411–420 of 470 posts
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And I don’t mind. So long as they don’t flush the climate down the toilet or affect the mainstream system in any way such as by reducing tax revenue.
I am afraid, that replacing the mainstream system may not work without affecting it.
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I feel like lots of people forgot about 2007/08 and the impact on so many people around the world. It was truly painful and destructive. And very clearly people responsible got off free, with bonuses and some even ended up with jobs in the treasury. A lot of people I know working in crypto saw their families hurt badly by that crises and will happily spend their lives trying to build something else (even if the odds…
Cryptocurrencies do nothing to solve the problem. The fundamental problem is the belief that money is a thing that can be owned and stored when in reality it is just a relationship or a contractual agreement among humans. The fact that you can own cash and get a guaranteed 0% interest rate even though nobody has signed that contract. E.g. nobody promised that you will get exactly $1 of value in the future. The 2% inf…
I know the only attempt at demurrage went so well that they shut it down after not to long, but what do you think this would have an effect on assets over time? Would the demurrage keep the money supply in check long-term? Would people still do what they do now and take out loans to buy assets? I fear that Cantillion Effects would lead to the same cycles we see today. Is your stance that there should never be an interest rate above 0%? Going to have to think more about this, but my gut is thinking is you don't need demurrage except to fix the system we're currently in, in which case it does a great job. But once it's fixed holding cash would go back to 0%.
> It's only logical that your money becomes worth less over time (if you assume it is durable). Keeping something in pristine condition requires an external energy input.
If there was one thing that was going to be durable, it should be financial in nature. I'd much rather see people hoarding cash than houses. PoW coins on the other hand, totally agree with you here. So I suppose I think the demurrage would be based on the upkeep required, and typical currency upkeep is small while PoW is large.
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I am afraid, that replacing the mainstream system may not work without affecting it.
Exactly. Me too. Which is why I’m sure we shouldn’t allow it.
PoW mining (at least), must be made illegal. I have no doubts that it will end by becoming illegal, the question is how and when. It boggles the mind that there is now essentially a worldwide tax on semiconductors, which is used to do... nothing of any value whatsoever. And this thing just keeps growing. The effects will be felt in more and more economic sectors. Something will have to give. So, the only question is:…
There's lots of ways to turn electricity into money. Bitcoin is one of the easiest but you're not going to stop climate change or make a reasonably impact on the growing energy demands of civilization by banning it. Better to focus on replacing all energy production with green sources and taxing polluters rather than trying to ban specific energy uses you don't like.
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Nuclear fuel is made by physically mining the elements that go into it then processing them in an energy intensive process.
It does of course cost far less energy to extract than it produces. It’s extraordinarily energy dense. It only takes 19,000T give or take per year to produce 20% of US energy. The US alone consumes 731,000,000T of coal per year (40,000X). With breeder reactors we can cut that down by several hundred times - it’s just that uranium is quite abundant and very energy dense so we haven't really bothered to. Further there’…
PoW mining (at least), must be made illegal. I have no doubts that it will end by becoming illegal, the question is how and when. It boggles the mind that there is now essentially a worldwide tax on semiconductors, which is used to do... nothing of any value whatsoever. And this thing just keeps growing. The effects will be felt in more and more economic sectors. Something will have to give. So, the only question is:…
Imagine the savings of stopping to allow running arbitrary javascript in advertisements.
I also made a prediction: It will be banned eventually. Not because I or anyone else doesn't like it, but because it is a disaster in the making. PoW currencies are already a significant drag factor on, for example, ML research. The drag factor is increasing, and it will be felt in more and more industries.
You can only replace so much real economic activity by literal hot air production before it causes an acute crisis.
With a climate crisis the last thing we needed was to make the most effective energy consumption system ever constructed. The whole thing literally works on competing on consuming more energy. No other system works so efficiently towards such goal. What's scary is that the whole thing was designed to be unstoppable. My utopian hope for the future is that we start sending rigs in orbit close to the sun. Since we only…
My utopian idea is crypto fund with the sole purpose of hiring assassins and special operations squads to eliminate biggest mining data centers and holders. Every successful hit would inflate its own holdings thus fund further raids.
With a climate crisis the last thing we needed was to make the most effective energy consumption system ever constructed. The whole thing literally works on competing on consuming more energy. No other system works so efficiently towards such goal. What's scary is that the whole thing was designed to be unstoppable. My utopian hope for the future is that we start sending rigs in orbit close to the sun. Since we only…
> What's scary is that the whole thing was designed to be unstoppable. It’s only unstoppable within the game theoretic model of crypto itself, not within the larger societal context. Once Bitcoin power consumption enters the common discourse, my guess is that politicians will step in and simply outlaw PoW systems. There is no real downside for politicians. The average voter hasn’t yet invested their life savings into…
We are rapidly depleting our remaining carbon budget. Can a bitcoiner please explain to me why this is a necessary technological development right now?
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As long as we have by far not enough green energy, any new energy use adds to the amount of fossil fuel burned.
Increased demand leads to higher prices leads to more money into renewable generation