BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia

Post by Cakez0r » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 1:39 PM UTC

marknadal wrote: post #154

corford wrote: post #146

Just the fact it's Bram Cohen behind this is enough to get me excited. Watching https://www.facebook.com/BerkeleyBlockchain/videos/200606982... I love when he talks about the off by one error in Bitcoin's difficulty reset calculation and how almost all other blockchains have mindlessly copied this :)

Hey, I was there at the event (I did the lightning talk at the beginning). Would love to answer any questions about Chia that anybody has, that I learned first-hand from Bram.

Post by Squithrilve » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 1:50 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #218

Squithrilve wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the power is not already being used to bring useful services for people? It seems like people would want to bend thermodynamics and require that benefit is produced without spending energy... By the way mining is already used to heat houses in Siberia: https://qz.com/1117836/bitcoin-mining-heats-homes-for-free-i...

It doesn't really work this way... If a bitcoin costs $6000 people will spend physical resources worth $6000 (in theory) to obtain it through mining. Let's assume you are a miner in siberia and have a heating bill of $100 every month and spend $1000 of electricity to get $1100 worth of bitcoin. You now only pay $900 to get $1100 bitcoin. You will spend the excess savings of $100 on more electricity for mining. Now su…

Post by fvdessen » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 1:59 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #195

owlmirror wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still ignores scarcity and arbitrarily picks one specific limiting resource in the production process as essential. Labor theory of value might be interesting from a philosophical standpoint but really has no practical application when it comes to understanding the market. And it introduces a major can of worms when it presumes stuff like intrinsic value.

It doesn't ignore scarcity, scarce goods are inherently more labor intensive. And it doesn't presume intrinsic value, the labor necessary is a subjective concept so the value must be as well. You're probably right about it's use in understanding a capitalist market, Marx spends no shortage of time on how capitalists warp that basic idea.

Post by boomboomsubban » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 2:57 PM UTC

fvdessen wrote: post #225

boomboomsubban wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't ignore scarcity, scarce goods are inherently more labor intensive. And it doesn't presume intrinsic value, the labor necessary is a subjective concept so the value must be as well. You're probably right about it's use in understanding a capitalist market, Marx spends no shortage of time on how capitalists warp that basic idea.

How are scarce goods more labour intensive ? It doesn't take any more labour to make a good wine than a bad one.

Post by alexasmyths » Thu, Nov 09, 2017, 3:20 PM UTC

codemac wrote: post #170

alexasmyths wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The value of a product is equivalent to the amount of labour exerceted in its production" This is one of the most problematic statements ever made in Econ. The 'value' of a product is different for everyone, and it's what you (or anyone else) will pay for it. The idea that 'work = value' is one of the most distortionary ideas in business, even today. Just had a discussion today about pricing a product, and it was de…

Exactly, which is why Marx uses the concept of a labor value, use value, and exchange value. Labor is what's gone in, use is the inherent/intrinsic value in the object, and exchange value is what people will trade in exchange for it. That's a bad summary, and there's a lot more to the dialectic examination of them. Reading Capital (along with David Harvey's lectures) is worth it if you find these things interesting,…