Sadly, this is what basically everyone does when the world cares about money above all else. There are many people who'd rather mine than live off minimum wage or go to work 40hrs a week with an hour or more drive and back. Basically everyone is trying to find a way to get out of basically slavery and find true freedom. And lots and lots of people have made hundreds of thousands to millions now since coins went from example $0.002 to $1, that's massive. The current crypto scene is at it's all time high. So everyone is chasing the next cheap one to pump and dump. That's how it works if you want to gain quickly instead of waiting 40+ years to retire and live on Social Security. I'm just going to assume the naysayers are well off right now and financially in a good place, so don't truly care. I'm not a fan of all our PC hardware costing more of course, heck I buy used parts because that's what I used to be able to afford and now even used is 2x/3x the price. I'll never get my dream builds now. But I totally understand what's going on and why.
Wow, that's a lot of delusion and twisting of the truth for one post. I mean, is it true that a certain amount of people have gotten modestly rich (i.e. have made a few thousand dollars or more) off crypto that weren't before? Sure. I would guesstimate something in the mid tens of thousands globally at best. That does literally nothing at all to change the global distribution of wealth, combat poverty, or fight for a fairer and more equitable society. (According to the World Bank, around 700 million people live in extreme poverty, defined as living on less than US$1.90/day. How many of those do you think can buy a crypto rig?) It wouldn't even make a dent in the US alone, where
34 million people live in poverty. In fact it does the opposite, by cementing mechanisms in which the already wealthy are given further avenues of making their money grow. Not to mention, of course, that a likely similar if not higher number of people lost tons and tons of money the last time crypto crashed.
You need to start from a position of relative privilege to get off the ground mining crypto at all. You need knowledge and access to relevant equipment, most of which is expensive, so you need access to either cash or loans. That already excludes the
vast majority of the global poor - but crucially also the vast majority of the poor in rich countries like the US - but also opens the door wide for the wealthy, for whom the cost of entry is essentially irrelevant. If you're used to trading stocks or commodities in the tens of thousands of dollars or more, setting up a couple of crypto rigs in a warehouse somewhere is a cheap gamble. Paying someone to set it up for you is also a negligable cost for the wealthy.
But ultimately, what you're arguing for here is just the virtuousness of selfishness in a predatory capitalist society. Which ... I mean, I get it, but it's counterproductive and only serves to maintain the status quo. Rather than take meaningful political action to make the society you're in work better (by, say, taxing the rich and through that ensuring living wages, universal healthcare, good working conditions, paid sick leave, vacation pay, livable pensions, etc. etc., i.e. resisting and fighting to change the current state of the system of government that has been shaped to dramatically benefit the wealthy over the past half century) you're arguing for a "everyone for themselves" ideology. Again: understandable given the circumstances, but also highly cynical and ultimately only serving to maintain a bad situation. There will always be more losers or people unable to take part in something like this than winners. The illusion that "anyone can win" is what keeps predatory capitalism going, as it lulls poor people into thinking
they can be the one to get rich, when the odds of that in reality are near zero. Class and social mobility in the US has near stagnated over the past decades while the wealth of the richest has exploded, and neoliberal economic policies (which, to be clear, are also propagated by so-called "conservatives") serve to ensure that the wealth of the rich is never threatened, but rather consolidated and made safer. For any real change to take place,
that needs to change, and saying "screw everyone else, I can get rich on crypto" is just a) a huge gamble, given the risk of a crash, and b) presenting selfishness as a virtue in lieu of fighting for meaningful change.
As for those of us critical of this being "well off right now and financially in a good place": sorry, but that's pretty myopic. Many of us are likely either living in societies where people are treated better than in the US, or know of the very real possibility of such a society. You're treating the current absolute shitshow that is working conditions in the US as a natural and unchangeable default ("live off minimum wage or go to work 40hrs a week with an hour or more drive and back" etc.), and you're falsely presenting the gamble of getting moderately rich off crypto as "true freedom". But within a system where money is the only determinant of success and the only real measure of power, no such thing as true freedom can ever exist. Everyone is a slave to money, whether it's the poor who don't have it or the rich who become obsessed by hoarding it through fear of losing it (as losing it would entail a total loss of security). Thankfully, all of this can relatively easily be moderated through political action. I don't know of any form of society where "true freedom" is possible (that leads us into some
really heavy philosophical questions), but
more freedom for
more people is very easily achievable through better taxation and redistribution of wealth, even within capitalist systems. Just look to the nordics - our wages aren't quite as high as in the US, but our
standards of living are higher, we're healthier, safer, trust each other and our governments more (largely due to the societies being more just and thus ultimately more free), we
live longer, have more free time,
are happier, etc., etc. You're presenting giving in to a hostile system as a way out of that system. That's just self-delusion.
. Should have an extra 18TB ultrastar for my archieval need. Sad day for data hoarders and internet historians. I guess time to buy 2.5 inch 5TB for me and the SSD I need.
