[Nursie]

"Other things have caused pollution, therefore you can't criticise my thing"

We are in a world where excessive use of fossil energy is a massive problem.

At such a time, bringing a new financial instrument into the world that uses more power than mid-sized countries is irresponsible if not downright malicious.

Sorry if that annoys you.

[shawnz]

Increasing the energy usage of our species is not "irresponsible" or "malicious". Every technological improvement increases the energy usage of our species. I think that is the point they are making, that it is wrong to say that using energy is strictly a bad thing.

If you want to decrease fossil fuel consumption then you should be crusading for worldwide carbon taxes, not bans on new technologies.

[Nursie]

> Increasing the energy usage of our species is not "irresponsible" or "malicious".

Right now, yes it is. we do not have unlimited clean energy.

> Every technological improvement increases the energy usage of our species.

This is a huge assertion.

> If you want to decrease fossil fuel consumption then you should be crusading for worldwide carbon taxes, not bans on new technologies.

Great, and in the mean time, until we get there, spinning up a new financial instrument that uses more power than the Netherlands is massively irresponsible if not outright malicious.

[shawnz]

So, what amount of consumption for new technologies is justified then? Where is the point where a new technology becomes irresponsible?

[Nursie]

Where is exactly is the line? I don't know and I'm not convinced that that's an interesting question. I'd say that it's significantly below bringing entire new country's worth of energy consumption online for a financial scheme.

Your argument is effectively that we can never call anything an irresponsible use of energy. With the background of global climate change, I very much disagree.

[shawnz]

I'm not saying we can never call anything an irresponsible use of energy.

What I am saying is that we can't by default call all new technologies an irresponsible use of energy either.

The fact that it uses energy is not justification alone that it is bad. We use energy to achieve utility for our species. The only way we could stop all our energy consumption would be to cease to exist.

So, why is Bitcoin an irresponsible use and other technologies are a responsible use? THAT is the interesting question. Volume alone can't be enough to justify it because many important technologies use way more energy than Bitcoin at only 0.6% of global use.

So it must come down to an opinion that cryptocurrencies aren't useful: that is the real disagreement here. It isn't about energy usage, but usefulness (per unit of energy usage), which is a highly subjective judgement. That is what I am trying to point out.

[Nursie]

> The only way we could stop all our energy consumption would be to cease to exist.

Who's talking about stopping all energy consumption?

> So, why is Bitcoin an irresponsible use and other technologies are a responsible use?

New financial instrument brought online during a climate crisis uses more power than most countries == irresponsible/malicious.

There, made that simple for you.

If you want to argue your opinion that such a thing is worthwhile given the background, that's a pretty steep hill to climb.

[dangerface]

> Increasing the energy usage of our species is not "irresponsible" or "malicious". Right now, yes it is. we do not have unlimited clean energy.

I think you would drop this opinion very quick if the energy we where talking about was being used for your life support. We live in a capitalist world our financial systems are everyones life support.

[Nursie]

> We live in a capitalist world our financial systems are everyones life support.

This does not describe cryptocurrency.

[workallday21]

It doesn't annoy me at all. Your attitude annoys me.

Who cares how much energy it uses in aggregate. That energy is paid for. If we are under such an energy shortage problem then I assume individual countries will start rationing it out or switching to renewables or whatever.

It's such a weird attack angle that seems to have latched on some people's minds like glue. Did we ever look at the aggregate impact of every thing in the world? What is the aggregate impact of Facebook? What is the aggregate impact of gas cars? What is the aggregate impact of lawn mowing world wide? What is the aggregate impact of smoking?

Like... of all the things.

It's a global system that runs non-stop, world wide. It would be quite remarkable if it didn't use energy.