Title says it all!
Which is the more ecologically destructive, self important move?
Profits or progeny?

Parenthood can be done responsibly (like in the case of many cool PRF parents!), and someone should probably stick around and steer this hellscape away from full on idiocracy. White christian families with like 8 kids named Juniper or whatever, no, fuck those types of parents.

But what tangible good does cryptocurrency serve? I don't know anyone deeply into it who isn't a tech bro sociopath.

(for the record I don't participate in either)

Not really very emotional about either choice, but as all electricity production becomes more green/sustainable as well as the changes in the technologies driving it, the impact of Crypto is destined to decline over time. Not to mention that in that conversation, nobody ever mentions the ecological impact of the hordes of servers propping up traditional banking, the stock market, ATM networks, Online commerce which I would guess is pretty damned high as well. In theory, you could build a completely wind/solar powered Coin miner, and well... there you go.

Children are always going to be consumers of resources, and producers of waste. On the other hand, I believe the children are the future. We are going to need them to like, invent the shit that will make crypto mining clean enough to use and shit.

How much power does Tik Tok, FB, Instagram, other social media burn. That shit offers absolutely nothing of true value and exists only to sort ads directly to your face. Though Crypto is definitely a watt burner, I suspect that some of the bad press about its consumption is actually put out there by traditional finance lizard people to keep young people from buying Dogecoin instead of putting money in to 401K's.

^ Yes, one of these things is essential and one isn't. No, you (the hypothetical you) having children is not essential, but somebody is going to do it (hopefully not too many, sorry I already added 2), and needs to for the sake of the species. We don't need dodgy coin or whatever. From a utilitarian point of view, kids are (potentially) more beneficial. Now if some genius could calculate the climate impact of one western society, middle class human in their lifespan, and put that next to carbon footprint of one bit coin, we could look at the exchange rate.

penningtron wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:38 pm But what tangible good does cryptocurrency serve?

Other than "smart contracts" and stuff (which I know almost nothing about) The only thing I can think of it being really useful for is creating a universal "Esperanto" of money, which could be useful when traveling I guess. Though NFT's are being used in a extremely stupid way right now, my guess is that will be how most intellectual property is bought and sold in the future. It's just riding a Fad wave among people that listen to too much Dubstep and hack the mainframe all day. And have Twitch channels where they play Minecraft probably. I've done a good bit of reading on Crypto in the last year and only understand its usefulness in theory. I think what is being bought and sold now is not what it will look like in 10 years. It's all a giant Beanie Baby right now. No doubt in the future, your mortgage, passport, DL, and maybe even your medical records are going to be on the blockchain. No real Idea why though.

losthighway wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:57 pm exchange rate.

I will give you 2 Bitcoin for a healthy human baby!

Kniferide wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 2:05 pm

losthighway wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:57 pm exchange rate.

I will give you 2 Bitcoin for a healthy human baby!

Let me check today's reports. I'll have my people start typing something up in case the time is right. This one's a biter, though.

If we don't produce our little genetic sprogs, who are we going to use as our warrior caste when the world plunges into dystopian neo-tribalism after the inevitable collapse of our decrepit techno infrastructures?

10 posts in and nobody is voting except FM Penningtron, who I assume cast their vote wrong...

Kniferide wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:48 pm Not really very emotional about either choice, but as all electricity production becomes more green/sustainable as well as the changes in the technologies driving it, the impact of Crypto is destined to decline over time. Not to mention that in that conversation, nobody ever mentions the ecological impact of the hordes of servers propping up traditional banking, the stock market, ATM networks, Online commerce which I would guess is pretty damned high as well. In theory, you could build a completely wind/solar powered Coin miner, and well... there you go.

I have to disagree somewhat.
I don't think the the financial incentive is there for technology to catch up in time for Cypto to not have a devastating impact. Individuals especially, choose short term gain. It already has had a MASSIVE impact. We're talking kilotons of waste per annum.(that we can measure)
In my experience, the ecological impact of server farms necessitated by banks and social media, data/AI firms etc... is almost always mentioned.
It's often the main argument against crypto as we've already seen the impact googles and fecebooks have had.
While perhaps to a lesser extent in the US(if at all) corps pay a hefty carbon tax associated with their footprint - not the case for billions of crypto-miners worldwide.

Kniferide wrote: Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:48 pm How much power does Tik Tok, FB, Instagram, other social media burn. That shit offers absolutely nothing of true value and exists only to sort ads directly to your face.

Kids gotta have it though!

The United Kingdom is an aging population, with close to half of our nation over 40. There's been an officially sanctioned hostile environment towards immigrants in place for the last five years or so.

I don't have any kids myself, but someone is going to need to have some because the ever dwindling working-age population won't be able to cater to the elderly for much longer. We're already over-stretched and under staffed in social care as it is.