naut

naut wrote

I think you touch on the crux of the problem. Ideas like a Green New Deal (video) are a move in the right direction.

I have to disagree on comparing small miners impact to that of corporate emissions. The resources needed for scaled mining are analogous to mineral resource extraction. Like you say, energy consumption and origin are the main issues at play, and cleaner sources are necessary.

Degrowth is the most likely possibility in my eyes, but even that requires a complete paradigm-shift of the global north away from eternal growth and consumerism.

Incentivizing radical change is probably the most facile step forward, and I think the vaccine response to the COVID-19 pandemic is amazing evidence that it can be done. The social movement will be much harder though. Getting people to care about something that doesn't directly affect them in the present could be humanity's linchpin.

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naut wrote (edited )

If you're asking what the anarchist end-game for currency would be, I am ill-equipped to answer. I'm still in the process of developing my worldview and I do not currently consider myself an anarchist.

The fundamental question is what role currency has in your version of society, I think both gold and stock are attached to a more refined market society, and likely wouldn't have a large role in more decentralized systems.

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naut wrote

It's just one more giant, super damaging construct to grapple with

That's the rub with systems as complex as the world is. For how enticing "smash" can be, that course has a huge amount of uncertainty. Sure, we could end up in a decentralized utopia ala Doctrow, but we could also face the real possibility of authoritarian society emerging to claw on to the scraps of a shattered world.

I think radical change is necessary, and it starts with withering the grasp money has on our world.

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naut wrote

I would struggle with a "let's take down this currency" approach (where the hacker army is I wouldn't know), because it's best characteristic is that it is not linked to any one currency or state . At the same time I struggle with the progressive argument that we can technologically solve ourselves out of the hole we've dug.

Pros - good for independent economies, cons - huge energy costs and subsequent contribution to the ecological climate crisis. Hmm, what to do.

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naut wrote

Reply to by !deleted13038

Expected metal and pleasantly surprised to find electro-jazz. Thanks for the recommendation!

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naut wrote (edited )

I have my own issues with the article, its back-of-the-napkin comparisons and its vocabulary, but realistically what should be done to counter bitcoin's environmental impact? I think /u/adi and /u/RichOldWhiteMan bring up some good points, but I'm commenting more because of the question it's made me ask myself.

Bitcoin exists, and instead of complaining about this guy's under-developed article, what can people do about it?

If a state-led solution to govern the production of bitcoin isn't palatable, we essentially leave the answer to people like SatoshiLabs who peddle a free-market argument that growing energy costs will make bitcoin miners scale back, or a more efficient alternative algorithm will reduce computational price up-front. See the Jevon's Paradox.

Lack of intervention from a stateless society would allow this tyranny of corporations to continue unabated, regardless of the damage to the earth it would cause. I also don't think bitcoin will simply disappear (and I like some of the benefits of a decentralized currency), but it needs significant structural change to be ecologically viable.

Lastly, fuck musk.

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naut wrote

Governments have arguably not paid nearly enough attention to producing alternative digital solutions to giant centralised advertising companies that provide an increasing number of communication services for their citizens.

I'm sure there exists a large range of opinion on the gov't funding aspect, I think this is one of the more salient points in the article. Freedom of information is a hugely complex problem in an interconnected society, and the past years of evidence for how platforms can be manipulated only serve to show that actors with a financial attachment to information (Facebook, Google, etc) cannot be trusted to fairly provide access and moderation.

I wonder how easily we can even conceive these social networks to begin finding better solutions, given their emergent nature.

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naut wrote (edited )

Definitely worth an intensive read! The glaring differences between translating a first nation name for Greenland and white-washing North/South America and Australia threw me down a rabbit-hole though.

While I wasn't able to find comprehensive graphics including original names (autonyms) and their translations, I think Native Land provides the best resource for further reading (notably, it does not yet have history for Africa).

For North America specifically, Wikipedia had an extensive compilation on Traditional Territories of the Indigenous Peoples.

Last "fun" fact, respectful names for original/native/indigenous populations are an evolving consensus, and I thought "first nations" was the most appropriate.

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naut wrote (edited )

Monopolized media today is produced for such a large audience that it has to be flattened and family-friendly, to be inoffensive as possible in order to reap the profits it does. And yet any form of media can be propaganda in how it shapes society's views, subconscious or not.

Going deeper into the sexuality side of this article however, I wouldn't want to hold the 80s and 90s as a comparative paragon of sex in media to the modern day.

When revisiting a beloved Eighties or Nineties film, Millennial and Gen X viewers are often startled to encounter long-forgotten sexual content content

If anything, I would argue that there is simply more of a stratification in film today. I fault the sterility of blockbusters to their goals in ever greater mass-appeal.

Edit: Additional thought, let's not glamorize a 40yo view of sexuality because the material was slightly less polished than today's.

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