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Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

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Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#91

Post by mtrycz2 »

esimov wrote: post #37

I cannot recommend enough for everyone who has a minimal sensibility towards the climate impact to read this thread: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1350869944888664064 . Since we are inevitable heading over to a climate catastrophe it's really the time to advocate against bitcoin.

That thread is assuming that BTC runs on fossil, non-renewable energy, which was mostly correct ten to five years ago, but will be mostly wrong onwards.

BTC runs mostly on surplus hydroelectric power. This may change based on what's locally available and the local cost of oil gas and coal, but when renewables will become cheaper than fossil (which will never be soon enough) it will not make any sense to mine on fossils.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#92

Post by gorgoiler »

317070 wrote: post #65
gorgoiler wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the reference, and I look forward to understanding what you mean by myth . Barter is literally my life. I teach other people’s children about life and Computer Science in order to buy potatoes. The children’s parents make medicine and build houses to pay for their children’s education. Is your point that barter is about goods, whereas most people provide services (time, labour?) Or perhaps you mean that…

With barter is meant (in the context of Graeber's book) trading tit for tat, without having a currency to go between. E.g. a farmer buying a book and paying with apples. The book says that this barter method is almost never used, and instead people tend to keep track of favors and things they owe in a more vague way. And every now and then, these debts are settled in a communal fashion. But barter is not used. So the…

Right. I feel like that’s nit picking (your parent; not you.)

Of course I (teacher) don’t buy potatoes by teaching the farmer’s children Dijkstra.

Instead of bartering we chooses to track our debts. Using Bitcoin as a cryptographically secure distributed debt tracker sounds great.

But Bitcoin right now feels like a bunch of technology enthusiasts have blessed the world with such a debt tracker while also saying ”btw you collectively owe us $630,000,000,000 worth of stuff”.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#93

Post by garbagetime »

randomguy3344 wrote: post #52
garbagetime wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like a somewhat random point to make. Sure, there are positive characteristics of meat - just like there are of bitcoin. That's part of why the comparison between the two works.

In terms of conversation you got a point yourself, however you cannot compare food with currency. Food is connected to us on a biological level, currency is a construct of society. They are not compareable imo.

I'm not seeing what is about food being "connected to us on a biological level" that makes the comparison fail.

Not all aspects of two things have to be similar in order for a comparison to succeed (such a comparison is of course actually impossible).

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#94

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

esimov wrote: post #37

I cannot recommend enough for everyone who has a minimal sensibility towards the climate impact to read this thread: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1350869944888664064 . Since we are inevitable heading over to a climate catastrophe it's really the time to advocate against bitcoin.

Or just move over to Ethereum which is actually moving forward on proof of stake, which solves this problem in an elegant way. It also has major plans for scaling, which Bitcoin has ignorantly refused to budge on.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#95

Post by illustriousbear »

tappio wrote: post #89
illustriousbear wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nevermind traditional banks with their towering office buildings full of air conditioning/appliances, employees commuting to work, remote branches, sophisticated vaults and online infrastructure. I can never take the bitcoin climate change hysteria seriously. I wonder why the people who write these articles aren't calling out traditional banks? hmm.

Traditional banks pay their electricity bill, so they naturally need to account for that. On the other hand, bitcoin network pays for that collectively. No single entity pays the bill. If a single entity had to pay for 621KWh for every transaction, I don't think that bitcoin could exists. That is the main difference here: multiple parties are doing small contribution to the energy consumption, instead of a single ent…

Traditional banks are not accountable for all the electricity their services consume. One example alone is considering all the clients, pos and other systems that operate.

Banks are also a very different model with different overheads compared to Bitcoin. I'd argue that banking infrastructure is quite wasteful with their physical skyscrapers and vaults. Executives at banks would argue otherwise.

Bitcoin aims to disrupt financial services to some extent. A significant electricity cost shouldn't be a surprise. Does that mean it should be outlawed? I think not.

If we banned every costly disruptive idea that emerged, we wouldn't get anywhere.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#96

Post by tappio »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #63
esimov wrote: post #37

I cannot recommend enough for everyone who has a minimal sensibility towards the climate impact to read this thread: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1350869944888664064 . Since we are inevitable heading over to a climate catastrophe it's really the time to advocate against bitcoin.

This is like crusading against people using their clothes dryer, driving when they don't absolutely need to, turning on A/C when they could just put on a sweater, not to mention all the industrial and commercial energy expenditures producing bullshit we don't need. From where you sit, look around your room and contemplate the incredible energy expended to get these items where they are. If your concern is about avoid…

None of the things you listed are on the same scale if that 621KWh is true. What you should say is: "crusading against people who leave their a/c on for 2 months when they are away, people who drive 2500 miles for fun every day, people who run their clothes drier for a month non-stop even though it's empty".

Regardless, I would be sceptical about that 621 KWh. Does not sound realistic...

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#97

Post by pharmakom »

esimov wrote: post #37

I cannot recommend enough for everyone who has a minimal sensibility towards the climate impact to read this thread: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1350869944888664064 . Since we are inevitable heading over to a climate catastrophe it's really the time to advocate against bitcoin.

People computing the joules/tx of Bitcoin are missing that PoW scales such that the amount of a transaction has nothing to do with the amount of mining work that validates it.

I hope that initiatives like Lightning Network can help it scale further though.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#98

Post by neolog »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #63
esimov wrote: post #37

I cannot recommend enough for everyone who has a minimal sensibility towards the climate impact to read this thread: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1350869944888664064 . Since we are inevitable heading over to a climate catastrophe it's really the time to advocate against bitcoin.

This is like crusading against people using their clothes dryer, driving when they don't absolutely need to, turning on A/C when they could just put on a sweater, not to mention all the industrial and commercial energy expenditures producing bullshit we don't need. From where you sit, look around your room and contemplate the incredible energy expended to get these items where they are. If your concern is about avoid…

> The bitcoin network annually wastes 78 TWh (terrawatt hours) annually or the energy consumption of several million US households.

That seems like a lot, no?

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#99

Post by AmericanChopper »

gorgoiler wrote: post #83
AmericanChopper wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like the reason is that you don’t understand money, which is generally regarded as having 3 core functions. Acting as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. Bitcoin does all of those things. Your issue seems to be that it’s not widely accepted enough as a medium of exchange to properly facilitate that function? The problem with that view is that it is widely accepted enough to drive…

I don’t think I really understand money, no. What makes much more sense to me is agreeing on a central authority (or a distributed one, if we have the math to be able to do that securely) to track the exchange of things with actual value. Bitcoin-the-tech feels like it’s partly that, but also it’s partly some side-wheeze for the initial Bitcoin folks to print their own money. Bitcoin would make sense if the inflation…

Well a bank account provides all the functions of money, and to a much greater level of functionality. But the whole reason cryptocurrency exists is to avoid some of the issues you get when dealing with centralized financial institutions. If you want to decentralize that role, you need a new way of managing scarcity. Proof of work is one way to do that. Whether that’s wasteful or not would be a personal judgement, but the reasons the demand exists are pretty simple to understand.

Re: Bitcoin Core Lead Maintainer Steps Back, Encourages Decentralization

#100

Post by arisAlexis »

esimov wrote: post #37

I cannot recommend enough for everyone who has a minimal sensibility towards the climate impact to read this thread: https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1350869944888664064 . Since we are inevitable heading over to a climate catastrophe it's really the time to advocate against bitcoin.

and favor Proof of Stake and other more modern implementations of the blockchain that accomplish both technological innovation and climate preservation
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