Bitcoin discussion and news

[camouflage]

You are ascribing the environmental costs of an aircraft carrier (and all of those costs, at that) to the transaction system of the nation state that owns it. That's what you just did in your attempt to whatabout. That's the point you've reached in your apparent studied indifference to defending bitcoin.

A promise of this crypto lark is about cutting out middle-men isn't it, you can argue whether or not bitcoin succeeds in that (somewhat- in parts) but the costs that the nation-state has to bear (or for political factions to convince people it must bear) to make "the world safe for capital" in which Visa plays a central role, to pretend that's not relevant is your own form of apologism. I myself am a chartalist when it comes to money, I actually believe the state is a good and necessary thing, I don't like the capture by elites and various other "bads" but like fiat itself I'm certainly not against the principal of it (I strongly suspect it could be done better though and be done without the appetite for wars etc).

Libertarians don't grok that Power is above Money, that's a central reason for why they come across as so naive, deluded and narrow-minded in my opinion, their other errors stem from that basic failure. The central role of the state is the management of power and force. Over there on the other side of the room if something like bitcoin has value then it has value, and it doesn't need to be called "money" to have that value. Can its value be made sustainable? I hope so, energy unsustainability is often why we can't have nice things. Nation-states (and therefore tax-payers) shouldn't have to pay for aircraft-carriers and banker bonuses just to be able to do the Sunday shop.

Your use of the term "whataboutism" is telling by the way.

 

[mwgdrwg]

You're comparing the energy use of a tiny fraction of a microcosm of 0.000001% of the world's transactions to ALL THE ENERGY USED BY THE BIGGEST SUPERPOWER. I don't even know where to start in making meaning from that....

...to counteract the Bitcoin will kill us mania in here.

 

[mwgdrwg]

...to counteract the Bitcoin will kill us mania in here. I can compare it to America if everyone else is comparing it to Ireland or Denmark. Please reade the preface.

 

[kabbes]

A promise of this crypto lark is about cutting out middle-men isn't it, you can argue whether or not bitcoin succeeds in that (somewhat- in parts) but the costs that the nation-state has to bear (or for political factions to convince people it must bear) to make "the world safe for capital" in which Visa plays a central role, to pretend that's not relevant is your own form of apologism. I myself am a chartalist when it comes to money, I actually believe the state is a good and necessary thing.

Libertarians don't grok that Power is above Money, that's a central reason for why they come across as so naive, deluded and narrow-minded in my opinion, their other errors stem from that basic failure. Your use of the term "whataboutism" is telling by the way.

You're the one telling us that bitcoin just is what it is, regardless of intended ideology. So if it succeeds, is it about cutting out the "middle-men" (by which you mean, what, the nation-state itself?) or is the world going to carry on as it does but with a different unit of transaction?

For somebody who keeps insisting you are neutral to the concepts and not ideologically committed, you're making some extraordinarily ideological statements.

 

[kabbes]

...to counteract the Bitcoin will kill us mania in here.

Once again, you ignore the exponential growth in the power consumption of bitcoin.

 

[mwgdrwg]

Once again, you ignore the exponential growth in the power consumption of bitcoin.

Yeah that is a really fucking bad possibility in future decades as you say. But hopefully we will have laws or quantum computing by the which will limit Bitcoin power usage way before that happens.

 

[kabbes]

Yeah that is a really fucking bad possibility in future decades as you say. But hopefully we will have laws or quantum computing by the which will limit Bitcoin power usage way before that happens.

So I assume from your reliance on this that you are working hard to make that come about, yeah? It wouldn't just be blind hope on the grounds that it makes you feel better about fucking over the planet, I take it?

You better be really, really quick with your research, mind.

Bitcoin's meteoric rise is very bad news for the environment

A network that underpins the virtual currency bitcoin is projected to require all of the world’s current energy production in order to support itself within three years, according to estimates.

This is the thing with exponential growth. It tends to happen even faster than you expect. My "decades" was hopelessly optimistic, as it turns out.

The bitcoin network’s energy consumption has increased by 25 percent in the last month alone, according to Digiconomist. If such growth were to continue, this would see the network consume as much energy as the U.S. by 2019, and as much energy as the entire world by the end of 2020.

 

[joustmaster]

I'm excited to see what happens in a two years when bitcoin's power consumption outstrips the current plants total power production.

 

[joustmaster]

Or it could be that the maths is wrong.

 

[kabbes]

Or it could be that the maths is wrong.

We'll add that with the special quantum computers and mysterious physics-defying laws we're going to write to our stack of get-out-of-jail-free cards.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

it looks like people on this thread now take bitcoin seriously enough to consider it a threat because of the energy demand whereas previously all one could get was a "lol, wut?"

Yes. Without the energy demand, it would be pretty irrelevant to most people, certainly to me. A tiny niche thing for people who want to buy and sell illegal stuff without getting caught, with a pyramid scheme attached to it. But unfortunately that pyramid scheme has proved so successful that it has drawn in significant real-world resources and is drawing in those resources at an exponentially growing rate. At that point, the rest of us are entitled to get involved. One planet, and all that.

 

[Crispy]

Or it could be that the maths is wrong.

The maths is right and it's going to put a hard brake on the system's growth.

 

[mwgdrwg]

So I assume from your reliance on this that you are working hard to make that come about, yeah? It wouldn't just be blind hope on the grounds that it makes you feel better about fucking over the planet, I take it?

You are coming across as extremely condascending and holier-than-thou, don't presume to know what I think. Don't label me greedy or uncaring of the earth, you are a million miles away from who I am.

I'm actually becoming increasingly aware of the problem that the energy use is, I had been unaware of it until I read a post by someone in this thread only a week or so ago. I am thinking of getting out. Let's discuss things rationally eh. I'd like to keep reading this thread and different people's viewpoints.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Nobody wins arguments with Physics, at least on this side of an event horizon.

There is no pretending that wasting energy like this is anything other than madness. Cos Physics.

 

[kabbes]

You are coming across as extremely condascending and holier-than-thou, don't presume to know what I think. Don't label me greedy or uncaring of the earth, you are a million miles away from who I am.

I'm actually becoming increasingly aware of the problem that the energy use is, I had been unaware of it until I read a post by someone in this thread only a week or so ago. I am thinking of getting out. Let's discuss things rationally eh. I'd like to keep reading this thread and different people's viewpoints.

Your posts in the last page have not been about "discussing things rationally". They have been about making statements like the one below, which utterly misstate the disaster we are facing, even after I pointed out to you the fallacy you were engaging in:

Yeah that is a really fucking bad possibility in future decades as you say. But hopefully we will have laws or quantum computing by the which will limit Bitcoin power usage way before that happens.

That's out and out cognitive dissonance, not rationality.

 

[joustmaster]

The maths is right and it's going to put a hard brake on the system's growth.

have you actually followed through and read the way it was calculated, and looked at the assumptions. I had a quick glance at it all and I'm not convinced that it was done very well.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

have you actually followed through and read the way it was calculated, and looked at the assumptions. I had a quick glance at it all and I'm not convinced that it was done very well.

You've questioned the maths every time it's been quoted though. Can you be specific about what you think is wrong with it? Cos I get the impression that you really want it to be wrong.

 

[Crispy]

have you actually followed through and read the way it was calculated, and looked at the assumptions. I had a quick glance at it all and I'm not convinced that it was done very well.

Exponential growth doesn't really care where it starts from.

 

[joustmaster]

You've questioned the maths every time it's been quoted though. Can you be specific about what you think is wrong with it? Cos I get the impression that you really want it to be wrong.

I don't care either way. I'm only interested in it from a computer programmer and networking point of view.
The assumptions in the calculations seemed odd. Based on one small chinese mining operation that they visited, but they refused to show them what h/w they were using.

 

[joustmaster]

Exponential growth doesn't really care where it starts from.

Sure. I'm just interested in the specifics of the calculation and what it was based on.

 

[bimble]

The Newsweek article when it says their calculation is based on what will happen if btc continues at its current ‘growth trajectory’ what does it mean, growth of what - users or value or transactions?
And anyway doesn’t this massive energy-use issue guarantee that it’ll collapse ?

 

[kabbes]

The Newsweek article when it says their calculation is based on what will happen if btc continues as current ‘growth trajectory’ what does it mean, growth of what - users or value or transactions?
And anyway doesn’t this massive energy-use issue guarantee that it’ll collapse ?

Yes, the point is that it is literally, not metaphorically, unsustainable. It won’t reach 100% of planetary output, because how can it? The point is that something must give and give quickly.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The Newsweek article when it says their calculation is based on what will happen if btc continues at its current ‘growth trajectory’ what does it mean, growth of what - users or value or transactions?
And anyway doesn’t this massive energy-use issue guarantee that it’ll collapse ?

Growth of energy use, which is linked to the bubble, of course - if the value of bc collapses, nobody is going to be hooking up to power stations to mine it. The transactions remain tiny, really really tiny. The actual use value of bitcoin is really really tiny, and very likely to remain so. That is not what is driving this.

Making predictions can make anyone look very silly, but I can't see bc ending gently. I see it ending in an almighty and extremely rapid crash, of Dutch tulip bulb proportions.

 

[NoXion]

...to counteract the Bitcoin will kill us mania in here.

The problem isn't "BitCoin will kill us", the problem is "BitCoin uses insane amounts of energy despite being a niche thing, and it's getting more popular which means the amount of energy used can only get larger, and this is bad for the fight against climate change".

I mean, if I wanted to design something that would help make the world a worse place by taking advantage of the more selfish sides of humanity, I don't think I could come up with anything more effective for that purpose than BitCoin.

 

[DotCommunist]

you know the bloke who invented leaded petrol also invented CFC's? what a prick.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

you know the bloke who invented leaded petrol also invented CFC's? what a prick.

But he was trying to help...

 

[NoXion]

you know the bloke who invented leaded petrol also invented CFC's? what a prick.

The effects of CFCs on the ozone layer were only discovered after their inventor had died. Thomas Midgly Jr may have been feeling some guilt for the damage caused by tetraethyl lead, especially after he himself contracted lead poisoning. And considering how toxic, flammable and explosive the old refrigerants were that CFCs replaced, their invention was overall a good thing. No replacement or substitute is going to be perfect, and we shouldn't let unknown future risks paralyse us from fixing stuff that's causing problems in the here and now.

However, BitCoin has no saving graces that make its exorbitant energy use worthwhile.

 

[camouflage]

You're the one telling us that bitcoin just is what it is, regardless of intended ideology. So if it succeeds, is it about cutting out the "middle-men" (by which you mean, what, the nation-state itself?) or is the world going to carry on as it does but with a different unit of transaction?

For somebody who keeps insisting you are neutral to the concepts and not ideologically committed, you're making some extraordinarily ideological statements.

I dont consider the nation state to be the middle man no. By the way based on my own humble understanding of how it works, the way the banking system works reminds me of feudalism. You have the king as the authority provider and then you have the aristocracy as the local licenced distributors of that authority, perhaps even acting as an authority-distribution cartel. In this bitcoin discussion however bitcoin is like gold unstamped by the face of the king, it's true to question if it counts as currency, it could be the base layer of bitcoin layer-2 currencies to come but for now its just a gold-like thing that there's a market for.

In olden times people valued and traded gold and the state'tried'to accumilate as much of it as possible using mercentalist strategies but'just because good was only backed by being gold that did not stop states from forming or make them go away.

Right up till Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard to pay off the debts of Americas wars in Asia, what you use as money is not central to what states do. So I guess the middle man here would be the aristocracy of the banking industry.

 

[camouflage]

Yes. Without the energy demand, it would be pretty irrelevant to most people, certainly to me. A tiny niche thing for people who want to buy and sell illegal stuff without getting caught, with a pyramid scheme attached to it. But unfortunately that pyramid scheme has proved so successful that it has drawn in significant real-world resources and is drawing in those resources at an exponentially growing rate. At that point, the rest of us are entitled to get involved. One planet, and all that.

For clarity could you explain what you think a pyramid scheme is?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

For clarity could you explain what you think a pyramid scheme is?

People pay in to a scheme, in this case, buying/mining for bitcoin, to gain a stake in a business that has virtually no actual real-world value. They buy into it because they think the value of their stake is going to go up. As some point, confidence in the business collapses and so the value of the stakes vanishes into thin air. With no actual real-world value backing it up, it turns into next-to-nothing. In the tulip bulb craze in Holland, this complete collapse happened in the space of just a couple of weeks. If anything I could see it happening even quicker with bitcoin.

ETA: It is a pyramid because the few who got in early can make money, but only from the many who are left with nothing at the end. That's the only source of their money - because there's no real-world value production involved. Anyone who makes money out of buying/mining and then selling bitcoin is profiting from the losses that are made by all those who are left holding the baby at the end.