171–180 of 264 posts
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Yes
How so? Christmas lights, plastic trash, food waste and transportation combined?
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I pay for all my energy to be renewable. I don't see why my crypto mining needs to be banned. In fact, estimates peg Bitcoin's use of renewable energy to be between 50-75%. This is a fact lost on HN, which hates crypto at all costs.
That's not how this works. Even if you pay your supplier to buy only renewable energy on the open market, if your house is supplied by a coal power plant then your mining rig is powered by coal, regardless who you're paying for your electricity. Yes it feels good to pay for renewable electricity but ultimately that's not how it works. And crypto needs to be banned because it's all a gigantic scam that has a gigantic…
And banning crypto mining is impossible. It's arbitrary math. You can't ban a computer from doing arbitrary math. At best you could discourage businesses taking crypto as payment, but even then people can operate 100% in crypto and avoid any regulations.
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I don’t think you understand how cryptocurrencies work. There ain’t much Coinbase and PayPal can do to stop someone sending coins to my address. I don’t have a website, nor do I care what Coinbase or PayPal do or say.
You can't even access your wallet without an API provider. This includes MetaMask.
I’m talking about Bitcoin, and you better believe I run a fullnode. No provider required. I recommend you run a Bitcoin full Node too, and transact without any 3rd parties!
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Poisoning the water supply to increase the margin on bottled water is a valid business plan. Banning that is a good answer, and neither authoritarian nor fascist.
Supply again. Supply!! The analogy would be you telling people they have to drink that water a certain way and banned from drinking it the way they want. That’s fascism. Everybody that wants to ban PoW is an authoritarian fascist. Might be an eco fascist, might be a boot licking state loving fascist… still a fascist.
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Banning = Authoritarian Madness. Bans are never the answer unless you are a fascist. This is an attack on general purpose computing. You cannot tell people what they can and can’t do with their machines. You can try, but the smart ones will tell you to go f yourself. Deal with the supply side costs, and let people do whatever math they like.
I agree that fossils fuels are being subsidized where they should be carbon taxed, and that's the only reason most crypto mining (and many other industries) using fossils fuels is still viable. But I disagree that bans are always authoritarian "madness". We ban things all the time. There are many substances and contraptions that you must hold a license to own or use. We have ban murder. We don't just disincentivize i…
World really needs a ban on PoW cryptocurrencies. I guess on one side lot of people is not caring about it as long as they make some money of it, and in the other side maybe other people in power, is not caring as that would make a perfect excuse to ban any kind of cryptocurrency. I guess too we all will care as soon as the devastation caused by the climate change becomes a massive life threatening issue.
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Oddly enough making buying a house faster is not really a priority for me. I appreciated that mechanisms of trust kicked in for that transaction - my bank wouldn’t release mortgage money to anyone but a lawyer or notary, and my notary would not have released money to the seller unless they actually owned the place and transferred ownership to me. Making that trustless means I am open to scam sellers, and have to trus…
> Making that trustless means I am open to scam sellers Cryptocurrencies support escrow transactions, where a mutually-trusted third party (e.g. an arbitrator) can decide whether the transaction should go forward if buyer and seller disagree. This is still "trustless" compared to other systems because it only depends on mutual trust wrt. each individual transaction, not on a pre-defined central authority.
I’m not saying blockchain is useless - just i see no use for it when it comes to the way that 99% of americans buy their house - and if 99% of americans switch to btc for this kind of transaction the carbon cost would be massive.
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I thought that was a simple story. No one is banned from drinking poisoned water. What is banned is poisoning other people's water. Really, this isn't that difficult. If you want to make a point about supply, please make a point about supply instead of just repeating the word randomly.
We can all agree we want clean power, which is entirely in the hands of the suppliers. Rather than pushing one’s preferences around on users and forcing them to do your will, why not go after the Coal and Gas producers — the supply. People get upset when you want to ban things because it’s a bully move. The bully thinks their opinion is true and correct and others must succumb to their will.
People don't get upset when we outlaw things because the rule of law is a great thing in general. People enjoy not getting mugged or having their water supply poisoned. Please tell me how a ban on poisoning the water supply is "bullying".
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I think the issue is your concern does not really answer the question I posed. We can follow the use 'use' argument as soon as we deal with the 'who has the authority to tell people what to do with energy/money/equipment'. Is it me? Is it you? Is it society? Is it government? As soon as we get through that conundrum, we can discuss how crypto is basically evil and used for nefarious purposes only and cars are more li…
I don't understand why anyone thinks this argument is some kind of checkmate. This is the equivalent of screaming you're a sovereign citizen when the police ask for your name. Governments have this general monopoly on the use of force, which is why they tell you you can't do things like sell heroin. If you disobey them, they will send men with firearms and make you stop. Governments can obtain their consent in a bunc…
Still, I will address your comment in good faith.
It is not a checkmate. I am simply just trying to see what world model you have in your head. We clearly disagree, but it does not mean we can't openly discuss those disagreements. It is mostly the beauty of HN. If you present a logical argument, I might simply say, it makes sense. Right now I am confused.
Are you officially arguing government is the one to say as to whether technology is banned? If so, which government speaks for humanity as a whole?
Is it? Can you elaborate a little bit? The analogy seems a little off.
Yes. Government monopoly on power has been a well established theory. We are not breaking new ground here. Is crypto heroin in this scenario?
Yes. See above. How does that help your argument?
Yes. See above. How does that help your argument?
Maybe yes. Maybe not. It is not, however, an argument for or against crypto banning, whether it should be banned or not. It is not an argument at all. At best, it is just a speculation.
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Trucks move people and items. Bitcoin allows us to buy porn, pot and run scams on a mostly centralized network.
I think the issue is your concern does not really answer the question I posed. We can follow the use 'use' argument as soon as we deal with the 'who has the authority to tell people what to do with energy/money/equipment'. Is it me? Is it you? Is it society? Is it government? As soon as we get through that conundrum, we can discuss how crypto is basically evil and used for nefarious purposes only and cars are more li…