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Re:Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices? by svara on Saturday January 01, 2022 @12:48PM (#29760740)
A game theoretically designed paperclip maximizer is growing so large that we're starting to see collateral damage in the broad economy; car prices and availability issues, just to name one example.
Re:Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices? by Reichhardt on Saturday January 01, 2022 @05:17PM (#29763444)
Its dead easy to fix it though: for politicians to ban the purchase of Proof of Work cryptocurrencies. All of the major exchanges are centralized now anyway. Tank the price (via basic supply-demand microeconomics) and you solve electricity and chip supply issues.

The fact that this easy step hasn't been done suggests a broader conspiracy to destabilize Western nations and sow chaos, perhaps to usher in a transfer of global power from West to East. Note that China has banned the mining and trade of these cryptocurrencies long ago.

Re:Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices? by goldenbikeshed on Monday January 03, 2022 @11:39AM (#29782599)
Or maybe our western liberal democratic capitalist societies have long degenerated to a point of complete and utter directionlessnes.

Your conspiracy would have the west fucking themselves over.

How about this: a plutocratic elite has accumulated enough capital to be no longer accountable to anyone as almost each and every actor with power in society has been bought out - they don't care about you being able to afford a GPU for your world changing machine learning project for a fair price. They care about themselves and themselves only, and doing so are molding the rest of society into the same myopic egotistical form.

The recent pandemic and the sheer amount of people not willing or able to comply with simplest (masking, vaccinating, etc.) mitigation measures due to what boils down to a kind of malicious dumbness or idiocy driven by mass and social media reminds me of the kind of spirit that allowed the nazi party to come to power in Germany.

This doesn't bode well for ongoing crises like the destruction of the ecological support system of our species' home planet driven by greed and an endless appetite for convenience.

Re:Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices? by Wiseacre on Saturday January 01, 2022 @12:54PM (#29760801)
The mineral industry has been experiencing this for centuries.
Re:Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices? by rasz on Saturday January 01, 2022 @01:05PM (#29760907)
Forget car prices, look at overall energy prices this winter.
Re:Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices? by dave333 on Saturday January 01, 2022 @05:48PM (#29763685)
The cost of power is about to drop significantly. A leased 250 KW Suncell generator could mine a lot of crypto. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011186387437
Re:Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices? by NotVerstappen on Saturday January 01, 2022 @07:52PM (#29764559)
Well thanks, that's a good couple of minutes of hilarity. You should really use an /s though; I was hoping for a breakthrough in solar concentrators or something similar.
Re:Are cryptocurrencies to blame for high GPU prices? by svara on Saturday January 01, 2022 @06:52PM (#29764158)
I don't see the direct link between energy prices and PoW mining. At least not beyond the theoretical supply and demand argument, and PoW mining energy demand is still relatively small. Care to elaborate?