Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by nmz » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

ckosidows wrote: post #341

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.

Was it? I know a couple books[1] that suggest life prior to the agricultural revolution wasn't nearly as famine-stricken as we tend to think it was. These books claim hunter gatherers were quite proficient at finding enough sustenance. Obviously starvation was still possible and likely, but was it the primary cause of death? Is there some more evidence that humans were suffering from starvation before agriculture? Wo…

"Thin out" is this another word for dying?

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

#372

Post by dnmllr_ » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

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.

The fact that network and first to market effects are so strong in crypto is an indication that the market doesn't actually value things like proof-of-work or faster transactions or smaller fees. Sure, there are a small number of enthusiasts and professionals who do, but they don't make a market. Most of the people involved just want to buy a worthless asset and trade it to somebody who will pay more for that worthless asset. The bitcoin brand is the most import feature for that use case.

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

#373

Post by BTCOG » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

runarberg wrote: post #314

BTCOG wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it has in fact been proven many times over in many research white papers to be fatally flawed and that's why no serious cryptocurrency would implement proof of stake.

Still asking out of desire to learn: How has it been shown to be flawed? With what kind of experiments? Which are the flaws? How to they manifest them self (e.g. how could you exploit them with PoS but not with PoW)?

I am not searching down all the whitepapers for you, if you truly want to learn then you will need to dig into the myriad mathematician's white papers against Proof of Stake.

Here is one link, and you can find several more.

https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

Now, that is a PDF, and I do not recommend blindly opening PDFs. This is by Andrew Poelstra, who is a mathematician at Blockstream.

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

#374

Post by acruns » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

At what point did Bill become an expert on everything? It's cute that he takes his little bag of books and secluded himself in his she-shed and reads. But honestly, why do we now trust him to be an expert on so many subjects when he hasn't even gotten an undergraduate degree in anything, let alone spent decades studying a field. I can't tell you how many books I have read by experts that later turned out to completely off base or wrong to a certain degree. Just because he chats with experts and reads books on subjects doesn't make him an expert, it makes him well informed but not an expert. I am an expert in what I do and have spent over a decade on it, and I am wrong or have to look things up all the time, am I missing something? Did he go back and get a doctorate that I missed? He seems to be an expert on too many subjects.

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

#375

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:43 PM UTC

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #256

superbcarrot wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's hard to argue that Bitcoin isn't the best on many of those measures Seems pretty easy to me. What is Bitcoin best at apart from having the largest market cap?

* Longest running network. * Largest network by nodes. * Largest network hashrate / Most energy consumed. * Simple Satoshi Codebase. * Most accessible - blockchain delivered via satellite! * One can run a node on a RPi. Requires 351G storage for full chain. Eth is TB's (and growing), requires SSD, fast CPU, etc. You are not running ETH nodes at home. * Most decentralized * Most reliable

[deleted]

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

#376

Post by nelsontodd » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

jfim wrote: post #318

nelsontodd wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it will eliminate the need for the military or police force entirely. I have seen a lot of bold bitcoin claims but I don't think anyone really does. My post was referring to how the US has killed lots of people to keep strong dollar. I think its feasible that a true global currency (possibly bitcoin) could prevent violence like this.

Keep in mind that the US government has an incentive to keep the US dollar as the currency used for most of the international trade. If Bitcoin would become a risk to that status, would the US government just give up and admit defeat or would it outlaw usage of it?

I doubt they would just roll over yeah. If you consider the dollar as a weapon/tool for US hegemony, bitcoin functions as almost like a terrorist entity. Not clear what to do with this information

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

#377

Post by ncallaway » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

newsbinator wrote: post #342

SiempreViernes wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One year into a worldwide pandemic affecting every aspect of life and you have a hard time finding examples of really bad things not caused by human? That's some committed misanthropy, I got to give you that.

The jury’s out on whether this one was our own fault too. Maybe we made it in a lab, or even if we didn’t, maybe we should have been much smarter about preventing or containing it. It’s not like an alien virus we never predicted and can’t understand. Experts had been warning about this exact thing for years.

> maybe we should have been much smarter about preventing or containing it.

That doesn't mean humans were responsible for the pandemic, though. That means humanity might bear responsibility for not as effectively containing the pandemic.

If an asteroid strikes the earth, and causes a mass casualty event that doesn't mean humans caused the asteroid strike (even if we maybe should have invested more in preventing the asteroid strike).

I think it's reasonable to expect more effective human preventative measures, without confusing the disaster for ones caused by human activity.

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

#378

Post by TheCondor » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

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…

Give "Debt the first 5000 years" a read. Not sure it will change your view but it definitely provides a lot of interesting context.

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

#379

Post by triceratops » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

SiempreViernes wrote: post #330

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…

One year into a worldwide pandemic affecting every aspect of life and you have a hard time finding examples of really bad things not caused by human? That's some committed misanthropy, I got to give you that.

The virus either originated in a human lab (unlikely) or jumped cross-species in an environment created by humans (exotic animal markets with poor hygiene controls). So...yeah this one is kinda on us.

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

#380

Post by SwimSwimHungry » Mon, Mar 08, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

shrubble wrote: post #29

Microsoft's success has objectively been a step backwards for computing. Anyone who has used a NeXTstation with 32Mbytes of RAM and an 68040 CPU, which did not even have accelerated video, can certainly understand how bloated and wasteful of resources all the various Windows applications and operating systems have been over the years. How many resources does Xbox use? It's not essential either...

I really wish NeXT took off back in the day. The hardware and software were ridiculously elegant. Though I guess NeXT got a new lease on life via Apple later on.