Tai Zen mentioned something (around the 44m mark) that didn't really enter into my mind during the debate: subjective proof of work multiplied by energy use of CPU cycles is the formula for 'value creation' in the Steem platform.
Ignoring one without the other leads to logical gaps.
Oh and another gem from Tai Zen(around 55m):
And it also eliminates a really nasty problem on the internet with trolling. If you try to troll somebody on Steemit you don't make any money. You're wasting all your time and not making any money and its going to down-vote you and you lose credibility and the more people down-vote you on Steemit you just don't show up... [I]f you're a troll, Steemit is an anti-trolling social network.
thanks to @thecryptofiend for his post sharing this video