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> From the big picture view, you can see Crypto is destroying our planet, ... Crypto is certainly not destroying our planet. Yes, "Crypto" does have negative
by ephbit 5y ago
> From the big picture view, you can see Crypto is destroying our planet, ...
Crypto is certainly not destroying our planet.
Yes, "Crypto" does have negative impact on ecosphere through its use of energy and other ressources.
But ... just look ahead, look left and right ... and unless you're walking some trail between the fields looking up from HN on your smartphone .. you're quite likely to see something that humans made.
And pretty much regardless of what it is, it'll have had a myriad of various ways of negative impact on the ecosphere.
"Crypto" is far from being even near the top harmful technologies at the moment. Bitcoin is estimated at 0.29 % of global energy use according to here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Energy_consumption_and_carbon_footprint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Energy_consumption_and...
Besides that, energy is only one of a many technological negative impacts on the ecosphere. Take the millions of destructive chemical compounds that get released through mostly non-Bitcoin technological human deeds.
To counter a potential whataboutism accusation: in most instances where the term gets thrown at someone, is my impression, it is just a poor way of trying to prevent the following.
When someone calls out some problem A and another person calls out problem B as a consequence, they are doing it to give some perspective, to have a reference for comparison.
Which is absolutely reasonable and useful to do. Why? Because not all problems of the world can/should be solved at the same time. There's simply not enough capacity/ressources/attention to do all. Problems need to be prioritized, which is a political/societal process.
To enable this prioritization, comparisons must be made between different issues and references brought up. Something that then gets decried as whataboutism.
No, "Crypto" is certainly not "destroying" our planet in the sense that it should occupy all those people's attention who claim that they're worried about the planet and trying to save it. Those people should turn their heads to their consumption of most everyday items/products/services and other topics.