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Bitcoin is not wasting anything. The proof of work you mention is what's securing the network. The amount of computing power is directly proportional to how muc

Bitcoin is not wasting anything. The proof of work you mention is what's securing the network. The amount of computing power is directly proportional to how much Bitcoin users are willing to pay for that computing power (in fees) and temporarily by a small and exponentially decreasing amount of inflation supported by Bitcoin holders. Fossil fuels have nothing to do with Bitcoin, but rather how countries manage their electricity production. Bitcoin works just as well with electricity produced by renewable energy. And all other uses of electricity (of which Bitcoin is an insignificant percentage), or even worse, uses of energy in general, are also backed by fossil fuels (even more than electricity alone). So if you're not happy with how your government manages electricity production (or how they're not taxing emissions enough), go ahead and complain to your elected politicians instead of shifting the blame to those who legitimately want to use electricity for their own purposes, which they have a right to, like anybody else who uses electricity.

Pxtl 3y ago
"if you don't like me wasting electricity you should institute a carbon tax" is the free-market equivalent to leftists who shout "this happens because we don't abolish capitalism and decommodify housing". The truth or falsehood of the statement is irrelevant, it's politically ludicrous. Carbon prices last exactly as long as progressive governments, not a day more. The moment a conservative government takes power, they're destroyed. They have no moat. And I'm writing this from a country that has a small, modest carbon price. Since carbon prices are politically impossible, that means that avoiding spending excessive electrical energy on inefficient vanity projects is a matter of personal responsibility.
- someplaceguy 3y ago
  > "if you don't like me wasting electricity you should institute a carbon tax" As I mentioned, no "wasting" is happening. The "wasting" is all in your head. I can assure you that every watt is being used to its capacity (up to the unavoidable physical and other loss limits, like any electricity use). > is the free-market equivalent No, it isn't. That's not what "free-market" means. A carbon tax would have to be enforced by a government or government-regulated authority, it wouldn't be done in a free market. Free markets do not price externalities such as carbon emissions. It's one of the jobs of governments to regulate markets, so that they work as efficiently as possible. In fact, that's one of their most legitimate and useful jobs. Furthermore, governments are the ones who have a monopoly on regulation. So if they are not regulating correctly, you know exactly who to blame. There's no one else responsible for doing that job. > The truth or falsehood of the statement is irrelevant, it's politically ludicrous. Well, I don't think that's true, but even if it were, if you keep blaming Bitcoin and similarly singling out other uses of energy as the culprits of carbon emissions, it would keep being politically ludicrous, because there are always people and businesses who would be affected by the demonization of such uses and would feel personally (or corporately) attacked by being singled out. Which means that the only real, efficient and fair way of reducing carbon emissions is to tax them all equally. Whatever businesses (or other energy uses) stop being lucrative and go bankrupt, are exactly the businesses that should go bankrupt, because they are not sustainable (as long as the carbon emissions are taxed at an environmentally sustainable level and not more). If you're going to reduce emissions, and practically all developed countries are working to do it AFAIK, then it should be done this way and I don't see why right-wingers or anyone else should object to such a plan, rather than what is really ludicrous, which is to arbitrarily demonize uses of energy, one by one, until you reach a critical mass of users who eventually are going to say "enough is enough". Now, if your argument is that right-wing governments are in principle opposed to reducing carbon emissions, that's a completely different argument and again, it has nothing to do with Bitcoin. It's a political issue alone and the blame-shifting is not going to solve it. > that means that avoiding spending excessive electrical energy on inefficient vanity projects is a matter of personal responsibility. See, here are the problems with that argument: 1. There's no "excessive" electrical energy being used. 2. The project is not "inefficient". 3. It's not a "vanity" project. 4. It's not a matter of personal responsibility either. Once again, that's blame shifting. Personal responsibility in the way you are imagining it is not going to solve this problem. It'd be way, way, way, way easier to actually influence a right-wing government to solve it, once and for all, in the most efficient way possible, for the entire population than to change the behavior of hundreds of millions of people individually (especially by writing unconvincing arguments on the Internet).

Pxtl 3y ago

"if you don't like me wasting electricity you should institute a carbon tax" is the free-market equivalent to leftists who shout "this happens because we don't abolish capitalism and decommodify housing". The truth or falsehood of the statement is irrelevant, it's politically ludicrous. Carbon prices last exactly as long as progressive governments, not a day more. The moment a conservative government takes power, they're destroyed. They have no moat. And I'm writing this from a country that has a small, modest carbon price. Since carbon prices are politically impossible, that means that avoiding spending excessive electrical energy on inefficient vanity projects is a matter of personal responsibility.

someplaceguy 3y ago
> "if you don't like me wasting electricity you should institute a carbon tax" As I mentioned, no "wasting" is happening. The "wasting" is all in your head. I can assure you that every watt is being used to its capacity (up to the unavoidable physical and other loss limits, like any electricity use). > is the free-market equivalent No, it isn't. That's not what "free-market" means. A carbon tax would have to be enforced by a government or government-regulated authority, it wouldn't be done in a free market. Free markets do not price externalities such as carbon emissions. It's one of the jobs of governments to regulate markets, so that they work as efficiently as possible. In fact, that's one of their most legitimate and useful jobs. Furthermore, governments are the ones who have a monopoly on regulation. So if they are not regulating correctly, you know exactly who to blame. There's no one else responsible for doing that job. > The truth or falsehood of the statement is irrelevant, it's politically ludicrous. Well, I don't think that's true, but even if it were, if you keep blaming Bitcoin and similarly singling out other uses of energy as the culprits of carbon emissions, it would keep being politically ludicrous, because there are always people and businesses who would be affected by the demonization of such uses and would feel personally (or corporately) attacked by being singled out. Which means that the only real, efficient and fair way of reducing carbon emissions is to tax them all equally. Whatever businesses (or other energy uses) stop being lucrative and go bankrupt, are exactly the businesses that should go bankrupt, because they are not sustainable (as long as the carbon emissions are taxed at an environmentally sustainable level and not more). If you're going to reduce emissions, and practically all developed countries are working to do it AFAIK, then it should be done this way and I don't see why right-wingers or anyone else should object to such a plan, rather than what is really ludicrous, which is to arbitrarily demonize uses of energy, one by one, until you reach a critical mass of users who eventually are going to say "enough is enough". Now, if your argument is that right-wing governments are in principle opposed to reducing carbon emissions, that's a completely different argument and again, it has nothing to do with Bitcoin. It's a political issue alone and the blame-shifting is not going to solve it. > that means that avoiding spending excessive electrical energy on inefficient vanity projects is a matter of personal responsibility. See, here are the problems with that argument: 1. There's no "excessive" electrical energy being used. 2. The project is not "inefficient". 3. It's not a "vanity" project. 4. It's not a matter of personal responsibility either. Once again, that's blame shifting. Personal responsibility in the way you are imagining it is not going to solve this problem. It'd be way, way, way, way easier to actually influence a right-wing government to solve it, once and for all, in the most efficient way possible, for the entire population than to change the behavior of hundreds of millions of people individually (especially by writing unconvincing arguments on the Internet).