You continue to say this and it continues to be untrue. Bitcoin's energy usage is not related to transactions. The graphic implies that if the number of Bitcoin transactions increases, that energy usage will too, and this is false.

I could publish a block with zero transactions and it would require the same amount of energy as if it had 1500. Overall, transactions are quite cheap: a transaction on Bitcoin costs about the same as a $200 Visa transaction.

Summary says "suspends", as if the same person who started mining has decided to walk back that decision. This is talking about a criminal ban, it threatens legal trouble.

By the way, one-off bans like this are not scalable enough to fix a shortage. Prices have to change to reflect the new availability/scarcity of resources.

You keep saying this and it continues to be misleading and untrue.

Mining one bitcoin is not the same unit as a Visa transaction; and some time in the future, you won't be able to mine bitcoin at all. You have to compare transactions to transactions.

One transaction on the Bitcoin network costs about $1.80. This is about what you'll pay to process a $140 Visa card transaction, or to power an average US home for 12 hours.

I don't have any issue with analyzing the data. As I said, show me the multivariate analysis. This article hasn't even done that.

If it turns out that the article's hypothesis is correct but only because it forces people to go outside and get sunlight and the sunlight is healthy and... we would have no way of knowing. Because one policy by one country only provides one data point.

I keep saying everything you're saying is true, and yet this does not change the fact that the article is engaging in the broadest level of speculation possible with no falsifiability whatsoever. The article may as well claim "naming your country Denmark causes a decrease in COVID hospitalizations" because, after all, that hypothesis is consistent with the data!

You said

Denmark does ten thousand things that no other country on earth does. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it a single data point. Which of these unique-to-Denmark policies, and to what magnitude, are they responsible for their different outcome? All we can do is speculate. No magnitude was claimed or is even known. It's a hypothesis. That's it.

Except there are. We can do multivariate analysis and isolate random environmental factors that cause a family to move into a house with a higher or lower level of lead paint, measure how much lead is in each resident's blood, and that suffices as an independent variable.

The article hasn't done anything like this. In fact, if I did the same quality of analysis as the article assumes, the result would be that masks cause COVID deaths. Why? Because cities typically implement mask mandates as infections go up, and deaths typically lag infections by a couple weeks. Can you see why I'm skeptical now?

Even more scientifically, how this usually works is we start with a hypothesis that pool fences (or refinishing a house with lead paint, or whatever) saves lives. Someone gets a grant to install as many pool fences as they can, and then they follow similar families who didn't get the grant because you can't help every person in the country at the same time and that's just life. And then you find out that families with pool fences have fewer drownings.

My city just did an experiment like this with a newer kind of walk signal at a few random intersections in the city, and they saw a 4x reduction in pedestrian collisions. It was so successful they're trying it at many more intersections.

I'm calling it an "anecdote" because that's what it is. It is a curious triviality that has not been experimentally verified.

To use an extreme example, no one has ever run experiments to confirm the LD50 of pretty much anything but we're pretty comfortable with LD50s for cyanide, arsenic, falling off a building, etc

We don't need to: Most people's decision making is not between "Do I fall off a building today, or do I not fall off a building today?"

Most people's decision making is "Do I install a fence around my pool, or do I not install a fence around my pool" and it turns out, based on experimental evidence, that installing a fence around your pool reduces the risk of drowning, especially among young children.

Now show me the same experiment for booster shots and hospitalizations! This should not be that difficult! I bet it even shows some significant result!

OK, fine. You're making the argument that an anecdote can be a good basis for a hypothesis.

You still haven't provided any evidence that Denmark's results has been caused by a specific policy and are not a merely coincidence.

At the beginning of the pandemic, washing hands, face masks, social distancing, face shields, one-way signs through grocery store aisles... were all reasonable hypotheses. But at some point you have to show me the real-world, experimental evidence. Don't argue to me "well astronomy doesn't have double-blind tests therefore the CDC doesn't need them either". That is bullshit and you know it.

Ok fine, show me the multivariate analysis. I can wait.

The basis of science is you pose a null hypothesis and then you try to disprove it. Astronomy follows this. Economics follows this. The article merely noticed a correlation, and assumed a causation.

Are you trying to tell me that Denmark has a control for us to compare to that's been held the same in all respects except for an experimental variable?

Otherwise, this is not science, it's an anecdote, and you need to go back to science class.

This is misleading, and a fabrication. One bitcoin transaction is indeed more expensive than a Visa transaction, but only $1.51. That powers the average US home for 8-9 hours.

Your post is a fabrication because your pick of 1.00 bitcoins is completely arbitrary, and has nothing to do with transactions. Mining is not related to transactions in the manner you suggest, and eventually, mining will not produce any bitcoin at all. What do you say then, mining one Bitcoin costs an "infinite" number of Visa card transactions?

There's also more costs in the banking system than just credit card transactions, many of which are not applicable to a Bitcoin-based system.

How is such a low number possible? Because electricity does not cost the same thing around the world.

You use this word "scam", and I don't think it means what you think it means.

I have yet to hear one person explain what it is that was promised and how that promise has harmed its users. Bitcoin lets me hold a certain amount of a thing. I can transfer a specific amount of that thing to someone else. (Specifically, someone who possesses a private key, which is not that different a concept than possessing a physical wallet.) This is all I asked for, and all I ever wanted.

You're not refuting the central claim. You're calling me out on layman terms whose nauance doesn't really make a difference to my initial point, and then being imprecise yourself.

My point doesn't rest on the difference between civil and criminal law. Is it, or is it not, legal to watch a copyrighted movie on YouTube?

No, actually, just show me one (1) case where receiving a copy will get you in legal trouble, when the person making the copy would not.

You're not even trying, are you?

Look, when you make this claim, you're implicitly saying that every person who ever watched a movie (illegally uploaded) on YouTube is a criminal. Surely you've watched a video that was later DMCA'd, right?

I'll admit I'm wrong if you can at least least admit that's a terrible state of affairs.

[Citation needed]

You were literally just telling me I would get laughed out of court if I sued the server operator. That's plainly false, and in any event, the conversation is about downloading a copy of software provided by the copyright holder. If you went to a judge and said "Well yes I provided him a copy of the book, he just doesn't have a license to read it", you most definitely would get laughed out.

The reason movie studios can sue P2P users is because every downloader is also an uploader. When a studio goes to court, they have to provide evidence they were able to download the copyrighted material.

Um, that's literally how it works. If you are a movie studio, and you find out that people are downloading your movie, you sue the person hosting it, not the people downloading it.