Either:
1. You didn't actually read the comment.
2. You have no idea what ZeroNet or Blockstream are.
It is no crime to be ignorant of the topic, but it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on it while remaining in this state of ignorance.
In its discussion of physical and financial censorship (note the 2nd sentence), the comment also did (and I have to wonder how you "missed" this) refer to one of the best real-world illustrations of the value of cryptocurrencies: circumventing Venezuela's tyrannical regime and its destructive fiscal and monetary policies. That's my home country, and those are real lives. I'd love to hear you lecture me about how those people don't exist.
> and the supposed resiliency
Why "supposed"?
> I'm pretty sure GP has heard of those.
"Heard of"? Maybe. Understand? Clearly not.
> Whether HFT provides any benefit in terms of liquidity and smaller spreads is by no means clear.
It is. Bid-ask spreads are down to about 3 basis points from about 90 basis points 2 decades ago. Curbing HFT in the past—surprise, surprise—increased the spread. See also [0].
> HFT is certainly neither necessary nor even contributing to price discovery.
Well, you are certainly wrong [1], despite prefacing your false claim with "certainly". What does that tell us? Why are you prefacing false claims with "certainly"?
> I submit that the economy would work just fine with a price auction every minute (maybe with stochastic cut-off) for, say, 3 hours a day
Indeed the economy would "work just fine" with horse-drawn carriages and pigeon post. I commend you for your brilliant proposal. I recommend we implement this novel idea as soon as possible and see how it goes.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/04/01/hft-real...
[1] https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/research/cfa-digest/2015/04/...