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Did Anyone Do Even a Minimal Check on the Sensationalist Bitcoin Electrical Consumption Story?
Did Anyone Do Even a Minimal Check on the Sensationalist Bitcoin Electrical Consumption Story?
Check the context before uncritically accepting sensationalist conclusions.
Let’s start with a primer on how to write a sensationalist story that can be passed off as “journalism:”
1. Locate credible-sounding data that can be de-contextualized, i.e. sensationalized.
2. Present the data as “fact” rather than data that requires verification by disinterested researchers.
3. Exaggerate the data as much as possible and set the tone and context with emotionally laden words: “shocking,” etc.
4. Select a context that sensationalizes the conclusion.
Now let’s take a look at a story that has been swallowed whole, with little to no fact-checking or disinterested inquiry: bitcoin’s electrical consumption, i.e. the electricity consumed by mining/maintaining bitcoin’s blockchain.
One Bitcoin Transaction Now Uses as Much Energy as Your House in a Week
Let’s start by stipulating that energy consumption is a consequential matter worthy of serious inquiry. It’s important to measure the energy consumption of all the systems that operate within the current status quo, and compare the consumption levels of these systems.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the story.
Right off the bat, the context we’re offered to grasp the enormity of bitcoin’s mining consumption is the electrical consumption of Nigeria, a nation, we’re breathlessly informed, with 186 million residents. Wow! That’s a crazy amount of electrical consumption, right?
Let’s do some very basic fact-checking before we accept sensationalist conclusions, shall we?
Nigeria consumes about 24 billion kWh annually, while the U.S. consumes 3,913 billion kWh annually.
So Nigeria uses 3/5th of 1% (0.6%) of the electricity the U.S. consumes.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Are Americans Ignorant or victims of Yellow Journalism? | Armstrong Economics
Are Americans Ignorant or victims of Yellow Journalism? | Armstrong Economics.
Reuters has published the result of what is being touted as the Ignorance Index. The one question as an example: “Guess how many U.S. girls aged 15-19 give birth each year. Go ahead, guess. If you calculated the number at 3 percent you’re correct; if you guessed 24 percent, you’re American.”
I rarely watch TV. If I do, it tends to be national news – never local news who seem to think a burning house is news or some guy shot his wife in a domestic dispute. I was at dinner and the TV was on. I could not believe the TV advertisements for the elections. They are allNEGATIVE calling the other a liar or misrepresenting the facts on everything. One said the candidate cut the number of police, made the streets more dangerous and then shows a picture of ISIS and then said she raise taxes. Then the very next advertisement flips and calls the other a liar for something or another. There was ZERO advertisement about anything other than vote for me because I lie less that the other liar.
It seems that the Ignorant Index may be more tied to the bias and lack of integrity of the media. They focus on sensationalism to gain readership and in the process focus of one thing and create false images in the minds of the average person.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
