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Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

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Re: Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

#201

Post by Barrin92 »

teawrecks wrote: post #152
Barrin92 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has helped the adoption of renewables in the same sense how polluting the local river has helped the anti-pollution industry. This is broken window logic. The reason bitcoin uses renwables in the first place is because much of it happens in China where misguided state projects and subsidies have created excess capacity. It makes for a pretty decent joke though, the libertarian currency de jure runs on the misguide…

It may not necessarily be the same as "broken window" logic. Consider a world where no one had ever broken a window. There wouldn't be any window repair people. The first time a window breaks, we have a new opportunity to fill a need. Necessity is the mother of invention. The exponential demand for energy creates more pressure to develop more efficient renewable energy generation methods that probably wouldn't be inc…

it's a complete non-argument you can use it to justify literally anything. Dropping atomic bombs on Japan, hey construction boom! Covid-19, pharma industry innovation! Do you turn the heater on and leave the fridge open to accelerate humanity's fight against climate change? No.

We have about a few thousand pressing issues that spur us on to push for renewables as it is, we don't need to waste energy on purpose.

Re: Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

#202

Post by acdha »

ls15 wrote: post #196
acdha wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those do something useful and there's a cap on how much people use: if I put up lights and then my neighbors put up lights, I don't put up twice as many lights so I can out-compete them for carolers and I certainly don't buy another house to put up even more lights. Proof-of-waste effectively requires that of all participants.

People (and cities) absolutely try to out-compete each other with christmas lights. Even countries with negligible Christian populations are taking part nowadays. Don't forget all the other wasteful elements of christmas. And all the christmas-related scams and crime. And the yearly spikes in domestic violence. The growth of the christmas price index seems to go to the moon. How is celebrating some guy's birthday 200…

There's some competition, yes, but it's bounded — even the most extravagant Christmas display is nowhere near the maximum amount of lights which could be placed in the space, not to mention only operating for a few weeks a year.

The design of Bitcoin ensures that does _not_ happen there, and it's currently using a massive amount of power to process a tiny fraction of the total economy, especially after you account for the transactions which are not linked to real economic value (money laundering, wash trading, etc.). The design ensures that if someone did find a useful application which saw popular adoption, usage would need to be many orders of magnitude higher than it is now.

Re: Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

#203

Post by chii »

vorpalhex wrote: post #194
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still did not give me an answer by the way and I have to question as to whether you are arguing in good faith. 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…

I'm going to interpret your current question as "Who has the authority to ban crypto?" The answer is the government. Governments are restricted to their borders but they do like to cooperate, and so EU may pass a general crypto ban and the EU may even ask the nations it trades with or that want to join to do similar. But there is no real question that a government may ban something in it's borders. "Ah, but I can get…

> "Who has the authority to ban crypto?" > The answer is the government.

The gov't is supposed to represent the people's will. So are you saying that it is the will of the people to ban crypto? Aka, is crypto something that is causing harm to society, like heroin addiction etc?

Let's go back to the prohibition era - why did the gov't decide to ban alcohol? And why did they re-instate it back afterwards?

I argue that gov't is not an "authority" - they merely execute the ban. The authority lies with the average views of society. Bans on slavery, for example, is only possible because most people slowly came around to disliking it (mostly people who don't benefit from it - while those who do vehemently fought against the banning).

Re: Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

#204

Post by i386 »

endisneigh wrote: post #96
Tenoke wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imposing global technological bans so willy-nilly seems like a nice idea only on the surface. Things like machine drying your clothes at home in the US (uncommon in Europe so seems frivolous) uses as much if not more energy. Others might consider gaming or self-hosted servers or who knows what else equally inefficient. Do you really want to put things so easily on the potential chopping block even if this one thing y…

There are plenty of other wasteful activities that should be limited as well. Classic whataboutism. First of all your entire comparison makes no sense, you have to compare alternatives for use. What's the alternative to a dryer. Using a line and hanging your clothes. Fair enough, what about in the winter in New York? A ventless dryer? Doesn't use substantially less energy. And so forth. For every conceivable use case…

Spot the cryptoshill.

Re: Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

#205

Post by nerdponx »

FeistySkink wrote: post #36
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #21

Man, I'm glad I snuck a 1080ti purchase in a few years ago when BTC was crashing hard. Of course, being Nvidia means it'll suck if I have to transition to a Linux Desktop before the next cryptoshit market crash, but if it takes that long then they've probably managed to kill of high-end PC gaming along with the environment and I'll have bigger problems.

NVIDIA is finally opening up to Linux and working on better support in their proprietary drivers: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-4...

The latest Nvidia drivers have been working mostly perfectly with my modest 1060 under Fedora 35. Some hiccups resuming from sleep, but only rarely.

Re: Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

#206

Post by chii »

Xylakant wrote: post #146
vorpalhex wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin mining uses more power than the country of Sweden. [1] - https://www.thebalance.com/how-much-power-does-the-bitcoin-n...

I have no love for bitcoin, but I always hate this comparison. It’s useless. Sweden uses much more energy than it uses power (as pretty much every country) and it also exports power usage by buying finished products. Why is the power usage not compared to something useful? The power or rather energy usage of the global banking network for example?

When people compare energy usage like that, they are making an implicit argument that the energy usage of bitcoin is a "waste".

This is what i dislike about the argument that PoW should be banned - that it wastes energy that could otherwise have been used for something else. I argue that it is not a waste, because the person who is paying for the energy does not consider it a waste. No one else can make this judgement.

The only weakness of this argument is that some energy sources have externalized the cost of emissions. I would very much like to see an emissions tax to account for it (which makes sense to do, regardless of one's position on PoW).

Re: Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

#207

Post by [deleted] »

ls15 wrote: post #81
gambiting wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 crypto needs to be banned because it's all a gigantic scam that has a gigantic environmental cost attached to it. Is it worse than, let's say, Christmas in this regard?

[deleted]

Re: Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

#208

Post by chii »

palebluedot wrote: post #153
mrfinn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biggest problem about PoW coins, and that's something that everybody working on it knows, or should know, is that the need of power is steadily bigger each year. Where would be the limit of that? When that requires the energy of a big country? (We are quite away from that as far as I know [1] ) A heavily industrialized continent? More than the whole world? It's absolutely crazy. I know that there's a big lobby behind…

I sometimes wonder if we'll discover a Kardashev Type II civilization, harnessing the power of their sun via a Dyson sphere. And then, upon first-contact, realize they are using all that power to mine Bitcoin.

If PoW and the endless thirst for energy would spur the development of Dyson spheres, then it would've be a good outcome.

Re: Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

#209

Post by chii »

beloch wrote: post #98
Tenoke wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imposing global technological bans so willy-nilly seems like a nice idea only on the surface. Things like machine drying your clothes at home in the US (uncommon in Europe so seems frivolous) uses as much if not more energy. Others might consider gaming or self-hosted servers or who knows what else equally inefficient. Do you really want to put things so easily on the potential chopping block even if this one thing y…

Governments could apply a carbon and electronic waste offset tax to declared cryptocurrency income. The people making money from cryptocurrencies should pay enough to fund projects that will fully offset their environmental costs. Of course, those taxes will probably just disappear into general tax revenues and wind up paying for other things, but it would encourage crypto miners to pursue green energy sources and, p…

> The people making money from cryptocurrencies should pay enough to fund projects that will fully offset their environmental costs.

why should crypto be specifically targeted for an energy use tax (ala, a carbon tax but with extra steps), instead of a general tax on energy use (aka, just implement the aforementioned carbon tax)?

Re: Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purpose, AMD says

#210

Post by chii »

300bps wrote: post #112
Tenoke wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imposing global technological bans so willy-nilly seems like a nice idea only on the surface. Things like machine drying your clothes at home in the US (uncommon in Europe so seems frivolous) uses as much if not more energy. Others might consider gaming or self-hosted servers or who knows what else equally inefficient. Do you really want to put things so easily on the potential chopping block even if this one thing y…

This comes up every single time banning cryptocurrency for wasting electricity comes up. Using a clothes drying machine and just about anything else that you can think of that uses electricity is fundamentally different than PoW cryptocurrency. If I want to use a machine to dry my clothes, I pay for that electricity. This puts a limit on the amount of electricity I can consume to do it. Cryptocurrency is different. T…

> The more electricity you burn, the more money you make.

there will be a new equilibrium - the more electricity you use, the less of it is available, and thus the price would rise to match the demand. This means there's a limit to how much you can earn (unfortunately you wont know this limit until you reach it, because the full demand for crypto is unknown atm).

But high prices of electricity would spur developments in energy production.

In any case, energy use is energy use, regardless of the purpose. As long as the person using it is paying for it, then it is a valid use.

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