[nnfy]

>We as a race are really good at only considering the downsides of something once we've deployed it at irreversible scale

That's a little pessimistic, I think. Some problems simply do not become apparent and are difficult to anticipate prior to a certain minimal scale. This IMO isn't an issue with humans in general, our resources are limited in the design phase. There is only so much we can anticipate-and how often do you hear about large scale successes with the same magnitude of emotionally loaded reporting that you get with large scale disasters?

The fact that mining requires energy is not any different from literally any other action human beings perform to transact value. Bitcoin is just much closer to a pure exchange of information (which is all that value transfer really is) and so it's easier I think to stop and say "look at all those computers wasting energy doing nothing!" Since you typically see other "necessary" uses of power in non BTC transactions.

Not to mention the various solutions that could substantially improve BTC efficiency in the way of both hardware and software (e.g. asics). The fact that the BTC network is energy intensive is not as big of a hit against BTC overall as people seem to be making it out to be.

Not to mention that everyone is screaming about the energy use without considering both cost and benefit.