9 ms·

It is unfortunate, but it is less unfortunate than the behavior of crypto miners. Freedom is great when people aren't using their freedom to infringe on other p

by creato 5y ago

It is unfortunate, but it is less unfortunate than the behavior of crypto miners. Freedom is great when people aren't using their freedom to infringe on other people's freedom.

arthurcolle 5y ago
How is someone mining on GPUs they bought themselves infringing on your freedom, pray tell?
- belltaco 5y ago
  The extra power usage is destroying our planet all for someone to try and make a quick buck, and causing shortages of GPUs during a pandemic where mental health from entertainment like gaming is valuable and stops people from going outside and getting/spreading the virus. The incentives for crypto all are f'ed up right now. The ETH PoS switch can't come soon enough.
  - fastball 5y ago
    What if you're only mining with renewables? And I'd actually like to see a study on the positive mental health benefit of gaming, because I'm skeptical. Also the idea that you need a primo GPU in order to game is a bit silly. And if you're the kind of person that absolutely needs the best graphics in order to enjoy gaming, please see my point no. 2 about mental health.
    - shagie 5y ago
      > What if you're only mining with renewables? The issue isn't the "we're using renewable energy - see, this doesn't make things worse." It also doesn't make things better. Whats more, its increasing the consumption of energy which is at the core of the problem. It would have been even better to push that renewable energy out onto the grid (and also not increase the consumption of power for crypto mining). Switching all new power consumption to renewable doesn't improve things because the baseline of non-renewable is still there. We need to reduce existing and switch existing to renewable. I suspect a bit of Parkinson's law is in place with energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law -- The key is to stop making it worse (by mining crypto and trying to justify it with "but its from renewable").
      - drexlspivey 5y ago
        > increasing the consumption of energy which is at the core of the problem. How is consuming energy a problem? There is a blob of infinite energy on the sky and practically all of it is wasted.
        esyir 5y ago
        Oversimplifications like this are a fantastic way to avoid the core issues. Harvesting said ball of energy isn't free. Solar tech and near future power infra is certainly not at the maturity level for this, especially when the consumer is a power and semiconductor black hole of demand.
      - onethought 5y ago
        I mine on renewables and with 3000 series gpus. I didn’t want to do any of this, I ended up here because my energy retailer decided to tax me for exporting too much energy to the grid. So short of earthing the electricity, my solution was to burn it up in mining, and improve my solar roi. The 3000 series gpus are the most efficient hashes/watt. So actually by disabling this, you are driving people towards less efficient/worse for the environment ASICS machines. Yes I batteried my home, and use my solar on everything I can first... there is still excess... especially at peak. Pretty sure this dismantled most of your argument.
        Axien 5y ago
        Out of curiosity, has the mining yet payed for the rig/card?
        onethought 5y ago
        No where near. But if you factor the tax I was paying (I.e assuming I didn’t earth it). It will reach cost neutral in a year and be returning margin after that. They are increasing this tax as well shortly... so it will get better.
        istorical 5y ago
  - arthurcolle 5y ago
    So earning income is less important than letting people play video games? Let's just say I'm unconvinced by this argument.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I think it's quite fair to say earning income is less important than allowing people to achieve happiness and video games are a pretty well known way to accomplish that.
      - arthurcolle 5y ago
        I unequivocally disagree with this statement - "happiness" achieved by video games is superficial, without real meaning. They are thrilling endeavors and fill time effectively, but they are absolutely secondary to the absolute positive of actually deriving income. I seriously can't believe that anyone would seriously argue a distraction is worth more than actual income.
        TheRealSteel 5y ago
        What does mining crytprocurrency have to do with earning income? The two are completely mutually exclusive, in fact mining is a great example of making money without doing any useful work
        arthurcolle 5y ago
        Securing the network is useful work.
    - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
      I don't know any gamers who can game 24/7, 7 days a week with multiple GPUs. Mining and gaming aren't even close to comparable in power usage.
    - knorker 5y ago
      Would you say the same if you could mine bitcoin by buying up as much medicine as you could, and burning it? Because if you think the above behavior isn't "earning income" clearly better than "play video games", then your argument falls completely flat.
  - ReptileMan 5y ago
    The moment Trump and Covid just don't deliver the current ROI of clicks for the media, suddenly we started hearing about how terrible crypto electricity usage is. The same way plastics are suffocating the fishes got forgotten the moment everyone started to litter the world with masks and packaging from food delivery. It is manufactured news story the same way that next one will be.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    > The ETH PoS switch can't come soon enough. Profitability doesn't go down considerably with other cryptos that are efficient on 30 series cards: https://whattomine.com/coins?aq_380=0&aq_fury=0&aq_470=0&aq_480=3&a_480=true&aq_570=0&aq_580=0&aq_vega56=0&aq_vega64=0&aq_5600xt=0&aq_5700=0&aq_5700xt=0&aq_vii=0&aq_67xt=0&aq_68=0&aq_68xt=0&aq_1050Ti=0&aq_10606=0&aq_1070=0&aq_1070Ti=0&aq_1080=0&aq_1080Ti=0&aq_1660=0&aq_1660Ti=0&aq_166s=0&aq_2060=0&aq_2070=0&aq_2080=0&aq_2080Ti=0&aq_3060=0&aq_3060Ti=0&aq_3070=1&aq_3080=0&aq_3090=0&eth=true&factor%5Beth_hr%5D=90.0&factor%5Beth_p%5D=420.0&e4g=true&factor%5Be4g_hr%5D=90.0&factor%5Be4g_p%5D=420.0&zh=true&factor%5Bzh_hr%5D=63.0&factor%5Bzh_p%5D=360.0&cnh=true&factor%5Bcnh_hr%5D=2880.0&factor%5Bcnh_p%5D=330.0&cng=true&factor%5Bcng_hr%5D=2280.0&factor%5Bcng_p%5D=360.0&cnr=true&factor%5Bcnr_hr%5D=2490.0&factor%5Bcnr_p%5D=390.0&cnf=true&factor%5Bcnf_hr%5D=4950.0&factor%5Bcnf_p%5D=330.0&eqa=true&factor%5Beqa_hr%5D=285.0&factor%5Beqa_p%5D=360.0&cc=true&factor%5Bcc_hr%5D=7.8&factor%5Bcc_p%5D=390.0&cr29=true&factor%5Bcr29_hr%5D=7.2&factor%5Bcr29_p%5D=390.0&ct31=true&factor%5Bct31_hr%5D=1.8&factor%5Bct31_p%5D=360.0&ct32=true&factor%5Bct32_hr%5D=0.48&factor%5Bct32_p%5D=360.0&eqb=true&factor%5Beqb_hr%5D=46.5&factor%5Beqb_p%5D=420.0&rmx=true&factor%5Brmx_hr%5D=1410.0&factor%5Brmx_p%5D=270.0&ns=true&factor%5Bns_hr%5D=2460.0&factor%5Bns_p%5D=450.0&al=true&factor%5Bal_hr%5D=177.0&factor%5Bal_p%5D=390.0&ops=true&factor%5Bops_hr%5D=14.7&factor%5Bops_p%5D=360.0&eqz=true&factor%5Beqz_hr%5D=42.0&factor%5Beqz_p%5D=390.0&zlh=true&factor%5Bzlh_hr%5D=42.0&factor%5Bzlh_p%5D=360.0&kpw=true&factor%5Bkpw_hr%5D=39.0&factor%5Bkpw_p%5D=510.0&ppw=true&factor%5Bppw_hr%5D=28.2&factor%5Bppw_p%5D=420.0&x25x=true&factor%5Bx25x_hr%5D=2.49&factor%5Bx25x_p%5D=240.0&mtp=true&factor%5Bmtp_hr%5D=1.8&factor%5Bmtp_p%5D=390.0&vh=true&factor%5Bvh_hr%5D=1.32&factor%5Bvh_p%5D=360.0&factor%5Bcost%5D=0.1&sort=Profitability7&volume=0&revenue=7d&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=binance&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=bitfinex&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=bitforex&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=bittrex&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=dove&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=exmo&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=gate&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=graviex&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=hitbtc&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=hotbit&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=ogre&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=poloniex&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=stex&dataset=&commit=Calculate https://whattomine.com/coins?aq_380=0&aq_fury=0&aq_470=0&aq_... (see the 'Rev. $ Profit' column)
- munk-a 5y ago
  I suspect this definition issue is partially due to cultural issues - freedom means different things in different parts of the world. Outside of the US societal freedom and the freedom from pain are valued over the individualistic freedom valued in the US. I don't think either view is absolutely correct after having lived in a few different' societies - but there are valid points to support a view where individual freedom to act isn't the primary freedom to protect (i.e. protecting the freedom for everyone to live a healthy life better enables all individuals to achieve a greater degree of freedom as a society than being individually focused). I really think there's a philosophical disagreement on what freedom is at the core of a lot of the libertarian vs. socialist arguments.
- TheRealSteel 5y ago
  I'm no longer free to live on a planet that has been destroyed by climate change. Crptocurrency mining uses more energy than Argentina.
  - MaPi_ 5y ago
    According to this[1] website, bitcoin mining is only around 0.6% of the worlds power consumption. It is certainly not anywhere near to being the main cause of global warming. [1]https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons
henriquez 5y ago
I’m not sure how crypto mining infringes on anyone’s freedom?
bl0b 5y ago
Could you explain how you see crypto miners as infringing on other's freedoms? I certainly agree with your first sentence, and think NVIDIA crippling hash rates on their GPUs is the lesser of two evils - just because I think crypto miners are a) wasting massive amounts of electricity and b) messing up prices in the GPU market.
- Valmar 5y ago
  Let's see... crypto-miners hoarding GPUs by the tens, hundreds, even, driving up GPU prices for the non-miner. Also, when the cycle busts, hoards of cheap, abused mining cards flood the second-hand market, making it difficult for companies to sell fresh cards, and also possibly hurting the company's reputation when an abused mined-on GPU fails prematurely. Miners can whine, all they want, but something needs to happen to hamper their greed for virtual money.
  - bl0b 5y ago
    Jeez I know all that and support this move by NVIDIA. Fuck the miners for all I care, I thought I said as much in my original post. I just don't think they're 'infringing on my freedoms' or whatever.
seneca 5y ago
> Freedom is great when people aren't using their freedom to infringe on other people's freedom. Other people driving up the price on something you want is not "[infringing] on other people's freedom". It's an inconvenience, but you're still completely free to buy at the inflated price.
- dorkwood 5y ago
  Could the price ever reach a point where you would say it infringes on the general public's freedom to purchase? Or are all prices simply greater and greater inconveniences?
  - Vrondi 5y ago
    No. There is no constitution of any nation which says you are owed the freedom to be guaranteed that a luxury good (like gaming graphics cards) will be available when you feel like buying it. Market scarcity of luxury goods has no infringement on anyone's freedom. Just like market availability of luxury cars or gold jewelry in no way infringes on anyone's freedom.
    - paulmd 5y ago
      the beauty is that there's no constitution of any nation that says miners are entitled to cheap gaming GPUs for their farms either. if NVIDIA wants to segment you out of the gaming market, that is their right as well. Free market cuts both ways - you are free to start up your own company and do it your way.
    - dorkwood 5y ago
      I see where our difference in opinion lies now. I don't put graphics cards into the same category as gold jewellery. There are entire industries of independent contractors who rely on GPUs to remain competitive, such as VFX and motion graphics artists. If GPUs suddenly cost $10,000 each, it means only a small percentage of the population can afford to break into those industries. That is, people who were once free to enter those industries no longer are. Isn't that an infringement on freedom?

by creato 5y ago

It is unfortunate, but it is less unfortunate than the behavior of crypto miners. Freedom is great when people aren't using their freedom to infringe on other people's freedom.

arthurcolle 5y ago

How is someone mining on GPUs they bought themselves infringing on your freedom, pray tell?

belltaco 5y ago
The extra power usage is destroying our planet all for someone to try and make a quick buck, and causing shortages of GPUs during a pandemic where mental health from entertainment like gaming is valuable and stops people from going outside and getting/spreading the virus. The incentives for crypto all are f'ed up right now. The ETH PoS switch can't come soon enough.
- fastball 5y ago
  What if you're only mining with renewables? And I'd actually like to see a study on the positive mental health benefit of gaming, because I'm skeptical. Also the idea that you need a primo GPU in order to game is a bit silly. And if you're the kind of person that absolutely needs the best graphics in order to enjoy gaming, please see my point no. 2 about mental health.
  - shagie 5y ago
    > What if you're only mining with renewables? The issue isn't the "we're using renewable energy - see, this doesn't make things worse." It also doesn't make things better. Whats more, its increasing the consumption of energy which is at the core of the problem. It would have been even better to push that renewable energy out onto the grid (and also not increase the consumption of power for crypto mining). Switching all new power consumption to renewable doesn't improve things because the baseline of non-renewable is still there. We need to reduce existing and switch existing to renewable. I suspect a bit of Parkinson's law is in place with energy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law -- The key is to stop making it worse (by mining crypto and trying to justify it with "but its from renewable").
    - drexlspivey 5y ago
      > increasing the consumption of energy which is at the core of the problem. How is consuming energy a problem? There is a blob of infinite energy on the sky and practically all of it is wasted.
      - esyir 5y ago
        Oversimplifications like this are a fantastic way to avoid the core issues. Harvesting said ball of energy isn't free. Solar tech and near future power infra is certainly not at the maturity level for this, especially when the consumer is a power and semiconductor black hole of demand.
    - onethought 5y ago
      I mine on renewables and with 3000 series gpus. I didn’t want to do any of this, I ended up here because my energy retailer decided to tax me for exporting too much energy to the grid. So short of earthing the electricity, my solution was to burn it up in mining, and improve my solar roi. The 3000 series gpus are the most efficient hashes/watt. So actually by disabling this, you are driving people towards less efficient/worse for the environment ASICS machines. Yes I batteried my home, and use my solar on everything I can first... there is still excess... especially at peak. Pretty sure this dismantled most of your argument.
      - Axien 5y ago
        Out of curiosity, has the mining yet payed for the rig/card?
        onethought 5y ago
        No where near. But if you factor the tax I was paying (I.e assuming I didn’t earth it). It will reach cost neutral in a year and be returning margin after that. They are increasing this tax as well shortly... so it will get better.
      - istorical 5y ago
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  So earning income is less important than letting people play video games? Let's just say I'm unconvinced by this argument.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I think it's quite fair to say earning income is less important than allowing people to achieve happiness and video games are a pretty well known way to accomplish that.
    - arthurcolle 5y ago
      I unequivocally disagree with this statement - "happiness" achieved by video games is superficial, without real meaning. They are thrilling endeavors and fill time effectively, but they are absolutely secondary to the absolute positive of actually deriving income. I seriously can't believe that anyone would seriously argue a distraction is worth more than actual income.
      - TheRealSteel 5y ago
        What does mining crytprocurrency have to do with earning income? The two are completely mutually exclusive, in fact mining is a great example of making money without doing any useful work
        arthurcolle 5y ago
        Securing the network is useful work.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    I don't know any gamers who can game 24/7, 7 days a week with multiple GPUs. Mining and gaming aren't even close to comparable in power usage.
  - knorker 5y ago
    Would you say the same if you could mine bitcoin by buying up as much medicine as you could, and burning it? Because if you think the above behavior isn't "earning income" clearly better than "play video games", then your argument falls completely flat.
- ReptileMan 5y ago
  The moment Trump and Covid just don't deliver the current ROI of clicks for the media, suddenly we started hearing about how terrible crypto electricity usage is. The same way plastics are suffocating the fishes got forgotten the moment everyone started to litter the world with masks and packaging from food delivery. It is manufactured news story the same way that next one will be.
- judge2020 5y ago
  > The ETH PoS switch can't come soon enough. Profitability doesn't go down considerably with other cryptos that are efficient on 30 series cards: https://whattomine.com/coins?aq_380=0&aq_fury=0&aq_470=0&aq_480=3&a_480=true&aq_570=0&aq_580=0&aq_vega56=0&aq_vega64=0&aq_5600xt=0&aq_5700=0&aq_5700xt=0&aq_vii=0&aq_67xt=0&aq_68=0&aq_68xt=0&aq_1050Ti=0&aq_10606=0&aq_1070=0&aq_1070Ti=0&aq_1080=0&aq_1080Ti=0&aq_1660=0&aq_1660Ti=0&aq_166s=0&aq_2060=0&aq_2070=0&aq_2080=0&aq_2080Ti=0&aq_3060=0&aq_3060Ti=0&aq_3070=1&aq_3080=0&aq_3090=0&eth=true&factor%5Beth_hr%5D=90.0&factor%5Beth_p%5D=420.0&e4g=true&factor%5Be4g_hr%5D=90.0&factor%5Be4g_p%5D=420.0&zh=true&factor%5Bzh_hr%5D=63.0&factor%5Bzh_p%5D=360.0&cnh=true&factor%5Bcnh_hr%5D=2880.0&factor%5Bcnh_p%5D=330.0&cng=true&factor%5Bcng_hr%5D=2280.0&factor%5Bcng_p%5D=360.0&cnr=true&factor%5Bcnr_hr%5D=2490.0&factor%5Bcnr_p%5D=390.0&cnf=true&factor%5Bcnf_hr%5D=4950.0&factor%5Bcnf_p%5D=330.0&eqa=true&factor%5Beqa_hr%5D=285.0&factor%5Beqa_p%5D=360.0&cc=true&factor%5Bcc_hr%5D=7.8&factor%5Bcc_p%5D=390.0&cr29=true&factor%5Bcr29_hr%5D=7.2&factor%5Bcr29_p%5D=390.0&ct31=true&factor%5Bct31_hr%5D=1.8&factor%5Bct31_p%5D=360.0&ct32=true&factor%5Bct32_hr%5D=0.48&factor%5Bct32_p%5D=360.0&eqb=true&factor%5Beqb_hr%5D=46.5&factor%5Beqb_p%5D=420.0&rmx=true&factor%5Brmx_hr%5D=1410.0&factor%5Brmx_p%5D=270.0&ns=true&factor%5Bns_hr%5D=2460.0&factor%5Bns_p%5D=450.0&al=true&factor%5Bal_hr%5D=177.0&factor%5Bal_p%5D=390.0&ops=true&factor%5Bops_hr%5D=14.7&factor%5Bops_p%5D=360.0&eqz=true&factor%5Beqz_hr%5D=42.0&factor%5Beqz_p%5D=390.0&zlh=true&factor%5Bzlh_hr%5D=42.0&factor%5Bzlh_p%5D=360.0&kpw=true&factor%5Bkpw_hr%5D=39.0&factor%5Bkpw_p%5D=510.0&ppw=true&factor%5Bppw_hr%5D=28.2&factor%5Bppw_p%5D=420.0&x25x=true&factor%5Bx25x_hr%5D=2.49&factor%5Bx25x_p%5D=240.0&mtp=true&factor%5Bmtp_hr%5D=1.8&factor%5Bmtp_p%5D=390.0&vh=true&factor%5Bvh_hr%5D=1.32&factor%5Bvh_p%5D=360.0&factor%5Bcost%5D=0.1&sort=Profitability7&volume=0&revenue=7d&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=binance&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=bitfinex&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=bitforex&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=bittrex&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=dove&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=exmo&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=gate&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=graviex&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=hitbtc&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=hotbit&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=ogre&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=poloniex&factor%5Bexchanges%5D%5B%5D=stex&dataset=&commit=Calculate https://whattomine.com/coins?aq_380=0&aq_fury=0&aq_470=0&aq_... (see the 'Rev. $ Profit' column)
munk-a 5y ago
I suspect this definition issue is partially due to cultural issues - freedom means different things in different parts of the world. Outside of the US societal freedom and the freedom from pain are valued over the individualistic freedom valued in the US. I don't think either view is absolutely correct after having lived in a few different' societies - but there are valid points to support a view where individual freedom to act isn't the primary freedom to protect (i.e. protecting the freedom for everyone to live a healthy life better enables all individuals to achieve a greater degree of freedom as a society than being individually focused). I really think there's a philosophical disagreement on what freedom is at the core of a lot of the libertarian vs. socialist arguments.
TheRealSteel 5y ago
I'm no longer free to live on a planet that has been destroyed by climate change. Crptocurrency mining uses more energy than Argentina.
- MaPi_ 5y ago
  According to this[1] website, bitcoin mining is only around 0.6% of the worlds power consumption. It is certainly not anywhere near to being the main cause of global warming. [1]https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons https://cbeci.org/cbeci/comparisons

henriquez 5y ago

I’m not sure how crypto mining infringes on anyone’s freedom?

bl0b 5y ago

Could you explain how you see crypto miners as infringing on other's freedoms? I certainly agree with your first sentence, and think NVIDIA crippling hash rates on their GPUs is the lesser of two evils - just because I think crypto miners are a) wasting massive amounts of electricity and b) messing up prices in the GPU market.

Valmar 5y ago
Let's see... crypto-miners hoarding GPUs by the tens, hundreds, even, driving up GPU prices for the non-miner. Also, when the cycle busts, hoards of cheap, abused mining cards flood the second-hand market, making it difficult for companies to sell fresh cards, and also possibly hurting the company's reputation when an abused mined-on GPU fails prematurely. Miners can whine, all they want, but something needs to happen to hamper their greed for virtual money.
- bl0b 5y ago
  Jeez I know all that and support this move by NVIDIA. Fuck the miners for all I care, I thought I said as much in my original post. I just don't think they're 'infringing on my freedoms' or whatever.

seneca 5y ago

> Freedom is great when people aren't using their freedom to infringe on other people's freedom. Other people driving up the price on something you want is not "[infringing] on other people's freedom". It's an inconvenience, but you're still completely free to buy at the inflated price.

dorkwood 5y ago
Could the price ever reach a point where you would say it infringes on the general public's freedom to purchase? Or are all prices simply greater and greater inconveniences?
- Vrondi 5y ago
  No. There is no constitution of any nation which says you are owed the freedom to be guaranteed that a luxury good (like gaming graphics cards) will be available when you feel like buying it. Market scarcity of luxury goods has no infringement on anyone's freedom. Just like market availability of luxury cars or gold jewelry in no way infringes on anyone's freedom.
  - paulmd 5y ago
    the beauty is that there's no constitution of any nation that says miners are entitled to cheap gaming GPUs for their farms either. if NVIDIA wants to segment you out of the gaming market, that is their right as well. Free market cuts both ways - you are free to start up your own company and do it your way.
  - dorkwood 5y ago
    I see where our difference in opinion lies now. I don't put graphics cards into the same category as gold jewellery. There are entire industries of independent contractors who rely on GPUs to remain competitive, such as VFX and motion graphics artists. If GPUs suddenly cost $10,000 each, it means only a small percentage of the population can afford to break into those industries. That is, people who were once free to enter those industries no longer are. Isn't that an infringement on freedom?