{"id":2185,"date":"2017-11-15T23:25:53","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T23:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=2185"},"modified":"2019-04-26T16:06:37","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T16:06:37","slug":"bail-bloc-mine-monero-generate-co2-send-less-money-than-you-spent-to-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2017\/11\/15\/bail-bloc-mine-monero-generate-co2-send-less-money-than-you-spent-to-charity\/","title":{"rendered":"Bail Bloc: mine Monero, generate CO2, send less money to charity than it cost to mine"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a persistent and troublesome phenomenon of liberals, leftists and social justice people seeing blockchains and Bitcoin and thinking that there’s anything in this phenomenon created by fringe right-wing cranks<\/a> for fringe right-wing crank purposes that will serve any of their own<\/i> purposes whatsoever. David Golumbia, author of The Politics of Bitcoin<\/i> (US<\/a>, UK<\/a>), gets a lot of earnest social justice people asking him about BlockchainTM<\/sup>, and we have fragments here of a half-written collaboration intended to kill this terrible idea; it’s clear I’ll need to get moving on my bit.<\/p>\n

The New Inquiry<\/a> is an online news magazine of leftist bent that’s heavily into social justice causes. It’s also a 501(c)3 charity<\/a> itself. Their latest project is a good cause with an absolutely terrible idea behind it: Bail Bloc<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The cause is to help fund bail for people who’ve been arrested but can’t afford the bail. 96% keep all their court dates, so that money will come back to bail out the next person. 4% don’t, so that money needs to be topped up. The Bronx Freedom Fund<\/a>, who The New Inquiry are working with on this one, uses the bail fund to keep people out of jail when they don’t need to be, which turns out to make them less likely to be sentenced, which makes for a better society. This is a good cause that makes the world a bit better! Here’s The New Inquiry’s articles<\/a> on the topic.<\/p>\n

The money comes from mining Monero on your PC, then sending the money from that in. Hands up all those who can already see the problems …<\/p>\n

Here’s the announcement tweet, from Editor in Chief Ayesha Siddiqi:<\/p>\n

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introducing Bail Bloc – it lets you donate your spare computer power to generate bail for low income defenders https:\/\/t.co\/u0r8PNCuMz<\/a><\/p>\n

— Ayesha A. Siddiqi (@AyeshaASiddiqi) November 15, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n