i feel like HN's outrage about bitcoin mining is just virtue signaling.
1. bitcoin has created a market where people purchase security of their assets with the ultimate currency - energy. that market isn't going anywhere, the idea is out of the bag and you can't un-discover it.
2. energy consumption is not what causes carbon emissions, energy production does. stop chasing consumers and start regulating producers if you're honest about being so very concerned about environment.
3. it's not your business what i do with the energy that i buy at market rates.
1. Bitcoin is not a store of security, it's a highly volatile market that most experts agree is going to crash soon. Even if it doesn't, that's still a clear gamble, not "security". (Nor, in financial terms, is it a "security", as no regulator treats it as such)
2. Our infrastructure is only equipped to produce a finite amount of energy plus emergency output, and much of that emergency output is fossil-fuel-based. Even building new "green" plants has a high amount of carbon output due to concrete production. Energy is a zero sum game until we master fusion, and Bitcoin is the least efficient allocation of that resource.
3) Yes, it is, because the government also already regulates how much energy can be used in appliances or businesses. More broadly, it is literally the government's job to step in when a behavior is, at scale, creating a significant negative drain on society's resources for no tangible benefit.
1. those experts have been agreeing it'll crash ever since bitcoin hit $1, sorry if i dont have a lot of faith in their expertise.
2. .. in which you agree that producers, not consumers are responsible for carbon output. i dont get your "zero sum game" idea, we already have plenty of fusion energy available - it's called the sun. as for allocation efficiency - that's just like your opinion man.
3. i guess we'll have to wait til' you get whats the tangible benefit then...
These arguments often take the form of [complaint about Bitcoin not working] → [sardonic counter about Bitcoin working despite the nay-sayers]
A better way to frame the problem IMO is that if Bitcoin works as intended, it will only serve to create a new elite of early adopters that will be even more massively powerful than the traditional one
So you have a lose-lose proposition for late adopters, with collectivized costs and pollution, and basically the promise of boundless wealth for the rest. I can't blame early adopters from working towards this, but in turn they can't blame the rest from reacting.
first, those were not the arguments in form "complaint about Bitcoin not working", those were attempts to rebutt my earlier statements why it's erroneous to view bitcoin in context of environmental issues.
> if Bitcoin works as intended, it will only serve to create a new elite of early adopters that will be even more massively powerful than the traditional one
sure, early adopters will reap some benefits, but it's laughable to suggest they will be any competition to current elites. a valid criticism of bitcoin would be that current elites will adopt bitcoin to cement the existing inequalities, but a) that would already be some redistribution of wealth, b) there's already plenty of wealth cementing options in form of london real estate, etc, singling out bitcoin here seems disingenuous.
I'm not singling out bitcoin. In fact the London real estate is a good analogy to crypto.
You have people with London properties getting super excited and people with no such properties not getting excited at all. Both are right. A handful of previously poor people manage to get a property thanks to being in the right place at the right time or some other improbable condition, but most don't. Many participants in the market are already massively wealthy. Overall, nothing makes it plausible for the property market to be meaningfully called an engine for the redistribution of wealth
You say it's not going anywhere but things can change. Bitcoin's energy use is roughly proportional to the price. If people sell bitcoin and buy another currency that is more proof of stake the energy useage can go down.
Maybe you didn't mean it quite this way, but: "virtue signalling" is not evil, it's an integral part of human social dynamics, probably since before agriculture. And if you think you never do it, I think you're deluding yourself.
1. bitcoin has created a market where people purchase security of their assets with the ultimate currency - energy. that market isn't going anywhere, the idea is out of the bag and you can't un-discover it.
2. energy consumption is not what causes carbon emissions, energy production does. stop chasing consumers and start regulating producers if you're honest about being so very concerned about environment.
3. it's not your business what i do with the energy that i buy at market rates.