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How is comparing Bitcoin's energy usage with other endeavors an "order of magnitude fallacy"? Gold mining uses something like 140 terawatt-hours of energy annu

How is comparing Bitcoin's energy usage with other endeavors an "order of magnitude fallacy"? Gold mining uses something like 140 terawatt-hours of energy annually, and produces enormous pollution and environmental destruction in addition to that. That's greater than Bitcoin's energy usage. Since gold mining is so much more harmful to the environment, maybe we should outlaw that first before we work on smaller problems.

StandardFuture 5y ago
> Gold mining uses something like 140 terawatt-hours of energy annually, and produces enormous pollution and environmental destruction in addition to that. The most apropos commentary in this entire thread yet.
selfhoster11 5y ago
> That's greater than Bitcoin's energy usage. For now. Gold's been around for centuries, Bitcoin not even for two decades. It's got a momentum that Bitcoin may or may not match in the future.
WorldMaker 5y ago
> How is comparing Bitcoin's energy usage with other endeavors an "order of magnitude fallacy"? The "other endeavors" category above was "digital endeavours" and specifically "Bitcoin versus Facebook", which is an order of magnitude difference. You've introduced an entirely different category from the above discussion. It's maybe an interesting category [1] to discuss elsewhere, but is off topic from the fallacy we were discussing. Thanks for the non-sequitur, though. [1] Personally, I'm not so sure it's a useful counter-comparison to Bitcoin: Gold is used in electronics and other industrial needs, beyond its service as a value store/commodity of interest to collectors. Gold is also increasingly rarely the "primary" focus of mines. Most of our Gold today comes from Copper mines and very few would argue we are mining Copper as a value store/solely for greed.
- panarky 5y ago
  > Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases Gold mining isn't a fucking edge case if it uses more energy and produces far more environmental damage. According to the principle you described, Bitcoin is the edge case we should ignore until we solve the gold mining problem.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    Gold mining isn't even an edge case in that specific example when the class of problem is explicitly defined as "What digital services use too much energy?" as it had been in the above conversation. Is Gold a digital service? No. Is Gold Mining wasteful? Perhaps. (Though again, as an aside, the better question with specific respect to Gold is: Is Copper Mining wasteful? Most gold is mined as a by product of copper mining.) It's not an edge case of the "electric waste of Digital Services", because it is an entirely different problem. So not only do we have "pedantry pageants" of edge cases, but we get to address the "pedantry pageants" of all the unrelated but seemingly related problems too?
gverrilla 5y ago
not to mention human exploitation and harsh working conditions, particularly on illegal gold mines

StandardFuture 5y ago

> Gold mining uses something like 140 terawatt-hours of energy annually, and produces enormous pollution and environmental destruction in addition to that. The most apropos commentary in this entire thread yet.

selfhoster11 5y ago

> That's greater than Bitcoin's energy usage. For now. Gold's been around for centuries, Bitcoin not even for two decades. It's got a momentum that Bitcoin may or may not match in the future.

WorldMaker 5y ago

> How is comparing Bitcoin's energy usage with other endeavors an "order of magnitude fallacy"? The "other endeavors" category above was "digital endeavours" and specifically "Bitcoin versus Facebook", which is an order of magnitude difference. You've introduced an entirely different category from the above discussion. It's maybe an interesting category [1] to discuss elsewhere, but is off topic from the fallacy we were discussing. Thanks for the non-sequitur, though. [1] Personally, I'm not so sure it's a useful counter-comparison to Bitcoin: Gold is used in electronics and other industrial needs, beyond its service as a value store/commodity of interest to collectors. Gold is also increasingly rarely the "primary" focus of mines. Most of our Gold today comes from Copper mines and very few would argue we are mining Copper as a value store/solely for greed.

panarky 5y ago
> Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases Gold mining isn't a fucking edge case if it uses more energy and produces far more environmental damage. According to the principle you described, Bitcoin is the edge case we should ignore until we solve the gold mining problem.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  Gold mining isn't even an edge case in that specific example when the class of problem is explicitly defined as "What digital services use too much energy?" as it had been in the above conversation. Is Gold a digital service? No. Is Gold Mining wasteful? Perhaps. (Though again, as an aside, the better question with specific respect to Gold is: Is Copper Mining wasteful? Most gold is mined as a by product of copper mining.) It's not an edge case of the "electric waste of Digital Services", because it is an entirely different problem. So not only do we have "pedantry pageants" of edge cases, but we get to address the "pedantry pageants" of all the unrelated but seemingly related problems too?

gverrilla 5y ago

not to mention human exploitation and harsh working conditions, particularly on illegal gold mines