News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day... by AngryData on Monday February 15, 2021 @07:00PM (#26149357)
Is that any worse than our culture of disposable items that have no business being disposable? Washing machines, dishwashers, and dryers have no reason to not last 25 years, they haven't changed how they function in over 50 years. And all the smaller consumer crap that works maybe a dozen times before an irreparable part or piece fails. Or how many working cars were destroyed in cash for clunkers only to be replaced by trash that is harder to repair and maintain?

Using energy on "worthless" cryptocoins isn't great but we produce tons of other worthless shit using tons of energy and materials that will be worth nothing in just a few years without blinking an eye.

Re:Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day... by hjek on Monday February 15, 2021 @07:10PM (#26149445)
Agreed with your point of disposable items. Regardless of whataboutisms, the point about Bitcoin using more power than Argentina still stands.

(If person A says that traffic accidents are horrible, and person B says "Is that any worse than war?"; while B is correct, that doesn't make traffic accidents any less horrible.)

Re:Mining Bitcoin with pencil and paper: 0.67 hashes per day... by hulahoof on Monday February 15, 2021 @07:19PM (#26149501)
Of course not, but taken to extremes we would have nothing to compare actions to. At a certain level of abstraction we need to be able to compare at the fruit level and not apples or oranges.