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The irony of eating meat/driving gas guzzling cars/using air conditioning/flying/… Do we need to attach the climate crisis to everything these days? It’s very

The irony of eating meat/driving gas guzzling cars/using air conditioning/flying/… Do we need to attach the climate crisis to everything these days? It’s very important but picking on one thing relentlessly and not others is just silly. We’re not going to solve the climate crisis by trying to stop people from doing things that use a lot of energy. We need to find ways to make those things sustainable/carbon neutral.

deleted 5y ago
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paulgb 5y ago
We’re talking about Bitcoin here because the news is about Bitcoin, it doesn’t mean we don’t care about reducing emissions in other areas. There are articles on HN regularly about EVs, synthetic meat, etc. One thing that sets POW apart, though, is how it is designed to resist efficiency improvements through the difficulty adjustment mechanism. When hashrate per watt goes up with efficiency improvements, the network difficulty goes up to compensate, so more efficient hardware does not improve the efficiency of the system.
paulcole 5y ago
The climate crisis will solve itself when flying, eating meat, gas guzzling cars, etc. are impossible to use because the climate crisis has made life an (as of today) essentially unimaginable hellscape. Sure it’ll be a few centuries of abject misery but as a result the world’s population will contract a lot and things will “reset.” If people today aren’t willing to change their lives (and they clearly aren’t), then it’s time to enjoy the ride and hope we die (fingers crossed) before things get awful (which they will).
KennyBlanken 5y ago
Such a boorish attitude that Bors made a specific version of Mister Gotcha just for you: https://twitter.com/thenib/status/1098281126743937031 https://twitter.com/thenib/status/1098281126743937031 If you think the comic is hyperbole, I've literally had people say "but you exhale CO2, AHA!" to me when I've suggested we need more people on bicycles for personal transportation. The fact that bicycles are the most energy-efficient form of personal transit? Irrelevant, apparently, because we exhale CO2.
Vetch 5y ago
Hey, air conditioning doesn't belong on that list. It uses a lot of energy but it also significantly improves quality of life in hot and humid regions of the planet. And unlike the other items on your list, there's no ethical or intrinsically pollutive aspect to it. Also lots of developments in newer more energy efficient compressors and DC ACs with smarter control algorithms meant to run with solar.
rsynnott 5y ago
From a purely practical political point of view, none of those things can be banned outright without an _enormous_ political backlash, so the approach has to be slow improvement and phaseout. Crypto-mining, on the other hand, could be banned tomorrow, with virtually no political fallout.

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paulgb 5y ago

We’re talking about Bitcoin here because the news is about Bitcoin, it doesn’t mean we don’t care about reducing emissions in other areas. There are articles on HN regularly about EVs, synthetic meat, etc. One thing that sets POW apart, though, is how it is designed to resist efficiency improvements through the difficulty adjustment mechanism. When hashrate per watt goes up with efficiency improvements, the network difficulty goes up to compensate, so more efficient hardware does not improve the efficiency of the system.

paulcole 5y ago

The climate crisis will solve itself when flying, eating meat, gas guzzling cars, etc. are impossible to use because the climate crisis has made life an (as of today) essentially unimaginable hellscape. Sure it’ll be a few centuries of abject misery but as a result the world’s population will contract a lot and things will “reset.” If people today aren’t willing to change their lives (and they clearly aren’t), then it’s time to enjoy the ride and hope we die (fingers crossed) before things get awful (which they will).

KennyBlanken 5y ago

Such a boorish attitude that Bors made a specific version of Mister Gotcha just for you: https://twitter.com/thenib/status/1098281126743937031 https://twitter.com/thenib/status/1098281126743937031 If you think the comic is hyperbole, I've literally had people say "but you exhale CO2, AHA!" to me when I've suggested we need more people on bicycles for personal transportation. The fact that bicycles are the most energy-efficient form of personal transit? Irrelevant, apparently, because we exhale CO2.

Vetch 5y ago

Hey, air conditioning doesn't belong on that list. It uses a lot of energy but it also significantly improves quality of life in hot and humid regions of the planet. And unlike the other items on your list, there's no ethical or intrinsically pollutive aspect to it. Also lots of developments in newer more energy efficient compressors and DC ACs with smarter control algorithms meant to run with solar.

rsynnott 5y ago

From a purely practical political point of view, none of those things can be banned outright without an _enormous_ political backlash, so the approach has to be slow improvement and phaseout. Crypto-mining, on the other hand, could be banned tomorrow, with virtually no political fallout.