[bethecloud]

Unscientific, sensationalist, and pretty much wrong.

It’s just not a great argument, and doesn't consider the opposition argument - the human rights benefits (for people fleeing war zones, in predatory monetary regimes, etc.) are worth the electricity usage – because people/the market are valuing it that way.

Dryers are unnecessary - we could airdry all of our clothes, but we value the convenience it brings. The value that bitcoin brings in terms of human rights is much greater than the convenience of dryers, yet we hear nothing about "banning dryers" or "dryers killing people".

[FollowingTheDao]

> but we value the convenience it brings

Think about that for a second, you just said your "convenience" is transferable for some minimal amount of human lives. That this psychopathic "market" thinks that is fine?

No, the market does not have all the truth. How many people know the amount of suffering the cause when they use their dryer or buy bitcoin? Do you really think that most stop to think about this because it is included in the manual of every dryer sold in the world?

[bethecloud]

The "amount of human lives cost" is also not a real thing, because we have an incomplete picture of elasticity for market substitutes for energy demand (which is nearly all goods, because they all require energy)

Point is - using your dryer does not actually cause human suffering. This is a simply a utilitarian argument with an incomplete picture, the structure of which is often utilized to promote atrocities like communism, genocide, etc.

[jtolds]

Your dryer does actually cause some real portion of attributable human suffering. It's easy to armchair discuss this, but have a look at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24487-w