> When the externalities of your actions cause undue harm to others, your activities are no longer appropriate.
And, according to you, which criteria should we use to define whether some externality causes "harm" or not and whether that harm is "undue" or not?
If I decide to spend all my days playing games on my computer (which is wasteful energy-wise and probably does not contribute meaningfully to humanity's welfare), am I causing harm to others? What if I decide to cut down trees in my plot of land: am I causing harm to others? What if I decide to shower using potable water, thereby depriving other people from that drinkable water?
Is this harm "undue"? Should I be punished for this? If yes, how are you going to punish me and by how much?
Who decides this? Based on which criteria?
> Lest we forget, there's a thing in Libertarianism called the Non-Aggression Principle (aka NAP). If your actions are an aggression on the health and well-being of our planet and future generations, this would violate NAP.
1) So, me using resources I acquired/paid for as I see fit is "aggressing" someone else? Under this logic, most human activities could be seen as an aggression, in one way or another (by applying resources in X, you are witholding them from being used in Y, thus "aggressing" everyone who benefits from Y happening over X).
2) Under a Libertarian framework, how exactly do you expect to enforce any sort of anti-NAP rule or law? Hope you brought your army with you.
Your general idea requires people to agree on what is "harmful" or not and whether that harm is "undue" or not. Good luck with having people agree on that.
TL;DR: Even if we assume "bitcoin mining" to lead to externalities that cause undue harm to others (not just normal harm, but undue harm), the same applies to many (most?) other human activities... you can always frame any resource allocation as "depriving someone from resources". Under this logic, we should ban anything I don't see as useful, because reasons.
As far as I can tell, the described process does not actually result in a cryptographic sponge, since the sponge construction relies on the application of a permutation of the internal state (not just any "pseudorandom transformation").
Since MD5 is not a permutation (i.e. it is not an invertible function), the state update function is lossy and the resulting construction probably does not constitute a (safe) cryptographic sponge.
Caveat emptor and all that.
EDIT: you could use MD5 to make a cryptographic sponge by using a Feistel or Lai-Massey scheme (which would ensure that the transformation of the state is reversible); as it is right now, I'm not sure it's a good idea.
And, according to you, which criteria should we use to define whether some externality causes "harm" or not and whether that harm is "undue" or not?
If I decide to spend all my days playing games on my computer (which is wasteful energy-wise and probably does not contribute meaningfully to humanity's welfare), am I causing harm to others? What if I decide to cut down trees in my plot of land: am I causing harm to others? What if I decide to shower using potable water, thereby depriving other people from that drinkable water?
Is this harm "undue"? Should I be punished for this? If yes, how are you going to punish me and by how much?
Who decides this? Based on which criteria?
> Lest we forget, there's a thing in Libertarianism called the Non-Aggression Principle (aka NAP). If your actions are an aggression on the health and well-being of our planet and future generations, this would violate NAP.
1) So, me using resources I acquired/paid for as I see fit is "aggressing" someone else? Under this logic, most human activities could be seen as an aggression, in one way or another (by applying resources in X, you are witholding them from being used in Y, thus "aggressing" everyone who benefits from Y happening over X).
2) Under a Libertarian framework, how exactly do you expect to enforce any sort of anti-NAP rule or law? Hope you brought your army with you.
Your general idea requires people to agree on what is "harmful" or not and whether that harm is "undue" or not. Good luck with having people agree on that.
TL;DR: Even if we assume "bitcoin mining" to lead to externalities that cause undue harm to others (not just normal harm, but undue harm), the same applies to many (most?) other human activities... you can always frame any resource allocation as "depriving someone from resources". Under this logic, we should ban anything I don't see as useful, because reasons.