GM from beautiful Colombia. With all the chaos and nonsense going on in the world right now, I wanted to share something that I believe is critical as it relates to what is happening on #bitcoin (the first global free market that can’t be cheated) versus a system of corruption (trying to stop that system) Either 1) through willful intent or 2) lack of knowledge. (*the majority of people fall into the lack of knowledge group) According to game theory and playoff matrices: even when there are very high rewards and low punishment (they wouldn’t get caught) approximately 10% of people won’t cheat - no matter what!They place a higher internal value on integrity that overrides external rewards. I’ve seen this number as low as 2.5% and as high as 20%. Why is that important: Although everyone wants to see themselves as one of the honest, the math says that between 80 - 97.5% of people will cheat depending on the rewards. Now enter money - the ultimate pot of gold with high rewards and low punishment for cheating because people don’t understand it. Most people will cheat - a mirror of the world we see and have seen in Bitcoin since its inception. Need inflation, bad for environment, drug money, doesn’t scale, crypto, meme coins - the list will go on and on because if people can “get rich at someone else’s expense - most will. Those are simply the numbers and always have been. In fact, in prior periods of history, the honest were at a massive disadvantage because and would often be killed by the cheaters. Because the integrity was so rare, society would often celebrate these people after their deaths as lessons of what we wanted our higher selves to look like. #bitcoin has changed the equation. Giving those with integrity the power. Why: because 2.5 - 20% of people that won’t cheat is a massive number - especially if many of those people are decentralized and can’t be “found”. Those are the people who eventually run nodes, contribute their time and energy to keeping #bitcoin decentralized and secure, watch for attack vectors, build value on top of this protocol, call out the cheaters, teach and advocate to help others see it. Those people simply can’t be bought, and more are joining every day. That decentralized and secure protocol bounded by energy is repricing everyone and everything from the other system and it will continue to do so as that system tries to grapple with: the cheaters no longer make the rules. It will be chaotic, many more will try to cheat (don’t be afraid to slay your heroes) but in the end…..Satoshi unlocked a way to put the best of us into a protocol that was best for all of us. What a time to be alive. image

Replies (105)

Default avatar
npub1ekam...vx02 11 months ago
My personal motto, as I'm highly Bitcoin drama avoidant: Mind Your Own #Bitcoin To engage in all the noise is deafening, which works well for a simpleton such as myself.
Baerwaldt ⚡️'s avatar
Baerwaldt ⚡️ 11 months ago
GM 🌞 Throughout history, the common denominator is greed - playing by their own made up rules which is cheating as you articulated so well. Study bitcoin, study money, study yourself.
Damn Jeff. You do it again. Somehow when I think you've reached the bottom of a rabbit hole, you figure out a way to go a little bit deeper. GM sir 🤝🌄
Default avatar
Creature 11 months ago
I'm confused. What is it about bitcoin specifically that discourages cheating or gives honest people an advantage?
Default avatar
Creature 11 months ago
Oh! To discourage hacking and doctoring stuff. Got it.
Great point @Jeff Booth this is exactly what #Bitcoin teaches and IMO is why the cycle of money is continuous from sound to unsound. Bitcoin has the opportunity to change this in a Bretton Woods 2.0 type scenario. Because as the money moves from sound to unsound (now) via additional layers and Wall Street tools, its programmable nature will all us to see the grift… the cheaters. This allows leverage to be known or at least the risks to be understood. In a best case it prolongs the ability for sound money and ample credit to work and build a more positive society. In a worst case, we just reset the monopoly board and are starting the same game all over again— for the next 70-100yrs. image
By the way. I just re-listened to your 2020 interview with Preston. At that time it helped me put together a many things and gain a deeper understanding of what is really at the core of this change. Thanks for being so generous on sharing your ideas.
Btw it looks like that 2,5-20% of honest us have zero ego or near zero at least. This inspires me a lot
What a time to be alive, indeed! Every day we live is the most important day in human history. Every day we are empowered to make more impactful decisions than the day before. 🧡
SweedWick 's avatar
SweedWick 11 months ago
Security, once found, will be protected. Word. LFG
Dan's avatar
Dan 11 months ago
Going to read this again often.
satskew's avatar
satskew 11 months ago
increasingly cant shake the same thought
Spot on @Jeff Booth and very important bit of detail - "That decentralized and secure protocol bounded by energy is repricing everyone and everything from the other system and it will continue to do so as that system tries to grapple with: the cheaters no longer make the rules." View quoted note →
With Bitcoin, all the rules are immutable. Nobody can change them if they wanted to. To cheat would require you to betray people's trust. You would have to first gain their trust before betraying it. This is because you need people's to voluntarily surrender their value as it cannot be taken without their consent. So what you have is a scenario where cheating has a relatively low return (compared to playing honestly) & a high cost. The penalty for dishonesty in the Bitcoin space is generally social banishment. These incentives mean that even the 80% that would cheat if they could, tend to be honest. Aligned incentives are a beautiful thing.
Happy to be here, finding each other is half the battle. Doing the work and educating the next generation is the other half. We must be keepers of the flame🗽
Default avatar
npub1vrq8...jm6m 11 months ago
Very relatable insights. I think that's also the reason why the Bitcoin community feels so HONEST.
BBG's avatar
BBG 11 months ago
Happy to be in the that small % who have honesty & integrity saving in the RIGHT stuff … 🖖
McG's avatar
McG 11 months ago
Most people are good and want to be good. But under the right circumstances they will eventually cheat. Bitcoin protects us from cheating and rewards us for playing by the rules and cooperating. 8 billion people in service of one another as you say.
McG's avatar
McG 11 months ago
Bitcoin is the cumulative efforts of failed money error correcting over time. Seems like religion was the same, created as control structures for increasingly complex groups of people with likely initial good intentions corrupted over time because it could be. In contrast, Bitcoin encapsulates the well intentioned aspirations of religion while being fundamentally anchored in the laws of physics, imposing itself on us and moving us towards a better future. Bitcoin is money, energy, religion, innovation etc. All boils down to Bitcoin is us. We are bitcoins. 🤣 Rant over
Default avatar
npub1lsfk...k9gw 11 months ago
OMG Jeff, That just popped my bubble in regards to the quoted 10%. I’m somewhere around 50 of age and always assumed that most people would not cheat no matter what. I don’t, no matter the consequences. Now I understand the world much better - as well as the things that happened over the decades. Also, cheaters assume that everyone else cheats, thus believing that Bitcoin doesn’t cheat, must bust their paradigm. Had that hunch for a long time, now it seems confirmed. Will pursue Orange Pilling ever more rigorously now, to find more of the 10%. Thank you for what you fo and who you are!
Such inspiring words, I do think that this percentage of individuals with integrity and ethics that motivate their actions in the interest of mutual wellbeing will grow. Since human beings are a result of the collective mental, emotional, social, and environmental conditioning that makes up the sense of self and the world when incentives change "human nature can change. In fact i don't really think human nature exists outside of biological imperative, it's more like habit energy passed on from one generation to the next, one individual to the next. As we transition to 0 entropy money and the incentive is to move away from lying, cheating, exploiting, and stealing to get ahead to one of truthfulness, goodness, and cooperation i think we see that habit energy that drives human action transforming what we thought was just human nature.
Such inspiring words, I do think that this percentage of individuals with integrity and ethics that motivate their actions in the interest of mutual wellbeing will grow. Since human beings are a result of the collective mental, emotional, social, and environmental conditioning that makes up the sense of self and the world when incentives change "human nature can change. In fact i don't really think human nature exists outside of biological imperative, it's more like habit energy passed on from one generation to the next, one individual to the next. Of course these habits are not easily broken so we call them human nature because we often don't see the underlying structures that drive action in body, speech, and mind. As we transition to 0 entropy money and the incentive is to move away from lying, cheating, exploiting, and stealing to get ahead to one of truthfulness, goodness, and cooperation i think we see that habit energy that drives human action transforming what we thought was just human nature.
Jeff Booth's avatar Jeff Booth
GM from beautiful Colombia. With all the chaos and nonsense going on in the world right now, I wanted to share something that I believe is critical as it relates to what is happening on #bitcoin (the first global free market that can’t be cheated) versus a system of corruption (trying to stop that system) Either 1) through willful intent or 2) lack of knowledge. (*the majority of people fall into the lack of knowledge group) According to game theory and playoff matrices: even when there are very high rewards and low punishment (they wouldn’t get caught) approximately 10% of people won’t cheat - no matter what!They place a higher internal value on integrity that overrides external rewards. I’ve seen this number as low as 2.5% and as high as 20%. Why is that important: Although everyone wants to see themselves as one of the honest, the math says that between 80 - 97.5% of people will cheat depending on the rewards. Now enter money - the ultimate pot of gold with high rewards and low punishment for cheating because people don’t understand it. Most people will cheat - a mirror of the world we see and have seen in Bitcoin since its inception. Need inflation, bad for environment, drug money, doesn’t scale, crypto, meme coins - the list will go on and on because if people can “get rich at someone else’s expense - most will. Those are simply the numbers and always have been. In fact, in prior periods of history, the honest were at a massive disadvantage because and would often be killed by the cheaters. Because the integrity was so rare, society would often celebrate these people after their deaths as lessons of what we wanted our higher selves to look like. #bitcoin has changed the equation. Giving those with integrity the power. Why: because 2.5 - 20% of people that won’t cheat is a massive number - especially if many of those people are decentralized and can’t be “found”. Those are the people who eventually run nodes, contribute their time and energy to keeping #bitcoin decentralized and secure, watch for attack vectors, build value on top of this protocol, call out the cheaters, teach and advocate to help others see it. Those people simply can’t be bought, and more are joining every day. That decentralized and secure protocol bounded by energy is repricing everyone and everything from the other system and it will continue to do so as that system tries to grapple with: the cheaters no longer make the rules. It will be chaotic, many more will try to cheat (don’t be afraid to slay your heroes) but in the end…..Satoshi unlocked a way to put the best of us into a protocol that was best for all of us. What a time to be alive. image
View quoted note →
Becoming B's avatar
Becoming B 11 months ago
I've been stacking Bitcoin since July 2022. I've read the "Price of Tomorrow" and listened to a 1000 hours of Bitcoin podcasts. Yet a question still arises for me: Will all of us living under a Bitcoin standard preserve and create more livable habitat for nonhumans and humans? Because it seems like continuing to grow our population will result in less livable habitat for humans and nonhumans.
Primate's avatar
Primate 11 months ago
Yes, it’s the incentive structure, stupid. To misquote the former president Dill Clitoris.
Not necessarily Jesus. Any invisible transcendental being watching you all the time and giving you moral rules and Prize or Punishment in the afterlife definitely helps against cheating. There are many experiments and empirical evidences in psychology about it.
To think that a type of money fixes everything seems incredibly naive to be honest. It will make life less shit for those that have more of it though.
Which makes me wonder how easy it would be to take over the network. Buying 30,000 RasPi is reletively inexpensive. What’s stopping say Michael Saylor buying them and tacking some poor bastard with setting them up, then propose a massive change in the network. I think a lot of people believe it only takes arguing on X…
Maybe but I’ve never seen much discussion about a bad actor (not Nicolas Cage) attacking the network in such away. I mean you’re right, the original network would run but it could be as niche as BSV…
McG's avatar
McG 11 months ago
Those cheaters will push more people to bitcoin.
I’ve given it a fair amount of thought prior to this. I think money is important, I’ve probably listened to over 5,000 hours of discussion on the concept of money, plus large parts of my books shelves are dedicated to the subject and still maintain that it isn’t the solution to all the world’s problems. Many of them yes, all of them no.
McG's avatar
McG 11 months ago
I would listen to more Jeff booth ironically. A decentralized and secure protocol bound by energy imposing itself on people, companies and governments around the world. A fixed set of rules that can’t be cheated with a fixed supply of 21M bitcoin. It rewards you for participating and collapses your wealth measured in bitcoin for ignoring it. Costs an immeasurable amount to attack it. Tech is deflationary. Imagine the productivity from the free market benefiting everyone in society as prices fall even if they don’t own bitcoin? Imagine if governments were forced to compete for you to stay in their country, shrink and be as efficient as possible, decrease taxes the most, decrease war spending etc. the inability to print money because of the supply cap is tremendous. Irrational governments will have their wealth distributed to productive ones that other people vote for with their feet and money. When people are very careful about spending money and you can actually save your money because it goes up in value it focuses spending on our hierarchy of needs. Food, water, shelter, energy production and transmission, health care towards leisure, art, culture and larger problems etc.. The most productive people in society will rush in to create value in those fields until there are no profits left. Think there calculator app on your phone. Prices will collapse to their marginal cost of production. Bitcoin allows 8 billion people to participate in a global free market all competing to provide value. That value is passed on to all 8 billion people in the form of lower prices (measured in bitcoin) because Bitcoin is a global, permissionless free market. It’s basically a global platform and incentive structure for us to build humanity that aligns us to an abundant, inclusive, fair, free future.
UndaFlow's avatar
UndaFlow 11 months ago
Thank you. Clear signal. Clarion call.
Thomas 's avatar
Thomas 11 months ago
Interesting aspect, Bitcoin gathers the honest minds that protect the Protocol. So in a way, in addition to #Bitcoin being backed by electrical energy it is protected by the power of honesty.
Davi Mattos's avatar
Davi Mattos 11 months ago
What a time to be alive Jeff. It feels amazing to have hope again and connect with people that share the value of integrity. There will definitely be bumps on the road, but it’s exciting to see all this happening!
Becoming B's avatar
Becoming B 11 months ago
I agree. Money isn't the solution to all of the world's problems. Like you alluded to, we do live in a system of rewards. So it does have a big impact.
All music but for guitar, like songs to play around campfire. Country etc. Yes classical nylon string but with a story - wedding in Mexico 20+ years ago and friends bought it from musician and all signed it as a surprise gift.
Nice. A long time ago I was a professional musician for about a decade. I still have a lot of guitars but don’t play a lot in the past ten years or so. I hope you’re doing well.
100%. Since I became a believer a year ago after extensive research, I stopped watching porn after 30 years. Nothing worked until then. If people aren't afraid of God, they'll do whatever they want, cause.. . why not... we all just die and dissapear and there's no recourse. My life is 10x better since becoming a believer. Humans, just like dogs, need rules. It doesn't work with just the carrot, we need a stick as well.
Orthodox priests are married and usually have 5-10 kids because they don't use contraception as kids are a gift from God. Haven't heard of any being paedophiles, but with Catholics there's another story
I cannot define myself a believer. Nor an atheist Let's say I'm still in search. However I definitely recognize the positive and moral role of religions for individuals and society as a whole if they aren't interpreted in a fanatical or intollerant way and they are separated from the State and its laws. I see many issues with monotheistic organized religions across history though.
Enoch Root's avatar
Enoch Root 10 months ago
bitcoin is a strange attractor to the Nash equilibrium for humanity.