> [...] it didn't even amount to 1% of global energy consumption.
When you put it in these terms, we should also just de-regulate fuel, plumbing, and electronics, because the combined lead poisoning won't kill as much as 1% of the population.
No. When I put it in these terms, it means I expect you to prioritize far more impactful targets for regulation than cryptocurrencies. Trading with China should be number one in your list. As should be every other modern western comfort and privilege.
To me you all seen plenty happy to buy made in China computers to post your environmentalist takes with and it makes it really hard to take any of it seriously. Maybe after the world is done taking care of the truly impactful stuff we can revisit this proof of work debate.
Relativity. Trade with China generates a lot of wasteful byproducts, at a lot of benefit to society.
Proof of work generates not as much wasteful byproducts, but far more relative to its current utility. Not its potential or idealized utility, but for what it gives now.
The cost-benefit on those two examples are at vastly different sides of the spectrum.
And your argument that because of that, we can't take claims about proof of work seriously doesn't hold muster. We can still do things about it. Just like we can still do something about the fountains at the Kardashian homes just being fresh running water (they were annoyed about the cleaning process, so had the bright idea to just install a drain and have the fountains be an open tap, so one of their homes was using 1/2 million gallons a month of water).
Ironically, to you, that's a drop in the ocean and we should let them do it because it doesn't move the needle.
I am trying to find a source for your claims about the fountain but nothing comes up in the first few pages of a search. The results that do come up mention their extreme overuse of water during the droughts of 2022, but nothing as extreme as your anecdote.
> As should be every other modern western comfort and privilege.
Seems to me like gambling, speculation, and proof of waste all perfectly fit the definition of "comfort and privilege".
> Maybe after the world is done taking care of the truly impactful stuff we can revisit this proof of work debate.
It's crazy how much we can agree on!
The only problem is, PoW is considered harmful even by the larger crypto community, to the point where alternatives were not only considered, but also implemented (e.g. PoS). I'm more than willing to reconsider PoW's merits at a later time (as you suggest), under the condition that all ongoing PoW schemes are paused until we're done dealing with these more important things. I think it's a perfectly reasonable compromise.
> The only problem is, PoW is considered harmful even by the larger crypto community, to the point where alternatives were not only considered, but also implemented (e.g. PoS).
I have nothing against proof of stake, I think it's fine but inherently less decentralized than proof of work. The whole idea was that anyone with a computer could participate and be rewarded for contributing to the decentralization of the network. In order to actually participate in ETH proof of stake validation, you need to own 32 ETH. That excludes vast amounts of people including myself.
It's a tradeoff and I'm not entirely sure it's worth it. Compared to the current status quo of huge centralized BTC mining operations it certainly looks attractive. There are better proof of work implementations though like Monero which better guarantee 1 CPU = 1 vote. I'm not ready to write it off yet.
When you put it in these terms, we should also just de-regulate fuel, plumbing, and electronics, because the combined lead poisoning won't kill as much as 1% of the population.