Bitcoin mining doesn't create very useful technology. It only creates optimized technology for calculating a particular SHA-256 hash. There's very little spinoff from this.
Yep. And that's actually a bad thing if you're trying to keep your wealth stored as fiat money. Inevitably, someone will come along and decide to solve their problems by creating a bit more money, making your store worth less.
Industry and science can now use synthetic diamonds. They are cheaper (especially the little ones used in saw blades) and have better quality. Industry use of gold is only 10% of the mined amount. We could stop gold mining, and the industry could survive on the already-mined gold for centuries.
And what if that layman wants to unfairly affect the results?
The layman is only allowed to watch, not touch.
At the end you have to trust in something/someone
No, because you can go to the polling station yourself, and be that layman.
a properly designed electronic system can perform lots of checks, backups, logs, perfectly-understood-by-laymen reports, etc.
How can you tell it's actually properly designed ? You have to assume the worst, namely that it was purposely designed to rig the election, and fake the checks, backups, and logs.
Or how do you think that virtually everything works in the world?
We do what we can. Elections have some unique aspects that make it necessary to be extra vigilant. The anonymity of the process makes a proper audit very difficult, and the stakes are huge.
Gold (minerals) or land (space.) They are deflationary... they are not too practical as currency.
I agree. That's why we don't use them as a currency. But gold and land are still useful. Bitcoin is also useful in a similar way, it's more like digital gold than it is digital dollars.
Whatever actions you perform on the paper votes to optimise the security of the system can be done on digital records too.
A layman could inspect a polling station, and witness the paper ballot counting to confirm everything is done accurately. The same layman cannot inspect an electronic voting machine and confirm it has counted all the proper votes.
There are plenty of instances of tampering with paper ballots. Can you provide a single instance of an electronic voting machine actually being tampered with during an election?
You've summarized the problem. Electronic voting allows for undetectable manipulation.
Under the solutions section it explains how non-government action and privatization can solve this.
And how would that work for the global climate ?
This is really a problem of the "bad" energy being cheaper than the "good" energy
They aren't really cheaper if you would also include the cost of higher CO2 concentration and the effects it has on the global climate. A simple solution would be to calculate those costs, and add them to fossil fuel prices using a tax. At the same time, income taxes should be reduced by the same amount to keep it budget neutral.
but the declining south pole ice caps could be very much the result of volcanic activity.
No, because the plume isn't a recent development. It's been there for a long time and was part of the local equilibrium. The decline in the ice must be from additional factors.
People don't need the government to mandate anything to save the planet. People can do this on their own, assuming the government is not preventing this in any way.
Meanwhile, I'll continue my solder work on this $100 22k hand-hammered chunk of gold shank, put in a nice little 2 carat imperial-grade fire agate, and sell it for about $1,500 in a week or two.
In other words, you start with some materials that are relatively plentiful in the ground, and sell it for a major profit. It's almost like a tulip bulb.
Being deflationary limits the maximum size of the economy that can be built on it.
True, but that's not a problem, because we're not going to build an economy on top of it, just like we're not going back to building an economy on gold. Bitcoin can coexist with plenty of other currencies and monetary instruments, and you can use it whenever it's suitable. When it's not suitable, you use something else.
nobody but an investor has any motive for holding BTC any longer than absolutely necessary.
I use it as a store of wealth. I also keep some gold for the same purpose.
This is entirely false, bitcoin only has value because people think it does.
And that's good enough. I will accept bitcoin as payment for work, because I know other people value it.
90% of the value of gold is because of the same reason. Every year, we mine 10 times the amount of gold that we actually need. This has been going on for thousands of years, and yet, with the huge stockpiles of surplus gold around the world, the price remains high.
Only about 7 people can sell per second, in the entire world.
Wrong. When your bitcoins are on an exchange, there's no limit to how fast you can trade.
Besides, why would you want to sell ? Anybody who's been holding bitcoin over the last couple of years has already seen a crazy rollercoaster ride. People like that don't freak out easily.
When that happens I'm gonna put in some _really_ low bids for bitcoins.
And someone else will do the same, but with a slightly higher bid.
Slashdot Mirror
even though only 80 percent of the free energy in the gas goes to heat (with the other 20 percent out the exhaust pipe)
You must have a very old furnace if it only gets 80%. A modern high-efficiency one gets 96%.
Yes, really. What has a mantle plume under Antarctica have to do with global warming ? You're only exposing your ignorance here.
Bitcoin mining doesn't create very useful technology. It only creates optimized technology for calculating a particular SHA-256 hash. There's very little spinoff from this.
fiat money costs very little resources to create.
Yep. And that's actually a bad thing if you're trying to keep your wealth stored as fiat money. Inevitably, someone will come along and decide to solve their problems by creating a bit more money, making your store worth less.
Industry and science can now use synthetic diamonds. They are cheaper (especially the little ones used in saw blades) and have better quality. Industry use of gold is only 10% of the mined amount. We could stop gold mining, and the industry could survive on the already-mined gold for centuries.
it is probably unrealistic for mining to occur in perpetuity as it becomes exponentially less efficient to mine;
The idea is that transaction fees will take the place of the block reward.
BUT, did that 1967 take into account all the dramatic changes that have been under-taken since 1967 to shrink the world's carbon footprint?
Yes, they took into account all zero of the dramatic changes.
You can rig a computer system as much as you wish, but there will always be a clear track of actions and actors.
That's not helpful if there's no way to audit that track.
You are kind of implying that computers are obscure and unpredictable, but they are right the contrary. People are obscure and unpredictable.
Agreed. If people programmed the computer to rig the votes, that's exactly what's it going to do.
automatically generating printed copies of all the votes such that people interested in crosschecking the results might count all of them manually
And what are you going to do if the voter claims that the printed vote is wrong ?
a format with many more advantages
There's only one advantage: it's faster. The whole election circus takes months. We can wait another day for the votes to be counted.
because of unreasonable fears
There's nothing unreasonable about fearing tampering with elections.
And what if that layman wants to unfairly affect the results?
The layman is only allowed to watch, not touch.
At the end you have to trust in something/someone
No, because you can go to the polling station yourself, and be that layman.
a properly designed electronic system can perform lots of checks, backups, logs, perfectly-understood-by-laymen reports, etc.
How can you tell it's actually properly designed ? You have to assume the worst, namely that it was purposely designed to rig the election, and fake the checks, backups, and logs.
Or how do you think that virtually everything works in the world?
We do what we can. Elections have some unique aspects that make it necessary to be extra vigilant. The anonymity of the process makes a proper audit very difficult, and the stakes are huge.
Gold (minerals) or land (space.) They are deflationary... they are not too practical as currency.
I agree. That's why we don't use them as a currency. But gold and land are still useful. Bitcoin is also useful in a similar way, it's more like digital gold than it is digital dollars.
Whatever actions you perform on the paper votes to optimise the security of the system can be done on digital records too.
A layman could inspect a polling station, and witness the paper ballot counting to confirm everything is done accurately. The same layman cannot inspect an electronic voting machine and confirm it has counted all the proper votes.
It is possible to create a good enough electronic voting system but we just don't have anyone nearly competent enough to do so.
We have to assume the worst, i.e. that the people in power to guarantee honesty and competence are the same people who don't want an honest election.
There are plenty of instances of tampering with paper ballots. Can you provide a single instance of an electronic voting machine actually being tampered with during an election?
You've summarized the problem. Electronic voting allows for undetectable manipulation.
It's way too easy for someone to sneak in an extra box of fake ballots to rig an election.
It's hard to rig an election with a single box of fake ballots. It's also hard to bring in thousands of boxes without anybody noticing.
Under the solutions section it explains how non-government action and privatization can solve this.
And how would that work for the global climate ?
This is really a problem of the "bad" energy being cheaper than the "good" energy
They aren't really cheaper if you would also include the cost of higher CO2 concentration and the effects it has on the global climate. A simple solution would be to calculate those costs, and add them to fossil fuel prices using a tax. At the same time, income taxes should be reduced by the same amount to keep it budget neutral.
Deflation is a bad thing for a national currency. It's not a bad thing if you want to store your wealth somewhere.
but the declining south pole ice caps could be very much the result of volcanic activity.
No, because the plume isn't a recent development. It's been there for a long time and was part of the local equilibrium. The decline in the ice must be from additional factors.
People don't need the government to mandate anything to save the planet. People can do this on their own, assuming the government is not preventing this in any way.
Isn't going to work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Meanwhile, I'll continue my solder work on this $100 22k hand-hammered chunk of gold shank, put in a nice little 2 carat imperial-grade fire agate, and sell it for about $1,500 in a week or two.
In other words, you start with some materials that are relatively plentiful in the ground, and sell it for a major profit. It's almost like a tulip bulb.
Being deflationary limits the maximum size of the economy that can be built on it.
True, but that's not a problem, because we're not going to build an economy on top of it, just like we're not going back to building an economy on gold. Bitcoin can coexist with plenty of other currencies and monetary instruments, and you can use it whenever it's suitable. When it's not suitable, you use something else.
nobody but an investor has any motive for holding BTC any longer than absolutely necessary.
I use it as a store of wealth. I also keep some gold for the same purpose.
This is entirely false, bitcoin only has value because people think it does.
And that's good enough. I will accept bitcoin as payment for work, because I know other people value it.
90% of the value of gold is because of the same reason. Every year, we mine 10 times the amount of gold that we actually need. This has been going on for thousands of years, and yet, with the huge stockpiles of surplus gold around the world, the price remains high.
and your $7,000 bitcoin is going to plummet back to somewhere near what the true transactional and holding value of BC is.
How do you know that the true value is less than $7000 ?
Gold has risen to half a million for a bullion bar, and shows no sign of a "bubble"
Only about 7 people can sell per second, in the entire world.
Wrong. When your bitcoins are on an exchange, there's no limit to how fast you can trade.
Besides, why would you want to sell ? Anybody who's been holding bitcoin over the last couple of years has already seen a crazy rollercoaster ride. People like that don't freak out easily.
When that happens I'm gonna put in some _really_ low bids for bitcoins.
And someone else will do the same, but with a slightly higher bid.