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Miners are most definitely not the working class and they're not doing any useful work. This sounds harsh because most individual miners aren't hostile in any w
by nootropicat 5y ago
Miners are most definitely not the working class and they're not doing any useful work. This sounds harsh because most individual miners aren't hostile in any way - but if miners were a one entity, there would be no exaggeration at all.
Collectively, paying miners is like paying the mob to not destroy the system, as they are only group with the power to do so. Without miners at all attacks would be impossible. 51% attacks on ETC show that the threat is real.
The working class are users - people using and building on ethereum. Their wealth is continuously drained by the mob, but there is hope - a wall staffed by militia is being slowly erected. It's called proof of stake, and once finished, the mob can finally be told to fuck off.
In the meantime the absolute value of protection money paid to the mob has grown several times, making it possible to reduce the protection payments percentage rate without impacting security of the people.
- Tepix 5y agoMiners are not doing any useful work is incorrect, they are securing the system.
- elevenoh 5y agoYeah folks don't seem to realize every monetary system requires 'sacrifice' for its security (whether this is lock-up of capital, work etc.) The market most efficiently determines whether [& which] to sacrifice (e.g. computation or capital lock-up) is worthwhile.
- mandmandam 5y agoThe market has not efficiently determined that though. _Objectively_ better alternatives to Bitcoin are around for at least the last five years. No one can realistically argue that it's better to have a system use 6 million times more energy, cost infinitely more, and require waiting 16 minutes for a confirmation compared to less than a second. "The market" is chock-full of inertia, vested interests, propaganda, sunk costs, and technical ignorance. There are literally thousands of cryptocurrencies - and the majority are scams. What has "the market" done to protect people? I say all this to do my part to improve "the market", but my estimation of the market's ability to efficiently determine its arse from a hole in the ground is low. Other examples of "the market's efficiency" include tobacco companies responsible for killing millions making bank for decades by fudding science, energy companies fudding data for decades to burn the planet while making billions, monopolies, duopolies, externalised costs, racketeering, collusion, collateral damage, etc etc etc.
- elevenoh 5y ago>_Objectively_ better alternatives to Bitcoin are around for at least the last five years. If you truly think this way, you're deluding yourself & this is where I stop reading. Everything has tradeoffs. There's no 'objective' better.
- mandmandam 5y ago> Everything has tradeoffs. There's no 'objective' better. Yes there is. Every chess move has advantages and disadvantages, yes. But some are objectively better. Every algorithm has advantages and disadvantages. But some are objectively better. Believing that nothing can be objectively better than Bitcoin, and calling people who disagree delusional, is less than useful.
- jkhdigital 5y agoChess is an abstract game in a tightly bounded universe. Economics (which includes monetary economics) is concerned with open systems in the real world. The two are not even remotely comparable. You might benefit--expand your mind--by reading some classical economists' thoughts on such things.
- mandmandam 5y agoWe are not just talking about a small difference between BTC and newer gen crpyto. I've stated numbers above. While I appreciate the hilarity of invoking classical economics to justify vague Bitcoin maximalism, we are talking about something 6 million times more energy efficient, with infinitely lower fees, and well over a thousand times faster. It's objectively better on every technical front.
- lottin 5y ago> There's no 'objective' better. Maybe look up 'efficiency'. If we can achieve the same outcome at different costs, then the method that achieves said outcome incurring the least cost is objectively better than the others.
- mandmandam 5y agoThe system does not need to be secured in a way that burns the energy of Argentina. There are networks running right now that use the energy of a windmill to provide secure transactions, and more of them, processed in under a second, with no fee at all. That's not vaporware; that's current reality. All Bitcoin miners are doing is perpetuating a system that has been very groundbreaking but is now obsolete in every way.
- jkhdigital 5y agoThe cost of burning electricity in PoW mining is very visible. The opportunity cost of locking up coins in stake is hidden. However, the economic cost is still there. If a process truly provides a particular good or service for unconditionally lower costs then it will dominate the market. We shall see if that happens in crypto.
- Tepix 5y agoI agree that what they are doing is highly inefficient, however they are doing it.
- nootropicat 5y agoThen Viking raiders were "securing England" and getting Danegeld in return for their useful, hard work of _not_ raiding and pillaging.