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> It's not a question of whether that's good or bad, it's just inevitable. Things are always inevitable until they aren't. The ozone depleting was "inevitable"
by jedimastert 4y ago
> It's not a question of whether that's good or bad, it's just inevitable.
Things are always inevitable until they aren't. The ozone depleting was "inevitable" until it wasn't. I don't find this "tragedy of the commons" style argument very convincing when you know that what you're doing is harmful.
> The number one goal of humanity should be to find or create sources of energy that give us orders of magnitude more supply than there is demand.
Agreed. That's in the future. Right now, however, there is an environmental cost to energy usage that's simply being ignored. Costs should always be balanced with what they produce. Currently, the environmental cost of bitcoin is far exceeding the benefits, and the vast majority of people participating aren't even concerned with any of the benefits of bitcoin other than trying to make a buck.
- gwicks56 4y agoWhy would we not tax the source of the problem. ie dirty energy generation via a carbon tax? That would then incentivize all energy use to become greener, rather than ad-hoc singling out individual use cases? A decent carbon tax would eliminate most dirty proof of work mining, as electricity is the major cost
- DennisP 4y agoWe absolutely should, but it seems unlikely that we will anytime soon. And to reduce Bitcoin's emissions it would have to be a global tax, which seems even more unlikely. For most products, a country can tax imports when other countries don't have corresponding taxes, but that's not really possible with Bitcoin.