Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Am Montag, dem 04.04.2022 um 08:00 + schrieb Attila Lendvai: > There's plenty of past examples of financing these things without the > government collecting the necessary funds. also, these things are > only a tiny fraction of the government's budget. Name one. If you want to appeal to charity, consider that charity has not yet solved world hunger despite the fact that it'd be very possible to do so. Then again, neither have taxes, so there's more than just that at play here, but generally speaking taxing the rich (or eating them when they no longer want to be taxed) sounds like a better solution than waiting for them to give up their fortunes willingly. > > The vast majority of the taxes are not taken from the wealthy, but > from the masses. the well-connected easily pays for the marginal cost > of the tax consultants, lawyers, judges, offshore entities, and > whatnot... and ultimately buy/corrupt the entire political system. You complain about taxes, but have you considered that the largest theft is in fact wage theft? The state only takes a comparatively small cut with respect to your boss or your landlord. > and especially so for inflation, which is straight out a tax that > siphons the purchasing power from people who hold cash equivalents > (i.e. the poor), to the people who own assets (i.e. the wealthy)... > who are also closer to the source of new money, and therefore spend > it first on the market, when it has not yet elevated the prices. see > the Cantillon effect: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cantillon#Monetary_theory Apart from inflation not being a tax, you are right in that money tends to concentrate around those who already have it. If only there was some 19th century German philosopher who described that in more detail... > which here reminds me of: > > “In a just society, it is shameful to be poor. In a corrupt society, > it is shameful to be rich.” > — Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects', Chapter VIII, > paraphrased > > this is the original: > > “When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are > things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and > honor are things to be ashamed of.” > % — Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects', Chapter VIII > (邦有道貧且賤焉恥也，邦無道富且貴焉恥也。) Perhaps this holds in societies that have not reached overproduction, but what it should say in modern times, is that in a just society there exists no poverty. Even then, shame is a social construct largely indoctrinated into us by the ruling class, so if you find yourself seeing poor people as shameful, that is just capitalist propaganda doing its job. In any case, bitcoin is the solution to none of those problems and a major contributor towards climate change. While there might be a consensus among capitalist countries that bitcoin removes you, in communist Guix we remove bitcoin. Cheers
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
my apologies for reviving this thread! i did not inted to, i have just failed to remove the mailing list address. in that spirit i'll refrain from further commenting on guix-devel, and i encourage others also to stay on topic. -- • attila lendvai • PGP: 963F 5D5F 45C7 DFCD 0A39 -- “Freedom is strangely ephemeral. It is something like breathing; one only becomes acutely aware of its importance when one is choking.” — William E. Simon
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Attila Lendvai writes: > > and especially so for inflation, which is straight out a tax that > siphons the purchasing power from people who hold cash equivalents > (i.e. the poor), to the people who own assets (i.e. the > wealthy)... who are also closer to the source of new money, and > therefore spend it first on the market, when it has not yet elevated > the prices. see the Cantillon effect: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cantillon#Monetary_theory > With respect, please dont justify philosophies of restrictive supply when writing on technichal forums predicated on ideals of non rivalrous behaviour. Otherwise, I enjoyed the post :) Jonathan
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Attila Lendvai schreef op ma 04-04-2022 om 08:00 [+]: > the vast majority of the taxes are not taken from the wealthy, > but from the masses. the well-connected easily pays for the > marginal cost of the tax consultants, lawyers, judges, offshore > entities, and whatnot... and ultimately buy/corrupt the entire > political system. If these wealthy evade taxes, wouln't they, after a transition from public funding to private funding, just keep hoarding the money for theirselves and not fund anything? I don't see how eliminating taxes here would make these corrupt wealthy more likely to pay taxes/fund things. If it's all private, no mechanism remains to extract money from these wealthy. If it's public, then even if it's partially corrupt, at least a portion of their wealth would be extracted. Additionally, there are efforts underway to at least in-part eliminate off-shore constructions and other tax evasion schemes. E.g., I forgot the name, but there was some proposal for a world-wide lower bound on a certain kind of tax. And in e.g. Belgium there's a ‘Dienst Bijzondere Belastingsinspectie’ dedicated to ‘structured combat against fraud’, and the ‘Federale Overheidsdiensten Financiën’ apparently has recovered €110,69 * 10^9 in 2020 [0] (or maybe 2019-2020, these reports appear to be made every two years). Greetings, Maxime. [0] https://www.2020.jaarverslag.financien.belgium.be/index-nl.html signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Attila Lendvai schreef op ma 04-04-2022 om 08:00 [+]: > if you want to dig deeper, then a book titled 'The Machinery of Freedom' > discusses the various alternative forms of financing in more detail > (http://daviddfriedman.com/#mybooks). > I get a: 403 Forbidden openresty for that URL. Greetings, Maxime. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Attila Lendvai schreef op ma 04-04-2022 om 08:00 [+]: > > Undermining the governments ability to raise tax also means > > undermining > > the ability to build schools, kindergartens, public libraries, > > public > > transport, streets, etc. Who is going to pay and provide all of > > this, If > > there is no democratically controlled() government? > > > there's plenty of past examples of financing these things without the > government collecting the necessary funds. Here's an example I know of: * Education. From what I have heard, students in the UK have to pay huge sums to be admitted to their universities. In Belgium, it's much lower (e.g. € 1000 a year(*)), AFAIK it's independent of the ‘status’ of the university and some arrangements are made for people that cannot afford the normal tarif. IIUC, the relatively low tarif is mostly thanks to government funding and the (public) universities not being for-profits. I think I prefer the government funding here above the seemingly non-existent private benefactors. (*) with some caveats, e.g. depends on the number of ‘studiepunten’ (ECTS) and IIUC there if you fail too much the university can refuse to admit you or demand a higher tarif. Greetings, Maxime. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Attila Lendvai schreef op ma 04-04-2022 om 08:00 [+]: > > Undermining the governments ability to raise tax also means > > undermining > > the ability to build schools, kindergartens, public libraries, > > public > > transport, streets, etc. Who is going to pay and provide all of > > this, If > > there is no democratically controlled() government? > > > [...] also, these things are only a tiny fraction of the > government's budget. In the Netherlands, these things appear to be a large fraction of the government budget [0]. E.g. * Education, culture and science: 44.3/353 = 12% * ‘Zorg’ (= public hospitals but also other related things): 93.0/353 = 26% * Infrastructure and ‘waterstaat’: 10.3/353: 2.9% * ‘Sociale zekerheid’: 94.6/353=27% That's 67.9%, which seems like a large fraction to me. [0] https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/brochures/2021/09/21/miljoenennotaposter-2022 Greetings, MMaxime. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
hi Hartmut and Martin, i have just found this draft email, and i'm sending it to you two directly in the hope that you will find these thoughts useful/interesting, but i don't want to further annoy the mailing list with this topic. > Undermining the governments ability to raise tax also means undermining > the ability to build schools, kindergartens, public libraries, public > transport, streets, etc. Who is going to pay and provide all of this, If > there is no democratically controlled() government? there's plenty of past examples of financing these things without the government collecting the necessary funds. also, these things are only a tiny fraction of the government's budget. if you want to dig deeper, then a book titled 'The Machinery of Freedom' discusses the various alternative forms of financing in more detail (http://daviddfriedman.com/#mybooks). > You might argument that this will then be paid be wealthy people - but the vast majority of the taxes are not taken from the wealthy, but from the masses. the well-connected easily pays for the marginal cost of the tax consultants, lawyers, judges, offshore entities, and whatnot... and ultimately buy/corrupt the entire political system. and especially so for inflation, which is straight out a tax that siphons the purchasing power from people who hold cash equivalents (i.e. the poor), to the people who own assets (i.e. the wealthy)... who are also closer to the source of new money, and therefore spend it first on the market, when it has not yet elevated the prices. see the Cantillon effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cantillon#Monetary_theory which here reminds me of: “In a just society, it is shameful to be poor. In a corrupt society, it is shameful to be rich.” — Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects', Chapter VIII, paraphrased this is the original: “When a country is well governed, poverty and a mean condition are things to be ashamed of. When a country is ill governed, riches and honor are things to be ashamed of.” % — Confucius (551–479 BC), 'The Analects', Chapter VIII (邦有道貧且賤焉恥也，邦無道富且貴焉恥也。) -- • attila lendvai • PGP: 963F 5D5F 45C7 DFCD 0A39 -- “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” — Anaïs Nin (1903–1977)
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 06:35:19PM +0100, Taylan Kammer wrote: > There's a gnu-misc-discuss mailing list which seems to be used for topics > that are only tangentially on-topic. It might be a candidate. Though it > has some... well, trolls IMO, though I won't name names. So maybe it's > not the best place. Just throwing it out there. > > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/ That list is a bad place because it's where all the bad conversations go --- tautological. If Guix were to set up a similar list, we'd end up hosting something just as bad, and to outsiders, it would reflect poorly on Guix. Just like gnu-misc-discuss makes GNU look awful to outsiders. It won't benefit Guix to have a mailing list dedicated to off-topic tangents. We should strive to maintain an atmosphere that is focused, courteous, and collegial. There *is* a Guix community, but Guix is not a community space, or a place to live. It's a software project. On the topic of cryptomining and its inclusion in the distro, there have always been programs that people think should not be distributed. The problem is that there's no consensus about which programs are beyond the pale.
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
On 25.02.2022 18:05, Maxime Devos wrote: > > A separate spin-off mailing list might address this (does not have to > be on gnu.org or associated with guix per-se). It seems like Ricardo > Wurmus wants any such list, if any, to be outside guix itself. Would > you have an idea for the location? > There's a gnu-misc-discuss mailing list which seems to be used for topics that are only tangentially on-topic. It might be a candidate. Though it has some... well, trolls IMO, though I won't name names. So maybe it's not the best place. Just throwing it out there. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-misc-discuss/ -- Taylan
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
On 25/02/2022 16:14, Bengt Richter wrote: On +2022-02-25 14:04:34 +0100, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice wrote: On 2022-02-25 13:41, Bengt Richter wrote: And maybe also a mailing list called "guix-grownups" -- where casual adult language is accepted without triggering endless complaints. This is guix-grownups, although we accept grown-ups of all ages. Glad to hear it :) But the serious part of my post was --8<---cut here---start->8--- WDYT of starting a list called "guix-off-list" to provide a place for those who enjoy this kind of discussion? I do enjoy such discussions sometimes, but not on the same plate as debug tracebacks or beautiful code examples from the virtuosos. I don't mind single-line BTW or FYI or IMO: footnote references to out-of-thread content if the rest of the post contributes something and isn't just one line in a full quote. Having a "guix-offlist" would enable a reference like "IMO:guix-offlist: bitcoin explained by me ;)" --8<---cut here---end--->8--- The idea being to help factor off-topic discussion out of threads without interfering with people's desire to follow up with interesting ideas. Or not-so-interesting ideas :) Thoughts? Kind regards, T G-R Sent from a Web browser. Excuse or enjoy my brevity. I think it would be a good idea. There have been a couple of threads recently which have taken a lot bandwidth in the main lists where the topics have been interesting, but perhaps not on topic for the group.
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Bengt Richter schreef op vr 25-02-2022 om 13:41 [+0100]: > On +2022-02-24 19:27:37 -0500, Christine Lemmer-Webber wrote: > > I am all for these conversations; they are good to have as a society, to > > examine our social foundations in earnest dialogue. But I think they've > > approached a point on here where they're no longer about Guix > > development, in particular, so probably should be moved off-list. > > > > WDYT of starting a list called "guix-off-list" to provide a > place for those who enjoy this kind of discussion? I don't enjoy these discussions much, I only participate in them (and sometime start them) because they seem necessary. However, a kind of spin-off list for discussions that start at guix-devel but became largely off-topic may be useful. For some context, I sometimes see responses like e.g. Christine Lemmer-Webber writes > [...] But I think they've approached a point on here where they're no > longer about Guix development, in particular, so probably should be > moved off-list. but currently there is not a standard way to move it off-list -- do I just put everyone who might be interested in 'To:' and hope that I didn't include too many/forgot some people? What if people weren't initially interested but are later? How to keep archives? A separate spin-off mailing list might address this (does not have to be on gnu.org or associated with guix per-se). It seems like Ricardo Wurmus wants any such list, if any, to be outside guix itself. Would you have an idea for the location? > And maybe also a mailing list called "guix-grownups" -- > where casual adult language is accepted without triggering > endless complaints. What does ‘adult language’ mean here? Fancy titles (I sometimes see a few Dr. and $FANCY_WORK_TILE)? Complicated turns-of-phrase? I haven't seen any complaints about that though. Maybe you mean profanity? Profanity is not limited to adults though, there are plenty of adults that don't swear at all and plenty of kids that swear. And what does ‘casual’ mean here? Often people just say 'Hi' and use first names, seems rather casual to me; I haven't seen any complaints about that so far. Could you point me at some examples from the mailing list archives to make things clearer? The only thing I could think of here as ‘adult language’ would be some event in the past where some rando accused me of gaslighting, completely ignoring any explanation I gave previously on why I believe X is Y. Seems rather adult-y to me, but not good material for a mailing list. > Coming to some mailing lists these days I sometimes feel > like I've entered a restaurant where the menu is dominated > by allergy and spice concerns. There's plenty of food (= patches, discussion about how to implement X, etc.) on guix-devel. I don't see the analogy, how could one be allergic to patches? > (I have nothing againt special venues catering to sensitive > minorities, don't get me wrong. What do I mean "minorities" eh? :) I don't know what you mean with ‘What do I mean "minorities" eh? :)’. Also, I don't see the relationship between these paragraphs: > And maybe also a mailing list called "guix-grownups" -- > where casual adult language is accepted without triggering > endless complaints. > [...] > [... some analogy between mailing lists and allergy information at > restaurants? ...] > I have nothing againt special venues catering to sensitive minorities > [...] What does not excluding people from minorities from going to restaurants and mailing lists have to do with the proposed guix- grownups? I'm pretty sure that adults don't form a minority, and I'd hope that grownups aren't either. (After this mail, I'll stop CC'ing guix-devel@gnu.org except perhaps to say where the new mailing list, if any, is/will be, feel free to CC me. Otherwise, I think we could keep going.) Greetings, Maxime signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Bengt Richter writes: > WDYT of starting a list called "guix-off-list" to provide a > place for those who enjoy this kind of discussion? Not as part of the project. So if you want a list like that, please maintain it by yourself. -- Ricardo
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
On +2022-02-25 14:04:34 +0100, Tobias Geerinckx-Rice wrote: > On 2022-02-25 13:41, Bengt Richter wrote: > > And maybe also a mailing list called "guix-grownups" -- > > where casual adult language is accepted without triggering > > endless complaints. > > This is guix-grownups, although we accept grown-ups of all ages. > Glad to hear it :) But the serious part of my post was --8<---cut here---start->8--- WDYT of starting a list called "guix-off-list" to provide a place for those who enjoy this kind of discussion? I do enjoy such discussions sometimes, but not on the same plate as debug tracebacks or beautiful code examples from the virtuosos. I don't mind single-line BTW or FYI or IMO: footnote references to out-of-thread content if the rest of the post contributes something and isn't just one line in a full quote. Having a "guix-offlist" would enable a reference like "IMO:guix-offlist: bitcoin explained by me ;)" --8<---cut here---end--->8--- The idea being to help factor off-topic discussion out of threads without interfering with people's desire to follow up with interesting ideas. Or not-so-interesting ideas :) Thoughts? > Kind regards, > > T G-R > > Sent from a Web browser. Excuse or enjoy my brevity. -- Regards, Bengt Richter
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
On 2022-02-25 13:41, Bengt Richter wrote: And maybe also a mailing list called "guix-grownups" -- where casual adult language is accepted without triggering endless complaints. This is guix-grownups, although we accept grown-ups of all ages. Kind regards, T G-R Sent from a Web browser. Excuse or enjoy my brevity.
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
On +2022-02-24 19:27:37 -0500, Christine Lemmer-Webber wrote: > I am all for these conversations; they are good to have as a society, to > examine our social foundations in earnest dialogue. But I think they've > approached a point on here where they're no longer about Guix > development, in particular, so probably should be moved off-list. > WDYT of starting a list called "guix-off-list" to provide a place for those who enjoy this kind of discussion? I do enjoy such discussions sometimes, but not on the same plate as debug tracebacks or beautiful code examples from the virtuosos. I don't mind single-line BTW or FYI or IMO: footnote references to out-of-thread content if the rest of the post contributes something and isn't just one line in a full quote. Having a "guix-offlist" would enable a reference like "IMO:guix-offlist: bitcoin explained by me ;)" And maybe also a mailing list called "guix-grownups" -- where casual adult language is accepted without triggering endless complaints. Coming to some mailing lists these days I sometimes feel like I've entered a restaurant where the menu is dominated by allergy and spice concerns. (I have nothing againt special venues catering to sensitive minorities, don't get me wrong. What do I mean "minorities" eh? :) Wonder what George Carlin (R.I.P) would say about all this :) -- Regards, Bengt Richter
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
I am all for these conversations; they are good to have as a society, to examine our social foundations in earnest dialogue. But I think they've approached a point on here where they're no longer about Guix development, in particular, so probably should be moved off-list. Martin Becze writes: > [[PGP Signed Part:Undecided]] > My point to here is not to argue a "libertarian" viewpoint (I'm not > one), but to argue that there or other consideration to mining crypto > and that it is outside the realm of the free software movement from > which Guix's package inclusion policy is derived. You or I might not > like or agree with the over viewpoints but that should be fine with in > the context of free software and operating systems. This is also > foundational to liberalism and having a functional government in the > first place. > >> Who is going to pay and provide all of this > I personal think it would be wonderful if governments focused on > providing those things and mechanism such as the harbinger tax could > be great and removing control of the monetary supply from the state > would greatly reduce its ability to fund military expenditures. For > reference David graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years is an interesting > narrative of how money's evolution was impart driven by the waging of > mass war. > > On 2/24/22 10:23, Hartmut Goebel wrote: > >> CW: politics below >> >> Am 20.02.22 um 21:39 schrieb Martin Becze: >>> But undermining the governments ability to raise tax and therefor >>> to wage war or not expending energy to prevent government theft is >>> the ‘controversial morality’ that I am sure can be agreed to death >>> and which probably doesn't belong on this list. >> >> Undermining the governments ability to raise tax also means >> undermining the ability to build schools, kindergartens, public >> libraries, public transport, streets, etc. Who is going to pay and >> provide all of this, If there is no democratically controlled(*) >> government? >> >> You might argument that this will then be paid be wealthy people - >> but the country will depend solely on their will and want. And these >> wealthy people are not controlled at all. And these people might >> wage war, too. We already had such a system in the medieval >> time. It:s called feudalism. >> >> So nothing is won by undermining the government. >> >> (*) Democratic control still needs a lot of improvement. Esp. in the >> USA where „the winner takes it all“ results in a two-party system, >> which does not represent the people. But this is another issue. >> >> > > [2. OpenPGP public key --- application/pgp-keys; > OpenPGP_0xB97E95F9DED5755D.asc]... > > [[End of PGP Signed Part]]
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
My point to here is not to argue a "libertarian" viewpoint (I'm not one), but to argue that there or other consideration to mining crypto and that it is outside the realm of the free software movement from which Guix's package inclusion policy is derived. You or I might not like or agree with the over viewpoints but that should be fine with in the context of free software and operating systems. This is also foundational to liberalism and having a functional government in the first place. Who is going to pay and provide all of this I personal think it would be wonderful if governments focused on providing those things and mechanism such as the harbinger tax could be great and removing control of the monetary supply from the state would greatly reduce its ability to fund military expenditures. For reference David graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years is an interesting narrative of how money's evolution was impart driven by the waging of mass war. On 2/24/22 10:23, Hartmut Goebel wrote: CW: politics below Am 20.02.22 um 21:39 schrieb Martin Becze: But undermining the governments ability to raise tax and therefor to wage war or not expending energy to prevent government theft is the ‘controversial morality’ that I am sure can be agreed to death and which probably doesn't belong on this list. Undermining the governments ability to raise tax also means undermining the ability to build schools, kindergartens, public libraries, public transport, streets, etc. Who is going to pay and provide all of this, If there is no democratically controlled(*) government? You might argument that this will then be paid be wealthy people - but the country will depend solely on their will and want. And these wealthy people are not controlled at all. And these people might wage war, too. We already had such a system in the medieval time. It:s called feudalism. So nothing is won by undermining the government. (*) Democratic control still needs a lot of improvement. Esp. in the USA where „the winner takes it all“ results in a two-party system, which does not represent the people. But this is another issue. OpenPGP_0xB97E95F9DED5755D.asc Description: OpenPGP public key OpenPGP_signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
i'm not sure everybody is aware in this discussion: mining Bitcoin is only profitable using special hardware, and nowadays it needs to be deployed next to powerplants and oil wells to use their waste energy/gas, or next to renewable sources like geothermal. the standard bitcoin tools are not relevant for mining. -- • attila lendvai • PGP: 963F 5D5F 45C7 DFCD 0A39 -- “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” — probably Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
CW: politics below Am 20.02.22 um 21:39 schrieb Martin Becze: But undermining the governments ability to raise tax and therefor to wage war or not expending energy to prevent government theft is the ‘controversial morality’ that I am sure can be agreed to death and which probably doesn't belong on this list. Undermining the governments ability to raise tax also means undermining the ability to build schools, kindergartens, public libraries, public transport, streets, etc. Who is going to pay and provide all of this, If there is no democratically controlled(*) government? You might argument that this will then be paid be wealthy people - but the country will depend solely on their will and want. And these wealthy people are not controlled at all. And these people might wage war, too. We already had such a system in the medieval time. It:s called feudalism. So nothing is won by undermining the government. (*) Democratic control still needs a lot of improvement. Esp. in the USA where „the winner takes it all“ results in a two-party system, which does not represent the people. But this is another issue. -- Regards Hartmut Goebel | Hartmut Goebel | h.goe...@crazy-compilers.com | | www.crazy-compilers.com | compilers which you thought are impossible |
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Am 20.02.22 um 17:52 schrieb Maxime Devos: While it's the user's choice whether they_want_ to mine or not (Guix is not a thought police!), it seems inadvisable to_help_ people with mining and perhaps useful to_stop_ people from mining. +1 Since we are technicians, we have to take your share of responsibility to save our planet. (Much like we want planet-savers to respect the human right to privacy.) -- Regards Hartmut Goebel | Hartmut Goebel | h.goe...@crazy-compilers.com | | www.crazy-compilers.com | compilers which you thought are impossible |
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
> Here PetroDollar = US dollar and FED=US Federal Government? FED = Federal Reserve, the (private) central bank that issues the US Dollar for about a century now. interesting tidbit: originally 'a US Dollar' meant a specific amount of silver. and the 'petrodollar' is a unique keyword that you can chose to research. it's way offtopic here, but very briefly: if you want to issue more fiat money, *and* you also want to avoid it going worthless in short term, then you need to arrange for a proportional demand for your new tokens. one important pillar of that demand can come from making sure that most of the energy trade is settled in USD, and as a consequence of that, most of the large economic players will want to hold USD as reserves to cover their expected energy consumption. this can be an enormous driver of demand for USD (for a while). it's also worth mentioning here that blocking your account at the FED means getting cut off from most of the energy suppliers/consumers who cannot dare to risk a visit from the US military. this model nicely explains most of the US wars in the last few decades, and many, otherwise hard to explain political phenomena (e.g. US - Saudi Arabia relations). --- the monetary system is what facilitates cooperation among strangers, i.e. among a group of humans larger than the Dunbar's number (about 150 people). sound money is a kind of decentralized, anonymous reputation system (that can only track positive reputation, and the tokens serve as the proof). its primary role is to lock out non-cooperating agents from the fruits of cooperation. cooperation -> specialization -> efficient agents -> wealthy society. IOW, the monetary system fundamentally influences what our everyday existence looks like. and the more anomalies there are in the rules governing the acquisition of the tokens (e.g. someone is allowed to print it while others must work for it), the more twisted society will become. i have plenty more to say, but i doubt there's general interest in having this discussion on guix-devel. i hope though, that i managed to incite some curiosity, because this topic has much more depth than you seem to be aware of, and blockchains/Bitcoin are only one piece of this puzzle. essentially, it's a new battlefront between centralized command and decentralized consensus; between coercive hierarchies and voluntary networks. -- • attila lendvai • PGP: 963F 5D5F 45C7 DFCD 0A39 -- “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968, assassinated)
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
On Mon, 21 Feb 2022 14:06:07 +0100 Maxime Devos wrote: > Attila Lendvai schreef op ma 21-02-2022 om 09:29 [+]: > > let me add, though, that a more apples-to-apples comparison here > > would be to compare Bitcoin to the FED, and PoW to the costs of > > enforcing the PetroDollar system on the entire world. > > Here PetroDollar = US dollar and FED=US Federal Government? > > > these costs not only include the direct environmental damages of > > wars and militaries. more generally, it also includes the costs of > > enforcing a certain economic structure globally, instead of > > potential better alternatives for facilitating cooperation between > > strangers that may very well promote peace and prosperity more > > effectively and efficiently than the current system. > > If the US Government enforces the US Dollar with wars etc., then this > seems more a bug of the US than a benefit of Bitcoin to me. Also, I > don't understand what you mean with ‘enforcing’ here. > > Locally, in Belgium, I can use the Euro as currency. The US isn't > forcing me to use the US dollar, in fact I have never seen a US dollar > in person and most (all?) local businesses accept the Euro as currency > and most physical shops wouldn't accept foreign currency(*). > > I can also use the US dollar as currency to buy from overseas (after > trading Euro for US dollar, this happens automatically when > e-shopping), even though the US hasn't stationed military forces > at the banks to force the banks to allow converting Euro<->US dollar. > > I'm not seeing any enforcement here, nor any need for enforcement to > make the US dollar a usable currency. > > While the US would (does?) wage wars to force countries to trade with > the US (and perhaps force them to accept US dollar maybe?), I don't > see how Bitcoin would change this -- Bitcoin might change the > currency used for the forced trade, but not the existence of the > forced trade. > > (*) at least, I think so, I haven't ever tried. > > > and from that perspective i don't see the use of 'absurd amount' > > justified, by a large margin. > > > > and the more some of us disagree with the above, the more > > appropriate it seems to have been to use 'controversial morality' > > by Martin. > > Greetings, > Maxime. For some reason, assholes like Peter Thiel (co-founder of Palantir among others) seem to love cryptocurrencies, so maybe remember to mention that next time in comparisons with the US government. I think something about the total lack of regulations and customer protections appeals to his ilk, but what do I know. :) As Folding Ideas put it (paraphrased): the problem is patterns of human behaviour, it's what people do to eachother, not that the building they do it in has the word "Bank" written on it. If you haven't seen it, I really recommend it: https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g I'd much rather see Spritely's OCAP money and LETS take off than the "everything is a stock market" future that cryptocurrency fans envision. Anyways, IMHO a blanket ban on blockchain based cryptocurrency in Guix is not necessarily the best step to take, but I also don't think we should welcome all such packages with open arms. But if others want to ban some of them, I won't complain.
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Attila Lendvai schreef op ma 21-02-2022 om 09:29 [+]: > let me add, though, that a more apples-to-apples comparison here would be to > compare Bitcoin to the FED, and PoW to the costs of enforcing the PetroDollar > system on the entire world. Here PetroDollar = US dollar and FED=US Federal Government? > these costs not only include the direct environmental damages of wars and > militaries. more generally, it also includes the costs of enforcing a certain > economic structure globally, instead of potential better alternatives for > facilitating cooperation between strangers that may very well promote peace > and > prosperity more effectively and efficiently than the current system. If the US Government enforces the US Dollar with wars etc., then this seems more a bug of the US than a benefit of Bitcoin to me. Also, I don't understand what you mean with ‘enforcing’ here. Locally, in Belgium, I can use the Euro as currency. The US isn't forcing me to use the US dollar, in fact I have never seen a US dollar in person and most (all?) local businesses accept the Euro as currency and most physical shops wouldn't accept foreign currency(*). I can also use the US dollar as currency to buy from overseas (after trading Euro for US dollar, this happens automatically when e-shopping), even though the US hasn't stationed military forces at the banks to force the banks to allow converting Euro<->US dollar. I'm not seeing any enforcement here, nor any need for enforcement to make the US dollar a usable currency. While the US would (does?) wage wars to force countries to trade with the US (and perhaps force them to accept US dollar maybe?), I don't see how Bitcoin would change this -- Bitcoin might change the currency used for the forced trade, but not the existence of the forced trade. (*) at least, I think so, I haven't ever tried. > and from that perspective i don't see the use of 'absurd amount' justified, > by a large margin. > > and the more some of us disagree with the above, the more appropriate it > seems to have been to use 'controversial morality' by Martin. Greetings, Maxime. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
> (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/54068). At least for bitcoin, mining is > known to consume an absurd amount of energy (the footprint of a whole > country, and 1 Bitcoin transaction is said to be equivalent to 735121 the moral argument has been spelled out nicely already. let me add, though, that a more apples-to-apples comparison here would be to compare Bitcoin to the FED, and PoW to the costs of enforcing the PetroDollar system on the entire world. these costs not only include the direct environmental damages of wars and militaries. more generally, it also includes the costs of enforcing a certain economic structure globally, instead of potential better alternatives for facilitating cooperation between strangers that may very well promote peace and prosperity more effectively and efficiently than the current system. and from that perspective i don't see the use of 'absurd amount' justified, by a large margin. and the more some of us disagree with the above, the more appropriate it seems to have been to use 'controversial morality' by Martin. -- • attila lendvai • PGP: 963F 5D5F 45C7 DFCD 0A39 -- “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.” — Richard Bach (1936–), 'Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah' (1977)
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
What is subjective about the numbers about energy consumption? The numbers are not subjective. As stated later it is the opinion on whether it is useful or not that is subjective. 1 Bitcoin transaction is said to be equivalent to 735121 Visa transactions This is a bad comparison since it compares two things that are different. A bitcoin tx is just an secp256k1 over some input and output opcodes. So forming at tx is not energy intensive. Processing a tx involves verifying the signature and running the opcodes. So this is also not energy intensive. What is energy intensive is PoW. PoW is used to achieve consensus on the ordering of tx's and *protects* the ledger for being reordered. Visa also ultimately relies on protection by law's and enforcement of those laws by governments within who's jurisdiction it operates. Bitcoin doesn't have any reliance on protection from the state, so it must provide its own protection and it does this through PoW. A better comparison would be comparing bitcoin mining to the US military expenditures. I would agree that military expenditures are too high and war is very bad for the environment. The ability of governments to wage massive wars rest on their ability to 1) collect taxes and 2) manipulating the supply of money. While it is a long shot, cryptos such as bitcoin could be used to prevent or at least make it hard for governments to seize crypto assets from the citizens, which could ultimate hinder them from raising the capital needed to wage mass war. In this context seems to me to be an great use of excess energy. BTW you can already mine bitcoin and monero with current packages. Guix refuses to have anything to do with non-free software, banning it from its repositories. That seems a bit authoritarian to me. Some people would say that's rather arbitrary of Guix. There's still plenty of software that is being kept non-free, so I guess that ‘software should be free’ counts as ‘controversial morality’? Yes I agree, but it is quite clear what to expect from a GNU project. I agree with its stance on free software and that is why I use it. Free software doesn't conflict with open source implementation of cryptocurrencies. I don't think it is fair to start add rules that ban software built with a particular political or ideological view point. It would be better to fork and create a new distro founded on your political and ideological principles. That way all newcomers could choose if participate and agree with the principles, instead of trying to force a participial ideological stance onto existing users that disagree with them. I suppose that technically, ‘don't mess up the planet’ is ‘controversial morality’ Once again agree we agree not to mess up the planet. But undermining the governments ability to raise tax and therefor to wage war or not expending energy to prevent government theft is the ‘controversial morality’ that I am sure can be agreed to death and which probably doesn't belong on this list. 2/20/22 17:52, Maxime Devos wrote: Martin Becze schreef op zo 20-02-2022 om 12:13 [+0100]: I don't consider mining to be wastefully and this is a extremely subjective opinion. What is subjective about the numbers about energy consumption? Quoting myself: ‘At least for bitcoin, mining is known to consume an absurd(*) amount of energy (the footprint of a whole country, and 1 Bitcoin transaction is said to be equivalent to 735121 Visa transactions)[1].’ [1]: See, e.g., https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2021/03/09/business/dealbook/bitcoin-climate-change.html / https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2021/03/09/business/dealbook/bitcoin-climate-change.html (*) the word ‘absurd’ might count as subjective here Where exactly you draw the line between wasteful and not wasteful is rather subjective, but the numbers theirselves seem rather objective to me and wherever the line lies exactly, these numbers seem to be well over it. It should be a users choose whether or not they want to mine. A corner stone of free software is "(0) The freedom to run the program as you wish, for whatever purpose." By limiting what is accessible to the user based an arbitrary, authoritarian and controversial morality goes against the nature of free software. Guix refuses to have anything to do with non-free software, banning it from its repositories. That seems a bit authoritarian to me. Some people would say that's rather arbitrary of Guix. There's still plenty of software that is being kept non-free, so I guess that ‘software should be free’ counts as ‘controversial morality’? Along the same lines, Guix disabling telemetry and removing Google Analytics from documentation could count as patronising to upstream. I suppose that technically, ‘don't mess up the planet’ is ‘controversial morality’ given the existence of various lobbies etc., but I don't think we
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Hello Maxime, February 20, 2022 1:37 PM, "Maxime Devos" wrote: > > More concretely, the p2pool description is: > > ‘Monero P2Pool is a peer-to-peer Monero mining pool. P2Pool > combines the advantages of pool and solo mining; you still fully > control your Monero node and what it mines, but *you get frequent > payouts like on a regular pool.*’ > The Monero description is evidently written by a marketer - thats enough justification for caution. For example, the use of the word "like" in the description appears to remove rather than add clarification I know which of the following statements is more reassuring: * You will be paid Saturday * You will be paid like Saturday Similarly, the repeating use of terms (P2P, mining, pool) and the name Monero feels like a cynical approach at inbibing rather than educating. FWIW, Ive noticed that many toolset descriptions are turning into hyperbole on the homepages. Ive found that visiting forges READMEs tends to provide clearer and more concise descriptions of what a tool is and its functions. If a concise and normative technical definition of the tool exists then maybe it can be considered (inspite of all the moral hazards and negative externalities). Until then, let such hazardous pools mine their chains *all solo like* on other OSes. Jonathan McHugh indieterminacy@libre.brussels
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
I'd prefer to steer clear of passing value judgments on individual packages of free software as a policy. All of the tools we provide can be used for good or evil. It is up to the user to bear responsibility for their own actions with the software they choose to build. Sincerely, Ryan Sundberg Original Message From: Maxime Devos Sent: February 20, 2022 2:05:44 AM PST To: guix-devel@gnu.org Subject: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware? [CC'ing some people in Guix I know to be interested in cryptocurrency] Hi, Guix packages some cryptocurrency(*) software (bitcoin, monero, some people have been working on packaging ethereum). So far, it only appeared that clients are being packaged. More recently, a ‘miner’ for monero has been packaged (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/54068). At least for bitcoin, mining is known to consume an absurd amount of energy (the footprint of a whole country, and 1 Bitcoin transaction is said to be equivalent to 735121 Visa transactions)[1]. Guix has a policy against including malware[citation needed 2], and furthering global warming[3] (and energy prices[4], if [3] is not bad enough for you) seems rather bad behaviour to me. Would these miners be considered malware in Guix? TBC I'm not making a case for rejecting all inefficient software, only software that is absurdly inefficient by design -- a, say, math library not using vectorised operations might be quite a bit less inefficient than a math library using vectorised operations, but that can be resolved with some programming work and it would seem to pale in contrast to the mining situation. Greetings, Maxime. (*) For this e-mail, I'm only considering cryptocurrencies based on some ‘mining’ system and assuming that monero and ethereum have the same energy problems as Bitcoin, although possibly with a smaller constant factor. [1]: See, e.g., https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2021/03/09/business/dealbook/bitcoin-climate-change.html / https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2021/03/09/business/dealbook/bitcoin-climate-change.html [2]: zero hits when searching for "malware" in the manual! [3]: I'm sure you can find some sources about destabilising climate systems, species extinctions, fish getting third-degree burns, island nations gradually disappearing because of raising sea levels ... [3]: I'm not sure actually that mining would be (partially) responsible for increasing energy prices but it seems plausible to me.
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Taylan Kammer writes: > On 20.02.2022 11:05, Maxime Devos wrote: >> >> Guix has a policy against including malware[citation needed 2], and >> furthering global warming[3] (and energy prices[4], if [3] is not bad >> enough for you) seems rather bad behaviour to me. >> >> Would these miners be considered malware in Guix? >> > I'm not a fan of cryptocurrencies at all, but I don't like the idea of > excluding software from Guix on the grounds that it's harmful in some > indirect way. > > Malware is software that harms/exploits the user without their knowledge. > The inefficiency of cryptocurrencies was never a secret, though people > didn't think much about it; recently it's become widespread knowledge, so > I think considering crypto miners to be malware is somewhat unreasonable. > > An example of actual malware would be a *hidden* crypto miner that sends > the mined coins to the author of the software. I think that's a good analysis. Software which installs a crytpo-miner *without a user's knowledge* is a serious problem. > If we're going to exclude software on grounds of it being used in harmful > ways, I can already see people arguing that one should exclude software > such as aircrack-ng for aiding in breaching into networks, or anonymity > software like Tor because it aids perverts in sharing you-know-what or > aids terrorists in planning attacks. Slippery slopes and all. I agree... I'm also conscious that it'll put Guix in a position where this will be a large portion of the work that Guix is doing is screening software on a very large number of grounds, whereas we already screen software much more so than most places. It could absorb a lot of our energy. It's easy to underestimate just how all-consuming this could become. I share criticisms of proof-of-work. Though some of the criticisms being raised on this list are treating "blockchains" and "cryptocurrencies" as if they even were one coherent thing. In reality the variance space of this is huge: https://dustycloud.org/blog/what-is-a-blockchain-really/ You'll see plenty of my own criticisms coming up in there. But part of my issue is, it's worth being precise about what's being criticized. For instance, "proof of stake" has other problems (arguably still has plutocratic properties), but not the energy consumption issue. Most of the discourse contemporarily is acting as if both are the same. But even proof of stake based systems are often being built on top of software that's being refactored from "proof of work". I think this activism criticizing design choices along these lines *is* worthwhile, but building alternatives and getting them adopted may be a stronger choice. I'd like to replace proof-of-work based systems largely; there are under-appreciated directions that even predate Bitcoin dramatically that are worth exploring. Relatedly, the title of this is: "Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?" That's broad enough that it could also put a lot of emphasis on "don't use inefficient languages" (actually that's how I misread what the subject of this thread originally before opening it). That's worthwhile also, but similarly, is Guix's package repository acceptance/rejection the right place? > One might argue that those pieces of software also have good uses, but > the same could be argued about a crypto miner: perhaps I want to install > one simply to study its operation to aide in some sort of research, maybe > even research about its inherent inefficiency. Or maybe I want to devise > a small-scale blockchain-based network for a niche use-case where the > blockchain won't reach an unwieldy size or will be limited in lifetime. > > All in all, I think the baseline is that if something is software, and it > respects the user's freedoms, it belongs in Guix. > > What do you think? I'm happy to have my mind changed. I've never used a > crypto miner and continue to be disinterested in them so don't care about > this particular case all that much, but the principle behind the reasoning > bothers me somewhat.
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Hi Maxime, Am Sonntag, dem 20.02.2022 um 11:05 +0100 schrieb Maxime Devos: > [CC'ing some people in Guix I know to be interested in cryptocurrency] > > Hi, > > Guix packages some cryptocurrency(*) software (bitcoin, monero, some > people have been working on packaging ethereum). So far, it only > appeared that clients are being packaged. > > More recently, a ‘miner’ for monero has been packaged > (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/54068). At least for bitcoin, mining is > known to consume an absurd amount of energy (the footprint of a whole > country, and 1 Bitcoin transaction is said to be equivalent to 735121 > Visa transactions)[1]. > > Guix has a policy against including malware[citation needed 2], and > furthering global warming[3] (and energy prices[4], if [3] is not bad > enough for you) seems rather bad behaviour to me. > > Would these miners be considered malware in Guix? > > TBC I'm not making a case for rejecting all inefficient software, only > software that is absurdly inefficient by design -- a, say, math > library not using vectorised operations might be quite a bit less > inefficient than a math library using vectorised operations, but that > can be resolved with some programming work and it would seem to pale in > contrast to the mining situation. I don't think there's a case that can be made from the FSF's point of view against wasteful software if the waste is intentional (which is sadly part of the point of cryptocoins). To make my point in a more accessible manner, `guix show stress' yields (as expected) --8<---cut here---start->8--- name: stress version: 1.0.5 outputs: out systems: x86_64-linux i686-linux dependencies: autoconf@2.69 automake@1.16.3 location: gnu/packages/admin.scm:2214:2 homepage: https://packages.debian.org/sid/stress license: GPL 2+ synopsis: Impose load on and stress test a computer system description: Stress is a tool that imposes a configurable amount of CPU, memory, I/O, or disk stress on a + POSIX-compliant operating system and reports any errors it detects. + + Stress is not a benchmark. It is a tool used by system administrators to evaluate how well their systems will scale, + by kernel programmers to evaluate perceived performance characteristics, and by systems programmers to expose the + classes of bugs which only or more frequently manifest themselves when the system is under heavy load. relevance: 29 --8<---cut here---end--->8--- Cheers
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Martin Becze schreef op zo 20-02-2022 om 12:13 [+0100]: > I don't consider mining to be wastefully and this is a extremely > subjective opinion. What is subjective about the numbers about energy consumption? Quoting myself: ‘At least for bitcoin, mining is known to consume an absurd(*) amount of energy (the footprint of a whole country, and 1 Bitcoin transaction is said to be equivalent to 735121 Visa transactions)[1].’ [1]: See, e.g., https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2021/03/09/business/dealbook/bitcoin-climate-change.html / https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2021/03/09/business/dealbook/bitcoin-climate-change.html (*) the word ‘absurd’ might count as subjective here Where exactly you draw the line between wasteful and not wasteful is rather subjective, but the numbers theirselves seem rather objective to me and wherever the line lies exactly, these numbers seem to be well over it. It should be a users choose whether or not they want to mine. A corner stone of free software is "(0) The freedom to run the > program as you wish, for whatever purpose." By limiting what is > accessible to the user based an arbitrary, authoritarian and > controversial morality goes against the nature of free software. Guix refuses to have anything to do with non-free software, banning it from its repositories. That seems a bit authoritarian to me. Some people would say that's rather arbitrary of Guix. There's still plenty of software that is being kept non-free, so I guess that ‘software should be free’ counts as ‘controversial morality’? Along the same lines, Guix disabling telemetry and removing Google Analytics from documentation could count as patronising to upstream. I suppose that technically, ‘don't mess up the planet’ is ‘controversial morality’ given the existence of various lobbies etc., but I don't think we should listen to them; we all live on this planet after all (unless you're a space alien of course :p) and it's not like we have any back-ups. Additionally, from a technical point of view, nothing in Guix is stopping people from messing up the planet. If they feel like it, they can make a package definition and run "guix install -f produce-lots-of-carbon.scm" or the like, or publish a channel, etc. While it's the user's choice whether they _want_ to mine or not (Guix is not a thought police!), it seems inadvisable to _help_ people with mining and perhaps useful to _stop_ people from mining. That is, stop people from doing the act, not stopping people from wanting to mine. Actually stopping people would be something for the law and state though, not Guix. Caveat: there's a risk of descending a slippery slope here, see e.g. the mail by Taylan Kammer. Greetings, Maxime. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
> On 20 Feb 2022, at 10:07, Maxime Devos wrote: > > Guix has a policy against including malware[citation needed 2], and > furthering global warming[3] (and energy prices[4], if [3] is not bad > enough for you) seems rather bad behaviour to me. > > Would these miners be considered malware in Guix? > Greetings, > Maxime. To directly answer your question, in my opinion miners should not be considered malware in Guix. Much as I don’t like the adverse climate impact of miners and crypto, I think it is the thin end of the wedge of packages are restricted based on climate impact. I think we should stick to restrictions based on licence conditions. Of course, this is just a personal opinion, and has no more validity than your opinion!! Best regards, Paul
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
On Sunday, February 20, 2022 7:44:18 AM EST Taylan Kammer wrote: > On 20.02.2022 13:37, Maxime Devos wrote: > > The points about slippery slopes, research and niche use-cases seem > > reasonable to me. I do see follow-up questions though, should the > > description in Guix warn about potential issues? And should the > > description focus on research uses? ... > > > > More concretely, the p2pool description is: > > > > ‘Monero P2Pool is a peer-to-peer Monero mining pool. P2Pool > > combines the advantages of pool and solo mining; you still fully > > control your Monero node and what it mines, but *you get frequent > > payouts like on a regular pool.*’ > > > > This is quite a bit different from, say, aircrack-ng which seems > > to be mostly about assessing security, whereas the p2pool description > > is about gaining money (see ‘payouts’), and without mentioning that > > mining costs a lot of energy (and hence money, and possibly the money > > that is gained by mining is smaller than the amount lost due to energy > > costs!). > > > > My dislike for the description of p2pool might just be my views on > > money leaking through, though. > > > > Greetings, > > Maxime. > > I guess a different description would be better. It sounds almost > like a sales pitch with the mention of making money. :-) > > I'm not familiar with Monero/P2Pool so I don't know what a better > description might sound like though. This description sound like it is promising that, if you run this software, you will "get frequent payouts". I don't think that's a claim Guix can or should make. I guess there's maybe some tension about to what extent package descriptions are speaking on behalf of the package or on behalf of Guix, but I don't think it usually causes too much confusion for the description of a package like `pypy3` to say what the program's developers think its merits are, without Guix as a project appearing to take a position on which is the best Python implementation. However, a package description claiming that you will get money if you use it seems like quite an extreme case. (More generally, I share both the concerns about the impacts of crypto mining and the concern that for Guix to refuse to package such software might have problematic implications.) -Philip
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
On 20.02.2022 13:37, Maxime Devos wrote: > > The points about slippery slopes, research and niche use-cases seem > reasonable to me. I do see follow-up questions though, should the > description in Guix warn about potential issues? And should the > description focus on research uses? ... > > More concretely, the p2pool description is: > > ‘Monero P2Pool is a peer-to-peer Monero mining pool. P2Pool > combines the advantages of pool and solo mining; you still fully > control your Monero node and what it mines, but *you get frequent > payouts like on a regular pool.*’ > > This is quite a bit different from, say, aircrack-ng which seems > to be mostly about assessing security, whereas the p2pool description > is about gaining money (see ‘payouts’), and without mentioning that > mining costs a lot of energy (and hence money, and possibly the money > that is gained by mining is smaller than the amount lost due to energy > costs!). > > My dislike for the description of p2pool might just be my views on > money leaking through, though. > > Greetings, > Maxime. I guess a different description would be better. It sounds almost like a sales pitch with the mention of making money. :-) I'm not familiar with Monero/P2Pool so I don't know what a better description might sound like though. -- Taylan
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Taylan Kammer schreef op zo 20-02-2022 om 13:20 [+0100]: > If we're going to exclude software on grounds of it being used in harmful > ways, I can already see people arguing that one should exclude software > such as aircrack-ng for aiding in breaching into networks, or anonymity > software like Tor because it aids perverts in sharing you-know-what or > aids terrorists in planning attacks. Slippery slopes and all. > > One might argue that those pieces of software also have good uses, but > the same could be argued about a crypto miner: perhaps I want to install > one simply to study its operation to aide in some sort of research, maybe > even research about its inherent inefficiency. Or maybe I want to devise > a small-scale blockchain-based network for a niche use-case where the > blockchain won't reach an unwieldy size or will be limited in lifetime. > > All in all, I think the baseline is that if something is software, and it > respects the user's freedoms, it belongs in Guix. > > What do you think? I'm happy to have my mind changed. I've never used a > crypto miner and continue to be disinterested in them so don't care about > this particular case all that much, but the principle behind the reasoning > bothers me somewhat. The points about slippery slopes, research and niche use-cases seem reasonable to me. I do see follow-up questions though, should the description in Guix warn about potential issues? And should the description focus on research uses? ... More concretely, the p2pool description is: ‘Monero P2Pool is a peer-to-peer Monero mining pool. P2Pool combines the advantages of pool and solo mining; you still fully control your Monero node and what it mines, but *you get frequent payouts like on a regular pool.*’ This is quite a bit different from, say, aircrack-ng which seems to be mostly about assessing security, whereas the p2pool description is about gaining money (see ‘payouts’), and without mentioning that mining costs a lot of energy (and hence money, and possibly the money that is gained by mining is smaller than the amount lost due to energy costs!). My dislike for the description of p2pool might just be my views on money leaking through, though. Greetings, Maxime. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
On 20.02.2022 11:05, Maxime Devos wrote: > > Guix has a policy against including malware[citation needed 2], and > furthering global warming[3] (and energy prices[4], if [3] is not bad > enough for you) seems rather bad behaviour to me. > > Would these miners be considered malware in Guix? > I'm not a fan of cryptocurrencies at all, but I don't like the idea of excluding software from Guix on the grounds that it's harmful in some indirect way. Malware is software that harms/exploits the user without their knowledge. The inefficiency of cryptocurrencies was never a secret, though people didn't think much about it; recently it's become widespread knowledge, so I think considering crypto miners to be malware is somewhat unreasonable. An example of actual malware would be a *hidden* crypto miner that sends the mined coins to the author of the software. If we're going to exclude software on grounds of it being used in harmful ways, I can already see people arguing that one should exclude software such as aircrack-ng for aiding in breaching into networks, or anonymity software like Tor because it aids perverts in sharing you-know-what or aids terrorists in planning attacks. Slippery slopes and all. One might argue that those pieces of software also have good uses, but the same could be argued about a crypto miner: perhaps I want to install one simply to study its operation to aide in some sort of research, maybe even research about its inherent inefficiency. Or maybe I want to devise a small-scale blockchain-based network for a niche use-case where the blockchain won't reach an unwieldy size or will be limited in lifetime. All in all, I think the baseline is that if something is software, and it respects the user's freedoms, it belongs in Guix. What do you think? I'm happy to have my mind changed. I've never used a crypto miner and continue to be disinterested in them so don't care about this particular case all that much, but the principle behind the reasoning bothers me somewhat. -- Taylan
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
I don't consider mining to be wastefully and this is a extremely subjective opinion. It should be a users choose whether or not they want to mine. A corner stone of free software is "(0) The freedom to run the program as you wish, for whatever purpose." By limiting what is accessible to the user based an arbitrary, authoritarian and controversial morality goes against the nature of free software. Martin On 2/20/22 11:48, Tobias Platen wrote: Yes, bitcoin could be considered malware. There is GNU Taler which is more efficent. Unfortunately Taler has not started yet, there is no working exchange at the moment. Tobias
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Note the joke here but: Yesterday I spent like 6 hours trying to install a package (blender). My Guix system compiled tons of rust modules, texlive, inkscape, gtk+ more than one time, qt nd finally blender. All that with my CPU to 100%. Is Guix malware? Cheers, Ekaitz
Re: Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
Yes, bitcoin could be considered malware. There is GNU Taler which is more efficent. Unfortunately Taler has not started yet, there is no working exchange at the moment. Tobias
Excessively energy-consuming software considered malware?
[CC'ing some people in Guix I know to be interested in cryptocurrency] Hi, Guix packages some cryptocurrency(*) software (bitcoin, monero, some people have been working on packaging ethereum). So far, it only appeared that clients are being packaged. More recently, a ‘miner’ for monero has been packaged (https://issues.guix.gnu.org/54068). At least for bitcoin, mining is known to consume an absurd amount of energy (the footprint of a whole country, and 1 Bitcoin transaction is said to be equivalent to 735121 Visa transactions)[1]. Guix has a policy against including malware[citation needed 2], and furthering global warming[3] (and energy prices[4], if [3] is not bad enough for you) seems rather bad behaviour to me. Would these miners be considered malware in Guix? TBC I'm not making a case for rejecting all inefficient software, only software that is absurdly inefficient by design -- a, say, math library not using vectorised operations might be quite a bit less inefficient than a math library using vectorised operations, but that can be resolved with some programming work and it would seem to pale in contrast to the mining situation. Greetings, Maxime. (*) For this e-mail, I'm only considering cryptocurrencies based on some ‘mining’ system and assuming that monero and ethereum have the same energy problems as Bitcoin, although possibly with a smaller constant factor. [1]: See, e.g., https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2021/03/09/business/dealbook/bitcoin-climate-change.html / https://www.nytimesn7cgmftshazwhfgzm37qxb44r64ytbb2dj3x62d2lljsciiyd.onion/2021/03/09/business/dealbook/bitcoin-climate-change.html [2]: zero hits when searching for "malware" in the manual! [3]: I'm sure you can find some sources about destabilising climate systems, species extinctions, fish getting third-degree burns, island nations gradually disappearing because of raising sea levels ... [3]: I'm not sure actually that mining would be (partially) responsible for increasing energy prices but it seems plausible to me. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
