Online Habits Killing The Planet - Dispatches

[Corky34]

I'm not claiming that bitcoin.com would be impartial, but rather that the arguments and evidence they've collected could be useful in the context of this.

I hate to say it but you sort of did, when you said "A good article on the business of mining and why the attacks on it are at least unfair, at most politically motivated" the implication was that what follows is not those things, that it was fair and not political motivated.

Man, people feel alarmingly strong about this, and I'm not quite clear why.

Because i can't buy a new GPU for even a half sensible price, that and when we're more aware of the environmental impact that humans are having on the planet than anytime in our history it's just a massive waste of resources.

[DanceswithUnix]

, and it's certainly not cancer.

An unconstrained growth, causing harm to its host. Seemed about right to me.


Anyway, I see Chia has a stats site which is quite interesting:

https://www.chiaexplorer.com/charts/netspace

Hmm, uncontrolled growth. Lovely.

[wazzickle]

If you want 'uncontrolled growth', look at capitalism.

If all your bitterness is down to your collective sense of entitlement about not being able to get GPUs at RRRP, then that's understandable. Keep fighting the good fight.

[wazzickle]

To be honest I didn't actually notice I was replying to the same person until after I initially posted that most recent reply. I did consider re-wording it but decided to leave it as-is. I wasn't sure why the person I originally had the debate with had just presented the exact same discredited arguments again TBH.

What I am reading in that article is not evidence, it is opinion and rhetoric, and frankly you did a better job of arguing your point without it. There is nothing in that article that we didn't already know, and they table the same stale arguments we've seen time and time again. As I've said before, making the same demonstrably false claims repeatedly doesn't actually make them true. Nor does being published on the bitcoin website.

I'm not sure I'd consider the arguments I have presented on the matter as 'political'. Perhaps in the sense that totally unnecessary wastage, pollution, market disruption and misinformation irks me, but not in the anti-crypto strawman sense that I often see people making out. As Dances said very well above, what's the issue with a more intelligently designed system that doesn't encourage needless waste, and actually does the job better (or even remotely close to as-good would be a start) than the system it claims to want to replace or supplement? Better alternatives already exist, but adoption and hype seem to revolve largely around people wanting to profit from mining at any cost.

You could separate the fundamentally anti-crypto people from those who are just pragmatically against certain aspects or implementations by considering that, rather than conflating any criticism of Bitcoin as anti-crypto propaganda.


Some people hate to see unnecessary and increasing wastage at a time when changes and sacrifices are being made to try to offset the impact we are having on our environment. That's one perfectly valid reason, to start.


I'm playing devil's advocate a bit on this one, but I don't see it as unfair to describe it as such. Mining is largely driven by greed and availability of resources. I have used the term parasitic for much the same reason.


I'm curious what you think our/my vested interests are?

Man, you're pretty confident in your arguing abilities if you think that you've discredited all the arguments against.

You also appear to have a strong ability to read what you want to read from others' words. I never said you had a vested interest. I have no idea what your vested interests are, nor do I care, nor are they important, nor did I claim you wrote any articles attacking crypto.

I'm trying to take on a relatively neutral position here but you guys are just relentlessly attacking and it's backing me into a defensive corner. Just because they're your views doesn't make them right by default.

[Corky34]

If you want 'uncontrolled growth', look at capitalism.

If all your bitterness is down to your collective sense of entitlement about not being able to get GPUs at RRRP, then that's understandable. Keep fighting the good fight.

Not disagreeing with the 'uncontrolled growth' capitalism thing but we do in fact control it by implement laws and regulations.

If we hadn't put laws and regulations in place capitalism would've eventually failed and probably taken the planet and us with it.

[DanceswithUnix]

If you want 'uncontrolled growth', look at capitalism.

If all your bitterness is down to your collective sense of entitlement about not being able to get GPUs at RRRP, then that's understandable. Keep fighting the good fight.

Wasn't trying to attack you personally, but Crypto seems to be taking on a religious feel and some of the dogma needs the gaping logic holes pointing out.


I was lucky and got a 3060ti FE at proper RRP through Scan which has improved my Half Life Alyx experience hugely. No GPU bitterness here, just an appreciation for how computer systems and payment systems are supposed to scale.

I'm not sure it counts as bitterness, but I am bitterly disappointed in how Crypto has turned out. I have about a fiver's worth of Eth on Coinbase right now. I could send it to you, except that the transaction cost as of this morning was about $10 which means it is dead money. Well that's enabling isn't it. There seem to be a few ways out of this:

1/ I believe I could send it to another Coinbase account as an off-chain transaction. So bypassing the blockchain entirely and actually using a centralised finance transaction. Nice.
2/ I could convert it to Stellar, and send it to someone in Stellar instead. Except no-one uses Stellar.
3/ The most practical option: I withdraw funds for free into my Paypal account, and from there I can pretty much do anything with it.

Now those options only exist because that Eth is in the Coinbase master wallet. If it was in my own wallet, it really would be dead. I have been waiting for usable Crypto currency for a decade now, I'm tired of the same old promises for the future, it seems to be getting worse not better.

I also think I'm being pretty neutral here. I can see the benefits of blockckain, I can see how things like Dcash can help the economy of Antigua. But anything that looks promising seems to get ignored, even the well overdue Eth 2.0 upgrade is being fought by people wishing to stay on the mining gravytrain. What can I call people wanting to keep Eth slow and expensive for personal gain other than just greedy? There's no greater good at play here.

Current Eth is Capitalism at its most intense. It requires a bribe, sorry a fee, to make a transaction because transactions are constrained for no good reason making them needlessly hard to get included in. When DeBeers constrains supply then that's bad capitalism, but somehow when the blockchain needlessly constrains supply that's good? No, we need sharding to get the transaction rate up (which would actually take a lot of the sting out of PoW) and ideally we could do with PoS or similar to cut the mining consumption. TBH I think if sharding chopped the gas fee down to 1 most miners would quit. Cheap, fast transactions on Eth 2.0 would probably kill off Bitcoin, job done.

Capitalism requires government control to keep it in line. Crypto does not even have those basic checks and balances in place.

[kompukare]

A bit strange that the word entitlement keeps coming up with crypto.
As far resource depletion in a finite world go, well:

1.) Crypto - a near* totally wasteful activity primarily (almost exclusively) a big ponzi scheme. While most know it's a ponzi and realise that it is all about timing their exit, very few honestly admit this. In the meantime, miners may think they are entitled to buy as many tickets (GPUs) for the crypto ponzi lottery as they can get their hands on. Ecocide? The thinking is probably the age old "if didn't do it, some other person would" which has been used to justify almost everything for centuries.

2.) Gamers constantly buying new GPUs and keeping at least part of the consumer electronics industry ticking over. This is also not sustainable and yet many gamers they think they are entitled to instant consumer gratification.

Now presently, the first is a lot more wasteful, but the second - especially if expanded to encompass most other unnecessary consumer goods, but then people are very good at convincing themselves that their wants are actual essentials - has been killing the planet at a steady pace for far longer.

The worrying thing about crypto's potential to greatly contribute to the global ecocide is that it has only recently arisen and grown almost exponentially.

* I guess mining crypto, participating the ponzi scheme wave and figuring out to do a ledger based blockchain will have laid the groundwork for some potential future crypto currency. Probably based on proof-of-stake. Yes, in theory proof-of-work sounds more egalitarian but it's not like most of those proving they have let their computers work already have enough capital to have been able to participate in a proof-of-stake system: that is despite protestations to the contrary whether PoS or PoW having money is still the surest way to make more money.

[wazzickle]

I think you probably don't understand either or both what a Ponzi scheme is nor what crypto is if you think that's what it is.

[wazzickle]

Capitalism requires government control to keep it in line. Crypto does not even have those basic checks and balances in place.

Yes, ETH has its problems, but they're looking to be sorted soon enough with second-layer scaling solutions, making it far more usable. Consider that the supply-and-demand effect of high transaction prices reduces it's usage. And while crypto is capitalism unrestrained - I wouldn't disagree with that - it's more like a communalist version of it, where the current structure has laws and regulations that pay lip service to consumer protection while accelerating the trickle-up effect. And it does have basic checks and balances in place as companies and individuals who want to remain inside the regular system have to have their crypto regulated by that same system. For example I'll be paying cap gains on the results of my hodl, where I could feasibly avoid it.

I've mentioned it a few times but no-one's engaged me on the biggest reason I think these attacks on crypto are bs: the fact that they're still a drop in the ocean compared to the climatic effects of the american military, and the top ten industries and corporations.

[watercooled]

Yes, ETH has its problems, but they're looking to be sorted soon enough with second-layer scaling solutions, making it far more usable. Consider that the supply-and-demand effect of high transaction prices reduces it's usage.

Quite a few posters in this thread have already alluded to that. ETH is planning to move to a far more sensible model, much to the annoyance of miners who want to keep the money printer going to the detriment of the actual usability of the network. The debate is a lot more nuanced than it is often perceived, and there is more than one aspect to challenge. Most of the criticism here is about the fundamentally and unnecessarily wasteful PoW models used by the major ones.

I've mentioned it a few times but no-one's engaged me on the biggest reason I think these attacks on crypto are bs: the fact that they're still a drop in the ocean compared to the climatic effects of the american military, and the top ten industries and corporations.

I actually have addressed that a couple of times. It's the "others are doing it so why should we care" fallacy, along the same lines as "China's CO2 emissions eclipse the UK's so why should we bother trying to reduce ours?" Not to mention that much of that climate impact actually has a purpose, whereas PoW is the computing equivalent of just burning a massive pile of coal for the fun of it (in fact it's almost literally burning a pile of coal for the fun of it). That's not to say the impact caused by other industries is excusable, on the contrary, it's a poor logic to claim your actions are acceptable based on other actions you consider unacceptable.

The crux of the matter being that the energy wastage caused by PoW is unnecessary and there already exist much better alternatives. For most industries, it is financially beneficial to prevent unnecessary waste, and more recently government legislation further incentivises reduced wastage. PoW seeks to waste as much as possible.

And another point that has been repeatedly made is that crypto resource consumption is not fixed - it continues to grow as fast as resources will allow it, which in itself is deeply worrying.

Regarding usage of GPUs etc, it's not unreasonable for people to be annoyed at products being hoovered up for an unintended purpose. It's comparable to a few people buying up every available car on the market in order to park them up with a brick on the accelerator and leave them running 24/7 with a supply of fuel. People who want to buy cars with the intention of actually driving them are going to get annoyed. And most likely the engineers who put effort into designing them - sure, they're selling, but the vast majority of the product goes to waste while the engine is left sitting at redline until the whole vehicle ends up scrap. Quite an apt analogy really given how little of the GPU is actually used for mining.

[DanceswithUnix]

Yes, ETH has its problems, but they're looking to be sorted soon enough with second-layer scaling solutions, making it far more usable.

But take a step back there. Whatever you do on layer 2 to make it more efficient, why not do that in the base coin? It sounds like Eth 2.0 sharding pretty much will. At that point, any layer 2 might just get in the way.

Payment systems are all about latency. They stack up really fast, and when someone has just tapped their card or whatever in a shop they seem eternal.

[kompukare]

I think you probably don't understand either or both what a Ponzi scheme is nor what crypto is if you think that's what it is.

Okay, in hindsight the South Sea bubble and all documented subsequent bubbles are a more appropriate analogy. They have all collapsed and when they did, some had made a fortune and other had lost a fortune. Doubt this bubble will be any different. I'm sure there will be many lucky or smart enough to have bought in (via mining or buying) at the right time and exited at the right time.

[wazzickle]

Okay, in hindsight the South Sea bubble and all documented subsequent bubbles are a more appropriate analogy. They have all collapsed and when they did, some had made a fortune and other had lost a fortune. Doubt this bubble will be any different. I'm sure there will be many lucky or smart enough to have bought in (via mining or buying) at the right time and exited at the right time.

If I may. While there are some clever people who saw the housing bubble, I don't think you're in a position - I don't think many people are, in fact - to comment with any authority on how much crypto is a bubble. Some of it is based on real value and industry. Yes, some is also based on speculation, which makes it a bubble to some degree, but all asset prices are also somewhat based on speculation. People have been saying crypto is a bubble that will burst since it's inception and it hasn't happened yet. That's not to say it can't or won't, just that it would be pretty difficult for me to believe you have the necessary expertise and access to data to be able to say 'it's definitely a bubble and will definitely burst'. Maybe what you're not seeing is the wealth of industry for which crypto is useful and being used right now.

[wazzickle]

Quite a few posters in this thread have already alluded to that. ETH is planning to move to a far more sensible model, much to the annoyance of miners who want to keep the money printer going to the detriment of the actual usability of the network. The debate is a lot more nuanced than it is often perceived, and there is more than one aspect to challenge. Most of the criticism here is about the fundamentally and unnecessarily wasteful PoW models used by the major ones.


I actually have addressed that a couple of times. It's the "others are doing it so why should we care" fallacy, along the same lines as "China's CO2 emissions eclipse the UK's so why should we bother trying to reduce ours?" Not to mention that much of that climate impact actually has a purpose, whereas PoW is the computing equivalent of just burning a massive pile of coal for the fun of it (in fact it's almost literally burning a pile of coal for the fun of it). That's not to say the impact caused by other industries is excusable, on the contrary, it's a poor logic to claim your actions are acceptable based on other actions you consider unacceptable.

The crux of the matter being that the energy wastage caused by PoW is unnecessary and there already exist much better alternatives. For most industries, it is financially beneficial to prevent unnecessary waste, and more recently government legislation further incentivises reduced wastage. PoW seeks to waste as much as possible.

And another point that has been repeatedly made is that crypto resource consumption is not fixed - it continues to grow as fast as resources will allow it, which in itself is deeply worrying.

Regarding usage of GPUs etc, it's not unreasonable for people to be annoyed at products being hoovered up for an unintended purpose. It's comparable to a few people buying up every available car on the market in order to park them up with a brick on the accelerator and leave them running 24/7 with a supply of fuel. People who want to buy cars with the intention of actually driving them are going to get annoyed. And most likely the engineers who put effort into designing them - sure, they're selling, but the vast majority of the product goes to waste while the engine is left sitting at redline until the whole vehicle ends up scrap. Quite an apt analogy really given how little of the GPU is actually used for mining.

Unnecessary is a word I'm not sure I'm happy to go give you the authority to use in the way you're using it. You're placing your opinion on a very subjective matter at the level of fact. It doesn't help your cause to put it in bold, either.

[kalniel]

Point of order:

Unnecessary is a word I'm not sure I'm happy to go give you the authority to use in the way you're using it. You're placing your opinion on a very subjective matter at the level of fact. It doesn't help your cause to put it in bold, either.

Not having a dig at you personally wazzickle because I've seen examples from many people, but this is the kind of post I want Hexus to get away from using because it doesn't add anything to the debate and risks reducing the tone of argument - I think we can take it as read that when someone posts something they are posting it as their opinion. The best way to counter that is to address the fact that is being presented, not post something about the poster/their authority/way they've posted something and say nothing about the fact that's being argued.

So in this case, where you take exception to the statement that PoW is unnecessary, simply provide rationale that it is, in your opinion, in fact necessary. That's all.

[watercooled]

People have been saying crypto is a bubble that will burst since it's inception and it hasn't happened yet.

I see you slept through 2018 then. You could split hairs over the ambiguous definition of a bubble, but the fact is it cost a lot of people a lot of money. And it is just one example of why it is very hard to have faith in the system to hold value as a store of wealth. That page itself explains the crash was, in percentage terms, larger than the dot-com bubble. Financial authorities such as the FCA warn people to be very careful investing money they cannot afford to lose, but I can see them being dismissed as 'political'. Many pro-crypto people seem to internally accept this even if they don't admit it, which is evidenced by the fact they are careful to limit their investment. Even on the gpumining subreddit, the advice given to newcomers is very frequently "don't invest what you can't afford to lose". It is sound advice, but just affirms that crypto is seen to be an unstable asset even by many of its proponents, which loops back to an earlier debate around its suitability as a currency.

Unnecessary is a word I'm not sure I'm happy to go give you the authority to use in the way you're using it. You're placing your opinion on a very subjective matter at the level of fact. It doesn't help your cause to put it in bold, either.

I didn't ask for authority to post my opinion. Bold is used for emphasis. Just to reiterate again, my justification for holding that stance is that there are better alternatives to huge-scale and increasing energy burning - ETH itself is moving towards one in its roadmap so even that stance demonstrates it is not necessary. Convenient or desirable by some perhaps, but certainly not necessary.