Mining is not stupid. Mining is a legitimate way to attract nerds to crypto. It is an art form. Assembling a GPU miner, configuring the settings, connecting to a pool, seeing the coins arrive in your wallet- it's an unforgettable and very rewarding experience. It brings a sense of realism to these abstract tokens we're creating and trading. It also fosters a virtual ecosystem around the platform.

It's OK if Lisk does staking instead of mining. We'll just be attracting a different type of nerd to the foray. It would be useful to think about all the mutually beneficial ways one could earn Lisk, because you're not going to setup a virtuous economic cycle if everyone has to buy their way into a token. For a contextual example of this problem, see NXT.