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PoW mining (at least), must be made illegal. I have no doubts that it will end by becoming illegal, the question is how and when. It boggles the mind that ther

by svara 5y ago

PoW mining (at least), must be made illegal. I have no doubts that it will end by becoming illegal, the question is how and when. It boggles the mind that there is now essentially a worldwide tax on semiconductors, which is used to do... nothing of any value whatsoever. And this thing just keeps growing. The effects will be felt in more and more economic sectors. Something will have to give. So, the only question is: Will we be smart enough to ban it soon and avert the worst consequences, or will this thing blow up in a huge way and we ban it afterwards.

superkuh 5y ago
Yes. Nationstates very much want to make the proven distributed mechanisms of consensus that allows people to exchange value without their oversite illegal. No significant cryptocurrency has gone proof of stake, and certainly none just starting out. Etherium will never actually switch. Making proof of work illegal would make effective cryptocurrency illegal. The violent standing armies (and their logistics networks) that protect other international currencies from manipulation and attack use far more energy and do it in very violent, centralized ways.
- djohnston 5y ago
  OOC why don't you expect ETH to switch? It seems like they're moving full steam ahead.
  - superkuh 5y ago
    Just like fusion energy is 20 years away, Eth is always a year or two away from switching.
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
What else would you make illegal? High fidelity 3d graphics in gaming? It is clearly wasteful and games are hardly any better because of high polygon count, right?
- Synaesthesia 5y ago
  Once anything becomes a significant amount of our energy being used, sure. It should be examined and we should see if we can reduce energy consumption.
- leshow 5y ago
  There's a false equivalence here between proof of work consensus and actually doing work. 3D renders aren't done by a bunch of independent render farms in competition with each other where their work is discarded if they aren't the first to produce the render.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Why would you want that? There isn’t a cheaper centralized system of rendering 3D graphics that uses 1/1000 the energy. We can handle transactions with quite little energy using traditional means. It’s not pseudonymous or decentralized and it’s not extremely efficient. But compared to Bitcoin it’s a wonder of efficiency. I wouldn’t take anything off the table when it comes to banning energy use. But rendering in particular seems like a strange choice. Incandescent bulbs were banned because there was a good alternative. PoW cryptocurrency is the incandescent bulb.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    Ok, imagine yourself in Belarus. All traditional means are under government control. How do you fund anti-Lukashemko guerrillas? Cash?
    - WheatM 5y ago
    - alkonaut 5y ago
      Yes, for example. Or any other way that has worked more or less well throughout history. Few people are buying the “but the dissidents” argument of cryptocurrency. It’s a valid use case in theory but little so far shows that has been a use case. The thing about Bitcoin is that it’s mature tech now. Whatever promises it has should be materialized now. If it’s to be a currency rather than a store of value and instrument of speculation - it ought to show already. But it doesn’t. It hasn’t materialized. And we shouldn’t be sinking resources into something that is perpetually a few years from being a currency.
hetspookjee 5y ago
Imagine the savings of stopping to allow running arbitrary javascript in advertisements.
- svara 5y ago
  I'm making a different argument. We may not like ads, but all sorts of real things happen in the world in order to make ads, and as a consequence of ads. The ad industry is not on a trajectory to turn every last grain of sand into an ad-making machine. I also made a prediction: It will be banned eventually. Not because I or anyone else doesn't like it, but because it is a disaster in the making. PoW currencies are already a significant drag factor on, for example, ML research. The drag factor is increasing, and it will be felt in more and more industries. You can only replace so much real economic activity by literal hot air production before it causes an acute crisis.
admax88qqq 5y ago
There's lots of ways to turn electricity into money. Bitcoin is one of the easiest but you're not going to stop climate change or make a reasonably impact on the growing energy demands of civilization by banning it. Better to focus on replacing all energy production with green sources and taxing polluters rather than trying to ban specific energy uses you don't like.
- joshgrib 5y ago
  This seems like a fair solution that could have the same impact - if the pollution tax is high enough and the mining profits are low enough then mining would no longer be profitable. At a minimum it at least makes sure people are "cleaning up after themselves" by paying to mitigate the damage they cause
  - admax88qqq 5y ago
    Exactly, and then its not limited to just bitcoin, but any process that creates pollution (coal power, dirty manufacturing, forest removal, etc). If pollution stops being free, the market will finally be incentivized to reduce it.
    - joshgrib 5y ago
      This is totally how I feel, and it's even worse than that - we're still subsidizing fossil fuels, so we're not only NOT taxing the pollution, we're actually helping to make it cheaper for companies to do. I think step 1 should be stopping all the subsidies. I haven't actually seen the numbers before but this is pretty absurd: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Glo... > Globally, subsidies remained large at $4.7 trillion (6.3 percent of global GDP) in 2015 and are projected at $5.2 trillion (6.5 percent of GDP) in 2017 > coal and petroleum together account for 85 percent of global subsidies
      - admax88qqq 5y ago

by svara 5y ago

superkuh 5y ago

Yes. Nationstates very much want to make the proven distributed mechanisms of consensus that allows people to exchange value without their oversite illegal. No significant cryptocurrency has gone proof of stake, and certainly none just starting out. Etherium will never actually switch. Making proof of work illegal would make effective cryptocurrency illegal. The violent standing armies (and their logistics networks) that protect other international currencies from manipulation and attack use far more energy and do it in very violent, centralized ways.

djohnston 5y ago
OOC why don't you expect ETH to switch? It seems like they're moving full steam ahead.
- superkuh 5y ago
  Just like fusion energy is 20 years away, Eth is always a year or two away from switching.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago

What else would you make illegal? High fidelity 3d graphics in gaming? It is clearly wasteful and games are hardly any better because of high polygon count, right?

Synaesthesia 5y ago
Once anything becomes a significant amount of our energy being used, sure. It should be examined and we should see if we can reduce energy consumption.
leshow 5y ago
There's a false equivalence here between proof of work consensus and actually doing work. 3D renders aren't done by a bunch of independent render farms in competition with each other where their work is discarded if they aren't the first to produce the render.
alkonaut 5y ago
Why would you want that? There isn’t a cheaper centralized system of rendering 3D graphics that uses 1/1000 the energy. We can handle transactions with quite little energy using traditional means. It’s not pseudonymous or decentralized and it’s not extremely efficient. But compared to Bitcoin it’s a wonder of efficiency. I wouldn’t take anything off the table when it comes to banning energy use. But rendering in particular seems like a strange choice. Incandescent bulbs were banned because there was a good alternative. PoW cryptocurrency is the incandescent bulb.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Ok, imagine yourself in Belarus. All traditional means are under government control. How do you fund anti-Lukashemko guerrillas? Cash?
  - WheatM 5y ago
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    Yes, for example. Or any other way that has worked more or less well throughout history. Few people are buying the “but the dissidents” argument of cryptocurrency. It’s a valid use case in theory but little so far shows that has been a use case. The thing about Bitcoin is that it’s mature tech now. Whatever promises it has should be materialized now. If it’s to be a currency rather than a store of value and instrument of speculation - it ought to show already. But it doesn’t. It hasn’t materialized. And we shouldn’t be sinking resources into something that is perpetually a few years from being a currency.

hetspookjee 5y ago

Imagine the savings of stopping to allow running arbitrary javascript in advertisements.

svara 5y ago
I'm making a different argument. We may not like ads, but all sorts of real things happen in the world in order to make ads, and as a consequence of ads. The ad industry is not on a trajectory to turn every last grain of sand into an ad-making machine. I also made a prediction: It will be banned eventually. Not because I or anyone else doesn't like it, but because it is a disaster in the making. PoW currencies are already a significant drag factor on, for example, ML research. The drag factor is increasing, and it will be felt in more and more industries. You can only replace so much real economic activity by literal hot air production before it causes an acute crisis.

admax88qqq 5y ago

There's lots of ways to turn electricity into money. Bitcoin is one of the easiest but you're not going to stop climate change or make a reasonably impact on the growing energy demands of civilization by banning it. Better to focus on replacing all energy production with green sources and taxing polluters rather than trying to ban specific energy uses you don't like.

joshgrib 5y ago
This seems like a fair solution that could have the same impact - if the pollution tax is high enough and the mining profits are low enough then mining would no longer be profitable. At a minimum it at least makes sure people are "cleaning up after themselves" by paying to mitigate the damage they cause
- admax88qqq 5y ago
  Exactly, and then its not limited to just bitcoin, but any process that creates pollution (coal power, dirty manufacturing, forest removal, etc). If pollution stops being free, the market will finally be incentivized to reduce it.
  - joshgrib 5y ago
    This is totally how I feel, and it's even worse than that - we're still subsidizing fossil fuels, so we're not only NOT taxing the pollution, we're actually helping to make it cheaper for companies to do. I think step 1 should be stopping all the subsidies. I haven't actually seen the numbers before but this is pretty absurd: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-Estimates-46509 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Glo... > Globally, subsidies remained large at $4.7 trillion (6.3 percent of global GDP) in 2015 and are projected at $5.2 trillion (6.5 percent of GDP) in 2017 > coal and petroleum together account for 85 percent of global subsidies
    - admax88qqq 5y ago