Finally something more destructive then stock markets.
My only problem with bitcoin is, imagine if to own a share of Tesla stock, you had to burn down a hectare of forest.
Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
321–330 of 361 posts
Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
Democracies can control the economy deliberately. Democracy without economic control is near anarchy and the democracy is debilitated, subject to the whims of the people that own production.
Governments exist to prevent/fix market failure. The only problem is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_failure
Government Failure is no longer relevant, in the holy name of the Science Ministry we pray.
Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes I know. Trump was elected because he was an oligarch, not because of his political experience. Reagan had (comparatively) none of the wealth and real political experience at the federal level. He was not an oligarch.
> Trump was elected because he was an oligarch, Can you source this or is this your personal opinion of him? I'm trying to understand why you're defining this as a purely oligarchal issue where there are many other such instances of oligarchism in history whether it'd be politics or tech/FAANG. > ..not because of his political experience. Well he's certainly no Reagan given his class(ism) progression or upbringing, a…
> Can you source this
Trump being a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence? Well, yeah I can.
https://libn.com/2016/09/15/taking-a-peek-at-trumps-foundati...
> why you're defining this as a purely oligarchal [sic] issue
That was the topic of the GP
> Is that really the issue here though, because he lacked "political experience" upon entry into the presidency?
No need for quotes, Trump had 0 experience holding any political office at any level, in contrast to Reagan. He was elected because he was a rich celebrity.
Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Trump was elected because he was an oligarch, Can you source this or is this your personal opinion of him? I'm trying to understand why you're defining this as a purely oligarchal issue where there are many other such instances of oligarchism in history whether it'd be politics or tech/FAANG. > ..not because of his political experience. Well he's certainly no Reagan given his class(ism) progression or upbringing, a…
> Can you source this Trump being a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence? Well, yeah I can. https://libn.com/2016/09/15/taking-a-peek-at-trumps-foundati... > why you're defining this as a purely oligarchal [sic] issue That was the topic of the GP > Is that really the issue here though, because he lacked "political experience" upon entry into the presidency? No need for quotes, Trump had…
> Trump had 0 experience holding any political office at any level, in contrast to Reagan.
Yeah well he certainly does now, however brief it was.
Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody cares about the environment at all. There's zero outrage on energy wasting consumer behavior, say ACs, giant TVs, high-end gaming PCs, dryers, and leaving chargers plugged in. Likewise, there's barely any outrage on eating meat or air travel. Whilst I would agree that some types of crypto don't help in this regard as they add to the problem, it's truly very hypocritical to believe to be morally superior or to…
Consumer behavior is the wrong animal to fight when its these massive industries that are polluting the world, wasting our water, and things like cryptocurrencies that consume as much electricity as a nation of consumers. Unplug your chargers, stop eating meat, stop flying, and its not going to change much when factories are still polluting the air with fossil fuels and industrial agriculture is selecting the most pr…
Got it, you take zero responsibility for your own behavior, it should remain unchanged and unchallenged, whilst you externalize blame to everything else.
Said unsustainable industry you despise so much is the very thing making your luxury goods so cheap.
Phone chargers waste more energy than the entire crypto industry, yet you're not outraged by it at all. You're not even willing to take the incredibly tiny action of unplugging them, for a better world.
Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
No one elected the Fed and they print USD like crazy. They're now proposing to print more money to solve climate change. That's the opposite of democracy. Bitcoin is a transparent, simple currency. There will only ever be 21m Bitcoins and how they're minted is defined up front and everyone knows.
No one elected the Fed and they print USD like crazy. The Fed is combination of officials appointed by elected representatives and official of banks, with appointed officials having something of the lead. Representative democracy involves things like this. They're now proposing to print more money to solve climate change. That's the opposite of democracy. The printing of money here is effectively a tax. Taxing the po…
Printing money functions like a tax, but it's not a tax. It was never proposed and debated by congress and then passed.
> If anything, it seems you're proposing the wealthy not be subject to taxes oriented towards to common good, which is what the op was (correctly imo) upset about.
I'm proposing the opposite. The money printing since 1971 has been one of the major drivers of inequality. If you own a lot of assets like stocks and real estate the last year and half of printing dollars has been tremendously good for you. If you work for a living and your income is mainly your salary, it hasn't. Your rent has gone up while your wages and opportunities have lagged.
Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
#327Another industry in need of carbon taxes. Stuff like bitcoin would be a lot more palatable if its users paid for the externalities they saddle upon everyone else from their carbon usage.
Externalities like that should be priced into the utility bill. In CA, you will see steep overages when you reach the upper tiers of utilization.
Ah, but with an unregulated decentralized heat-generator, I'm free to look around for the country which doesn't tax the externalities, and thus has the cheapest utility bill. California isn't where most of the crypto mining is happening...
Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
#328Another industry in need of carbon taxes. Stuff like bitcoin would be a lot more palatable if its users paid for the externalities they saddle upon everyone else from their carbon usage.
Bitcoin is just a convenient scapegoat for people to hate on and feel like they have the moral high ground, all while they eat a high meat diet, drive single occupant cars daily, take regular domestic flights and occasional international flights, and live in McMansions with AC 6 months out of the year. Our entire lifestyles in the developed world are horrifically carbon heavy. Beating up on things like bitcoin withou…
FWIW, I opted out of children, eat a vegetarian diet, have never had a driver's license, and generally put on a sweater before reaching for the thermostat. And I will happily claim my two inches of my moral high-ground to say f$ck bitcoin.
Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>> our current system isn't here by accident And dinasaurs weren't on earth by accident. They were part of evolution and then replaced with other species more appropriate for evolving earth and conditions.
Bitcoin is just the gold standard but worse. With gold you can at least dig up more of it as your economy grows. Bitcoin doesn't care about the real economy.
Buy some gold coins and then try to move it across the borders.
1. You need to fill-in paperwork and be on a mercy of a local DHS official to be allowed. At any time regulation will and can change without you knowing about it.
2. Try to move it without paperwork and risk losing it all
3. Try to store it in the bank and risk of government/bank/courts to lock you out of your gold savings.
4. Try to store it on your own and risk losing it all to crime.
5. Entering another country - same risks with their customs as above.
6. Moving bitcoin across borders is a bit easier
Re: Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your entire post is merely reiterating exactly the sort of misleading information that I pointed out in mine. The point once again (the "goalposts") was not whether they were armed , but why they would stage an insurrection without guns . And it is an established fact that save for 1-2 out of, what, 300+? There were no guns. Because this was a protest which turned into a riot, not an insurrection. >that beating a cop…
I agree, most of the violent rioters were armed. It is well documented that organizers had to encourage attendees to leave their guns at home or in their cars (as you mentioned, several were arrested with firearms in their cars on their way to or from the riot). > The vast majority of participants weren't actually part of any of the so called "far right" groups (e.g. oathkeepers) LOTS of self-recorded evidence shows…
There's no point in having this discussion if you're continuously going to represent my words.
1. I said vast majority. I didn't day such people weren't present. These are not large groups to begin with.
2. Once again you are twisting the word "armed" to conflate flagpoles and bear mace with guns.
My original point stands. You don't go about an insurrection in 2021 without bringing your guns. The rest of what you wrote is irrelevant. This was neither a coup nor an insurrection, because the vast, vast majority of protestors did not bring guns to the capitol, and in fact I'm not aware of a single such firearms arrest/conviction.
You could say that it was a 99.9% peaceful riot - and again I'm only aware of a single person being shown to have a gun, not "armed" with flagpoles and mace, out of hundreds of protestors.