Originally published at: Power plant using whole output to mine crypto | Boing Boing
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I’ve always been ambivalent to the whole crypto thing. On the one hand there are some people who do use it for legitimate purposes like some users in Nigeria and other central African countries since their currencies and banking systems are just a mess. On the other hand, too many tech bros are deciding the fate of the entire network of crypto currencies and are driving it every more into the Proof of Work camp even though we know both in practical and theoretical terms it doesn’t make it more secure. Proof of Stake and other schemes are far better and don’t have the power load that Bitcoin and company have. Seriously, someone needs to put more pressure on the Proof-Of-Work nerds to stop this nonsense. It doesn’t help and it’s just more gold buggery to choke off the supply while it destroys the planet to keep the scam going.
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This is ecological terrorism on the scale of Captain Planet villainy.
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Time for a drone strike.
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This the sort of thing that got Michelle Pfeiffer transformed into Catwoman in Batman Returns.
ETA: The other literary/pop cultural parallel that this reminds me of is the Douglas Adams “Restaurant at the End of the Universe”: “If," [“the management consultant”] said tersely, > “we could for a moment move on to the subject of fiscal policy. . .”
“Fiscal policy!" whooped Ford Prefect. “Fiscal policy!"
The management consultant gave him a look that only a lungfish could have copied.
“Fiscal policy. . .” he repeated, “that is what I said.”
“How can you have money,” demanded Ford, “if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn’t grow on trees you know.”
“If you would allow me to continue… .”
Ford nodded dejectedly.
“Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.”
Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed.
“But we have also,” continued the management consultant, “run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship’s peanut."
Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The management consultant waved them down.
“So in order to obviate this problem,” he continued, “and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and. . .er, burn down all the forests. I think you’ll all agree that’s a sensible move under the circumstances."
The crowd seemed a little uncertain about this for a second or two until someone pointed out how much this would increase the value of the leaves in their pockets whereupon they let out whoops of delight and gave the management consultant a standing ovation. The accountants among them looked forward to a profitable autumn aloft and it got an appreciative round from the crowd.”
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From a price point $50k from 14MW is about 3x better than what electricity currently costs me.
I’m not opposed to crypto, but the speculation side of it is horrible. It’s like tying the stock market directly into the value of the dollar. Well maybe not exactly, but currency (at leas IMHO) should be fairly stable and that’s not really what bitcoin is.
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Rolling coal for the apocalypse.
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So, what you’re saying is that we should encourage it?
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Discussions of the downsides of PoW cryptocurrencies are usually abstract and mired in techie jargon. Here, however, we have a clear and concrete example that should prompt government action. Maybe don’t give carbon allowances to a company creating math beanie babies for speculators.
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I think the parallels are definitely there, but as we can’t guarantee Catwoman’s creation or the destruction of Christopher Walkens villains and his power plant by encouraging it, it’d be better to tax the hell out of and mandate strict environmental protocols on power plants that just make cryptocurrency.
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In this case “money = power” and “power = money” literally.
The original concept of money was that it was supposed to be a tool, something that takes the place of bartering or makes bartering-- ‘trade’-- simpler, except money became it’s own thing, so energy is spent trying to get money for the sake of getting money.
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If there’s any good case for a carbon tax this seems to be it.
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I love it.
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Not my coinage (so to speak), but it does sum things up nicely.
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That Mitchell And Webb Sound - Old ladies and futures trader by Páraic Maguire | Free Listening on SoundCloud I’m aware crypto mining is not futures trading.
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The whole crypto thing makes me feel stupider than anything else ever has in my entire life. I’m not stupid, but I just don’t get it. I need someone to explain it to me like I’m 5.
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I saw someone on twitter refer to crypto as “Herbal Life for 2021”
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Ok, maybe explain it to me like I’m 4, because that went over my head.
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