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A comment on Over 2 percent of the US's electricity generation now goes to Bitcoin. Parent comment

Re:Over 2 percent of the US's electricity generation now goe... by Gazoche on Saturday February 03, 2024 @05:15AM (#39239020)
Free markets only work up to a point. Once you start having hidden costs that don't enter the equation, like climate change or excessive consumer prices due to supply not catching up with demand, is when other control mechanisms are needed.
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Re:Over 2 percent of the US's electricity generation now goe... by x86x87 on Saturday February 03, 2024 @11:51AM (#39242113)
That's fine.

If the proposal is to reexamine and change the way our society works in order to avoid the tragedy of the commons that's great.

If the proposal is to arbitrarily ban something we don't like or understand that's a problem.

How about the amount of power a datacenter uses? What about all this "AI" - the hardware used for training the models is very power hungry?

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Re:Over 2 percent of the US's electricity generation now goe... by MattRix on Sunday February 04, 2024 @02:55PM (#39253737)
Yes, sure, we can look at things on a case-by-case basis. It’s pretty easy to look at something like bitcoin and see that inefficiency is the purpose rather than the byproduct, and then make regulations about that.
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