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Well, from my perspective, a bunch of us are playing some very weirdly human constructed game of wasting life years on work and passive content consumption. If

Well, from my perspective, a bunch of us are playing some very weirdly human constructed game of wasting life years on work and passive content consumption. If we ever make it to a cashless utopia, I'm pretty sure someone's going to look at us and see how much untapped human potential was wasted on years of watching a screen and experiencing dopamine release.

kortilla 5y ago
What is the point of human potential if you aren’t working for the ability to enjoy life?
- oliwarner 5y ago
  I think the suggestion there is hacking this artificial happiness through gamification of banal activities is a waste of our existence. If we ever make it to post-scarcity, we need to still be producing something. Or we may as well be batteries plugged into the Matrix.
reaperducer 5y ago
What makes you conflate "cashless" with "utopia?"
- knuthsat 5y ago
  I was thinking more in the lines of Star Trek / The Orville where material wealth is no longer a thing.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
You know there’s always an auto counter argument for an argument like yours. What else would have done? Hiked and played sports? Or let me mention the cool/hip things — “build shit” “ship things” “be productive”? For what? Some other chemical release? This will keep going in a loop.
- knuthsat 5y ago
  Absolutely, that's exactly the answer to the guy talking about "wasting energy" on Bitcoin. On what else would we waste it then? Energy is being wasted everywhere on much sillier things at much grander scales.
  - SantalBlush 5y ago
    >Energy is being wasted everywhere on much sillier things at much grander scales. Setting aside for a moment that I don't believe this, it's not even a valid argument to begin with.
    - knuthsat 5y ago
      Valid argument for what? Humans around the world are consuming food, heating/cooling themselves, all in the service of some gamified activity. Some of these activities are as useless as mining Bitcoin. Yes, these activities aren't burning through energy, but people are burning through energy, with the sole focus of doing the activity. Any justification for these activities can most definitely be used to justify people wasting energy on mining Bitcoin.
      - SantalBlush 5y ago
        That's the thing: I don't see anyone justifying those other vague activities in this thread. The notion that nothing can be criticized as being wasteful because something, somewhere else, might possibly be more wasteful is just false. It's not a valid argument. This reasoning has no bearing on whether or not bitcoin is a waste of energy or whether its energy use is justified. It is akin to saying, "Sure, I burn ten tons of coal a day to power my iPhone, but someone else burns twenty tons a day to do the same thing. Therefore, I'm not being wasteful." This logic doesn't cut it.
        knuthsat 5y ago
        But I was not making an argument that Bitcoin is not wasteful. I was making an argument that deciding what is a valuable human activity does not include wastefulness at all. (OP was implying that someone from the future will value these mining efforts in a regretful way) People are having fun earning money by burning gas and mining Bitcoin. There are so many other equivalent activities that do not receive any uproar but are even more wasteful. For example, eating meat is insanely wasteful. Yet you will find people defending it. Wasting energy is the thing we do for various reasons. The underlying "regret" that someone from the future should have due to it not being productive or useful is completely irrelevant. We rarely do things because they are energy efficient.

kortilla 5y ago

What is the point of human potential if you aren’t working for the ability to enjoy life?

oliwarner 5y ago
I think the suggestion there is hacking this artificial happiness through gamification of banal activities is a waste of our existence. If we ever make it to post-scarcity, we need to still be producing something. Or we may as well be batteries plugged into the Matrix.

reaperducer 5y ago

What makes you conflate "cashless" with "utopia?"

knuthsat 5y ago
I was thinking more in the lines of Star Trek / The Orville where material wealth is no longer a thing.

crossroadsguy 5y ago

You know there’s always an auto counter argument for an argument like yours. What else would have done? Hiked and played sports? Or let me mention the cool/hip things — “build shit” “ship things” “be productive”? For what? Some other chemical release? This will keep going in a loop.

knuthsat 5y ago
Absolutely, that's exactly the answer to the guy talking about "wasting energy" on Bitcoin. On what else would we waste it then? Energy is being wasted everywhere on much sillier things at much grander scales.
- SantalBlush 5y ago
  >Energy is being wasted everywhere on much sillier things at much grander scales. Setting aside for a moment that I don't believe this, it's not even a valid argument to begin with.
  - knuthsat 5y ago
    Valid argument for what? Humans around the world are consuming food, heating/cooling themselves, all in the service of some gamified activity. Some of these activities are as useless as mining Bitcoin. Yes, these activities aren't burning through energy, but people are burning through energy, with the sole focus of doing the activity. Any justification for these activities can most definitely be used to justify people wasting energy on mining Bitcoin.
    - SantalBlush 5y ago
      That's the thing: I don't see anyone justifying those other vague activities in this thread. The notion that nothing can be criticized as being wasteful because something, somewhere else, might possibly be more wasteful is just false. It's not a valid argument. This reasoning has no bearing on whether or not bitcoin is a waste of energy or whether its energy use is justified. It is akin to saying, "Sure, I burn ten tons of coal a day to power my iPhone, but someone else burns twenty tons a day to do the same thing. Therefore, I'm not being wasteful." This logic doesn't cut it.
      - knuthsat 5y ago
        But I was not making an argument that Bitcoin is not wasteful. I was making an argument that deciding what is a valuable human activity does not include wastefulness at all. (OP was implying that someone from the future will value these mining efforts in a regretful way) People are having fun earning money by burning gas and mining Bitcoin. There are so many other equivalent activities that do not receive any uproar but are even more wasteful. For example, eating meat is insanely wasteful. Yet you will find people defending it. Wasting energy is the thing we do for various reasons. The underlying "regret" that someone from the future should have due to it not being productive or useful is completely irrelevant. We rarely do things because they are energy efficient.