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Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

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Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#421

Post by jf22 »

throwaway20875 wrote: post #353
jf22 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst kind of criticism about scientific papers is when people say "but the paper that didn't study this topic, didn't study this topic!" Would you expect a paper on COVID mortality also discuss heart disease and ALS? Of course not.

>Would you expect a paper on COVID mortality also discuss heart disease and ALS? Of course not. Power consumption and power production are simply directly related. Your clumsy attempt at an analogy here really misses the mark. The root cause of this issue is our power production isn't clean enough, and therefore consumption drives pollution. What do you address first - the demand or the supply? It's quite simply amaz…

Perhaps you are extending the discussion far past the point I was trying to make in a single sentence.

Discussing things with people on hacker news is frustrating because people like you extend the argument to way way way past the point at hand. All of a sudden we are talking about clean energy deployment, not that BitCoin mining is using a lot of power and resources.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#422

Post by douglaswlance »

karpour wrote: post #303
douglaswlance wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all usage of energy is equivalent. It requires energy to run carbon scrubbers, yet we would probably agree that carbon scrubbers are worth the energy costs for environmental benefits. Can you prove that the energy bitcoin miners use would have been put to a more environmentally friendly use if they had not existed?

The energy used by bitcoin would simply have been not-used. Massive numbers of e-waste would've been avoided as well. Of course, if it wasn't Bitcoin, another cryptocurrency would use as much energy as Sweden right now.

If we don't use energy that is produced, then it is wasted. We don't have a reliable method of mass energy storage.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#423

Post by DennisP »

karpour wrote: post #412
DennisP wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's only a downside for proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Proof-of-stake eliminates almost all the energy consumption.

I'd be excited about a widely adopted cryptocurrency that doesn't gobble up insane amounts of energy and needs an ever increasing amount of computing power to keep it from collapsing, but right now Bitcoin is using almost as much energy as Sweden, which isn't great.

I agree, and sadly they're unlikely to change. However, Ethereum has about as much usage (though lower market cap), has proof-of-stake running with 100K nodes and $5 billion staked, and plans to migrate the rest of the network and eliminate mining within a year or so.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#424

Post by tekknik »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #289
tekknik wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your counter is just as flawed as you have no way to verify any miners are using renewables. Power transmission is a thing (California does it) and if we weren’t using the power to mine BTC it could be used to power other things. Again, people are only arguing for BTC on this site because it’s hacker news, nothing else.

> Your counter is just as flawed as you have no way to verify any miners are using renewables. Then any "published study" on this topic is automatically going to be flawed as well?

More like since renewables are not commonplace and it costs money to move its easier to believe they are not using renewables.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#425

Post by aww_dang »

jf22 wrote: post #418
aww_dang wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've posed questions about incentives. In lieu of engaging in a discussion, you've dismissed the possibility. You've provided no rationale (or evidence for that matter) for this flippant dismissal. Instead, you offer the 'conspiracy theory' pejorative. It is not a starting point for a conversation.

I have not dismissed the possibility there is a conspiracy. I'm only calling out that asking a leading question like this doesn't add to the conversation at all. There is an incredible irony to accuse me of providing no rational when this whole thing is about somebody alluding to a conspiracy with no rational at all. The starting point to a conversation should be "hey, there is a conspiracy here, this is why."

>Are there parties that benefit disproportionately by establishing a cost for carbon and the definition thereof?

Asking about incentives, thinking critically about conflicts of interest doesn't add to the discussion because that might "allude to a conspiracy"?

I don't know if I agree with that. For me it makes sense to first ask "Cui bono". Establish a motive and then search for evidence to prove a hypothesis.

Posing the question is simply the beginning of the process. If you're closed minded about opening the door, my (reasonable or unreasonable, open for debate) expectation would be that you would dismiss anything within as "conspiracy theories". Hence the discussion becomes futile.

I read your reply as skipping over the possibility of a conflict of interest in research rationalizing a carbon credit trading regime.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#426

Post by dang »

Certhas wrote: post #416
dang wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please omit personal swipes from your HN comments, no matter how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Your comment would be just fine without the first paragraph. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Unfortunately I am to late to edit my post. I understand the intent here, but these threads are full of what are, in the end, drastic accusations of scientific misconduct (or raging incompetence) against the authors, made with confidence from a place of proud ignorance. I believe it is important to point out when arguments are not made in good faith. Responding to them as if they were honest attempts at debate is pro…

That's actually against the site guidelines, which ask you to "Assume good faith."

The reason is that it's hard if not impossible to accurately assess other commenters' intent, and there's a strong default on the internet to assume bad faith. We all need to consciously counteract that if we're to have substantive, thoughtful discussion.

It's true that some commenters behave abusively in ways that make assuming good faith impossible, but (a) I doubt that was the case here, and (b) the guidelines ask you not to reply in such cases, but rather to flag the comment and/or email hn@ycombinator.com.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#427

Post by read_if_gay_ »

tekknik wrote: post #424
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your counter is just as flawed as you have no way to verify any miners are using renewables. Then any "published study" on this topic is automatically going to be flawed as well?

More like since renewables are not commonplace and it costs money to move its easier to believe they are not using renewables.

You can of course believe whatever seems easy to you, but you do realize that I linked to a published study that says miners are using renewables far more than the US does on average, don't you?

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#428

Post by ric2b »

karpour wrote: post #411
ric2b wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin's energy usage is not related to the number of transactions in any significant way, it's strictly a defense measure to prevent a nation state from tampering with the ledger.

Maybe you should read up on how Bitcoin actually works before you comment.

I've read the whitepaper and follow technical developments occasionaly, I know how it works on a high-level.

You could make Bitcoin process 1000x more transactions and the energy consumption of mining it wouldn't even change by 1%, all else being equal.

Miners are willing to waste as much energy as they get back in rewards from mining blocks, while competing with each other for their share of the rewards. The rewards are newly minted Bitcoins (and some transaction fees, which are a small part of the reward). So the higher the Bitcoin price the larger the rewards miners get and the more energy they are able to spend competing with each other while still turning a profit.

If the price is 50k, it doesn't really matter if the network is processing 1 transaction a second or 10 million, the energy consumption will be roughly the same.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#429

Post by throwaway20875 »

jf22 wrote: post #419
throwaway20875 wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're so concerned about the root cause of power generation, go focus on solving that problem. So ignore the root cause altogether, lol. And when we've banned crypto mining and accrued even worse social costs as a result, we'll rinse and repeat this process with the next ".*damage" power consumer. Totally sane!

>banned crypto mining and accrued even worse social costs Could you describe what social costs we'll have by banning crypto mining?

Banning anything that's already widespread implies making a part of the population into criminals. With that comes the costs of enforcement and of government's authority (which is finite). Consider too that crypto is, often, a response by many to perceived policy for fiat.

Re: Every $1 of BTC value responsible for $0.49 in health and climate damages in US

#430

Post by bingbong70 »

teekert wrote: post #397
pwinnski wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if the US adopted BTC, we wouldn't need an army at all? Is that the claim?

The US spends a lot of $ on waging war, $ that could have been spend on Healthcare, or funding initiatives that help combat climate change. I'm saying Healthcare and climate are hardly a priority for the US, so why is BTC the bad guy here?

Bitcoin takes away the power of central banks to fund wars willy nilly. All the corrupt forces that suck at the teat of free money will coalesce around the protection of this debasement racket and so we get these "think of the kids needing energy" articles...
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