successfully set up monero mining on my desktop - earned all of like $0.0015 in an hour. probably not particularly viable without some serious computing power, but it's been an interesting experience.
...i think i'll set it up on my gaming rig; its gpu has been sitting idle for months. might be cool.
i hadn't heard about this before now. seems like a bit of an odd proposal on vitalik's part; uni to my understanding has historically a governance token, and you're right in that chainlink is basically the oracle network in the ecosystem. on the other hand, uni is already basically the gold standard of for conveying prices within the network.
another counterpoint, however, is that maker already has a proven track record for effectively matching the dollar for their stablecoin (dai) in a decentralized manner. chainlink (and vb's petition to uni) aside, maker seems like a candidate that's better geared towards (and perhaps more directly interested in) an undertaking of the nature he's asking for, especially as they aim to become increasingly autonomous.
that aside though, his rationale seems somewhat sound. taking the grievances uni usage is causing the network into consideration i can understand how it may be construed as complicity of a sort, but i'm not quite sure how they're directly related.
about the mining thing you have to view it from an expected value perspective, like you may pay more electricity than the worth of the token for now but electricitys price wont skyrocket, if in 3 yrs from now the value of monero went x10 it could have ended in an insanely high ROI