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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

#581

Post by yunvme »

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.

You don't understand Bitcoin. It is a system to remove human greed from the equation. However, currently we are in the monetization stage. People will get rich. Greed will prevail and it jump starts the system.

The beauty of Bitcoin is that no human can increase supply to address short-term interests, like central banks can. The energy is not wasted. To the contrary, it is used to ensure that the supply is distributed in the prescribed manner and that it is capped. There is no other way of creating a decentralized system that has this feature.

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

#582

Post by LASR »

adolph wrote: post #432
delaaxe wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By default, nature is an aggressive and competitive environment. It's only after we barricaded ourselves in towers protected by walls that we started to find predatory animals cute (and even made children's toys in their image)

What is nature different from the environment? Is nature not the environment? Is it truly aggressive and competitive or does it seek balance and evolution, or maybe it is and does not seek? Does applying those adjectives personify and build emotion into nature where none exists?

I'd like to wager that the "environment" is any set of conditions that favors some attributes in the actors within it.

So, it can be hierarchically defined and potentially spans any number of sub-environments.

Time is a universal concept that spans across all environments. Over time, actors with attributes will flourish in the environments where those attributes are favored.

So example: Political environment (in a democracy) Politicians with higher popularity will flourish.

Academic environment: Students with higher grades will flourish.

The universal environment: Whatever is most able to survive will flourish.

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

#583

Post by rorykoehler »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #84
nelsontodd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is silly. Consensus (probably, I am doubtful of PoS) isn't free. You get a choice between bitcoin mining and military force. Which do you find less harmful? Edit: I should clarify. I am saying that the status of the USD as a reserve currency has led to lots of US military action.

Military force and law enforcement provide solutions for consensus across great many domains, so they're marginally near-free to use for consensus in any single area of interest. You could say, they are consensus factored out and made incarnate. Conversely, if all money suddenly become Bitcoin, military force and police would still be needed, in mostly the same amount they are today.

I doubt the US oil wars would have happened if Bitcoin was the de facto global currency and we had decentralised renewable energy grids deployed.

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

#584

Post by hyperpallium2 »

rank0 wrote: post #498
jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can humans not be the cause humanity's biggest problems? That's a pretty good indicator of a civilization's state. For an advanced one, the answer to your question would be "it's nowhere near the top worries". All human-made horrors (war, climate change, etc.) would be left far behind. If we were as smart as we think we are, our biggest problems would be rogue asteroids, solar storms and aggressive aliens, not…

I'm not sure I buy that. There's not any proof that a more advanced civilization exists. Even if we assume that one does exist, why does it follow that they are immune to war, oppression, power struggles etc? The only data point we have suggests otherwise. Or maybe the aliens are all holding hands in a circle singing kumbayah?

Nature often seems idyllic, when it has reached a stable equilibrium. But what it really is, is a ruthless and absolute class system, where each species "knows" its place, and has settled in to make the best of its lot.

The disruptions to equilibrium that we witness are almost always man-made. But there have been others, caused by new species, ice ages, asteriods, the Great Oxygenation Event, etc.

Alien civilization might be at equilibrium. Or, if we meet them, they may more likely be in an expansionist phase.

But I think a civilization that harnesses its conflicts - as we try to, with competing businesses, scientists, olitical parties, sporting teams - will have greater long-term success than a destructive, exploutative culture, by definition. It's not that competition is "good", but they we have aggressive aspects seeking dominance, and we are better off shaping them than having tribal warfare, raiding parties, etc which is more our natural state. And something like it is part of the nature of life itself.

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

#585

Post by yunvme »

JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #463
mancerayder wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bitcoin fanboy, but that's a bit strong a statement. What is "greed" versus motivation for innovation? Is innovation rewarded with (taxed, regulated) wealth greed, and if so, is that "bad"? And if it creates Teslas and rockets that land, and robots on Mars that last a year or more analyzing samples, is it a fatal flaw? Some more questions... So let's say BTC is greed - the many financial instruments out there,…

Bitcoin innovated through a blockchain years ago and the world has already adopted that. But the current state of bitcoin makes it bad at its other 'innovation', digital currency. Bitcoin is far too volatile to be a widespread, standard currency which seems to be the "reason" people say it's worth as much as it is. But it will never be a widespread currency until it has stability. So it's a chicken/egg situation, one…

You don't understand Bitcoin. Bitcoin is being monetized now. It will be volatile until it reaches a value much much much higher than the value that it is now. It provides a refuge for everyone in the world to escape their inflationary fiat currency. Maybe you live in an area like the US that hasn't had rapid inflation. Many people do not, and Bitcoin provides a way to escape losing all of your wealth. Nevertheless, someday hyperinflation will come to the US, and those who bought Bitcoin will be safe.

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

#586

Post by dmingod666 »

hannasanarion wrote: post #564
dmingod666 wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, but, it is finite and it cannot be inflated away from you.

Deflationary currency is useless currency. There is a reason that every deflationary period in modern monetary history was immediately followed by a catastrophic depression. Contrary to the dollar-sign-eyed bitcoin hacks, the purpose of money is to be exchanged for goods and services, not to sit in an account forever while you watch numbers go up.

As a person holding a certain amount of currency, the last thing you want is the govt to print more. That is essentially the govt putting a hand in your pocket and taking away cash by diluting what you already have.

Is land a bad thing to buy because they are not making more of it?

I'm sure you know you can exchange those numbers for other numbers that show up in your bank if you're inclined..

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

#587

Post by choward »

rfd4sgmk8u wrote: post #219
ohgodplsno wrote: post #5

Still no valid usecase found for Bitcoin, aside from being a number-is-green-and-goes-up currency. Lightning is unused. TX fees are stupidly high. We're dedicating ASICs powered by entire coal plants to mining bitcoin. And before you, commenter to this post, say anything, no, your Eth/Doge/Xrp/Monero/Tether/scam-ipo-of-the-day is not more valuable. NFTs are worthless. No, being distributed does not make your favorite…

I'm sorry you have not found a use case. I assure you one exists, as myself and many other folks have found it. No, I won't share my use case with you. You have to find it for yourself. There is plenty written about it if you have an open mind.

> No, I won't share my use case with you. You have to find it for yourself.

I agree. Bitcoin is basically a religion. It relies on your faith and the faith of others.

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

#588

Post by UncleMeat »

oceanghost wrote: post #332
UncleMeat wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would BTC adoption crash the value of Microsoft?

Not sure where you got that idea? I'm saying Gates is absolutely entrenched in the current economic system. He's won it. Why would he want any change?

Why wouldn't he?

The idea here seems to be that Gates cannot be trusted on BTC because BTC would somehow harm him and he has a large interest in the failure of BTC. But this seems to make no sense to me.

BTC won't change the structure of wealth, even if it is wildly successful.

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

#589

Post by matheusmoreira »

shiado wrote: post #62

The irony is that the exact society destabilizing grand visions of the future billionaires advocate for are some of the main drivers behind people embracing Bitcoin. If you push a "you own nothing" WEF approved dystopian tech oligarch reality don't be surprised when people adopt an asset that cannot be confiscated by the government.

> If you push a "you own nothing" WEF approved dystopian tech oligarch reality don't be surprised when people adopt an asset that cannot be confiscated by the government.

Completely agree. It's like something straight out of cyberpunk. Governments everywhere are just printing money like it's nothing and we're supposed to just accept this. Cryptocurrency doesn't systematically rob people via inflation.

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

#590

Post by runeks »

olalonde wrote: post #543
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.

Another armchair cryptographer on HN who has no idea what they're talking about... somehow this is acceptable when it comes to Bitcoin. I feel like I'm being charitable here but what exists are other cryptocurrencies which trade-off security and/or decentralization in favor of some other properties. Regarding proof-of-stake for example, I'll defer to this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25007874

In addition to technical difference between cryptocurrencies, there’s also a difference in financial properties of the token itself, e.g. liquidity. Liquidity refers to how much the price moves when buying from or selling into the market.

For example, you can sell roughly 5 million USD worth of litecoin on the Bitfinex exchange until you push down the price by 0.5%, but for Bitcoin this figure is roughly 500 million USD (~100 times greater).

The greater the liquidity of a currency the less value is lost when exchanging back and forth between it and e.g. USD.

[1] https://www.bitfinex.com/order-book/?pair=BTCUSD

[2] https://www.bitfinex.com/order-book/?pair=LTCUSD

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