[burroisolator]

If a car can be more efficiently produced, the energy spent producing cars will go up because either more cars will be produced or more features will be added to the car. This is a win for the car consumer. This is very different from Bitcoin where any improvements to the efficiency of mining it (such as transitioning to ASICs) does not lead to a tangible benefit for the Bitcoin user. All major non-ASIC miners will eventually be out-competed out, but the amount of energy wasted will always be correlated to the price of Bitcoin.

[cinntaile]

While not a tangible benefit for them, they do get a more secure network as a result.

[burroisolator]

I don't think they do if you're just referring to how difficult it is to pull off a 51% attack. Assume the status quo is that it costs X to secure 51% of the hash power. If there is a new ASIC that can hash twice as fast with the same energy use, then suddenly it will cost 0.5X to secure 51% of the hash power. But if the price of Bitcoin remains the same, then miners will have an incentive to double their hash power as that was their breakeven point before. And so now you've gone back to the previous status quo. Assuming the attackers have access to the new ASICs, it still costs X to 51% attack the network.