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Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

blog.ethereum.org

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Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#351

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

helmholtz wrote: post #313
selfhoster11 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases or be called out by the immediate first child comment about failing to do so. It's SO trite, predictable, wearisome and boring . It always follows the same pattern too. "Where do you draw the line?" "Who decides what's the truth?" Always the same fucking slippery slope fallacy. Every fuck…

Because it's missing the forest for the trees. Look at total energy usage, across all industries. This is more an indictment of cryptocurrency than it is about actually caring about the environment. Compare it to say, eliminating all gas vehicles for electric cars. Where is the HN thread advocating for that, if the end result would be massively fewer carbon emissions versus this proposal? My criticism is this proposal is like banning plastic straws. It's patting ourselves on the back, with no real solution.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#352

Post by helmholtz »

shiado wrote: post #323
selfhoster11 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

HN embodies this weird upper class environmentalist fascism where they proudly pick and choose what the plebes should be allowed to do with their lives based on totally logically inconsistent environmental reasons. The Musk thing was so funny for this. "No you plebes should have no recourse or experimentation against a fiat system it's bad for the environment, now don't mind me driving my Tesla around to do things li…

Nah, you're right. Best not to do anything just in case we incovenience the 'plebes'. Or just in case First They Came For My PoW's And I Said Nothing. Then They Came For My AAA Games. Nevermind the burning planet, nothing should ever be done for the greater good if 100% logical consistency isn't baked into the thought.

Always the same fucking slippery slope!

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#353

Post by gideon13 »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #201
DCKing wrote: post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

I think the correct comparison is against the Bloomberg Terminal, through which the vast majority of capital flows responsible for environmental damage, occur. Not only does the terminal itself use a vast amount of power with its humongous do-it-all servers and 8-screen users, but the facilitated capital flows, commodity trading, speculation, are probably responsible for 2-3 orders of magnitude more environmental damage than proof of work.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#354

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #201
DCKing wrote: post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Yes, what about that other thing? Look over there! Is there literally any response that isn't this mere Whataboutism?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#355

Post by wnevets »

helmholtz wrote: post #313
selfhoster11 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases or be called out by the immediate first child comment about failing to do so. It's SO trite, predictable, wearisome and boring . It always follows the same pattern too. "Where do you draw the line?" "Who decides what's the truth?" Always the same fucking slippery slope fallacy. Every fuck…

> Every fucking time "Regulations" of any kind come up.

unless of course those regulations are about regulating "big tech" for "censorship".

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#356

Post by mrfusion »

DCKing wrote: post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

You people terrify me.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#357

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #316
selfhoster11 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

It's not about power. Well, not electrical power. It's about control over our currency. The argument is a trojan horse for an effective ban on the entire category of currencies not controlled by central authorities. Without Proof of work, cryptocurrency would have never been established as a novel concept. Proof of work was the only rationale way to decide who should initially own how many units of the currency.

Does it need to remain? At some point coins were composed entirely of valuable metals because that's how their value was determined, but we've moved on from that. Can't we move on from proof of work as well?

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#358

Post by scotty79 »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #201
DCKing wrote: post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Crypto is currently the only viable reason to overbuild renewables so we can expand their capacity faster than the battery technology allows us.

Just tax the carbon sources and ban building new coal power plants or reactivating defunct ones.

Instead of downvoting please give me one other example why would rational market entity build more renewables than to satisfy demand when production peeks. Because to go full renewables without batteries (and we barely have any when compared to our renewables) we need to always meet the demand even when renewable energy production is the lowest. And what should rational market entity do with the power at all other times where production is far higher than demand?

Because "mine cryptocurrencies with it" seems like the only reasonalble answer in the world where cryptocurrencies exist and people with too much money buy them enthusiastically.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#359

Post by Consultant32452 »

kipchak wrote: post #138
michael_vo wrote: post #32

What are the attack vectors on PoS. With PoW you need 51% of the mining power to take over the system, which is very labor intensive to set up. With PoS could you take over all coins by buying 51% of the existing coins? So if the market cap of ETH is 200BB spend 100BB to double your money?

The market cap will also increase as you buy loads of coins. For example if I went on coinbase pro, there are people willing to sell up to 50,000 ETH at a maximum price of $6,000, or a total cost of $220,000 million. Of course Coinbase isn't the only market, but if it was and I bought that 220,000 million dollars of ETH the market cap would now be around 700B, at least temporarily. My guess would be at some point peo…

It seems like a state actor could do it without much trouble. One important factor is a state actor doesn't necessarily have the profit motive. They could just desire to destroy the ecosystem.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#360

Post by [deleted] »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #201
DCKing wrote: post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

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