In other words, US is the #1 backer if imaginary assets which are also the best trick used by major multinationals to shift their tax burden. In order to solve this problem US does not get rid of imaginary assets but raises the tax on the world.
Sure, so the competitive advantage of poor countries will be what -- low wages?
It could be worse. If these doesn't exclude small time exporters, and they need to report to foreign tax bureaus; I can see them having trouble doing any exports or having to go through intermediaries who will make additional charges.
Remember just yesterday the same thread from dailymail was remove from YCombinator.
This site is censored to the gills. You can talk all you want about tech stuff, but don't cross the boundaries. That is, until it hits a major paper and then perhaps it can't be ignored.
Barely. If you want to just run some compiled C app then you don't need as much tools. You can even skip the BusyBox part and instead of shell running your application only.
But I don't think it is what you want. For sane set of tools it was a little bit over 1MB. Mine is bigger as I still need more tools for fixing/experimenting on live system (I'm using shell scripts for my application). In the end I will be removing more and more tools.
This environmental impact of crypto is like a virus that spreads and spreads. A meme if you will.
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.
"Other things have caused pollution, therefore you can't criticise my thing"
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.
Increasing the energy usage of our species is not "irresponsible" or "malicious". Every technological improvement increases the energy usage of our species. I think that is the point they are making, that it is wrong to say that using energy is strictly a bad thing.
If you want to decrease fossil fuel consumption then you should be crusading for worldwide carbon taxes, not bans on new technologies.
> Increasing the energy usage of our species is not "irresponsible" or "malicious".
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.
Where is exactly is the line? I don't know and I'm not convinced that that's an interesting question. I'd say that it's significantly below bringing entire new country's worth of energy consumption online for a financial scheme.
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.
I'm not saying we can never call anything an irresponsible use of energy.
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.
I never claimed you did. I am just saying that you haven't justified why Bitcoin is actually an irresponsible use of energy. What makes its usage level irresponsible? Why is it more irresponsible than other technologies which use more energy than it?
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.
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.
You are implying that's an obvious judgement but the wide ranges of opinions in the daily cryptocurrency threads on here should clearly show you that it is NOT an obvious judgement. Why are financial instruments not important enough to warrant a measly 0.6% of worldwide consumption?
Such opinions on the cryptocurrency threads tend to come from biased/invested sources who want to either whitewash or ignore it, very few even try to justify it, just dismiss concerns.
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.
> Increasing the energy usage of our species is not "irresponsible" or "malicious".
Right now, yes it is. we do not have unlimited clean energy.
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.
It doesn't annoy me at all. Your attitude annoys me.
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.
Sure, so the competitive advantage of poor countries will be what -- low wages?
This is nothing more than ladder pulling.