What does Bitcoin energy consumption have to do with CERN?
Don't forget most mining is done in China, not Europe. And your first link mainly tries to show that Bitcoin consumption isn't a lot compared to other uses. So I don't really see the point.
They have been kicked out of China. Most went to the US, some went to other places in central Asia (e.g. Kazakhstan) but they largely left for the US. And some later left central Asia after causing various local blackouts and contributing nothing to their host country other than small bribes and sucking up energy subsidies.
You gotta admire the Chinese bureaucracy for not using kid's gloves when dealing with a problem. In the U.S. you would have miners suing the government, or the government suing the miners, the legality of crypto mining would make its way through the court system and eventually reach the Supreme Court. Then you would have governors possibly standing up to the federal government to retain their miners. In China, the government can decide overnight to kick crypto miners to the curb. No lawsuits, no court cases, no grand speeches, just an enforcement action without possibility of recourse.
China isn't alone in banning it, and the US COULD ban it as well (similar to how gold was banned in the past).
They not only choose not to, but it is rapidly becoming "financialized" - Trading on the CME, and the major players on wall street looking to get into the game and collect their "rent".
i think you forgot to add "communist" in your response.
Normally people like to write "authoritarian communist government" to make it sound really bad.
So like the people of China want crypto banned, and the government does it and this is BAD.
whereas the rest of the world adds fuel to this ponzi scheme and this is good?
Tell us, when the US outlawed ownership of gold under executive order 6102 was this "authoritarian" because it is unclear that the people voted on it or asked for it?
You're mocking him, but he was accurate - it is authoritative government, even more so than in the West.
I'd say expropriation of gold was authoritarian, i.e. undemocratic, because it was done by president, not Congress. US, with its strong president, is not a perfect democracy, powerful groups/president can do things that demos does not want.
That's not claiming it was a bad decision or policy. There were probably good reasons for that step, and it may have helped the country.
>You gotta admire the Chinese bureaucracy for not using kid's gloves when dealing with a problem
Do you feel the same way when the "problem" is "people who want a say in government" or "student activists" or "Uyghurs" and "dealing" with it involves genocide? It's true that authoritarian countries can act decisively on real problems sometimes, when their own private politics align. But they far more regularly act "decisively" to make things worse, to crush freedoms, to cover up their own corruption, etc. It's not particularly admirable that once in a while they have good issues too.
>they far more regularly act "decisively" to make things worse, to crush freedoms, to cover up their own corruption, etc.
That's why Democracy is the worst form of government excluding the alternatives. But it would be nice to have a democratic government that is also capable of acting decisively. I don't have any ideas how you'd do that, but it doesn't seem wrong to express the desire.
This would be possible only when all in the parliament would agree and want the same policy and same law as soon as possible. This is indeed rare, even in dire circumstances like hospitals full of sick people and more coming, or energy crisis in Europe.
Democracy being swift like autocracy is basically impossible. Any pretense of democratic government action needs the discussion to happen, which takes lots of time, and this makes the action not swift.
Instead, the way western governments seem to approach these crises is that lawful process is violated by the government more or less, tough dubious measures are introduced more or less in the interest of the country, then some people protest, maybe lawsuits get filed, then justice system gets bogged down for years, and in some cases we get rulings that government broke the law. This usually changes nothing.
>In China, the government can decide overnight to kick crypto miners to the curb. No lawsuits, no court cases, no grand speeches, just an enforcement action without possibility of recourse.
You admire how dictatorship ignores any law when its convenient for them. You realize this goes hand in hand with overall situation in China re uighurs concentration camps, useless lockdowns killing people in situation where rest of the world goes meh, supporting russia despite sanctions and so on and on.
No, I dont admire them. That government has earned 0 respect, despite some hard numbers they can achieve (or not, who knows)
They can, and they have. China has been building ghost cities for years to prop up their own capital figures, all those apartments would be on the books for prices no Chinese could afford, and stayed empty for years.
It seems to have worked out for them and eventually the cities became inhabited. But it was a huge gamble and here in the west we would call it a scam.
Of course one thing you can't fake is international currency when trading with other countries. But this is one thing China has more than enough of because we all pay them to make our goods.
> What does Bitcoin energy consumption have to do with CERN?
Priorities. Bitcoin (as other POW based cryptocurrencies) waste a huge load of energy, with a single Bitcoin transaction that cost over US$100 of energy (old estimation when energy costs were a lot lower) and mining farms sprouting everywhere hosting thousands of nodes of which each one draws 2000-5000 Watts, just like one or two heaters, but kept on 24/7 with their fans pumping heat into the atmosphere.
My point is that before looking at CERN, maybe, just maybe, they should look at other places where energy is wasted by turning it directly into money (and heat), also without creating businesses and jobs.
I don't think that's very doable though. Bitcoin ASICs only stay relevant for a short time, when they're surpassed by more efficient models, and no longer economically viable. I doubt the owners of these are willing to turn them off and let their investment expire without using them. Also, the increasing cost of electricity dramatically reduces that write-off period.
Besides that, CERN is mostly publicly funded and one huge consumer so the government has lots of control over them which they don't have over miners, which are also more fragmented between many different operators. And the research CERN do is not time critical.
So I still think it makes sense. CERN is one thing they can actually do without too much trouble and has a relatively large effect.
https://ccaf.io/cbeci/index/comparisons
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/business/2022/04/25/watt-dnt-...