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Exactly. You could use anything as currency. Prisoners use cigarettes or ramen. Its not about the product being mined so much as work being done, and therefo

Exactly. You could use anything as currency. Prisoners use cigarettes or ramen. Its not about the product being mined so much as work being done, and therefore work being stored. Replace any currency with any power generation you want. In prison, its the work of smuggling that stores economic value in cigarettes. In a gold based system, its the work of mining elements out of the earth that stores economic value in base metals. In a peer to peer network, its the work of electricity(of any kind whatsoever, clean or polluting) that stores economic value on a fair distributed ledger. Money is about storage of work, and quite frankly the weaker the money used to store energy, the more lethargic and rusted the whole economic system gets. Fiat, i.e. "proof of wasted energy" just does a lot of work and lets it evaporate in economic terms leaving the entire society that uses it in constant need of more and more fiat because that energy, that work done, keeps dissipating. It doesn't matter what money is: seashells, carved rai stones, arrowheads, cigarettes, ramen, non-livable apartment homes sold solely for wealth storage, luxury cars, art, gold, printed paper with your uncle sam's face and "guarantee" stamped on it, centralized entry in a private database, decentralized entry on a public blockchain. Society needs money in order to achieve higher levels of cooperation. Might as well use the strongest form of money that exists. And as far as I know, it aint proof of wasted electricity, i.e. fiat.

otterley 4y ago
I don’t think anyone disagrees that money is an exchange medium for work. The question is whether the practice of mining Bitcoin is work worth valuing for its own sake. Nobody is getting fed, housed, or clothed when mining cryptocurrencies, nor is it improving business productivity in some way. In other words, it’s a question of “useful work,” not just “work.” And this is an especially important question in light of the fact that a lot of energy used to mine cryptocurrency is produced in environmentally harmful ways.
- RedBeetDeadpool 4y ago
  You asked a very good and important question. I don't want to share the answer, but know that it explains a very important topic on economic systems. Since I'm not going to be giving away the answer, I want you to at least ask yourself: Does the practice of pressing buttons and printing dollars provide value at the value the units represent? And since your concern seems to be the environmental cost of bitcoin mining, what are the environmental costs to pressing buttons on a computer adding dollars into a digital dollar network along with running printers to create a few sheets of paper money? Are there any environmental costs beyond the electricity that runs the printers and the computer and the trees cut down to print the money on? If so what would those environment costs be and where would they be coming from? If not, where is the value of that dollar coming from to begin with?
  - otterley 4y ago
    Can you get to your point, please?
    - RedBeetDeadpool 4y ago
      From my previous comment: > I don't want to share the answer I'm not here to win arguments. No. I wont be "getting to the point" because I'm going to keep it for later.
- CTDOCodebases 4y ago
  It definitely isn't improving business productivity. Nothing improves business productivity like fiat which has an ever expanding supply. If inflation was non existent or radically less than what it is today would people be so keen to invest their money in companies or spend so much time and effort trying to hoard money for the future? People who are into Bitcoin talk about inflation like it's a bug but I think it is a feature.
  - kayamon 4y ago
    Bitcoin has inflation. One coin every ten minutes. Tic toc next block. There's the question of when new money enters the world, who gets to have it? Should it be randomly distributed, or should one guy in charge of the money printer get to keep most of it for himself and all his friends, lie about having done that, and then gaslight people to say all of that was okay anyway?
    - CTDOCodebases 4y ago
      Randomly distributed would be pretty fun.
  - ephbit 4y ago
    The world is facing a climate crisis. Which is mostly caused by humanity using fossil energy to boost the output of the economy. An economy that expends the energy on so many more things than just enabling people to be fed and live modestly comfortable lives. An economy that is thus harmful as it entirely neglects the urgent crisis. Humanity is at a point where we ought to think about actually cooling down the economy to drastically reduce our emissions until industries and energy generation will slowly turn to being climate neutral. The much decried deflation is precisely what would be the better dynamic for the economy in this situation, rather than an inflation dynamic that virtually turbo charges the system. I'm aware that this is a bold statement, but I wouldn't be surprised if in some 50-100 years Bitcoin were to turn out as the fundamental technology that enabled humanity to overcome the crisis, despite consuming resources that right now appear to many as wasted. To make it blunt: yes, I absolutely think that in our current situation inflation _is_ a bug. Possibly a fatal one.
- hammock 4y ago
  >The question is whether the practice of mining Bitcoin is work worth valuing for its own sake. The same question is asked by any gold miner or oil driller. Depending on the price others are willing to pay, sometimes it's worth it and sometimes it's not. When a barrel of oil goes above $80 people want to start fracking again. When it's below that, they stop. >Nobody is getting fed, housed, or clothed when mining cryptocurrencies, nor is it improving business productivity in some way. This statement is just not true. Just as the mining of gold creates jobs for the miners, the equipment manufacturers, the logistics personnel, the security personnel, and allows those people to clothe house and feed their families, so it is with Bitcoin mining. Powerplants and the internet are built, operated and maintained by real people with families, you know.
  - otterley 4y ago
    Physical material mining and energy generation are useful work, except where the material being mined is overvalued - gold being a textbook example. Physical materials and energy can be used in manufacturing all sorts of goods that house or transport people or aid in manufacturing productivity (e.g. producing food). Cryptocurrency has no such inherent property. Your last paragraph justifies the work because the people involved in the process get paid and therefore can feed, clothe, and house themselves. But that proves too much: there is a lot of economic activity that is arguably wasteful or immoral that people get paid for. Economic bubbles generate jobs, but once the speculation finally ends and the waste is revealed, those jobs disappear.
    - hammock 4y ago
      So you are anti-gold in addition to anti-crypto? And gold mining is devastating to the environment, arguably much moreso than a lot of the electricity generated for bitcoin.
      - otterley 4y ago
        Yes, gold has the same problems. A tiny amount of it is used for manufacturing, the rest for hoarding. We don't even use it as a currency of exchange anymore, so I honestly have no idea why its price remains stubbornly high. Old religions die slowly, I guess.

otterley 4y ago

I don’t think anyone disagrees that money is an exchange medium for work. The question is whether the practice of mining Bitcoin is work worth valuing for its own sake. Nobody is getting fed, housed, or clothed when mining cryptocurrencies, nor is it improving business productivity in some way. In other words, it’s a question of “useful work,” not just “work.” And this is an especially important question in light of the fact that a lot of energy used to mine cryptocurrency is produced in environmentally harmful ways.

RedBeetDeadpool 4y ago
You asked a very good and important question. I don't want to share the answer, but know that it explains a very important topic on economic systems. Since I'm not going to be giving away the answer, I want you to at least ask yourself: Does the practice of pressing buttons and printing dollars provide value at the value the units represent? And since your concern seems to be the environmental cost of bitcoin mining, what are the environmental costs to pressing buttons on a computer adding dollars into a digital dollar network along with running printers to create a few sheets of paper money? Are there any environmental costs beyond the electricity that runs the printers and the computer and the trees cut down to print the money on? If so what would those environment costs be and where would they be coming from? If not, where is the value of that dollar coming from to begin with?
- otterley 4y ago
  Can you get to your point, please?
  - RedBeetDeadpool 4y ago
    From my previous comment: > I don't want to share the answer I'm not here to win arguments. No. I wont be "getting to the point" because I'm going to keep it for later.
CTDOCodebases 4y ago
It definitely isn't improving business productivity. Nothing improves business productivity like fiat which has an ever expanding supply. If inflation was non existent or radically less than what it is today would people be so keen to invest their money in companies or spend so much time and effort trying to hoard money for the future? People who are into Bitcoin talk about inflation like it's a bug but I think it is a feature.
- kayamon 4y ago
  Bitcoin has inflation. One coin every ten minutes. Tic toc next block. There's the question of when new money enters the world, who gets to have it? Should it be randomly distributed, or should one guy in charge of the money printer get to keep most of it for himself and all his friends, lie about having done that, and then gaslight people to say all of that was okay anyway?
  - CTDOCodebases 4y ago
    Randomly distributed would be pretty fun.
- ephbit 4y ago
  The world is facing a climate crisis. Which is mostly caused by humanity using fossil energy to boost the output of the economy. An economy that expends the energy on so many more things than just enabling people to be fed and live modestly comfortable lives. An economy that is thus harmful as it entirely neglects the urgent crisis. Humanity is at a point where we ought to think about actually cooling down the economy to drastically reduce our emissions until industries and energy generation will slowly turn to being climate neutral. The much decried deflation is precisely what would be the better dynamic for the economy in this situation, rather than an inflation dynamic that virtually turbo charges the system. I'm aware that this is a bold statement, but I wouldn't be surprised if in some 50-100 years Bitcoin were to turn out as the fundamental technology that enabled humanity to overcome the crisis, despite consuming resources that right now appear to many as wasted. To make it blunt: yes, I absolutely think that in our current situation inflation _is_ a bug. Possibly a fatal one.
hammock 4y ago
>The question is whether the practice of mining Bitcoin is work worth valuing for its own sake. The same question is asked by any gold miner or oil driller. Depending on the price others are willing to pay, sometimes it's worth it and sometimes it's not. When a barrel of oil goes above $80 people want to start fracking again. When it's below that, they stop. >Nobody is getting fed, housed, or clothed when mining cryptocurrencies, nor is it improving business productivity in some way. This statement is just not true. Just as the mining of gold creates jobs for the miners, the equipment manufacturers, the logistics personnel, the security personnel, and allows those people to clothe house and feed their families, so it is with Bitcoin mining. Powerplants and the internet are built, operated and maintained by real people with families, you know.
- otterley 4y ago
  Physical material mining and energy generation are useful work, except where the material being mined is overvalued - gold being a textbook example. Physical materials and energy can be used in manufacturing all sorts of goods that house or transport people or aid in manufacturing productivity (e.g. producing food). Cryptocurrency has no such inherent property. Your last paragraph justifies the work because the people involved in the process get paid and therefore can feed, clothe, and house themselves. But that proves too much: there is a lot of economic activity that is arguably wasteful or immoral that people get paid for. Economic bubbles generate jobs, but once the speculation finally ends and the waste is revealed, those jobs disappear.
  - hammock 4y ago
    So you are anti-gold in addition to anti-crypto? And gold mining is devastating to the environment, arguably much moreso than a lot of the electricity generated for bitcoin.
    - otterley 4y ago
      Yes, gold has the same problems. A tiny amount of it is used for manufacturing, the rest for hoarding. We don't even use it as a currency of exchange anymore, so I honestly have no idea why its price remains stubbornly high. Old religions die slowly, I guess.