my favourite benefit of bitcoin is how it uses the entire energy output of yemen to send someone five bucks
1) The Yemen number is for the whole system. The energy to send one transaction is tiny and much smaller than using the existing remittances system.
2) With a bank, it's not even clear you could send $5 to Yemen as there's a civil war going on. And if you did find a money transfer company willing to do it, it would be very expensive. With Bitcoin, as long as the person in Yemen has a phone and can get online, you can send them any amount, it will cost ~$2, and take minutes to do.
Each to their own I guess.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
You give me the kind opportunity to quote a favourite lyric of mine:
The do-er and the thinker: no allowance for the other
Thick as a Brick, Jethro Tull[0]
[0]: http://www.collecting-tull.com/Albums/Lyrics/ThickAsABrick.h...