6 ms·

How does investing engineering effort in designing mining ASICs and spending dollars to purchase what is essentially a currency generating machine help us as a

by ultimoo 13y ago

How does investing engineering effort in designing mining ASICs and spending dollars to purchase what is essentially a currency generating machine help us as a community? I wish we were just as enthusiastic and race to solve other problems too -- like spreading education, finding out ways to purify water, or maximizing agriculture throughput in famine, or predicting when the next hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake is coming our way.

slg 13y ago
The obvious answer is incentives. Bitcoin mining has real financial rewards. It is hard to make a profit off of ending famine. That is the point of things like XPRIZE. It attaches a capitalistic incentive behind technological advancements that benefit society.
icelancer 13y ago
Put up a few million dollars as the prize to solve said problems and I bet you get a fair share of applicants. What are you waiting for?
- oscargrouch 13y ago
  you are just reinforcing what hes saying.. those things shouldnt need to have prizes in Money to people start working on it.. the point being maded by ultimoo (and i agree with it) is that WE need to change the way we think about things.. the way we are.. we need to change our prizes, and become happy with other sort of payments.. (like be happy to help others to have a better life) if we get to manage to have a income to our needs, and do what we like.. be happy with it, and help others in the process.. what could be better than that? Is such a waste to have so many bright people working to make rich people even more richier, while there are so many simple needs that all of those good brains could be helping to solve.. there are people that doesnt even have basci needs like water, food security, eletricity, education, dignity, etc.. meanwhile all the rich people problems "how i can get even more rich?" get all the brains working for it.. doesnt it say something about us all?
  - icelancer 13y ago
    >doesnt it say something about us all? That we're utilitarian in nature? This isn't exactly Nobel-prize winning stuff. The idea that we collect money and this is greedy or inherently bad is a highly personal view. Besides, what about Bill Gates and others who are donating their fortunes to do EXACTLY what you two ask? You're also ignoring the fact that "getting richer" is not the enemy of "doing good."
    - oscargrouch 13y ago
      I have nothing against somebody making a fortune, at least through hard work, and by creating value to society, like Bill Gates did.. but there are parts of "getting richer" that can really do harm.. drugs? corruption? greedy banks? Im all the way for the "good capital", and thats the one that creates goods and value to us all.. acomplished people should have sucess, this is cool.. but i see a lot of the "get rich first, donate later" much people praise.. but in the majority of cases.. this is just a way they can feel good about themselves.. but in the end it will just create more greedy people that doe more harm than good.. the beginings, and true intentions always count.. easy money without real value, is what corrupts our society, and worse.. make the dollar created by value of the real working people (and i include bill gates/steve jobs in that list) less valuable.. thats all about the 2008 crysis.. its the same evil root.. but see the guys behind it.. and how they use to make money
      - icelancer 13y ago
        What "corrupts" our society has nothing to do with money and everything to do with utility. We evolved to seek greater utility in all forms it takes shape. That is not something you can erase from our psyche.
CodeCube 13y ago
Who's to say that some of the tech developed to mine bitcoins won't find other applications. Or perhaps the expertise developed by people trying to optimize bitcoin mining, or bitcoin commerce infrastructure could end up helping them change the world in other ways. I'm totally not saying the two are equivalent, but look at the non-obvious ways that NASA has helped all of us: http://www.wtfnasa.com/ http://www.wtfnasa.com/
- oscargrouch 13y ago
  by the same way of thinking it also could do more harm than good.. like how many nasa technology its being used to kill, to spy, etc.. creating something with good will, and with a good purpose at least can do us less harm.. but even than.. it always depends of the intentions of human beings.. (a plain could be used for fast transport or to kill) (discoveries about the atoms can cure câncer, energy reactors or to create atomic bombs)
derekp7 13y ago
I already know how to purify water. I go to Walmart and buy a replacement filter for my Britta pitcher. As for fixing famine, that I have no clue where to start. However, I do know how to write code, and if I can take some of the money I've earned to buy one of theses "useless" devices which can also make me some money, maybe one of the engineers at that company can spend his paycheck to send his daughter to college, where she can study ways to fix these other problems you mentioned. In other words, read up on the economic theory called "guns and butter".
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  Consumer filters don't purify water. They remove a small number of contaminants common in wealthy countries.
- Fomite 13y ago
  Pure, clean water for most of the world is nowhere near a solved problem.
- EliRivers 13y ago
  As for fixing famine, that I have no clue where to start. Whilst there will always be localised crop failures and unlucky weather, true famine requires incompetent government; historically, either no effective government (through war or some other circumstance) or a government able and willing to enforce agricultural insanity. Peoples who have been farming for generations know about crop failure and unlucky weather; incompetent government is just plain stupid. Mao's famine, for example, despite the constant claims that it was really bad weather, was an endless cycle of stupid agricultural decisions, totalitarian enforcement of stupid decisions, a horrifically useless harvest reporting scheme, massive movement of people, refusal to give people stored food as they were starving, efforts to save face internationally, on and on in a perfect storm of government created famine. North Korean famine of the nineties; whilst it's hard to get data on government policy at the time, it seems that there was a move to implement utterly inappropriate terrace farming, which was subsequently disrupted (or indeed, washed away) by pretty normal rains, rendering those terraces useless and also causing new flooding (as the terraced fields use to be water absorbers and rain diffusers). Ethiopian famine of the eighties; civil war going on. Soviet famine of 1947; an awful lot like Mao's famine. On and on. Certainly in modern times; obviously there's a lot less explanation of the causes as one goes further back, and it is in the nature of incompetent government to blame the weather. I suppose what I'm saying is that to prevent famine, we need competent government.
tbrownaw 13y ago
How does investing engineering effort in designing mining ASICs and spending dollars to purchase what is essentially a currency generating machine help us as a community? It's supposed to help said currency become more solidly established, and therefore more useful to more people. I wish we were just as enthusiastic and race to solve other problems too -- like spreading education, finding out ways to purify water, or maximizing agriculture throughput in famine, or predicting when the next hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake is coming our way. I'm pretty sure people are enthusiastic about those things, and probably quite a lot more people than are into bitcoin. They're just less visible, since those aren't the cool new shiny thing (and aside from the weather/earthquake predictions, they're probably not heavy enough on software to be considered of interest here).
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  It's supposed to help said currency become more solidly established, and therefore more useful to more people. I don't think you're going to find people flocking to a currency where it turns out that they have zero change of a big score. At least during the gold rush there was the possibility that a small miner could get lucky.
  - robertfw 13y ago
    The idea is that once a sizeable enough amount of bitcoin is in circulation, the amount of risk associated with it will go down, thus making it more useful to people - volatile money is of no use to me.
richcollins 13y ago
A P2P currency might help people allocate resources more effectively (to solve problems like the ones that you mentioned). Right now much of our wealth is flushed down the toilet when stolen through taxes and inflation and given to bankers and other government corporate welfare recipients.
- nhaehnle 13y ago
  These issues are completely orthogonal to how the currency is implemented. You still have to pay taxes even if you use Bitcoin.

by ultimoo 13y ago

slg 13y ago

The obvious answer is incentives. Bitcoin mining has real financial rewards. It is hard to make a profit off of ending famine. That is the point of things like XPRIZE. It attaches a capitalistic incentive behind technological advancements that benefit society.

icelancer 13y ago

Put up a few million dollars as the prize to solve said problems and I bet you get a fair share of applicants. What are you waiting for?

oscargrouch 13y ago
you are just reinforcing what hes saying.. those things shouldnt need to have prizes in Money to people start working on it.. the point being maded by ultimoo (and i agree with it) is that WE need to change the way we think about things.. the way we are.. we need to change our prizes, and become happy with other sort of payments.. (like be happy to help others to have a better life) if we get to manage to have a income to our needs, and do what we like.. be happy with it, and help others in the process.. what could be better than that? Is such a waste to have so many bright people working to make rich people even more richier, while there are so many simple needs that all of those good brains could be helping to solve.. there are people that doesnt even have basci needs like water, food security, eletricity, education, dignity, etc.. meanwhile all the rich people problems "how i can get even more rich?" get all the brains working for it.. doesnt it say something about us all?
- icelancer 13y ago
  >doesnt it say something about us all? That we're utilitarian in nature? This isn't exactly Nobel-prize winning stuff. The idea that we collect money and this is greedy or inherently bad is a highly personal view. Besides, what about Bill Gates and others who are donating their fortunes to do EXACTLY what you two ask? You're also ignoring the fact that "getting richer" is not the enemy of "doing good."
  - oscargrouch 13y ago
    I have nothing against somebody making a fortune, at least through hard work, and by creating value to society, like Bill Gates did.. but there are parts of "getting richer" that can really do harm.. drugs? corruption? greedy banks? Im all the way for the "good capital", and thats the one that creates goods and value to us all.. acomplished people should have sucess, this is cool.. but i see a lot of the "get rich first, donate later" much people praise.. but in the majority of cases.. this is just a way they can feel good about themselves.. but in the end it will just create more greedy people that doe more harm than good.. the beginings, and true intentions always count.. easy money without real value, is what corrupts our society, and worse.. make the dollar created by value of the real working people (and i include bill gates/steve jobs in that list) less valuable.. thats all about the 2008 crysis.. its the same evil root.. but see the guys behind it.. and how they use to make money
    - icelancer 13y ago
      What "corrupts" our society has nothing to do with money and everything to do with utility. We evolved to seek greater utility in all forms it takes shape. That is not something you can erase from our psyche.

CodeCube 13y ago

Who's to say that some of the tech developed to mine bitcoins won't find other applications. Or perhaps the expertise developed by people trying to optimize bitcoin mining, or bitcoin commerce infrastructure could end up helping them change the world in other ways. I'm totally not saying the two are equivalent, but look at the non-obvious ways that NASA has helped all of us: http://www.wtfnasa.com/ http://www.wtfnasa.com/

oscargrouch 13y ago
by the same way of thinking it also could do more harm than good.. like how many nasa technology its being used to kill, to spy, etc.. creating something with good will, and with a good purpose at least can do us less harm.. but even than.. it always depends of the intentions of human beings.. (a plain could be used for fast transport or to kill) (discoveries about the atoms can cure câncer, energy reactors or to create atomic bombs)

derekp7 13y ago

I already know how to purify water. I go to Walmart and buy a replacement filter for my Britta pitcher. As for fixing famine, that I have no clue where to start. However, I do know how to write code, and if I can take some of the money I've earned to buy one of theses "useless" devices which can also make me some money, maybe one of the engineers at that company can spend his paycheck to send his daughter to college, where she can study ways to fix these other problems you mentioned. In other words, read up on the economic theory called "guns and butter".

mkr-hn 13y ago
Consumer filters don't purify water. They remove a small number of contaminants common in wealthy countries.
Fomite 13y ago
Pure, clean water for most of the world is nowhere near a solved problem.
EliRivers 13y ago
As for fixing famine, that I have no clue where to start. Whilst there will always be localised crop failures and unlucky weather, true famine requires incompetent government; historically, either no effective government (through war or some other circumstance) or a government able and willing to enforce agricultural insanity. Peoples who have been farming for generations know about crop failure and unlucky weather; incompetent government is just plain stupid. Mao's famine, for example, despite the constant claims that it was really bad weather, was an endless cycle of stupid agricultural decisions, totalitarian enforcement of stupid decisions, a horrifically useless harvest reporting scheme, massive movement of people, refusal to give people stored food as they were starving, efforts to save face internationally, on and on in a perfect storm of government created famine. North Korean famine of the nineties; whilst it's hard to get data on government policy at the time, it seems that there was a move to implement utterly inappropriate terrace farming, which was subsequently disrupted (or indeed, washed away) by pretty normal rains, rendering those terraces useless and also causing new flooding (as the terraced fields use to be water absorbers and rain diffusers). Ethiopian famine of the eighties; civil war going on. Soviet famine of 1947; an awful lot like Mao's famine. On and on. Certainly in modern times; obviously there's a lot less explanation of the causes as one goes further back, and it is in the nature of incompetent government to blame the weather. I suppose what I'm saying is that to prevent famine, we need competent government.

tbrownaw 13y ago

How does investing engineering effort in designing mining ASICs and spending dollars to purchase what is essentially a currency generating machine help us as a community? It's supposed to help said currency become more solidly established, and therefore more useful to more people. I wish we were just as enthusiastic and race to solve other problems too -- like spreading education, finding out ways to purify water, or maximizing agriculture throughput in famine, or predicting when the next hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake is coming our way. I'm pretty sure people are enthusiastic about those things, and probably quite a lot more people than are into bitcoin. They're just less visible, since those aren't the cool new shiny thing (and aside from the weather/earthquake predictions, they're probably not heavy enough on software to be considered of interest here).

anigbrowl 13y ago
It's supposed to help said currency become more solidly established, and therefore more useful to more people. I don't think you're going to find people flocking to a currency where it turns out that they have zero change of a big score. At least during the gold rush there was the possibility that a small miner could get lucky.
- robertfw 13y ago
  The idea is that once a sizeable enough amount of bitcoin is in circulation, the amount of risk associated with it will go down, thus making it more useful to people - volatile money is of no use to me.

richcollins 13y ago

A P2P currency might help people allocate resources more effectively (to solve problems like the ones that you mentioned). Right now much of our wealth is flushed down the toilet when stolen through taxes and inflation and given to bankers and other government corporate welfare recipients.

nhaehnle 13y ago
These issues are completely orthogonal to how the currency is implemented. You still have to pay taxes even if you use Bitcoin.