proof-of-work systems should be banned by international treaty and people who implement them should be considered hostis humani generis tbh
i'm not sure a neat academic idea has ever before caused such atrocious damage to the world, let alone a mathematical one
the bitcoin system has probably already burned through an amount of energy greater than that expended in the course of WWII. probably many times greater
i know for a fact the amount it uses *every year* is orders of magnitude higher, almost incomprehensibly vastly so, than the energy of all explosives detonated throughout the war combined, the nukes included
and remember, entire cities were flattened -- the damage it did to Stalingrad in particular makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like they *got off easy*
i know for a fact the amount it uses *every year* is orders of magnitude higher, almost incomprehensibly vastly so, than the energy of all explosives detonated throughout the war combined, the nukes included
and remember, entire cities were flattened -- the damage it did to Stalingrad in particular makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like they *got off easy*
i'm not against cryptocurrencies in principle, as long as we have a digital market economy we're gonna need *some* kind of system for black market transactions, but the PoW system? crime against humanity. we need to find alternatives -- like, just use a fixed number of tokens that are sold off when the currency is established or something
i know, i know, that won't incentivize people to participate in the network. i think that's a good thing. shitcoin has gone entirely too far. ideally a cryptocurrency should stay relatively small, have a few users who really need the anonymity, and everyone should be encouraged to use real money wherever safe and possible
@velartrill A currency is only worth as much as the goods you can exchange it for -- if too few people use it, it might be worthless.
@timorl not if it's backed!
@timorl all you'd need are a few companies (or governments) that will exchange an IRL currency or commodity for the shitcoin
@timorl but yeah you'd need a large enough user base to sustain it, but a small enough one to keep it from becoming environmentally or socially disastrous
i would also want measures to ensure it couldn't be used for large-scale organized crime, like corporate tax evasion, if at all possible
i would also want measures to ensure it couldn't be used for large-scale organized crime, like corporate tax evasion, if at all possible
@velartrill Making it backed by governments or corporations kind of defeats most of the purpose. I haven't really seen propositions for decentralized backing of cryptocurrencies, but maybe this could be possible?
@timorl i don't think it defeats the purpose at all. there's always governments that are interested in evading global financial regulations (see all of North Korea's bitcoin mining), and even if perfectly law-abiding corporations back the currency, that doesn't prevent it for being used for unlawful things as long as it's sufficiently anonymized
@timorl but yeah it's not ideal, and if decentralized backing was possible somehow that would certainly be an improvement
