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Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

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Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#151

Post by nprz »

joe_the_user wrote: post #103
cwkoss wrote: post #19

The idea of taxing cryptocurrencies specifically for carbon emissions is some mixture of naive, shallow and sour grapes. There are a lot of wasteful industries - crypto is a small slice of the overall pie and is arguably the most responsive to market forces. Make universally applied carbon taxes across all industries and let the market sort it out. I'm a crypto bull, and fully support greening our energy economy. Adv…

There are a lot of wasteful industries - crypto is a small slice The difference between crypto and things like agriculture or transportation is obvious. People need food and transportation. If crypto was eliminated entirely tomorrow, on average, no one would suffer - some would lose relative wealth but others would gain relative wealth. Unlike conventional financial markets even, it's hard to argue crypto provides an…

What about commercial cruise lines? Do people need to go on cruises? The cruise industry uses over double the emissions of the bitcoin protocol[0].

Furthermore, millions would be affected if bitcoin were to go offline tomorrow. Particularly people living in authoritarian states[1], or people who do not have access to traditional banking services.

[0] https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1414065840157347840?s=2... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jul/31/out-of-co...

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#152

Post by amznthrwaway »

twofornone wrote: post #145
pjc50 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They managed to remove him democratically despite a rebel faction storming the capitol. Slightly less dramatic than Yeltsin on a tank, though.

It's really weird how these far right "terrorists" all stormed the capitol to "overturn the election" and "hang mike pence" but, somehow, completely forgot to bring the guns that they are so well known for having. Pretty funny way to go about an "insurrection", don't you think?

[dead]

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#153

Post by Trias11 »

endisneigh wrote: post #3

There's some good data here - that being said, even if the carbon footprint were literally zero, I couldn't personally support cryptocurrency. Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. Say whatever you will about all forms of government, but ultimately no matter the form, there's some level of accountability. Some governments use elections to facilitate this, others use the threat of rulers being killed. One wa…

>>> our current system isn't here by accident

And dinasaurs weren't on earth by accident. They were part of evolution and then replaced with other species more appropriate for evolving earth and conditions.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#154

Post by brighton36 »

endisneigh wrote: post #29
haswell wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that he is not does not invalidate the parent comment and your question sidesteps the fact that he left lasting damage that is still playing out on the political stage today.

It literally does. He was democratically removed. The fact he left lasting damage is besides the point, and no system of government can prevent bad actors, only minimize the damage.

It was a show election. The rules were changed mid-game, on the pretense of corona, to rig the outcome.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#155

Post by mavhc »

hackingforfun wrote: post #121
endisneigh wrote: post #3

There's some good data here - that being said, even if the carbon footprint were literally zero, I couldn't personally support cryptocurrency. Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. Say whatever you will about all forms of government, but ultimately no matter the form, there's some level of accountability. Some governments use elections to facilitate this, others use the threat of rulers being killed. One wa…

> Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. No one is forced to use crypto. No one is forced to mine it. No one is forced to use it at all. Is this not democratic? The users choose whether they want to use it, miners choose whether to mine it, and the "lack of accountability" you suggest, I just don't agree with at all. Crypto removes the need for government fiat. There is no need for a central authority any mo…

Only reason people jump on cryptocurrencies is their pyramid scheme type nature, get in first or lose out.

They're not currencies, they're speculation.

People want to spend currencies, why would you ever spend bitcoin when it's designed to always increase in value?

Governments are their citizens, they're just people we picked. If you hate the people that are running, there's a built in solution, get someone better to run. That's the fundamental part of democracy, anyone can run for office.

Why is a central control over money supply bad? Lets you attempt to control the boom/bust cycle.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#156

Post by mavhc »

danuker wrote: post #106
endisneigh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do that with a democracy. What benefits do crypto bring?

Not a lot of countries are democracies. Politicians listen to lobbyists more than citizens. With crypto, you don't have to suffer because of them messing up the economy.

When did you suffer because a government messed up the economy?

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#157

Post by dogman144 »

reedjosh wrote: post #95
endisneigh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - inflation hits the poorest classes the hardest re: devaluing their largely all-cash savings, and they have no accountability measures to change that. who will they call, the fed? their senators who approved the fed chair? Inflation generally hurts the middle-class the most. Poor people generally don't have savings and are debtors. Debtors benefit from inflation. Cryptocurrency being open source isn't really relev…

> Inflation generally hurts the middle-class the most. The middle class typically has a mortgage and student loan debt for which inflation benefits them. The closer you are to the spiket, the more debt based inflation benefits you. The poor do lose the most.

yes

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#158

Post by dorkwood »

Syonyk wrote: post #86
tornato7 wrote: post #73

Early next year when Ethereum becomes PoS, it will basically be JUST Bitcoin that is PoW in the top 20. From a climate perspective, we can only hope that this narrative will cause Bitcoin to slide in favor of more green currencies.

> Early next year when Ethereum becomes PoS... Haven't they been planning to move to PoS "soon" now for at least several years? I hate to say I'll believe it when I see it, but... the believeability of their PoS timelines is more than a little suspect now.

You're getting downvoted, but you're not wrong. Here's a comment thread from 2016 with people making the same "early next year" claim.

> Ethereum hopes to do away with mining by early 2017... They're switching to proof of stake.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12128406

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#159

Post by godelski »

hackingforfun wrote: post #121
endisneigh wrote: post #3

There's some good data here - that being said, even if the carbon footprint were literally zero, I couldn't personally support cryptocurrency. Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. Say whatever you will about all forms of government, but ultimately no matter the form, there's some level of accountability. Some governments use elections to facilitate this, others use the threat of rulers being killed. One wa…

> Fundamentally it's the antithesis to democracy. No one is forced to use crypto. No one is forced to mine it. No one is forced to use it at all. Is this not democratic? The users choose whether they want to use it, miners choose whether to mine it, and the "lack of accountability" you suggest, I just don't agree with at all. Crypto removes the need for government fiat. There is no need for a central authority any mo…

We should also note that we can build contracts into the network itself. For example algorand built a contract to offset emissions through transaction fees (they are POS so have a lower footprint than POW). But there's no reason we couldn't build taxes into such a system as well.

I think a lot of people are missing that cryptocurrency is still a very new concept. Both the bulls and bears. It's going to take some time to work it all out and that's okay, just like with any technology. We're talking about something invented in 2008, that's 12 years. It's unsurprising that there's a lot of kinks to be worked out. It typically takes 20 years for a technology to start to mature. I mean hell, the internet is a lot older and we still have a lot of things to work out.

Will crypto be useful in the long run? Who knows. I think it holds some promise but I do think people vault over sell it and people also dismiss it too quickly.

Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated

#160

Post by ipaddr »

pjc50 wrote: post #89
dqx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How effective were the traditional means of removing oligarchs? The US just elected a game show host president 4 years ago.

> How effective were the traditional means of removing oligarchs? Having got the joke out of the way in a sibling comment, a serious one: "Oligarch" is an oddly modern term, usually applied to Russians in the post communist era, and of course they weren't removed. Buying your way into power is highly effective. And can expand into other countries, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Lebedev Prior to the modern…

Many were removed in Russia by government force. Thrown into prison or exiled to London. Speaking of ex-powerful leaders how is Jack Ma doing?
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