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The misuse or "theft" of semi-public energy really is grasping at straws. All but Bitcoin uses or will use PoS, which requires little energy. Bitcoin itself req

by fleddr 5y ago

The misuse or "theft" of semi-public energy really is grasping at straws. All but Bitcoin uses or will use PoS, which requires little energy. Bitcoin itself requires such computing power that the petty theft of energy won't ever mine a single sat. You didn't justify leaving electronics plugged in, you said it provided value: convenience. If you'd calm down and read between the lines, see the overall point that "value" is subjective. Surely we can point out several energy consumers offering questionable or no value. The popular narrative is that Bitcoin offers no value at all, which I tried to counter. Clearly it has value. Maybe not to you, but it does to 100m+ users and exponentially growing. And the value it offers ranges from a humanitarian life raft to pure greed, yet value it is. True, I do not consider Bitcoin a currency as in a payment currency. Its currently useless for that in a technical sense, but also in a financial sense. You do not want to spend a deflationary asset. I consider it an asset, banks literally call it a new asset class. Is it speculative? Yes and no. Short term it is, day to day its clearly volatile and actively manipulated by traders (doing longs, shorts, leverage). So as a "store of value" on the short term, it's a failure. With a bank account, if I put in 10K today, I can take out 10K the day after. With Bitcoin, that 10K might be 9K or 12K, who knows? Longer term, it's less speculative. It's deflationary, aiming to at least counter fiat inflation, yet in reality far surpass it in growth, doing 5-10x price actions every halving, and about 200% per year on average. That's the track record. I can't predict the future. I think the point of a debate is to discuss opposing views. They don't have to grow further apart, but they might. I also don't mind a hot debate, nor am I frustrated or upset with you. My point isn't too "win". Still, nice to agree on one point in the end. Have a great day.

knorker 5y ago
> The misuse or "theft" of semi-public energy really is grasping at straws. It's not. What would you say to someone who went from store to store, and emptied the "take a penny leave a penny" tray into their pocket, so that nobody could have that anymore? Even when it's not literally theft (e.g. credit card fraud or cloud services), it's abuse that destroys a resource, to the point where nobody can offer such a service. > If you'd calm down and read between the lines, I don't appreciate you lying about what I said. > Surely we can point out several energy consumers offering questionable or no value. So this is plain whataboutism? 1.3M people die every year in traffic, too. That doesn't justify setting a price floor on energy, or fast-turnaround ewaste. > You do not want to spend a deflationary asset. And if it doesn't die, it always will be deflationary. Supply is limited and people die, or lose passwords or hard drives.
- fleddr 5y ago
  "whataboutism" is a twitter stop word to kill reason. It's hypocritical to aggressively combat one energy waster whilst allowing or even demanding 200 others. It shows one doesn't care about energy usage or the environment at all, only about the ones they deem useful to themselves. Which is subjective. Yes, Bitcoin will always be deflationary. I personally am not convinced it will eat up all wealth in the world in the way a maximalist believes it will. As said earlier, I'm thinking 10T max. Should it grow to contain much more value, Bitcoin is more likely to be expressed as sats by default, and owning a full coin would be rare. Many want to do this right now due to unit bias. Newbies tend to prefer a 0.3$ shitcoin like Dogecoin over a coin as expensive as a luxury car. Layer 2 solutions can work with a fraction of a sat, yet they can't settle this fraction on the core BTC network, nor would this make sense in terms of transaction costs. So I think they use some kind of buffering mechanism for that.
  - knorker 5y ago
    > "whataboutism" is a twitter stop word to kill reason. That's not how I use it, at least. I use it as "stop changing the subject", and "two wrongs doesn't make a right". What am I supposed to say to this distraction, if you're triggered by the word whataboutism? > It's hypocritical to aggressively combat one energy waster whilst allowing or even demanding 200 others. If that were the only thing about blockchain, then maybe. But it's not. But also no, I don't think it's hypocritical in that abstraction level. There are doctors out there who want to help people, yet are not working on malaria. That doesn't make them hypocrits on malaria. Yes, there is arguably hypocracy. Just like how you would save a drowning child if you walk past them, but you won't give $2 to feed a starving child on another continent, or $10 for a malaria net. Maybe you actually do. But even then I'm saying you'll ruin your nice shoes to save the drowning child, but then you'll buy new shoes instead of using that money to save another life. And then we have descended into a completely different point from the value of bitcoin. It's a distraction. You've effectively changed the subject to not have to discuss that you're making the world worse by pumping bitcoin. In a world where children starve and die from malaria we don't have to discuss any issue at all. How convenient. > shitcoin like Dogecoin What makes Dogecoin shit and bitcoin not?

by fleddr 5y ago

knorker 5y ago

> The misuse or "theft" of semi-public energy really is grasping at straws. It's not. What would you say to someone who went from store to store, and emptied the "take a penny leave a penny" tray into their pocket, so that nobody could have that anymore? Even when it's not literally theft (e.g. credit card fraud or cloud services), it's abuse that destroys a resource, to the point where nobody can offer such a service. > If you'd calm down and read between the lines, I don't appreciate you lying about what I said. > Surely we can point out several energy consumers offering questionable or no value. So this is plain whataboutism? 1.3M people die every year in traffic, too. That doesn't justify setting a price floor on energy, or fast-turnaround ewaste. > You do not want to spend a deflationary asset. And if it doesn't die, it always will be deflationary. Supply is limited and people die, or lose passwords or hard drives.

fleddr 5y ago
"whataboutism" is a twitter stop word to kill reason. It's hypocritical to aggressively combat one energy waster whilst allowing or even demanding 200 others. It shows one doesn't care about energy usage or the environment at all, only about the ones they deem useful to themselves. Which is subjective. Yes, Bitcoin will always be deflationary. I personally am not convinced it will eat up all wealth in the world in the way a maximalist believes it will. As said earlier, I'm thinking 10T max. Should it grow to contain much more value, Bitcoin is more likely to be expressed as sats by default, and owning a full coin would be rare. Many want to do this right now due to unit bias. Newbies tend to prefer a 0.3$ shitcoin like Dogecoin over a coin as expensive as a luxury car. Layer 2 solutions can work with a fraction of a sat, yet they can't settle this fraction on the core BTC network, nor would this make sense in terms of transaction costs. So I think they use some kind of buffering mechanism for that.
- knorker 5y ago
  > "whataboutism" is a twitter stop word to kill reason. That's not how I use it, at least. I use it as "stop changing the subject", and "two wrongs doesn't make a right". What am I supposed to say to this distraction, if you're triggered by the word whataboutism? > It's hypocritical to aggressively combat one energy waster whilst allowing or even demanding 200 others. If that were the only thing about blockchain, then maybe. But it's not. But also no, I don't think it's hypocritical in that abstraction level. There are doctors out there who want to help people, yet are not working on malaria. That doesn't make them hypocrits on malaria. Yes, there is arguably hypocracy. Just like how you would save a drowning child if you walk past them, but you won't give $2 to feed a starving child on another continent, or $10 for a malaria net. Maybe you actually do. But even then I'm saying you'll ruin your nice shoes to save the drowning child, but then you'll buy new shoes instead of using that money to save another life. And then we have descended into a completely different point from the value of bitcoin. It's a distraction. You've effectively changed the subject to not have to discuss that you're making the world worse by pumping bitcoin. In a world where children starve and die from malaria we don't have to discuss any issue at all. How convenient. > shitcoin like Dogecoin What makes Dogecoin shit and bitcoin not?