News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by klyrs on Thursday January 19, 2023 @03:47PM (#34445387)
First off, I'd like to commend you for using landfill volume as a proxy for productivity. It's refreshingly honest and I wish economists would take note.

That said, there are last-gen GPUs and ASICs going to landfills. Some people are actually getting paid to make the inputs to the otherwise-ephemeral pseudocurrency. Not to mention all of the CO2 released into the atmosphere... you can't see it but that $1.8B put it there.

Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by samwillis on Thursday January 19, 2023 @04:24PM (#34445815)
My pet theory is that the massive excess in GPUs from the crypto explosion are being fed back into the AI explosion we are seeing now.

In reality I wander how many former mining GPU farms are now doing AI training...

Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by dougmwne on Thursday January 19, 2023 @03:50PM (#34445417)
And the paper clip factories churn on.
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by samwillis on Thursday January 19, 2023 @04:25PM (#34445826)
Do not click this link, you will loose at least 6hrs of your life:

https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html

Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by klyrs on Thursday January 19, 2023 @08:15PM (#34447955)
lol, mobile browsers are impervious, I was gone in 10 seconds flat
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by gog on Friday January 20, 2023 @04:15AM (#34450665)
Unfortunately you are correct.
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by dsfyu404ed on Thursday January 19, 2023 @03:51PM (#34445438)
People doing "economist things" but with money at stake (i.e. financial analysts) already do that stuff.
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by honkler on Thursday January 19, 2023 @03:50PM (#34445422)
some use freight activity as a measure of economy, atleast "real economy".
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by RC_ITR on Thursday January 19, 2023 @03:52PM (#34445446)
And therefore completely ignore the 50% of the global economy that is services.
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by Tostino on Thursday January 19, 2023 @04:19PM (#34445752)
Not entirely, most services require some products as inputs, so they are still measured in some way.
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by RC_ITR on Thursday January 19, 2023 @04:40PM (#34446008)
What about electricity generation requires a shipping container?
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by honkler on Thursday January 19, 2023 @05:31PM (#34446601)
freight in this context generally includes commercial rail freight.
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by RC_ITR on Thursday January 19, 2023 @06:19PM (#34447032)
Do we ship natural gas via rail now? Are we replacing our turbines every year?

Plenty of economic activity that is not fake involves no freight.

Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by honkler on Thursday January 19, 2023 @06:39PM (#34447229)
electricity consumption to measure economic activity is another technique, but judging by your reaction, "fake economy" hit a nerve.
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by RC_ITR on Sunday January 22, 2023 @02:42PM (#34481448)
Yeah, because people who believe “services are a fake part of the economy” vote and their representatives pass bad economic policy as a result.
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by brg on Thursday January 19, 2023 @05:35PM (#34446637)
* * *
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by RC_ITR on Thursday January 19, 2023 @06:21PM (#34447049)
>Energy production is kit a self contained endeavor. Transformers, steel, copper, pipe, valves, digital equipment for monitoring and control systems are just some of the necessary inputs for construction and maintenance.

Freight is a very poor way to measure electricity output. Both turbines and balance of plant equipment usually last 40 years (so we replace c. 2.5% in a given year) and now a days, most fuel is piped.

>Beyond that, efficient use energy production requires some place for it to be used, Generally home and industry appliances.

Yes, all of which is economic activity unrelated to freight.

Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by honkler on Thursday January 19, 2023 @04:19PM (#34445746)
aka fake economy.
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by RC_ITR on Thursday January 19, 2023 @04:40PM (#34446004)
Yeah, the illusion of electricity and the Internet...
Re:Peter Thiel’s fund wound down 8-year Bitcoin bet before m... by WeylandYutani on Thursday January 19, 2023 @05:43PM (#34446709)
All of the crypto companies have had layoffs since the crash. The big exchanges are downsizing- but obviously there's still some money in it.