Unlike video games, maximizing energy waste is the goal of proof-of-work. The more energy wasted, the more money you make. It's an engine of conspicuous consumption, which makes it more dangerous than any leisurely pastime where energy is merely an input.
It's not wasted any more than it is wasted when you play a game or watch a youtube video or TV. It's just a use of energy which you are trying to make as somehow bad. It's just a cultural preference.
No, because if someone invents a way to power YouTube free of energy, that would be awesome, and it wouldn't detract in any way from the value of YouTube.
But if someone worked out a way to generate BitCoin for free without any energy input, that would destroy BitCoin, because it depends on proof of work, where work is defined as consuming energy.
Speak only of your own willful ignorance. Nobody said anything about inefficiency; ASICs are extremely efficient at wasting energy. The point that Bitcoin proponents refuse to admit is that, unlike other systems, making the components more efficient does not reduce the energy consumption of the system, because energy consumption is the purpose of this system.
Even worse, it puts a floor on the price of energy, which disincentives everyone else from seeking more efficient solutions to power production, because all that efficiency will be wasted by proof-of-work anyway. We as a species will never have free energy, and this is the reason.
Bitcoin is extremely centralized. Every transaction is recorded in a centralized ledger. That ledger may be distributed, but that's not the same thing as being decentralized.
There's nothing preventing anyone from mining blocks, either individually or in a pool, and broadcasting newly found blocks to the network to be permanently and uncensorably added to the ledger.
While the sibling comment has answered on why this is nothing like social media or video games, I do wish that the energy cost of these activities was taken into account more often. Video games in particular have become massively wasteful. Just downloading these 100GB behemoths expends useless energy. And everyone is pushing for 8K 172FPS games. Why? Just why?
And yes, before you answer, that applies to any hobby you can think of. You won't be astute by pointing out that e.g., car enthusiasts are similarly wasteful.
