Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#71

Post by robertfw » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 6:12 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #53

tbrownaw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does investing engineering effort in designing mining ASICs and spending dollars to purchase what is essentially a currency generating machine help us as a community? It's supposed to help said currency become more solidly established, and therefore more useful to more people. I wish we were just as enthusiastic and race to solve other problems too -- like spreading education, finding out ways to purify water, or…

It's supposed to help said currency become more solidly established, and therefore more useful to more people. I don't think you're going to find people flocking to a currency where it turns out that they have zero change of a big score. At least during the gold rush there was the possibility that a small miner could get lucky.

The idea is that once a sizeable enough amount of bitcoin is in circulation, the amount of risk associated with it will go down, thus making it more useful to people - volatile money is of no use to me.

Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#72

Post by EliRivers » Sat, Aug 03, 2013, 11:51 AM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #45

ultimoo wrote: post #36

How does investing engineering effort in designing mining ASICs and spending dollars to purchase what is essentially a currency generating machine help us as a community? I wish we were just as enthusiastic and race to solve other problems too -- like spreading education, finding out ways to purify water, or maximizing agriculture throughput in famine, or predicting when the next hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake is…

I already know how to purify water. I go to Walmart and buy a replacement filter for my Britta pitcher. As for fixing famine, that I have no clue where to start. However, I do know how to write code, and if I can take some of the money I've earned to buy one of theses "useless" devices which can also make me some money, maybe one of the engineers at that company can spend his paycheck to send his daughter to college,…

As for fixing famine, that I have no clue where to start.

Whilst there will always be localised crop failures and unlucky weather, true famine requires incompetent government; historically, either no effective government (through war or some other circumstance) or a government able and willing to enforce agricultural insanity. Peoples who have been farming for generations know about crop failure and unlucky weather; incompetent government is just plain stupid.

Mao's famine, for example, despite the constant claims that it was really bad weather, was an endless cycle of stupid agricultural decisions, totalitarian enforcement of stupid decisions, a horrifically useless harvest reporting scheme, massive movement of people, refusal to give people stored food as they were starving, efforts to save face internationally, on and on in a perfect storm of government created famine.

North Korean famine of the nineties; whilst it's hard to get data on government policy at the time, it seems that there was a move to implement utterly inappropriate terrace farming, which was subsequently disrupted (or indeed, washed away) by pretty normal rains, rendering those terraces useless and also causing new flooding (as the terraced fields use to be water absorbers and rain diffusers).

Ethiopian famine of the eighties; civil war going on.

Soviet famine of 1947; an awful lot like Mao's famine.

On and on. Certainly in modern times; obviously there's a lot less explanation of the causes as one goes further back, and it is in the nature of incompetent government to blame the weather.

I suppose what I'm saying is that to prevent famine, we need competent government.

Re: Bitfury 400 GH/s Bitcoin Mining Rig Hits US Shores

#73

Post by icelancer » Sun, Aug 04, 2013, 9:05 AM UTC

oscargrouch wrote: post #69

icelancer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>doesnt it say something about us all? That we're utilitarian in nature? This isn't exactly Nobel-prize winning stuff. The idea that we collect money and this is greedy or inherently bad is a highly personal view. Besides, what about Bill Gates and others who are donating their fortunes to do EXACTLY what you two ask? You're also ignoring the fact that "getting richer" is not the enemy of "doing good."

I have nothing against somebody making a fortune, at least through hard work, and by creating value to society, like Bill Gates did.. but there are parts of "getting richer" that can really do harm.. drugs? corruption? greedy banks? Im all the way for the "good capital", and thats the one that creates goods and value to us all.. acomplished people should have sucess, this is cool.. but i see a lot of the "get rich fi…

What "corrupts" our society has nothing to do with money and everything to do with utility. We evolved to seek greater utility in all forms it takes shape. That is not something you can erase from our psyche.