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Comment by cogman10 | Hacker News Reader

This is pure garbage. The problem bitcoin solves, a distributed ledger, is one that's simply solved with a ledger over a trust network. In otherwords, this is a "solution" that is burning TWh of energy doing something global banks accomplish with kWh of power.

All the power funneled into BTC would be far better spent doing anything useful. From electrolysis to protein folding.

Also, it should be noted that shiny rocks have intrinsic value beyond their aesthetics. BTC is literally just a number with no value.

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Central banks don't do fixed supply money. Investment banks don't do payments and financial products that don't involve a middleman.

Bitcoin is a censorship resistant, neutral money and payment network. Banks don't do that. Banks don't consume "kWh of power" by the way. From the endless wars to protect the US (dollar) hegemony to 50 floor buildings draped in marble. Thats all cost + energy.

Bitcoin couldn't exist without the same endless wars and hegemony. Where do you think the computational power COMES from?

That's why it's a bad faith argument. The only thing bitcoiners want to compare is the power cost of running the mining rigs. Why don't they include the cost to manufacture said rigs? To mine minerals to build the silicon needed to power their currency? Why don't they include the governments needed to make sure the equipment supply chains are properly maintained? Why don't they include the amount of power needed to run the servers and switches needed to power the internet needed to run btc? Why aren't you looking at the construction costs for the buildings housing the mining rigs?

I'll tell you why, because they aren't making a good faith argument. They are trying to come up with ways to make BTC good and banking bad. That's it.

Lots of things cost energy. The question has to be "what are we accomplishing with that spent energy". When two algorithms do the same thing and one burns TWh while the other burns kwh.. guess which one I'm going to favor?

Your arguments are just a whole load of strawmen. You don't address the central point. Bitcoin exists, and banks don't do it what it does. Hence the energy cost comparisons as rough and silly as you make them are not a conclusion to bitcoin's value.

>over a trust network

There's your problem, you don't understand that bitcoin is trustless and the worlds first implementation of it's kind. If you can't understand why that's important I don't have the time to convince you.

lol. Oh I understand what bitcoin is, I just think it has no value. You are arguing that bogosort, because it's the first sort of it's kind to use a random number generator, MUST have some value! After all, look at all the watts it burns!

Just because someone does something first, doesn't mean that thing is useful or good.

>I just think it has no value.

Don't use it then, but why would you also disparage the millions of people who are happily finding value in it?

>Just because someone does something first, doesn't mean that thing is useful or good.

Well done creating your amazing straw man.

> Why would you also disparage the millions of people who are happily finding value in it?

Because it's an environmental disaster causing a bunch of modern issues and the defenders are being annoyingly naive about.

BTC uses a ton of power, requires a ton of equipment. They solve a problem with TWh of power that is simply solved globally with kwh of power. It is beyond wasteful.

> Well done creating your amazing straw man.

Nah, BTC is just beyond pointless. You are arguing that it's special, but have a hard time actually articulating WHY it's special "If you can't see this, then I don't have time to explain".

That's the same line cult members use defending their faith. It's a mental shortcut to avoid critically analyzing something you've bought into.

BTC encourages figuring out the price of power which is an environmental goal because if that power produces greenhouse gases a carbon tax should apply. The loophole is the same loophole that allows some nations to keep pumping gas house gases without paying for the environmental cost.

BTC isn't bad for the environment carbon poluting energy is. Energy from non-carbon freeing sources makes bitcoin a greencoin. We need to fix where we get energy from and price it accordingly. BTC exposes this.

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