The system is pretty straightforward. Politicians have their own check mark. You can take these accounts for face value. Anything else, you're a moron if you share a piece of information from an account that you haven't even taken the basic effort to even verify if they are a real person. Or you just don't care, like me. Gold check means you have taken the effort to pay twitter $1000 a month. You can call yourself whatever you want at that point. Blue just means you are a paying person and highly likely not a bot. Eventually this will be the indicator for a premium subscriber. Most blue subscribers will switch to the 'I'm not a bot' $2 tier.
While no one can predict the future with 100% certainty, I've seen Bitcoin go through many ups and downs over the years. From what I've observed, it's proven resilient, and many believe it'll continue to play a significant role in the global financial system.
OK, I'm back. Apologies for not being able to keep up with the the discussion earlier. Hitting against 10K character limit (my CF nemesis) and formatting wonkiness due to pasting from my draft. Without going too much on a tangent, I'm aware of that, but just pointing out that depending on how specific/general you look at these things, they appear less/more similar. Can go into detail later if necessary. One of my purposes in mentioning this is to point out that yes, even if you do put in the time/effort to research Bitcoin, you don't necessarily come to the...um...well..."correct" (according to you) conclusions. I guess we agree? I think it would be very presumptuous to assume these folks did not put in the adequate amount of time. I'm not talking about some random Youtube dude, but folks that are generally best-in-their-class and/or win awards for the work they do (and I'm strictly talking about the Youtuber/podcaster folks, not some of the others). By all accounts, they certainly appear to do the necessary amount of work required on every other topic they cover...except Bitcoin? But I suppose there's not really any way to settle this fairly nebulous point of contention, as I worry this could just end up being a "well they agree/disagree with me, so therefore they did/didn't spend an adequate amount of time on it!" Nevertheless...I don't think it is a good thing that these folks "misunderstand" Bitcoin, and yet they are putting out critical content without having that "correct" understanding. I agree that a simple argument from authority is not necessarily a sound argument, though that changes when you begin accumulating the amount of authoritative figures that appear to be critical of Bitcoin. "Dan Olson says Bitcoin is stupid, therefore Bitcoin is stupid!" Yeah that's not very compelling in and of itself. But add in Paul Krugman, Warren Buffet, Adam Conover, Hank Green, Bruce Schneier, Rufus Pollock, Alan Graham, Jamie Zawinski, Nicholas Weaver, Ben McKenzie, Heather Boushey, Steve Novella, Jesse Jenkins, etc., then it does start to become a compelling argument. Insert Principal Skinner meme image here. For clarification, when I'm saying "you" need to do better, I generally mean the Bitcoin community as a whole, not specifically you. For the context of a random dude discussing Bitcoin in a thread on a basketball forum, I think what you're doing is fine (even if I don't necessarily agree with the claims you make). Honestly, you’re a lot more focused and on-point than what I’ve seen from some. :/ If the goal is to prove mastery of Calculus, then yes you would likely fail without understanding Algebra. But I'm not sure that analogy is correct for this context. If we were asking people to be able to fully re-implement Bitcoin from scratch (hash rates and blockchains on up), then sure I think it is reasonable that those things would be incredibly helpful if not required. But if we're just (generally) talking about the benefits/point of Bitcoin, I think expectations change. You can understand the benefits/point of Calculus without any math skills (*maybe* some super basic ones). People go around explaining Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Computers, mRNA vaccines, the grid, etc., to various audiences (from school age kids to bored Internet nerds like me), and they seem to do an OK job of getting the main points across without requiring much from their audience. Bitcoin, on the other hand, *seems* to require very, very much in order to "get it" from what I gather (and it is *very* easy to get the incorrect conclusion...apparently). I struggle to think of many other "legit" fields that have this same kind of problem. To be blunt, IMO this seems to have more similarities with pseudoscience or quack philosophies/idealogies than anything else, which isn't a good thing. I ended up doing a deep dive of sorts on this, watching this video with this guy, watching a few related videos, and reading some related articles (from the same guy and some from others). I *guess* everyone can have their own definition of terms like liberal/progressive/left-wing/etc., and I don’t want to claim my definition of these things is more “correct” than anyone else’s definition. That said, when I look for these claims for why Bitcoin could be seen as attractive to people with this general world view, it seems to boil down to something like “Hey you care about poor people and minorities, right?” Because as a progressive, I guess I assume non-progressives are racist and hate the poor? Now we can have a debate about these competing ideologies about money/economics. I understand you and others have strong beliefs about this, and thus, I fully understand *why* Bitcoin could be attractive for people with those beliefs. To return to my general point, it does seem plausible to me that this would be another group of people who simply cannot “get” Bitcoin. To be fair, in this specific context, I’m not sure there’s much Bitcoiners can do to “do better” in explaining the pieces us (left-leaning) skeptics are missing. If anything, I’d suggest they need to drop the veil and be more upfront about what Bitcoin is really about (i.e., quit pretending to be anything but right-wing/libertarian). Not relevant to this discussion, but just to rant more, I thought it was interesting to see a progressive perspective discussion about Bitcoin where the opinions seemed to be: Elizabeth Warren/AOC/Greta Thunberg sucks, we don't need to tax the rich more because you can't trust the government, “I'm more libertarian than progressive actually”, etc. Again, people can identify the way they want to identify, but I can’t imagine these discussions being all that persuasive to most left-leaning folks. -------------------------------------- Just to re-summarize the point I’ve tried to make (as this discussion has now spanned multiple weeks): I think the resources available to “understand” Bitcoin coming from the Bitcoin community (in general) are not convincing or compelling, especially without libertarian leanings and especially given the critiques one might also see from other high profile experts (who generally do a much better job explaining complex things). Now what I’ve gathered in this discussion and even in some of my deep dive above is that…yeah the Bitcoin community doesn’t really care. It would be great if people could just understand it, but we’ll all be forced to use it eventually anyway (and yeah maybe it is better that not everyone gets it at the same time). Now I’ll be honest and think that’s pretty wacky thinking, but I could see why this point is not as enlightening as I might have originally thought. If you 100% believe in Bitcoin, this doesn’t matter. FWIW, I pretty much have problems with every part of Bitcoin (core tech, impact on environment, economic/political ideologies, etc.). I try to stick to one general topic at a time as it helps me learn more nuanced stuff. There might not be much left in my original point to discuss, and I’m not opposed to drilling back into these other points if you prefer. I doubt any minds will be changed, but if I can waste time arguing about the storylines in Mario games, I can probably spend some time discussing some of the stuff you alluded to earlier.
Thanks for the Lyn Alden link. I liked her macro analysis. She blew up on the btc scene, but I haven't followed much of her btc stuff lately. I'm interested in her book. Have you read it? IMO, she doesn't explain the question of btc-currency working under deflation that well. She gives an example of 19th century US as a period of innovation that expanded under a deflationary economy, which is nice...but is our system so boned that we're getting sent back to the Amish ages? Anyhow, she tries to fit productivity-then with productivity-now. Productivity now in a services economy is nebulous and arbitrary where creatives in Hollywood and Software Industry can magically report profits and losses with the right incentives for accounting. It's not just shovels and axe picks anymore. So what is "productive" in her mind within the new BTC economy? Less "financialization"...great! Less navel gazing at what AI prompts can create...isn't that why NVDA is mooning on the way to making Web 6.6.6? Software/Tech growth over the past 2 decades has been a beneficiary of Fed-induced rate repression. It heavily relies upon easy lending and credit that would never materialize from higher rate deflationary bitcoin. She mentioned tech advances as a deflationary driver (i.e. less jobs from automation....disruption in tech: Iphone > camera + phone + pda + gps), but the financing and added risk premiums involved w/ BTC-as-currency could revert the industry back to Bell-era monopoly/champions to drive research and development...much like the 19th century. That probably won't jive well with the "planned obsolescence" model companies like Apple, TV manufacturers or computer companies are running on. Most tech companies do not turn a consistent profit. They're all trying to be the Amazon or big 3 of their domain. Added debt financing means one bad year could force the startup to sell some collateral or borrow even more. Everyone has to be extra extra extra careful of their money. As the cost of debt increases every year, only a sucker would use a credit card at higher rates. Something to think about with btc-currency. No seniorage under the dollar so real prices are exposed for American consumers even though the world supposedly benefits or is more balanced. Could be good or bad way of living, though I'm thinking better in the long long run if it means buying less crap. Dollar has to muck up so bad that everyone in the world agrees it's terrible and a deflationary BTC is The Standard. One thing I wished Lyn addressed (prob not in her book) is the wave of retiring boomers that likely drove The Why in Fed post-GFC policy. Millennials have been hearing about possible Boomer retirement for decades (plus talk/worries about Social Security and other entitlements), but the size, scope, and reach of pension (+retirement) funds would make even BTC whales feel insecure. After the GFC, pursuing a low rate environment alone would not have caused asset distortions or likely would not have impacted the markets without QE. Some of these funds are promising 5-8% returns a year, and the only directive by these managers is to hit that target. They mostly didn't care about where a target company to invest came from, what it did, or whatever GSE does. If boomers panicked more in 08-10, then they could've withdrawn from those funds or closed them out entirely. That's firesale bad considering the amount they have now by just holding on. OTOH, by shoring up asset prices at the expense of the consumer and Main Street, it created an accounting trick where "wealth effects" made everyone feel richer through asset bubbles while the big big hope that the Folks With Money (translation: whale of whales) will trickle some of that wealth down. The Fed made TINA to the point where 5-8% shifted the risk profile of these trillion dollar managers away from the "real economy", research and development, customer satisfaction, redundant services and inventory into the lean anorexic global supply chains that can't call in a sick day when a case of the "sniffles" happens. And that's only the "productive side" of these damn asset managers rather than the risky magic money "financialized" side they pursued for higher yields. Anyhow, with population declines, maybe BTC would fit in that kind of downward demographic shift? To do the switch, it would make sense to unravel all debts first because why would you want to pay debt or obligations in a deflationary environment? Just throwing that out there because these business cycles are likely beyond our lifetimes or our collective short term thinking. I don't know how BTC lasts 500 years, let alone our nation. It's a credit that Lyn does research in economic history, but that's only one of many resources. That feeling I'm reading here does not come from someone who has taken calculus to the n-th degree (I ****ing wish), rather someone who has read and studied the Bible or does a daily ritual with Psalms. It sounds more like Watchtower stuff. A big thing that bothers me is that Evangelists are still promoting daily usage of BTC when Alden herself is saying buy and hold a % of your wealth if you're okay with and can handle 80% drops. That disclaimer doen't invalidate the claim that: The opposite is true. Bitcoin is the least risky asset on the planet. Volatile yes, risky no. Also, considering Bitcoin is the only bank in existence with zero barriers to entry, I'd say it opens up more doors. How tf does that apply to the poor unbanked if they have to store their digital moneys at the expense of, I dunno...massively inflated food and energy prices? Your claim that BTC is a "bank" is also terrible because it's just a wallet. You DO NOT want people to know that your "bank" with glass walls exists, how much it has, where you spent it (unproxied cuz me ignorant n dum enough to expect dat gov will sav me), and what you've been buying. Banks are generally regulated and it takes more than a "to/from address" or a pool of wealth to operate. Pretending to be a bank is usually a path to fraud or financial ruin. The BTC-now and BTC-future dichotomy is terribly vexing: - Buy BTC now for the future (as a speculative asset) and/or - Buy BTC to use it now because of all the cool things promised as a currency? For example, Lyn acknowledges bad cases of BTC-now such as rehypothetication that should be ironed out in BTC-future. If folks understand both/more of these time scenarios but are promoting BTC-now, then that's ****ed up bill to pay. BTC boosters (like Alden) already acknowledge hacks and inevitable "software changes" as things that can/will happen. That's not even going into the shelved Layer-2 discussion we had. Who's the guinea pig for all of this? Hopefully it's well to do crypto folks rather than lvl 1 or 2 Thetans from a distant country... It's still beyond me Donny. I try not to carry 100 bills because I don't want to lose it, so I carry a (digital?) credit card instead. I rather carry 10 10-dollar bills than 100 1-dollar bills or 1000 dimes. Not trying to be stupid here, but I'm not sure why promoting a digital wallet that can hold/divide .00000001 divisible satoshis into 0.000000000001 new-sats is neat under deflation if only to pretend the capped number of 21 million isn't a flaw cooked up by Doctor Evil. Oh right, the poor unbanked daily users. Good for them. As for me, I'm hodling my pure and uncut ESG-certified-BTC... Also, in all of these inquiries, it seems that stable coins are an important grease to a future bitcoin standard. Do you think it's necessary? I've totally become adverse to stables, though it's only a tool. It can even be dressed up as CBDC... P.S. I fed the paper the guy in vid referenced into the bot. Met word limit. DM me if anyone's interested.
I've reached macro-economic and Bitcoin fatigue. I started Broken Money. Its a really good book for those who are not deep into this subject. For me, its repetitious and all material I have ingested lately has the same feel. The pre-2017 bitcoin community has become tedious with their ultra-libertarian isolationist views and tend to drown out the Bitcoin talk, ignoring the realistic macro environment. I am not sure if I would recommend the book to you but instead listen to 3 part series on What Bitcoin Did podcast. This 3 part series goes into details about the book she wrote. https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-emergence-of-money Part 1 talks about the history of money (minimal BTC talk) Part 2 talks about modern money and its theories (minimal BTC talk) Part 3 talks about future of money (almost all BTC talk)
Kidding aside, its kinda hard to pick out actual questions/arguments from the posts above. If something needs to be re-stated due to me clipping for length, that's fair. They appear similar to a layperson, but POS always disintegrates because it isn't backed by anything tangible the way POW is. So, the similarities at a glance are meaningless because the outcome is always the same. The hardest asset wins, no matter how much the counterfeit or derivative apes the original. It might be helpful to provide examples. I can guarantee you that the objections raised by these people are flawed in some manner. You follow this logic at your own peril. "Successful/famous person says its bad, so I think its bad too." This is fine if you're shopping for a new vacuum cleaner. Not so much if you're looking to understand the theory of money and the re-organization of the worlds financial system. To put a finer point on this, virtually all of the people I've come to recognize as experts in this arena are not recognized in any other walk of life nor are they even relatively famous (Michael Saylor, Robert Breedlove, Saifedean Ammous, Lyn Alden, etc). By the time the Paul Krugmans and Warren Buffets of the world (or even the Hank Greens and Dan Olsons) are telling you to buy Bitcoin, your wealth will have already been catastrophically devalued. This is a topic where appeal to authority is not a shortcut worth taking. DYOR and when you think you're done, keep going. The rabbit hole is deep. You can explain Bitcoin to a 5 year old and have them get it. That's not the problem. The problem here is informed criticism. If you're going to attack it, you have to be properly understand the details of both it and fiat (which themselves are comprised of a myriad of knowledge from other topics), which is where the algebra-to-calculus pipeline analogy comes in. I said this already but it bears repeating, Bitcoin does not require understanding to use it the same way I don't have to understand how the car that takes me from coast to coast operates or how the antibiotics that cure my illness work. Bitcoin is to assets what automobiles are to travel and antibiotics are to medicine. Or perhaps more accurately, Bitcoin is to assets what the wheel is to locomotion and germ theory is to medicine. It's not an improvement on an existing modality, it is an entirely new protocol on which a foundation of innovations will be constructed. In my experience the biggest roadblock to understanding Bitcoin is ideology. You can see it play out in this very thread. The most vocal critics of BTC are pretty consistently left leaning, the most ardent supporters are consistently right leaning (then there's me, the picket-line crosser). Money should be apolitical, but fiat is political by design. If you approach the subject without that baggage, you learn a lot faster and easier. The ability to compartmentalize and look at this through a completely non-partisan lens is crucial.
No but it's on my Christmas wishlist I still do not understand this concern. How this is a problem, other than the obvious 'how do we get there without all of us dying in hellfire' question? The idea that the world would stop spinning without inflation is nonsense, IMO, and I've yet to see a compelling argument to the contrary. I think you're understating how important definancialization is. I think that everyone being more financially prudent/responsible is a good thing. The dollar has, is, and will muck up even further. The difference is that now there is an alternative. I'm not smart enough to predict how or when the transition happens, just that it's inevitable. Gradually, then suddenly, as the saying goes. How long do you imagine the internet will exist? However long your answer is to this is the same answer you should give for BTC's lifespan, because they are one in the same. In the same way the internet is a tool for transmitting cat pictures between computers over a commonly shared protocol, bitcoin is a tool for transmitting value between computers over a commonly shared protocol. People keep comparing Bitcoin support to religion, and I have to say that comparison doesn't hold water to me, because religion is by definition based on faith. Bitcoin is the opposite of faith. Bitcoin is math and physics. It doesn't take an ounce of faith to understand or operate Bitcoin. I've not seen a single person who advocates "daily usage" of BTC. All of the SMEs I know about BTC fully understand the volatility of it and advocate for it purely as a long term SOV at present. Being able to store your wealth without counter-party risk is a big deal (especially for the unbanked), both in terms of physical security and security against currency manipulation. At their core, that is what a bank is supposed to do (securely store wealth), so the use of the term doesn't bother me. I personally don't think "glass walls" is a problem, but I'm open to hearing how/why that might be. There is no dichotomy. Buy and hold. Rehypothetication is just another name for fractional reserve lending. Again, show me the 'btc now' person and I'll respond to that. The only time I've heard someone say that is if you want to actively support BTC adoption (knowing full well that it's not the best financial play atm). I've listened to dozens of Lyn Alden interviews and never heard this. Bitcoin cannot be 'hacked' and there will never be another hard fork. How is the concept of different denominations of currency beyond you? It's pretty simple how it works and also pretty simple why it's necessary. When the time comes for a soft fork to create a smaller division of BTC, the layperson won't even know it happened, they'll just tap their phone at the point of sale terminal and continue on their merry way. I don't really have an opinion on it. I think it's almost certain though that we will see CBDCs in our lifetime. One popular theory is that governments will just copy BTC and centralize it and continue to call it BTC to fool (or force?) everybody into using their government shitcoin.
I'm open to the idea that the world can continue under delfation, but there's an inherent circular reasoning in these debates since the audience is primarily Americans who are prime beneficiaries of the dollar system (compared to rest of the world). As an Evangelist, it's ok to proselytize the Glories of Bitcoin and the Currency Rapture, but I'm saying maybe there are some bright spots in the current fiat system (for Americans) that need to be addressed. Our system might be unsustainably ****ed, though if the cons of BTC-stantard outweigh the pros of weighted fiat, governments would undoubtedly switch back to a more inflationary standard. Maybe not outright fiat, but your orthodox maxi wing wants to do some "traditionalist rituals" that currency atheists and agnostics want no part of...such as barriers against cheap daily financing. Believe me, the rabbit holes of what financialization does, esp when not working in finance sector and when obfuscation over transparency is the rule, is deep and unrewarding. If you don't know your number theory or try to know it, then you're doomed to repeat history...as we've seen already in the past 4-8 years. At this very moment, finance bros from hedge funds and family offices are repeating past financial exploits in the cryptoverse that are "patched" in tradfi through regulation. What do you think of tether? I strongly doubt BTC-now would be as wildly successful in market cap without it. My approach has been to try to understand the rules (of financialization), understand its benefits, then think whether it matters if it's gone (definancialization). Less throw the baby out of the bathwater, and more throw the unweaned 9-year old out of the bathwater. Meaningless details when we all reach Nirvana? Perhaps more circular reasoning to bank on government(s) that BTC-Evangelists implicitly distrust to patch up those defects... Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but BTC could be pets.com in a few decades. It's not inevitable, Thanos We keep scrapping at this point: All currency is based on faith. If you lose faith in a fractional bank and pull out your deposits, then that's okay...provided half of the banks depositors doesn't do the same thing. GFC...when AAA rated asset backed securities smelled like poop, large institutions stopped trading them around like money and asked for a larger premium or short-term collateral. It didn't matter if those AAA securities turned a profit 10 years later after the Fed played garbage man and scooped it all up like a radioactive waste pit. FRB/SVB...when they skirted FDIC deposit limits and interest rates began to double and triple, large companies started to pull out. Those ABS the government took over could turn a small profit. But only if there's faith. US Dollar...faith in our military, economy, and world standing. BTC price and ATH in market cap...faith (or speculation) in the future. I don't think you have leading mathematicians, physicists, or computer scientists praising the elegance and glory of BTC like it's their Sistine Chapel. I could be ignorant here. Bruh, this topic just had pages and pages of words arguing about BTC's utility. I'd probably add less snark if the debate was limited to SOV or my personal preference...degenerate speculation. Lightning Network...The Future, but not for "daily usage" (which is prob good until they iron out all the kinks). Poor Global South lady using BTC for remittances...feel good story but not for "daily usage". El Salvador sending wallets and BTC to the people...uhh great news but not for "daily usage"? Fun Fact: I store 200k in cold benjies along with my favorite shotty under my mattress*. Mattress - not a bank BTC and its supported digital and physical ecosystem is a technology. Think of the grandma case. Buy n hold ain't bad if you have dollars to burn, but still a dichotomy as these kinds of debates use all past/present/future tenses **Not financial advice It's not. Because digital money doesn't need to be complicated with pounds, pence, shillings and farthings. Needing to divide 1 satoshi because in the future it will equal 200 USD in purchasing power does not answer the questions of BTC's limited money supply. That's a UI change, not a core rewrite of the fundamental question. So it's not simple to me. ELI5 with the Feynman rule. You're right. She didn't say hacks in that same interview, rather she mentioned "trapped by miner centralization" that could mean a 51% attack at its worst, and she also mentioned "crazy technical bug." Machine generated YT transcript: So, imagine what happens when people are 20, 30, or 40, and Bitcoin. You know, Bitcoin's still here if it's not hit by some crazy technical bug or it's not, you know, uh, like trapped by miner centralization or something. If it gets through various tests and challenges over the next couple of decades, if it's a 30 or 40-year-old network, and you know, primary wage earners and savers have never lived in an environment that doesn't have Bitcoin, in a similar way that, uh, many young people today have never lived in an environment that didn't have the internet. It just becomes a more natural part of money. Um, and the more widely held it gets, the closer it reaches to its total decimal market, the less explosive the upside is. So, the less enticement there is to leverage it. Nobody can print it. So, eventually, over time, people realize if you hold rehypothecated Bitcoin or leverage Bitcoin, you're probably going to lose your Bitcoin. Um, and so Bitcoin is kind of a very credible way to potentially solve this over time, and people just have to be careful not to go over the skis. Uh, you know, I've never been one to recommend a 100% Bitcoin allocation. Uh, you have to kind of allocate based on your size and your conviction and your volatility tolerance. Um, it's money that you should set aside that you're not going to need in five years and that you're willing to kind of laugh at 80% drawdowns. But if you can handle that cost of entry, um, I think it's one of the most profound technologies of, at least, the 21st century. I'm okay with that, but it's sounds more like a BTC currency-future than a BTC currency-now recommendation. *Don't ask me where the backup Post-it of my seedphrase is
Because it's a very different type of economy and system than we have had. You really just want to break a bunch sh*t. Clearly the world will keep spinning without inflation or without humans inhabit it. You just don't really understand or appreciate or care how much things will have to change (possibly literally burn) to enact your new world order. Real possibility you wouldn't even make it through to see it.
Sorry for delays, caught COVID when I did go out of town, waited to recover from that a bit, did my last post, then pulled a muscle in my back while coughing sometime after that. I knew there was a good reason why I tried to avoid posting in this thread. Anyway... Yeah again I'm aware of all that. If it means anything, I actually do prefer PoW over PoS, at least if you want something more "fair" (at least in theory). I guess if you don't place as high of a value on fairness, then it is more debatable, but yeah I guess I'd lean that way (if I had to pick one approach...PoW is definitely more elegant, I admit). But again, this is all too low level for the point I'm making. If you think blockchains are stupid, don't agree with the core premises/ideologies being crypto, don't believe in tech to solve these kind of human problems, etc., then yeah they all end up looking pretty similar. Bitcoin, ethereum, PoW, PoS, NFTs, etc. It's all kinda the same at that point. Should be a relatively "well duh" statement I think. And yes, I know Bitcoin folks don't have those high level concerns, so it's typically fine to stick to lower level analysis. I'm just pointing out that it does exist for others (like myself). This is a bit of a tangent, but trying to clear it up since I had to limit my words previously. Mostly just some random videos I'm pulling from my recent history (not even from when I started making these points). Actually while you're at it, don't bother putting the corrections here. schneier@schneier.com Here's Bruce Schneier's email. Please, let him know the flaws in his logic. I'm sure he'd love to know, especially given his legendary status in the cryptography space. This just sounds very much like conspiratorial thinking to me. There are very few beliefs I have (if any) where I wouldn't at least do some strong self reflection if this group of names (or similar) promoted an opposing viewpoint. I think it takes quite a bit of arrogance to think one knows more than folks like this. And that's not me. Even if I've done a ton of research (which I also tend to do as well). Maybe Bitcoin is the one anomaly for this, but in my eyes, it just feels like every other anti-expert world view (which now includes anti-optometry). And shocker, I'm not a fan of anti-expert world views. Maybe refresh my memory of where it turned out to be a bad idea to have that preference. I do agree that ideology is a big roadblock, but I think that's because Bitcoin (and crypto in general) *is* pushing some very ideological ideas that aren't really backed by much evidence (and generally are heterodox beliefs in their fields). I actually don't think fiat money is really all that political in and of itself (maybe specific implementations of what is done with fiat, but not fiat itself). That said, I guess now that vaccines, climate change, and Bud Light are now political, then I guess something widely seen as a good thing like fiat has to end up being political too. There are lots of great folks who are libertarians, and I absolutely love hearing their viewpoints even if I don't usually agree with them (especially since so many of them are pretty smart, cool people, friendly, etc.). But they have some pretty wacky ideas IMO. These crypto ideas involve some of them, and we can turn a lot of things that seem apolitical into super ideological if we start comparing them to the libertarian ideal. Having said all that, I'm happy to ignore *all* of that and just assume it is true when examining other aspects of Bitcoin (or crypto). Like I said, I think it falls apart in multiple areas, not just these high level ideological ones. I think it is wacky, but I'm happy to assume this stuff *is* true and continue debating other things. Well for the sake of fun debate anyway, not for the sake of me actually converting my savings to Bitcoin (or anything like that). edit: Oh and to be clear, I have lots of wacky ideological views too! I'm being a bit harsh on libertarian thinking, but I'm living in a glass house for sure. I'm not necessarily strongly pushing for a huge change based on some of those super extreme views though.
Maybe I should do some of my own research. Hmm, hey Google what is this "WTF Happened In 1971?" that these Bitcoin people keep talking about? *Goes to Google, sees a big "Debunked" section on the right, then continues to Reddit* https://www.yesigiveafig.com/p/what-really-happened-in-1971 I like this from one of the top responses: But that's just the opinion of some dude on Reddit. I should probably go with the opinion of the dude from a football club's website, who referred a site that took some graphs from Spurious Correlations. Ok I'm being a bit insufferable here, I know. Just again pointing out that these arguments could use a bit more effort (even if it doesn't matter). Funnily enough the semi random videos I linked to earlier touch on/debunked each of the main points from that link (including the 1971 stuff too). Not sure if that was intentional, or just a byproduct of these same claims being regurgitated over and over.
Reading through this thread makes me realize the idea of Bitcoin gets twisted and contorted. When the gold standard was introduced, it was consider by most economist as the best way forward. I don't disagree. By 1971, modern economist agreed the system was broken. I agree. Narrarator: And the system was never fixed. Bitcoin is not going to replace the gold standard. Too often Bitcoiners lose focus on what Bitcoin really is and they then proceed envisioning Bitcoin as a catalyst in this broken system. It doesn't matter if there is an inflationary or deflationary currency. If bad actor are allowed to manipulate the system, they will. Bitcoin doesn't care where it ends up. It's an incredibly valuable tool that can potentially reshape the monetary landscape. A small group of people buying it up and holding forever is not going to make bitcoin successful. That is just speculating. If bitcoin can get stable enough and create a big enough liquidity pool for anyone in the world to hop in and out, regardless if it's through main chain or secondary or tertiary layers, this will be a game changer. Bitcoin serves better as a payment rail than an actual currency.
Yeah, one of my issues with (many) Bitcoiners is how they basically repeat gold standard arguments from the 70s/80s (or even earlier), but they just replaced Bitcoin as the solution instead of gold. It would be easier/better to debate the merits of Bitcoin if so many people didn't go around saying "WE MADE A MISTAKE IN 1971!!!!" I still haven't been convinced by anything in favor of Bitcoin (not even for what you're proposing), but if we could at least agree on these basic historical facts (and maybe some other non-historical facts), it would allow for some better discussions. I could at least see these ideas as semi-plausible at the very least, even if I'm not personally convinced. And that's basically what I'm saying when I say these Bitcoiner arguments around the Internet aren't doing Bitcoin any favors. This could get us back to the "we don't need to convince people" argument I suppose, which I don't really care for, but again that's probably better than these other arguments.
The point isn't gold standard > fiat standard as much as it is bitcoin standard > everything else. You can point out possible or realized problems with the fiat standard without advocating for gold. That would be just trading one set of problems for another.
