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Building data centers is fine. Worse, we build Bitcoin mining farms near cheap power, which essentially produces nothing of value and in fact can raise power p
by jmyeet 3y ago
Building data centers is fine.
Worse, we build Bitcoin mining farms near cheap power, which essentially produces nothing of value and in fact can raise power prices for everyone (eg [1]).
[1]: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/when-cryptomining-comes-to-town-high-electricity-use-spillovers-to-the-local-economy/ https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/when-crypt...
- reportgunner 3y agoYou could argue advertisement does the same.
- flerchin 3y agoAgree, outlaw them both.
- reportgunner 3y agoReminded me of this scene in equilibrium. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drYovoinEts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drYovoinEts
- hodgesrm 3y agoBe careful what you wish for. If you are like the median HN commenter your job may depend on one or both of them.
- asdfman123 3y agoBut it would be a bad argument. Products necessarily compete for attention. The only way to avoid that would be to implement centrally planned economy.
- sodality2 3y agoProducts compete on merit. Parts of Europe ban political advertising near campaign periods. Yet obviously democracy works just fine. I view product advertisements in the same vein. I can review candidates on their platform and track record, just as I can review products on their merits by researching on my own. I wouldn’t mind if all of the “impulse buys” that no one plans, but gets from an ad, went away.
- hansvm 3y agoThey "compete", but that competition doesn't have to be a push-based model where products insert themselves into unrelated parts of your life vying for dominance (between themselves and over the things in your life you actually care about). If there were a place you could search and have a reasonable expectation of finding just the subset of products worth the price for you personally and able to make your life better, would that count as an ad to you?
- _Algernon_ 3y agoIf data centers powering things that are a net-negative for societies should go, I vote that we start with "social" media.
- brazzy 3y agoDefine "social" media. Does HN count? Why exactly not?
- _Algernon_ 3y agoIn my view Social Media is characterized by being advertisement funded (HN technically fulfills this), being poorly moderated (HN does not fulfill this IMO), being engagement driven (HN isn't) and encouraging parasocial relationships (HN doesn't). HN is closer to a web forum of the 90s than modern social media.
- mrob 3y agoIMO, social media requires a relationship graph, e.g. friends/follows/subscriptions. HN doesn't have this so it's just a forum.
- bluGill 3y agoMost of what people do with social media is just a forum and doesn't need those features.
- realPubkey 3y ago30% of stuff on your "usefull" datacenters is just porn. Then we have 30% gaming servers and so on. Who are you to decide that this is more important as digital currency? https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23030090 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23030090
- losteric 3y ago30% of internet content, not data center usage. Serving content is relatively light on compute.
- terafo 3y agoNo it's not. Don't even mind sketchy methodology, that number is just 13 years out of date.
- automatic6131 3y agoEven if your numbers were true (and they're not), at least people enjoy games and porn.
- mrguyorama 3y agoPorn is more valueable than speculative trading on an unregulated shadow economy.