My biggest takeaway from Thursday's meetup was the feeling that this movement is still in it's infancy. If you understand PoW you're in the tiniest minority. Perhaps less than 10,000 people on Earth really get it.
I think that it has a transcendent Truth to it. Something that reveals the human condition. The truth hurts like hell and we think killing the messenger will make it go away.
no question it was unleashed with an approach something like that, knowing it would adjust to difficulties? definitely to challenge the mass marketers, which (I think) are trapped.