cyrus
@cyrus
I’ve been researching ‘data warming’ for years, including blockchains. Bitcoin’s PoW energy use is rising, while Ethereum’s switch to PoS cut its energy use by 99.9% which is a win worth celebrating Energy use in digital systems is a real issue, but it feels like it's been overhyped for blockchains and embedded itself into the psyche of the public. Meanwhile AI and other computing face little scrutiny. Makes you wonder why?
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matthewb
@matthewb
because folks on the left believe that "crypto bad" is the in-group accepted opinion that they should hold and energy use is an easy explainer for why. of course it's a superficial belief, they've probably never even thought about most of this stuff.
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cyrus
@cyrus
interesting-do you have any data to show it's a left thing? i don't really have good data on that but this came up showing >60% of Americans are skeptical and I don't think that many people are left leaning in the US https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/24/majority-of-americans-arent-confident-in-the-safety-and-reliability-of-cryptocurrency/
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matthewb
@matthewb
ehh I don’t have time to research this atm but pretty clear that dems are more likely to be anti-crypto and republicans more pro-crypto just look at Warren’s “anti-crypto army” campaign as an example of her own market research pointing to that messaging as a viable strategy to win votes
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