[mmmpop]

Ad hominem right out of the gate... why should I care what this intellectual bully thinks about anything?

First rule I've learned about persuasion is to not behave this way, but of course it's okay when you have the "correct" politics.

[cinquemb]

Are they trying to persuade? I figure they were just trying to signal their "loyalty" to some audience they have in mind.

I found this hilarious:

"The Thiel Fellowships, which began in 2011, initially provided $100,000 each to 22 high school students with big ideas for changing the world… Unsurprisingly, these dreams came to nothing."

Because of [0]:

"He dropped out of university in 2014 when he was awarded with a grant of $100,000 from the Thiel Fellowship, a scholarship created by venture capitalist Peter Thiel and went to work on Ethereum full-time."

Which I guess is "nothing" for these sorts of people.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalik_Buterin

[mmmpop]

Fair enough.

That last quote reminds me of this classic Dilbert: https://imgur.com/zbTJR5o

[cinquemb]

The last quote is from the wiki, but the first one is from the article

[cma]

Ethereum is 14 Mt CO2 annually or more, which is a disaster for what we got in return (ransomware), but at least they are moving to proof of stake.

[knownjorbist]

This is such a strange and wildly ignorant opinion that seems out of place here on Hacker News of all places.

[cinquemb]

> which is a disaster for what we got in return (ransomware)

Right, that's all "we" got for it… "nothing" besides ransomware and easier ways to pinpoint CO2 compared existing systems it seeks to obsolete…

[cma]

The existing systems are much more efficient. I do think it is good they are moving to proof of stake.

[cinquemb]

> The existing systems are much more efficient.

If you ignore the costs of the trust issues between participants (as well as a lot of physical infrastructure apart of trust chains) and how that plays out through the entire system, and a lot harder to trace CO2 values on (esp those that people will all agree on).

Here's one persons take on this with Banks vs BTC wrt CO2[0] with their numbers from last year that I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with in one form or another (usually without numbers of their own).

[0] https://medium.com/@mukeat/carbon-footprint-differences-btc-...