Because the "action" costs other people money. We live in a world with fixed natural resources and we have built capital intensive societies (roads, utilities, laws, etc) around managing those resources.

Bitcoin mining is highly energy intensive and would increase demand for energy from a fixed source. The companies moving into town haven't previously contributed to building these societies and won't be the ones responsible for maintaining them later when/if bitcoin fails. (see risk post above yours).

Also, "the establishment" you speak of in this case is a customer owned co-op...do you generalize and demonize everything?

I work in the industrial control world, some anecdotal things to share...

I've seen access to PLC's running critical water structure completely available via a web browser from anywhere in the world...since fixed. There is movement to close all these holes but the industrial control world moves very slow. It's very conservative, thinking "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" with the definition of broke being physically destroyed. It's easy to be critical of them for this but industrial controls are typically running infrastructure or manufacturing equipment, shutting down either of these for upgrades is very costly.

It also doesn't help that many people doing controls are electrical engineers or technicians who don't understand network technology well and doesn't communicate with the IT department.

Many companies understand that they don't understand and just refuse to put their machines on a network, unfortunately they are missing out the benefits of capturing data about their process, remotely view and troubleshooting faults, etc.

The internet doesn't work with out electricity...sue Benjamin Franklin!

Yes, and horses before that...attaching an ideal/belief to an object is risky, you can confuse one for the other.

The issue is that cars, in their current format, are working for part of our population as a method of transportation (and viewed as enabling their freedom to move, as well as becoming a representation of self[see: Listed trucks with giant tires, Darwin/Peace stickers or Calvin pissing on a Ford logo]) and are failing miserably for part of our population (and viewed as destroying their freedom to move).

Automated cars would make travel in big cities & suburbs (surrounding big cities) more free by reducing traffic, increasing safety and removing the parking epidemic. Only 15% of the country lives in rural areas: http://news.yahoo.com/census-r... . The result should be people having more time to spend with their families, friends, on hobbies, exercising, making home cooked meals, or watching Netflix on their couch and eating processed sugar treats...in any situation that's more freedom than sitting in traffic.

Automated cars mean everyone gets a chauffeur...I plan to sit in the back making sandwiches and ask people for Grey Poupon!

Yes,although the AC was incorrect, it is a good point that the DOE loans have received bad publicity even though they have had been a net positive: http://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/... I think most people believe the government is "giving" people money in situations where they are providing loans. As much as I personally view "Wall Street" as overpaid jerks and "Detroit" as under-performing losers, the bailouts they received were loans that have been profitable for our government...my tiny share of this profit, seen in the form of contribution to other government programs, is probably better return on investment than my pathetic IRA whose fees eat ~95% of my returns each year.

Unfortunately, we are still only a Kardashian Level 4 civilization.