[Aqua]

I cringe every time I see such comments. Ban bitcoin or ban beef because it uses too much energy.

Humanity will continue to require energy as it advances and banning anything "because it uses too much energy" is a ridiculous advice. How about we ban gold mining, or set quotas on the number of children people may have, that will surely contribute to our CO2 reduction goals. It's also Orwellian and reminiscent of how the world looked like for citizens of the USSR back in 1960-1990

[0xB31B1B]

We have banned a ton of things because they are bad for the environment. It has worked and will continue to work. Things like building design and construction standards are set to a minimum environmental standard, why shouldn't cryptocurrencies.

[rantwasp]

whatever happened to the efficient market?

i find views that want to ban anything for energy consumption ridiculous. also what the people advocating for this kind of thing are missing is that it’s all fun and games until something you rely gets banned because of reasons.

here are my proposals:

the entire banking system is obviously using a lot of power. how about we ban banks and go back to using paper money. that’s def more environmental friendly. /s

electric cars run on energy that’s generated with coal. that’s not cool. let’s ban electric cars and keep driving gas cars. they have been around for a long time and the technology is so good that we actually pollute less with a gas car /s

the internet in general and datacenters in particular are using a lot of power. let’s ban datacenters. guaranteed between environment afterwards /s

[0xB31B1B]

We have banned low efficiency vehicles (CAFE standards), we have banned refrigerants that are bad for the environment (CFCs). We have things that clearly cause massive amounts of societal harm (leaded gasoline). The market didn't solve any of those issues, the government did. I for one am extremely happy that we live in a world that is not poisoned by lead and that still has a functioning ozone layer. Its kind of silly that you are equating bitcoin with the entire modern banking system. The regulations to ban leaded gasoline didn't destroy automobiles, they just made them change. Changes to proof of stake aren't existential to BTC holders, but they are existential to the rest of us.

Also "until something you rely gets banned", what do you rely on bitcoin for besides being a store of value?

[rantwasp]

yup. it is silly to compare the banking system with bitcoin. bitcoin is obviously better. does it close at 5pm? does it close on the weekend?

my point is that you don’t get to decide what i consume. and banning bitcoin == banning any type of computing that you don’t like. do you understand how much power a modern datacenter sucks? do you also understand that some things that run in a datacenter are straight up dangerous to the fabric of our society?

[0xB31B1B]

"my point is that you don’t get to decide what i consume"

I am not making any decisions about your consumption. Our democratically elected government is responsible for making the best choices that balance our societal needs. Our government already regulates a lot of things around computing: Child porn/CSAM, export controls around cryptography, data privacy, the computer fraud and abuse act. This isn't novel stuff, having a computer doesn't mean you can do literally anything on it with zero consequences.

[rantwasp]

once you compare it to CP it’s clear you have a valid argument.

democracy? data privacy? thanks for the good laugh

[Spooky23]

Building construction standards are a great example of regulatory failure.

By optimizing around energy conservation at all costs, we have homes that cost 3x, held together with glue, susceptible to mold, and filled with toxic crap like vinyl.

[chrischattin]

Youtube alone uses 2x’s the amount of energy of the Bitcoin network. Ban Youtube?

[2muchcoffeeman]

A quick google seems to turn up that this claim is from thefactsource.com based on the internet uses 10% of global power. And YouTube is 11% of internet traffic. So 1% of global power.

VS

An estimate of Bitcoin power consumption by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance.

I know which one I’m more prepared to believe.

Even if this were true. I go on YouTube and can learn things: recipes, FreeCad tutorials, coffee nerdery, harmonica lessons.

Bitcoin literally does nothing.

[simonw]

That article assumes that if YouTube is 11% of total internet bandwidth then YouTube is 11% of total internet electricity usage. That's a very dubious assumption.

[webXL]

> Bitcoin literally does nothing.

Except make those little pieces of green paper in your wallet look foolish.

[Spooky23]

Remember the infrastructure is one part of the equation. The billions of devices consuming YouTube are running in electricity as well.

The virtue of energy use argument is just dumb.

[kickopotomus]

But again, read what the person you are responding to wrote. YouTube provides something of value to millions. PoW is not required for cryptocurrency to function. PoW provides no value. It wastes time and energy for the sake of wasting processor cycles.

[Spooky23]

Says you.

Electricity is a commodity and a utility. Who are you or I to subjectively decide that a use is valuable or virtuous?

Is YouPorn worthy? Is MLB.tv valuable? What are the criteria that you use to determine worth?

[swensel]

Come on... PoW provides no value? So the almost $1 trillion in Bitcoin is just, nothing? Not worth anything? I think the people invested would beg to differ.

[generj]

YouTube also entertains hundreds of millions of people, whereas crypto benefits the average person…how exactly?

By enabling ransom ware attacks? Creating GPU shortages?

[jude-]

YouTube also promotes conspiracy theories, racism, anti-intellectualism, authoritarianism, anti-vaxxing, and so on. These things pretty severe negative externalities, to put it mildly. So let's not pretend that YouTube's existence is a net-positive for humanity; that remains to be seen.

[hunter2_]

I think the difference is that a means of building green buildings and green cryptocurrencies have been proven viable. Once the same happens for the category of product YouTube falls into (which goes beyond just video distribution), the non-green way can be eliminated.

[lovecg]

Google is claiming to be Carbon neutral though, so not a good comparison.

https://sustainability.google/commitments/

[schmorptron]

No? Youtube's use of compute power serves a purpose that is not quite literally wasting energy for the sake of it.

[simonw]

No it doesn't.

[chrischattin]

Yeah, it does. I posted sources in a reply to another comment. Or, you can look it up yourself.

[simonw]

You quoted https://thefactsource.com/how-much-electricity-does-youtube-... which says:

"the internet uses 10% of the total electricity consumption worldwide. How much of that is consumed by Youtube? After Netflix and embedded videos, Youtube is the third biggest global internet bandwidth eater. About 11.4% of global internet traffic is consumed by Youtube"

That figure assumes that the electricity usage of the internet is exactly related to the amount of bandwidth - so if YouTube uses 11.4% of the internet's total bandwidth, that means that YouTube uses 11.4% of the internet's total electricity consumption.

That is a highly dubious assumption.

[leesalminen]

I mean, all YouTube does is generate money for the ad-tech industry. I think it should be banned before PoW cryptos.

[scrollaway]

No that isn't all YouTube does thank you very much. It's one of the greatest treasure troves of educational video content. It has helped my life, career, and those of my friends. It has probably contributed far more to humanity's advance, in efficiency alone, than most other websites of its kind.

That you only use it to watch videos that bring zero gain to your life is a You problem.

[micropresident]

The government hasn't banned beef, and yet there are now vegetarian and vegan products all over. People vote with their money.

You're advocating for violence against people who do things you don't like. Use your wallet and leave other people alone.

[Nursie]

> You're advocating for violence

Oh give over, this is ridiculous too.

When other people are causing harm that affects everyone it's perfectly reasonable to look at legislation to kerb the behaviours.

And no, that's not violence. No.

[wing-_-nuts]

When those same people are contributing to heat waves, drought, and sea level rise, do you not consider that violence as well?

[Nursie]

> Humanity will continue to require energy as it advances and banning anything "because it uses too much energy" is a ridiculous advice.

Not right now it's not. Not when we have constraints on how much CO2 we can pump into our atmosphere.

Right now, and I mean right now, when we're having huge problems de-carbonising the planet's energy supplies and are risking making life very uncomfortable for ourselves for decades or centuries to come, limiting energy use is actually one of the few levers we have to try to make a difference.

In this current situation, bringing online a whole new mid-sized country's worth of energy consumption for a financial instrument is ridiculous, and a huge own-goal for humanity.

[noja]

Wow. Where to start on this one!

Where do you see the problem in using less energy for a crypto currency? Why not make a cryptocurrency that uses even more energy?

[artifact_44]

Because electricity costs money. When the cost of electricity exceeds the value of coin you mine, you will stop mining. If you make a coin that takes half as much energy to mine, miners will just mine twice as much of it. Its like y'all are just discovering capitalism for the first time.

[pamplemoose]

those currencies already exist. people can choose to use them, while understanding the trade-offs.

[rcMgD2BwE72F]

>How about we ban gold mining

Why not?

>or set quotas on the number of children people may have

Some people consume 10x less energy than others, so blindly capping the number of children does not seem a good idea. What about capping the carbon footprint per person instead?

We track and tax revenues (not perfectly but as well as we can). We could definitely track and cap carbon emissions. Sounds good to me!

[rantwasp]

yes. also let’s start capping the amount of oxygen people are allowed to breathe. I mean, without oxygen you cannot produce co2, amiright? /s

[dd36]

Communities tend to ban harmful things.

[rantwasp]

“communities”.

it’s all fun and games until I ban something you rely on for your livelihood

[dd36]

I’m sure businesses that rely on dumping arsenic into the local lake don’t like having their livelihood threatened either. Property rights matter. Right now the market is broken.

[rantwasp]

consuming energy (and paying for it) is not even the same species with dumping toxic chemicals

[dd36]

Burning coal literally dumps arsenic into the environment.

And to do so for speculative fun is ridiculous.

[rantwasp]

i have some bad news for you when it comes to how lot of electricity is generated.

Also, how do you decide which computing is good and which computing is bad?