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

Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

blog.ethereum.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 1001 posts

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#361

Post by savant_penguin »

DCKing wrote: post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

Sure, ban away all PoW crypto, but don't you dare touch my YouTube cat videos and Netflix series ! (that likely use a TON of bandwidth)

Jokes aside it's really hard to decide what's reasonable energy usage from waste. Ultimately the real question is who gets to make that decision.

And overall, the idea of government getting to decide what are acceptable uses of energy and what isn't is actually terrifying

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#362

Post by ChemSpider »

helmholtz wrote: post #313
selfhoster11 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases or be called out by the immediate first child comment about failing to do so. It's SO trite, predictable, wearisome and boring . It always follows the same pattern too. "Where do you draw the line?" "Who decides what's the truth?" Always the same fucking slippery slope fallacy. Every fuck…

This is not an edge case at all. Who is to decide on what to spend energy or not? This is curing the symptoms only.

The (counter) solution is not to discuss for what to burn coal, but to finally stop burning coal, oil and gas. USA and EU could do that within a few years. And then stop or tax imports from countries that still do burn coal.

But that is inconvenient for many, so they prefer discussing nerdy Bitcoin PoW instead.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#363

Post by stingraycharles »

fredfoobar wrote: post #347

The HN narrative engine is so biased towards ETH that some are even asking for advice on where to buy ETH. This is ridiculous, just think through the consequences of a PoS system, you all are smart folks, I presume.

It seems like you’re insinuating that there are negative consequences to the PoS system, but leave it up to the reader to think really deep and understand what those consequences are.

I’m not well versed into PoS systems, but just took a look at ethereum’s explanation and it sounded reasonable, but I’m not familiar with the details and trade-offs that are being made.

Care to enlighten me what you’re referring to?

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#364

Post by dehrmann »

DCKing wrote: post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

> ban trade of proof of work cryptocurrencies.

I'm a crypto-skeptic, but why would I ever hold a crpytocurrency in that scenario? If governments would ban it for environmental goals, they'll ban it for political goals, too.

The only interesting bit is cryptocurrencies would have to legitimately bring something new to the table that's actually better than the existing financial system in order to be viable.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#366

Post by shawnz »

helmholtz wrote: post #313
selfhoster11 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases or be called out by the immediate first child comment about failing to do so. It's SO trite, predictable, wearisome and boring . It always follows the same pattern too. "Where do you draw the line?" "Who decides what's the truth?" Always the same fucking slippery slope fallacy. Every fuck…

It's not a counter-solution, it is a suggestion that the problem isn't really a problem. PoW power usage is high in an absolute sense but lower than many other things which people would consider an obvious waste. So why does PoW power usage have so much contention compared to those other things? I would say because there's too much baggage/hype associated with cryptocurrencies, not because there's a genuine belief that increasing the energy usage of our species is a universally bad thing.

As for the carbon side of the issue, that isn't something which is specific to cryptocurrencies or any other kind of energy usage. I support carbon taxes and import taxes on CO2-producing goods/services, including cryptocurrency services, and I am certain that many cryptocurrency believers feel the same way.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#367

Post by micropresident »

helmholtz wrote: post #313
selfhoster11 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases or be called out by the immediate first child comment about failing to do so. It's SO trite, predictable, wearisome and boring . It always follows the same pattern too. "Where do you draw the line?" "Who decides what's the truth?" Always the same fucking slippery slope fallacy. Every fuck…

There is a counter solution to advocating for regulation. It's to create an economic system where people are naturally incentivized to do what's best. Vote with your wallet. You don't want energy that produced Co2? Don't buy it and advocate for others not to buy it.

Instead what people are doing is advocating for the government to come and point guns at people who don't do what they want -- even if they happen to be wrong. And when they are wrong, there are disastrous consequences as is currently extremely apparent in California. There are all kinds of perverse incentives which have resulted in the severe homelessness and extreme government waste.

The people advocating for this neither listen to the wisdom of Murphy's law, nor do they understand that when regulation impacts the market that regulation becomes what is bought and sold. Have you never heard of regulatory capture? That has worse human-cost impacts than leaving people to their own devices.

Vote with your wallet. Don't like the environmental cost of beef? Don't buy it. This works -- you can see it playing out.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/BA65/production/...

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#368

Post by [deleted] »

disruptalot wrote: post #212
DCKing wrote: post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

This is one of those "Freakonomics" type ideas. On the surface this sounds like bitcoin's PoW use will simply stop. It's actually the entire opposite. When governments ban it, they go after sizeable, identifiable organizations running these operations, that is their only choice. These operations are optimized in their energy usage, because it's only in their interest to reduce their consumption relative to the value…

[deleted]

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#369

Post by beaner »

helmholtz wrote: post #313
selfhoster11 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Why do HN comment threads always end up as Pedantry Pageants where all ye who dare comment must address all the fucking edge cases or be called out by the immediate first child comment about failing to do so. It's SO trite, predictable, wearisome and boring . It always follows the same pattern too. "Where do you draw the line?" "Who decides what's the truth?" Always the same fucking slippery slope fallacy. Every fuck…

The crowd of HN tends to be more philosophic. Without a moral / ethical / long-term practical view, we're just ships with torn sails floating in the waves, wandering about, making short-term decisions. Decisions often have 2nd, 3rd, 4th-order consequences that can be unpredictable and often counter to the goal we think we're working towards in the short term. It pays to think them through from a high level and apply long-term thinking principles.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#370

Post by Ajedi32 »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #201
DCKing wrote: post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

Exactly! Just because you don't think something has value doesn't make it so. Value is a matter for the market to decide.

Electricity usage has almost no negative externalities. Electricity production does. Attacking people for using their own resources on something that they find to be useful and worthwhile is foolish. Confront the actual problem, and quit harassing innocent third parties.

Post reply on HN