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Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

ren.zone

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Re: Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

#31

Post by hudon »

mikro2nd wrote: post #25
ramses0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is practically useless day-to-day for a lay-person except as decoration, but represents the literal blood, sweat, tears, and toil of someone taking it out of rocks, refining it and putting it into your hands. Also it has some commercial use. Cryptocurrencies likely follow a similar model. Useless to the lay-person except as decoration. Representing a "colossal waste of resources", but having access to the refini…

Just to put that "colossal waste of resources" in perspective... allegedly we're wasting 60 TWh/year 'mining' Bitcoin, and this is considered (maybe rightly) an environmental catastrophe. We also use around (again allegedly) 220 TWh/year mining Gold.

I don't want to start a "Bitcoin is useless" flameware but to your question: the reason why the energy consumption of proof-of-work is important is because society hasn't found a purpose for Bitcoin to exist yet. Therefore, the energy consumed is considered "wasted" whereas it could have been used for something society already deems useful, like keeping the lights on.

Re: Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

#32

Post by maxxxxx »

hudon wrote: post #31
mikro2nd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to put that "colossal waste of resources" in perspective... allegedly we're wasting 60 TWh/year 'mining' Bitcoin, and this is considered (maybe rightly) an environmental catastrophe. We also use around (again allegedly) 220 TWh/year mining Gold.

I don't want to start a "Bitcoin is useless" flameware but to your question: the reason why the energy consumption of proof-of-work is important is because society hasn't found a purpose for Bitcoin to exist yet. Therefore, the energy consumed is considered "wasted" whereas it could have been used for something society already deems useful, like keeping the lights on.

Isn't the energy use of Bitcoin also continuously growing? The cost of extracting gold is pretty steady.

Re: Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

#33

Post by abiox »

ranie93 wrote: post #5
idbehold wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the value of a coffee or haircut? How many coffees is a haircut worth?

However many you're willing to give, thats the point.

the question is just moved from 'what is the value' to 'why are you willing to give'.

Re: Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

#34

Post by alexbeloi »

abiox wrote: post #33
ranie93 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However many you're willing to give, thats the point.

the question is just moved from 'what is the value' to 'why are you willing to give'.

Yes, that is the core of value based pricing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-based_pricing

Re: Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

#35

Post by abiox »

RandComment wrote: post #28
mrleiter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inheritance is worthless, then. As an heir I can more or less inherit from day 0 (in some jurisdictions even before) of my living life. This means there is the possibility of me putting in zero effort, besides from being born alive, to obtain it. Yet it obviously has some worth.

> Inheritance is worthless, then. That's a spurious deduction. Inheritance is a mechanism of passing value store. Purely living off inheritance, reduces the stored value. This is a demonstration of the concept, not a violation.

1) "The value of a currency is the effort required to obtain it"

2) (Inheritance requires no or marginal effort in acquisition)

c) "Inheritance is worthless, then."

Re: Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

#36

Post by EGreg »

mikro2nd wrote: post #25
ramses0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is practically useless day-to-day for a lay-person except as decoration, but represents the literal blood, sweat, tears, and toil of someone taking it out of rocks, refining it and putting it into your hands. Also it has some commercial use. Cryptocurrencies likely follow a similar model. Useless to the lay-person except as decoration. Representing a "colossal waste of resources", but having access to the refini…

Just to put that "colossal waste of resources" in perspective... allegedly we're wasting 60 TWh/year 'mining' Bitcoin, and this is considered (maybe rightly) an environmental catastrophe. We also use around (again allegedly) 220 TWh/year mining Gold.

Excuse me, prove that we use more TWh/year mining Gold than bitcoin!!

Re: Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

#37

Post by stephencanon »

FreeFull wrote: post #17
kstenerud wrote: post #12

Or, just use IEEE 754 decimal types? That's what they were built for.

Those still have limited precision, and the precision varies depending on how big the number is, which isn't suitable for money

The entire raison d'être of floating-point is that, unlike integers, the precision does not vary with the magnitude[1].

1. except for underflow, which reasonable financial computations never encounter, because their inputs are well-scaled.

Re: Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

#38

Post by smitherfield »

nokcha wrote: post #23
FreeFull wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those still have limited precision, and the precision varies depending on how big the number is, which isn't suitable for money

IEEE 128-bit decimal can handle a precision of 34 significant figures (decimal digits). You can store a million times the world GDP (1e6 * US$75.59 trillion) accurate to picodollars. How much more precision do you need?

And before someone says "hyperinflation," you could also store world GDP in nano-Zimbabwean dollars (with 1 USD = 6.69e11 ZWL).

Re: Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

#39

Post by codezero »

I'm a bit confused as to why they don't just keep the currency values in the smallest unit for each currency. They gave an example about un-used coins which seemed to be their justification, but I can't figure out why adding a "scale" is a better approach. Most of the other examples were backed up by the type system, so I feel like I'm missing something.

Re: Safe-money: Money in the type system where it belongs (2017)

#40

Post by ucaetano »

idbehold wrote: post #4
ucaetano wrote: post #3

> Interestingly, the value of most currencies is measured in terms of the value of other currencies, most of which have no value other than the trust recursively vested in them by civilization. This doesn't make any sense. The value of any currency is measured constantly by its users conducting trades: when you buy a coffee, you're measuring the value of the currency used; when you pay for a haircut, you're measuring…

What is the value of a coffee or haircut? How many coffees is a haircut worth?

Value is always personal, relative and variable. The value of things can be expressed in terms of any other thing.

Right now, in your situation, would you rather have a coffee or a haircut?

Would you rather have 2 coffees or 1 haircut?

And so on. There are plenty of exercises to determine how you (personally) value things, and also the shape of your utility curve. That was one of the most interesting classes I ever took: decision and utility theories.

A lot of the work was understanding the impact of different personal (or institutional) utility curves, how to determine your own and how to maximise you return not in absolute terms, but in relative terms using your utility curve.

When you take in account non-linearity of utility curves, lotteries make sense, for example, since for most people the utility of $1 is far less than 1 millionth of the utility of a million dollars.

The same with insurance. Insurance always has a negative expected value in absolute terms, but when you take in account that U(-$1) Insurance works because companies and people have different utility curves.

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