[y0ssar1an]

Their argument: Bitcoin isn't bad. Energy production is bad because it's not carbon-free.

This is the classic "guns don't kill people" argument. Yes, guns wouldn't be bad if they were being sold in a perfect world with no murder. Bitcoin wouldn't be bad if we had perfect energy production with no environmental cost. But that's not the world we live in!

"Bitcoin doesn't cause carbon emissions. Energy production causes carbon emissions."

[zepto]

I agree with your sentiment but it’s a bad analogy.

The guns don’t kill people argument is based on the idea that Guns are not the proximate cause of murder even if they make it easier.

Bitcoin mining is the proximate cause of the externalities. You can’t participate in Bitcoin without directly contributing.

[gruez]

>Bitcoin wouldn't be bad if we had perfect energy production with no environmental cost.

...or if the cost was fully internalized.

[MereInterest]

And if that fully-internalized cost did not negatively impact other uses of the market. In the same way, the post office forbid the sending of the Send a Dime chain letter[0], even though the senders paid full postage. It was a use that interfered with the intended outcomes of the post office, and prevented the end goals of the post office.

[0] https://www.mortaljourney.com/2010/11/1900-century/1930-tren...

[gruez]

> In the same way, the post office forbid the sending of the Send a Dime chain letter[0], even though the senders paid full postage.

...because it was spam, or because it was fraud? The postal service is very happy to send junk mail, as long as you're paying them for it (at below market first class letter rates!)

[MereInterest]

A bit of both, I think. The main difference is that junk mail has a predictable cadence, and capacity can be increased to account for it. On the other hand, chain letters have a very sharp rise time which swamps the available capacity, and a sharp fall time so there's no point in expanding to support it.

The analogy I'd use is cryptocurrency's impact on the GPU market. The sharp rise of people wanting to pay electricity in order to buy into the pyramid scheme has caused GPU prices to skyrocket. It isn't clear yet when either the bubble will burst, or regulation will catch up with cryptocurrency, so there hasn't been much increased GPU production to handle the peak demand.