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NFT’s aren’t a harmless digital fad – they’re a disaster for our planet
- premium-komodo 5y agoThese are like dispatches from deep within a cult compound that can only be made by ignoring virtually every metric of human well-being. Poverty, illiteracy, infant mortality, etc., one could go on for days, they're all better. But from within the cult, it looks like "disaster" for other people to use the electricity they bought how they want. I find it revealing what happens if you say "oh, well, if you're worried about pollution, let's do nuclear." The strange thing is, somehow it's still a problem for them. One begins to wonder if the real issue is not pollution, but simply using plentiful electricity for purposes the complainers don't approve of.
- lottin 5y agoWe live in a planet with limited resources. If someone expends these resources in ways that I consider reckless, selfish and stupid, I will complain.
- jlokier 5y agoIf you think nuclear fission is the solution to the problems caused by energy production currently, you are almost certainly wrong. On top of that, nuclear is completely useless for addressing the BTC mining consumption problem. Even deluxe perfectly clean magic energy would not address it. Mining is a consumption competition with no upper limit, so will use up all the nuclear and other magic you can produce and still demand more from every other power source it can afford. The people you are talking to know this, so course they are going to think you're not offering a solution, just a glib remark that doesn't begin to address the problem.
- berenza 5y agominers pay for the electricity they use just like everyone else. if you dont like it raise power prices or stfu.
- md_ 5y agoSure. Isn’t that the argument for market-based fixes to negative externalities, like carbon taxes?
- confiq 5y agoor maybe create a technology that does not waste that amount of energy and advocate for that? That is more respectful than yelling "STFU" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago> miners pay for the electricity they use just like everyone else The article about miners literally stealing the electricity that they use was only 2 days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27313686 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27313686
- KozmoNau7 5y agoPeople are burning gigawatts of electricity on creating "proofs of ownership" which aren't actually proof of anything other than a massive expenditure of electricity. In other words, wasting extreme amounts of energy that could have been put to productive use, to generate in essence a glorified MD5 hash, which points to a URL that could be deleted or changed at any time in the future. It is the ultimate in pointless and useless conspicuous consumption, so of course people are going wild for it. And the world burns for it.
- premium-komodo 5y agoSure, I don't think it's good tech, and I don't like it. But I don't like a million things people do, and I don't try to make some convoluted argument that their weird activity is a matter of public concern. > And the world burns for it. Please support this with data. It doesn't literally burn for it; fires are down, what, 90% from a century ago?
- KozmoNau7 5y agoAccording to Cambridge University, Bitcoin alone consumes more electricity per year than the entire country of Argentina, for no actual tangible benefit to the world. It creates nothing but an imaginary store of imaginary wealth. That makes it an issue of global concern.
- premium-komodo 5y agoIt obviously has value to the people who are involved with it. We don't decide if other people are allowed to do the things they're interested in by comparing their activity to something in Argentina. If you are able to say precisely how some particular person or organization is harming you, I encourage you to file a lawsuit against them. If not, I encourage you to take up some kind of spiritual cultivation practice to help you not be unduly concerned about the activities of others.
- jcelerier 5y ago
- ergot_vacation 5y agoThe elite/rich/etc don't like NFTs because they're a little too close to all the other ways resources are already being wasted (by them). Historically, criminals who play the long game tend to dislike criminals playing the short game because the latter risks overturning the applecart for the former. If you've got a good scam going, the last thing you want is attention.
- md_ 5y ago> The elite/rich/etc don't like NFTs Really? Then who are the people spending $512,000 on “Mars House” (or $69,000,000 on a Beeple NFT)?
- ddek 5y agoEh, I work with investment fund admins, the rich have profited quite nicely off NFTs. In the past their portfolios were made of companies that... you know, do things; but now I see them with $500k of NFT minecraft tiles and they're more profitable than ever before and weep for humanity.
- secondcoming 5y agoIs it a tax avoidance scheme, like high-end art?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kwdc 5y agoAn alternative perspective is that crypto mining should be required to only use main-grid surplus or their own renewable energy sources. Then make it hideously expensive for them to not use renewables. This way the bitcoin / cryptos would be for public good. They'd be incentivised to improve the world situation rather than be a burden. But governments are usually really bad at this sort of thing and they'd probably just mess it all up. It would likely involve a messed up website, multiple privacy violations, various forms of messed up bureaucratic red tape and all sorts of other anti-patterns. Also, incentives being incentives, forcing crypto miners to use, eg solar, would likely just spike the prices of renewables and cause other issues. Ok, I'm outta ideas.
- lars 5y agoIdea: We could stop using cryptocurrencies. Any downsides to that?
- confiq 5y agothere are crypto-coints that don't depend heavily on cpu/gpu calculation.
- ttt0 5y agoDownvotes you're getting are speaking for themselves, no one actually cares about environment. They just want to ban cryptocurrencies or leave just one that the government can fully control, like in India.
- comodore_ 5y agoThe subheading of the article is the only time "fossil fuel" is mentioned, not a single mention after that >Artists are harnessing NFTs to sell their work but ignoring the vast amount of fossil fuels needed to power them. this article is FUD > [...] while the rest of us are saddled with an environmental impact nobody can afford to bear. One can’t help but wonder if the proud new owner of Western Flag will think it was all worth it on some day, not so very far from now, when the coastal cities have drowned, the brackish water that comes from the tap needs to be boiled before it is safe to drink and climate refugees huddle in tent cities stretching to the horizon.
- confiq 5y agowhy is it FUD? Because environment impact is not that big?
- dna_polymerase 5y agoThe environment take on NFTs must be the most stupid. Ethereum is about to switch to PoS and on Tezos you can already have cleanNFTs because of Tezos being PoS since inception.
- ilaksh 5y agoAlgorand is also great for NFTs and arguably the most efficient system.
- Kiro 5y agoStrange take. The amount of NFT transactions must be minuscule compared to all the DeFi.
- tsp 5y agoThe authors did not do their homework. There are active NFT marketplaces on PoS (i.e. Proof of Stake) chains that are very active right now. NFTs in general are not bad, Ethereum in it’s current form is problematic for the environment, existing PoS chains are not. Hic Et Nunc [0] is one of the NFT marketplace with large user base that runs on a PoS chain - Tezos [1]. I did not expect such a misinformed article from the Guardian. [0] https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/ https://www.hicetnunc.xyz/ [1] https://tezos.com/ https://tezos.com/
- ilaksh 5y agoEthereum is also moving to proof of stake pretty soon.
- onli 5y agoEthereum is moving to proof of stake "pretty soon" since 3 or more years. I remember having that conversation in the first gpu crypto price bubble. Believe it when it's there, not before.
- jlokier 5y agoIt's reasonable to be skeptical given the history. But honestly, there has been a rush of activity in "the merge" this year, starting just a few months ago. The proof of stake (PoS) network has been live with serious money since late last year, so it's becoming relatively established, and the merge is the technical steps to join the entire PoW Ethereum transaction history, processes and existing software into the PoS network, without a single disruptive event. It's as much of an ecosystem process as a technical process, to retain its value across the merge. Technically it is rather complicated too. The PoS system diagram is more complex than the equivalent PoW system diagram. There are so many things to get right in a complex adversarial computation system like Ethereum, where economic motivations cause people to hunt for every conceivable hack and advantage, and the system's logic has to be regularly updated to deincentivise those.
- mnd999 5y agoElectricity usage is not the main problem with NFTs. It’s the same problem with any blockchain application that isn’t entirely on chain, no way to enforce the link with the real world.
- amelius 5y agoSo are ads, as they stimulate overconsumption.
- Tangokat 5y agoPoor opinion piece. Not a single mention of Ethereum switching to proof-of-stake which will reduce the power requirements by ~99,9%. Because the author doesn't know or because he wants to only show one side of the argument? The "article" is written by the author of: "Against the smart city". So I'm gonna go with him just wanting clicks and to show only one side of the argument.
- alkonaut 5y agoCan someone explain to me why I’d want an “NFT”? What’s the actual point of it? It can be used to prove some “ownership” of a digital work - but when no one cares about that ownership, how can it actually have value? If I change a byte in the work, it’s also a completely distinct work of art meaning there is no problem creating thousands of copies with thousands of owners? I might be a boomer but I just don’t get it.
- gtvwill 5y agoE.g. buy house. Get deed saying you own house. Instead of getting deed as a piece of paper and your name in town books you get a NFT and its stores details on a blockchain ledger.its just a new medium of storing data securely. What you use it for is upto you.
- alkonaut 5y agoThis just feels like traditional blockchain tech (putting the city ledger with all deeds in a cryptographic ledger)? That one I can understand. Non-distributed but public ledgers is one of few good use cases I can see for blockchains. My question was specifically “why NFTs” not “why cryptographic ledgers”.
- jlokier 5y agoI don't get it either. The appeal isn't there for me. Not that I can afford any of the headline NFT prices anyway. But we might as well look at the analogy with the art market - why do some people place high value on some art? Part of the answer is "authenticity" and "provenace". These are about who created the artifact. Were they the actual creator of the artifact being stamped, or are they some random trying to cash in on someone else's work? If they weren't the original creator, but paid for the artifact via transaction from the creator, that's respected too. Technically, sure, you can change a byte in an NFT and get a new one. But it's obvious to everyone doing diligence that you're claiming ownership of, and perhaps selling, a derivative. After all there is a proof of the original out there, which differs by one byte and was stamped before yours. If there aren't the tools to detect this sort of thing yet, there will be soon. So don't think you can re-encode the original to work around this. SImilarity detection is a thing. People, well some people anyway, will place a much higher value on an original compared with an altered derivative when both are available. They also place much higher value on something that can be traced to its creator, than something created by one person where another tries to claim it. Perhaps there's an instinct at play here that causes (some) people to direct resources vaguely in the direction of artifact creators they respect, and to the halo of people around them.
- solmag 5y agoPeople really do be misunderstanding the significance of Bitcoin being priced in USD. An inversion of what it means in almost every context.
- xiphias2 5y agoI challenge Adam Greenfield, the writer of the article to live independent of fossil fuels. Until then he's a hypocrite trying to ban what other people are doing with their lives.
- foxrob92 5y agoSo people aren't allowed to criticise the system they live under? Every time I see this take, I am reminded of this comic: https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/ https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/
- xiphias2 5y agoYou are right, it's OK to criticize the system, it's just frustrating for me as a Bitcoin holder to be criticized for Bitcoin using 0.1% of the worlds energy while for example for video gamers not getting the same criticism. Take away Netflix, my car or social media from me, I don't care, I will live fine without them. But take away my Bitcoin and my life gets devastating, just like for other people who realized that their savings are done (I'm not afraid of Bitcoin going away though). As for NFTs, sure, right now they are useless, but I see them as experiments for the future of digital ownership accounting in the future.
- foxrob92 5y agoBitcoin mining is a colossal waste of energy (given it's at about 1.2MWh currently to confirm a single transaction, and that number is basically nondecreasing). People playing video games are at least deriving some enjoyment from it. There are less wasteful methods of exchange than BTC.
- chii 5y ago> People playing video games are at least deriving some enjoyment from it not that i believe in bitcoin, but why can't they equivalently claim that mining bitcoins would derive enjoyment? after all, enjoyment is subjective. The problem with people claiming mining btc is a waste, is that they are attributing a set of moral and ethical rules that they themselves see as absolutely correct, and anyone who do not ascribe to those rules are scums.