5 ms·

If the government wants to put a higher price on energy or carbon, it should do so. But it should not be the arbiter of what's a worthy use of energy expenditur

by bko 5y ago

If the government wants to put a higher price on energy or carbon, it should do so. But it should not be the arbiter of what's a worthy use of energy expenditure. I could see a lot of people make the argument the production of a lot of energy intensive goods is not worth-while.

barrkel 5y ago
Government is made out of people. If the people don't want the economy oriented around energy being put into finding hashes, they have the right to vote.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  People are made out of opinions. If they don't like the way others are voting, they have the right to convince others of theirs. Which is to say, discussing on HN is a valid way to contribute your opinion to society. Voting is not your only voice.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    So why does the buck stop with government then? If enough of us agree that a law should be passed then why not just pass the law? Seems way easier to just make a rule than try to individually convince everyone.
    - dmoy 5y ago
      It's an eventually sort-of-consistent system with a lot of buffering and delay. if enough people agree that a law should be passed, and it's a high enough priority, and the opinion stays that way for a long time, then eventually enough politicians get on board by virtue of pressure from their voting base, and a law gets passed. It's not great. But on the other hand, near-immediate direct democracy is also not great, because it leads to knee-jerk reactions causing laws put in place. I'm thinking of stuff like the USAPATRIOT Act, except worse.
- micropresident 5y ago
  Obviously the people want to put energy towards finding hashes or they wouldn't be doing it. What you're advocating for is a minority of people who actually vote to influence the government to send people with guns to stop the actions of people who are voting with their labor. There will come a time when people like you -- who play God over others -- are ousted from society.
  - pnt12 5y ago
    "The people" who do it are less than 1% of "the people" a government represents. There are already laws in most countries forbidding you to litter, and you would never call that "playing God" - it just happens that littering with crypto mining is a multi billion dollar industry.
    - micropresident 5y ago
      I do call it playing God. In California there are laws against littering and they are not enforced. You cannot regulate change into the hearts of men.
  - mckeed 5y ago
    That's like saying people shouldn't try to ban meth because meth cooks are working hard. It's just not a realistic outlook on how typical people want society to function. Most people do not believe PoW cryptocurrency is important to society.
- bko 5y ago
  So there's no bounds as to what government should be able to do, ethically or legally?
- oehpr 5y ago
  But this isn't proposed regulation to prevent an "economy oriented around energy being put into finding hashes". It's literally regulation to stop "Proof of work". Which is a generic algorithm that can be applied to other circumstances. It could have applications in CAPTCHA's, or anti-spam. It could be a critical component of other decentralized technologies, not just blockchain crypto currencies. Making this math illegal JUST to kill cyptocurrencies seems a tad much, right?
  - the_local_host 5y ago
    Isn't proof-of-work intrinsically wasteful though, as a proxy for costing money (e.g. instead of paying money directly for the right to mine BTC, you buy electricity and burn it)? In any context other than cryptocurrencies it seems like microtransactions would be a better choice.
  - pornel 5y ago
    Proof of Work used for decentralized consensus is maximally wasteful by design. It has to be a race to burn more resources than anyone else can. It's unfixable. Governments already have regulations for energy efficiency, waste and pollution, and for most things it's possible to negotiate reasonable limits. For PoW it's not possible. If you put an upper limit on its wastefulness, it'll be a limit on its security. Even if we had a Dyson Sphere, PoW would eventually eat more than half of it just to be secure.
- webXL 5y ago
  The government is made out of people and if history has taught us anything, power corrupts those people. Income inequality has only risen since the last financial crisis. Decentralization of money is the whole point of this exercise, and many believe Proof of Work is superior to Proof of Stake because work is actually scarce. Once you make it cheap to transact, that opens up all sorts of attacks (spam, phishing) and devaluation. Since PoS can be copied very easily, many corrupt governments will do just that.
- TearsInTheRain 5y ago
  > Government is made out of people. Maybe in theory but in actuality it is comprised of moneyed interests which is why it needs to be limited to preserve the freedom of the people.
rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
>it should not be the arbiter of what's a worthy use of energy expenditure. I disagree. If we must cap the CO2 we can emit, we should definitely favor basic needs over luxury. Here in France, the government tried to set a carbon tax on gas (which is required for many simply to commute to work, with no affordable alternatives yet) but they refused to impose a tax on jet fuel which is known to be used by the ultra rich to fly their privates on the weekends (while they can afford high speed trains). We should not just let money decide what's possible, when so many are still in need of basic necessities. Many could pay a 300% tax just to fly 10x a year across the globe (emitting many, many times the carbon footprint of an average household). How would that be fair, when the problem is not what people pay but how the planet is becoming inhabitable?
- VMG 5y ago
  my financial privacy is a basic need, and I need cryptocurrency to achieve it I do not believe consensus mechanism other than PoW can provide enough security for a cryptocurrency
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    I'm sure jet setters consider their private jet as a basic need, too. What's interesting, is that you can gather ~300 random citizens - including jet setters and cryptofans - and let them think about it for two years in order to decide what they considered as basic needs, on a consensus basis. And then, we can organize a vote (e.g a referendum) to make sure society finds a common ground on this (just like we do for most things, such as banning crime). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Convention_for_Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Convention_for_Climat... for a good example. I bet PoW would be far down the list of basic needs but it might, still. I like democracy (where people vote, not their fortune).
    - VMG 5y ago
      my rights are not up for discussion, let alone a vote
mckeed 5y ago
PoW is different because it's energy use for its own sake. If carbon taxes go up, some things will no longer be worth spending energy on, but crypto mining is just competitive, so the value of mining will go up with the cost of energy and keep using as much energy as ever. The only thing that can stop it is reducing demand for the coins, which the government is not even trying to do yet.
- xur17 5y ago
  > but crypto mining is just competitive, so the value of mining will go up with the cost of energy and keep using as much energy as ever. That is not true. If the cost of energy increases, mining / hash rates will decrease. Miners are competing, and the limit to the price they will pay for electricity is the value of the cryptocurrency they are earning for the activity.
- strgcmc 5y ago
  If carbon taxes go up, miners will be incentivized to pursue low/no-carbon alternative energy sources, thereby accelerating the shift to cleaner energy. Mining can either be viewed as creating a profit incentive where none existed before, or at least enhancing the profit incentive even further. Clean energy needs more profit incentives to really scale adoption. I am all for carbon taxes, to shape the market towards cleaner energy. And I do think it will successfully push miners even faster towards adoption of other energy sources.
austincheney 5y ago
Government should arbitrate inappropriate use of any utility resource, including energy and water. In many cases such restrictions already exist for water.

by bko 5y ago

barrkel 5y ago

Government is made out of people. If the people don't want the economy oriented around energy being put into finding hashes, they have the right to vote.

scrollaway 5y ago
People are made out of opinions. If they don't like the way others are voting, they have the right to convince others of theirs. Which is to say, discussing on HN is a valid way to contribute your opinion to society. Voting is not your only voice.
- Spivak 5y ago
  So why does the buck stop with government then? If enough of us agree that a law should be passed then why not just pass the law? Seems way easier to just make a rule than try to individually convince everyone.
  - dmoy 5y ago
    It's an eventually sort-of-consistent system with a lot of buffering and delay. if enough people agree that a law should be passed, and it's a high enough priority, and the opinion stays that way for a long time, then eventually enough politicians get on board by virtue of pressure from their voting base, and a law gets passed. It's not great. But on the other hand, near-immediate direct democracy is also not great, because it leads to knee-jerk reactions causing laws put in place. I'm thinking of stuff like the USAPATRIOT Act, except worse.
micropresident 5y ago
Obviously the people want to put energy towards finding hashes or they wouldn't be doing it. What you're advocating for is a minority of people who actually vote to influence the government to send people with guns to stop the actions of people who are voting with their labor. There will come a time when people like you -- who play God over others -- are ousted from society.
- pnt12 5y ago
  "The people" who do it are less than 1% of "the people" a government represents. There are already laws in most countries forbidding you to litter, and you would never call that "playing God" - it just happens that littering with crypto mining is a multi billion dollar industry.
  - micropresident 5y ago
    I do call it playing God. In California there are laws against littering and they are not enforced. You cannot regulate change into the hearts of men.
- mckeed 5y ago
  That's like saying people shouldn't try to ban meth because meth cooks are working hard. It's just not a realistic outlook on how typical people want society to function. Most people do not believe PoW cryptocurrency is important to society.
bko 5y ago
So there's no bounds as to what government should be able to do, ethically or legally?
oehpr 5y ago
But this isn't proposed regulation to prevent an "economy oriented around energy being put into finding hashes". It's literally regulation to stop "Proof of work". Which is a generic algorithm that can be applied to other circumstances. It could have applications in CAPTCHA's, or anti-spam. It could be a critical component of other decentralized technologies, not just blockchain crypto currencies. Making this math illegal JUST to kill cyptocurrencies seems a tad much, right?
- the_local_host 5y ago
  Isn't proof-of-work intrinsically wasteful though, as a proxy for costing money (e.g. instead of paying money directly for the right to mine BTC, you buy electricity and burn it)? In any context other than cryptocurrencies it seems like microtransactions would be a better choice.
- pornel 5y ago
  Proof of Work used for decentralized consensus is maximally wasteful by design. It has to be a race to burn more resources than anyone else can. It's unfixable. Governments already have regulations for energy efficiency, waste and pollution, and for most things it's possible to negotiate reasonable limits. For PoW it's not possible. If you put an upper limit on its wastefulness, it'll be a limit on its security. Even if we had a Dyson Sphere, PoW would eventually eat more than half of it just to be secure.
webXL 5y ago
The government is made out of people and if history has taught us anything, power corrupts those people. Income inequality has only risen since the last financial crisis. Decentralization of money is the whole point of this exercise, and many believe Proof of Work is superior to Proof of Stake because work is actually scarce. Once you make it cheap to transact, that opens up all sorts of attacks (spam, phishing) and devaluation. Since PoS can be copied very easily, many corrupt governments will do just that.
TearsInTheRain 5y ago
> Government is made out of people. Maybe in theory but in actuality it is comprised of moneyed interests which is why it needs to be limited to preserve the freedom of the people.

rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago

>it should not be the arbiter of what's a worthy use of energy expenditure. I disagree. If we must cap the CO2 we can emit, we should definitely favor basic needs over luxury. Here in France, the government tried to set a carbon tax on gas (which is required for many simply to commute to work, with no affordable alternatives yet) but they refused to impose a tax on jet fuel which is known to be used by the ultra rich to fly their privates on the weekends (while they can afford high speed trains). We should not just let money decide what's possible, when so many are still in need of basic necessities. Many could pay a 300% tax just to fly 10x a year across the globe (emitting many, many times the carbon footprint of an average household). How would that be fair, when the problem is not what people pay but how the planet is becoming inhabitable?

VMG 5y ago
my financial privacy is a basic need, and I need cryptocurrency to achieve it I do not believe consensus mechanism other than PoW can provide enough security for a cryptocurrency
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  I'm sure jet setters consider their private jet as a basic need, too. What's interesting, is that you can gather ~300 random citizens - including jet setters and cryptofans - and let them think about it for two years in order to decide what they considered as basic needs, on a consensus basis. And then, we can organize a vote (e.g a referendum) to make sure society finds a common ground on this (just like we do for most things, such as banning crime). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Convention_for_Climate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Convention_for_Climat... for a good example. I bet PoW would be far down the list of basic needs but it might, still. I like democracy (where people vote, not their fortune).
  - VMG 5y ago
    my rights are not up for discussion, let alone a vote

mckeed 5y ago

PoW is different because it's energy use for its own sake. If carbon taxes go up, some things will no longer be worth spending energy on, but crypto mining is just competitive, so the value of mining will go up with the cost of energy and keep using as much energy as ever. The only thing that can stop it is reducing demand for the coins, which the government is not even trying to do yet.

xur17 5y ago
> but crypto mining is just competitive, so the value of mining will go up with the cost of energy and keep using as much energy as ever. That is not true. If the cost of energy increases, mining / hash rates will decrease. Miners are competing, and the limit to the price they will pay for electricity is the value of the cryptocurrency they are earning for the activity.
strgcmc 5y ago
If carbon taxes go up, miners will be incentivized to pursue low/no-carbon alternative energy sources, thereby accelerating the shift to cleaner energy. Mining can either be viewed as creating a profit incentive where none existed before, or at least enhancing the profit incentive even further. Clean energy needs more profit incentives to really scale adoption. I am all for carbon taxes, to shape the market towards cleaner energy. And I do think it will successfully push miners even faster towards adoption of other energy sources.

austincheney 5y ago

Government should arbitrate inappropriate use of any utility resource, including energy and water. In many cases such restrictions already exist for water.