shooting ourselves in the foot with cryptocurrencies might not be worth the environmental impact it undeniably causes.
if you want to gamble, go to Las Vegas!
if you want to gamble, go to Las Vegas!
The casinos in Las Vegas do consume more than several countries, but also they consume less in an absolute sense than Bitcoin does. However I think we can agree the utility they provide is nothing more than mere entertainment.
Because AFAICT, the number 2 cryptocurrency going PoS is positive, but doesn't necessarily solve the whole problem, and the actual switch-over might still be years away anyway.
There is no us.
The industrial revolution was also bad for the environment. And it's the single most important reason why we are arguing across countries now in home using cheap devices made in China.
So, just drop the environmental impact. Geez, makes me want to buy BitCoin just to spite you.
We are in a world where excessive use of fossil energy is a massive problem.
At such a time, bringing a new financial instrument into the world that uses more power than mid-sized countries is irresponsible if not downright malicious.
Sorry if that annoys you.
If you want to decrease fossil fuel consumption then you should be crusading for worldwide carbon taxes, not bans on new technologies.
Right now, yes it is. we do not have unlimited clean energy.
> Every technological improvement increases the energy usage of our species.
This is a huge assertion.
> If you want to decrease fossil fuel consumption then you should be crusading for worldwide carbon taxes, not bans on new technologies.
Great, and in the mean time, until we get there, spinning up a new financial instrument that uses more power than the Netherlands is massively irresponsible if not outright malicious.
Your argument is effectively that we can never call anything an irresponsible use of energy. With the background of global climate change, I very much disagree.
What I am saying is that we can't by default call all new technologies an irresponsible use of energy either.
The fact that it uses energy is not justification alone that it is bad. We use energy to achieve utility for our species. The only way we could stop all our energy consumption would be to cease to exist.
So, why is Bitcoin an irresponsible use and other technologies are a responsible use? THAT is the interesting question. Volume alone can't be enough to justify it because many important technologies use way more energy than Bitcoin at only 0.6% of global use.
So it must come down to an opinion that cryptocurrencies aren't useful: that is the real disagreement here. It isn't about energy usage, but usefulness (per unit of energy usage), which is a highly subjective judgement. That is what I am trying to point out.
Who's talking about stopping all energy consumption?
> So, why is Bitcoin an irresponsible use and other technologies are a responsible use?
New financial instrument brought online during a climate crisis uses more power than most countries == irresponsible/malicious.
There, made that simple for you.
If you want to argue your opinion that such a thing is worthwhile given the background, that's a pretty steep hill to climb.
I didn't.
New financial instrument using more power than most countries. Thought you might have got that by now.
> Why is it more irresponsible than other technologies which use more energy than it?
Nobody is making that argument. This is just whataboutery. But in general, the fact that it's a new financial instrument using more power than most countries, at a time when we have a global climate crisis brought on largely by our energy usage.
But you haven't justified why that is an irresponsible use.
> Nobody is making that argument. This is just whataboutery.
Yes, true, I guess you never claimed that the other ~99.4% of energy usage isn't actually less justified than Bitcoin. Sorry to imply otherwise.
Because it's just a financial instrument, and it uses more power than the Netherlands, and we have a climate crisis going on. I'm not sure what it is you don't see here.
Any new financial instrument that added a whole country to the energy map like that would be a bad thing.
It's not measly, it's enough for entire countries of many millions of people. Most countries in fact. That you seek to cast it as "measly" shows that you also are simply seeking to dismiss or whitewash, rather than take the issue seriously.
I think you would drop this opinion very quick if the energy we where talking about was being used for your life support. We live in a capitalist world our financial systems are everyones life support.
This does not describe cryptocurrency.
Who cares how much energy it uses in aggregate. That energy is paid for. If we are under such an energy shortage problem then I assume individual countries will start rationing it out or switching to renewables or whatever.
It's such a weird attack angle that seems to have latched on some people's minds like glue. Did we ever look at the aggregate impact of every thing in the world? What is the aggregate impact of Facebook? What is the aggregate impact of gas cars? What is the aggregate impact of lawn mowing world wide? What is the aggregate impact of smoking?
Like... of all the things.
It's a global system that runs non-stop, world wide. It would be quite remarkable if it didn't use energy.