"This Machine Greens" - Bitcoin Documentary - Online Premiere
Why Hacker News recommends it
Bitcoin advocates on HN cite it to rebut energy-consumption and waste criticisms, though it is an advocacy piece from a Bitcoin company.
What it is
A documentary from Swan Bitcoin exploring Bitcoin's relationship with energy, featuring Lyn Alden and others, and arguing that mining is a net positive for the environment and not wasteful.
Recommended by 5 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2021 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec nk1tz · 2021-09 · on “Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem”
Bitcoin is a "machine that greens". It will drive sustainable energy development in an emergent free market fashion and take us to a type 1 civilization. [this video] Fix the money, fix the world.
Recommends easymovet · 2021-09 · on “Bitcoin's growing e-waste problem”
Once you find out you'll panic about not having enough. The benefits are apparent when analyzed from the perspective of money as a technology that enables strong property rights defended by cryptography. Robert Breedlove does a podcast on the nature of money which great. This video also does a great job of addressing the "waste" by elaborating on "unforgable costliness" : [this video] All of these "uses energy per transaction" people are being underserved by their news sources on the development of the lightning network, which is like going from a LAN with global broadcast to NATed and routed TCP/IP (Bitcoin is a global broadcast layer and lightning is a transaction bundling / routing layer/netwo
Recommends Offpics · 2021-09 · on “China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’”
You should educate yourself. Energy consumption is an old myth and cryptocurrency pushes a lot of innovations in this field. There is a great documentary on this [this video] .
Recommends Quindecillion · 2022-01 · on “Mozilla Foundation pausing cryptocurrency donations”
Bitcoin's energy consumption is a feature, not a bug. The amount of energy consumed by the network will continue to increase, as it should, as it secures more wealth. A currency that's based on energy has been speculated about for decades, such as by Buckminster Fuller, which he called the Kilowatt Dollar: [LINK] Bitcoin is the first attempt at such a money that might actually work. [LINK] If you're curious about the connection between Bitcoin and the energy sector these are worth looking at. * [LINK] * [LINK] * [this video] * [LINK]
Recommends lumannnn · 2022-03 · on “Ask HN: Software with biggest potential for positive impact in 5 years?”
[LINK] - "Bitcoin & Renewable Energy Transition - Bitcoin Incentivizes Green Energy" [LINK] - "Can Bitcoin Mining Save the Environment? with Troy Cross" [LINK] - "This Machine Greens" [this video]
Cites glenvdb · 2021-10 · on “Bitcoin is a Ponzi”
Lots of people disagree with you about that. Sorry you see it as a waste, but we're going to keep using it and dedicating more energy towards it because we understand its value. [this video]
Cites glenvdb · 2021-10 · on “Bitcoin is a Ponzi”
Scroll down to the bar chart showing the country rankings. Look at the top 3 countries (China, US, India). Compare those to Bitcoin... can you honestly tell me that Bitcoin constitutes a significant amount of energy consumption in that context? And it's also worth noting that energy consumption isn't necessarily bad for climate change. You're conflating "energy consumption" with "CO2 emissions". It's CO2 emissions that are the problem, and Bitcoin energy consumption is far more green than most other industries. So we have a monetary network that consumes a globally insignificant amount of energy and is more green than many other industries... is it really a significant problem? [LINK] [VIDEO