Elon Musk

at least Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that has any environmental impact, and the rest are all green

If you were me and I were you, I'd tell you how not all currency is green.

It's not easy being me or green

Ugh, libertarian bitcoin bros are all over Twitter (as well as Reddit etc). Basically the dudes who used to desperately argue that tort law would save the planet, now they've just settled on making hollow claims that their pet ponzi scheme isn't "technically" an environmental catastrophe.

For me Musk pulling Tesla plants out of CA and moving them to TX would be a deal-breaker but apparently that's not enough for my brother. I am seriously thinking it's getting close to the time when we should boycott entire states.

what if my car went underwater and the electricity shorted out and I couldn't get out? I dunno, I have come to feel that things like my car catching fire or plunging into a lake are highly highly highly unlikely, much more so than other accidental deaths I might suffer, and if that's the way I go, that's the way I go

FWIW, there was a case a few years back where I live, where an Audi SUV slipped into water and the controls for the doors and windows shorted out. The vehicle took a few minutes to sink and the four people trapped inside drowned, slowly. Two of them were kids. It really brought home to me that that's not the way I want to go.

if you drive a newish car (i.e. a shitty IOT gadget on wheels) then i recommend putting these in glovebox/armest/keyring https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0042VTYXM

Ugh, libertarian bitcoin bros are all over Twitter (as well as Reddit etc). Basically the dudes who used to desperately argue that tort law would save the planet, now they've just settled on making hollow claims that their pet ponzi scheme isn't "technically" an environmental catastrophe.

These dudes (I mean, c'mon, that's 99% of the ones I've seen) are everywhere. The latest twist seems to be arguing that we are constantly on the verge of the tipping point where somehow all of the energy used to mine bitcoins is going to magically disappear because of.... something. This is the part where their tweets consistently become more vague.

what's an IOT gadget?

internet of things, see https://twitter.com/internetofshit

The latest twist seems to be arguing that we are constantly on the verge of the tipping point where somehow all of the energy used to mine bitcoins is going to magically disappear because of.... something.

proof of stake. as opposed to "proof of work", which is how many cryptocurrencies work now. "proof of work" means rising energy use dedicated to solving complicated math problems. proof of stake is the magical thing that everyone working with etherium swears they very much care about and have definitely been focused on from the beginning.

proof of stake will apparently save everything because it will be a way to validate the blockchain more efficiently. how does it work?

HOW DOES ETHEREUM'S PROOF-OF-STAKE WORK?
Unlike proof-of-work, validators don't need to use significant amounts of computational power because they're selected at random and aren't competing. They don't need to mine blocks; they just need to create blocks when chosen and validate proposed blocks when they're not. This validation is known as attesting. You can think of attesting as saying "this block looks good to me." Validators get rewards for proposing new blocks and for attesting to ones they've seen.

If you attest to malicious blocks, you lose your stake.

PROS
Staking makes it easier for you to run a node. It doesn't require huge investments in hardware or energy, and if you don't have enough ETH to stake, you can join staking pools. It allows for increased participation, and more nodes doesn't mean increased % returns, like with mining.
Staking allows for secure sharding. Shard chains allow Ethereum to create multiple blocks at the same time, increasing transaction throughput. Sharding the network in a proof-of-work system would simply lower the power needed to compromise a portion of the network.

CONS
Proof-of-stake is still in its infancy, and less battle-tested, compared to proof-of-work. Staking is more decentralized.

the only con is that it doesn't work yet and that the vast majority of cryptofucks don't give a shit about the efficiency and never will. that's Proof of Stake

yeah, they're going to build up a crypto-ecosystem based on millions of pieces of shit buying expensive mining equipment and dedicating themselves to this task and community for about a decade, and then suddenly they're going to shift away from that and calmly explain to the very worst people on earth that their mining equipment no longer works for ethereum (which will probably cause them to repurpose the expensive pointless electricity hogs for some other similar person, or throw it in a gas station trash can rather than recycling it)

listen, you may have bought an old factory in Nigeria and filled it up with mining equipment because they had cheapest electricity in the world, but it turns out that we in the cryptocommunity you belong to actually really care about the environment.

maybe they'll eventually introduce PoS and everyone will adopt it. maybe not. but either way, anyone participating in it now just doesn't give a fuck, it's obvious. i wish people would just say "i don't care about energy and the environment and never will". it's the pretending that they actually do that drives me nuts

Genuine thanks for that KM, that's definitely a better explanation than I've seen on twitter yet even though it still sounds like so much wishful thinking smoke and mirrors.

Staking allows for secure sharding. Shard chains allow Ethereum to create multiple blocks at the same time, increasing transaction throughput. Sharding the network in a proof-of-work system would simply lower the power needed to compromise a portion of the network.

ilx ideas: autoreplace "sharding" with "sharting" on this website

the cryptocommunity

CHINA CRYPTOCURRENCY MINING EQUIPMENT IS MOVING TO THE USA IN BULK!

The USA is about to become the crypto hub of the world and #Dogecoin/#Bitcoin will rise again. MASSIVELY.

— Matt Wallace ⚠️ (@MattWallace888) June 21, 2021

5000 likes, lmao. Just any old bullshit will do really.

But yeah thanks for clearing up proof of stake, much appreciated.

i wish people would just say "i don't care about energy and the environment and never will". it's the pretending that they actually do that drives me nuts

I think the half of them who aren't just flatly acting in bad faith probably think they do care, they're just stuck in the conceptual leap from tort law saving the planet they all bought into ten years ago.

No doubt it also gets into Silicon Valley technophilia, many dudes deeply invested in the notion that all it will take it is one good hack to sort everything out.

thanks for clearing up proof of stake, much appreciated.

you and jon both said this, and thank you and i appreciate it back!, but i don't know much about the entire thing. i have made numerous basic errors in yelling at people about cryptocurrency over the last couple months. and there are definitely crypto/PoS advocates that make a strong case for what's possible. HOWEVER, my thing with those cool advocates who I really do believe have their hearts in the right places is that it doesn't fucking matter, because they're embedded within a community of people who are obsessed with value, ie, there is no soul in there

imagine a bizarre 1880s argument where people are talking about the environmental consequences of fossil fuels, particularly oil and coal. (just fucking imagine ok!) and then someone is like "but there are clean energy sources that are already proven, like wind and solar and hydro, and they'll eventually dominate the industry so it will be ok, and holy shit it's 1886 and i'm saying this hahaha!". that's how i feel about the crypto/Proof of Stake people with their hearts in the right place.

it's like, yeah, you'll win the day eventually, after all these fucking turds you said Yes to have their way with it

#onethread

if you compare fossil fuels and the alternatives, fossil fuels have a clear advantage in storage and transportation. On top of this you have the inertia created by decades of infrastructure investment for mining, storage, and transportation. It seems like proof of work was easier to code and get running than proof of stake, so perhaps there's a similar issue there. Is there a large investment in coders to pivot to something better? It doesn't feel like it'd be on the same scale. I'm more worried that people making large investments in hardware or cheap and dirty power would be reluctant to switch and lose their investment into an advantage. So I agree with The Mailman, but I also don't know enough about it to say if a fast pivot to a more efficient algorithm is really so analogous to a pivot from fossil fuels.

Staking allows for secure sharding.

ive been saying this

thank you for clearing this up

your welcome

1/ A thread on the stunning deposition by Kimbal Musk in the SolarCity lawsuit. Find it here thanks to @PlainSite:https://t.co/Vggtqc7l79

It is document 328, attachment 2, starting on page 336 (exhibit 10). You really should read it for yourself. It is amazing. $TLSAQ

— TC (@TESLAcharts) October 29, 2019

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/01/tesla-model-s-plaid-caught-fire-while-being-driven-fire-chief.html

if i had a car company i'd prob make it so the cars didn't just catch fire but idk i prob won't ever have a car company

is it good for the environment when cars explode and burn for several hours? i heard that guy elon musk cares about the environment so i'm thinking this might be the reason for his cars catching fire.

is there some definition of 'plaid' that i'm unaware of

'Something that Elon Musk thought it would be funny to call a car line' seems to be the operative one here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk7VWcuVOf0

good news, Florida

The city of Fort Lauderdale has accepted an unsolicited bid from Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build an underground transportation system under Las Olas Boulevard from its downtown Brightline Station to Las Olas Oceanside Park. https://t.co/JYcEoT5jGS

— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) July 7, 2021

If only someone would dig a big hole in the ground for us to throw all these public funds down.

That seems like the worst ever idea.

It’ll be full of water by its second week of operation and the Tesla’s will short out and the windows won’t open.

It’ll prevent CO2 emissions from the equivalent of one Florida citizen who will now “take the hole to work”

on the other hand, if you could water slide for a couple miles to work, that would be pretty fun.

That would be incredible fun. Is ft lauderdale on the coast? I’m not sure if that’s advantageous for forts or not in 2021. But is it is you could just ride the hole all th way to the beach after work

wow this is a completely insane and stupid idea, please pass the popcorn

new hobby for disaffected FL youth: throwing bottlerockets down into that hole over there

Ft. L story is even worse than it seemed: https://www.businessinsider.com/emails-how-elon-musk-boring-company-got-fort-lauderdale-loop-2021-7

One of the founders of dogecoin had a good thread yesterday

Cryptocurrency is like taking the worst parts of today's capitalist system (eg. corruption, fraud, inequality) and using software to technically limit the use of interventions (eg. audits, regulation, taxation) which serve as protections or safety nets for the average person.

— Jackson Palmer (@ummjackson) July 14, 2021

Reminder: Elon Musk's conflict with Tesla's founders started over publicity. Not engineering, strategy, or product design, but the credit Elon got (or didn't) in a New York Times story. Just a few weeks after sending these emails he began a PR offensive that has never ended. pic.twitter.com/XKrWn1hMKR

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) July 14, 2021

We have almost all the pieces needed for humanoid robots, since we already make robots with wheels

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2021

THIS JUST HAPPENED I’M NOT KIDDING$TSLAQ pic.twitter.com/Ayc9KemaUI

— TC (poorly dancing robot) (@TESLAcharts) August 20, 2021

Imagine just putting a guy in spandex and suddenly 200 tech reporters have to write about how you're building a robot pic.twitter.com/y6hkRC0sO3

— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) August 20, 2021

it's real if we think it's real

blood diamond showerthoughts techbro twat

Amazon just released its own robot demo in response:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad65spfln8w

can't believe this guy finally did something legit funny

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI3BIrpxu5k

blood diamond showerthoughts techbro twat