That doesn’t mean the information is false, but it likely has certain ideological bias.

You can google/duckduck these use cases yourself, if you don’t like the messenger.

You assume it has to be wasted otherwise. That there’s nothing else it could be used for, or that could be done to prevent it.

But it is wasted, i.e. vented / burned into air (https://twitter.com/Beetcoin/status/1120277815058944001), it’s happening NOW and for many years. And only Bitcoin provides alternative, at least profitable so that it incentivizes to use that vented energy. You can’t force anyone to buy generators and run FoldingAtHome. Well, you can do fundraiser, non-profits or whatever, there’s lot’s of flared gas to use! But none one does that, so they will mine Bitcoin.

You assume it would be profitable, or perhaps that it would be used for bitcoin mining even if it’s not profitable.

Not sure where this comes from. I mean, companies are deploying these systems RIGHT NOW, this is not a hypothesis: https://www.upstreamdata.ca/products

https://www.crusoeenergy.com/

Or you believe that they deploy theses systems with loses?

… And money is of course the ultimate substitute …

Yes, and Bitcoin, so far, is hardest money ever created, moving people into low time preference mode, allowing to save, escape government’s easily inflatable “shitcoins”, and actually reducing waste as they don’t have to spend “by force” for things that they don’t actually need to capture ever inflating fiat value. Users value that, and use it. If you don’t value it, just don’t use it; but destroying it because in your view it’s “wasteful” is insincere.

When warranted, such as when you try to insult my intelligence by spouting cultish Invisible Hand bullshit.

I don’t believe in Invisible Hand. But things just happen. There was warning that world will go down in mass starvation - but someone discovered way to capture nitrogen and create fertilizer. Money printer goes brrr and someone arrived at solution to created Bitcoin. It just happens. It might happen that some one will change Bitcoin with the better alternative - I can’t deny that in the same way as no one knew for sure that Bitcoin will appear “from nowhere”.

But in any case, how much of current bitcoin mining infrastructure would you say is portable? And to what degree is it portable? Like, how long would it take to tear down, move and put up a mining facility of decent size?

I don’t know the details, but they do move around: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-mining-power-sees-short-term-fallback-as-rainy-season-ends-in-china :

Miners without sufficient hydropower supply would have to shut down their operations or relocate to other provinces like Xinjiang or Inner Mongolio, where mining farms have a more stable, but more expensive, power supply generated from fossil fuel plants.

For the purpose of mining more Bitcoin, of course… Alternatively we could simply not do that, and use the energy saved from not mining bitcoin instead of using even more resources to build more power plants that we wouldn’t really need if not for all the bitcoin mining.

Maybe for Bitcoin, maybe for else, who known, it’s for owners to decide. Yes, they could not do that and vend natural gas as they are doing for the 100 years…

Maybe the biggest crises our civilization has ever faced is caused by us messing with nature to the point that it’s about to collapse. And you suggest we should do more of that?

Yes we should take care of nature as much as possible, and using that flared gas is one of the methods.

Introducing hard money also helps a lot, as it moves thinking into low time preference (See Bitcoin Standard book from Saifedean Ammous), reducing malinvestments (because you can’t bailout Bitcoin owner, there’s no file->print, so three’s actual risk and actual responsibility) and actually wasteful over-consumption. Without printing press there would be no subsidies for “fiat food” - agriculture that destroys ecosystems (grasslands, prairies, event forests and jungles) by eroding soil, and also destroying human health with all these oxidizing carbs and industrial seed oils (“vegetable oils” lol), which also costs a lot in various terms (there was info about how much USA health care produces CO2, for example, sorry don’t have a link, but it’s hudge).

No one really would want to spend precious satoshis on gadget that will break in few months, or just get bored of it (like fidged spinners as silly example). That would be responsible economy.

The argument was in the part you cut out because you’re a fucking ass.

OK, sorry, so to clarify, your argument basically was “lol, it’s top notch propaganda”. How/why it’s propaganda? How this information could have been produced to not look (or be) a propaganda? Any my argument is probably also a propoganda? So there’s no way to discuss this, it’s decided by you it’s all propaganda and that’s it?

Yes, your whole argument is an assumption. That’s the point.

Where’s mu assumption? I showed facts that people use bitcoin to overcome government oppression, censorship, to get back control of their money AND it utilized instead-untapped energy, reducing greenhouse gas pollution. Where’s assumption here?

Because money and value are entirely different concepts … and contrasting that with bitcoin mining which might be profitable, but is not valuable.

And value is subjective. Some people buys used panties for Christ sake…!

Meanwhile, more and more institutions are starting to use Bitcoin as inflation-resistant reserve asset, they see value in it as being digital gold:

https://youtu.be/NoobUKNttmw?t=2267 (whole video is recommended) https://bitcointreasuries.org/

Others use it for (again) “freedom stuff”, they value it as cache (bearer asset that allows exchange without third parties, without censorship).

Others use it for just trading, they see value in it it as speculative asset.

Or as uber fast (using Lightning Network) final international settlement: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/strike-is-bringing-the-lightning-network-to-more-than-200-countries

Or who knows what more.

Jesus fucking christ, you inbred Anarcho-Capitalist dildo.

So we’re starting using names? Is this your argument? You say something might create better “thing”, I agree, someone might. As someone created Bitcoin, a better “gold”, go organize create something better to replace it, instead of destroying currently best thing we have “in advance”.

There is no excess clean energy in the grid. We burn fossil fuels like crazy to keep up with demand, and any use of renewable energy for mining useless bitcoins means we have to burn more fossil fuels to replace it. Not that it really makes sense to talk about specific energy use being renewable or not, as it’s all mixed in the grid and we haven’t yet invented RFID tags small enough to attach to electrons in order to identify their source.

There’s limit how far electricity can be transported efficiently, so building local mining farm in the industrial park near water dam (because miners are portable and can be moved anywhere), or oil drill site, as in these natural-gas-flaring sites mentioned earlier, utilizes untapped resources INSTEAD of conventional. This capital can be use to invest into more power generation projects, etc, etc.

Imagine some poor African nation that has a waterfall. It’s too far from civilization to be cost effective to build power lines, to transport electricity. Meanwhile, local generator and mining farm could provide income in terms of hashes, and transport it (as it is information) wirelessly via internet. You wouldn’t use that remote electricity otherwise, and it moves other “conventional” miners out of competition, reducing pollution.

Lol @ “freedom money”. That’s some A-grade propaganda right there.

So whole argument is “lol”? Do I need to post even more examples than provided by Human Rights Foundation member?

It therefore ought to be killed off in favor of less asinine alternatives.

It’s already 12 years of operation, thousands of alternative altcoins-“killers” (being generous calling them just altcoins), still no one provided more open, more decentralized, more neutral, more censorship resistant, more secure (hash power here is security) alternative. You can create faster, less energy-consuming alternative, but that will likely be more centralized, as example.

If energy that would otherwise be wasted is used to mine Bitcoin, then fine I guess. But would it, really?

“Would” is assumption. But I posted fact that gas are leaked for hundred of years, and Bitcoin miners started to tap it.

If you can use it to mine bitcoin, could you not also use it for other computationally intensive tasks such as protein folding and other kinds of number crunching for science?

Why would someone burn gas/electricity “for free” to do number crunching? Go, lunch million of FoldingAtHome instanced, beat the Bitcoin miners!

Bitcoin allows to tap remote energy sources. These miners using these remote, untapped energy sources increases mining difficulty, in that way outperforming miners with “conventional” electricity, in that way using, as mentioned above, “waste” natural gas. Miners also subsidize renewable energy providers as hydro-power, sucking excess electricity in flood seasons, for example.

Either way it still seems like an open question whether this is commercially viable, since if profit is the only incentive it needs to be cheaper than the alternatives.

The market will provide answer. If you someone provides better alternative to Bitcoin and users will switch to it - OK then. But to distroy it by hacking it…?

That number is most likely bullshit, but even if it’s not it’s still a waste of energy whether renewable or not.

Yeas, we should not assume numbers are accurate. But again, miners are incentivized to get cheapest electricity, and one of the cheapest electricity is excess one, as provided example before - hydro power. And now also reducing pure methane released into atmosphere. That’s “free” energy (minus capital needed for generator, it’s maintenance, etc, of course).

it could be used for something actually useful,

Actually useful for whom? For you? So if you don’t find it useful, nobody should? So all these “freedom money” examples are not use cases? Protecting purchasing power, battling inflation hidden-tax is not use case? See https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ too. Exiting low-time-preference fiat system is pretty important mission.

Also, as hat reason.com article said:

Maybe you don’t need bitcoin. Maybe you don’t understand bitcoin. Maybe PayPal, Venmo, or your bank account serves your needs just fine.

So keep using fiat system, and let as do our thing. If you create better alternative to Bitcoin, we might switch to it.

Some anti-FUD for you:

https://reason.com/video/2021/02/05/bitcoin-is-protecting-human-rights-around-the-world/

https://www.upstreamdata.ca/post/natural-gas-venting-how-bitcoin-solved-a-160-year-old-problem (https://twitter.com/Beetcoin/status/1120277815058944001)

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/study-over-74-bitcoin-mining-180300738.html