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Can anyone explain why [1] is not acceptable but [2] is? I assume because its cars then it gets a free pass but bitcoin is disgusting and threatens the entire

Can anyone explain why [1] is not acceptable but [2] is? I assume because its cars then it gets a free pass but bitcoin is disgusting and threatens the entire fiscal system so let's talk about how much electricity it uses? Is it propaganda? Currency in general uses lots of electric, so do cars, so do humans as a whole. Is electricity 100% powered by renewables yet? We've made progress sure but we have a long way to go. And all the jobs that gas stations facilitate, I guess they are going away very shortly. I suspect a squeeze is incoming - gas prices will rise as electric takes over, eventually gas will disappear as the last stations close up. But, if it's anything similar to the IPv4 to IPv6 transition we have a few decades yet. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952 (Bitcoin consumes 'more electricity than Argentina') [2]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57253947 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57253947 (Why electric cars will take over sooner than you think)

belval 5y ago
EV are displacing an existing technology and replacing it by centralized electricity production that is more cost-effective and can be swapped later on for renewables. Bitcoin does not actually displace anything (at least with how it is used right now) but consume electricity. In short, EV are a neutral change short-term and a positive one long terme as we move to renewables. BTC are a negative change short-term and could stay negative in the future.
- imtringued 5y ago
  >Bitcoin does not actually displace anything (at least with how it is used right now) but consume electricity. Even the "bypass capital controls" argument runs into the problem that most of the benefit comes from USD exposure.
xyzelement 5y ago
That seems like a disingenuous question. The correct set of questions are: 1. Do electric cars solve an existing problem in a more efficient way? 2. Does BTC solve an existing problem in a more efficient way? The answer to #2 seems to be a clear no. The problem of payments is solved much more efficiently without the artificial proof of work requirement. The answer to #1 is perhaps debatable but at least there's something to debatable.
goda90 5y ago
Vehicles are a very helpful tool for numerous aspects of human life. Bitcoin is nothing more than a speculative asset to make a few people richer. It serves no real benefit to human society that can't be fulfilled in a less energy consuming way.
blandflakes 5y ago
I'm by no means an expert in crypto, but maybe that makes me semi qualified to say why at least they feel different to an outsider - replacing gasoline with electric seems at least like a potential win in terms of cost analysis. I can (theoretically) power my car with renewables? Awesome, and it makes sense that moving a vehicle would require some form of energy. It is nowhere near as obvious that the power output of Argentina should be required for a currency, as evidenced by various other proof algorithms. Is Bitcoin so useful to humanity that the tradeoff of burning forests is worth it, when there are alternatives? Further, because Bitcoin is a currency, mining wants to be profitable, so mining is not incentivized to pursue renewables if they are more expensive than e.g. coal. However, when powering my electric car, if I have the privilege, I don't defeat the purpose by paying my electric company more for wind power. Edit: I'm slow, everybody else said it better.
nojokes 5y ago
Electric cars will replace existing vehicles and will shift energy consumption. Bitcoin is creating new energy consumption.
audunw 5y ago
Are you insane? EVs don't increase energy useage. It shift energy usage from pure fossil fuels to a mix of fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear energy. Renewables are growing way faster than fossil fuels now, so by the time EVs is really starting to add demand to electricity production, most of that will be renewable. If you add up all the electricity needed to refine, transport and pump fuel, you end up with a decent percentage of that needed to drive an EV anyway. What's more, EVs have several other benefits to society. They're more quiet, there's less local pollution, you can save millions on reduced ventilation in tunnels, etc. These are objective benefits. The benefits of cryptocurrency in a modern democracy is mostly subjective and speculative at the moment. So far it seems to be purely a speculative investment object, sometimes pure gambling and scams. I'm not saying I don't think cryptocurrency can be a good thing in the end, I just don't think Bitcoin is it. IMO exchanges should be banned from trading purely speculative PoW cryptocurrencies with no guaranteed reserves behind them. (Ethereum 2.0 or stable-coins are OK in my view) > Money uses lots of electric Traditional digital money uses several orders of magnitude less electricity. So the "replacement" is just simply worse in this regard. Yes, I've heard some idiotic claims that traditional banking uses more resources, but this generally includes cash and things like investment banking, which is not what Bitcoin is replacing. Personally I don't use cash at all anymore anyway. > Is electricity 100% powered by renewables yet? Irrelevant. We can't transition to 100% renewables first, and only then start building EVs. That'll take too much time. We develop both in parallel and aim at hitting 100% renewables and 100% EVs around the same time. > But, if it's anything similar to the IPv4 to IPv6 transition we have a few decades yet. IPv6 didn't offer enough benefits until we started running out of IPv4 addresses. The benefits of EVs are massive to society as a whole. Yes, there are infrastructure challenges, but they're simpler. A lot of people can transition just by plugging in in their garage. Norway went from ~0% sale of electric cars to over 50% (~75% with PHEV) in just 10 years. And that's with way more primitive infrastructure, and really crappy EVs for the first 7 of those 10 years. Even from 2016 - when our HOA prepared the garage for EVs - until now, the solutions are just so much better. Used to be you needed an individual circuit from the circuit box to each charger. Now you just have one shared channel where you can connect a charging station at any point along it. When we got our EV in 2015, 50kW fast charging was the highest. Now there's 350kW fast chargers. Even my tiny local supermarket has two 150kW fast chargers. No, I'm in the camp that this transition will happen surprisingly fast. It already has in Norway. It'll probably be faster in many other countries since EVs and infrastructure tech is so much better now. I think the transition from feature phones to smart phones (after the iPhone was launched) is a better comparison.

belval 5y ago

EV are displacing an existing technology and replacing it by centralized electricity production that is more cost-effective and can be swapped later on for renewables. Bitcoin does not actually displace anything (at least with how it is used right now) but consume electricity. In short, EV are a neutral change short-term and a positive one long terme as we move to renewables. BTC are a negative change short-term and could stay negative in the future.

imtringued 5y ago
>Bitcoin does not actually displace anything (at least with how it is used right now) but consume electricity. Even the "bypass capital controls" argument runs into the problem that most of the benefit comes from USD exposure.

xyzelement 5y ago

That seems like a disingenuous question. The correct set of questions are: 1. Do electric cars solve an existing problem in a more efficient way? 2. Does BTC solve an existing problem in a more efficient way? The answer to #2 seems to be a clear no. The problem of payments is solved much more efficiently without the artificial proof of work requirement. The answer to #1 is perhaps debatable but at least there's something to debatable.

goda90 5y ago

Vehicles are a very helpful tool for numerous aspects of human life. Bitcoin is nothing more than a speculative asset to make a few people richer. It serves no real benefit to human society that can't be fulfilled in a less energy consuming way.

blandflakes 5y ago

I'm by no means an expert in crypto, but maybe that makes me semi qualified to say why at least they feel different to an outsider - replacing gasoline with electric seems at least like a potential win in terms of cost analysis. I can (theoretically) power my car with renewables? Awesome, and it makes sense that moving a vehicle would require some form of energy. It is nowhere near as obvious that the power output of Argentina should be required for a currency, as evidenced by various other proof algorithms. Is Bitcoin so useful to humanity that the tradeoff of burning forests is worth it, when there are alternatives? Further, because Bitcoin is a currency, mining wants to be profitable, so mining is not incentivized to pursue renewables if they are more expensive than e.g. coal. However, when powering my electric car, if I have the privilege, I don't defeat the purpose by paying my electric company more for wind power. Edit: I'm slow, everybody else said it better.

nojokes 5y ago

Electric cars will replace existing vehicles and will shift energy consumption. Bitcoin is creating new energy consumption.

audunw 5y ago

Are you insane? EVs don't increase energy useage. It shift energy usage from pure fossil fuels to a mix of fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear energy. Renewables are growing way faster than fossil fuels now, so by the time EVs is really starting to add demand to electricity production, most of that will be renewable. If you add up all the electricity needed to refine, transport and pump fuel, you end up with a decent percentage of that needed to drive an EV anyway. What's more, EVs have several other benefits to society. They're more quiet, there's less local pollution, you can save millions on reduced ventilation in tunnels, etc. These are objective benefits. The benefits of cryptocurrency in a modern democracy is mostly subjective and speculative at the moment. So far it seems to be purely a speculative investment object, sometimes pure gambling and scams. I'm not saying I don't think cryptocurrency can be a good thing in the end, I just don't think Bitcoin is it. IMO exchanges should be banned from trading purely speculative PoW cryptocurrencies with no guaranteed reserves behind them. (Ethereum 2.0 or stable-coins are OK in my view) > Money uses lots of electric Traditional digital money uses several orders of magnitude less electricity. So the "replacement" is just simply worse in this regard. Yes, I've heard some idiotic claims that traditional banking uses more resources, but this generally includes cash and things like investment banking, which is not what Bitcoin is replacing. Personally I don't use cash at all anymore anyway. > Is electricity 100% powered by renewables yet? Irrelevant. We can't transition to 100% renewables first, and only then start building EVs. That'll take too much time. We develop both in parallel and aim at hitting 100% renewables and 100% EVs around the same time. > But, if it's anything similar to the IPv4 to IPv6 transition we have a few decades yet. IPv6 didn't offer enough benefits until we started running out of IPv4 addresses. The benefits of EVs are massive to society as a whole. Yes, there are infrastructure challenges, but they're simpler. A lot of people can transition just by plugging in in their garage. Norway went from ~0% sale of electric cars to over 50% (~75% with PHEV) in just 10 years. And that's with way more primitive infrastructure, and really crappy EVs for the first 7 of those 10 years. Even from 2016 - when our HOA prepared the garage for EVs - until now, the solutions are just so much better. Used to be you needed an individual circuit from the circuit box to each charger. Now you just have one shared channel where you can connect a charging station at any point along it. When we got our EV in 2015, 50kW fast charging was the highest. Now there's 350kW fast chargers. Even my tiny local supermarket has two 150kW fast chargers. No, I'm in the camp that this transition will happen surprisingly fast. It already has in Norway. It'll probably be faster in many other countries since EVs and infrastructure tech is so much better now. I think the transition from feature phones to smart phones (after the iPhone was launched) is a better comparison.