We are rapidly depleting our remaining carbon budget. Can a bitcoiner please explain to me why this is a necessary technological development right now?
It's not "necessary" - it just is.
Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021
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Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021
#52I had an interesting conversation with a friend a few days ago. We both installed larger solar systems than we need. We are net exporters of energy. And we are both disgusted by how the energy company takes this energy and, effectively, pays us nothing for it while charging our neighbors who use it full rate. One of the ideas that was floated in the conversation was to setup a Bitcoin (or some other crypto) mining sy…
Ignoring the bitcoin mining idea, which despite being a bitcoin skeptic I kind of like.
The mistake is believing that domestic solar will ever provide better value for money than industrial scale solar or other green sources. The people making money on domestic solar are the companies selling it to the consumer.
That’s not to say that there aren’t valid reasons for installing domestic solar: ethical, emotional, off grid, resilience.
Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021
#53The counter argument is that Bitcoin is a battery [1] so that if you live in a place like Iceland with plentiful energy, so much that even exporting it as aluminum leaves extra, then you can turn it into Bitcoin and export it that way. But most Bitcoin mining is not that. I feel like Joni Mitchell in the Big Yellow Taxi: "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot" [2] Why are we allowing this to happen? (Well, at…
The thing about battery is that you can take the energy out of it. It stores energy. That's the entire point of a battery. How on earth can you do that with Bitcoin? If you can't, Bitcoin isn't a battery, it's a black hole.
Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021
#54would be cool to see research about total energy cost of traditional financial systems, that bitcoin is trying to replace
Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021
#55With a climate crisis the last thing we needed was to make the most effective energy consumption system ever constructed. The whole thing literally works on competing on consuming more energy. No other system works so efficiently towards such goal. What's scary is that the whole thing was designed to be unstoppable. My utopian hope for the future is that we start sending rigs in orbit close to the sun. Since we only…
I have a son who is just about 10 years old, and he’s getting to the age where he’s beginning to realize how irrational our world is.
We recently had a conversation discussing the fact that we could eradicate hunger and the need for clean water globally, but for a whole host of reasons we have not yet done it.
He continues to probe “why“ and all I can say is, essentially, because people are greedy and unmotivated generally, and unwilling to sacrifice a modicum for others (not to mention corruption and other collective action problems).
I don’t think there is an answer.
Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021
#56The only way to beat Bitcoin or other proof-of-work cryptocurrencies is to remove the need for them. Bitcoin and other cryptos have a use-case; it may not be apparent to someone living in a developed country with access to a good banking system or it may be one you don't like and involves criminal activity, but there absolutely is a use-case.
The only way to stop this is if the traditional banking system catches up and covers all these use-cases, including undesirable ones. As the war on drugs proves, prohibition is expensive and doesn't work even for a physical asset, let alone something completely virtual that just needs software and a network connection.
Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The whole thing literally works on competing on consuming more energy. I know this is pedantic, but the competition is about computational power. Energy is a significant input. Let’s not ignore the benefit that the more computational power that is spent in the competition the more secure the blockchain is from 51% attacks. Maybe 134 TWh is too high of a price for such a limited use technology such as bitcoin. Maybe…
> Blockchain is the single largest threat to banking, and that doesn’t come without a price. That's an interesting statement. The first question that occurred to me was: Why does banking have to be threatened? In other words, is this a solution looking for a problem?
This is really more of a political question than a technical one. To me it’s hard to separate modern cryptocurrency from the historical context of it’s launch in 2009.
Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021
#58A slightly tangential question, in regards to Bitcoin and Blockchain, that I (surprisingly?) haven't seen answered/asked: Blockchain is computationally intensive, but why does it has to be used for Bitcoin. There could be another solution, which achieves all its objectives, but isn't necessarily as convoluted. What am I missing? Why not just use SQL databases?
Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021
#59Gold mining consumes 240.61 TWh per year, which is comparable to the electrical energy consumed by a country like Australia. Source: https://globalenergyprize.org/en/2021/11/24/the-bitcoin-gold...
We should stop mining gold too. Or at least only mine as much as has practical value.
The problem is "practical value" is subjective.
Re: Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021
#60In my darker moments I've come to believe that accelerationism is the only viable pathway to save the planet, since nothing short of civilizational collapse seems to be capable of seriously reducing our carbon emissions. From that perspective this is great news!
I've also been hoping for the same thing. The faster the current system falls apart, the less painful it will be.
The years of daily grind combined with a feeling of hopelessness is what hurts people the most and causes lasting resentment.