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Bitcoin Is Time

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Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#531

Post by root_axis »

fredfoobar wrote: post #373
boredpandas777 wrote: post #348

Let me fix that title. Happy to be downvoted into negative territory. I only have 11 points. Go ahead. "Bitcoin Is A Waste of Time (and Resources)" What Bitcoin has done is that it taught people they can come together in a sustained flash mob (like an on-the-fly hedge fund operation) and manipulate the price of speculative assets by creating artificial short-term pump-n-dump type demand. Bitcoin has trained our colle…

I've been saying the same damn thing about automobiles man, horses already have self driving even! and they don't pollute like cars. Look at the mess we're in now! who's laughing?? Cars pollute and need roads, we had to build so many roads and gas stations. We even had to go to war to make sure we have enough oil.

lol, cars have some tradeoffs as compared to horses, but overall they are a vast improvement to the problem of transportation compared to horses. Bitcoin is generally worse than what came before, despite being a new and otherwise interesting phenomenon unto itself.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#532

Post by omginternets »

bennysonething wrote: post #496
fredfoobar wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying the same damn thing about automobiles man, horses already have self driving even! and they don't pollute like cars. Look at the mess we're in now! who's laughing?? Cars pollute and need roads, we had to build so many roads and gas stations. We even had to go to war to make sure we have enough oil.

O know this a joke, but the other problem with horses is fuel: endless fields for hay. So wilderness destruction.

Imagine we focused on lab-grown hay instead of lab-grown meat...

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#533

Post by olah_1 »

mortehu wrote: post #464
cloakandswagger wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People clearly see the flaw in PoW if they are not emotionally attached to it because they have no money at stake. You should not misinterpret that as hate because they missed the train to richness. The vitriol that Bitcoin evokes from HN commenters can really only be explained by jealousy, the environmental concern is just a cover for covetousness.

Counterexample: when I recently read about its energy consumption (per byte stored), I sold my bitcoins in disgust, at roughly today's prices. I've held almost continuously since 2011, although I trimmed my position a few times. If I come across something that works without PoW, is safe against quantum computers and somehow eliminates the threat of forks (seems impossible), I'll invest in that.

> when I recently read about its energy consumption (per byte stored), I sold my bitcoins in disgust

You fell for the meme...

Energy consumption as compared to what? What energy sources? This line of argumentation feels very misleading to me and always has because it is presented with a very specific framing. Here's an alternative framing for example:

https://unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-does-not-waste-en...

At least you sold high, so good on you!

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#534

Post by janee »

iNerdier wrote: post #453
foepys wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horses literally put shit on the streets. Imagine replacing each car with a horse and think about the amount of poop. Horses are also dangerous. A friend of mine lost almost all of their teeth because their horse kicked them in the face when they cleaned its hooves.

And cars shit into the air we breathe. It’s not visible in the same way a pile of dung is but if anything that makes it more dangerous.

Ironically...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of...

Not saying cars are great, but it was seen as the solution to exactly this problem

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#535

Post by user-the-name »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #153
derethanhausen wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just whataboutism. Gold isn't used as a currency. Seems a stretch to claim the armies exist solely for the USD. And until the Lightning Network is actually implemented it will remain theoretical.

Not sure where you get your news but LN is implemented and functional. There are wallets, services, software, etc, downloadable, functional, used every day. If what you mean to say "get all the marchants that support BTC to accept LN", then yes, there is still some progress needs to be done.

The LN is not functional. It does not have an implementation of routing that scales. Nobody knows how to make an implementation of routing that scales.

If LN ever sees anything more than toy usage, it will fall over instantly, and become unusable.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#536

Post by UncleMeat »

cyphertruck wrote: post #235
vishnugupta wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This[1] is an insightful article from an economist who has experienced the real world economics from very close quarters. I don't have any opinion about Bitcoin one way or another, though through these fascinating arguments I gain new insight about the money and its relationship with geopolitics, human civilisation and other aspects. [1] https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-da...

That article is from 2013 and so we must grade it on a curve. He makes several wrong assumptions about how bitcoin works because he’s thinking it is based on trust, and he is an inflationist. I have yet to have an economist explain to me why deflation us bad- computers getting cheaper is good, fixed income people being able to afford things us good. Inflation mainly allows government to hand out money yo wall street…

> and he is an inflationist

Is this going to be a new slur from the community?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#537

Post by anthropodie »

fwiwm2c wrote: post #429
oliv__ wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely amazed at how you're able to take such an in-depth, thoughtfully written article, and reduce it into a mere "bitcoin is a waste of time, people are gamblers".

He likely didn't read it. People have strong visceral reactions when they hear about Bitcoin - mostly because a lot of them are salty.

Earlier I thought it had some obscure use case but this article convinced me that Bitcoin does not deserve the hate it does. It needs more discussion on ways to improve it and solve energy problem! Full disclosure I have 0 bitcoins.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#538

Post by glitchc »

fredfoobar wrote: post #373
boredpandas777 wrote: post #348

Let me fix that title. Happy to be downvoted into negative territory. I only have 11 points. Go ahead. "Bitcoin Is A Waste of Time (and Resources)" What Bitcoin has done is that it taught people they can come together in a sustained flash mob (like an on-the-fly hedge fund operation) and manipulate the price of speculative assets by creating artificial short-term pump-n-dump type demand. Bitcoin has trained our colle…

I've been saying the same damn thing about automobiles man, horses already have self driving even! and they don't pollute like cars. Look at the mess we're in now! who's laughing?? Cars pollute and need roads, we had to build so many roads and gas stations. We even had to go to war to make sure we have enough oil.

As much as it's funny, this is a false analogy. Horses don't travel as fast as cars, or as far. They also can't pull/carry as much as a car, let alone a truck. How many horses are needed to carry the same load as one 18 wheeler?

Would Amazon be possible without trucks? How about Walmart?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#539

Post by floydnoel »

renewiltord wrote: post #414
rtrdea wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you til the last sentence. Have an upvote

Haha, that was unnecessarily controversial on my part. I can totally accept that other people disagree on that.

but you didn't even add the requisite "go ahead and downvote me!"

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#540

Post by fredfoobar »

root_axis wrote: post #531
fredfoobar wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying the same damn thing about automobiles man, horses already have self driving even! and they don't pollute like cars. Look at the mess we're in now! who's laughing?? Cars pollute and need roads, we had to build so many roads and gas stations. We even had to go to war to make sure we have enough oil.

lol, cars have some tradeoffs as compared to horses, but overall they are a vast improvement to the problem of transportation compared to horses. Bitcoin is generally worse than what came before, despite being a new and otherwise interesting phenomenon unto itself.

> Hand waves vaguely
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