That this craze receives so much attention and funding while we face very real existential challenges is maddening.
There's something fundamentally wrong with the idea of deciding for people what might improve their lives and what isn't allowed to try, rather than letting them decide for themselves individually. People decide to allocate those resources, for something they consider worthwhile. Some of them think they'll get rich. Some of them think they're changing how the world does business or exchanges money. Perhaps some of them are right; perhaps none are right but a successor that learns from them will be; perhaps they'll solve a novel problem or perhaps they won't. The world needs room to experiment with interesting ideas.
I disagree, I don't think this at all an a priori wrong. It's helpful to consider the limit case.
If we lived in a world, for instance, where one person owned all of the food in the world and didn't want anyone else to eat it, it would be permissible for the other 7 billion people in the world to "decide for" that one that their food will be redistributed.
What if you are the only one without, would the 7 billion agree the person is morally correct to steal from them?
I don't believe I did this. What I do, though, is measure the actual positive impact this tech has now.
> The world needs room to experiment with interesting ideas.
Bitcoin is way past the experimental phase.
> rather than letting them decide for themselves individually.
We're talking about something that has systemic impacts. Once individual actions reach such a scale that others get impacted, it's normal for society to get involved and set rules.
So far, the prevalent stories have been about servicing people living in countries suffering from hyperinflation, which is just as easily done with a foreign currency.
Another common point is the promotion of smart contracts. It seems to me that these tools are still anecdotal, and don't really provide a significant competitive advantage compared to standard contracts. Besides, cryptos not using pow and incorporating good tooling are much better suited for that.
The decentralized nature of the ledger is another common selling point, but proponents don't really tie it to a material benefit.
Other impacts, usually not really promoted are its support to illegal activities such as digital racketeering, money laundering, etc. For instance, the financial aspect of ransomware is usually supported by this technology.
If you feel I have missed some impacts, feel free to point them out.
There's a reason companies and major asset holders are putting 1-10% of their portfolios into Btc, and I assure you it's not only speculation.
If at some point the economy gets better and people want to invest back into actual stuff, what happens to the late leavers?
I don't think just measuring the carbon footprint is giving you an accurate measurement.
This is literally the whole point of having law.
The track record of “for the people’s good” juntas is poor. When they aren’t venally stripping the populace, they’re squashing any hint of innovative challenge to the incumbency.
In the real world, "utility" doesn't exist unless it benefits a select few.
Investments have utility, speculation does not.
Time was Bitcoin proponents would talk about the future of money (investment).
Now everyone just wants to get rich at the expense if the poor fool who comes later (speculation). We're now at the mania stage of this bubble, where crazy things happen and ordinary people invest because of the distorted prices.
State governments have had a monopoly on lotteries for my entire lifetime, so if we've granted that crypto is nothing beyond a lottery ticket, then there is no issue with society regulating it to whatever degree we can agree on.
For the utility of decentralized currencies, it's best you get information from more than an Internet comment. Which sources have you used already?
On net, was it welfare enhancing for our species though? If I make $1 off of emissions that cause external harm worth $2 distributed among the 7 billion people on this planet, I'm basically just laundering money through a loophole in what the law today considers to be harming someone else.
To be honest the sports industry uses tons of energy in lighting stadiums, streaming them, training players, it goes on and on. Entertainment could be done much more cheaply and effectively. I think society should outlaw sport - so many people are hurt in injuries, and the climate is just utterly demolished through all the energy waste. I can’t see a reason why society would allow sports. It’s ultimately beneficial to a very small amount of owners and their players (who are exploited!) that take all the cream off the top. Completely immoral honestly. The fact society wastes so much thought, effort, energy, focus, when we could instead be going to Mars or training STEM graduates is just criminal.
The most extreme arguments I can muster? There are tons of industries that produce negative net value when accounting for externalities. $1 in profit for $2 in external harm is not at all that ridiculous.
> I think society should outlaw sport - so many people are hurt in injuries
My argument is that we should price carbon usage to account for externalities. I highly doubt sports turns out to be net unprofitable, even once accounting for those externalities.
Bitcoin is between high finance and casinos. Both are highly regulated.
More importantly, creating new bitcoins is not tied to the creation of new counterparts. Essentially, when someone mines bitcoins, they are not involved in a productive act.