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WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

bbc.co.uk

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Re: WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

#111

Post by jowsie »

dmos62 wrote: post #85
tokai wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You not knowing the common usage of the word adopt in charity work doesn't make you accurate.

Ok, if we're getting pedantic about it, adopting as a synonym for supporting is a misnomer or more specifically an attempt to conceal the conflict of wanting to support something, but being unwilling to become intimately involved with it. It takes away from the genuine act of adoption. So I'll stand behind not using the term.

That just feels pedantic and gatekeeping. Adoption in this context has been used this way for as long as I can remember (20+ years) with every animal charity in the UK at least.

Re: WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

#112

Post by say_it_as_it_is »

SyzygistSix wrote: post #109
victorp13 wrote: post #63

Generic question: I see a lot of news articles stating that WSB has "10 million members". Does being a 'member' go beyond clicking the 'join' button on that subreddit? If so it's more like a 'follow this channel', isn't it?

Correct. Although that sounds more like the entire number of reddit users, not just WallStreetBets.

Reddit is much larger than you think. It has over 52 million daily active users and 50+ billion monthly views.

https://www.redditinc.com/

Re: WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

#113

Post by akie »

SyzygistSix wrote: post #109
victorp13 wrote: post #63

Generic question: I see a lot of news articles stating that WSB has "10 million members". Does being a 'member' go beyond clicking the 'join' button on that subreddit? If so it's more like a 'follow this channel', isn't it?

Correct. Although that sounds more like the entire number of reddit users, not just WallStreetBets.

No, it's indeed the number of users in that subreddit alone. The daily threads there regularly amass 100k comments. Reddit has grown really quite large.

Re: WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

#114

Post by jonfw »

tudorw wrote: post #55
edoloughlin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone get busy wrapping endangered species as NFT's and direct the funds accordingly' Can't help but wonder how much habitat is destroyed by the generation of a token.

Energy usage is a recognised issue and while it offers challenges they are understood and developers are keen to address this. If you want to start deconstruction of the industrial military complex that would be just fine and might really start to change things, until then I argue there are more worthy targets for your ire than the energy use of an emerging technology.

This is like saying that pollution is a recognized issue with fossil fuels and while it offers challenges they are understood and engineers are keen to address this.

There aren't always easy solutions and you can't hand wave aside a massive problem because 'our best people are on it'

Re: WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

#115

Post by viraptor »

nerdponx wrote: post #81
viraptor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do that without the NFT right now with many charities. If you want it publicly visible you can tweet your receipt.

Why do people say stuff like this? You don't need email either, just write a letter or send a fax. The point is that here is a piece of new technology that's part of a new vision for the future. Maybe you think it's an unrealistic vision, but that's no reason to sneer at people who disagree with you.

Email is easier and provides more features than a letter or fax in most cases. (With both still having some use in specific cases like personal messages or gov regulated messaging) NFT is harder and doesn't seem to provide any features over current donations. (It's actually worse due to unstable exchange rates and large fees)

Unless the vision provides benefits we did not have before I will continue to sneer at "the same thing but on blockchain" ideas.

Re: WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

#116

Post by ilikehurdles »

tudorw wrote: post #57
viraptor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do that without the NFT right now with many charities. If you want it publicly visible you can tweet your receipt.

Yes, but I cannot buy, sell and speculate with that.

Well you can put the tweet up for sale or auction on eBay. Just like with NFTs, you wouldn’t actually be transferring the underlying asset, nor would the tweet actually be hosted within eBay (or an NFT chain) for some kind of archival purpose, nothing stops you from selling it again on Amazon or Craigslist or any other marketplace (or another NFT). If Amazon, EBay, or the company behind the NFT decides to close up shop, that’s it for your listing. Heck, just as with NFTs, you could put tweets you don’t even own in your listings, since you’re really just selling the listing with some media linked in it rather than transferring the media or the rights to it.

The problem of course is the word crypto doesn’t appear in any of the traditional platforms, so no hype/demand exists for your tweets there. Those users have also over time not only been trained to recognize scams, but are provided with a little bit of buyer protection if they end up buying something you couldn’t really sell them in the first place.

Re: WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

#117

Post by Majromax »

cik wrote: post #80
oakesm9 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like sponsoring them so the charity can protect them from poachers and study them

Ever wonder if we're going about this all wrong. What if the real value was paying poachers to not poach?

> What if the real value was paying poachers to not poach?

You wouldn't believe how many animals I haven't poached today. Where's my cheque?

Ultimately, you're describing Coasean bargaining (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem). However, in this case there's a real problem of demonstrating commitment (preventing a poacher from betraying the deal) and more critically in induced demand; if I pay you not to poach then your neighbour might decide to enter the now-vacant industry themselves.

For Coasean bargaining to work, you need a very well-defined and well-enforced set of property rights, such that if the "legitimate" poachers refrain then nobody else can take up the slack. Since poaching is illegal to start with, this set of rights does not really exist.

Re: WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

#118

Post by lifeisstillgood »

pas wrote: post #78
mszcz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that cryptocurrency energy consumption is as big a problem as it's been recently painted in the media. Bitcoin, Ethereum etc. are, potentially, self-contained, almost complete, final, financial systems. Using a VISA card (for instance to make the same contribution to wild-life preservation) would use a fraction of the energy that's used to sustain cryptocurrencies, sure, but that's not a fair comparison…

The estimated energy consumption of BTC is between the electricity consumption of Ukraine and Argentina. It's as if everyone would be a banker in Ukraine and every building would be a bank. Seems excessive.

Thank you - I heard the 'if you add the costs of Visa / banking it evens out' and was not sure how to tackle it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina - 44 Million people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine - 41 M (handwaving around bits that got invaded etc)

So is the global population of the banking industry comparable to 41 M ?

UK employees: 1.1M US Employees: 8.3M

So I went round a few houses and there is a lack of solid stats. But I think I can go with a decent indicator.

The USA has about 7.5 % of GDP (1.5tn) in Finance Services, and 6.3M employees (2018). Now translate that up to the global GDP of 87TRN, and say the global finance sector is as large globally as in USA (generous assumption) and that give 7.5 % of 87TRN - 6.5TRN. At 4.2M employees per Trillion that gives us 27 M global employees.

Now there can be lots of hand waving, but if bitcoin uses same amount of electricity as Argentina, and Argentina has around 1.5 many people as the global finance sector, then bitcoins electrical use does seem very excessive.

https://www.selectusa.gov/financial-services-industry-united... -> 6.3 M employees, 1.5 Tn (USA), 7.5% of GDP

Bibliography:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/298370/uk-financial-sect....

https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag50.htm

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/030515/what-percent...

https://www.selectusa.gov/financial-services-industry-united... -> 6.3 M employees, 1.5 Tn (USA), 7.5% of GDP

Re: WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

#119

Post by xattt »

tudorw wrote: post #48
skohan wrote: post #24

Just to put this in perspective, the global population of mountain gorillas is 1,063, so this represents the symbolic adoption of over 3 times the mountain gorillas alive in the wild! I hope this unexpected boon in capital will allow for some meaningful work in preserving and protecting these rare animals. It would be an interesting footnote in history if we can look back in 50 years and draw a line between an intern…

Can someone get busy wrapping endangered species as NFT's and direct the funds accordingly, timing seems about right...

How about seniors living in long-term care to improve their living conditions as well?

Re: WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days

#120

Post by sho_hn »

pas wrote: post #78
mszcz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that cryptocurrency energy consumption is as big a problem as it's been recently painted in the media. Bitcoin, Ethereum etc. are, potentially, self-contained, almost complete, final, financial systems. Using a VISA card (for instance to make the same contribution to wild-life preservation) would use a fraction of the energy that's used to sustain cryptocurrencies, sure, but that's not a fair comparison…

The estimated energy consumption of BTC is between the electricity consumption of Ukraine and Argentina. It's as if everyone would be a banker in Ukraine and every building would be a bank. Seems excessive.

It's also Bitcoin _right now_. It's still growing!
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