want to go 100% renewables.
- jhgb 5y ago
  It's effectively free if you have no other opportunistic use for it. For example it's free if you don't have a smart electrolyzer attached to it. If you do have one, then it's not free. (Likewise it's not free either if you have no wasted overgeneration.)
sashimi-houdini 5y ago
I prefer the term "Proof of Waiste" ("PoW")

by hyko 5y ago

sfvisser 5y ago

> I’m starting to think that maybe cryptocurrency is the great filter. It’s actually pretty terrifying. Either cryptocurrency is extremely useful and the energy spent will turn out not to be wasted at all or it is a big useless energy draining scam and the whole thing will soon collapse. I really don't see a scenario were it will still be useless or only moderately useful and consuming so much energy that the human species will slowly die off.

Hermio 5y ago
Oversaturated financial markets perhaps? Who the fuck invests in bitcoin? People with too much money and the habit of gambling. No one can tell me that there is a logical argument without flaw and a ton of assumptions that the bitcoin market is in its current state anything than gambling. Because bitcoin is so active and new makes it so interesting for gambling :(

oleganza 5y ago

It could be the opposite: a way out through the great filter. Due to imperfection of gold or any resource-based money (symmetrical security), people can never stop fighting for it and build wasteful political hierarchies with ever-escalating arms race. Bitcoin being cheaper to secure than to steal (asymmetrical security) solves two problems: de-escalates arms race and flattens the hierarchies because now savings can be more organically spread in society. This allows redirecting a lot of energy from wars onto cooperative multi-planetary infrastructure or whatever.

scotty79 5y ago

It's not free, because every Joule of solar energy has a cost, because solar panels are not free and have a finite lifetime. It's a sacrfice but of something we can easily sacrifice, excess of solar energy we have no means to store but we still need to produce if we want to go 100% renewables.

jhgb 5y ago
It's effectively free if you have no other opportunistic use for it. For example it's free if you don't have a smart electrolyzer attached to it. If you do have one, then it's not free. (Likewise it's not free either if you have no wasted overgeneration.)

sashimi-houdini 5y ago

I prefer the term "Proof of Waiste" ("PoW")