1) If you add up all the gains from mining, and subtract all the costs, you think this number will be greater than zero?
Yes, ffs! Unless you think that the $1 billion market cap for Bitcoin is the cost of gear & electricity for the miners up to this point. (HINT: Daddy, where do Bitcoin come from? The miners make 'em, Explodicle, the miners.Logic obviously won't win you over, perhaps authority would? Look at the reply by DeatAndTaxes, a few posts up. He's a respected member with 10,000 posts to his name.
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This isn't some electrical system, it's a real life economy with real scalability limits. No one cares about imaginary chalkboard economics - it's that same kind of thinking that predicts all rational actors will hoard a deflating currency.
Wrong. People who understand "chalkboard economics," collectively referred to as "the rich," care very much about "chalkboard economics." It's those who don't get "chalkboard economics," collectively referred to as "the poor," who do not. It's sad, it seems somehow unfair, and yet it remains true. These unfortunates often try to validate their simpleminded notions by wagering small amounts of newfangled money they don't quite understand. More fail and heartache, but such is the nature of free enterprise 
The chalkboard is only halfway there - the other half is expressing confidence by taking chances. Bets can shed light on a situation when loaded with the flowery language of protips, hints, true scotsmen, and hypothetical scenarios.Do you have any actual predictions that can be falsified?
At the current exchange rate the mining "game" has a positive sum of 25*6*24*365*~$100 = $131,400,000 annually.
Where did you subtract the costs of hardware, electricity, and labor from that sum?OMFG. I give. You win.
