Bitcoin Is Time • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#841

Post by lionhearted » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:17 AM UTC

Uptrenda wrote: post #821

I'm so sick of these profound-sounding blog posts that take 1 million words to say precisely jack shit. Yes, the key innovation around Bitcoin was to order events. You can call this 'time' if you want. This is literally the most obvious thing you can say about the system. It's so obvious in fact that it's in the introduction section to the Bitcoin whitepaper. Here is the entire blog post written much shorter and more…

I'm voting you up, but a respectful disagreement...

I think that sometimes seeing a person meander through related concepts and take a fresh look at them can be quite valuable; likewise, non-technical language can make things accessible.

Even if there's no grand takeaway.

I know, for me, sometimes I quite like this sort of thing and sometimes I find it tiresome. But in the right mood, I find it very valuable.

Likewise, I could send this piece to someone who has no technical background at all and has not the Bitcoin whitepaper or any further analyses, and then have an interesting conversation afterwards.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#842

Post by fredfoobar » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:23 AM UTC

marshmallow_12 wrote: post #761

hannasanarion wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is accidentally a good analogy. Because yes, cars have made the world materially worse, not because horses are better, but because dense urban development, public transit, walking, and cycling is better. Cars are enormously wasteful, much like bitcoin is, not only because it uses way more energy than is necessary for the task it is performing (~90% of the energy used by cars is spent to move the car, not the car…

technically almost everything beyond food and medicine is wasteful. BUT cars improve the quality of my life (i like to drive). bitcoins floating through the cybersphere do not. end of story.

Horses are nice, end of story.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#843

Post by fredfoobar » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:26 AM UTC

solveit wrote: post #801

perfect_kiss wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with electrobikes. Also electrobike can use multiple horse powers, instead of just one.

Completely irrelevant to your point, but fun fact: a horse can actually produce like 14 horsepower.

Just enough for a human and horses are nice.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#844

Post by temp00345 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:28 AM UTC

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.

If 'cars' as means of transportation are analogous to bitcoin as currency, then the car would cost a fortune and you'd keep it in the garage, while driving around on a horse.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#845

Post by minitech » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:29 AM UTC

suifbwish wrote: post #707

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 believe it takes 72 TERAWATTS running for 10 minutes to mine one bitcoin. How is that justifiable when we are slipping deeper into an environmental crisis?

> I believe it takes 72 TERAWATTS running for 10 minutes to mine one bitcoin.

Some corrections:

- 10 minutes per block, not per bitcoin (block reward is currently 6.25 bitcoin)

- it’s more like 14 GW, not 72 TW

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#846

Post by UncleMeat » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

teeblo wrote: post #829

UncleMeat wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock market is a place to purchase productive assets. That share I own represents actual work done by human beings to produce goods and services. That BTC I own represents an immutable thing that itself does nothing.

> That BTC I own represents an immutable thing that itself does nothing. Part of BTC's value is probably the hope (speculation) that it will one day be used as an alternative payment system / store of value / whatever, and that will cause it to maintain value. As of right now, a share of AMZN itself does virtually nothing either. Its value lies in the hope (speculation) that one day Amazon will pay us money for holdi…

Mining is productive. It supports the payment system. BTC does not. If we took 90% of all coins, shoved them in a wallet, and destroyed the key it wouldn't change the network's capabilities at supporting payments or storing value or whatever. That's the difference between a productive asset and something else.

An AMZN share on the other hand represents some small percentage of actual labor and production being done by Amazon's employees.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#847

Post by f430 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:38 AM UTC

shoshino wrote: post #672

f430 wrote: post #255

You mean bitcoin is a ticking time bomb kept afloat by an unbacked asset that is now the target of Federal agencies?

Tether's impact on the price of Bitcoin is grossly misreported and without basis. The only "Federal agency" targeting Tether was the New York Attorney General's office, however the investigation was settled last month with with no admission of guilt from Tether.

did you even read the settlement?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#848

Post by wonderwonder » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:39 AM UTC

SCUSKU wrote: post #768

hossbeast wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem you're going to run into with this argument is that people like cars, like to drive them, and want to own them.

That may be the case for some car fanatics, but by and large the average person simply wants easy and flexible transportation. If public transportation were better, lots of people would opt to take the local train/bus/ride share because it would be a fraction of the cost, with ideally only slightly more friction as a passenger.

I really don't this this, I think the average person really wants a good reliable car. Cars are pretty nice to have. Travelled to an Airbnb 3 hours away with my dogs and kids last weekend. No way I could have done that in 3 hours with public transportation. Even if I took a train that allowed my pets, you still face the issue of the last mile or 5 from the terminal. There are also no crazy people in my car and I don't have to worry about someone sitting next to me coughing. If anything this pandemic has made me appreciate cars all the more so.

Without a car, everything transportation related has to be planned and weighed.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#849

Post by makeworld » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:44 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #832

hannasanarion wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which is why I didn't say anything about horses. Opposition to cars, like opposition to bitcoin, isn't rustic ludditism. There are modern solutions to transportation that are superior to cars, like rail, frequent busses, and bike infrastructure, but lose out in funding and hype because they're not prestigious and utopian like cars are. Likewise, Bitcoin does not solve any problem that any other transaction netwo…

I need to haul an old kitchen oven to my dad's house so he can cook dinner, since his failed. Dad lives deep in the mountains at the end of a dirt road, far from any train station. I've got a 20 foot fishing boat sitting in my backyard. I want to take it out on the lake. I'd like to visit my in-laws who live on a farm in a rural town without bus service, 200 miles away. The temperature is a few degrees above freezing…

There are still genuine uses for cars, and I doubt OP would disagree. But in urban areas your example situations aren't relevant. The point is that cars are inefficient in most if not all urban cases.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#850

Post by dnautics » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

kiliantics wrote: post #321

dnautics wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't too far off from the point that David graeber makes in debt: the first 5000 years

I think this is a rosy-eyed view. Money is a formalised manifestation of debt, which previously was an informal system of reciprocity and altruism. But formalising this debt with financial and monetary systems destroyed the altruistic part of the arrangement. Graeber explains how money was created by states to enforce its authority and basically coerce people into participation. The anonymity of monetary debt and the…

I thought that "darkness" was slyly implied in the dawkins quote