Very interesting post on a topic I think about deeply and often, @edicted .
I won't weigh on the 'bitcoin is wasteful' debate, but I would like to make a comment about propaganda.
The 'techniques' of propaganda can be applied to any message. An utterly false one, a totally true one, or something in between. The techniques can be applied to messages benefitting one selfish individual, or to those benefitting society as a whole.
So the interesting thing for me is that people spreading lies are so often the ones to master propaganda-techniques, while people spreading truths generally seem to 'not bother' mastering these persuasion techniques.
Seems to me the only solution to 'negative' propagandists that harm society, are (superior) positive propagandists who heal society, but I haven't seen too many of the latter so far.
For example, let's say we want to spread the message the "bitcoin is a worthwhile use of energy", we could write about it on Hive, or we could model more of what the master propagandists might do.
Anyway, I haven't formed an opinion about all this, I just felt it was an interesting observation that might contribute to the discussion, and I deeply appreciate all the food for thought your article has given me here. Thank you. 🙏