I support the existence of Bitcoin as a limited opt-out from the existing financial system but one thing I do not understand is the idea that it could serve as some kind of post-apocalyptic currency amid a general social collapse. 

The Proof-of-Work is famously energy intensive and requires gigantic industrial infrastructure to operate, not to mention the significant physical infrastructure of the internet itself to keep the system operating. So if our current mode of government and business somehow implodes who is going to provide and maintain all that?

Especially for younger people the idea that Bitcoin is real and going to stick around is already culturally ingrained so as I've said before its unlikely to go anywhere soon. But I actually see it as thoroughly part of our current system rather than a forerunner of some kind of revolution. If this system collapses, indulgently expensive manifestations of it like Bitcoin will go with it too.

Writer, podcaster, and commentator on foreign affairs and politics. Runs /dropglobalnews

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I finally got it after learning about the difficulty adjustment algorithm in btc's PoW. 

You wouldn't necessarily need industrial-scale levels of electricity for powering bitcoin in a post-apocalyptic world, just whatever's necessary to keep the blocks coming every 10-ish minutes.