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While your qualitative descriptions of utility and assessments I mostly find roughly accurate (pure opinion on both our part, and I will nitpick and say it's gr

While your qualitative descriptions of utility and assessments I mostly find roughly accurate (pure opinion on both our part, and I will nitpick and say it's great when benefit-to-labor ratio is high), the quantitative balance is subjecive opinion. You've simply analyzed and decided the ratio is poor. I've looked at it and find the opinion the ratio is excellent. But it's true crypto doesn't care either way and is exceedingly difficult to squash. Ultimately I think it is on the power producers and consumers to achieve how to eliminate externality associated with electricity use; playing whack-a-mole with whatever people use their electricity on (AI, crypto, video games, whatever) is just patching the issue. And thus brings us to the reason why crypto is an ever popular debate on HN. At the end of the day even if you find crypto morally bad, there's no universal shock to the conscious for using crypto like there would be for murder/rape/theft. Some see crypto as sinner and other see it as saint. You seem to acknowledge a little of everything but weigh different factors differently than others. At the end of the day given the impossibility of banning crypto and the number of people on both sides, I just don't see it going away without a superior replacement filling the spot. For me this is a great thing, but for many it's going to be a point of contention and outrage for a long time. I will go one respecting the choice for some not to use it and hopefully others will peacefully implore us to stop if they find it wrong, but I think it's going to take violence and an oppressive enforcement mechanism to force me and many others to stop. Good luck.

beaconstudios 5y ago
I'm more lamenting crypto's existence than waving the guards over to come shoot people. I don't see how bitcoin can at all be a positive thing on a systemic level when it's primary purpose is financial speculation and scamming (neither of which are materially productive) and its primary cost is massive amounts of CO2. Of course it can be individually beneficial - mass murders are financially beneficial to funeral directors, but I don't think they're good in the general sense. And that's basically how I see crypto advocates - advocating for something immoral because it benefits them financially. Which is about all I expect from libertarians, to be fair.
- notch656a 5y ago
  >I don't see how bitcoin can at all be a positive thing on a systemic level when it's primary purpose is financial speculation and scamming I understand this is all opinion on both sides. I would add this opnion risks overlooking, say, Argentinian free-lancers who are paid in crypto because the system surrounding them makes it untenable to use conventional banking. Or the jewler buying precious metals with litecoin to avoid credit card fees. Escaping a failed economic system like refugees in Venezuela receiving crypto remittance definitely seems like a systemic improvement for them. I guess you could call using it for transaction to buy precious metal speculative, but even in that system the actual crypto transaction isn't speculative as it merely acts as a unit of trade to buy an underlying "speculative" investment (personally I don't consider PMs speculative investment but rather store of value that I don't desire the volatility to appreciate or depreciate.) >its primary cost is massive amounts of CO2 So you hate electricity? Join the Amish. >mass murders are financially beneficial to funeral directors But this isn't true. The people killed have to die sometime, their death is assured to the funeral directors. Them living longer just means they're more likely to reproduce and generate a new human who in turn dies someday. Funeral directors are worse off by mass murder. I think this excellent allegory points out your economic short-sightedness. Funeral directors want people to live highly reproductive lives, not short lives. > Of course it can be individually beneficial - mass murders Now we have entered clown world where mass murder is the example given. How many mass murders actually happened specifically and only because of the existance of crypto? The only example even close I'm aware of is Ross Ulbricht's alleged murder plot that was never even prosecuted thus we have no idea if it was true. >advocating for something immoral because it benefits them financially So basically anyone advocating for using dollars? I see crypto like a hammer, it's a tool that can be used morally, immorraly, or merely in a morally neutral fashion. >Which is about all I expect from libertarians, to be fair. Is this supposed to be some sort of ad-hominem attack? >Which is about all I expect from libertarians I have a hard time making sweeping generalizations about morality based on one's political choice.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    > I would add this opnion risks overlooking, say, Argentinian free-lancers who are paid in crypto because the system surrounding them makes it untenable to use conventional banking. Or the jewler buying precious metals with litecoin to avoid credit card fees. I did include the unbanked and productive manufacturing (which you neglected to mention until now - are you a jeweler?) in examples of positive use, in my utility list. But you have to assess a technology based on its overall effect. > So you hate electricity? Join the Amish. Totally specious. > Funeral directors want people to live highly reproductive lives, not short lives. This is overly reductive. Clearly a short term boost in business is a financial boon for funeral directors, as it would be for any business. > How many mass murders actually happened specifically and only because of the existance of crypto? Uh, what? Maybe I should just give up trying to explain my point to you if a simple analogy is beyond your comprehension. > I see crypto like a hammer, it's a tool that can be used morally, immorraly, or merely in a morally neutral fashion. You can look at actual use to determine the effect of something. Not many people are using F15s for anything else but killing people, so it's fair to call weapons of war broadly immoral. > Is this supposed to be some sort of ad-hominem attack? "greed is good" and "unregulated capitalism is the ideal" are libertarian tenets, so yes, I think it's fair to say that they're selfishly self interested. So you consider yourself a libertarian? > I have a hard time making sweeping generalizations about morality based on one's political choice. Given that politics is an expression of values, I really don't. If somebody were to say "I don't like Jews and that's why I'm a nazi" (this is an argument from absurdity, BTW) I could reasonably call them a bad person. They also wouldn't need to say the first part because its implicit in the identification. Libertarianism is fundamentally about "fuck you got mine", which I find to be immoral.

beaconstudios 5y ago

I'm more lamenting crypto's existence than waving the guards over to come shoot people. I don't see how bitcoin can at all be a positive thing on a systemic level when it's primary purpose is financial speculation and scamming (neither of which are materially productive) and its primary cost is massive amounts of CO2. Of course it can be individually beneficial - mass murders are financially beneficial to funeral directors, but I don't think they're good in the general sense. And that's basically how I see crypto advocates - advocating for something immoral because it benefits them financially. Which is about all I expect from libertarians, to be fair.

notch656a 5y ago
>I don't see how bitcoin can at all be a positive thing on a systemic level when it's primary purpose is financial speculation and scamming I understand this is all opinion on both sides. I would add this opnion risks overlooking, say, Argentinian free-lancers who are paid in crypto because the system surrounding them makes it untenable to use conventional banking. Or the jewler buying precious metals with litecoin to avoid credit card fees. Escaping a failed economic system like refugees in Venezuela receiving crypto remittance definitely seems like a systemic improvement for them. I guess you could call using it for transaction to buy precious metal speculative, but even in that system the actual crypto transaction isn't speculative as it merely acts as a unit of trade to buy an underlying "speculative" investment (personally I don't consider PMs speculative investment but rather store of value that I don't desire the volatility to appreciate or depreciate.) >its primary cost is massive amounts of CO2 So you hate electricity? Join the Amish. >mass murders are financially beneficial to funeral directors But this isn't true. The people killed have to die sometime, their death is assured to the funeral directors. Them living longer just means they're more likely to reproduce and generate a new human who in turn dies someday. Funeral directors are worse off by mass murder. I think this excellent allegory points out your economic short-sightedness. Funeral directors want people to live highly reproductive lives, not short lives. > Of course it can be individually beneficial - mass murders Now we have entered clown world where mass murder is the example given. How many mass murders actually happened specifically and only because of the existance of crypto? The only example even close I'm aware of is Ross Ulbricht's alleged murder plot that was never even prosecuted thus we have no idea if it was true. >advocating for something immoral because it benefits them financially So basically anyone advocating for using dollars? I see crypto like a hammer, it's a tool that can be used morally, immorraly, or merely in a morally neutral fashion. >Which is about all I expect from libertarians, to be fair. Is this supposed to be some sort of ad-hominem attack? >Which is about all I expect from libertarians I have a hard time making sweeping generalizations about morality based on one's political choice.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  > I would add this opnion risks overlooking, say, Argentinian free-lancers who are paid in crypto because the system surrounding them makes it untenable to use conventional banking. Or the jewler buying precious metals with litecoin to avoid credit card fees. I did include the unbanked and productive manufacturing (which you neglected to mention until now - are you a jeweler?) in examples of positive use, in my utility list. But you have to assess a technology based on its overall effect. > So you hate electricity? Join the Amish. Totally specious. > Funeral directors want people to live highly reproductive lives, not short lives. This is overly reductive. Clearly a short term boost in business is a financial boon for funeral directors, as it would be for any business. > How many mass murders actually happened specifically and only because of the existance of crypto? Uh, what? Maybe I should just give up trying to explain my point to you if a simple analogy is beyond your comprehension. > I see crypto like a hammer, it's a tool that can be used morally, immorraly, or merely in a morally neutral fashion. You can look at actual use to determine the effect of something. Not many people are using F15s for anything else but killing people, so it's fair to call weapons of war broadly immoral. > Is this supposed to be some sort of ad-hominem attack? "greed is good" and "unregulated capitalism is the ideal" are libertarian tenets, so yes, I think it's fair to say that they're selfishly self interested. So you consider yourself a libertarian? > I have a hard time making sweeping generalizations about morality based on one's political choice. Given that politics is an expression of values, I really don't. If somebody were to say "I don't like Jews and that's why I'm a nazi" (this is an argument from absurdity, BTW) I could reasonably call them a bad person. They also wouldn't need to say the first part because its implicit in the identification. Libertarianism is fundamentally about "fuck you got mine", which I find to be immoral.