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School of How
Jul 6, 2013

quite frankly I don't believe this talk about the market

Krinkle posted:

Roads go places. Bitcoin miners do the computer equivalent of digging a goddamn ditch and filling it in again a billion times in a meaningless race to be the first to throw a meaningless number at an arbitrary wall and have it stick. Every goddamn miner past the first one is wasting electricity and wholly unnecessary and the total utility you get out of it, the transactions, should absolutely be weighed against the staggering waste of time and resources and the pollution they cause and ahahahhaha nevermind you think arguing with bitcoin is like denying the holocaust shine on you crazy diamond.

the purpose of the miners is to secure the network. since the network hasn't been hacked in the past 5 years, we can argue it works pretty well.

right now we are in a "mining bubble". bitcoin is still very new and exciting. eventually this will wear off, and the hash rate will drop down to a more reasonable value

for instance, my grandkids are not likely to be as enthusiastic about mining bitcoin as some people in my generation. i can see bitcoin becoming an extremely boring thing in the next 50 years. at some point people will have to beg people to mine the network, all though who knows.

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theflyingexecutive
Apr 22, 2007

yes I certainly think that guy sending a nickel of bitcoin to someone is of an equivalent value to eleven hundred passenger car miles

theflyingorc
Jun 28, 2008

ANY GOOD OPINIONS THIS POSTER CLAIMS TO HAVE ARE JUST PROOF THAT BULLYING WORKS
Young Orc

DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

the purpose of the miners is to secure the network. since the network hasn't been hacked in the past 5 years, we can argue it works pretty well.

right now we are in a "mining bubble". bitcoin is still very new and exciting. eventually this will wear off, and the hash rate will drop down to a more reasonable value

for instance, my grandkids are not likely to be as enthusiastic about mining bitcoin as some people in my generation. i can see bitcoin becoming an extremely boring thing in the next 50 years. at some point people will have to beg people to mine the network, all though who knows.

These people are not necessary, but they accomplish an important, necessary task. It all makes sense now!

School of How
Jul 6, 2013

quite frankly I don't believe this talk about the market

theflyingorc posted:

Do you seriously not understand how absolutely stupid this is to say?

its not the best analogy because bitcoin is not a business the way a fast food restraunt is.

people mine bitcoin because they want to

no one is forcing them to

they are willing to spend their own money to help keep their hobby going

theflyingexecutive
Apr 22, 2007

lol if u think sha256 will last two generations or that you will have children, either one

infernal machines
Oct 11, 2012

we have sealed ourselves away behind our money, growing inward, generating a seamless universe of self.

DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

the purpose of the miners is to secure the network. since the network hasn't been hacked in the past 5 years, we can argue it works pretty well.

right now we are in a "mining bubble". bitcoin is still very new and exciting. eventually this will wear off, and the hash rate will drop down to a more reasonable value

for instance, my grandkids are not likely to be as enthusiastic about mining bitcoin as some people in my generation. i can see bitcoin becoming an extremely boring thing in the next 50 years. at some point people will have to beg people to mine the network, all though who knows.

hacking the network is not the high-water mark security wise. the miners are meant to keep the distributed system in chek by ensuring that no one controls 51% of the hashing power. thanks to the mining arms race pushing everything but mining pools out of the race it has been a spectacular failure in this regard. all those KW of energy are still being pointlessly burned AND the hashing power is consolidated within a few relatively small groups.

yet another case where bitcoin is a failure in practice.

infernal machines
Oct 11, 2012

we have sealed ourselves away behind our money, growing inward, generating a seamless universe of self.

theflyingorc posted:

These people are not necessary, but they accomplish an important, necessary task. It all makes sense now!

well, except where they don't. but if you ignore the practical implementation, in theory they sure do!

Gum
Mar 9, 2008

oho, a rapist
time to try this puppy out

DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

the purpose of the miners is to secure the network. since the network hasn't been hacked in the past 5 years, we can argue it works pretty well.

what about the time someone exploited a vulnerability in the network to give himself billions of bitcoins

School of How
Jul 6, 2013

quite frankly I don't believe this talk about the market

Gum posted:

what about the time someone exploited a vulnerability in the network to give himself billions of bitcoins

someone fixed it

Gum
Mar 9, 2008

oho, a rapist
time to try this puppy out

DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

someone fixed it

that does tend to happen when people discover major security flaws. pretty good lesson on why basing your entire monetary system off a single algorithm is a bad idea tho

School of How
Jul 6, 2013

quite frankly I don't believe this talk about the market

infernal machines posted:

hacking the network is not the high-water mark security wise. the miners are meant to keep the distributed system in chek by ensuring that no one controls 51% of the hashing power. thanks to the mining arms race pushing everything but mining pools out of the race it has been a spectacular failure in this regard. all those KW of energy are still being pointlessly burned AND the hashing power is consolidated within a few relatively small groups.

yet another case where bitcoin is a failure in practice.

why do you keep saying waste? securing the network is not waste. the only way the network can hold billions of dollars of value is to be secure.

and don't get me started on mining centralization. mining pools does not equal mining centralization.

with mining pools the only think that is centralized is the part that makes block, the actual hash power is not centralized.

if a pool operator goes rogue and starts loving up the network, people who control the hash power will leave that poll and go onto another pool.

when ghash.io announced they weren't going to limit themselvs to 50% a bunch of peopl left in a hussy, which is why their share is like 20% now. as soon as any one pool gets close to 50% the community causes a shitstorm, and people all migrate to another pool.

theflyingexecutive
Apr 22, 2007

hey dnh what is the utility of bitcoin? what among its properties enable it to be worth real money?

Gum
Mar 9, 2008

oho, a rapist
time to try this puppy out
but yeah bitcoins been around a whole 7 years now, you can be pretty certain that every single vulnerability has been found and patched

fermun
Nov 4, 2009

PleasureKevin posted:

so if we had just like one person mining, what would happen to the transaction time?

isn't the difficulty so high that it would take literally forever to do a transaction?

the various asic miners for sale available for shipping NOW have efficiency ranges of hash/joule that vary, the most efficient at Chinese light industrial electricity rates of about 7 cents/kilowatt hour would be mining bitcoins at a cost of $107/bitcoin with electrical costs alone. At a typical American home electrical rate, you're paying about double that so $214/bitcoin in electrical costs. If you have to pay for cooling as well then that's going to increase the cost paid to mine the bitcoins as well. On top of that the miners are going to want to recoup the cost of purchasing the asics, and not everyone is working with the most efficient hardware, the least efficient asics shipping right now would have an electricity cost of about $225/bitcoin at Chinese light industrial electricity rates, $450/bitcoin US home rate. there are also past generation ones that no longer ship which are a whole lot less efficient too.

some people are probably running their asics at home at a loss out of a love of bitcoin, some out of a belief that using the miner as a space heater is worthwile. a lot of those people would probably keep using their miners at a loss, but my impression is that the majority of hashing power is now by the large scale warehouse operations.

as for the warehouse operations, maybe they are part of a money laundering scheme and can accept some small loss, but those warehouses are paying between $107 and $225 in asic electrical costs for every bitcoin they mine, with overheads that add additional costs for rent, additional costs for cooling, additional costs for salaries. If the price drops too much, they are going to have to turn off banks of asics. If there were a crash that occurred fast enough to go from all asics making profit on electrical costs plus overhead to no asics making profits on electrical costs plus overhead, then every warehouse operation would shut down at the same time and i don't think the home enthusiasts have enough of the mining power themselves anymore to ever get the frisbee off the roof.

Wheany
Mar 17, 2006

Spinyahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Doctor Rope
i doubt the hashrate would fall that fast. if half of the hashing power suddenly disappeared, then one block would take 20 minutes to mine and the next difficulty adjustment would happen in 20 days.

those are not some astronomical time frames compared to the current situation

Tetramin
Apr 1, 2006

I'ma buck you up.

DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

a business model that attracts large amount of volunteer workers who pay for their own supplies? how is that stupid?

incredible

a cyberpunk goose
May 21, 2007


yes Ricky bad posts, it's incredible

truly the block chain is the future

I'm glad you finally understand

ellie the beep
Jun 15, 2007

Vaginas, my subject.
Plane hulls, my medium.
six months ago i was popped for not liking how

now that the truth has been revealed

in this bitcoins thread i love how

Alan Smithee
Jan 4, 2005


A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms.

Enthusiasms, enthusiasms...

TVarmy posted:

gonna need to see a truck full of butts driving by before u get my 5.

or dogecar :swoon:

i'll take a look at the doohjcar if there's any footage

School of How
Jul 6, 2013

quite frankly I don't believe this talk about the market

theflyingexecutive posted:

hey dnh what is the utility of bitcoin? what among its properties enable it to be worth real money?

thats a hard one to answer without getting philosophical

i think bitcoin is the closest system ever created that resembles the idealized notion of money

the whole purpose of money in the first place is to maintain fairness between members of society

the current system is closed source, bitcoin is open source

open source = fair

Weatherman
Jul 30, 2003

WARBLEKLONK
it makes me a bit sad, way down in my left nut, how :siren: my wife :siren: and i live a very energy-efficient lifestyle -- led bulbs everywhere, not using the heater or air conditioner except when it's under 10 or over 32 inside, walking or usin public transport to get everywhere, recycling the gently caress out of things, etc etc etc, and yet there are morons and spergs everywhere (im looking at you dnh) that are balls-to-the-wall gung-ho about burning an entire nuclear plant's output of electricity in their stupid internet pogs game. really makes the effort feel worthwhile.

in short, gently caress this gay earth

a cyberpunk goose
May 21, 2007

DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

thats a hard one to answer without getting philosophical

i think bitcoin is the closest system ever created that resembles the idealized notion of money

the whole purpose of money in the first place is to maintain fairness between members of society

the current system is closed source, bitcoin is open source

open source = fair

DNH i know you are a deep cover fyad lolmaster, i understand how this goes

you are basically fulfilling the role of what will rile this thread up like some kinda dedicated Devils advocate

I appreciate it and will continue to respond in earnest to honor your efforts, I will pretend you are real

quote:

i think bitcoin is the closest system ever created that resembles the idealized notion of money

what qualifies a bitcoiner to hold this belief. why are libertarians so adamant that their opinions are complete while they know full well that they would be loving steamrolled by a studied economist for their lazy thoughts

School of How
Jul 6, 2013

quite frankly I don't believe this talk about the market

Weatherman posted:

it makes me a bit sad, way down in my left nut, how :siren: my wife :siren: and i live a very energy-efficient lifestyle -- led bulbs everywhere, not using the heater or air conditioner except when it's under 10 or over 32 inside, walking or usin public transport to get everywhere, recycling the gently caress out of things, etc etc etc, and yet there are morons and spergs everywhere (im looking at you dnh) that are balls-to-the-wall gung-ho about burning an entire nuclear plant's output of electricity in their stupid internet pogs game. really makes the effort feel worthwhile.

in short, gently caress this gay earth

what about the people who waste electricity playing world of warcraft? does that make you mad too?

or all the electricity wasted on posting in yospos

Ron Paul Atreides
Apr 19, 2012

Uyghurs situation in Xinjiang? Just a police action, do not fret. Not ongoing genocide like in EVIL Canada.

I am definitely not a tankie.
money is a means to simplify and standardize exchanges, fairness has nothing to do with it. The idea that the world is unfair right now because of our money system is loving stupid, power imbalances are what causes that, and while money does affect power, it is not power in itself, nor would changing the standards for transactions dispossess the powerful of their strength in any way.

Ron Paul Atreides fucked around with this message at 09:28 on Jan 6, 2015

School of How
Jul 6, 2013

quite frankly I don't believe this talk about the market

Mido posted:

what qualifies a bitcoiner to hold this belief. why are libertarians so adamant that their opinions are complete while they know full well that they would be loving steamrolled by a studied economist for their lazy thoughts

i'll believe bitcoin will die when you actually can't use the network any more. until then, the network functioning is all the proof i need to be convinced that bitcoin is here to stay

it doesn't matter how many economics degrees you have, saying bitcoin is going to fail doesn't make it fail.

trucutru
Jul 9, 2003

by Fluffdaddy

DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

thats a hard one to answer without getting philosophical

i think bitcoin is the closest system ever created that resembles the idealized notion of money

the whole purpose of money in the first place is to maintain fairness between members of society

the current system is closed source, bitcoin is open source

open source = fair

Wait, what? How!!!


DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

i'll believe bitcoin will die when you actually can't use the network any more. until then, the network functioning is all the proof i need to be convinced that bitcoin is here to stay

it doesn't matter how many economics degrees you have, saying bitcoin is going to fail doesn't make it fail.

I too believe something will stay alive until it stops functioning

a cyberpunk goose
May 21, 2007

DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

i'll believe bitcoin will die when you actually can't use the network any more. until then, the network functioning is all the proof i need to be convinced that bitcoin is here to stay

it doesn't matter how many economics degrees you have, saying bitcoin is going to fail doesn't make it fail.

false equivalency

Bitcoin won't go away but it's none of the things you described

rjmccall
Sep 7, 2007

no worries friend
Fun Shoe
look, it's simple. you have a Happy Burger brand fast food establishment, and sometimes kids come in and want their Happy Burger brand Happy Kiddy Burger, which according to the Happy Burger brand franchise operating instructions is supposed to be 4oz of usda utility grade hamburger lightly grilled and pressed into a poppy seed bun with two slices of mild pickle and a slice of tomato and a piece of iceberg lettuce and the name of the kid written on the top in half an ounce of Happy Burger brand special sauce about which the less said the better

so naturally what you do is, you post an ad saying, cooks wanted, please bring your own grill and meat and bun and pickle and tomato and lettuce, we'll supply the sauce

and you get an applicant, and you send him down to the Hall of Cooks, which is a featureless infinite plane that you keep in the unlit basement of your Happy Burger brand fast food establishment. and you tell him to just keep making burgers and handing them up, and if he hands up a burger that satisfies your standards, you'll pay him a bonus, which is $100,000, plus the price of the burger, which is $.50

now the cook can't see too good down there, and he keeps handing up burgers that are more like pickly meatballs with a swastika painted on the side in tomato sauce, but as long as the meat's cooked the health department won't shut you down, so you keep taking them and dutifully handing down briefcases of cash with a few quarters tossed in. and the cook's pretty happy, even after you summarily declare one day that you're only going to pay $50,000 per burger in the future

so the cook calls in a friend, and she sets up in the Hall of Cooks and starts handing up burgers, and now you're getting acceptable burgers faster than you can sell them. so you raise your standards a bit, and you insist that burgers have to be on a bun, and that cuts production back down to a manageable rate. but the cooks are still pretty happy, even after you cut the burger bonus again to $25,000

this goes on for a while, and now you've got a hundred cooks down there, and you've started demanding that they spell out the kid's name correctly, and that's not easy. so now they're not just making burgers to your increasingly exact specifications, they're racing each other to be the first to get the kid's name right. but you're still paying $5,000 a burger, and apparently the cooks are still happy, because more and more keep showing up

you get curious one day while you're squeezing into your franchise past the giant mountain of rotting discarded hamburgers, and you head down to the Hall of Cooks. the last time you came down here, there were only six cooks, and they were just standing around in a disorganized circle; but now they're organized into these large groups. in one of them, you find your first cook, and he shakes your hand. "remember when we'd just started out and i was lumping up store meat by hand and cooking it on that tiny old george foreman?", he laughs. "that was before figured out cookie cutters and rolling pins." he's standing at a huge professional-grade charbroiler with twenty-four different patties arranged on it; suddenly, in a single efficient flash of movement, he flips them all over. of course, the dull glow of the grill isn't enough in the utter blackness of the Hall, and most of the patties end up on the ground, which you suddenly realize is a lot spongier than it's supposed to be. also, doesn't the ceiling seem lower? you shake it off and head back upstairs to start taking orders, wondering when it'll be the right time to cut the bonus to $1,000

it's been another year. there are tens of thousands of cooks in your basement. you're rejecting burgers for sloppy handwriting. you're rejecting burgers for having too thick a slice of tomato. you're rejecting burgers for excessively clustered poppy seeds. seven months ago, the cooks started building floor-to-ceiling ovens with internal robotics custom-designed for making Happy Kiddy Burgers; now there are whole fields of them, each making ten thousand burgers a second. of course, it's still pitch-dark down there, and the cooks aren't exactly susan calvin, so almost all of those burgers get added straight to the end of the Great Greasy Mountains, but it's amazing how quick they come now. you overhear a few of the cooks talking excitedly about the orders they just placed for massive new ovens from Barbecue Labs. you don't know how any of them can afford this when the burger bonus is only $100

three months ago, you politely asked whether they could start making the adult Happy Burgers, too

for an entire day, all the burgers had your name written on top in poison

Buttcoin purse
Apr 24, 2014

My cum is going to the moon. Did anyone say "I'm Turning Japanese" when MtGox happened?

Ursine Asylum posted:

if you send butts to an unknown address can you claim that as a donation on your taxes

I used to work with someone who wanted to know how he could make some losses to offset his gains and thereby not have to pay so much tax. Seems like investing in Bitcoin is a good solution to that guy's problem. That or understanding that it's better to make profit and pay some tax on than make a loss you loving idiot what the gently caress is wrong with you.

trucutru posted:

[–]Rassah -1 points 2 hours ago
...
Self insurance is more expensive, since you are not sharing your risk with others, but it is much better, because you know your risk level much better than the insurance company could, are guaranteed to have the money if you need it, and keep the money as yours as long as you stay safe, instead of paying it to the insurance company, which creates a huge incentive to stay safe so you don't have to spend that money. When I used to work as a financial analyst and sold financial products, including insurance, I would always suggest that people only buy a little bit of life insurance while they don't have anything save up, and gradually reduce their coverage as their savings grew. No sense in paying someone else for $100k coverage if you have $100k in your IRA already.

OMG guys, what happened here, not only did they hack our HOT wallet, they hacked our INSURANCE wallet too! :pusheen:


5

DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

i honestly think most miners mine bitcoin becsause they like bitcoin

some people think miners only do it for the profit, ...

I enjoy setting fire to money. It's not profitable, in fact some might say it's anti-profitable, but I like it.

rjmccall
Sep 7, 2007

no worries friend
Fun Shoe
oh good, i wasted a lot of time on that post, i'm glad it's still relevant

yaaaaay fever

a cyberpunk goose
May 21, 2007

ORDER

thousands of line cooks desperately try to make just the right burger as fast as they can

okay that one looks good

thousands of line cooks sigh and slide thousands of dollars of food product into the waste bins next to them as the one good burger is taken to the customer

the system works!

unpacked robinhood
Feb 18, 2013

by Fluffdaddy

rjmccall posted:

as a young french developer in brazil harry potter galtse galtse

Greyhawk
May 30, 2001


DAT NIGGA HOW posted:

i'll believe bitcoin will die when you actually can't use the network any more. until then, the network functioning is all the proof i need to be convinced that bitcoin is here to stay


you know what also still exists?

.beat time

no really

unpacked robinhood
Feb 18, 2013

by Fluffdaddy
the first 3 pages of arguing with dnh happened like right after new years eve and i assumed you were all hangover but a second time in a row is just shameful.
if this guy is genuine he's a retard rehashing the same badly understood bitcoin and money concepts, you are not going to convince him

a cyberpunk goose
May 21, 2007

unpacked robinhood posted:

the first 3 pages of arguing with dnh happened like right after new years eve and i assumed you were all hangover but a second time in a row is just shameful.
if this guy is genuine he's a retard rehashing the same badly understood bitcoin and money concepts, you are not going to convince him

he's a FYAD expat so just assume he's loving with you always

bein a regular on FYAD excludes you from ever being taken at face value for life

a cyberpunk goose
May 21, 2007

this extends to people I know irl as well, people so broken I can't talk to them about serious things because they are hollow

a cyberpunk goose
May 21, 2007

because of fyad I mean

vOv
Feb 8, 2014

irony is an all-consuming void that swallows you whole

vOv
Feb 8, 2014

speaking of which either americanpegasus is an incredibly long-game troll or he's gone even further off the deep end

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Sham bam bamina!
Nov 6, 2012

ƨtupid cat

infernal machines posted:

a quick glance at his posting here and in coc show a person who is blissfully unaware of how stupid they are, and how!!

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