[mickotron]

I wonder how much energy YouTube or Facebook use compared to Bitcoin?

We could argue that Facebook and YouTube are only providing entertainment value. They don't do anything especially novel or provide critical infrastructure.

Rockets that deliver payloads into space are INCREDIBLY bad for the environment. But it provides critical services and infrastructure for now and the future.

Bitcoin provides a novel, decentralised, secure, electronic digital currency. It's being used for that purpose currently.

The FUD is unreal. We accept that certain use cases can persist and use tonnes of energy, but others we think is a crime against humanity.

Use of energy should not be a measure of shame on its own. What use case is it providing now and in the future for that energy usage?

The future will require a lot more energy for things we don't even know about yet. We need to ensure reliable renewable energy will provide for us now and in the future. We should not shut down new technologies just because it uses a lot of energy. When energy is cheap and clean and plentiful, we shouldn't worry about using it.

Nuclear Fusion reactor technology currently uses much more energy than it provides in output. But when that technology is viable it will help us to produce reliable and clean energy. Should we outlaw nuclear fusion because it uses shitloads of energy for no benefit (currently)?

[ForHackernews]

Please educate yourself: PoW cryptocurrency is a red queen's race that is deliberately inefficient. I can't think of any other technology that continuously and deliberately wastes more and more energy. The only analogy I can even think of might be a nuclear arms' race: you have to keep building more and more missiles or there's a risk your enemy might get the jump on you.

Any engineer worthy of the title should be appalled by this inept and abusive design.