Bitcoin mining is a real-world example of a goal that people spend an enormous amount of resources to attain, but this goal is useless or at least horribly inefficient.
Recall that the orthogonality thesis states that it is possible for an intelligent entity to have bad or dumb goals and that it is also possible for a not-so-intelligent entity to have good goals. I would therefore consider Bitcoin mining to be a real-world prominent example of the orthogonality thesis as it in a sense a dumb goal attained intelligently (though, this example is imperfect).
Bitcoin’s mining algorithm consists of computing many SHA-256 hashes relentlessly. The Bitcoin miners are rewarded whenever they compute a suitable SHA-256 hash that is lower than the target. These SHA-256 hashes establish decentralized consensus about the state of the blockchain, and they distribute newly minted bitcoins. But besides this, computing so many SHA-256 hashes is nearly useless. Computing so many SHA-256 hashes consumes large quantities of energy and creates electronic waste.
So what are some of the possible alternatives to Bitcoin mining? It seems like the best alternative that does not significantly change the nature of Bitcoin mining would be to replace SHA-256 mining with some other mining algorithm that serves some scientific purpose.
This is more difficult than it seems because Bitcoin mining must satisfy a list of cryptographic properties. If the mining algorithm did not satisfy these cryptographic problems, then it might not be feasible for newly minted bitcoins to be dispersed every 10 minutes, and we may enter a scenario where a single entity with a secret algorithm or slightly faster hardware were to put all the blocks on the blockchain.
Since Bitcoin mining must satisfy a list of cryptographic properties, it is difficult to come up with a more scientifically useful mining algorithm that satisfies these cryptographic properties. But in science, if there is a difficult problem, people should perform research on this scientific problem. While finding a useful cryptocurrency mining algorithm has its challenges, cryptocurrency mining algorithms are easy to produce since they can be made from cryptographic hash functions without requiring public key encryption or other advanced cryptographic algorithms, so difficulty seems more like an excuse rather than a legitimate reason not to investigate useful cryptocurrency mining algorithms. The cryptocurrency sector does not want to perform this research. I can think of several reasons why people refuse to support this sort of endeavor despite the great effort that people put into Bitcoin mining, but none of these reasons justify the lack of interest in useful cryptocurrency mining.
The diminishing quality of cryptocurrency users:
It seems like when altcoins were first being developed around 2014, people were much more interested in developing scientifically useful mining algorithms. But around 2017 when cryptocurrency really started to become popular, people simply wanted to make money from cryptocurrencies, yet they were not very interested in understanding how cryptocurrencies work or how to improve them.
Mining algorithms with questionable scientific use:
Some cryptocurrencies and proposals such as Primecoin and Gapcoin have more scientific mining algorithms, but these mining algorithms still have questionable usefulness. For example, the objective in Primecoin mining is to find suitable Cunningham chains. A Cunningham chain of the first kind is a sequence of prime numbers (p1,…,pn) where pj+1=2pj+1 whenever 1≤j<n. The most interesting thing about Cunningham chains is that they can be used in cryptocurrency mining algorithms, but they are otherwise of minor importance to mathematics.
These questionable mining algorithms are supposed to steer the cryptocurrency community into a more scientific direction, but in reality, they have just steered the cryptocurrency community towards using mining to perform mathematical calculations that not even mathematicians care that much about.
Alternative solutions to the energy waste problem:
Many people just want to do away with cryptocurrency mining in an altcoin by replacing it with proof-of-stake or some other consensus mechanism. This solution is attractive to the cryptocurrency creators since they want complete control over all the coins at the beginning of the project, and they just use the energy usage of cryptocurrency as a marketing strategy to get people interested in their project. But this solution should not be appealing to anyone who wants to use the cryptocurrency even if a cryptocurrency is better funded without much mining (of course, if mining is replaced with another consensus mechanism after all the coins have been created, then this objection does not stand). After all, Satoshi Nakamoto did not fund Bitcoin by selling bitcoins. There are other ways to fund a cryptocurrency project without alternate consensus mechanisms.
Hostility against cryptocurrency technologies:
It seems like many members of society are hostile against cryptocurrency technologies and hate people who own or are in any way interested in cryptocurrency. This sort of hostility is a very good reason to conduct as many transactions using just cryptocurrency since I do not want to deal with all of those Karens. But this hostility may have turned people away from researching useful cryptocurrency mining algorithms even though the usefulness would probably not benefit the cryptocurrency directly.
Hardcore Bitcoiners:
If Bitcoin mining were magically replaced with a useful mining algorithm, barely anything about Bitcoin would change. But in my experience, Bitcoiners do not see it this way. They are so stuck in their ways that they reject all altcoins.
Conclusion:
While cryptocurrencies have a lot of monetary value, they are not exactly powerhouses of innovation, nor do I find them extremely interesting on their own. But a good scientific mining algorithm would make them much more innovative and interesting.
But this solution should not be appealing to anyone who wants to use the cryptocurrency even if a cryptocurrency is better funded without much mining (of course, if mining is replaced with another consensus mechanism after all the coins have been created, then this objection does not stand). After all, Satoshi Nakamoto did not fund Bitcoin by selling bitcoins. There are other ways to fund a cryptocurrency project without alternate consensus mechanisms.
I don’t understand why that would be an argument against just using proof of stake. Proof of stake has a bunch of different benefits. It solves the energy problem.
It also increases the amount of writes that the blockchain can do per minute which is very important for usability.
Proof-of-stake is still wasteful since it promotes pump and dump scams and causes people to waste their money on scam projects. If the creators are able to get their reward at the very beginning of a project, they will be more interested in short-term gains rather than a long-term token that will last. Humans are not psychologically/socially equipped to invest in proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies since they tend to get scammed.
Proof-of-stake is just technology that can be used in different ways. It can be used for pump and dump scams but also for different purposes.
If you are building a product that’s actually setup to create long-term value it’s useful to use proof-of-stake is it allows you to provide more value because you have higher throughput while using less energy.
If the value of the project rises as features are build out, there’s an incentive to build out the project. There’s no good reason for anyone who wants to build a system that actually creates value to use technology that burns more energy and provides less performance.
Bitcoin mining is a real-world example of a goal that people spend an enormous amount of resources to attain, but this goal is useless or at least horribly inefficient.
Recall that the orthogonality thesis states that it is possible for an intelligent entity to have bad or dumb goals and that it is also possible for a not-so-intelligent entity to have good goals. I would therefore consider Bitcoin mining to be a real-world prominent example of the orthogonality thesis as it in a sense a dumb goal attained intelligently (though, this example is imperfect).
Bitcoin’s mining algorithm consists of computing many SHA-256 hashes relentlessly. The Bitcoin miners are rewarded whenever they compute a suitable SHA-256 hash that is lower than the target. These SHA-256 hashes establish decentralized consensus about the state of the blockchain, and they distribute newly minted bitcoins. But besides this, computing so many SHA-256 hashes is nearly useless. Computing so many SHA-256 hashes consumes large quantities of energy and creates electronic waste.
So what are some of the possible alternatives to Bitcoin mining? It seems like the best alternative that does not significantly change the nature of Bitcoin mining would be to replace SHA-256 mining with some other mining algorithm that serves some scientific purpose.
This is more difficult than it seems because Bitcoin mining must satisfy a list of cryptographic properties. If the mining algorithm did not satisfy these cryptographic problems, then it might not be feasible for newly minted bitcoins to be dispersed every 10 minutes, and we may enter a scenario where a single entity with a secret algorithm or slightly faster hardware were to put all the blocks on the blockchain.
Since Bitcoin mining must satisfy a list of cryptographic properties, it is difficult to come up with a more scientifically useful mining algorithm that satisfies these cryptographic properties. But in science, if there is a difficult problem, people should perform research on this scientific problem. While finding a useful cryptocurrency mining algorithm has its challenges, cryptocurrency mining algorithms are easy to produce since they can be made from cryptographic hash functions without requiring public key encryption or other advanced cryptographic algorithms, so difficulty seems more like an excuse rather than a legitimate reason not to investigate useful cryptocurrency mining algorithms. The cryptocurrency sector does not want to perform this research. I can think of several reasons why people refuse to support this sort of endeavor despite the great effort that people put into Bitcoin mining, but none of these reasons justify the lack of interest in useful cryptocurrency mining.
The diminishing quality of cryptocurrency users:
It seems like when altcoins were first being developed around 2014, people were much more interested in developing scientifically useful mining algorithms. But around 2017 when cryptocurrency really started to become popular, people simply wanted to make money from cryptocurrencies, yet they were not very interested in understanding how cryptocurrencies work or how to improve them.
Mining algorithms with questionable scientific use:
Some cryptocurrencies and proposals such as Primecoin and Gapcoin have more scientific mining algorithms, but these mining algorithms still have questionable usefulness. For example, the objective in Primecoin mining is to find suitable Cunningham chains. A Cunningham chain of the first kind is a sequence of prime numbers (p1,…,pn) where pj+1=2pj+1 whenever 1≤j<n. The most interesting thing about Cunningham chains is that they can be used in cryptocurrency mining algorithms, but they are otherwise of minor importance to mathematics.
These questionable mining algorithms are supposed to steer the cryptocurrency community into a more scientific direction, but in reality, they have just steered the cryptocurrency community towards using mining to perform mathematical calculations that not even mathematicians care that much about.
Alternative solutions to the energy waste problem:
Many people just want to do away with cryptocurrency mining in an altcoin by replacing it with proof-of-stake or some other consensus mechanism. This solution is attractive to the cryptocurrency creators since they want complete control over all the coins at the beginning of the project, and they just use the energy usage of cryptocurrency as a marketing strategy to get people interested in their project. But this solution should not be appealing to anyone who wants to use the cryptocurrency even if a cryptocurrency is better funded without much mining (of course, if mining is replaced with another consensus mechanism after all the coins have been created, then this objection does not stand). After all, Satoshi Nakamoto did not fund Bitcoin by selling bitcoins. There are other ways to fund a cryptocurrency project without alternate consensus mechanisms.
Hostility against cryptocurrency technologies:
It seems like many members of society are hostile against cryptocurrency technologies and hate people who own or are in any way interested in cryptocurrency. This sort of hostility is a very good reason to conduct as many transactions using just cryptocurrency since I do not want to deal with all of those Karens. But this hostility may have turned people away from researching useful cryptocurrency mining algorithms even though the usefulness would probably not benefit the cryptocurrency directly.
Hardcore Bitcoiners:
If Bitcoin mining were magically replaced with a useful mining algorithm, barely anything about Bitcoin would change. But in my experience, Bitcoiners do not see it this way. They are so stuck in their ways that they reject all altcoins.
Conclusion:
While cryptocurrencies have a lot of monetary value, they are not exactly powerhouses of innovation, nor do I find them extremely interesting on their own. But a good scientific mining algorithm would make them much more innovative and interesting.
I don’t understand why that would be an argument against just using proof of stake. Proof of stake has a bunch of different benefits. It solves the energy problem.
It also increases the amount of writes that the blockchain can do per minute which is very important for usability.
Proof-of-stake is still wasteful since it promotes pump and dump scams and causes people to waste their money on scam projects. If the creators are able to get their reward at the very beginning of a project, they will be more interested in short-term gains rather than a long-term token that will last. Humans are not psychologically/socially equipped to invest in proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies since they tend to get scammed.
Proof-of-stake is just technology that can be used in different ways. It can be used for pump and dump scams but also for different purposes.
If you are building a product that’s actually setup to create long-term value it’s useful to use proof-of-stake is it allows you to provide more value because you have higher throughput while using less energy.
If the value of the project rises as features are build out, there’s an incentive to build out the project. There’s no good reason for anyone who wants to build a system that actually creates value to use technology that burns more energy and provides less performance.