Live data from Hacker News

High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

nichegamer.com

71–80 of 111 posts

Re: High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

#71
post #15

At a minimum, at least this is ideologically consistent with wanting to ban bitcoin, since both consume approximately the same order of magnitude of energy.

>after July 1, 2021, the kWh per year limit becomes 50, 60, and 75. RTX 3080 consumes 250W when mining, so it would hit those limits in 10 days?

There are a lot more gamers than there are bitcoin miners, so it ends up balancing out:

https://www.wired.com/story/xbox-playstation-cloud-gaming-en... https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/11/video-games-...

We need to ban gaming if we want to solve the climate emergency.

Re: High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

#72
post #13

All dark blue states. California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. Pointless vote-grabbing bills are pushed to get headlines and signal the lawmakers virtuosity. Makes me think of the plastic bag "tax" in LA.

The plastic bag "tax" means I use the same number of pastic bags bug now I pay an extra few nickles when I go to the store and the bags I use and dispose of contain much more plastic than they did previously. I don't know who won there but it isn't me, the environment, or the retailer.

Australia has the same thing for over a decade. From what I see, the vast majority of people bring their bags back to the store to use again.

Re: High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

#73
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but gaming PC's are far more useful

Are they? With cryptocurrencies I can at least conduct commerce. With gaming PCs, I can... play violent videogames?

Playing violent video games makes me less violent. I would imagine me being less violent could be beneficial to myself and others. Though whether violent video games do the same for others is debatable.

I would imagine kids that are exposed to violent video games at an early age may not understand it initially. It's very possible they will emulate it. But continuous exposure to it will help a smart kid understand and control it.

Re: High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plastic bag "tax" means I use the same number of pastic bags bug now I pay an extra few nickles when I go to the store and the bags I use and dispose of contain much more plastic than they did previously. I don't know who won there but it isn't me, the environment, or the retailer.

Why not just bring your own? Like, serious question. I didn't do it until I had to but I can fit more crap in my own bags, and they're not going to break on me when I carry them up the stairs. Its kind of just better.

Because I don't want to have a collection of wadded up bags with me at all times? I don't know ahead of time how many bags I might need. Bags always seem to get dirty in one way or another.

The amount of carbon dioxide I exhale from being a living human while shopping is roughly the same as the shopping bags would emit if I burned them when I got home from the store. (which is much much less than if I drive even a short distance to the store)

The plastic in the supply chain getting things to the store is of ridiculously larger magnitude.

I reuse a fraction of the bags I get for various extra jobs usually revolving around waste or odds and ends uses which I otherwise would have to purchase bags for specifically.

In short, bringing my own bags is usually more of a hassle (though I do on occasion for one reason or another) and by every metric I can think of, not using disposable plastic bags is a meaningless gesture.

Re: High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

#75
post #57
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can create an entire VFX short film with an high end pc. You can simulate fluid mechanics and invent a new revolutionary propulsion system for aircrafts with an high end Pc. You can train a NN to recognize perilous situation from webcam footage and distribute the weights freely on GitHub With a HPC. There are Miriam of things you can do with a powerful computer. This law is stupid, a single EV recharge consumes 1…

Do the majority of gaming PC owners spend most of their time doing those tasks though? I think if the answer were yes, we would be discussing VFX and ML workstations, not " gaming " PCs. If we can legislate less environmentally harmful ways of doing commerce, why can't we legislate less environmentally harmful forms of entertainment? This is simply the logical conclusion of that line of reasoning.

Workstation hardware can be used for desktop gaming and any PC can be used for workstation tasks. There's no good reason to treat them differently under the law when the specifics of how they're different are very arbitrary.

Re: High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

#76
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>after July 1, 2021, the kWh per year limit becomes 50, 60, and 75. RTX 3080 consumes 250W when mining, so it would hit those limits in 10 days?

There are a lot more gamers than there are bitcoin miners, so it ends up balancing out: https://www.wired.com/story/xbox-playstation-cloud-gaming-en... https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/11/video-games-... We need to ban gaming if we want to solve the climate emergency.

That motherjones article says pc gaming consumes 75 TWh per year while just bitcoin is estimated to use 120 TWh.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952

Re: High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

#77
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>after July 1, 2021, the kWh per year limit becomes 50, 60, and 75. RTX 3080 consumes 250W when mining, so it would hit those limits in 10 days?

There are a lot more gamers than there are bitcoin miners, so it ends up balancing out: https://www.wired.com/story/xbox-playstation-cloud-gaming-en... https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/11/video-games-... We need to ban gaming if we want to solve the climate emergency.

Yes and we should also ban televisions and automobiles and espresso machines and loud music and nighttime lighting and virtual reality and air conditioning a room to below 74 degrees.

Re: High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

#78
post #75
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the majority of gaming PC owners spend most of their time doing those tasks though? I think if the answer were yes, we would be discussing VFX and ML workstations, not " gaming " PCs. If we can legislate less environmentally harmful ways of doing commerce, why can't we legislate less environmentally harmful forms of entertainment? This is simply the logical conclusion of that line of reasoning.

Workstation hardware can be used for desktop gaming and any PC can be used for workstation tasks. There's no good reason to treat them differently under the law when the specifics of how they're different are very arbitrary.

They're marketed as gaming PCs. Why shouldn't they be regulated according to their intended purpose?

Re: High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

#79
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot more gamers than there are bitcoin miners, so it ends up balancing out: https://www.wired.com/story/xbox-playstation-cloud-gaming-en... https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/11/video-games-... We need to ban gaming if we want to solve the climate emergency.

That motherjones article says pc gaming consumes 75 TWh per year while just bitcoin is estimated to use 120 TWh. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56012952

Less than a factor of two difference is "approximately the same order of magnitude", as I originally stated.

Re: High-End Gaming PCs Banned in Six US States

#80

In this specific instance the consumer is being done a favor by being prevented from buying terrible prebuilts, but the law is absurd.

What's wrong with the prebuilts? Price vs performance?

They're worse in general than self-building, but those specific ones have serious cooling issues.
Post reply on HN