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Comment by verisimi | Hacker News Reader

> the second is a way to waste our electricity

I wonder how much electricity has been wasted on cat videos...

There are all sorts of wastes - the process of waste in attempting to find (R&D) a good crypto, should lead to a net gain in the long run. Cat videos, not so much..

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There are a zillion wasteful activities. I think what gets me, and where the arguments sometimes seem disingenuous, is that in cat videos, the energy waste is "accidental". Both the provider and consumer would readily see it reduced, and in fact optimization happens constantly and mercilessly. Providers typically expend effort to reduce energy expenditure, especially in mature fields, as it represents real cost to bottom line.

In proof of work crypto though, energy expenditure is by design / intentional, and not only that, but designed to consistently increase.

That feels any comparison between POW crypto to anything else not even apples and oranges, more like car accidents and nuclear weapons - one is an accident, the other is designed to nuke you.

Okay, let's do a bit of math.

Each year, Bitcoin produces ~37 megatonnes of CO2 per year (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/environment/as-cryptocur...), and i won't consider any other cryptocurrency.

Now, let's assume for a moment that every single youtube video is a cat video, since i found nothing about how much people watch these. So 10 megatonnes of CO2 per year (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/youtube-digital-waste-intera...).

Obviously this is very unfair to cats. But even if that were the case, with this calculation being _really_ biased for crypto, it's still very bad.

Howaboutism seems to be a core crypto tenet, until someone comes back with a response like this. I also keep hearing "how much energy does the legacy banking system spend"... to which the only real response is: for the value it provides humanity, very little, unlike the top cryptocurrencies.

The "legacy banking system" you are referring to is probably something similar to the ECB or the FED. Only 13% of the world population live under a stable financial system or democracy. So please check your financial privilege.

if you have to resort to telling someone to check their privilege you've already run out of arguments.

I mean am I wrong? I'm assuming you are from the US, Canada or Europe when you say central banks have a net positive impact on society so I can presume you are clearly speaking form a point of privilege. You've never suffered through strict capital controls and hyperinflation. You can participate in any investment scheme without the need to supply spurious amounts of impossible documentation. You are not sanctioned. You may even have born in the right place. Am I wrong? Doesn't that sound like privilege to you?

It's one thing to say "the x you're talking about only applies to some small percentage of the overall global market".

But if you're worried about people's privilege you're missing the point and thats what makes you wrong, because nobody with any intelligence responds to 'check your privilege' with anything but derision. focus on the argument with your own logical persuasive argument instead of accusing your opponent of some sort of original sin.

shouting "check your privilege" at the end of a crypto argument isn't checkmate, rather it reduces your argument to one of nonsense. Discuss ideas.

I just re-read this and the english is terrible, i guess i was tired or something. The point still stands though.

Cat videos are not purposefully distributed uncompressed, in ultra high definition resolution, with extremely high frame rates, including enormous amounts of extra redundant padding, with 24 hour and longer durations, so they take as much time as technologically possible to download.

Cat videos also aren't completely useless: they make people happy. Shitcoins hasn't done anything but scam people and contribute way more CO2.

Cat videos provide tangible relaxation and a way to rest in between other tasks, whereas any Web3 endeavours in the "crypto mainstream" I have seen so far have been purely speculation vehicles disguised as something useful.

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