You could use mining to incentivize the build out of remote energy generation before transmission infrastructure is ready.
For example, drop some solar panels and miners in the middle of the desert and immediately start generating profit. Use the profit to deploy more solar panels and build out transmission lines. You can do this piecemeal at low initial investment to feel out an energy source without committing billions of dollars to build out.
I'm not aware of anyone who's done major operations like this, but with the profitability of mining so absurdly high right now plus scrutiny on using dirty energy sources, I wouldn't be surprised if it starts. Access to mining ASICs is likely the key bottleneck.
This is the story used to explain part of the reason so much mining is in China. They built out a ton of hydroelectric dams over the decades that have been underutilized due to lack of infrastructure. Miners came in for the unused electricity and brought in a ton of money to the area.
I think the hyperloop is even more ludicrous given the technological problems involved in vacuum tubes. But I think Elon realises that which is why all he did is write a memo on it rather than create a company around it.
Yeah, I was referring to the hyperloop and the boring company as separate things.
I feel like the Boring company is what he settled on once it was made clear to him how monumentally stupid hundreds or thousands of miles of near vacuum tube would be in practice. Even if you could actually build a working prototype, it's hyper fragile and will just never be economically viable compared to other solutions.
It's perfectly scarce and rapidly trending toward 0 inflation. This is one of the key arguments for why it's ultimately a better store of value than gold, which is abundant in the context of the solar system.
I'm curious about what you mean by a possible better store of value. To me, that sounds like saying we can go colder than 0 kelvin.
> I'm curious about what you mean by a possible better store of value. To me, that sounds like saying we can go colder than 0 kelvin.
Maybe better store of value isn't the wrong choice of words, but better in terms of having the same store of value properties + more resistant to attack, better privacy, easier to secure, easier to use, scalable etc.
There are projects trying to be better than bitcoin on technical fronts, but it needs to be an order of magnitude better to offset the current moment and network effects at this point, unless a real attack on the bitcoin network threatens its security.
The good thing about gold is if/when people decide its no longer a good store of value, you can still use it, for jewellery or connectors etc. BTC is just goes poof.
This is actually a pro for bitcoin. It's not useful as anything other than a store of value.
If we collectively decide to switch to bitcoin as our store of value network, and retire gold and silver from that use case, then we free up all the gold stored in vaults collecting dust as a value store to do more useful work that it's uniquely capable of, like being used in electronics or dental work.
A lot of these use cases now aren't economically viable because the market value of gold is inflated due to being overloaded with the store of value use case.
Is it a trend that the quality of comments about BTC on HN has increased drastically? It's about 50/50 of the good/bad ratio now, whereas 1-2 years ago, I'd say it was easily 10/90.
Tell me mister gxon, are you a good representation of the HN crowd, or is it just Bitcoiners have piled on this article for some reason?
Even still on Earth, we're mining ~2% more gold annually. More gold in absolute terms is being mined than any other time in human history.
You just answered the quantum question yourself. We can upgrade the bitcoin protocol with quantum resistant cryptography. I very much doubt it would be a contentious fork. No need to bootstrap an entirely new value network.
If you pay out a dividend, you force your shareholders to pay income tax rates.
But, if you can use company profits in a way that pumps the stock valuation, your shareholders can effectively take the same profits with long term cap gains tax. My understanding is that a stock buyback is basically this strategy, and MicroStrategy's CEO has said that he also considered that.
MSTR is up ~100% since they first bought bitcoin.
This is at least, my amateur understanding that could be wrong.
No, you inhale through your nose all the way, then exhale but not all the way out, to the point where you would be pushing it out if you let out more. Repeat 30-40 times. It is circular and continuous, you don't pause. Then exhale all the way out after your 35th cycle. Hold until you feel the intense urge to breath. Then inhale and hold for 15 seconds.
Repeat above 4-5 times. Optional: On the last rep, see how many push ups you can do when you fully exhale. Most people can do 30 to 50% past their max.
Just piggybacking on this a bit with some tips in case anyone reads this comment and wants to try it:
Do this laying down. You are essentially hyperventilating. By the 35th cycle, you should be feeling very lightheaded, possibly seeing stars. You absolutely can pass out or at least fall down during this process. Do it laying down or at least sitting so you don't injure yourself. Obviously, definitely don't do this in the water (you don't do the breathing exercises and ice baths at the same time).
The inhale through your nose you do fully, really trying to get as much air into your lungs as possible. The exhale that follows is really just a matter of relaxing everything and letting your ribcage collapse back down and the air leave; you shouldn't be pushing it out.
If you've never done it before, it can be fun to have a clock or timer going where you can see it. See how long you can comfortably hold your breath before that urge to inhale comes. You'll be amazed. Similar techniques to this breathing exercise (hyperventilating to lower the carbon dioxide levels in your blood) are one of the ways magicians like Houdini and others that do underwater escapes can hold their breath for so long (of course, don't try that at home).
A caveat to this is, what happens when we actually solve aging and involuntary death? Will the world eventually be owned by a single, Bezos like individual simply by the weight of time and compounding interest crowding out everyone else? Would we be ok with a situation where the racist slave owners of 200 years ago are still alive and control the vast majority of the world's wealth and power?
This is the kind of concern that isn't a problem right now, but will be one day. And it will happen in the blink of an eye.
Honestly. It really seems like the Tesla hype bubble has melted people's brains. Now every new company that comes out of nowhere with nothing more than a prototype is hailed as the next leap of innovation.
> My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456