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Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

psionl0 said:
No but we have tried to ban prostitution, gambling, alcohol and drugs before. The only winners from such policies are the lawyers.
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False equivalence.

We've tried to ban various things with various degrees of success. You have presented zero evidence that cryptocurrencies are more like prostitution, alcohol and drugs* than CFCs, asbestos and firearms in respect of how easy it is to ban them.

* Crypto currencies are a form of gambling, but while it's hard to ban the entirety of gambling, that doesn't mean it's impossible to ban a specific form.
 
jeremyp said:
Crypto currencies are a form of gambling, but while it's hard to ban the entirety of gambling, that doesn't mean it's impossible to ban a specific form.
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You are just dreaming.

In spite of global cooperation, the war on drugs has been a spectacular failure. There is no reason to believe that the "war on cryptos" would have any more success - especially since a ban would be most unlikely to be universal.
 
I don't see banning bitcoin as likely, though I think regulations to treat it more like the speculative investment it is being held up as would have a similar effect in the long run.

I don't think we can get rid of crypto, but that is a very poor reason to leave it totally unregulated and a pretty poor argument against banning it. There are lots of things that are best banned that we can not totally get rid of. We aren't ever going to end child molestation but that is not a good reason to make it legal.
 
psionl0 said:
No but we have tried to ban prostitution, gambling, alcohol and drugs before. The only winners from such policies are the lawyers.
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Exactly we tried to ban child molestation and kiddy porn and it has gotten us nowhere. Clearly the catholic church was right and just covering it up is the real solution not throwing people in prison.

That a law get broken is not actually a terribly good argument against the law. You have to look at why they were outlawed in the first place and what the goal was, and if it could be better achieved some other way.
 
psionl0 said:
"Child molestation and kiddy porn are bad therefore bitcoin is bad" is a lousy argument.

Maybe you also think that we should continue the war on drugs?
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I get it you think Bitcoin is the new Methamphetamine and want to get in on the ground floor.
 
psionl0 said:
"Child molestation and kiddy porn are bad therefore bitcoin is bad" is a lousy argument.

Maybe you also think that we should continue the war on drugs?
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Should I be surprised that the Bitcoin advocates here are disingenuous to the point of being outright deceptive?
 
jeremyp said:
Did that and found this article https://www.goldmoney.com/research/...vol-2-the-energy-side-of-the-equation-part-ii

Look at the total line on table 1. It says 8.4, so I assume that is where you got your number from. However, the column is labelled as "Energy intensity GJ per ozt". i.e. giga joules per troy ounce

Your figure is out by a factor of 1,000.

I can see where your mistake was made. The first three energy columns are in TJ. It would be easy to overlook the units for the energy/mass column.

Another pointer to the fact that there was a mistake in the calculation is the cost of all that energy. If it was even close to Solitaire's $77k per ounce, it would be impossible to mine gold at a profit.

Another point you have overlooked is that, even if they mined no more gold at all, you could still trade it as a commodity and the energy costs would be no more than those of any other financial transaction. This is not the case for Bitcoin where the energy requirement comes from adding blocks to the blockchain, not creating new coins.
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I double checked and the numbers I quoted should be accurate. Still comes out to 8.3 Terajoules of energy required to mine 1 ounce of Gold.

I did look at the chart from your link posted from Goldmoney.com and they do list energy requirements in "GJ" in the chart which evidently is a misprint of Table 1 on the site as directly above it and I quote:

"The data allows to calculate roughly what the energy intensity of the individual companies by dividing the total direct energy consumption in one year by the amount of gold mined. On average, the top gold miners need about 8.3 Terajoules (TJ) per ounce of gold1. However, there are some caveats;

The companies report energy consumption in the form of fuels and electricity. The electricity consumption data is broken down into electricity that is purchased, electricity that is produced from renewable sources and electricity that is produced from non-renewable sources. The latter thus comes from power production based on the fuels the company consumes, which it reports separately. In addition, all energy data is reported in Terajoules (TJ)"

Yet in table 1 they list energy reported in "GJ", which is incorrect by their own admission, quote taken from just above it.


I do see where you are going, but with the mining of Gold the energy requirement doesn't stop there as energy is also required to refine and there's always the transportation costs associated with the Gold too. So Bitcoin requires energy to mine and energy to transfer it as does Gold.

I get that you'd rather have Gold and there's nothing wrong with owning Gold, I've purchased Gold and Silver with Bitcoin in the past. I've noticed it's much easier to purchase Gold with Bitcoin than it is to purchase Bitcoin with Gold. I'm not even sure you can purchase Bitcoin with Gold? Or make payroll with it? And one thing's for certain, the next time I visit Thailand I won't be bringing along Gold bars on the plane. I may transfer a few BTC though which will already be waiting for me when I arrive.
 
Babbylonian said:
Should I be surprised that the Bitcoin advocates here are disingenuous to the point of being outright deceptive?
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Deceptive? I don't think so. psionl0 has been open and honest in this forum as long as I've been reading it. For the life of me I cannot understand how he stands the never-ending barrage from those who are anti-Bitcoin to the point of hysterics. Look back in the multiple merged threads over just the past 11 years and you'll read the same exact routines over and over. "Bitcoin bad" "Bitcoin gonna fail" "Bitcoin crashing" "Bitcoin is a bubble" "Bitcoin is a scam" etc. Never a new argument or complaint. Always the same old stuff that's been proven wrong over and again.

Sometime around December 2011 psionl0 was talking about Bitcoin falling to $8 and rising to $22 and he said:

"With that sort of volatility, it must be a day trader's delight"

Absolutely true. I was late to the party myself and didn't get interested until 2013, but I'm glad I did! As time has passed day trading has went from making $10/BTC to $100/BTC to $1000+/BTC and last year 2-3K/BTC, almost daily. (obviously when the market moves sideways day trading takes a break)

If every naysayer in 2011 purchased just a measly $100 worth of Bitcoin at $10/BTC, at one point in the recent past they would have reaped a bit over half a million USD for that $100 investment. And the guy who invested $1000, would have had around 6 million USD, in pocket if he chose to do so. And that's just from holding BTC, no day trading! I posted some time ago that it was easy to make $1000 a day trading Bitcoin. Some may have been intrigued some may not but it certainly was true.

I'm a Bitcoin advocate. I always say Bitcoin is not for everyone. Not everyone likes it or agrees with the concept but I'm of the opinion that just because you don't like something or agree with the concept it doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't profit from it. You may not like coffee but owning Starbucks stock shouldn't bother you. (Well it might now)

If you think Bitcoin is evil or a scam, then use it to make a few million and start a charity with that money. Do some good and get back at the evil of BTC. Buy a homeless person a home. Or one could continue to complain about BTC and point a finger. I've noticed it's been the case here since 2011.
 
It is deceptive to deliberately misstate the logic of an argument in order not to respond to it substantively, and provide a straw man instead. I've seen it twice recently.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
I double checked and the numbers I quoted should be accurate. Still comes out to 8.3 Terajoules of energy required to mine 1 ounce of Gold.

I did look at the chart from your link posted from Goldmoney.com and they do list energy requirements in "GJ" in the chart which evidently is a misprint of Table 1 on the site as directly above it and I quote:

"The data allows to calculate roughly what the energy intensity of the individual companies by dividing the total direct energy consumption in one year by the amount of gold mined. On average, the top gold miners need about 8.3 Terajoules (TJ) per ounce of gold1. However, there are some caveats;

The companies report energy consumption in the form of fuels and electricity. The electricity consumption data is broken down into electricity that is purchased, electricity that is produced from renewable sources and electricity that is produced from non-renewable sources. The latter thus comes from power production based on the fuels the company consumes, which it reports separately. In addition, all energy data is reported in Terajoules (TJ)"

Yet in table 1 they list energy reported in "GJ", which is incorrect by their own admission, quote taken from just above it.
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No. The table is right. The text is wrong. The energy consumed by the top 20 gold producers is given as 306,646 TJ. The gold produced by the top 20 gold producers is given as 30,857 koz. Divide the one figure by the other and you get approximately 8 GJ/oz. The figures only make sense if the column labels are correct.

And think about it: if the energy requirement was as high as you say it is, nobody would be able to afford to mine gold.

I do see where you are going, but with the mining of Gold the energy requirement doesn't stop there as energy is also required to refine and there's always the transportation costs associated with the Gold too. So Bitcoin requires energy to mine and energy to transfer it as does Gold.
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You do realise that trading in gold doesn't require it to be moved anywhere, don't you? It only needs to be moved when somebody wants to use it for something.

I get that you'd rather have Gold and there's nothing wrong with owning Gold, I've purchased Gold and Silver with Bitcoin in the past.
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No, I would rather have stocks and shares.
I've noticed it's much easier to purchase Gold with Bitcoin than it is to purchase Bitcoin with Gold. I'm not even sure you can purchase Bitcoin with Gold? Or make payroll with it? And one thing's for certain, the next time I visit Thailand I won't be bringing along Gold bars on the plane. I may transfer a few BTC though which will already be waiting for me when I arrive.
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And I'd rather just take a credit card with me. Credit cards just work. The conversion into local currency happens automatically and I am protected if I do get scammed.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
Deceptive? I don't think so. psionl0 has been open and honest in this forum as long as I've been reading it.
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Well on this thread in the last few pages he has accused others of "false equivalences" whilst failing to acknowledge that his own points about the difficulty of banning Bitcoin are false equivalences. His latest tactic is to affect outrage because somebody pointed out we often ban things like child porn even though it's impossible to completely stamp them out. He's totally misrepresenting the arguments of others.

I wouldn't call it deception though because it's pretty blatantly transparent.

For the life of me I cannot understand how he stands the never-ending barrage from those who are anti-Bitcoin to the point of hysterics.
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If you advocate for something that has no utility, consumes the energy of the Netherlands and is a focus for scams, you are going to get some pushback.


If you think Bitcoin is evil or a scam, then use it to make a few million and start a charity with that money. Do some good and get back at the evil of BTC. Buy a homeless person a home. Or one could continue to complain about BTC and point a finger. I've noticed it's been the case here since 2011.
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The only way to make a million from Bitcoin, if you don't have a warehouse full of specialised computer hardware, is to buy $x worth of BTC and later sell it for $1,000,000 + x + fees to some other poor sucker. I don't think starting a charity makes that morally acceptable.
 
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ChrisBFRPKY said:
If you think Bitcoin is evil or a scam, then use it to make a few million and start a charity with that money.
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Before I do that, can you please explain to me where those "few million" would have come from? Did they just materialise out of thin air, did they use to belong to other people who are now a little (or a lot) poorer, did making them have an environmental impact?

I'd need to know what the cost of them was so I can choose the most appropriate charity to pay it back, and then calculate whether I'd done more harm than good.
 
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