The caption on the first photo is wrong. Peacekeeper was an ICBM, not a missile defense system. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-118_Peacekeeper

“I think all I’d have to do is whip out a 12 gauge shotgun cock the action once (intimidating on its own) ... and after the guy craps in his pants, he’ll be gone.”

Someone kicked in my back door while I was home a couple of weeks ago, so anecdotally I can confirm it’s possible to need that pistol strapped to your hip in your own home.

If you’re carrying a gun, the intent had better be to use it, not to scare them off. In the event you actually have to use it, why wouldn’t you want the most effective gun, not the “scariest” one?

In a typical home-defense scenario, the engagement will be too close to have to actually aim the weapon. This is where “point-and-shoot” comes in. Besides, anyone who has to “stop” before shooting isn’t well trained enough to be handling the weapon in the first place. Additionally, reloading is almost a non-issue when…

If it’s self-defense, it’s not murder.

Wow, you’re really stretching here. First, everyone has knives in their kitchen, regardless of culinary experience. These are not fighting knives. Having and knowing how to use a fighting knife are very different than owning a few kitchen knives, which most don’t know how to use defensively, which aren’t designed for…

Actually you cannot entirely discount the use of renewable sources of electricity, because of the opportunity cost of using the electrons created by renewable sources for mining vs doing other work. If the electrons were not used for mining, they would then be available to the grid for other work that would in turn…

The argument that waste heat can be reused is an acknowledgement of the significant resource consumption required to mine coins. Yes, it would be -less- environmentally detrimental if all the waste heat from mining was captured and reused, but the few who do this are the exception to the rule. And even IF every joule…

This argument is leveled against every disruptive technology that is first only understood and used by early adopters. Additionally, you admit yourself it is an “alternative” currency and not a replacement one, so according to your own argument there is no precedent for “nan and grandad” to “throw away that silly…

The article never claimed that this behavior was not wasteful. The indictment isn’t a comparison, it’s an acknowledgement of the physical environmental and economic impacts of cryptocurrency.

This statement absolutely betrays your ignorance of electricity production systems. Saying that all power stations produce the same amount of energy all the time is patently wrong. First of all, only about 40% of global energy production is from coal. So, assuming all the other aspects of your argument are correct…

Google performs a different function than Bitcoin. Drawing that comparison is a logical fallacy.