Not a cryptophobe, but his rule seems reasonable: 'use it, but you won't get support if you use it for things I don't like'. Certainly better than the 'you may only use this product if you support/disavow $x' emerging trend in 'OSS' README's.
I have the same philosophy. I make an open source video analysis software, mainly used for sports technique but occasionally I get requests from people that use it in the context of hunting animals which I disapprove of. I just don't provide support in these case.
There's several more, which is certainly much more than the author wants.
Most of them seem to be trivial coding mistakes unrelated to the library, and contributors even helped on some before closing due to the rule. The users should probably have asked on StackOverflow or something like that.
This whole ordeal actually seems much more practical than political.
If anyone wants to use this library for bitcoin, just make proper github issues.
A while ago, some licenses started cropping up that tried to disallow certain use. E.g. the anti ICE license, anti-996 license and similar.
Bruce Perens wrote about this in late 2019[1][2], specifically focusing on the "hippocratic license", proponents of which IIRC at the time attempted to spark a debate if the Open Source definition needs to be changed, to allow discrimination like this.
I haven't seen any example of such a trend which is why this is a very extreme position if not an irrational position to take.
> I’m aware of efforts to build proof-of-stake models. I’ll care once the total energy consumption of all cryptocurrencies drops to a non-bullshit level.
> I will summarily close issues related to Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in any way.
Have we seen any creator of a deep learning library, take a similar position if not stopping any support for anyone using it for mass surveillance or burning up the planet by using their deep learning library to train it on tons of GPUs in the cloud until the data centres catch fire? I don't think so.
It's business as usual for them as the author is getting upset over PoW systems to taint all of them under the same brush despite many alternatives that are more energy efficient than others.
> Have we seen any creator of a deep learning library, take a similar position if not stopping any support for anyone using it for mass surveillance or burning up the planet by using their deep learning library to train it on tons of GPUs in the cloud until the data centres catch fire? I don't think so.
I believe the original creator of YOLO actually quit for that reason.
I'm not sure if I would call it a trend, but I would say projects released under under "Ethical Licenses" (such as the Anti-Capitalist Software License (ACSL)[1] or the Do No Harm License[2]) might fit the "you may only use this product if you support/disavow $x" description.
Interesting! I think there's a tangible difference between "you may only use this product if you support/disavow $x" (as in, some public statement of views is a prerequisite to being allowed to use something) and "you may only use this product if you do not cause harm in some tangible sense".
While I'm not necessarily saying I agree with either, the first is certainly less reasonable than the second (and the two examples linked are of the second kind).
This seems....oddly political for a low-level open source technology. Reminds me of the peace-not-war controversy [1] [2].
Edit: I'm surprised at the number of people here supporting political statements in open source. I was under the assumption that most people hated the peacenotwar module, but I guess opinions are more evenly split than I thought.
Perhaps it's because open source maintainers are people rather than corporations. People have the right to decide when to use their free time. In this case, this individual has decided not to support crypto, as is their right. Making something open source doesn't mean you have to support everybody. They're welcome to fork and meet their own needs.
I don't really understand why open source maintainers somehow cannot make political statements. Why are they special? Commercial organisations make political statements all the time, usually at their own peril, so why can't open source projects do the same?
They can do whatever they want, obviously, but when my toaster starts preaching a political agenda while I'm making breakfast, I'll probably get a different toaster.
..."free" doesn't mean you don't lose the respect of your users when you go off mission.
People who preach sometimes forget how often most of us are preached to, and how little we're interested in hearing some random dev's political opinion.
There are also legitimate security concerns around devs with political motivations and the willingness to leverage their projects for their agenda.
And this is the “best” part about open source. The dev does not have to care about any ones opinion.
You don’t pay their rent.
You don’t pay their food.
If they loose you, they don’t care. They don’t need you at all.
You need their software.
You want security? Pay for it.
You don’t want a political statement? Pay for it.
The developer is hardly preaching by refusing to support - for free and in their own time - a use-case that they don’t agree with. Unless you seek out their help, this doesn’t affect you at all.
> when my toaster starts preaching a political agenda while I'm making breakfast, I'll probably get a different toaster.
Equating human beings with disposable machines is one of the great sins of predatory capitalism.
Someone, some person and not a toaster, has contributed a lot of uncompensated work. It's their right to do with that work as they please.
Also, hating cryptocurrencies is not a "political" issues.
For me, that fact that huge companies flout the securities laws repeatedly over a decade is a huge red flag, and I shared this belief with people whose political beliefs are completely the reverse of mine.
I don't really distinguish between open source and proprietary for these issues. It's more about relevancy. For example, if Grindr wanted to ban conservatives from the platform, I could understand that. But if say, Microsoft wanted to ban liberals from using Windows, that would feel a bit weird.
If someone strongly dislikes one of the use cases for their tech, it is natural that they won't want to devote their time to helping that use case. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
> I was under the assumption that most people hated the peacenotwar module, but I guess opinions are more evenly split than I thought.
I think you're the only one who is conflating the topic with this "peacenotwar" thing, and other people are only expressing an opinion on the on-topic subject?
Peace-not-war was malware, or more broadly sabotage, this is merely a statement. While both are a form of protesting and stating political stances, one is usually illegal and widely rejected while the other is protected by the UN's declaration of human rights and by the constitution of any non-authoritarian country.
And it's a fact that the Russian Ukraine conflict has killed many and caused untold damage on the world. Yet many people, who were against the war, still didn't want irrelevant political narrative in their npm packages, even when it almost never affected them (since it was targeting Russian IPs)
There was a time where we were being political for doing open source… we were characterised as communists by some, extreme left wing activists for others for having a movement, that defended affordable transparent software for all.
So yeah little bud, open source was a political statement.
Everything we do is political. The original Stallman "free (as in freedom) software" movement had anti-corporate politics. The "Open Source Software" movement was a deliberate attempt to coopt the movement to be more pro-corpotate.
When people are sending money through crypto (in this case bitcoin) they bid a certain amount for their transaction to be picked up. If they are paying 50 USD per transaction and people are actually booting up machines to pick up this transaction I believe I do not have anything to say to the business going between these two people.
Are these "planet is heating" people going around telling people not to have idle appliances plugged in? Not to use bigger cars if not necessary? If BMW was using websockets in one of their huge SUVs would you not help them?
> Are these "planet is heating" people going around telling people not to have idle appliances plugged in? Not to use bigger cars if not necessary?
Yes and yes? We had the "should the government regulate size of cars" discussion on here just yesterday as well.
As well as - including but not limited to - telling people to fly less, to insulate their homes to reduce heating energy use, to use lower energy bulbs, and so on and so on.
(feeling the planet warming particularly acutely today, as the arrival of Californian weather in the UK has resulted in Californian levels of wildfires near populated areas which have never experienced them before, and the largest daily number of fire brigade calls since WW2 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62232654 )
> If BMW was using websockets in one of their huge SUVs would you not help them?
> just feels childish and lacking logic
Not at all, actually pretty much opposite. I think it is absolutely normal adult behaviour not to help people with their non-urgent problems unless it is a cause you deeply care about. And, it is more typical not to contribute to any kind of open source or free work kind of thing.
It's the project owner's privilege to say this is OK, but that is NOT. (S)he doesn't have to justify it to anyone, even if whatever rule it is, is applied selectively.
> Are these "planet is heating" people going around telling people not to have idle appliances plugged in? Not to use bigger cars if not necessary? If BMW was using websockets in one of their huge SUVs would you not help them?
Any PoW system that is currently running right now to process, mine and settle a transaction on-chain is indeed 'burning the planet' which I agree. The thing is, not all systems are like PoW and it doesn't apply to all cryptocurrencies and Proof of Stake (PoS), hashgraphs, and mostly byzantine fault tolerant consensus algorithms are not burning up the planet. There are alternatives that are useable today.
Unlike the deep learning systems continuously training their surveillance data every day that have just burned up a data centre yesterday. The tech bros don't want to hear that but will target crypto because it threatens their day to day business, especially with the author as highlighted by some commenters and even some ferocious anti-crypto supporters like the CTO of Adjoint, a private blockchain startup. [0]
They also lack any reasoning other than 'all crypto should die in a fire' which isn't going to happen. So at best, this is indeed a very childish and an extreme position to take.
>Since websockets is released under an open-source license, you can use it for any purpose you like. However, I won’t spend any of my time to help you.
>I will summarily close issues related to Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in any way.
> I’m aware of efforts to build proof-of-stake models. I’ll care once the total energy consumption of all cryptocurrencies drops to a non-bullshit level.
> I will summarily close issues related to Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in any way.
Sounds like a very extreme position. I haven't seen any creator of a deep learning library, take the extreme position of not supporting anyone who is using it for mass surveillance or burning up the planet by training it on tons of GPUs in the cloud until the data centers catch fire?
> You already negated all of humanity’s efforts to develop renewable energy. Please stop heating the planet where my children will have to live.
I agree with the energy issues of PoW, but PoS or BFT systems do not suffer from these energy issues and the author knows it.
But we are not complaining about the unavoidable wastefulness of deep learning systems or even the GPU farming and constant retraining / learning of that especially at the expense of it being used for mass surveillance?
No outrage on that is there by the tech bros when there is no efficient alternative for deep learning other than using GPUs, TPUs etc to have these data centres catching fire.
They are no better than the problem of PoW crypto systems today. But at least bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency and there are alternatives that are more efficient right now.
This statement is tragicomic to say the least, and quite possibly paradoxical. Facebook's data center alone uses almost as much as all bitcoin miners annually.
In fact, RedHad and its server / cloud solutions are responsible for running millions of servers that consume hundreds of times more energy than bitcoin miners. Education is failing a big time
If one is deep into the Bitcoin echo chamber, one could end up believing all sorts of things about bitcoin energy usage (in very extreme cases, they believe that bitcoin is a system of energy _storage_, though it's never made quite clear _how_). This level of confusion is fairly typical.
> Facebook's data center alone uses almost as much as all bitcoin miners annually. In fact, RedHad and its server / cloud solutions are responsible for running millions of servers that consume hundreds of times more energy than bitcoin miners.
Like so many bitcoin advocates, your argument relies on a unsourced statement that was deliberately invented and is not in any way close to the truth.
> Education is failing a big time
Arrogance and falsehoods go together in a big way.
Some years ago, I had a similar idea for an open source library, banning use of it by government organizations (for surveillance). Later I understand how silly I was.
I have a pro-cryptocurrency stance. I’ve profited from it and it is responsible for a significant portion of revenue in my business, especially when working with clients unserved by the likes of PayPal and Transferwise.
I remember, not so long ago at all, it felt as though my position was more or less the only position I saw reflected by others online and offline. Practically everyone I knew who had something to say about Cryptocurrency would have the same basic points— giving power back to the people, providing an alternative to the traditional (read: banks/finance industry) methods, hedge against inflation, hedge against government overreach, etc.
Nowadays, it seems like popular opinion has really switched. Obviously, with just about anything, there’s going to be some negatives and some downsides. From day one with Cryptocurrency, for example, the most obvious use case was for criminal activity and moving value outside the prying eyes of whatever 3-letter agencies that are applicable in your jurisdictions.
I understood that counterpoint to Cryptocurrency just fine. I agreed with it, as well. Criminals do use Cryptocurrency, it’s just a fact— it’s explosion in popularity has certainly opened up and/or made more reliable and easily available many new revenue models for the seedier folks amongst us. Ransomware, for example, has greatly benefited from Cryptocurrency’s creation and gradually increased adoption into the mainstream.
Bringing me to my point, or I suppose question, rather, is the argument that Cryptocurrency uses a ton of energy and is bad for the planet. While this is also true, especially for proof of work stuff like Bitcoin and Ethereum, it feels like whenever I hear discussion of Cryptocurrency using this argument, there’s often little to no genuine conversation being made about how to improve upon it. I’m sure all of us know about other transaction verification methods that don’t eat nearly as much energy, so I’m not going to dive into that now.
To state my opinion bluntly, it feels like the whole energy / electricity usage argument of Cryptocurrency has came about rather abruptly and inorganically. I don’t remember hardly anyone talking about this issue with nearly as much (seemingly blind) passion or negative attitude in, say, 2013-2020~.
Furthermore, while yes— the energy usage of cryptocurrency is a problem, and a damn near inherent problem at that— it seems to me like it’s such a minor drawback comparatively speaking to the other evils in the world. 14 trees burn in the Amazon Rainforest every second. A kid dies in Africa from starvation or malaria every 15 seconds. Oil companies cover up their emissions and pay for favourable regulations that allow them to continue to pollute at industrial scale with little to no pushback.
I am no tinfoil hat wearing cryptobro, don’t get me wrong, but considering how little pollution cryptocurrency produces comparatively speaking to $insert_megacorp_here, and how weak of a logical counterpoint that seems to be against the inherent positives of cryptocurrency, it seems to me like this argument is one that is almost wholeheartedly emotional in nature and one where I wouldn’t be surprised if the roots of it were astroturfed by a select few who did not want to see crypto succeed.
As an analogy, certainly we all remember the marketing BP put in to the “reduce your carbon footprint; *we ALL have to do our part* to reduce global warming” slogan thing they got going. Meanwhilst, they were spitting out pollution at rates that even if every single one of us lived like Taoist monks still wouldn’t have made a dent in.
Am I the only one that thinks this way? I would love to be proven wrong if there’s any counterpoints to my perspective that I could be made aware of.
> Nowadays, it seems like popular opinion has really switched.
The superbowl ad, and the subsequent crypto crash. The scam ecosystem enabled by cryptocurrency really took off, and a lot of retail "investors" have lost money as a result. This takes away a lot of the positive sentiment.
The advertising means that everyone has heard of crypto now; there are far fewer "meh" or "who" people. But there's far more people who themselves or friends have lost money to it. And you'll hear more of this in tech circles. It still isn't all that big on mainstream news either way.
> Practically everyone I knew who had something to say about Cryptocurrency would have the same basic points— giving power back to the people, providing an alternative to the traditional (read: banks/finance industry) methods, hedge against inflation, hedge against government overreach, etc.
Personally, I've been pointing out that it's all at best pointless and wasteful and at worst a scam since around 2011 (I started watching around the time the Trendon Shavers Ponzi scheme got going).
This was definitely a minority position in places like this at the time. I suppose 11 years of failure to actually become useful have moved the needle of public opinion a bit.
> I don’t remember hardly anyone talking about this issue with nearly as much (seemingly blind) passion or negative attitude in, say, 2013-2020~
You may have been in a bubble. Even people who _liked_ bitcoin were concerned about this once ASIC mining got going in earnest (around 2014 I think?)
> Am I the only one that thinks this way? I would love to be proven wrong if there’s any counterpoints to my perspective that I could be made aware of.
> Furthermore, while yes— the energy usage of cryptocurrency is a problem, and a damn near inherent problem at that— it seems to me like it’s such a minor drawback comparatively speaking to the other evils in the world. 14 trees burn in the Amazon Rainforest every second. A kid dies in Africa from starvation or malaria every 15 seconds. Oil companies cover up their emissions and pay for favourable regulations that allow them to continue to pollute at industrial scale with little to no pushback.
Yes. PoW's energy issues is indeed a problem in which efficient alternatives like PoS, Hashgraphs and Byzantine Fault Tolerant systems, already exist if not for years. We can use a similar case with electric cars as an alternative to petrol and diesel ones. The same is true here.
> I am no tinfoil hat wearing cryptobro, don’t get me wrong, but considering how little pollution cryptocurrency produces comparatively speaking to $insert_megacorp_here, and how weak of a logical counterpoint that seems to be against the inherent positives of cryptocurrency, it seems to me like this argument is one that is almost wholeheartedly emotional in nature and one where I wouldn’t be surprised if the roots of it were astroturfed by a select few who did not want to see crypto succeed.
Totally correct. I have seen the same anti-crypto folks not disclosing their associations or competing interests and deleting their history off the internet [0], where they are actively dedicating everyday to 'stop crypto' or complaining about the environment and tarring all of them with the same brush. Their logic is simply:
We should stop everyone from driving all cars and vehicles because there are more petrol / diesel vehicles than electric cars to offset the CO2 that these petrol / diesel cars are emitting into the atmosphere.
See how not only that is impractical, but it makes absolutely no sense?
On top of that, the tech bros don't want to complain about the deep learning systems (DLS) used for training purposes and mass surveillance which is no better or no efficient than PoW cryptocurrencies burning the planet as well. The difference is, these DLS have no efficient alternative for re-training or re-learning on new data since 2012 and always requires tons of data centres to achieve this in a shorter space of time.
The fact is, 13+ years since Bitcoin, we have working and efficient alternatives to it. 10+ years in with deep learning and there are no efficient ways to train large amounts of data without causing data centres to catch fire. I'm lead to believe that the environment reaction against cryptocurrencies today is one that is not only emotional, but an extreme response boosted by the ones that have a vested interest to laughably attempt to 'destroy all of them'. [0]
> Am I the only one that thinks this way?
No. Just avoid the extreme positions that either pro-crypto folks or anti-crypto folks set themselves in.
The past twelve years of cryptocurrencies is clear evidence that we can have open source permissionless infrastructure that’s utterly inadequate to support actual banking transactions on a global scale, or we can have centralized architectures that pretend to be permissionless and decentralized through a series of shell games and vague lies thus delivering the worst imaginable hybrid of banking and multi-level marketing.
Faced with these choices, the status quo isn’t so bad after all. The other day I saw a news report that Wise (formerly Transferwise) does over $100 billion in money transfer volume annually. A classic startup seems to have been able to fix the problem of expensive international transfers much better than crypto-anything.
Not really. A lot of that was just exchanges sending the same coins back and forth to each other. Centralized exchanges that are permission, censorable and potentially even fractionally reserved. This is only happening because the L1 is so utterly inadequate people can’t use it.
This volume isn’t at all comparable to the actual usage Wise sees.
Ok so in that case the null hypothesis is that they’re not the same and it is actually up to parent to justify the similarity and comparability of the flows.
I’m aware but they’re just net settlement roll ups of actual transactions happening off chain. And likely just wash trades and arbitrage at that, not transactions of actual economic utility.
People love to talk as if the current situation is frozen in time, particularly when it comes to open source software.
I've seen people complain about certain open source software based on their experience in 2016, as if nothing might have changed in the intervening years.
There is continuous work being done on scaling. Things take time.
We didn't have broadband internet immediately, there was a very long period of dialup, then slow DSL, ADSL and then eventually fast broadband.
There was no way you could stream video on the early Internet. I wonder whether people back then also complained that it will never be able to replace television, actually... I'm pretty sure those people existed.
That’s actually an argument against bitcoin - not against the internet. The internets adoption was bottlenecked on real physical infrastructure that had to be developed and deployed to every corner of the planet. Bitcoin being built on top of this infrastructure has only self imposed synthetic ideological limitations, lack of product market fit and lack of utility holding it back.
There’s no reason to think that the two should take anywhere close to the same length of time to reach adoption. Just look at the iPhone and Android that came out in the same year as bitcoin. If something’s good and useful you don’t need to proselytize and make excuses.
> That’s actually an argument against bitcoin - not against the internet
I'm not making an argument against the Internet. :)
The internet already had utility back when everyone used dialup, and Bitcoin already has utility now and is in many respects a massive success, especially given all the eulogies it's received over the years.
Incumbents have moved on from ignoring, and then laughing to now fighting.
So what has Bitcoin actually solved since it has been created if not only create rampant speculation, emboldening ransomware authors to get paid and contribute to burning the planet?
I can concede that Bitcoin has failed as a currency and that as an alternative for payments. But can we stop talking about crypto and thinking that Bitcoin is the only thing that matters?
> The supposed lightning network tends to centralisation
Well, let's put Bitcoin aside. The argument you are using here can also apply to Ethereum scaling solutions, and it is misguided at best and dishonest at worst.
Yes, scaling solutions sacrifice some decentralization in favor of performance. But to argue that it "defeats the purpose" is like saying "the Internet is not decentralized because most people access it through a handful of service providers" and that the only "right" way to access the Internet is by mesh networks.
Decentralization by itself is not a goal. The goal is to have a system that is censorship resistant and that can be an alternative to the status quo. If most people achieve these goals by using (regulated and well-managed) exchanges, or if smaller communities pool their resources to participate in the economy, you are still "centralizing" but you are not "defeating the purpose".
Another way to put it: say that you want to serve a community that is not served on underserved by the main banks. What would be the cost to fund and operate a credit cooperative? On the other hand, what would be the cost to setup and operate a Raiden or a Hub20 node to give people a custodial wallet?
> Faced with these choices, the status quo isn’t so bad after all.
Have you considered the possibility that the status quo only improved because it started facing pressure from an outside force, namely a decentralized system that could transfer value without having banks acting as middlemen?
I'm always here saying that the important thing about crypto is that it gives people alternatives. Consider crypto as an insurance policy against (potentially) corrupt institutions. The cost of this policy is high at the moment, but it will come down to the point where it will make sense to be more widely adopted, even if just as an insurance.
One point four billion or so of whom are Chinese, who have WeChat Pay as the default quick and easy payment system. And are banned from using crypto, although undoubtedly there are still lots of people using it for capital flight.
https://github.com/aaugustin/websockets/blame/d8a436fc0eec66... a quick look on his linkedin will tell you that that paragraph is there for a bit longer than he is working at Qonto. I guess you could tell us about your conflict of interest? Crypto users are either stupid (and future bag-holders), criminal (well, some people get rich) or naive (probably a lot of contributors...).
I sincerely hope cryptocurrency delivers on its promises, but right now, there are too many ponzi schems, pyramid schemes, pump and dump schemes, fraud funds, fragile funds (all riding the hype train) to really make a case for it. Someday, perhaps? Until then (and regardless of one's affiliations), the stance that due to the resources cryptocurrency drains, it is best avoided or even boycotted, sounds reasonable to me.
Nonsense. The point is that he is putting PoW and all other types of blockchain systems on the same bag.
If his criticism was specific to Bitcoin (or other popular PoW-based systems), then it would hold. But when he acknowledges alternatives and make it sound that they don't exist yet, then it is dishonest.
I mean, as he says in his next line, "I’ll care once the total energy consumption of all cryptocurrencies drops to a non-bullshit level.", it's clear he cares about it all on only one axis: "total energy consumption".
PoS's mere existence doesn't affect that axis. I can complaign[1] about how polluting power plants are, knowing full well there exist nuclear power plants, and it wouldn't make me a hypocrite. Sth else might, but not this.
Which is a bullshit criteria. It is like saying that you are not going to support electric cars until there exists no combustion engine and you are concern about emissions. If you are against cars as a whole, then state so, but don't use one subclass of them as prejudice against all of them.
Cars are a useful form of transportation. Hundreds of millions of people use one every day.
Crypto has been around almost as long as the smartphone and so far the only applications which have emerged are crime and wild speculation. After fourteen years, any rational person should be pretty skeptical that any application that isn't "evading regulations" or speculation will ever appear.
> only applications which have emerged are crime and wild speculation.
Every. Fucking. Thread.
I was using Bitcoin in 2012 as a means to transfer money between US and Brazil, using perfectly legal exchanges, and that was costing me less than any bank or remittance service would charge me. Was that "crime" or "wild speculation"?
When someone in Argentina can receive payments in USD-equivalent crypto without having to deal with the bullshit manipulated exchange rate from the government, is that "crime" or "wild speculation"?
When someone wants to use crypto to accept payments because PayPal cut them off without reasonable explanation, is that "crime" or "wild speculation"?
There is always someone who is going to throw this "there is no use case" line, and you can be sure that is someone who has no clue what they are talking about.
Use cases already exist. It's not just because your privileged bubble never saw it that it doesn't mean they are not valid. And what I am saying is just the tip of the iceberg. As the UX around scaling solutions improve and transaction fees come down, more use cases will be possible (micropayments, streaming subscriptions, NFTs as authz/authn for services), and I can bet that you will still be talking like "no use cases exist".
There are plenty of things to criticize, but this shit you are doing is tiring, man. Can you please at least find something where you have a chance of being right?
You’re welcome to point out the conflict, but please drop the snark: “But of course that is not relevant to the discussion, because crypto users are evil vampires sucking away the life force of the world.”
Ah there it is, the ad hominem attacks on anyone you disagree with. Wouldn’t be a crypto post without it.
[edit] so we can move forward let me make this easier for you. I echo and restate and agree with everything they said and I have zero economic incentive one way or the other to say that.
Not relevant because crypto isn't a threat to fiat banks any more than fiat currencies are a threat to crypto. It will remain that way until large scale human effort and day-to-day expenditure is directly payable by crypto. That's a long way off.
Regardless of anything else, it's completely within the rights of an open-source maintainer to pick and choose which users they want to dedicate time to help.
The license doesn't forbid anyone to use the software, so cryptocurrency companies are still able to benefit from the library.
If Bitcoin miners are paying for or producing the electricity themselves, what's the problem?
But that's not really the point though is it? Electricity use is not the problem. Carbon emissions are.
If renewables are competitive with fossil fuels (hint: they are), and profit-driven Bitcoin miners are incentivized to seek out the cheapest sources of energy, then Bitcoin mining should be one of the "greenest" industries on the planet.
Guess what? It already is greener than many other industries, with close to 60% of it's energy coming from renewable sources AND on top of that there are lots of operations popping up to capture and burn flared gas (i.e. methane, which is a far worse GHG than CO2).
Is it greener because (as you said) Bitcoin mining with renewable energy is more profitable, and therefore they prevent other users of electricity from decreasing their carbon emissions?
> with close to 60% of it's energy coming from renewable sources
Only 30% of the world's electricity comes from renewables, so your claim seems really far-fetched.
Your link does not mention the word "renewable" at all. Indeed, it seems barely related to your argument and wildly discursive.
Citation for your wildly unbelievable claim?
And if I sound angry, I am - every single Bitcoin advocate seems to think nothing of just making up facts whenever they please. It's appalling and unethical.
> Their existence is threatened by crypto adoption and open source permissionless banking infrastructure.
That will be true as soon as people start using cryptocurrency for something other than gambling on its value in traditional fiat currency going up or scams.
If this is typical sentiment from crypto users, then the maintainer has done the right thing. I too would not like to spend my spare time and energy supporting people who can't distinguish between "oppressing minorities" and "giving away my time to demanding internet strangers".
As you feel so strongly, I look forward to seeing what replacement for websockets you are able to create.
You certainly are dividing the world into us vs them and trying to fit me into a box because I dared disagree. That's exactly the intolerance I was talking about.
If by "us vs them" you mean, "those of us who support the right of crypto users to demand support and software for free vs those who support people's right to choose where they invest their efforts", then I'm in the latter category.
Would you have the same opinion if the maintainer announced they were going to stop working on requests originating from FB/Google/big bad mining corp/big bad animal testing corp/etc?
> There is no difference to me between one that doesn't want to support crypto-related issues and one that doesn't want to support issues coming from a minority.
So whether you're a crypto user/investor is quite irrelevant to the point being made.
Also I didn't read it as telling you that you're a crypto user/investor, but more as a "crypto users/investors have this kind of mentality too".
While he is right, this still feels somewhat unprofessional. It's some arbitrary rant about something that he doesn't like, appended at the end of the contributing guide.
I could understand the feeling though, if their GitHub got massively spammed by crypto projects.
Well it is a hobby project that he does not get paid for, other people using the code to make money does not change that. He can be as professional or unprofessional as he wants in his spare time, no?
Why it's unprofessional? Many people/companies feel the same way. For example, Gergely Orosz https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/job-board-testimonials/ (go to Exceptions). Maintaining a solid stance on matters you don't like isn't unprofessional. It's on the contrary.
You just think it's a honorable thing to do because you probably also happen to support that (unrelated / political) message. But imagine a situation where you wouldn't...
What if he e.g. stated that he doesn't do business with companies that actively support LGBT+ issues?
The other blog that monkin posted had a disclaimer about not working with companies from countries that have the death penalty for being gay.
So I turned that into the opposite political statement, to make a point.
The vast majority of human activities have a carbon footprint.
I would rather give up Facebook and all other social (which in my opinion add no value to society) rather than cryptocurrencies (which are instrumental to the right of privately transacting online, which I deem very important).
This obsession over the carbon footprint of cryptocurrencies is ideological and, ultimately, wrong.
Not immediately, no, but there's no forward secrecy, so unless users take extensive steps to obfuscate their activities, as soon as they make one transaction with a counterparty who knows who they are (such as an exchange with KYC) they are at risk of de-anonymisation.
The obsession over the carbon footprint is that it is pure waste (like sticking a gigantic space heater in the middle of nowhere and running it 24/7)
It has an efficiency of approx 0%.
And as it gets more successful it gets less efficient and wastes more energy.
And there is no incentive to reduce that energy usage (Facebook would save money if they could make their algorithms more green, for example so they may pay people to look into that).
Bitcoin has to pollute, for the security of the network.
Also there is the manufacture of disposable single purpose hardware for the mining of bitcoin and it’s environmental impact.
