[beaconstudios]

Once again, I don't blame you at all for engaging in investment or speculation or whatever. I'm not concerned with individual action, I'm concerned with the systems that drive those actions. If bitcoin didn't exist you'd presumably be doing something else to feed your family, so the question in my mind is this:

- what real world utility is realised by the introduction of a new system?

- what real world cost is realised?

- how does it shape people's behaviour?

Note that none of these is a criticism of the individuals engaging with the system. It's about the impact of the system itself. Now from where I stand this is how bitcoin plays out:

- negative utility: high electricity and CO2 cost

- negative utility: labour does not provide material benefit (financialised)

- negative behaviour: increased cultural propagation of scamming, speculation and other results of financialisation

- mixed behaviour: cultural hub of libertarianism

- mixed utility: provides a space for unregulated financial transactions. Negative: scams, blackmail, other financial crimes. Positive: paying financially isolated and unbanked people. Mixed: purchase of contraband.

Which is to say, the ratio of positive to negative, especially weighting the impact of increased CO2 emissions (which is a potentially existential threat in the medium term and a mere catastrophic threat in the short term), is pretty shockingly bad.

[notch656a]

While your qualitative descriptions of utility and assessments I mostly find roughly accurate (pure opinion on both our part, and I will nitpick and say it's great when benefit-to-labor ratio is high), the quantitative balance is subjecive opinion. You've simply analyzed and decided the ratio is poor. I've looked at it and find the opinion the ratio is excellent. But it's true crypto doesn't care either way and is exceedingly difficult to squash. Ultimately I think it is on the power producers and consumers to achieve how to eliminate externality associated with electricity use; playing whack-a-mole with whatever people use their electricity on (AI, crypto, video games, whatever) is just patching the issue.

And thus brings us to the reason why crypto is an ever popular debate on HN. At the end of the day even if you find crypto morally bad, there's no universal shock to the conscious for using crypto like there would be for murder/rape/theft. Some see crypto as sinner and other see it as saint. You seem to acknowledge a little of everything but weigh different factors differently than others. At the end of the day given the impossibility of banning crypto and the number of people on both sides, I just don't see it going away without a superior replacement filling the spot. For me this is a great thing, but for many it's going to be a point of contention and outrage for a long time. I will go one respecting the choice for some not to use it and hopefully others will peacefully implore us to stop if they find it wrong, but I think it's going to take violence and an oppressive enforcement mechanism to force me and many others to stop. Good luck.

[beaconstudios]

I'm more lamenting crypto's existence than waving the guards over to come shoot people. I don't see how bitcoin can at all be a positive thing on a systemic level when it's primary purpose is financial speculation and scamming (neither of which are materially productive) and its primary cost is massive amounts of CO2. Of course it can be individually beneficial - mass murders are financially beneficial to funeral directors, but I don't think they're good in the general sense. And that's basically how I see crypto advocates - advocating for something immoral because it benefits them financially. Which is about all I expect from libertarians, to be fair.

[notch656a]

>I don't see how bitcoin can at all be a positive thing on a systemic level when it's primary purpose is financial speculation and scamming

I understand this is all opinion on both sides. I would add this opnion risks overlooking, say, Argentinian free-lancers who are paid in crypto because the system surrounding them makes it untenable to use conventional banking. Or the jewler buying precious metals with litecoin to avoid credit card fees. Escaping a failed economic system like refugees in Venezuela receiving crypto remittance definitely seems like a systemic improvement for them.

I guess you could call using it for transaction to buy precious metal speculative, but even in that system the actual crypto transaction isn't speculative as it merely acts as a unit of trade to buy an underlying "speculative" investment (personally I don't consider PMs speculative investment but rather store of value that I don't desire the volatility to appreciate or depreciate.)

>its primary cost is massive amounts of CO2

So you hate electricity? Join the Amish.

>mass murders are financially beneficial to funeral directors

But this isn't true. The people killed have to die sometime, their death is assured to the funeral directors. Them living longer just means they're more likely to reproduce and generate a new human who in turn dies someday. Funeral directors are worse off by mass murder. I think this excellent allegory points out your economic short-sightedness. Funeral directors want people to live highly reproductive lives, not short lives.

> Of course it can be individually beneficial - mass murders

Now we have entered clown world where mass murder is the example given. How many mass murders actually happened specifically and only because of the existance of crypto? The only example even close I'm aware of is Ross Ulbricht's alleged murder plot that was never even prosecuted thus we have no idea if it was true.

>advocating for something immoral because it benefits them financially

So basically anyone advocating for using dollars? I see crypto like a hammer, it's a tool that can be used morally, immorraly, or merely in a morally neutral fashion.

>Which is about all I expect from libertarians, to be fair.

Is this supposed to be some sort of ad-hominem attack?

>Which is about all I expect from libertarians

I have a hard time making sweeping generalizations about morality based on one's political choice.

[beaconstudios]

> I would add this opnion risks overlooking, say, Argentinian free-lancers who are paid in crypto because the system surrounding them makes it untenable to use conventional banking. Or the jewler buying precious metals with litecoin to avoid credit card fees.

I did include the unbanked and productive manufacturing (which you neglected to mention until now - are you a jeweler?) in examples of positive use, in my utility list. But you have to assess a technology based on its overall effect.

> So you hate electricity? Join the Amish.

Totally specious.

> Funeral directors want people to live highly reproductive lives, not short lives.

This is overly reductive. Clearly a short term boost in business is a financial boon for funeral directors, as it would be for any business.

> How many mass murders actually happened specifically and only because of the existance of crypto?

Uh, what? Maybe I should just give up trying to explain my point to you if a simple analogy is beyond your comprehension.

> I see crypto like a hammer, it's a tool that can be used morally, immorraly, or merely in a morally neutral fashion.

You can look at actual use to determine the effect of something. Not many people are using F15s for anything else but killing people, so it's fair to call weapons of war broadly immoral.

> Is this supposed to be some sort of ad-hominem attack?

"greed is good" and "unregulated capitalism is the ideal" are libertarian tenets, so yes, I think it's fair to say that they're selfishly self interested. So you consider yourself a libertarian?

> I have a hard time making sweeping generalizations about morality based on one's political choice.

Given that politics is an expression of values, I really don't. If somebody were to say "I don't like Jews and that's why I'm a nazi" (this is an argument from absurdity, BTW) I could reasonably call them a bad person. They also wouldn't need to say the first part because its implicit in the identification. Libertarianism is fundamentally about "fuck you got mine", which I find to be immoral.

[notch656a]

>This is overly reductive. Clearly a short term boost in business is a financial boon for funeral directors, as it would be for any business.

I don't see that as true. A short term boost followed by long term bust in many scenarios is not good for business. See payday loans. Mass murder is a payday loan to funeral directors, you get a little bit early now but a big loss in the long run from drop in reproductivity rate (and ultimately, long-run death rate) of the populace.

>Totally specious.

Here's an idea, if you don't like using electricity don't use. There's no single "right" way to use electricity. Your beef again seems to be with externalities of electricity use. So you probably hate video games and AI too, albeit proportionately less on CO2 output. And you probably hate those in cold climates keeping their houses near 70 in the winter even more than bitcoin.

> So you consider yourself a libertarian?

The attribution you made suggesting my libertarianism was your statement "Which is about all I expect from libertarians, to be fair." This is your words, not mine, directly replying to me. Ad hominem doesn't require the label to actually be accurate. I've never called myself a libertarian, although I'm sure some might label me that way. I call myself an anarchist but that's really the only political label I give to myself.

But really this is all your self aggrandization about your moral superiority to libertarians, because in reality tons of people, even liberals or socialists and even authoritarians (North Korea government) use crypto. Crypto isn't exclusive to a subset of libertarians.

>You can look at actual use to determine the effect of something. Not many people are using F15s for anything else but killing people, so it's fair to call weapons of war broadly immoral.

Nah, 'weapons of war' aren't immoral. They're tools. Used to defend, or to aggress. Or maybe in my case, to put some holes in paper for enjoyment. Ever shot an SKS or an AK? Good fun. Even shot one at ISIS once, never felt bad about it but every once in awhile have a laugh at the fact I survived. They can be used for good or bad.

Yes I look at the F15 and see it like a hammer too. If aggressive fighter enters and bombs innocent people, I see it as fair game for that fighter getting blown out of the sky. The F15 isn't immoral, its use on the innocent is. Killing in self defense isn't immoral. Although sure the government and individuals in it have used the F15 immorally. Actually it's probably easier to use an F15 in a moral fashion than a larger bomber not as well suited for defensive fighting, although neither are immoral at face value.

>"greed is good" and "unregulated capitalism is the ideal" are libertarian tenets

Was selfishness the subject at hand? I don't see selfishness as bad, I see coercive selfishness as bad. Selfishly building a farm so you can make money with the effect others around you are fed is at least neutral and probably good. Using coercion to rob your neighbor is bad.

>I did include the unbanked and productive manufacturing (which you neglected to mention until now - are you a jeweler?)

I mentioned it because that's a large percentage of use of gold (going off memory here, but I think it's like 40%), for instance. Were you not aware of this? You know people use precious metals for different purposes right? For instance most platinum / palladium buyers are actually industrial rather than those perhaps seeking to hold on to it until manufacturers need it more and thus yielding a profit and providing market liquidity.

> But you have to assess a technology based on its overall effect

And your assessment is 'totally specious.'

> If somebody were to say "I don't like Jews and that's why I'm a nazi"

Not a fan of Nazis, but if someone simply calls themselves a Nazi and doesn't hurt any Jews or aggress on anyone then I call them a whacko not a bad person.

>Libertarianism is fundamentally about "fuck you got mine", which I find to be immoral.

This encompasses so much stupidity and naivety I don't know where to start. But I think you know more about libertarians than you give off, and you understand if we're (we're as in you an me, not we as in aforementioned libertarians) dumbing things down to your level socialism or democracy can be about "fuck you got mine" by those who vote to redistribute funds from the others to themselves, telling those who pay the tax "fuck you, got mine from the tax you paid."