It continues to bother me that simply by having a problem with this particular argument against bitcoin, people assume I'm pro-bitcoin mining. Isn't it enough to have a problem with fallacious arguments?

Oh I think bitcoin is plenty destructive, but it's a simple fact that we never critique ANY other technology or field in terms of energy consumption this way. We don't break down the industry-at-large in terms of energy consumption, and evaluate whether that's a valuable ROI. We don't do that because doing so is reductive.

Power isn't fungible.

You know what I think is a waste? All the brain power and human resource time spent on solving problems with bitcoin when we could be putting that time toward going to Mars.