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Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

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Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#351

Post by Justsignedup »

adolph wrote: post #210
kitcar wrote: post #11

Bitcoin is an almost perfect exploitation of humanities fatal flaws (greed, unwillingness to acknowledge externalities - i.e. selfishness). It's that old SF-trope that the cause of many of humanity's biggest problems is humans.

> the cause of many of humanity's biggest problems is humans As opposed to elephants or sea urchins? How can humans not be the cause humanity's biggest problems? The Buddha taught there are three kinds of dukkha [usually translated as “suffering”]. The first kind is physical and mental pain from the inevitable stresses of life like old age, sickness, and death. The second is the distress we feel as a result of imperm…

The cause of most problems for any biological creature on earth is external. All animals compete fiercely for survival among the elements, among other creatures, among each other. Survival is the biggest problem for all animals.

Except humans. More humans die each year due to other humans, or due to things other humans have created (for example humans ignoring mask mandates).

Point is, we are the only specie who has become its own worst enemy.

Idk, what am I saying? I think we can improve eachother's lives quite a bit if we just kick out the assholes from power.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#352

Post by JAlexoid »

saalweachter wrote: post #220
jetpackjoe wrote: post #9

There are so many better crypto-currencies. Better for the environment because they use proof-of-stake, and not proof-of-work. Better for users because transactions are confirmed in seconds, not hours, and without the ridiculous fees that Bitcoin has. I think this shows how truly powerful the network effect, and being first to market is. Because without those things, Bitcoin would be nothing.

You know what actually bothers me the most about all crypto-currencies? None of them are actually money, like in the paper-or-gold-coin sense. They're all ledgers. The thing about money is that I can hand it to someone . Possession of the money is possession of the money and third parties don't need to get involved in every transaction. I can hand someone dollars and take a sandwich and walk away, transaction done. T…

Other than literal precious metal coins - everything else is a share of existing or future value - it's a credit to acquire material possessions.

Take an example of burning $100 bill. You aren't destroying more than the piece of paper, because the destroyed value is instantly shared between every other unit of currency.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#353

Post by nmz »

MattGaiser wrote: post #260
meowkit wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing about money is that I can hand it to someone. Honestly don’t know if you’re trolling or just old. I used paper money once last year. To buy weed. Because the federal government has determined I am not responsible enough to use or own weed. No one I know uses physical cash anymore. We’re moving away from physical items where possible, not toward it. I would rather have my currency on a public DLT than cont…

They are having to mandate cash acceptance at stores now as many would prefer to do away with it. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/06/803003343/some-businesses-are...

The possibility of not getting robbed because you have $4000 cash on the till is a damn killer feature. Sure, this would just lead to an evolution in methodology. but for now its worth it.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#355

Post by commiebob »

zionic wrote: post #339
saalweachter wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what actually bothers me the most about all crypto-currencies? None of them are actually money, like in the paper-or-gold-coin sense. They're all ledgers. The thing about money is that I can hand it to someone . Possession of the money is possession of the money and third parties don't need to get involved in every transaction. I can hand someone dollars and take a sandwich and walk away, transaction done. T…

There is nothing stopping you from signing a crypto transaction by hand using your private key from memory and handing someone an envelope.

Except that's like giving someone your ATM card and PIN code instead of handing them $5 for said sandwich.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#357

Post by soledades »

fjeoyk wrote: post #322
xkjkls wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just hunger in general. Before the agriculture revolution starvation was the primary cause of human death.

I would have thought the opposite would be true, hunter gatherers are generally well fed from a variety of food sources, would have lived in low densities and would have been highly mobile, so in the event one food source become scarce they could move elsewhere, or switch foods. Early agriculturalists would have been stuck in once place reliant on a single, or few, food source/s and therefore vulnerable to failed har…

You would be correct.

Preagricultural peoples exerted reproductive control so they were not vulnerable kind of population crunches that affect other species.

Diverse food webs were also more reliable and nutritious than what was available to the early agriculturalists, as you say.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#358

Post by nickysielicki »

saalweachter wrote: post #220
jetpackjoe wrote: post #9

There are so many better crypto-currencies. Better for the environment because they use proof-of-stake, and not proof-of-work. Better for users because transactions are confirmed in seconds, not hours, and without the ridiculous fees that Bitcoin has. I think this shows how truly powerful the network effect, and being first to market is. Because without those things, Bitcoin would be nothing.

You know what actually bothers me the most about all crypto-currencies? None of them are actually money, like in the paper-or-gold-coin sense. They're all ledgers. The thing about money is that I can hand it to someone . Possession of the money is possession of the money and third parties don't need to get involved in every transaction. I can hand someone dollars and take a sandwich and walk away, transaction done. T…

> The "solution" people came up with to this problem was to not solve the problem, and instead solve a different problem, how to have a distributed ledger.

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#359

Post by mutatio »

Justsignedup wrote: post #351
adolph wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the cause of many of humanity's biggest problems is humans As opposed to elephants or sea urchins? How can humans not be the cause humanity's biggest problems? The Buddha taught there are three kinds of dukkha [usually translated as “suffering”]. The first kind is physical and mental pain from the inevitable stresses of life like old age, sickness, and death. The second is the distress we feel as a result of imperm…

The cause of most problems for any biological creature on earth is external. All animals compete fiercely for survival among the elements, among other creatures, among each other. Survival is the biggest problem for all animals. Except humans. More humans die each year due to other humans, or due to things other humans have created (for example humans ignoring mask mandates). Point is, we are the only specie who has…

Evolutionists like Dawkins pose that most organisms are in fiercest competition with members of their own species. You and I compete for identical resources: mates, jobs etc.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#360

Post by ruined »

throwaway20875 wrote: post #224
the_local_host wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An asset that cannot be confiscated by the government It might be intractable to confiscate bitcoin by attacking the math, but why wouldn't governments just put people in jail until they pay up? With adequate control over the internet, governments would be fairly able to track who's transacting. Moreover for the vast majority of people on earth would still have basically zero money relative to the emerging bitcoin…

>Moreover for the vast majority of people on earth would still have basically zero money relative to the emerging bitcoin oligarchs. It would be a grossly unequal society, where there would need to be some non-math-based approach to getting money from the wealthy to redistribute to the less fortunate. Those oligarchs won't be able to print more bitcoin or exclude (sanctions) their political enemies from conducting tr…

>Those oligarchs won't be able to print more bitcoin or exclude (sanctions) their political enemies from conducting trade. Seems fairer than the current system.

Sure they would. If bitcoin continues to exist much longer, you'll likely see the larger governments define a set of rules for domestic miners, perhaps including requirements to only process transactions from registered accounts or signed by specific keys, or otherwise authenticated. Any international agreement on such a system reaching significant hash power would fork the ledger into legitimate and illegitimate versions, and generate obvious consequences

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