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Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

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Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#451

Post by gvv »

silentsea90 wrote: post #420

What's bad for the planet is how decades of individual work output in money can be confiscated (by printing and inflation, not taxation) by the Government under the pretense of doing good. What's bizarre is that the Government is not affected by market forces while the rest of us plebs are forced to be efficient lest we lose to competition. Note: when I say confiscation, I mean money printing and not taxes (which wil…

Oh no we can't milk taxes of your (un)realized gains so it's bad for the planet. I like it when they load the other FUD which is: BTC is used by criminals (implying fiat isn't).

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#452

Post by kbenson »

la_fayette wrote: post #391
8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun and joy in and of themselves are worthy pursuits. That's completely aside from considering video games as an artistic medium that can be used to learn and share about the human experience. Bitcoin does none of that. At its very very best it's a way to buy hallucinogens on the internet with massive external consequences.

I think understanding bitcoin from a systems point of view is of great value. Although proof of work is problematic, the idea and manifestation of a censorship resisten electronic monetary system is just amazing. Bitcoin is actually working for more than 10 years... There are alternatives to PoW, e.g. ethereum 2.0, let's see if this works and than judge again...

> censorship resisten electronic monetary system

I feel sorry for anyone that expects bitcoin to actually be anonymous. Given that we can use statistics and timing to determine the memory contents and instructions run on different cores in a CPU, anyone that uses a currency that keeps public global transaction log and thinks they can anonymize themselves by just mixing their money in a pool is in for a rude awakening at some point. For any useful amount of usage, my guess is they're just kicking the de-anonymization can down the road a few years.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#453

Post by knuthsat »

DennisP wrote: post #180
knuthsat wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, there really aren't that many better. Full transaction privacy (addresses not visible to public + amounts not visible to public) does not exist in any of the top 10. + offline transactions should be possible (allowing sync with the chain whenever), but also I do not think any have that. A good crypto-currency is like cash, with a nice physical gauge theory (allowing offline transactions) guaranteeing s…

I'm having trouble seeing how you could have offline transactions that prevent doublespending. Could you expand on "nice physical gauge theory (allowing offline transactions)?" If you have a good idea here, it might be possible to implement as a second layer on a chain with smart contracts.

I'm aware of approaches similar to this: https://gist.github.com/DavidBurkett/32e33835b03f9101666690b...

describing offline transactions.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#454

Post by Cookingboy »

mancerayder wrote: post #438
kitcar wrote: post #11

Bitcoin is an almost perfect exploitation of humanities fatal flaws (greed, unwillingness to acknowledge externalities - i.e. selfishness). It's that old SF-trope that the cause of many of humanity's biggest problems is humans.

Not a bitcoin fanboy, but that's a bit strong a statement. What is "greed" versus motivation for innovation? Is innovation rewarded with (taxed, regulated) wealth greed, and if so, is that "bad"? And if it creates Teslas and rockets that land, and robots on Mars that last a year or more analyzing samples, is it a fatal flaw? Some more questions... So let's say BTC is greed - the many financial instruments out there,…

>What is "greed" versus motivation for innovation?

I don't have exact data, but my gut feeling tells me that 99.99% of the people buying cryptocurrencies today are driven by greed instead of innovation.

> and you drew the line at BTC?

Not really, if you look at the perspective that we already have enough instruments for financial manipulation and greed, why introduce another one that consumes so much energy?

>Fitting for a city known today for its vast outdoor tent cities of homelessness.

I mean...you know that's a completely man-made problem right?

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#455

Post by notum »

toomuchredbull wrote: post #416
notum wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn those sea urchins!

Stepping on a sea urchin is no beuno. I remember one time snorkelling and I was being pulled by a rip tide and I was like no big deal, I can just slowly head a different direction until I started being pulled barely past sea urchins on corals and then I was freaked out. They are dastardly.

I heard they taste pretty good though.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#458

Post by silentsea90 »

gvv wrote: post #451
silentsea90 wrote: post #420

What's bad for the planet is how decades of individual work output in money can be confiscated (by printing and inflation, not taxation) by the Government under the pretense of doing good. What's bizarre is that the Government is not affected by market forces while the rest of us plebs are forced to be efficient lest we lose to competition. Note: when I say confiscation, I mean money printing and not taxes (which wil…

Oh no we can't milk taxes of your (un)realized gains so it's bad for the planet. I like it when they load the other FUD which is: BTC is used by criminals (implying fiat isn't).

The interesting part is how the FUDers like Nouriel Roubini fire away all the negatives in the same sentence, making it sound like they have an agenda against BTC and not so much a well researched deep concern regarding one of the FUD points.

Re: Bill Gates Says that Bitcoin is bad For the Planet

#459

Post by toolz »

triceratops wrote: post #389
meowkit wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing about money is that I can hand it to someone. Honestly don’t know if you’re trolling or just old. I used paper money once last year. To buy weed. Because the federal government has determined I am not responsible enough to use or own weed. No one I know uses physical cash anymore. We’re moving away from physical items where possible, not toward it. I would rather have my currency on a public DLT than cont…

> No one I know uses physical cash anymore. But physical cash should always be an option. You can't have a truly free society without it. Some intermediary could always have control over your transactions.

It's much easier to imagine a scenario where physical money is controlled by an outside force than crypto. Holding physical zimbabwean dollars, for example, did not ensure you held anything of value.

I think arguing that control over crypto transactions is more likely than the devaluing of physical currencies is a little far-fetched since we've seen plenty of the former without much of an example of any centralized power being able to control users actions on the internet.

Just think of all the wealth changing hands on the internet today against the will of governments.

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