Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin Is Time

dergigi.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 1001 posts

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#191

Post by dnautics »

7373737373 wrote: post #148
keiferski wrote: post #55

Nothing is less material than money. . . . Money is abstract, I repeated, money is future time. It can be an evening in the suburbs, it can be the music of Brahms, it can be maps, it can be chess, it can be coffee, it can be the words of Epictetus teaching us to despise gold. Money is a Proteus more versatile than the one on the island of Pharos. —Jorge Luis Borges, “The Zahir” https://longreads.com/2016/06/14/borges…

> Richard Dawkins said in an offhand comment in The Selfish Gene that “Money is a formal token of delayed reciprocal altruism.” - https://nakamotoinstitute.org/reciprocal-altruism-in-the-the...

This isn't too far off from the point that David graeber makes in debt: the first 5000 years

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#192

Post by Applejinx »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #140
ben_w wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that was the argument, I would ask in response: if it could do that, why would the combined vested interests of the US military-industrial lot allow Bitcoin to succeed ? It’s not beyond the reach of governments to ban unwanted trade, and even though bans are not magic, even a half-arsed enforcement of such a ban is enough to prevent a currency becoming endemic.

> It’s not beyond the reach of governments to ban unwanted trade Yeah, right, it worked so well for alcohol... It DOES (/s) work so well for drugs in the US right now... And hey imagine whether it's easier or harder to ban something that doesn't take any physical space in your suitcase and can be transacted with only internet connection.

On the contrary, bitcoin mining operations can be sniffed out by their impossibly outlandish power requirements, like pot growers used to be.

Increasingly, mining operations have to make special arrangements with entire power grids to suck up their energy and basically just burn it in arbitrary calculation. The scale at which this operates, and the increase over time, are both what makes up a lot of the problem, and what makes it impossible to hide.

If you'd prefer a world where people value bitcoin BECAUSE due to its unpopularity and externalities, governments resort to drone striking such operations when discovered, all I can say is: well, that solves the energy wastage issue, as blown-up ASIC farms aren't good at burning energy anymore. Maybe it solves the constant devaluation against energy cost issue, too! But I think you're missing the point and looking at only the end product of the industry.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#193

Post by JxLS-cpgbe0 »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #47
arbawk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't read the article, did you?

I have ahem lost more than enough time on articles about Bitcoin, and its tiresome wide-eyed fanatics. The comments are bad enough.

So, you didn't read the article. Please contribute to discussion specific to the article.

"Mining wastes electricity" is a trite talking point we will see in every discussion.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#194

Post by ballofrubber »

boringg wrote: post #160
ballofrubber wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you care to share your Econo101 knowledge? I'm not an economist, but nothing has convinced me yet that bitcoin is not the best form of money.

Um transaction costs alone make it not the best use of money. It isn't widely used for goods that you would want to use on a day to day basis / the transaction costs of using it / energy use for bitcoin are some of the low hanging counters to why it isn't the best form of widely used currency. Are those things that can change over time? Certainly - but it hasn't happened yet.

These low hanging counters have been discussed over a lot.

Transaction cost is pretty low in multiple views:

- You can globally settle billions of dollars worth of bitcoin for less than 10$ [0]

- FIAT Settlements between banks is a complicated and non-auditable process, which is internationally speaking also very slow

- You can build layers on top of bitcoin, i.e. the Lightning Network or liquid, which reduces transaction costs and time by a lot (sub cent range in the lightning network)

Energy usage is not tied to transaction throughput. It is vital to be very high in the future, as it secures this global and auditable settlement network. Mining is a very competitive business. Renewable and unused energy IS the cheapest energy available (without govt. subsidies), thus the most competitive miners will use them. Mining also "subsidizes" research in cheap energy, as it gives you a competitive advantage.

[0] https://twitter.com/CoreFeeHelper/status/1366787351985287168

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#195

Post by toto444 »

ballofrubber wrote: post #147
toto444 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sour grapes syndrome is a result of pride, I think. Or maybe it comes from people who have read an Econo101 textbook and who have spent a lot of time trying to explain a crowd of Bitcoin enthusiasts why their reasoning is wrong but no one has been listening to them so far so they are bored. Back in the time I used to spend my days on a forum about Economics. Every other week there was a random guy who signed up jus…

Would you care to share your Econo101 knowledge? I'm not an economist, but nothing has convinced me yet that bitcoin is not the best form of money.

> I'm not an economist, but nothing has convinced me yet that bitcoin is not the best form of money.

Contrary to the Bitcoin crow I don't spend my days thinking about it so my argument may seem weak. You mention bitcoin being 'the best form of money'. Assuming there is a hierarchy of forms of money, from what I understand the main advantage of Bitcoin is that Government can not manipulate its quantity. I wonder if a world where there is no possibility for governments to use monetary policy in times of trouble to stabilize the economy is desirable.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#196

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

jakeva wrote: post #178
Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you found time to litter internet with you telling other people that you won't spend even little time understanding the topic at hand or posting something produced by your own thinking... That's even worse than creatively criticising the topic, that's just meaningless jibberjabber. PS let me rephrase my point: you write "I have ahem lost more than enough time on articles about Bitcoin, and its tiresome wide-e…

I assume comments like that are from people who are conflicted by the fact that if their head weren't so far up their ass they would have entertained the notion enough to at least acquire a few bitcoin, but because it's now too late it's better to celebrate just how far up their ass their head is.

You are basically restating this crappy argument:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26316375

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26316392

See the replies. There is nothing more to add to this deeply dull line of thinking.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#197

Post by Mc_Big_G »

boringg wrote: post #160
ballofrubber wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you care to share your Econo101 knowledge? I'm not an economist, but nothing has convinced me yet that bitcoin is not the best form of money.

Um transaction costs alone make it not the best use of money. It isn't widely used for goods that you would want to use on a day to day basis / the transaction costs of using it / energy use for bitcoin are some of the low hanging counters to why it isn't the best form of widely used currency. Are those things that can change over time? Certainly - but it hasn't happened yet.

Bitcoin has transitioned to "store of value", like gold, not "frequently transacted currency", like the dollar. There's plenty of other crypto currencies that fill that need.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#198

Post by UncleMeat »

inter_netuser wrote: post #170
yerwhat01010 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will Bitcoin lead to the defunding of the US military? Can I get a specific, plausible answer that isn't some vague utopian libertarian handwave?

If Bitcoin becomes the reserve currency, the theory goes that the US would not need to involve itself in as many petrodollar wars as it does today, thus resulting in a smaller military. I don't think anyone seriously thinks Bitcoin will replace militaries completely.

Wouldn't the US become more desperate to hold onto its influence in oil producing regions and do so with violence? don't see why "wow, everybody is starting to use BTC rather than USD for oil transactions" would lead to "guess we don't need this aircraft carrier" instead of "time for some coups to install governments who will do what we want and not switch to BTC".

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#199

Post by 015a »

DennisP wrote: post #122
doomroot wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here me out. What if it was the only way to defund the US military? Would you be interested then? Why do we waste so much energy building killing machines? Why is there not a daily hackernews thread complaining about the energy consumption of the US military? Because it’s a necessary to ensure you can buy and sell things when you want to.

Anything Bitcoin can do, we can do now with proof-of-stake currencies at a tiny fraction of the energy consumption.

That's true. So, where are those currencies in the market capitalization charts and news articles?

Remember; the last time Bitcoin tried to change its mining algorithm, the democracy voted for a split. Ethereum has said they're moving from Proof of Work to Stake; I'm not surprised, given the Ethereum developers seem to abhor Work in all of its forms, including making progress on Ethereum itself, so we'll see if that actually happens in a few decades.

PoS is a theory right now, with some minor market traction, but nothing to the degree of BTC or ETH. Don't levy it as a promise which absolves the environmental sins of cryptocurrency, when its so obviously unlikely to do so. Bitcoin is the zeitgeist; its actively destroying the planet; its not moving to PoS.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#200

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

noxer wrote: post #182
olah_1 wrote: post #69

This is the article that made things finally click with me. Thinking about the pre-WWI gold standard and the issues that existed there and the improvements that Bitcoin brings around time, consensus, etc. The baseless negative comments with no interaction with the article content confirms for me that Bitcoin is on to something. Sour grapes syndrome is a result of pride, I think.

>Bitcoin is onto something What if it "was"? The "hate" people express against bitcoin especially here on HN is often towards the implementation. People clearly see the flaw in PoW if they are not emotionally attached to it because they have no money at stake. You should not misinterpret that as hate because they missed the train to richness. Objectively PoW does not scale. Objectively we have DLTs (blockchains) with…

But did you really include Lightning Network in your mental calculations? If so, care to elaborate on what exactly would stop it from working? (I mean it already works now, there is nothing technical that is going to stop it from scaling)?
Post reply on HN