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Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

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Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#91

Post by thehappypm »

nk1tz wrote: post #69
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As right as you are, that's besides the point. Bitcoin is waste. Pointing at other, more wasteful sources, is besides the point. Abolish both!

The beautiful thing about Bitcoin is that is it a pure, global, free market writ large. There is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent individuals from choosing to participate in it. Therefore the correct retort to someone like you is to tell you to "cry harder".

This isn't correct, though. If I decide to start an anti-Bitcoin political movement, I can get leaders elected who can ban the use of Bitcoin in the USA. Sure, some motivated folks will use VPNs and the like, but cutting the general public off from Bitcoin would be devastating. Then who will be crying?

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#92

Post by RGamma »

nk1tz wrote: post #69
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As right as you are, that's besides the point. Bitcoin is waste. Pointing at other, more wasteful sources, is besides the point. Abolish both!

The beautiful thing about Bitcoin is that is it a pure, global, free market writ large. There is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent individuals from choosing to participate in it. Therefore the correct retort to someone like you is to tell you to "cry harder".

A critiquing/problem-aware mindset can rightly point to risks and inappropriate excess. In that sense it is part of healthy self-regulation.

If you let it take over, the ensuing negativity and Weltschmerz might paralyze you.

And true, most criticism (whether justified or not) comes to nothing if there's a lack of regulating entity that could do something about it.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#93

Post by mcjshciejebcu »

freeflight wrote: post #62
mcjshciejebcu wrote: post #35

Whenever I read anything about how resource intensive the bitcoin network is, I wonder how it compares to the total energy and other resource use of traditional finance. Those costs have got to be pretty high for traditional finance, especially considering minting and transportation of physical money and considering the innumerable humans needed to run it. However, I've never seen a serious estimate of those numbers,…

These comparisons have been around for a while and they always look really bad for Bitcoin [0], not just in terms of resources but particularly in terms of speed and responsiveness. [0] https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/a-single-...

That's getting close, and it doesn't look good for bitcoin, but the estimates of visa's energy useage are from a visa published report, and they seem to omit the energy usage needed to sustain employees. Of course, the bitcoin energy estimates also omit the energy usage for employees, but it's easy for me to imagine those are dwarfed by mining costs, and it's not easy for me to imagine something similar for visa.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#94

Post by only_as_i_fall »

mcjshciejebcu wrote: post #35

Whenever I read anything about how resource intensive the bitcoin network is, I wonder how it compares to the total energy and other resource use of traditional finance. Those costs have got to be pretty high for traditional finance, especially considering minting and transportation of physical money and considering the innumerable humans needed to run it. However, I've never seen a serious estimate of those numbers,…

Unless bitcoin can credibly be a total replacement for traditional finance this isn't really a meaningful comparison though.

Perhaps bitcoin or some other crypto can serve as a currency in a sense, but you'd still need financial institutions to do things like write loans and manage other assets.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#96

Post by npteljes »

morbia wrote: post #27
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #19

Completely pales next to something as egregious as disposable tech that sells in the millions and only has a lifespan of 2 years tops like AirPods. They will still be washing up on beaches 100 years after every single person involved in their design has passed. Whole electronics industry needs to take this stuff more seriously, we need more replaceable batteries and storage, right to repair on a global level and laws…

On those lines, a company I'm very much been keeping an eye on is framework https://frame.work/ I've wanted something like this for years, a laptop that is actually repairable but isn't awful in specs or ergonomics. When they start selling in my region I'll be all over it. If you care about these problems then vote with your wallet.

This looks cool, and I appreciate their no-nonsense post about Linux too.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#97

Post by echopurity »

plater wrote: post #29
unnouinceput wrote: post #7

This reminds me of that tweet from BP about their environment calculator, can't find the source right now. But the idea is they "care" about environment while they did the biggest oil spillage in history, otherwise known as the old proverbial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pot_calling_the_kettle_bla... Do I really need to point who is the biggest e-waste generator in the world? Solve that problem first.

The thing is, we complain about the oil companies and at the same time we take the car to go to work, shopping, etc. It's also the consumers who are using the oil, not only the oil companies, who are to blame at the end. If no one buys, no one will produce. Sure, if it's cheap and readily available, people will use it no matter how bad it is. That's why it's so important that the governments increase the taxes on oil…

... that's also why it's to important that governments invest in public transportation.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#98

Post by disruptalot »

jacknews wrote: post #83

"The soaring demand for mining hardware may disrupt global semiconductor supply chains." May? Have you seen graphic card prices lately? Even really old cards are selling for multiples of what they were a year or so ago.

Using graphic cards to mine bitcoin became unprofitable about 10 years ago. The graphic card shortage can be linked to other cryptocurrencies.

Re: Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem

#100

Post by BLKNSLVR »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #64
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #19

Completely pales next to something as egregious as disposable tech that sells in the millions and only has a lifespan of 2 years tops like AirPods. They will still be washing up on beaches 100 years after every single person involved in their design has passed. Whole electronics industry needs to take this stuff more seriously, we need more replaceable batteries and storage, right to repair on a global level and laws…

Someone points out a legitimate problem with something, and the "response" is to point out a "bigger" problem with something else. Its not a response, its a misdirection. Changing the subject doesnt work. We have seen this "response" so many times that its laughable. Its like a person who owns large number of shares of Company X and everytime someone brings up the serious problems at Company X she tries to change the…

The problem is, when pretty much anyone brings up Bitcoin's issues , they've got an axe to grind. So I find it totally valid to bring up any and all bigger, worse, and longer historied comparisons to highlight that complaining about Bitcoin is quite petty; a mosquito bite for a cancer patient.

Bitcoin is still new and poorly understood by a significant percentage of the population and therefore hasn't become part of everyone's "lifestyle to which they've become accustomed" yet, so it's automatically viewed more harshly. The comparisons are, in fact, necessary for the appropriate judgemental context.

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