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Comment by ricardobayes | Hacker News Reader

And I'm especially angry at hypocrites like Elon Musk who are profiting from climate change and then proceeds invest those profits in bitcoin that accelerates climate change.

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But then none of his enterprises have been explicitly exploitative, unlike many billionaires, and he’s pushed the car industry into moving away from combustion engines, so personally I give him a pass

The people that inhabit the areas around the Bolivian lithium mines might disagree with you, as would former Bolivian president Morales.

It’s still not explicitly exploitative

"I'm fine overthrowing your government to increase my companies profits" seems explicit to me. I guess that isn't their advertised line of business?

If you were sitting on billions and wanted to accelerate climate change then investing in BTC is probably the most inefficient way to do that. I doubt that idea ever even crossed his mind. It’s just about the profit.

Is this bait?

Of course it's just about profit... the point is that he should be aware of its environmental impact and the hypocrisy of his investment therein.

That may be your point, but it was not GP's point.

If he did it on purpose, he's a supervillain, if he did it due to negligence, he's a hypocrite. No need to split hairs.

The way I understood GP they were explicitly insinuating he was a supervillain, so I don't think it's hairsplitting.

I'm not saying Elon's a supervillain, more of a wasted talent (so far). The non-solutions he presents to non-problems are weird to say the least. Hand on heart, do we really need space tourism and luxury cars affordable by wealthy middle-aged men? How does this contribute to a better society? Returning to the point at hand, both EV's and blockchain are non-solutions to difficult (and valid) problems. In my view, centralized money and climate change can only be only effectively solved at the origin and not the consumer level. The solutions offered are annoyingly superficial, like taking away our drinking straws and fake internet money that has no use other than to make more centralized money.

That's exactly how I understood the parent: Musk goes after anything that brings profits, and doesn't care about climate. Neither acceleration or deceleration.

Then why specifically make the claim that he profits from acceleration?

Bitcoins adoption leads to climate change acceleration. Therefore, profiting from bitcoins means profiting, indirectly, from acceleration.

I'm only trying to explain to you how I understand the original post, and it has nothing to do with my own opinion on the subject (which may/or may not be the same).

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