throwaway20875

This is cope.

We've had numerous examples of third world style infrastructure failures (Flint water, Texas power outages) within the US that will likely continue. We have under invested in infrastructure for decades, while China has done quite the opposite.

Freedoms are increasingly becoming an illusion in the West. Saying something unpopular or taboo on the internet (even if it were years ago) is likely to cut you off from both your income and healthcare (as healthcare is tied to your employment).

All not to mention the simmering social unrest caused by insane income inequality, the levels of both private and public debt, and the likelihood of the dollar losing its reserve status in the next few decades. Things do not look good for the US.

Yes, I understood and agree with your point. I'm adding that it's a distraction from a far more serious discussion and revealing in itself of deeper issues.

>My bet is that the green argument will be the first attempt to neuter BTC.

Seeing a lot of seemingly inorganic noise on this. At the same time in the US, we are running a power grid like a country that inherited it from its imperialist colonizers from the distant past with no inherent capability to improve or even sustain it. 650K miles of transmission lines are oversubscribed and there are less than a dozen regional substations that act as an aggregate single-point-of-failure for the entire country. Texas was the canary in the coal mine.

The fact that we're not having the genuine discussion around improving the efficiency, cleanliness, and resiliency of our infrastructure lays the true capabilities of my country and the intentions of those in power bare: we are a declining power managed by corrupt and power mad psychopaths. Bitcoin is the least of our worries - it's actually a symptom of loss of faith in the system.

No you are not, and the Gates foundation has absolutely not done anything to address the actions of central banks or the the United States' weaponization of the current financial system. Giving out malaria nets in Africa has nothing to do with any of this.

What are you saying? That we should take the mission statement of the Gates foundation at face value and as something that represents the motivations behind everything he does and says?

What you're suggesting is a fork, which would not be Bitcoin at that point.

>Moreover for the vast majority of people on earth would still have basically zero money relative to the emerging bitcoin oligarchs. It would be a grossly unequal society, where there would need to be some non-math-based approach to getting money from the wealthy to redistribute to the less fortunate.

Those oligarchs won't be able to print more bitcoin or exclude (sanctions) their political enemies from conducting trade. Seems fairer than the current system.

Exactly this. Bitcoin is the result of the gross power imbalances present in society. It's ironic that those on the heavier end of the scale, like Gates, are attacking Bitcoin with the cudgel of environmental policy. Rather than fix the power imbalances that are the root cause of his supposed gripe, Gates is advocating for the status quo enjoyed by him and his contemporaries.

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.

>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!

>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."

>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.

>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.

>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 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.

Talent invested in the crypto space pales in comparison to what we waste in finance. Our greatest minds are more likely to be arbitraging pork belly futures (PrIcE dIsCoVeRy!) than working on crypto.

Hyper competitive market forces in the west have created the wrong incentives for everyone, especially institutions. When there is a demand to weaponize or politicize science then we naturally get stuff like this.

I worked in fintech in NYC for a bit. The technology driving most critical financial infrastructure in the US is astoundingly antiquated. It is only sustained through the sheer amount of bodies and ingenuity thrown at it.

I think other Western nations are better comparisons for a number of reasons. I don't think discussing China's approach is a productive conversation.

>The reason for the large number of deaths in the US is not that Americans have suppressed immune systems, are stressed, or are otherwise unhealthy.

I disagree. And even if we were to stop COVID from killing so many, it's reckless to consider this as not a significant contributor to any unnecessary deaths. New variants of existing diseases are inevitable.

>Don't worry, people already know who you are, and you'll get what you deserve no matter how much you try to hide it.

That's going to be yikes from me, dog.

Thank you for driving home my point, though. I don't think you're aware of how dangerous your mentality is and where it leads. I'd suggest to you that I am not your enemy and we likely have a lot of common ground. I don't think the US handled COVID well and I don't like to see others suffer so needlessly. I also think that there are many things we can do to prevent further diseases such as reduce our dependency on factory farming and to invest more in improving the general health of our country. I don't suspect you'd disagree with those thoughts.

I agree with you.

But COVID is not unique: people have been dying unnecessary deaths in this country for a long time, and have accelerated in recent years. Go read up on deaths of despair. Look at the rise in healthcare costs, or how unhealthy our food is. It's no wonder that a society of unhealthy, isolated, and stressed people are succumbing to a disease that kills those with suppressed immune systems.

>If what you have to say isn't worth your reputation

Because I believe the current trajectory of society will place more than just my reputation at risk for expressing my thoughts. Make of that what you will.

Yes, you're right - in order to take more effective action we need to plaster a running death count to the TV screen 24/7 for every American media consumer to view. Time Warner/Comcast/Viacom/Fox know what's best for us and it has absolutely nothing to do with them manipulating emotions for profit.

I use only a throwaway account. I'd rather stay anonymous, especially when I cannot delete my posts.

The death tracker that was glued to the shot of some cable news programs 24/7 in the US is an example of fear porn.

The model used by modern media is indefensible. It's the same with social media. Unprincipled and willing to do anything to attract viewership/engagement.

Excellently written and spot on. Unfortunately, I think we'll have to suffer far more before more folks realize what's needed to change trajectory.

>Both sides are guilty to some degree, but, and this is the crucial point, not to the SAME degree.

Yep, those other guys are way more polite as they destroy the future of my country for their own short term gain! If only they could rule some cities or states exclusively for decades I'm sure we'd see the kind of America that we all deserve exemplified at the local level!

The line of thinking behind this comment is exactly why we're experiencing rapid decline - zero ability to consider the root causes behind issues and how to address them at a fundamental level. "Hit back at the banks" is the kind of cable-news-hot-takes-style solution that only address issues caused by prior solutions.

Every single asset class has experienced significant inflation over the last 50 years. Banks created 30 year mortgages because of demand. Demand occurred as a result of actions by the federal reserve. The FHA, not really a bank but rather a government entity, started the trend.

>Yet more evidence to be used in the eventual US anti-trust case demonstrating a pattern of anti-competitive behavior

Little chance. Bezos has purchased his way into the class of decision makers in this country through acquisitions of media and integrating into the military industrial complex (in numerous ways). Amazon embodies the privatization of a centralized economy more than anything else. Needless to say: this is not good.

>CPI is inflation

Lol