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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 wastef

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.

SantalBlush 5y ago
Okay, so we're not talking about whether bitcoin is wasteful, but whether its waste is justified, which is really the same thing. Other than that, it seems you're using the same invalid argument (other activities are more wasteful) as before. It makes no sense. Whether or not people defend more wasteful activities is irrelevant, for reasons I already discussed.
- knuthsat 5y ago
  But if we are arguing if waste is justified then obviously it's not for you or me to decide if it is, including the humans from the future. I'm just laughing at the inconsistency. If people were really consistent in their views of (un)justified waste, I just don't see the same uproar to those other magnitudes more wasteful things (like eating meat, spending a life playing video games etc.). It's like being mad about one of the fastest functions in your code when there's many others to optimized. I also do not want to talk about the philosophical side to taking a life of an ant (delve into what waste is justified or not, and which degrees of dopamine response would justify it).

SantalBlush 5y ago

Okay, so we're not talking about whether bitcoin is wasteful, but whether its waste is justified, which is really the same thing. Other than that, it seems you're using the same invalid argument (other activities are more wasteful) as before. It makes no sense. Whether or not people defend more wasteful activities is irrelevant, for reasons I already discussed.

knuthsat 5y ago
But if we are arguing if waste is justified then obviously it's not for you or me to decide if it is, including the humans from the future. I'm just laughing at the inconsistency. If people were really consistent in their views of (un)justified waste, I just don't see the same uproar to those other magnitudes more wasteful things (like eating meat, spending a life playing video games etc.). It's like being mad about one of the fastest functions in your code when there's many others to optimized. I also do not want to talk about the philosophical side to taking a life of an ant (delve into what waste is justified or not, and which degrees of dopamine response would justify it).