[panarky]

You're right, many of these are valid criticisms.

It's just that we've been having the identical arguments over and over for nearly ten years now. We're not advancing our understanding by re-hashing the same tired ideas.

Maybe I'll make a page with common responses to these arguments.

To use your example ... it's true that mining cryptocurrencies consumes a lot of energy. So do casinos. So does Facebook and Starbucks. So does manufacturing weapons.

The world's televisions consume a lot of energy.

Bank office buildings and the millions of bank workers who drive to work every day also use a lot of energy.

The question isn't how much energy a thing uses, it's how much value is derived per watt-hour of energy.