You said "do these calculations take into account energy equivalent of running all the armies in the world, funding their wars and conflicts?"

That's not "at least some chunk", that's the entire cost that you're trying to wedge in there.

ok, feel free to only include partial cost. how does that change my point?

In my opinion, the fraction of the cost of the army that goes to preserving fiat is somewhere in the region of 0%.

What maintains the value of fiat is not government coercive action (e.g., having an army that forces people to use currency). Instead, the value is dictated by how much the populace believes it is worth. So it's the general government actions to maintain the health of the economy, and none of that would disappear if the government were to decide not to use fiat.

Indeed, to the extent that you'd compare how much the government spends in a hypothetical world where it doesn't use fiat currency versus one that it does, it probably takes more resources in the first case (i.e., fiat currency is a net asset to the government, not a net cost).

The premise of “no fiat, less war” is just asserted without any proof, and is actually quite ahistorical.

I love the idea of "no fiat, less war". I also love the idea of "less war". I don't believe war is a natural human occurrence but instead usually done for gaining fiat. However, I do believe that trading is quite natural and our current fiat implementation often simplifies trade. So maybe a borderless fiat simplifies it even more.

Good luck explaining Rome then. No fiat, lots and lots of war.

i never said nor implied "no fiat, less war".

Now you’re just dodging the question. Prove your assertion that a country on bitcoin would need a smaller army. I’ll wait.

Edit: saying that the economy would be deflationary and thus couldn’t afford a large army would be a hilarious way to go.

fiat's value is, at least partially, backed by an army that can defend/assert it. not having fiat eliminates the need for as much army.

There’s two issues here.

First, the logic doesn’t work. Let “has fiat currency” be A, and “has a large army” be B. You’re asserting “If A then B; therefore if not A then not B”. This is a formal logic error called “denying the antecedent”, which means the argument is invalid.

(You also don’t support A well, but that’s a side point because your logical assertion doesn’t work).

Second, there are plenty of examples of rich fiat countries with small armies (Switzerland, 0.7% GDP defense spending) and non-fiat countries with massive army expenditures (Roman Empire, harder to calculate due to history and lower productivity, but at least 2.5% GDP and 80% of the entire government budget). The presence of both indicates that the form of currency a country uses is secondary to other intangible aspects when it comes to the formation and maintenance of large armies.

> Let “has fiat currency” be A, and “has a large army” be B. You’re asserting “If A then B; therefore if not A then not B”.

those are incorrect presumptions and therefore incorrect conclusion. A is "has fiat currency", B is "needs an army or other means to maintain fiat value".

of course army is not the only thing, but it's one of the things in many of the countries. whatever other things other countries have to assert fiat value - those too consume some energy-equivalent of resources. army is just the most obvious and easy to understand example.

and yes, there are also feedback loops, there is no strict causal relationship between the components of this system, which is yet another reason why you can't make these energy consumption comparisons without being intellectually dishonest.

> yet another reason why you can't make these energy consumption comparisons without being intellectually dishonest.

The intellectually dishonest part is trying to shove as many extra costs onto the fiat currency side of the equation without counting them for cryptocurrency.

Comparing the energy cost per transaction is a simple, pairwise comparison. Even if all the world used bitcoin for currency, there is no reason to expect that things like banks, armies, and the entire financial ecosystem wouldn't also exist. Trying to make fiat currency account for all the latter costs is just trying to mask the fact that bitcoin is by design inefficient.

You can change the definition of B all you want, it's still a formal fallacy, meaning the argument is literally worthless. You have to structure a very different argument from what you've shown to assert that bitcoin would reduce national military expenditures, not just tweak the details.

Explain the value of the Somali shilling, then.