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Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by Barrin92 on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @05:18PM (#29898963)
It has helped the adoption of renewables in the same sense how polluting the local river has helped the anti-pollution industry. This is broken window logic. The reason bitcoin uses renwables in the first place is because much of it happens in China where misguided state projects and subsidies have created excess capacity. It makes for a pretty decent joke though, the libertarian currency de jure runs on the misguided state planning of the Communist party of China.

Any excess capacity spent on crypto currency is waste. It could go to scientific computing projects, it could simply not be used. The chips for the equipment (we are in a global chip shortage) could go to something that actually contributes to the real economy.

Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by teawrecks on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @05:46PM (#29899437)
It may not necessarily be the same as "broken window" logic. Consider a world where no one had ever broken a window. There wouldn't be any window repair people. The first time a window breaks, we have a new opportunity to fill a need. Necessity is the mother of invention. The exponential demand for energy creates more pressure to develop more efficient renewable energy generation methods that probably wouldn't be incentivized by a constant amount of energy use. It's a risky bet, but it might be the only way to spur humanity into action.

We just need to increase carbon taxes at the same rate that renewables become affordable.

Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by Barrin92 on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @07:31PM (#29900594)
it's a complete non-argument you can use it to justify literally anything. Dropping atomic bombs on Japan, hey construction boom! Covid-19, pharma industry innovation! Do you turn the heater on and leave the fridge open to accelerate humanity's fight against climate change? No.

We have about a few thousand pressing issues that spur us on to push for renewables as it is, we don't need to waste energy on purpose.

Re:Radeon RX 6500 XT is bad at cryptocurrency mining on purp... by teawrecks on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @08:26PM (#29901138)
> We have about a few thousand pressing issues that spur us on to push for renewables as it is, we don't need to waste energy on purpose.

Crypto mining is one of those issues, we don't have a choice. Your argument reduces to "if we had no issues pushing us, we would have enough issues pushing us" which is a contradiction.