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> The average person causes far more harm and literally millions of times more pain and suffering through their dietary choices alone than crypto miners ever co

> The average person causes far more harm and literally millions of times more pain and suffering through their dietary choices alone than crypto miners ever could. And we don't even get a trustless financial system out of it. Yes, the feeding habits of 7 billions people produces more CO2 than a virtual casino that benefits... millions? How is that surprising, and how can you try to paint that as worse? And even though we should do more to change dietary habits of people who can, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything else where we can until this is done. This is classic useless whataboutism. Also, we don't get a trustless financial system out of cryptos. We get the utopia of one. > Crypto miners are not even a drop in the ocean when it comes to the fucked-up things that humanity does. Crypto miners use as much energy as Norway. It's responsible for 78 million tons of CO2 per year, as much as 15M cars. [1] Yearly emissions for all of humanity is at around 36B tons of CO2. So mining is 1/500th of all our emissions. Since one drop is 0.05mL, your "ocean" is about half of a shot glass, or 5 teaspoons. Or, the other way around, if our emissions are all of our oceans, then mining emissions are 70% of the mediterranean. So much for "not even a drop". [1] https://energycommerce.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/pallone-opening-remarks-at-oversight-hearing-on-the-energy-impacts-of https://energycommerce.house.gov/newsroom/press-releases/pal...

trainsarebetter 4y ago
Second paragraph: “One estimate found that the energy required to process transactions on the Bitcoin network could power a home for more than 70 days” Any interpretation of this doesn’t make any sense. I’m really not sure we can easily make energy per transaction calculations. I don’t have a hard opinion on the energy implications of pow chains yet. part of me sees it pushing clean infrastructure into production. using produced, but previously unused, energy. now there’s the e-waste issue… which I am NOT a happy camper about.
xvector 4y ago
> Yes, the feeding habits of 7 billions people produces Let's be clear, the "feeding habits" are completely unnecessary for 6 out of those 7 billion people and create the largest cycle of suffering this planet has ever seen by several orders of magnitude. People eat meat for their taste buds to go brr - a plant based diet is fine otherwise. It's not "whataboutism" when the sheer scales of suffering involved are so different. Crypto barely harms anyone. The meat industry causes over 60 billion beings a year to undergo extreme suffering. Crypto is not even on the map as an issue in comparison. Complaining about crypto as someone that is fine with meat consumption - or indeed, consumes meat - is simply absurd. But what can I say? People love to throw stones from glass houses.
- sailingparrot 4y ago
  > It's not "whataboutism" when the sheer scales of suffering involved are so different. It is 100% whataboutism because those 2 issues have 0 correlations. People that benefits from crypto eat meat as much as people that don't. We can stop mining crypto and stop eating meat at the same time. One has absolutely no bearing on the other. By your logic, then it's ok to do any fucked up thing, since we can always find something worse to complain about, which I'm sure you can see why, is a completely stupid logic.

trainsarebetter 4y ago

Second paragraph: “One estimate found that the energy required to process transactions on the Bitcoin network could power a home for more than 70 days” Any interpretation of this doesn’t make any sense. I’m really not sure we can easily make energy per transaction calculations. I don’t have a hard opinion on the energy implications of pow chains yet. part of me sees it pushing clean infrastructure into production. using produced, but previously unused, energy. now there’s the e-waste issue… which I am NOT a happy camper about.

xvector 4y ago

> Yes, the feeding habits of 7 billions people produces Let's be clear, the "feeding habits" are completely unnecessary for 6 out of those 7 billion people and create the largest cycle of suffering this planet has ever seen by several orders of magnitude. People eat meat for their taste buds to go brr - a plant based diet is fine otherwise. It's not "whataboutism" when the sheer scales of suffering involved are so different. Crypto barely harms anyone. The meat industry causes over 60 billion beings a year to undergo extreme suffering. Crypto is not even on the map as an issue in comparison. Complaining about crypto as someone that is fine with meat consumption - or indeed, consumes meat - is simply absurd. But what can I say? People love to throw stones from glass houses.

sailingparrot 4y ago
> It's not "whataboutism" when the sheer scales of suffering involved are so different. It is 100% whataboutism because those 2 issues have 0 correlations. People that benefits from crypto eat meat as much as people that don't. We can stop mining crypto and stop eating meat at the same time. One has absolutely no bearing on the other. By your logic, then it's ok to do any fucked up thing, since we can always find something worse to complain about, which I'm sure you can see why, is a completely stupid logic.