An Absurd But Nonetheless Interesting (perhaps) Question

[Spacescifi]

Scenario: Your next door neighbor powers his personal computer at home with a submarine rated nuclear reactor, with a battery only as back up if the reactor must but shut down for maintenence.

Your neighbor also has a pool.

You asked him once if he had a permit for his reactor and he said he did. You called your local goverment official and they said what he was doing was OK because he cleared permission with them (*cough* paid them off but let's not talk about that lol).

When you asked the neighbor why he needed a nuclear reactior to power hus computer he said "Isn't it obvious? I use AI to mine crypto currency 24/7 without turning my computer off. You should see the cooling system on it! Why gamble when you can make your money get more money for you? I won't need a job anymore, that's the goal!"

 

Main Question: Would the neighbor's house have steam billowing from some exhaust port on the roof becasuse of the reactor?

 

What are the benefits of running your PC off a submarine rated nuclear reactor as opposed to just using rechargeable Lithium batteries?

Would maintenence be easy enough to do without getting cancer? Let's assume the neighbor has a radiation hazmat suit if matters come to that lol.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Spacescifi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Not sure most subs have steam piling out of them.

[Spacescifi]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Not sure most subs have steam piling out of them.

True... but this neighbor could do that if he wanted to.... perhaps?

[Entropian]

Hold on, why does someone need the massive amount of power that a sub reactor would provide just for cryptomining?

[Spacescifi]

22 minutes ago, Entropian said:

Hold on, why does someone need the massive amount of power that a sub reactor would provide just for cryptomining?

 

He is doing a MASSIVE amount of cryptomining.... arguably far more than any one person should.

 

Not to mention running an advanced AI system to do cryptomining for him so he can play Elite Dangerous full-time instead of.... work for a living lol!

 

I read an online article about a 12 year old boy from India who took up cryptomining over his summer break. In two months he made about 1500. After that his dad bought him an upgraded computer, and he made a few thousand later on from cryptomining, and with that money he invested into an even more powerful computer.

Last I checked his computer was so uber he has to put it in the garage with it's own cooling system to keep it from overheating... but the boy makes more money than some adults do working full-time.

He just had to invest a lot upfront (dad helped him).

Edited January 22, 2022 by Spacescifi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Chinese cryptominers bought whole power plants. 

China's underground bitcoin miners (cnbc.com)

Edited January 22, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

The reactor is phew, nobody cares about them.
Are the crypto operations legal in your state, that's the first question.

49 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Chinese cryptominers bought whole power plants. 

When I was prophetically prognosing this just 15 years ago, they were laughing at my words.
Nice to feel more cleverer than whole other part of world.

5 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Not sure most subs have steam piling out of them.

You just don't see it underwater.

***

What puzzles me, is that same modern people, who propagate both green energy and cryptocurrencies, don't combine them together.

Why not mine the coins under a solar panel or a wind turbine?
Greencoins.

[KerikBalm]

9 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Chinese cryptominers bought whole power plants. 

China's underground bitcoin miners (cnbc.com)

This really points out the absurdity of crypto currency....

I get the point, currency that is secure and can't be counterfeit...

But it has no intrinsic value... it's absurd like paper money is relative to gold... but paper money has government backing, crypto has... nothing except reputation and fads...

Dogecoin... Gimme a break

[magnemoe]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The reactor is phew, nobody cares about them.
Are the crypto operations legal in your state, that's the first question.

When I was prophetically prognosing this just 15 years ago, they were laughing at my words.
Nice to feel more cleverer than whole other part of world.

You just don't see it underwater.

***

What puzzles me, is that same modern people, who propagate both green energy and cryptocurrencies, don't combine them together.

Why not mine the coins under a solar panel or a wind turbine?
Greencoins.

An nuclear reactor run an steam turbine. However you don't release the steam after the turbine you simply cool it with sea water and reuses it. 
No idea that happens above, you do want an way to get rid of the steam in case of an leak or you do repair on the steam system. 

Now its two ways to cool down steam, first way is to use water, second way is an cooling tower who I suspect your neighbor would need unless he lives next to water. 
Cooling towers can give off steam some days. 

 

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, magnemoe said:

No idea that happens above

Some incident near Scotland.

Edited January 22, 2022 by kerbiloid

[Spacescifi]

15 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

An nuclear reactor run an steam turbine. However you don't release the steam after the turbine you simply cool it with sea water and reuses it. 
No idea that happens above, you do want an way to get rid of the steam in case of an leak or you do repair on the steam system. 

Now its two ways to cool down steam, first way is to use water, second way is an cooling tower who I suspect your neighbor would need unless he lives next to water. 
Cooling towers can give off steam some days. 

 

 

The neighbor lives in the suburbs so presume he will need the cryptomining to pay for the massive water utiity bill.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Spacescifi

[kerbiloid]

56 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Dogecoin... Gimme a break

As you wish.

No dogs, a molluscoin, the first known money in history.

Spoiler

The cowr(y/ie) (aka Cypraea) shell.

In use since the neolithic times.
Mined Gathered on the Red Sea shore, used across all Fertile Crescent.

56 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

currency that is secure and can't be counterfeit...

But it has no intrinsic value... it's absurd like paper money is relative to gold... but paper money has government backing, crypto has... nothing except reputation and fads...

... and even noone's reputation protects the shell money.

The  main properties of the money are its limited amount (usually provided via its irreproducibility) and agreement of the actors to use it as the exchange equivalent.

The cryptocoin limited amount is provided by the algorithm.
Every generated unique coin item decreases the probability of the next coin to be generated.
Thus, the longer the cryptocoin exists, the less probable is a one coin more per same amount of operations.
As the calculation productivity is limited by the hardware progress, it can't grow as fast as the algorithm work getting slower.

So, the available total amount of the cryptocoins is limited, and that's what is required to  make it limited.

The agreement of the actors depends only on their will and trust in this currency protection and limited amount.
As the non-official cryptocurrencies occupy just about 1% of total world payments, that's enough.
Even if a cryptocurrency gets compromised, that's a problem of limited amount of actors who were using it on their own risk.
(And most of them anyway have to risk, due to ambiguous nature of their businesses, lol.)

Once the cryptocurrencies have captured tens of percents of the global material equivalent, the actors will be more and more official and guarantee-dependent, so the choice of a cryptocurrency will be more and more depending on the official recommendations, like
"The First Global Industrial Bank blesses you all to use the Chickencoin v2.4 blockchain virtual currencies, but warns you not to keep using the Cookiecoin of v 6.4 and older as compromised ones."

P.S.
As actually the amount of the mined coins is a function of spent energy, it's actually a money gained by the miner for spending the power produced by the powerplant, and thus it's a money for the nature pollution, the greenhouse effect, the global warming, and the additional entropy brought into the world.

So, the green activists should be natural opponents of the cryptominers, but they need money, too.
So, as usually, the human greed prevails the human maudlin sentimentality, and they keep mining coins, turning a blind eye to those who mine the coal to produce the power to let them mine the coins, let alone those ones, who should suffer from the enormous hurricanes caused by the global warming caused by the carbon dioxide caused by the fuel burnt to give them another virtual coin.

Edited January 22, 2022 by kerbiloid

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

The neighbor lives in the suburbs so presume he will need the cryptomining to pay for the massive water utiity bill.

Makes sense, people making moonshine also tend to use the tap water for cooling the condenser on the still. 
But doubt this would work well for an 50 MW nuclear reactor. 

Now I could see some Russians pulling this off but it would be at an naval yard there its lots of computers and an reason to keep an old reactor around for training. 

Edited January 22, 2022 by magnemoe

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

As you wish.

No dogs, a molluscoin, the first known money in history.

  Reveal hidden contents

The cowr(y/ie) (aka Cypraea) shell.

In use since the neolithic times.
Mined Gathered on the Red Sea shore, used across all Fertile Crescent.

... and even noone's reputation protects the shell money.

The  main properties of the money are its limited amount (usually provided via its irreproducibility) and agreement of the actors to use it as the exchange equivalent.

The cryptocoin limited amount is provided by the algorithm.
Every generated unique coin item decreases the probability of the next coin to be generated.
Thus, the longer the cryptocoin exists, the less probable is a one coin more per same amount of operations.
As the calculation productivity is limited by the hardware progress, it can't grow as fast as the algorithm work getting slower.

So, the available total amount of the cryptocoins is limited, and that's what is required to  make it limited.

The agreement of the actors depends only on their will and trust in this currency protection and limited amount.
As the non-official cryptocurrencies occupy just about 1% of total world payments, that's enough.
Even if a cryptocurrency gets compromised, that's a problem of limited amount of actors who were using it on their own risk.
(And most of them anyway have to risk, due to ambiguous nature of their businesses, lol.)

Once the cryptocurrencies have captured tens of percents of the global material equivalent, the actors will be more and more official and guarantee-dependent, so the choice of a cryptocurrency will be more and more depending on the official recommendations, like
"The First Global Industrial Bank blesses you all to use the Chickencoin v2.4 blockchain virtual currencies, but warns you not to keep using the Cookiecoin of v 6.4 and older as compromised ones."

P.S.
As actually the amount of the mined coins is a function of spent energy, it's actually a money gained by the miner for spending the power produced by the powerplant, and thus it's a money for the nature pollution, the greenhouse effect, the global warming, and the additional entropy brought into the world.

So, the green activists should be natural opponents of the cryptominers, but they need money, too.
So, as usually, the human greed prevails the human maudlin sentimentality, and they keep mining coins, turning a blind eye to those who mine the coal to produce the power to let them mine the coins, let alone those ones, who should suffer from the enormous hurricanes caused by the global warming caused by the carbon dioxide caused by the fuel burnt to give them another virtual coin.

As I see it crypto has three build in weaknesses. First its not very usable as an general coinage paying for an buss ride or an hot dog, the transaction cost is high, purpose of mining is to process the transactions and here the cost is going up. "plan" is to have the mining replaced by an transaction fee down the line somehow. 
Second an limited currency is bad as an national one, you want to increase your currency reserve as the economy grows, this was the problem with gold based currency. 
GNP had expanded by order of an magnitude but the gold reserves expanded much more slowly making gold prices and value of money increasing fast so people held on to money and gold rater than investing or buying stuff. 
An gold based currency had the benefit of not letting fools overheat the money printers but inflation is an tool lots of countries used during the current pandemic. 

Last crypto is valuable because lots say its valuable, so is true with gold but its looks good and been valuable trough history, currency is valuable but governments back them. You could easy get to many stupid crypto currency its works like the video game crash back in 1990, You could get governmental restrictions. So far its tax free like art or collector items but you have to pay tax on stock earning or currency speculations. 

[KSK]

Cryptocurrency is everything that is wrong with modern capitalism. It's a pointless waste of energy with a market driven by the greater fool theory from bottom to top.  

Sorry - did I say crypto*currency*? I meant crypto-speculation-and-scam-tokens.

[StrandedonEarth]

18 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Chinese cryptominers bought whole power plants. 

China's underground bitcoin miners (cnbc.com)

This just confirms my recent conclusions* that all forms of money are simply a form of distilled energy used as a medium of exchange to replace bartering., which probably started with something like "you give me food, and I'll give you a nice sharp pointy stick you can use to bring me more food in exchange for the other useful things I can make." Essentially trading the energy spent gathering for the energy spent crafting.

17 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

What puzzles me, is that same modern people, who propagate both green energy and cryptocurrencies, don't combine them together.

At least one  bitcoin miner has settled in Quebec to take advantage of the cheap hydropower available there.

 

*I keep meaning to write some sort of essay on it and a bunch of other things,  but free time is precious and ends up being wasted frivolously on gaming etc, 

[magnemoe]

4 hours ago, KSK said:

Cryptocurrency is everything that is wrong with modern capitalism. It's a pointless waste of energy with a market driven by the greater fool theory from bottom to top.  

Sorry - did I say crypto*currency*? I meant crypto-speculation-and-scam-tokens.

Better to invest in tulips Or chickens.

Art is another one in part that you don't pay tax on sale of collector items. 
One old scam is to have friends buying an item between them to raise price. 
Its quite some evolution in action here. 

[kerbiloid]

10 hours ago, magnemoe said:

First its not very usable as an general coinage paying for an buss ride or an hot dog

Just because the crypto appeared just a couple of decades ago, so it yet hasn't become usual.
Also, in Russia to the date there are a lot of food delivery services accepting it.

10 hours ago, magnemoe said:

the transaction cost is high, purpose of mining is to process the transactions and here the cost is going up

This just makes to buy/sell it, instead of mining personally. You don;t print paper money, as well, you use them mined by somebody (the bank).

Also, the amount of gold is also limited, and it doesn't have any built-in economic properties, it's just an agreement to use it due to its irreproducability.

11 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Second an limited currency is bad as an national one, you want to increase your currency reserve as the economy grows, this was the problem with gold based currency. 

If it's not limited (say, fallen leaves from trees), it can't be an equivalent at all, as anyone can just produce such money as much as he wishes.

So, in any case the money system needs periodic restarts, either crypto, or paper.

11 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Last crypto is valuable because lots say its valuable

Any payment equivalent is based on agreement. Gold and cowry shells as well.

Would you accept your salary in Mongolian tugriks? They are official currency.

9 hours ago, KSK said:

Cryptocurrency is everything that is wrong with modern capitalism. It's a pointless waste of energy with a market driven by the greater fool theory from bottom to top.  

They are the distilled idea of the exchange value equivalent.
Just in ancient times they were being mined by slaves, and now by office slaves.

6 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

At least one  bitcoin miner has settled in Quebec to take advantage of the cheap hydropower available there.

Yes, the hydroplants are a usual and very limited source of electric energy since XIX, but I mean the fancy sun and wind which arre to replace the combustion and a little earlier - the nukes.

(It's funny to hear now that same people who were blaming  the nuclear energy thirty years ago as dirty one, now start calling it "green, too".)

4 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Better to invest in tulips

Een tulipcoin.

In operation since XVIII. Older that all other currencies,

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

17 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

This just confirms my recent conclusions* that all forms of money are simply a form of distilled energy used as a medium of exchange to replace bartering., which probably started with something like "you give me food, and I'll give you a nice sharp pointy stick you can use to bring me more food in exchange for the other useful things I can make." Essentially trading the energy spent gathering for the energy spent crafting.

It's always been an analog for labor and also agreed value of things.  Never been a one-to-one; the value of the labor to extract the gold was never as much as the having of gold... but you are correct - how we value it is truly arbitrary and capricious: and yet it has an agreed on value.

Think about this: Property.  

You can read an article like this (Microsoft Word - 10Johnson EIC.SME.doc (vermontlaw.edu) ) where someone tries to distil how the concept of property (rights) works in a place like the United States... but it distils down to something pretty simple and almost absurd.

Property is whatever we say it is.

Not really a head slapper - until you begin to delve into it and try to deconstruct just what makes something property.  The definition varies from society to society - and that can be powerfully dissonant to someone who is invested in his or her society's definitions.  Another way to define it is that "Property is whatever anyone strong enough to enforce his will says it is".

• Medieval strongman: I am the king and I own all the land.  And the people.  Anyone who disagrees can die.  I keep this right because I share my wealth with other strongmen, but only out of the goodness of my heart, and only so long as they do what I say.  Tick me off and I'll give the right to enjoy my land to another strongman who is loyal.
• Later Medieval strongmen:  If you want to keep up this charade, we own our land and can direct its ownership to our descendants.
• American Indians: No one can own the land - what an absurd concept.  Still, thanks for the stuff... suckers.
• Peter Minuit: Here's 60 Gildurs worth of trade goods; this island is ours now.  We own it.  Suckers.
• Modern people: no one can own a person.
• People throughout history: we can kill you all or you can be slaves.
• Modern people: women enjoy the full rights of society and can own property
• People throughout history: women are the property of their fathers until married, then they are the property of the husband.

There are examples in history where people behaved differently ( A Look at 5 Matriarchal Societies Throughout History (brides.com) )  The original egalitarian societies: What human history tells us about human nature – Solidarity Online  ...but they are rare exceptions.  Still, when you look at these societies - they all simply had a different agreement on what constituted property and what rights members enjoyed within the society.

Money is the same.  A simplification of how we exchange value for value.  In that context, if a dogecoin has no value to you... it has no value.  But for someone who has a dogecoin and wants to exchange it to someone who wants a dogecoin for a thing... they come to an agreement both on the value of the coin and the value of the thing.

Which, ultimately is both arbitrary and capricious - even when there's a whole bunch of people agreeing that each thing has a specific value of one against the other... it's just faith.

 

Edited January 23, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[StrandedonEarth]

8 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

It's always been an analog for labor and also agreed value of things. 

Currency is what you agree it is...

https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/dog-buys-treats-using-leaf

[kerbiloid]

Cats use dead rats.

[Spacescifi]

36 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

It's always been an analog for labor and also agreed value of things.  Never been a one-to-one; the value of the labor to extract the gold was never as much as the having of gold... but you are correct - how we value it is truly arbitrary and capricious: and yet it has an agreed on value.

Think about this: Property.  

You can read an article like this (Microsoft Word - 10Johnson EIC.SME.doc (vermontlaw.edu) ) where someone tries to distil how the concept of property (rights) works in a place like the United States... but it distils down to something pretty simple and almost absurd.

Property is whatever we say it is.

Not really a head slapper - until you begin to delve into it and try to deconstruct just what makes something property.  The definition varies from society to society - and that can be powerfully dissonant to someone who is invested in his or her society's definitions.  Another way to define it is that "Property is whatever anyone strong enough to enforce his will says it is".

• Medieval strongman: I am the king and I own all the land.  And the people.  Anyone who disagrees can die.  I keep this right because I share my wealth with other strongmen, but only out of the goodness of my heart, and only so long as they do what I say.  Tick me off and I'll give the right to enjoy my land to another strongman who is loyal.
• Later Medieval strongmen:  If you want to keep up this charade, we own our land and can direct its ownership to our descendants.
• American Indians: No one can own the land - what an absurd concept.  Still, thanks for the stuff... suckers.
• Peter Minuit: Here's 60 Gildurs worth of trade goods; this island is ours now.  We own it.  Suckers.
• Modern people: no one can own a person.
• People throughout history: we can kill you all or you can be slaves.
• Modern people: women enjoy the full rights of society and can own property
• People throughout history: women are the property of their fathers until married, then they are the property of the husband.

There are examples in history where people behaved differently ( A Look at 5 Matriarchal Societies Throughout History (brides.com) )  The original egalitarian societies: What human history tells us about human nature – Solidarity Online  ...but they are rare exceptions.  Still, when you look at these societies - they all simply had a different agreement on what constituted property and what rights members enjoyed within the society.

Money is the same.  A simplification of how we exchange value for value.  In that context, if a dogecoin has no value to you... it has no value.  But for someone who has a dogecoin and wants to exchange it to someone who wants a dogecoin for a thing... they come to an agreement both on the value of the coin and the value of the thing.

Which, ultimately is both arbitrary and capricious - even when there's a whole bunch of people agreeing that each thing has a specific value of one against the other... it's just faith.

 

Money is just a useful system of exchange where everyone can get something they want without too much risk or effort.

 

Without it how would I pay for my car? In ancient times without money a man would sell his daughter off as a wife/slave in exchange for anything as valuable as a car.

 

Knowing you have a kids, I know you would prefer money any day.

 

Much better than bartering and slavery of all kinds.

[TheSaint]

On 1/21/2022 at 10:30 PM, kerbiloid said:

Diesel generator. When a submarine reactor is running there is no steam emitted, it's cooled entirely by sea water, even on the surface. The reason why you see steam emitted from the cooling towers at commercial power plants is because they allow their cooling water to evaporate. So, if your neighbor decided to operate a MW-range power plant at his house, it would probably emit steam, not because it was a submarine power plant, but because he would probably be cooling it more in the manner of commercial power plants, since I'm guessing your neighborhood doesn't have a ready supply of flowing seawater nearby.

As for cryptocurrency (or currency, or the concept of value in general), there is an important point to remember: Yes, value is entirely dependent on the psychology of people. Things are only valuable because people value them. Gold is only valuable because people perceive it as valuable and are willing to exchange it for other things that are perceived as valuable. The same thing is true of U.S. dollars, dogecoins, Van Gogh paintings, Ferraris, etc, etc. But the important thing to consider is the number of people who consider the object to be valuable. The population of people who consider gold to be valuable is larger than the population who consider dogecoins to be valuable. So the resilience of gold as a store of value will therefore be higher than that of dogecoin.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

42 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

Money is just a useful system of exchange where everyone can get something they want without too much risk or effort.

 

Without it how would I pay for my car? In ancient times without money a man would sell his daughter off as a wife/slave in exchange for anything as valuable as a car.

 

Knowing you have a kids, I know you would prefer money any day.

 

Much better than bartering and slavery of all kinds.

As society has grown more complex so have our rules.

In a traditional (ancient) society, despite the female not having the same rights or status in the group as her male family members, they were not always treated as mere chattel.  You typically want value for value - so you would try to find an advantageous match for her and you; remember societies are built upon relationships.  The literature is filled with situations where things went bad, but the tradition would not have survived if it was always bad for the female.

Early on in my adulthood I met a woman from India studying in the US.  The subject of arranged marriage came up.  Despite the fact that she was dating a friend of mine, and very fond of him, she knew it was not going to last.  Her family had already promised her to a man from India.  A man she had yet to meet; the first she would meet him was right before the wedding, scheduled for after she graduated.  She was okay with this.  A fact that absolutely confounded me.  Her efforts to explain it ran up against my ignorance and prejudice.

Men typically did not sell their daughter off as a slave; that would have resulted in an extreme loss of face/reputation/status.  So the horror story we hear is the exception, not the rule.  Where possible families exchanged promises of marriage for eligible children with the expectation that the result would be good for both families... regardless of how each society defined what roles were available to the respective child.

It is a challenge, being someone raised within the Western Educated Industrial Representative Democracies to understand why anyone would want to live in any system less egalitarian than our own... But to them we are weird.  There is a sort of comfort to the traditional, I guess.  I think the main thing that humans instinctively fear is chaos - and the world is replete with places where people are willing to accept onerous forms of government in exchange for predictability and security.

Ultimately - most people only want one thing: the security to live their lives safely, raise their kids and not be abused by their neighbors.

Edited January 23, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler