Online Habits Killing The Planet - Dispatches

[wazzickle]

I'm not really fully in disagreement with much that you guys are saying. A close friend of mine is working for a startup that is aiming to create a second layer on ethereum in order to make it much more efficient. ETH transactions are ridiculously expensive right now to the point where trading is totally unsustainable. I'm not really interested in that. I don't like that bitcoin requires as much energy as it does, but I can see that the establishment is scared of losing it's grip, and has unleashed a concerted propaganda attack, comparing apples and oranges. I don't like the banks - I have seen first hand how money corrupts, and the amount of money in banking is such that everyone - good people included - is corrupted by it to some degree.

I have about £50 worth of btc right now, having sold it all a year ago i.e. before the current boom.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

@CAT-THE-FIFTH you're so right about re-use and repair. I remember when I was a teen in the 90's how many TV repair stores there were. When our TV or VCR had an issue, my dad used to take it to the repair store, and it's fixed and working for a good while. Same with a lot of other products, electronic and otherwise. I was also just thinking about the Red Letter Media's VCR repair store...

But these days, they WANT you to dispose off Tablets etc.... I've had around 25+ Kindle Fire tablets of different sizes and costs in our house to date, since the first one came out, both of which broke their screens and became totally non-functional (think it was glass! and one side stopped working when a crack appeared). A lot of them broke when the kids dropped them... but I've had at least 6 fail because the USB connector, a display connector or something else failed... a couple I think had battery issues in that they won't hold charge... MOST of these technical errors happen just outside the 1 year warranty window.... and for me it's cheaper to replace a broken tablet than getting it repaired! I mean the repair shop probably charges the price of 2 tablets to possibly repair 1!

Again, what others have said above me are right. It's not our fault as consumers that these waste are happening... it's the companies that are making the product with planned obsolescence.

Also desktops these days are NOT that power hungry either. My gaming PC pulls about 450-500W... while the electric radiator we use in winter uses 1200W. And my PC is not on 24/7... just when I use it. I'm going to say it again. Blaming Joe Public is just strawmanning and disingenuous.

The use of proprietary bits and pieces does help at all! I also hate this concept of "fast fashion" which is being hoisted upon us - clothing which does not last!

However,I would say people do also contribute at times,ie,they think because they have something "efficient" they can use it in weird ways,ie,keep a PC on 24/7 for no reason(I have sometimes not bothered to switch my PC off too). Or alternatively just drive to the shops in their "efficient cars" to get a load of bread,when they are perfectly fit and capable of doing a 5 minute walk(OTH,understandable if its inclement weather or if you have health issues). Energy can be saved by also modulating usage habits,instead of just relying on new fangled technology all the time.

[watercooled]

I'm not really fully in disagreement with much that you guys are saying. A close friend of mine is working for a startup that is aiming to create a second layer on ethereum in order to make it much more efficient. ETH transactions are ridiculously expensive right now to the point where trading is totally unsustainable. I'm not really interested in that. I don't like that bitcoin requires as much energy as it does, but I can see that the establishment is scared of losing it's grip, and has unleashed a concerted propaganda attack, comparing apples and oranges. I don't like the banks - I have seen first hand how money corrupts, and the amount of money in banking is such that everyone - good people included - is corrupted by it to some degree.

I have about £50 worth of btc right now, having sold it all a year ago i.e. before the current boom.

ETH doesn't really need a separate project to make it more efficient, it is transitioning to a PoS supposedly around the end of the year, pretty much killing off PoW/mining. It doesn't take the electricity consumption to zero but it goes a long way towards mitigating the sickening environmental impact of PoW algorithms. The fact some people are trying to fork ETH to keep PoW going to the detriment of the network shows what really motivates many of the participants, and it is not about creating an open, accessible currency for the masses.

As you say, things like transaction fees make many of the popular coins totally unsuitable for regular monetary usage, another reason I question their actual worth. At the end of the day, the likes of BTC and ETH completely fail as currencies - they are speculative mediums where everyone is trying to make a quick buck, nothing more. The PoW model literally encourages people to just burn energy to make money*, and the extreme volatility leads others to try to make the right call with buying/selling to make money.

At this stage I don't see the "establishment" scared of much - many established investors see it as another way of making money, much like a very high risk stock. And as long as cryptocurrencies continue their current model of being able to handle a tiny amount of transactions with ridiculous transaction fees, no financial protections and terrifying volatility, I don't think they have much to worry about with regard to widespread adoption, frankly.

Dismissing any complaints as 'propaganda' is just disingenuous. There are *real* problems with the popular cryptocurrencies - and Dances put it quite well, there are already some far superior cryptocurrency models that solve these problems. But people aren't interested in adopting them because they don't satisfy the greed that appears to drive adoption.

*While typing this I thought of the game Little Inferno. If you know it, you'll know what I mean!

[wazzickle]

ETH doesn't really need a separate project to make it more efficient, it is transitioning to a PoS supposedly around the end of the year, pretty much killing off PoW/mining. It doesn't take the electricity consumption to zero but it goes a long way towards mitigating the sickening environmental impact of PoW algorithms. The fact some people are trying to fork ETH to keep PoW going to the detriment of the network shows what really motivates many of the participants, and it is not about creating an open, accessible currency for the masses.

As you say, things like transaction fees make many of the popular coins totally unsuitable for regular monetary usage, another reason I question their actual worth. At the end of the day, the likes of BTC and ETH completely fail as currencies - they are speculative mediums where everyone is trying to make a quick buck, nothing more. The PoW model literally encourages people to just burn energy to make money*, and the extreme volatility leads others to try to make the right call with buying/selling to make money.

At this stage I don't see the "establishment" scared of much - many established investors see it as another way of making money, much like a very high risk stock. And as long as cryptocurrencies continue their current model of being able to handle a tiny amount of transactions with ridiculous transaction fees, no financial protections and terrifying volatility, I don't think they have much to worry about with regard to widespread adoption, frankly.

Dismissing any complaints as 'propaganda' is just disingenuous. There are *real* problems with the popular cryptocurrencies - and Dances put it quite well, there are already some far superior cryptocurrency models that solve these problems. But people aren't interested in adopting them because they don't satisfy the greed that appears to drive adoption.

*While typing this I thought of the game Little Inferno. If you know it, you'll know what I mean!

There's obviously a huge amount of money in crypto, and of course a lot of people are only in it for the money and have no ideological ties to it. At a guess, probably the vast majority of them, even if some of them like the ideology, they wouldn't be in the world if they couldn't make a profit out of it. That doesn't mean that the initial intentions behind it and the ultimate goals are not legitimate.

BTC and ETH do not completely fail as currencies. You do your other arguments a disservice by claiming things absolutely like that. A currency needs to be a useful exchange for goods and/or services. The ideal currency is scarce, durable, (easily) fungible and hard to fake; bitcoin and eth score highly on all of those scores, with the exception of high transaction fees making the fungibility difficult, but with ETH 2.0 and scaling solutions coming in, this will be less of an issue in the future.

Valuable altcoins (valuable according to me, anyway) are ones that offer something beyond just currency, i.e. they serve an actual function. Lots of them do. A lot of them, obviously, don't, either being scams, or just a different version of currency.

I'm not dismissing any and all complaints as propaganda at all. I see that there are issues. I'm definitely an environmentalist, and it makes me sad that I'm using a tool that costs relatively unnecessary energy. I do so in other regards, for example, I drive, and occasionally I take flights (while feeling exceptionally guilty, and trying to donate money to offset the damage done, though aware that it's bs really, and that I'm just paying to assuage my guilt). But I'm in possession of a bigger picture - that to blame climate change on the average person, i.e. me, for my crypto usage or international travel or very occasional meat-eating tendencies, is disingenuous and basically propaganda designed to distract from the real perpetrators, i.e. big industries that seek to justify their rampant destruction of habitats and so on and so on by creating markets for themselves, pushing products onto consumers, encouraging marketing companies to drive demand, etc etc. It's just not the average consumer - even, 8 billion of them - that are the problem when it comes to climate change, and if all crypto activity stopped tomorrow, I'd be shocked if that delayed the timetable of us making the planet completely unlivable by more than a year in a century.

[watercooled]

BTC and ETH do not completely fail as currencies. You do your other arguments a disservice by claiming things absolutely like that. A currency needs to be a useful exchange for goods and/or services. The ideal currency is scarce, durable, (easily) fungible and hard to fake; bitcoin and eth score highly on all of those scores, with the exception of high transaction fees making the fungibility difficult, but with ETH 2.0 and scaling solutions coming in, this will be less of an issue in the future.

You miss another vital aspect of a currency in stability i.e. the total opposite of the huge volatility seen in cryptocurrencies. That, combined with the transaction fees, transaction times, limited transaction processing capability on the network, amongst other reasons, write it off as a serious currency. Plus any actual transactions are realistically compared to existing currencies, be it USD or GBP or EUR. You can't ask someone to pay 0.001BTC for a product and expect to leave it there for months, because that could mean losing money in a month, a week, or perhaps even tomorrow. On the other hand, that same value could be worth more so no-one will pay that price. Once you start asking for "the equivalent of $10 in BTC" it's not an independent currency at all and does not "break free from 'the system'".

A useful currency needs to succeed on all of the aspects. Failing on any one of them means it fails overall.

The likes of BTC or ETH in its current form aren't nearly as open/free/independent as they're made out. Some entities hold considerable power over the network, and the network is currently stacked in favour of profit-making for miners at the expense of usability as a currency.

I'm open minded and in fact interested to see where ETH ends up after 2.0, however there is a lot more work besides transaction processing for it to offer any real advantages as a currency. It absolutely *needs* to be more stable, transactions need to be fast and cheap, as a bare minimum. And on top of that, pro-crypto individuals seem to ignore the real, tangible benefits of conventional banking such as fraud and theft protection, a way to access your life savings should you forget your password, and so on. Plus important regulatory matters like money laundering, tracing of illicit payments for crime prevention, tax evasion, and so on. Yes, I recognise some people see all of that as unnecessary, and that we shouldn't have to pay tax, and the police should be defunded, etc. All equally silly.

ETH 2.0 might form the framework for a workable payment processing system, but it needs a lot more work in front of that to make it a worthwhile alternative as a currency. The fact there are dubious 'stablecoins' tied to USD demonstrates a major fundamental problem with most cryptocurrencies.

I'm not dismissing any and all complaints as propaganda at all. I see that there are issues. I'm definitely an environmentalist, and it makes me sad that I'm using a tool that costs relatively unnecessary energy. I do so in other regards, for example, I drive, and occasionally I take flights (while feeling exceptionally guilty, and trying to donate money to offset the damage done, though aware that it's bs really, and that I'm just paying to assuage my guilt).

The difference is, I'm sure you would choose an alternative method of travel if it was easily accessible and several orders of magnitude less harmful to the environment. In the case of currency, that alternative already exists.

Again, no-one is making the claim that PoW is single-handedly causing global warming, it's just a totally unnecessary waste of resources for dubious *real* benefit. That, and the fact it continues to grow pretty much as fast as processors can be manufactured, is deeply worrying.

[wazzickle]

You miss another vital aspect of a currency in stability i.e. the total opposite of the huge volatility seen in cryptocurrencies. That, combined with the transaction fees, transaction times, limited transaction processing capability on the network, amongst other reasons, write it off as a serious currency. Plus any actual transactions are realistically compared to existing currencies, be it USD or GBP or EUR. You can't ask someone to pay 0.001BTC for a product and expect to leave it there for months, because that could mean losing money in a month, a week, or perhaps even tomorrow. On the other hand, that same value could be worth more so no-one will pay that price. Once you start asking for "the equivalent of $10 in BTC" it's not an independent currency at all and does not "break free from 'the system'".

A useful currency needs to succeed on all of the aspects. Failing on any one of them means it fails overall.

The likes of BTC or ETH in its current form aren't nearly as open/free/independent as they're made out. Some entities hold considerable power over the network, and the network is currently stacked in favour of profit-making for miners at the expense of usability as a currency.

I'm open minded and in fact interested to see where ETH ends up after 2.0, however there is a lot more work besides transaction processing for it to offer any real advantages as a currency. It absolutely *needs* to be more stable, transactions need to be fast and cheap, as a bare minimum. And on top of that, pro-crypto individuals seem to ignore the real, tangible benefits of conventional banking such as fraud and theft protection, a way to access your life savings should you forget your password, and so on. Plus important regulatory matters like money laundering, tracing of illicit payments for crime prevention, tax evasion, and so on. Yes, I recognise some people see all of that as unnecessary, and that we shouldn't have to pay tax, and the police should be defunded, etc. All equally silly.

ETH 2.0 might form the framework for a workable payment processing system, but it needs a lot more work in front of that to make it a worthwhile alternative as a currency. The fact there are dubious 'stablecoins' tied to USD demonstrates a major fundamental problem with most cryptocurrencies.


The difference is, I'm sure you would choose an alternative method of travel if it was easily accessible and several orders of magnitude less harmful to the environment. In the case of currency, that alternative already exists.

Again, no-one is making the claim that PoW is single-handedly causing global warming, it's just a totally unnecessary waste of resources for dubious *real* benefit. That, and the fact it continues to grow pretty much as fast as processors can be manufactured, is deeply worrying.

The benefit is dubious to you. Not to me. You're not being forced to use it. I use it (not exclusively) because politically I think it's important to take power out of the hands of the banks and governments, because they abuse it so wantonly. Because to be part of the banking system is inherently to legitimize it. And though it may come with a higher environmental cost than Visa, that environmental cost is still negligible.

A currency does not need to be stable to be useful. The more stable the more useful, yes, but it's not a binary thing. Currencies still get used when they experience inflation and even hyper-inflation. That they are more volatile makes them less attractive to people who don't like volatility, but as an ex-professional gambler, for example, I'm not particularly bothered by it. You can absolutely expect someone to pay 1btc for a product, and then for them not to convert it into fiat, but simply experience the volatility of it: it may go up, it may go down, for no net loss. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you don't like volatility, no-one else can stand it. Many businesses operate successfully in multiple currencies and experience variations in their float depending on how they count it, and either find ways to mitigate that, automatically offloading some of one currency if it goes up in value too much, or simply weather the swings, depending on how much the board like to gamble.

A useful currency does not need to succeed absolutely in all aspects. Fiat currencies do not absolutely fill all those criterion. They are not absolutely scarce, in the example of hyperinflation, they are not 100% durable, in that they can be burnt, or lost, they are not 100% stable, in that they go up and down, and they are subject to fraud, in basic ways like counterfeiting. They are also not 100% fungible, in basic examples like trying to pay for a bus journey with a £50 note, on higher levels like having international payments costing time and money.

You say you're open-minded, and you probably are in a lot of ways - you seem to know a lot about cryptos, possibly more than me in some ways, but you also seem very hewn to absolutist thinking, mistaking many of my positions for absolutist ones (absolutely none of my positions are absolute). There are benefits and drawbacks of crypto, in the same way there are benefits and drawbacks of the regular banking system, and so on.

You also seem to have clever answers for everything I've said. That may make you clever; but it doesn't necessarily make you right. (Yes, of course, the same criticism can be levelled at me, and I would accept it).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Also the issue with crypto,it's that it already favours the rich or those lucky enough to live in wealthier nations. Anyone who can afford the gear to mine a coin,has free funds already. Anyone who can afford to buy a coin(like buying shares),has free disposable income to do so. A poor farmer in Africa barely making ends meet,is not going to get wealthy from crypto when they lead a hand to mouth existence.

On top of this its the relative wealthy who could afford to sit on coins(like stocks) and wait for the price to increase,so they can convert them into physical items,which is what the rich do with the current Fiat money system. Both the current Fiat money system and crypto are giant ponzi schemes,which in the end mostly screwover the little person who can't take the risk or play the long game. This is literally billions of people.

The poor in the world are not going to generally be made wealthier - most people in the world can't even afford a basic laptop or even a midrange phone.

The only reason why a number of countries are now trying to use crypto,is nothing to do with freedom for their people. Its more to do with the fact us,in Europe and the US control the current economic systems. Restrict access to reserves currencies such as the £/$/Euro and the systems which aid their transfer,and its gameover for a lot of countries. They can't sell or buy a lot of stuff(yes you can barter,but secondary sanctions can cause problems).

This is how we use sanctions to push our will on other countries - crypto due to its nature is probably harder to control in a similar way. So the biggest effect will be making economic systems probably less controlled by a few select countries.

Then because we control the systems,we take a cut of all transactions made in the world,ie,what you call financial services,so again that is less wealth which will come back to us. This earns a ton of money for the UK for example.

This IMHO,is the BIGGEST reason why US/UK/EU probably wants to try and do something about crypto - it actually will reduce our power projection capabilities,and lose our countries wealth.

However,the whole speculative system of our economic systems is what is driving poverty worldwide - to increase margins,it means prices of realworld physical items needed for survival are increasing,but people are getting worked harder and harder,and getting paid relatively less(due to inflation,etc). Countries where all the resources are,and where a lot of the means of production are still relatively poor,ie,if you stop looking at GDP figures,etc but look at the standard of living of most of the general public in those countries. If anything Covid has highlighted the massive divide between the haves and have nots.

Its sheer madness when companies can make record margins and profits each year,and its not enough at all. The whole system is more interested in relative gains. Crypto does not change this reality - it just replaces Fiat money with a different form of currency(essential). Its still a speculative Fiat system.

Is it really a coincidence once countries started implementing more and more Fiat systems,the rich-poor divide has gotten larger and larger?? It's because the whole system is gamed,meaning those with the means can essentially control the resources in the world.

It's the top few percent who are doing this,and they hold the real economic and political power. Its the same system which has controlled the world for 1000s of years,just with a different lick of paint.

You only have to look at the last 2 economic crashes,ie,dotcom bubble and subprime,to see the top few percent were essentially bailed out whilst the rest of us plebs generally had to take the economic hitfor their decisions and control of the economic systems. The same is going to happen because of Covid - vast amounts of the money,funds,etc are snaking themselves to the big people. Yet again its all of us who will pay the price and get less and less.

Crypto is not going to solve any of this - the people with the means will find ways to push things to their advantage longterm.

[wazzickle]

Also the issue with crypto,it's that it already favours the rich. Anyone who can afford the gear to mine a coin,has free funds already. Anyone who can afford to buy a coin(like buying shares),has free disposable income to do so. A poor farmer in Africa barely making ends meet,is not going to get wealthy from crypto when they lead a hand to mouth existence.

On top of this its the relative wealthy who could afford to sit on coins(like stocks) and wait for the price to increase,so they can convert them into physical items,which is what the rich do with the current Fiat money system. Both the current Fiat money system and crypto are giant ponzi schemes,which in the end mostly screwover the little person who can't take the risk or play the long game. This is literally billions of people.

The poor in the world are not going to generally be made wealthier - most people in the world can't even afford a basic laptop or even a midrange phone.

The only reason why a number of countries are now trying to use crypto,is nothing to do with freedom for their people. Its more to do with the fact us,in Europe and the US control the current economic systems. This is how we use sanctions to push our will on other countries - crypto due to its nature is probably harder to control in a similar way. So the biggest effect will be making economic systems probably less controlled by a few select countries.

However,the whole speculative system of our economic systems is what is driving poverty worldwide - to increase margins,it means prices of realworld physical items needed for survival are increasing,but people are getting worked harder and harder,and getting paid relatively less(due to inflation,etc). Countries where all the resources are,and where a lot of the means of production are still relatively poor,ie,if you stop looking at GDP figures,etc but look at the standard of living of most of the general public in those countries. If anything Covid has highlighted the massive divide between the haves and have nots.

Its sheer madness when companies can make record margins and profits each year,and its not enough at all. The whole system is more interested in relative gains. Crypto does not change this reality - it just replaces Fiat money with a different form of currency(essential). Its still a speculative Fiat system.

Is it really a coincidence once countries started implementing more and more Fiat systems,the rich-poor divide has gotten larger and larger?? It's because the whole system is gamed,meaning those with the means can essentially control the resources in the world.

It's the top few percent who are doing this,and they hold the real economic and political power. Its the same system which has controlled the world for 1000s of years,just with a different lick of paint.

You only have to look at the last 2 economic crashes,ie,dotcom bubble and subprime,to see the top few percent were essentially bailed out whilst the rest of us plebs generally had to take the economic hitfor their decisions and control of the economic systems. The same is going to happen because of Covid - vast amounts of the money,funds,etc are snaking themselves to the big people. Yet again its all of us who will pay the price and get less and less.

Crypto is not going to solve any of this - the people with the means will find ways to push things to their advantage longterm.

You're right, crypto suffers from the same problems, but its aim is not to (directly) reduce wealth inequality.

When you talk about the poorest of the poor, they are very frequently unbanked, and crypto allows them to bank if all they have is access to the internet and a device on which to do so, which is more ubiquitous now than actual banks.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You're right, crypto suffers from the same problems, but its aim is not to (directly) reduce wealth inequality.

When you talk about the poorest of the poor, they are very frequently unbanked, and crypto allows them to bank if all they have is access to the internet and a device on which to do so, which is more ubiquitous now than actual banks.

The issue here is the poor don't have access to all this because our greedy stock market driven companies,don't find it profitable. Apple is the one who really pushed the current madness of the last 20 years,and once Nokia's model was not deemed profitable enough,we retreated from a lot of mass technological markets.

Ironically Chinese companies have allowed cheaper smartphones and wireless internet infrastucture throughout the world because they are more concerned about keeping China employed,than the stock market in reality. So when all our lot start moaning about how the Chinese is getting into "our" systems and companies get banned due to XYZ risks,what they have seemed to have forgotten,whilst our lot are concerned what Wall Street,etc are doing,we are giving up actual lower margin business to billions of people worldwide.

It's so incredibly short sighted and the thing is once crypto comes into it,the systems are harder for us to sanction anyway and then we are handing over the infrastructure to other countries. As I said in my edited answer,I think this is the biggest reason our governments are a bit against crypto. Because it's not so focused on the financial centres in our countries,its harder for us to control(which by extension reduces our ability to use financial sanctions),plus we can't skim as much from global financial transactions.

[watercooled]

And though it may come with a higher environmental cost than Visa, that environmental cost is still negligible.

That's just not true though is it. As I keep saying, the environmental cost is a million miles away from being negligible. The amount of transactions processed by e.g. the BTC network is negligible, absolutely miniscule, compared to the conventional monetary system, and yet its energy use rivals entire countries. Ignoring that doesn't make it cease to be a fact.

A currency does not need to be stable to be useful. The more stable the more useful, yes, but it's not a binary thing.

A currency needs some semblance of stability to be useful and usable as a currency. No, it's not binary, and I never said otherwise, but the likes of BTC and ETH are so far away from where they need to be it's not hard to draw such conclusions.

Currencies still get used when they experience inflation and even hyper-inflation.

Perhaps where there is no alternative. But why force yourself to use such a system where fundamentally better alternatives exist? It's quite common for countries where their own currency becomes too volatile, for citizens to start trading in other currencies like USD, because as I keep saying, extreme volatility is not desirable in a currency.

That they are more volatile makes them less attractive to people who don't like volatility, but as an ex-professional gambler, for example, I'm not particularly bothered by it. You can absolutely expect someone to pay 1btc for a product, and then for them not to convert it into fiat, but simply experience the volatility of it: it may go up, it may go down, for no net loss. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you don't like volatility, no-one else can stand it. Many businesses operate successfully in multiple currencies and experience variations in their float depending on how they count it, and either find ways to mitigate that, automatically offloading some of one currency if it goes up in value too much, or simply weather the swings, depending on how much the board like to gamble.

It's quite a stretch to compare the natural fluctuations in established currencies to the absolutely seismic shifts in value from one day to the next of popular cryptocurrencies. As has been demonstrated time and time again, even the largest cryptocurrencies like BTC are vulnerable to drastic changes in value as a result of some celebrity speaking about them. They have so little 'inertia' it's laughable. Comparing what is supposed to be a currency to gambling speaks volumes TBH.

You said yourself you have £50 worth of BTC right now. Why not more, or even all of your savings/investments, assuming you have more, if the risk is so tolerable? Rhetorical question because your money is none of my business, but you know what I mean. It's hard to take defensive arguments seriously where the same people won't gamble more money on crypto than they can afford to lose. I'm not for a second suggesting people should do that, but it tells me that people are far less confident in the crypto system and/or they value aspects of the conventional system more than they are making out.

You say you're open-minded, and you probably are in a lot of ways - you seem to know a lot about cryptos, possibly more than me in some ways, but you also seem very hewn to absolutist thinking, mistaking many of my positions for absolutist ones (absolutely none of my positions are absolute). There are benefits and drawbacks of crypto, in the same way there are benefits and drawbacks of the regular banking system, and so on.

I don't mean to come across like that. To be honest, many of my arguments are against pro-crypto rhetoric that I see as fundamentally broken, and not you personally.

[wazzickle]

Well at this point we're kind of going round in circles.

I don't have more than £50 of btc because I don't have much faith in it as a long-term investment, I also don't care too much about money when I've got more pressing concerns in my life, and I have other fairly substantial crypto investments that effectively track btc anyway.

All business and investment is gambling. It may speak volumes to you, but 'the gambling known as business looks unfavourably upon the business known as gambling'. Lots of people go about their businesses pretending that it's not gambling in some sense, but any form of speculation, i.e. literally all behaviour is gambling to some degree.

Do you happen to know in terms of overall environmental impact what the relationship is between 1 bitcoin transaction and 1 mile travelled by car, or plane? I'd be very interested in that.

[Jonatron]

Well at this point we're kind of going round in circles.

Maybe we should leave the crypto discussion there, and get more on topic

[kalniel]

Do you happen to know in terms of overall environmental impact what the relationship is between 1 bitcoin transaction and 1 mile travelled by car, or plane? I'd be very interested in that.

Just going off the energy, 1 bitcoin transaction is about 600kWh (612 per https://www.institutionalassetmanage...ricity-process), which is about seven and a half times the capacity of Tesla Model 3 Long Range, which has a range of about 360 miles, so one transaction could power you (and several others, plus nearly two tonnes of car) over 2,500 miles.

[wazzickle]

Just going off the energy, 1 bitcoin transaction is about 600kWh (612 per https://www.institutionalassetmanage...ricity-process), which is about seven and a half times the capacity of Tesla Model 3 Long Range, which has a range of about 360 miles, so one transaction could power you (and several others, plus nearly two tonnes of car) over 2,500 miles.

That would be useful except for I don't have a tesla, I drive a mazda 3 that gets about 40-45 mpg. Yes, I know they're very hard to compare, but I've seen such comparisons before, so I know it's possible.

I'm far more interested in the energy levels of ETH.

[wazzickle]

Maybe we should leave the crypto discussion there, and get more on topic

How is crypto-currency usage not on topic?

[watercooled]

Maybe we should leave the crypto discussion there, and get more on topic

Yeah I'll agree to disagree on the remaining points. Good discussion but I think I've said pretty much all I can without going round in circles.

Always good to read alternate perspectives even if I don't necessarily agree.

Regarding e-waste as discussed by others, I'm generally in agreement. It's quite sad how short the supported life of devices like phones has become. If looked after, there's no reason a phone couldn't continue to serve its main functions for many years, perhaps with a battery swap (as I generally try to do). But the lack of software support and difficulty of repairs on some devices more than others is annoying. I've had a few, admittedly cheap, tablets get really frustrating to use after a couple of years because of software bloat.

Even if we're not expecting manufacturers to go out of their way to help us repair out-of-warranty devices, I don't see why they shouldn't be discouraged from actively hampering attempts to repair where there is no good reason. Even simple changes can make repairs so much more straightforward, and even safer in some cases.

It's not difficult to make batteries easily accessible and removable, and some devices aren't too bad in that regard, but I've replaced batteries in some where getting them out is ridiculously laborious. And in at least one case I've had a battery catch fire (thankfully I was outside being mindful of the risk) because of how ridiculously strong the glue holding it down was. From then on I always wear welding gloves when pulling them out! It comes to something when iPhone battery swaps are straightforward by comparison.

Tying the useful lifespan of a device such as a phone to an inherently consumable component like the battery is just perverse, especially as increasingly rapid charging techniques place more stress on them. Software updates are another matter - I know it's far from an apples-to-apples comparison, but a Windows laptop from 2008 can still receive important updates and continue to function as a perfectly usable device. There's just something so broken with an ecosystem where software abandonment effectively bricks totally serviceable hardware after a few years.