disruptalot

This is backwards. The energy needed for mining is the only reason the product (Bitcoin) can exist and make any sense.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Bitcoin is the best performing asset in the last 10 years yes, and there are clear reasons as to why.

It's the store of value component of Gold and it can perform that role in a much better way. If we took that property alone, it should realize a market value of around $7T.

Shouldn't it be more of a credit to the invention rather than a failure?

Valid point. I wouldn't say large swings is necessarily an indication of failure though. It is expected for Bitcoin to swing wildly because in contrast to gold, it's very accessible and in this age information is quick and erratic.

You can't. Along with energy, it's the most finite asset you have. Which is why it's critical that you store it in the best medium possible.

Every position is more or less speculative. This is why "asset management" is a thing.

Nobody knows what gold or fiat is going to do next either:

- Fiat can be advertised in whichever way but ultimately there is no guarantee things will behave the same as it's centrally planned. The pandemic triggered unprecedented action from the money printer.

- Producing more efficient ways of mining gold, discovering new reserves on the planet or outwith will trigger a re pricing of gold's value.

The only meaningful horizon is time, and so far Bitcoin is doing well.

You wouldn't chase a store of value asset when money is being flooded into the system at record levels? Doesn't sound like very good advice. Indeed stocks, real estate etc. are being bought up for the same reason. Some people use Bitcoin for that purpose.

Bitcoin without PoW has no value. It's the entire reason it works. Without expending a finite resource to produce another, you can't constrain a money supply nor prevent it from attacks.

Governments would be unwise to ban a voluntary system for the same reason they don't ban any other uses of energy that people question the value of (there are plenty). In any case, it will not stop, only move. If not to another massive farm in a favorable jurisdiction (that could be captured) then to smaller sections where it is unidentifiable.

Important to remember where these allegations originate from.

Timnit Gebru was fired from Google after threatening to quit unless Google reveled the identities of the reviewers of her paper that was not received well while accusing them of sex/race based discrimination.

You can find some of the experiences of her from previous colleagues. You'll find the toxicity that she used in her time there and how she is picking the race/sex card on every situation. This is likely a continuation of that.

Not that the allegations can't be true, but people like this are really diluting the message and making it hard to tell the legitimate from exaggerated hit pieces.

What calculation do you propose? And which asset doesn't behave in this way?

Bitcoin _is_ money though. It's only logical that buying into the concept will have returns.

Yes people speculate on it, does it mean no one really believes in it's value propositions? This argument has very little weight when you compare it to anything else. Is the majority of the stock market all about profit? There's very little of the traditional stock pricing going on anymore.

"Relatively constant over a year" seems very loose don't you think? In the past year we've seen an unprecedented injection of money into the system. Presuming you're living in the U.S. have a look south of the border to find out how every national currency is always a few economic policies from throwing inflation targets out of the window.

When Bitcoiners talk about "inflation" they don't mean inflation of prices. They mean loss of purchasing power.

Demand-pull inflation in fact is exactly what is happening with Bitcoin and bitcoiners would agree. There's huge demand for bitcoin and an ever reduction of circulating supply. What that means is that it can maintain/increase purchasing power incredibly relative to other assets that have unconstrained and erratic supply (fiat).

To answer your question, you might for a second want to consider that your ideas about Bitcoin are incorrect.

This is not how it works at all. A bitcoin block can have 0 transactions and still need the same energy to produce.

a) Sending payments is not the only purpose of the network, it's issuance, it's security, it's to make the ledger immutable.

b) No one's buying a burger with bitcoin. Bitcoin's production is a monetary base. Using the same block space you can have an infinite number of economic transactions happen with the same power consumption (block) on multiple layers, each with a degrading level of security. Of course you don't need the full force of the bitcoin network for a coffee or burger.

This thread is nothing new. This exact sentiment has been repeated over and over for the last 10 years.

From the angle that bitcoin is useless, it's easy to dismiss it as waste. The reality is that you live in world where people have different understandings and values than you may have. So advocating against Bitcoin is no different than advocating against air travel. You see no issue in the huge amounts of energy consumption for "seeing the world" and "business travel" but maybe I do.

Use resources the way you wish and so will others. Free markets will decide where scarce resources work best.

So is just about every other technology you can imagine. Namely air travel. Maybe you have clearer points. Probably they've been debunked 100 times over.

Bitcoin is not simply transactions.

- Bitcoin is an algorithmic and unchangeable monetary base.

- It's an un-censorable, neutral global payment network

- It's an immutable ledger.

What are you familiar with to compare to such a thing?

Why don't we just shutdown the internet? We can finally get rid of it all.

I may have made some assumptions about you personally but the points still stand.

You can speak for yourself with regards to your need for social media or platforming of any kind. Just remember that where we're going, there are no limits. Next you're off HN. Next is hosting providers. Then it's the internet (ISPs). So sure, they're all private companies but to ignore that fundamental impact is odd to say the least.

I will assume then, that you also concluded that BLM supporters as a group did not "express themselves peacefully" as there were plenty of linked violence, in aggregate well beyond what we witnessed a few days ago. It would be a breath of fresh air if that was really the case but I struggle to find consistency of principle among people these days and making that comparison is an attempt to highlight that.

> Who on earth says they need or deserve a "public channel to express themselves"?

This is prime "Free Speech for Me - But Not for Thee".

You're making a very easy generalization. Not any significant portion of people expressing themselves contributed to any of the events you are mentioning. It's funny because you can read the exact same thought process from the opposite side, against say the BLM protests.

The same tired arguments as ever: miner death spiral, not scarce, ponzi, tether etc. But with a new timeline. I'm sure it'll happen this year!

The existence of white supremacy and bogus academia is not mutually exclusive. Of course it depends how you want to define it.

I find it odd from the opposite perspective. Why did the most clearly mission critical team in the company find social issues more appropriate at work than their job at hand? Surely if you could pick a single team who's work area doesn't have any relation to politics, it would be this one?

And then where do you go? Is there _really_ an alternative to the facebook and twitter where you have the same integration to the world? This is the key question with the simple argument that private companies are free to curate in a completely opaque way.

"banning LGBT content" entirely is the wrong argument here. There could be a perfectly reasonable arguments for why a specific piece of LGBT content would be banned. At which point you will hear the "It's a private company" proponents switch up the line and argue how it's not right.

This interpretation of a platform turns Facebook into a publisher (section 230). Meaning, there is no limit to how much Facebook is obliged to curate it's content. Down this line, very quickly facebook becomes useless as an open communication mechanism.

Taking any demographic and extrapolating the actions of a few to the whole, then basing policies around that is "systemic racism". But not if you're white. News flash, you're not looking for equality with that mindset.

Problem is, making accusation of such is a breeze.

> Intentionally posting or disseminating libel, slander, or other disinformation.

Let's face it. It's just a policy that allows them to expel anyone that doesn't fit their views, whatever that may be.

> Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences.

> Gracefully accepting constructive feedback.

> Showing empathy and kindness towards other community members.

Yada yada, seemingly inclusive and tolerant then goes on to add a catch all list where every possible action can be deemed unacceptable, getting you expelled everywhere and "identification of the participant as a harasser to other members or the general public."

Anti meritocracy is a cover for the most intolerant.

That would be clearly in line with their mission?