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Comment by Certhas | Hacker News Reader

You clearly haven't actually looked at how the damages are modelled have you? You just in your head inveneted a naive way in which to estimate damages and then argued that that doesn't work.

There is a large and robust literature to assess these type of damages (search for Social Cost of Carbon). The methodological challenges are discussed really well in the paper actually. Much of the damages calculated here aren't even climate but direct air pollution, for which we have robust data and damage models. Insurance companies use these type of damage models at large scale for risk assessment all the time.

The article looks fairly solid to me.

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Please omit personal swipes from your HN comments, no matter how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. Your comment would be just fine without the first paragraph.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Unfortunately I am to late to edit my post. I understand the intent here, but these threads are full of what are, in the end, drastic accusations of scientific misconduct (or raging incompetence) against the authors, made with confidence from a place of proud ignorance. I believe it is important to point out when arguments are not made in good faith. Responding to them as if they were honest attempts at debate is problematic in the sense of a false balance.

That's actually against the site guidelines, which ask you to "Assume good faith."

The reason is that it's hard if not impossible to accurately assess other commenters' intent, and there's a strong default on the internet to assume bad faith. We all need to consciously counteract that if we're to have substantive, thoughtful discussion.

It's true that some commenters behave abusively in ways that make assuming good faith impossible, but (a) I doubt that was the case here, and (b) the guidelines ask you not to reply in such cases, but rather to flag the comment and/or email hn@ycombinator.com.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The article is undermined by its arbitrary focus on crypto. The premise is that crypto mining drives consumption for power, and power production results in "health and climate damage". Are we going to police consumers of power now? Will we invest our time and energy in determining the "good" and "bad" consumers of power. Or are we going to invest our time and resources in building out a sustainable, clean, and efficient power production infrastructure to replace the ancient one we have?

Ctrl+f 'nuclear': 1/1 found.

Yes, reducing energy waste is an important way to tackle the environmental externalities of energy production. For example, in cold countries one of the major efforts for helping with climate change is to encourage buildings to use better insulation, to waste less heat during winter.

This is right. It is useful to know how much electricity production costs in health and environmental output. It is useful to know how much of bitcoins value is the electricity cost. We can put a value on environmental harm caused by total electricity usage. But, using these and suggesting that we can accurately measure the cost of cryptocurrency now and in the future compared to how the money/value would otherwise be spent is a distortion. The same reasoning can be used to make anything that stores value or does not have an obvious output look disproportionately harmful. It could be useful to compare cryptocurrencies with themselves. I am a little interested to see how they factored cryptocurrency's optimization to use the cheapest electricity possible. It disproportionately favors storing value from electricity that would otherwise be wasted.

If you're not just reacting to the focus on crypto mining, but actually interested in the answer to your question, then the answer is yes.

In fact, energy efficiency[0] is a large area of focus, especially with regard to ongoing climate change[1]. You might have noticed a shift in things like light bulbs building standards and so on. We've made progress[2], and so it is really hard for people celebrating that progress when they see a sudden boom in energy use to create wealth for a very tiny subset of people, a boom in use that threatens to undo all of our progress and then some.

0. https://www.energy.gov/science-innovation/energy-efficiency

1. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-investing-in-rene...

2. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/sheryl-carter/ramping-energy-ef...

>a boom in use that threatens to undo all of our progress and then some

Then we're back to policing people's energy use. There will be little ROI in going down this path, and a huge opportunity cost.

This is all not to mention the incentives driving crypto. We have many smart minds engaging in this realm - imagine if those same minds were allocated, via a better economic system, to improving our energy production and distribution. Addressing that dilemma is real policy. Unfortunately, in the West we play whack-a-mole and end up with policies to address the effects of prior policies.

The worst kind of criticism about scientific papers is when people say "but the paper that didn't study this topic, didn't study this topic!"

Would you expect a paper on COVID mortality also discuss heart disease and ALS? Of course not.

>Would you expect a paper on COVID mortality also discuss heart disease and ALS? Of course not.

Power consumption and power production are simply directly related. Your clumsy attempt at an analogy here really misses the mark.

The root cause of this issue is our power production isn't clean enough, and therefore consumption drives pollution. What do you address first - the demand or the supply?

It's quite simply amazing to see so little ability to grasp anything beyond immediate consequences of a problem, particularly on a site like this.

Perhaps you are extending the discussion far past the point I was trying to make in a single sentence.

Discussing things with people on hacker news is frustrating because people like you extend the argument to way way way past the point at hand. All of a sudden we are talking about clean energy deployment, not that BitCoin mining is using a lot of power and resources.

The paper has no perspective on electric energy consumption of other activities, there are many more with similar or bigger consumption (ad industry, MIC, etc.) and still advocates regulating specifically cryptocurrencies. The window of opportunity, attention span and resource for effective regulating economic activity is limited. We should focus on the (few!) important polluting classes such as transport and power production, not hundreds of minor consumer classes such as cryptocurrencies or aluminum producers. Focusing on minor issue, cherry-picking contorted arguments and advocating targeted policy is not how respectable scientific paper should look like.

>We should focus on the important polluters, not minor consumers

Do you feel the same way about causes of death?

Imagine saying "who cares Cystic Fibrosis kills x people, heart disease is worse!"

Also, other consumers like cement, fossil fuel production, and plastics HAVE been focused on. Bitcoin is new and only recently popular so we don't know much about it and it's true cost.

>Imagine saying "who cares Cystic Fibrosis kills x people, heart disease is worse!"

You're completely missing the point here: we have finite time and resources to deal with problems. We must dedicate these finite time and resources in the most efficient way to possible to achieve the most desired outcome.

If by "worse" you mean "heart disease causes more deaths and drives higher social costs" then yes there is a strong argument to be made on addressing the root causes driving heart disease with more resources and time then cystic fibrosis. But, again, your analogy is contrived-and-forced-apples-to-oranges with the topic at hand.

This paper is just saying there are reasonably estimable costs. That's all!

It's not even trying to address the bigger argument you're talking about.

>This paper is just saying there are reasonably estimable costs. That's all!

Wrong. You make numerous comments in this thread asserting that the sole focus on this paper is quantifying externalities of crypto mining when that's plainly false. The paper is prescribing policy options for dealing with crypto externalities and birthing new loaded clinical terms to ascribe solely to those externalities: "cryptodamage". Read it.

"As an alternative to intervening in emergent cryptocurrency markets through prices (e.g., taxation) or outright restricting their development, there may be a role for government investment into R&D that focuses on designing mining puzzles that greatly reduce energy consumption (and thus production costs) while still allowing for secure validation of anonymous transactions. Fully vetting and encouraging such currency alternatives might retain the libertarian social benefits of the blockchain [35] while making “the last Bitcoin” irrelevant. Although there will still be private benefits captured from mining under possible low-energy design alternatives, as illustrated here there would be significant public good benefits (reduced cryptodamages) to justify such government investments into R&D. Importantly, such investments in R&D are not mutually exclusive with taxing to internalize cryptodamages, and may also come with the potential to generate spin-off benefits from blockchain technology more generally."

I did read it, before I made "numerous comments."

Papers discuss the implications and applications of their work. That discussion is not the work itself; it is meant to give a starting point for fitting the work with other research or doing new research that builds on the work. Thus, the authors "close by sharing our brief thoughts on policy implications of recognizing cryptodamages." That section mentions a wide range of policy implications—several paragraphs that you didn't bother quoting—without advocating for anything in particular beyond reducing harm.

Frankly, that leaves it sounding like what you're really bothered by is that the paper points out that there is harm, and advocates for reducing it. And if that's the real problem—that you don't like it when someone speaks up and says hey, this has quantifiable downsides—just be honest about it.

> That section mentions a wide range of policy implications—several paragraphs that you didn't bother quoting—without advocating for anything in particular beyond reducing harm.

Yes but that is still propagating the unsubstantiated view that cryptocurrency mining is an important cause of societal harm worthy of mitigation/regulation. There is no comparison to other similar or bigger economic activities, no mention of the fact that the pollution happens at power plants and is under direct control of the power plant owners, not miners. It is inordinately focused on societal harms of cryptocurrency mining, it ignores the benefits beyond mining profit(which is uncertain but non-zero and hard to quantify in dollars). Limitation of the paper narrative to such a narrow topic shows bias.

Not doing what you'd personally prefer isn't a bias. Tackling a problem at several levels is perfectly legitimate; it's just that a paper about clean power generation would be a totally different paper.

It's a single paper. One piece of information that's small enough to be digested and connected with other work. And frankly, if the result had been that each $1 created 1¢ of costs, you'd be celebrating it. Your only real criticism here is that you don't like the result.

If you're so concerned about the root cause of power generation, go focus on solving that problem.

>If you're so concerned about the root cause of power generation, go focus on solving that problem.

So ignore the root cause altogether, lol. And when we've banned crypto mining and accrued even worse social costs as a result, we'll rinse and repeat this process with the next ".*damage" power consumer. Totally sane!

The irony of this whole chain is that the paper itself actually acknowledges this other variable (that y'all are pretending is the only variable) directly:

> There is considerable evidence of concentration of mining operations in particular locations, typically where reliable electricity is cheaply available, though, precise data are lacking (e.g., [15], [6]). In the US, perhaps the most well-known concentration is the Mid-Columbia Basin area in central and eastern Washington State, where cheap electricity is produced by hydropower along the Columbia River [4], [6], however, mining in other US locations also occurs (see [11] and news references in [23], [24], and [25]).

> emissions rates per kWh will differ substantially given underlying differences in how power is produced—i.e., China relies extensively on coal power (>60% of electricity generation) while the US is more balanced (32% natural gas, 30% coal, 20% nuclear, etc.).

Saying they ignore this is just a lie. Criticize the paper, by all means, but this simply isn't a hit piece. It's careful in stating exactly what it can commit to, and it reasonably tries to explain how that fits into the bigger picture.

>banned crypto mining and accrued even worse social costs

Could you describe what social costs we'll have by banning crypto mining?

Banning anything that's already widespread implies making a part of the population into criminals. With that comes the costs of enforcement and of government's authority (which is finite). Consider too that crypto is, often, a response by many to perceived policy for fiat.

I'm sure there is a way to turn off phase out Bitcoin without making thousands of people criminals.

The planet is burning, the cost of enforcement will be worth it.

> Do you feel the same way about causes of death?

Yes? Polluting power plants kill many more people than the whole bitcoin mining operation.

> Also, other consumers like cement, fossil fuel production, and plastics HAVE been focused on. Bitcoin is new and only recently popular so we don't know much about it and it's true cost.

Okay, we agree on something here. I fully support assessing Bitcoin mining and operation costs and comparing those costs to other consumer classes to get perspective. When we do this, it is easy to see bitcoin mining is a non-issue climate-wise (for now). The main issue is pollution done by Big Polluters such as naval transport and coal/gas power plants.

These bogus calls for regulation/shutdowns of minor electricity consumers just spoil the climate discussion, distract us from the real polluters.

Are there parties that benefit disproportionately by establishing a cost for carbon and the definition thereof?

Is this all an altruistic exercise in saving the planet?

If so, it sounds very nice. We are lucky to have the concern of such well funded saviors.

Ah yes, the "this is obviously a conspiracy" defense despite offering no evidence of such a conspiracy at all.

I've posed questions about incentives.

In lieu of engaging in a discussion, you've dismissed the possibility. You've provided no rationale (or evidence for that matter) for this flippant dismissal. Instead, you offer the 'conspiracy theory' pejorative. It is not a starting point for a conversation.

I have not dismissed the possibility there is a conspiracy.

I'm only calling out that asking a leading question like this doesn't add to the conversation at all.

There is an incredible irony to accuse me of providing no rational when this whole thing is about somebody alluding to a conspiracy with no rational at all.

The starting point to a conversation should be "hey, there is a conspiracy here, this is why."

>Are there parties that benefit disproportionately by establishing a cost for carbon and the definition thereof?

Asking about incentives, thinking critically about conflicts of interest doesn't add to the discussion because that might "allude to a conspiracy"?

I don't know if I agree with that. For me it makes sense to first ask "Cui bono". Establish a motive and then search for evidence to prove a hypothesis.

Posing the question is simply the beginning of the process. If you're closed minded about opening the door, my (reasonable or unreasonable, open for debate) expectation would be that you would dismiss anything within as "conspiracy theories". Hence the discussion becomes futile.

I read your reply as skipping over the possibility of a conflict of interest in research rationalizing a carbon credit trading regime.

Saving the planet is hardly altruistic, after all you are living on that planet yourself. So in essence it's at least partially driven from a position of self-preservation, which is by its nature egoistic.

> There is a large and robust literature to assess these type of damages

even granting you that we have a robust model to assess damage (which on its face seems to be a wildly improbably claim) we do not have an accurate model that predicts WHAT damage will be done due to humanity's impact on weather change, so the resultant-cost benefit analysis still propagates that uncertainty forward.

> (search for Social Cost of Carbon)

i havent read it all because i just looked it up[0], but it directly contradicts your claim of our "robust data and damage models". section 5.1 "damage functions" is about how previous damage models are all incorrect.

side note: one of the paper authors is in references 30 times. idk if this is common or not, but it seems suspicious.

> The methodological challenges are discussed really well in the paper actually. Much of the damages calculated here aren't even climate but direct air pollution

wouldnt know, dont have access to anything but the abstract.

look, im not well read into the field of future predictive damage modeling. you may be right that the field has some definition, however i stand by my smell test. even ignoring everything relevent about health, damage, and climate, the start of the sentence "$1 of BTC" is enough to give pause. BTC price is up 30% in the last month and 470% in the last year. not exactly rigorous scientific measure.

[0] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w28472/w284...

Bitcoin mining effort is proportional to the cost per bitcoin times the number of bitcoins awarded per block. Since the number per block is constant over each four-year period, it makes sense to talk about the cost per $1 of BTC.

BTC proof of work doesnt determine the BTC/$ conversion. the price is non-scientific, highly speculative, and highly volatile.

The causation works in the other direction, due to the difficulty adjustment.

BTC/USD exchange rates are at best correlated with mining difficulty and 100% not causally related. this is patently false.

That's the reason why the paper is focusing on damages per dollar of mined bitcoin, instead of damages per mined bitcoin.

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