BTC at least has very few humans, and humans consume resources and create waste.
So, what does a more comprehensive measure than core time look like wrt global warming and payments?
I’m not sure the answer, but I’m also sure it is not simple.
Regarding your question: whatever they do, those humans will consume resources and create waste. We can't delete them if we do away with Visa :). Sure, they, in theory, would be able to work on something else, freeing up their resources, but that wouldn't decrease the resource use of humanity.
Also, people keep comparing BTC's current resource use to the bank system (I think that includes the CC companies as well). However, very few transactions are done with BTC compared to the world financial system (or even just Visa). And if adoption grows, BTC price grows and if BTC price grows (or, in other words everything devalues relative to BTC) then mining rewards grow (measured in other assets) and if mining rewards grow then new miners will join and that means using more energy.
I think I've seen a comparison between Visa and BTC measuring how much energy each used for doing a single transaction (or for moving a set amount). Visa was 10 or 100 fold more efficient. Even back then.
However, crypto does not behave to act effectively as a currency; it would be an awful idea to replace the global financial infrastructure with crypto thus the energy costs are here to stay.
So I think the energy argument fails on it's own. Also, it should come at least with strong supporting arguments claiming the actual benefits. But I do agree that cryptos are worse than the currencies we have and existing block chains (I'm aware of) don't make sense even as a distributed transaction tracking system for fiat currencies.
In terms of automating away humans, aren't we building society to improve human life? You're wasting human life by requiring labor, what is more valuable than that? At least as a heuristic, looking at human history it seems obvious that automation is the best way forward when people don't want or need a personable, smiling face serving them. I need to go apply for a bank account right now and know it is going to take weeks and several meetings, I passionately hate this.
>if mining rewards grow then new miners will join and that means using more energy.
The block reward continually decreases with time, so it isn't clear that more adoption will increase energy usage. I'd say the opposite seems likely - I worry how bitcoin will incentivise miners to secure the chain in the long term.
>I think I've seen a comparison between Visa and BTC measuring how much energy each used for doing a single transaction (or for moving a set amount). Visa was 10 or 100 fold more efficient. Even back then.
One on-chain transaction can be a settlement of many off-chain lightning network transactions, so in future the efficiency should increase dramatically.
Like the other poster I don't know the quantitative answer when it comes to efficiency and expected energy usage, but I'm again pointing out that there are other factors.
It's a serious indictment of this generation that they talk about useless, wasteful distributed hash functions in the way previous generations talked about things that matter(ed).
Also your essay has nothing to do with issue of the posts above.
The topics of the thread have everything to do with each other as I read it: the value of the technology, human resources and efficiency (waste vs value).
I thought past generations valued freedom and privacy even more.
> The block reward continually decreases with time, so it isn't clear that more adoption will increase energy usage.
It's weird. You quoted the very end of the sentence that contains the explanation why I say that the rewards grow. The part that you didn't quote literally is a response to what you have just said: "And if adoption grows, BTC price grows and if BTC price grows (or, in other words everything devalues relative to BTC) then mining rewards grow (measured in other assets)"
In other words, while the block reward (denominated in BTC) does decrease, its value keeps increasing while adoption keeps growing. (Value here means either other currencies, or, if you think they will cease to exist, then the goods you can buy for the BTCs you get as a block reward.)
It's pretty obvious, this is, actually, part of the reason why people buy BTC: because they think its price will increase due to increased adoption. And it has to, because BTC is deflationary (again, yet another property that the proponents see as a selling point). You have 21M coins and those should replace who knows how many trillions of USD. (It depends on what level of adoption we're talking about.) IIUC, 90% has already been mined, but the adoption is pretty minimal, so the value of the coins will increase substantially with adoption. Halving seems to occur every ~3 years. I've checked and the earliest I could easily find a price for, happened in 2013. Then one BTC was ~16USD, the block reward went down to 25BTC, so $400. Now it's 6.25BTC, with today's rate that's $181k(!) as of now. To get back to $400, you'd need 8-9 other halvings if the BTC value (price) didn't increase. But it has to, if adoption grows, because demand will grow and supply can only grow minimally.
> In terms of automating away humans, aren't we building society to improve human life
Again, the comment I've responded to talked about the resource use. Also, you'd need a pretty strong proof that VISA (and/or the banking system) cannot be automated, made more efficient without BTC and/or crypto in general.
> so in future the efficiency should increase dramatically.
Well, maybe you should start making claims (or starting arguments) about the efficiency when you have the data. At least as an estimate, for which you'd need to know how the system will work.
> There is a social and political impact. Intermediaries like banks infringe on our basic freedoms to hold our own money,
Nope. They provide a service. You can hold your own money, of course. Competition, thanks to automation(!) should also continue driving down the price of digital banking services.
> to have privacy,
It's the state, not the banks that want to have the right to look into your transactions in well defined cases. And it is the very interest of the society. Complete, unbreakable anonymity sounds good as long as you only think about yourself. It stops being a good idea when you realize that there are criminals, tax avoiders, etc. (Unless, you are one of them, of course.)
> and transact with each other as we wish. Therefore there will always be value to such a system that allows us to transact directly peer-to-peer;
Maybe. I'm not so sure about this. There will definitely always be some demand for this. But let's face it: debit cards and digital bank accounts are a pretty reasonable user experience. It's not that expensive either. (Esp. if you go with these up and coming service providers, like Revolut, Wise, N26 - whichever makes sense for you.)
> it is unstoppable that people will seek this, regardless of anything, even legality.
Sure, there are use cases where legality doesn't matter. :) For most people it does, though.