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Police, banks, the military, the Fed all provide many more services than bitcoin does and do more than just protect the dollar. What an incredibly dumb comparis

Police, banks, the military, the Fed all provide many more services than bitcoin does and do more than just protect the dollar. What an incredibly dumb comparison.

tcmart14 3y ago
Maybe next time Somalian pirates attack a merchant vessel, bitcoin can put a stop to it!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- p1mrx 3y ago
  It's an older crisis, sir, but it checks out.
  - tcmart14 3y ago
    Haha. It is, but I always found it funny, the south park song. But yea, bitcoiners will push the military of just being this evil force of violence. And trust me, it can be. I was in the Navy. But we also did so much more. We did search and rescue for civilians missing at sea regardless of their nationality. We did evacuations for scientist and researchers on islands in the path of a really bad storms. Used our hospital on board to respond to calls for helps from smaller ships that needed assistance with emergency medical situations, etc. Provide disaster relief, etc. Had a fellow sailor at the time who was on an air craft carrier that responded to Fukushima by flying all their food on board to the ship to feed victims of that disaster.
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    Replace "Somali pirates" with "Houthis", then.
staplers 3y ago
provide many more services than bitcoin To who? Extremely cringe to see the HN bubble struggle to grasp how the world economy works. Not all government currencies are properly maintained.
- ThisIsMyAltAcct 3y ago
  Ok, but this article is specifically about US energy consumption.
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    In which case the question of "to whom?" still applies. As it stands, the primary beneficiaries of American police and military operations are the very same wealthy elites at the helm of the dollar-based global economy.
- Scarblac 3y ago
  Still, considering the tiny amount of Bitcoin transactions per day, and the large number of speculators, hardly anybody can be using it for real things, anywhere.
  - staplers 3y ago
    No one rides trains anymore but they service a massive amount of our economic goods. If you want to buy a coffee, use your credit card.
j0ba 3y ago
Your assertion is that it's dumb to compare two competing financial systems? The dumb analysis is to talk about Bitcoin energy usage in isolation, without comparing it to the present system. The present system would not work without police officers and military. Bitcoin replaces these things with servers and decentralization. There is no military protecting the internet. You would need to bomb every country in the world to destroy the internet. The same is true for Bitcoin. US military is 100% necessary for the dollar-based world order. The fact they do other things is not important. You still need the full US military to protect the dollar, even if they didn't do other things.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  There is no military protecting the internet. My dude there is a whole lot of public security infrastructure protecting the internet. Just because the basic internet protocols are public doesn't make it magic.
- jallen_dot_dev 3y ago
  > Bitcoin replaces these things with servers and decentralization. This is totally absurd. We would still need police and military even if the USD stopped existing and we switched over to Bitcoin. You cannot replace them with servers because servers can't protect a nation or enforce laws. > The fact they do other things is not important. It is important, because it means they must exist anyway. So it makes no sense to factor in their cost if the cost would still need to be paid regardless of which financial system we use.
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    > We would still need police and military even if the USD stopped existing and we switched over to Bitcoin. We would need less of them.
    - jallen_dot_dev 3y ago
      I don't think so. It's not like we have a branch of the military dedicated solely to maintaining the dominance of the USD. It protects our national security interests as a whole. The fact that it also scares everyone into using the dollar is just a bonus. And while there are police dedicated to investigating financial crimes involving dollars today, we would still have them. They'd just be investigating crimes involving BTC.

Police, banks, the military, the Fed all provide many more services than bitcoin does and do more than just protect the dollar. What an incredibly dumb comparison.

tcmart14 3y ago

Maybe next time Somalian pirates attack a merchant vessel, bitcoin can put a stop to it!

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
p1mrx 3y ago
It's an older crisis, sir, but it checks out.
- tcmart14 3y ago
  Haha. It is, but I always found it funny, the south park song. But yea, bitcoiners will push the military of just being this evil force of violence. And trust me, it can be. I was in the Navy. But we also did so much more. We did search and rescue for civilians missing at sea regardless of their nationality. We did evacuations for scientist and researchers on islands in the path of a really bad storms. Used our hospital on board to respond to calls for helps from smaller ships that needed assistance with emergency medical situations, etc. Provide disaster relief, etc. Had a fellow sailor at the time who was on an air craft carrier that responded to Fukushima by flying all their food on board to the ship to feed victims of that disaster.
- jcranmer 3y ago
  Replace "Somali pirates" with "Houthis", then.

staplers 3y ago

provide many more services than bitcoin To who? Extremely cringe to see the HN bubble struggle to grasp how the world economy works. Not all government currencies are properly maintained.

ThisIsMyAltAcct 3y ago
Ok, but this article is specifically about US energy consumption.
- yellowapple 3y ago
  In which case the question of "to whom?" still applies. As it stands, the primary beneficiaries of American police and military operations are the very same wealthy elites at the helm of the dollar-based global economy.
Scarblac 3y ago
Still, considering the tiny amount of Bitcoin transactions per day, and the large number of speculators, hardly anybody can be using it for real things, anywhere.
- staplers 3y ago
  No one rides trains anymore but they service a massive amount of our economic goods. If you want to buy a coffee, use your credit card.

j0ba 3y ago

Your assertion is that it's dumb to compare two competing financial systems? The dumb analysis is to talk about Bitcoin energy usage in isolation, without comparing it to the present system. The present system would not work without police officers and military. Bitcoin replaces these things with servers and decentralization. There is no military protecting the internet. You would need to bomb every country in the world to destroy the internet. The same is true for Bitcoin. US military is 100% necessary for the dollar-based world order. The fact they do other things is not important. You still need the full US military to protect the dollar, even if they didn't do other things.

anigbrowl 3y ago
There is no military protecting the internet. My dude there is a whole lot of public security infrastructure protecting the internet. Just because the basic internet protocols are public doesn't make it magic.
jallen_dot_dev 3y ago
> Bitcoin replaces these things with servers and decentralization. This is totally absurd. We would still need police and military even if the USD stopped existing and we switched over to Bitcoin. You cannot replace them with servers because servers can't protect a nation or enforce laws. > The fact they do other things is not important. It is important, because it means they must exist anyway. So it makes no sense to factor in their cost if the cost would still need to be paid regardless of which financial system we use.
- yellowapple 3y ago
  > We would still need police and military even if the USD stopped existing and we switched over to Bitcoin. We would need less of them.
  - jallen_dot_dev 3y ago
    I don't think so. It's not like we have a branch of the military dedicated solely to maintaining the dominance of the USD. It protects our national security interests as a whole. The fact that it also scares everyone into using the dollar is just a bonus. And while there are police dedicated to investigating financial crimes involving dollars today, we would still have them. They'd just be investigating crimes involving BTC.