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Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

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Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#131

Post by zepto »

chii wrote: post #72
palijer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of what you listed are similar cases. Farming produced food to eat. Mining produces minerals to build things with. Factories produce goods. Bitcoin produces... A series of bits that some people will pay money for? It seems like bitcoin is basically fine art at this point.

> Bitcoin produces... trust. It's only a moral judgement that bitcoin energy use is somehow worse than say, transport, or heating, or anything else that people pay money for.

Bitcoin doesn’t produce trust. It just produces a verified log.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#132

Post by almost_usual »

o_p wrote: post #86
SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry my dude, but we are all paying for this in the ridiculous carbon emissions, whether we we are part of this experiment or not. Save the snark.

Its not BTC miners fault that energy is priced incorrectly. We shouldnt waste any energy into powering the armies of the world, lets just not fight, right? But here we are.

There it is, Bitcoin only makes sense when we have world peace. It’s amazing that this is always the end state of this argument.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#133

Post by SwimSwimHungry »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #126
meowface wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the few energy consumers that has a pretty straightforward solution: switch to proof of stake. You can't magically switch all existing cars to be 100% electric, but you actually can kind of magically switch all cryptocurrencies to consume orders of magnitude less energy. The question is if Bitcoin will ever try to switch to it. Unfortunately, it seems like they probably won't anytime soon.

Ethereum 2.0 is POS apparently. I haven't figure out how to get onboard yet though. I have to do a bunch of homework to figure out what the hell means what. I don't have 32 ETH ($70k odd USD) so I have to join a staking pool but then that means I won't be running a validator I think. In which case this seems like simply just buying some ETH2.0 but it clearly isn't... so I have no idea honestly... More homework requir…

It is a bit funny how obtuse some of this cryptocurrency stuff can actually be, which honestly is a great thing, if it means less of the inexperienced can participate at all.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#134

Post by zepto »

tshaddox wrote: post #104
palijer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of what you listed are similar cases. Farming produced food to eat. Mining produces minerals to build things with. Factories produce goods. Bitcoin produces... A series of bits that some people will pay money for? It seems like bitcoin is basically fine art at this point.

Bitcoin is obviously producing money for these miners, just like farms, mines, and factories. And wait, are you suggesting that we should also ban using electricity to create art?

Bitcoin produces money for the miners just like cigarette companies, kidnap for ransom, and muggings.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#135

Post by bostonsre »

agravier wrote: post #67
agravier wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like justification for the downvotes please. Thanks.

OK, so here is my source anyway: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb... I'll refrain from commenting on environmental issues in the future, it's just some sort of shit-flinging contest.

I don't see why anyone would down vote a simple fact. Almost all issues have pros and cons, even popular ideas like wind turbines. Seems silly and tribal to down vote like that.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#136

Post by [deleted] »

almost_usual wrote: post #132
o_p wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not BTC miners fault that energy is priced incorrectly. We shouldnt waste any energy into powering the armies of the world, lets just not fight, right? But here we are.

There it is, Bitcoin only makes sense when we have world peace. It’s amazing that this is always the end state of this argument.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#138

Post by shawnz »

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #91
o_p wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not BTC miners fault that energy is priced incorrectly. We shouldnt waste any energy into powering the armies of the world, lets just not fight, right? But here we are.

I'm not fighting here. Your comment came off as dismissive to some growing and legitimate concerns. And don't forget. Bitcoin is not replacing these other institutions that need energy. Stop handwaving away the problem, because it's inconvenient for you to hear.

> I'm not fighting here.

I think their point was that militaries are doing the fighting as of right now, but nobody is talking about how that's a useless waste of energy and we could "just agree" to do things more efficiently by not fighting. Because in practice "just agreeing" isn't so easy.

> And don't forget. Bitcoin is not replacing these other institutions that need energy.

I don't think that's obviously true.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#139

Post by px43 »

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #119
jude- wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. You tariff their imports and apply economic sanctions. > What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. Why cryptocurrencies? There are plenty of things that pollute far more.

Why are you handwaving away my concerns? You do realize cryptocurrencies (and to be specific, PoW ones) aren't replacing any of these so called other things that pollute. Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? At any rate, I get the feeling we are going to be talking past each other and wasting time and energy (heh) on this conversation.

What's your bias? You seem to have created your HN account 8 months ago and comment almost exclusively about trying to get cryptocurrencies banned.

We don't need a world with more Luddites trying to outlaw math. The future will be secured and cryptographically verified, and there's not anything you can do to stop it.

Re: Bitcoin miners are buying power plants

#140

Post by jude- »

SwimSwimHungry wrote: post #119
jude- wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hard to do this when you can have other countries with much looser regulations allow Bitcoin miners run rampant. You tariff their imports and apply economic sanctions. > What probably should happen is to make converting from any cryptocurrency to major world currencies a crime. Why cryptocurrencies? There are plenty of things that pollute far more.

Why are you handwaving away my concerns? You do realize cryptocurrencies (and to be specific, PoW ones) aren't replacing any of these so called other things that pollute. Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more? At any rate, I get the feeling we are going to be talking past each other and wasting time and energy (heh) on this conversation.

> Why are you handwaving away my concerns?

Calm down.

> Speaking of which, can you quantify what things pollute more?

You're all over the comments trying to pin the blame for CO2 emissions on the the existence of PoW cryptocurrencies. But if you stop and think about the problem for more than 5 seconds, you'll realize that it's the CO2 emissions, not cryptocurrencies, that are the problem. They were a problem before cryptocurrencies, and would continue to be a problem even if cryptocurrencies didn't exist.

I think you'll find that many cryptocurrency fans are also green-energy fans, and would love to live in a world where all energy was 100% renewable. Like, no one here wants to burn more fossil fuels.

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