Replies (112)
Bitcoin is counter intuitive and the hyper-intuitive.
It’s because of cowardice. It takes courage to believe things can get better. Bitcoiners have courage.
Equally, there are many still in bed with the idea that there's some centralised institution out there, that's going to come and save them...
What’s your hypothesis as to why they don’t want to let that belief go?
Their ego can't handle that the "crypto bros" got it right, and so they have to continue to believe that it's stupid
it took pow, in my case
I think some people are just pessimists at their core. Bitcoin is for optimistic truth seekers. If you think the world is going to hell and a hand basket and there’s no way a solution could ever solve that…well then it’ll be impossible to SEE bitcoin.
But who cares? Everybody get #bitcoin (even the ones who don’t get it) at the price they deserve
I think the main thing holding people back is that you need some broad acquaintance with a bunch of things to even gain a foothold toward understanding BTC. This includes: fiat creation, treasury debt, Keynesian & Austrian economics, coding, & public key encryption.
I was lucky enough to have at least some understanding of all these things before I saw Andreas Antonopoulos appear on the Joe Rogan Experience, so I was able to connect the dots immediately.
I’ve experienced this same pessimism and I feel it comes from an expectation that it can’t work because those in power would never let it
It’s an anti-agency view that there need to be permission instead of just being able to do shit and solve problems
My guess is fear, doom, and complaining become addicting and/or habitual
Are the general optimists in the world just “content” and oblivious?
I’m not sure the only obstacles exist D2 pessimism. Some of this could be mass conditioned depression in the specific area of money. It’s is also driven harden into the minds of the West that $USD is absolute like gravity… hope only lies in the lottery tickets of life…
“Finish in second place every single year because your fans will say 'Wow, we got a shot. We're in it!' But there's always the carrot left." - Jerry Reinsdorf, White Sox Owner… that’s how you condition a population, in this instance - the White Sox fanbase…
@npub1dmcd...utjm - you had to have heard this before?
“Mass conditioned depression” would imply that individuals have no autonomy or ability to think independently of what big media is saying.
Doesn’t make sense because how would you explain individuals that don’t? Eg Preston, Lyn, Lavish, etc
ChatGPT came up with 9 reasons to be pessimistic. Here’s 6 of them
I agree, although mostly I would say this applies to those on the right politically. Those on the left seem to be content with the way things are going.
I have very wear understanding of what you just named and still get it. Just understanding Bitcoin basics isn't hard at all, takes an hour or two of logical discussion and honest interest. To me these people in the note are maybe intellectual, but rather ignorant and not very intelligent. Everybody buys BTC at the price he deserves👀
How about you? Do you still support Lummis?
Interesting, I find the opposite. I find that it is a deeply held core belief in the existing monetary system that they have taken advantage of their whole lives. It’s almost as if they accept the money is broken it will be too earth shattering for them. I’ve had multiple people tell me “the monetary system ‘works for me’ so why would I want to change it?” They’re delusionally ignorant to the rest of the world.
I’m pretty sick of the pervasiveness of nihilism to be honest. Funny enough I hear things like “everything is going to shit anyway, just burn it down” a lot from “#goodvibesonly” type people.
It is an immediate flag that I probably don’t care to get to know someone more. If you’re not doing anything to improve your own condition, complain about it all the time, and just live a hedonistic life without ever trying to improve anything for yourself or anyone else… we’re just not compatible.
Their current fiat wealth is inhibiting them.
Like the Covid-time was a global intelligence-test, this also applies for #Bitcoin. Most of the so called "intelligent" people took the vaccine and submitted to governament insanity.
It’s true, even when you’ve explained it to death, they just can’t accept something that contradicts their pessimism
"The world...can't get better"
...presumably because "now is better than before", no matter how bad now actually becomes.
The hardest part about orange pilling is breaking this dogma
preston
When I see a intellectual people NOT understand Bitcoin, what is often preventing them from “getting it”, is a deeply held, core belief that the world is spiraling out of control and can’t get better. Because of this pessimistic conviction, it’s almost like it’s impossible for them to wrap their head around it. It’s a very strange yet persistent theme.
View quoted note →
💯
“I missed it, and can’t admit to it.”
Any relation to one of
@Marty Bent's latest pods? This guy was such a doomer he couldn't see the benefit that bitcoin could bring to the world.
My biggest disappointment : Assange fleeing right back to Australia. Right back into a prison cell.
The Key to achieving change lies in an individuals ability to redesign the perception of his world (constructivism). The longer you built on a world before #btc, the harder to change. Additionally, a strong ego might limit your ability to adapt.
They are a strong cocktail; mostly fanacially illiterate, part ignorant, with a dash of arrogance, and a twist of cowardice for that zing.
She's been on Citadel Dispatch. Plebs donated 1 Bitcoin. I think she's doing fine.
They're aren't actual intellectuals. Seeing the value in something new requires humility - the ability to silence the ego and accept the unknown. A real intellectual should be able to see somewhat ahead of most other people - that's the test, can you see what others don't. They are pursuing the image of being an intellectual, but they aren't the real thing.
Hmm, you gave me a new angle to think about something... Hedonism without nihilism. Cuz the nihilism is really what makes hedonism so abhorrent. Maybe hedonism without nihilism is equivalent to love? Grace?
I like a bit of hedonism. I enjoy vices and having fun. But I balance it with hard work, learning, growth, helping.
I feel it’s a pretty good balance. I am proud of myself and can let loose and have fun when it’s time.
To address that “mass condition“, a number of factors: education, inclination, good mental health, etc…
Invert it: how rare are those people how many people live under a cloud?
Yuppy elite.
Let me correct that first sentence: are the “general optimists” that do not subscribe to bitcoin even after an intro just oblivious?
Well... Its devastating, to start to comprehend the magnitude of the destruction caused by fiat money. Hypothetically you could estimate the number of lives destroyed or lives that didn't happen because of the corrupt fiat system. Like, the US gov counterfeights (spelling?) $6 trillion in 2020 - the resultant inflation pushes x number people into homelessness or drugs and x number of people can't get jobs because prices are all wrong and x number people don't start a family and so x number of new people are never born, and then secondary effects like mass immigration and cultural genocide perpetrated by governments effectively replacing the native people... You can start to see that every government action has negative effects that ripple forward through time in a quadratically expanding wave. Its seeing the Holocaust in real time. I can't blame someone for not wanting to see it.
Only from the perspective of quasi-revolutionaries.
Before bitcoin, I just called myself a hedonist. I was sick of pretending not to enjoy the things I enjoy - which is women and good conversation around good drinks. But that came from a place of hopelessness, and entirely lacked the balance of responsibility. Then bitcoin ripped open my brain, and God stepped into that resultant aperture, and I'm not nihilistic anymore.
Although it's frustrating to see this happen type of dismissal, it is an important distinguishing feature of paradigm shifts.
If everyone could see the new paradigm coming, then it would already be here and the opportunity we have as bit coiners for wealth redistribution into the new paradigm would not exist.
It's a blessing, not a curse.
I find it’s usually a simple case of cognitive dissonance although that has shifted more to: “I’m too late.”
Accurate. They’re waiting for the “collapse” where the internet is gone and people return to bartering.
Bitcoin can go to 10M and the world can still go to shit 🤙
"Intellectual people" have the biggest ego's and they usually will not allow themselves to be proven wrong about anything.
You just perfectly explained to a good friend of mine, whom I've been trying to orange pill for three years.
unfortunate fate for many high IQ people. they will remain forever miserable
True but I do think some of them do have a few valid concerns. Correct or not, we have to have easy ways to reassure them.
And then there are the bitcoiners who see the same thing happen and want btc to protect themselves and family
My best friend of 30 years works for a University and can’t even follow the reasoning for bitcoin. He thinks I’ve been captured by conspiracy theories. If he acknowledges the economics of bitcoin, he will have to acknowledge. And that is a bridge too far…
#Bitcoin requires hope and elements of faith
was telling my wife today that "we're hedged the best way I know how for the future" and that if Bitcoin fails then their really is no hope.
Bitcoin IS hope.
If people can not understanding the deficiencies of the fiat system, I wonder how they can be considered intellectual.
For some reason, we all have to go through the school hard knocks before we come around.
I was working in IT when email first started and talking email to someone I would get those glazed looks too. Now, one would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't have an email address.
Bottom line is once they graduate from the school of hard knocks they'll be onboard.
Changing core beliefs require a lot of energy
🎯
The smartest frogs have already jumped out.
As we ascend, how can we not help but improve?
I've observed that this type of negativity is simply just something that the intellectuals like to hide behind, either out of laziness or more often, to avoid being perceived as slow to grasp it, late to the game.
This is the headwind I’ve come up against while trying to orange pill the Church ⛪️
The Church is hopeful with regard to “spiritual”/etherial things, but not necessarily with things that have a “worldly” affiliation (to include the world 🌍 itself).
I think the most significant shortcoming of the Church right now is our inability to SEE the significance in the physical world 🌎
I’ve written on this (geared towards Church leadership) if you’re interested. It’s essentially a parallel between the canonical Exodus story and the “Modern Exodus” we’re in now. 🤝
Google Docs
A Modern Exodus
A Modern Exodus Preface The following is the exposition of something that is both a working theory and prophetic assertion that addresses the s...
If we want to point the mirror in a different direction, I suspect that you could replace "Bitcoin" with "Nostr" and draw similar conclusions.
That, ego, or both. You're definitely right.
Absolutely.
I think it might be "harder" this time around since Bitcoin is money and people try to be very careful with money. So maybe people are more likely to be slow to understand and change.
Very true.
I wonder if the pessimism might be due to depression from malnutrition. Could be a possibility.
It comes from unlimited sources
and then the final question is: are they really that intellectual?
Perhaps. I guess I haven't thought about it enough. 🤔
I don't know if that's true. Though it depends which aspect of #BTC you mean. I use #bitcoin to pay for #VPN #payment and have done so for years now. I don't need faith to see its value as a fungible #currency.
Likewise, I don't need faith to see the value of the #lightning network either. It's self-evident.
The only aspect of the Bitcoin you need faith for is the store of value proposition and to be honest, I don't have that faith and actually i don't need it either.
I don't really trust any store of value. I don't trust #Gold or the dollar or even real estate. All those things are unpredictable and also irrelevant.
It's the #technology that's really important, just as it's the country that's really important with #fiat. All fiat is not equally redundant. Some are more risky than others.
I still think I'm an advocate, even though I don't care whether the price rises or falls. I actually preferred the idea it would stabilise at some point and so far I've been disappointed in that respect.
Fair enough, I am sure this is prevalent. But define "not getting it"? If I am committed and positive about the financial freedom tech stack, with Bitcoin as a major part of that, but not the only part, am I not "getting it"? To me, "Bitcoin only" feels like another limiting belief. #AskNostr
Bitcoin cures cynicism. I see it in my dad a lot, trying to show him how BTC fixes this
Many people don't understand bitcoin because they don't understand software. And much less open source.
Bitcoin has been done by a worldwide top engineer, and it was done freely because of Satoshi personal values.
It would be weird that a top arquitect did a state-of-the-art building, for free and for all. But everybody would grasp the massive value of such thing.
Many have a hard time with that part. And its just the first steps, because then you need to understand the idea of unit of accounts and the concept of money to measure human behaviour.
I start to question what does ‘intellectual’ mean…well read?
My circle of influence either don’t care to learn something new or they still can’t wrap their heads around investing in something they can’t physically touch or use. My kids just love it because it’s ‘digital’…we just have to wait for that generation to start creating wealth!
It’s a daily struggle distancing myself from that bad energy…
I agree and would like to add the idea, that Bitcoin forces you to being confronted with your true self. And that is a tough one to swallow for most of us
What concerns have you heard on your side?
🎯 I just work on remembering that we all get bitcoin when we’re ready.
Perhaps fear is associated with ego and not being able to let go of it’s need to protect itself. Ego is associated with the thinking, feeling and moving centres is it not? Perhaps ego measures what is better and what is worse by its own subjective needs rather than a wish for something more universal.
With those around me I've noticed that it's usually as simple as "Bitcoin is crypto and crypto is a scam". It's something they just 'know' so there's no thinking past it.
I don't consider myself very active in the Bitcoin scene, but using it as savings helped me with my down payment towards my house, so whenever the Bitcoin price goes up significantly that's when I see a hint of interest from others which eventually wanes.
Mine sharing who is the author? I've seen that book title pop up before and would like to look it up.
ppl are stuck in habitual thinking they are unaware of. also corporate habit hacking ... mass instiutional CBT,
Lionel Shriver
Exactly, I think it was the guy swan who articulated it very eloquently when he said the $6T print basically stole the life’s work equivalent of 6 million people.
I didn't know he said that.. Good! Probably worse than that, though
That wouldn't make you intellectual. True intellectuals are those who look into these things, and ask questions.... They're always learning new techniques to spice up whatever it is they're doing. Simple as that.
I mean, we've all heard some of the same concerns. Concerns over the "hackability" of the network, the lack of understanding surrounding self-sovereignty, the fact that you aren't FDIC insured, the way you have to get a cold wallet if you want to get serious about Bitcoin... I know the answers to all of those but even intellectuals are concerned about that and I can't blame them because the responses are usually just "Bitcoin is superior", "Bitcoin is unconfiscatable" and so forth.
Again, I agree with statements like those but to an outsider, it really does just sound like a cultish ponzi scheme. Then, there are also the concerns surrounding the ways you obtain Bitcoin. I'm pro-BTC but there aren't any good ways to obtain it if you don't have friends who are willing to pay you in Bitcoin, and that has kept me from buying any for myself. Either you surrender your privacy AND risk your identity by buying from CEXes, you risk your money by buying from DEXes, or you pay a huge fee buying from an ATM.
At the end of the day, no matter how great this technology is, I do believe that we -- as a community -- need to be ready to answer skeptics patiently and with proper information rather than "You're not bullish enough", "Bitcoin fixes everything", "all others are s***coins" and other such vague/cultish/goofy statements. We don't win people over by making them feel like idiots. Not every skeptic is a troll, and unfortunately, I've seen so much ridicule toward people who genuinely might have been interested before then.
I’m not too engaged in the twitter stuff day to day but I’ve found that the luck I’ve had with getting people to understand bitcoin, is not getting into bitcoin right away, but for them to understand why we use dollars today instead of gold, why did we stop using gold, gold’s monetary properties that made society, not governments choose gold and how bitcoin’s value, like gold, comes from its monetary properties. It’s hard for people to understand bitcoin and the why of #bitcoin if they don’t 1st get a sense of how we got here. I agree with everything you said above though.
I believe if our friends give us the time of day, we gotta convey how we got to this point first within about 5 minutes and then the last 5 minutes break down why bitcoin is so important, adding the human rights element so that you’re not just talking number go up is also important.
"most people are not economists and cannot fathom that something digital has subjective value."
That's for sure!
*no*
Yes, I agree, that approach is what got me interested in Bitcoin. Previously, I only saw it as an "investment" opportunity until it started going up and down. I didn't realize how freeing it can be.
I agree entirely about how we need to be able to quickly summarize it. An elevator pitch, as it were.
Quickly summarize in the most calm cool way possible even though we’re excited as hell to discuss it haha.
My father has two burning questions: "what backs its value?" and "who's running the show and profiting from it?"
Pessimists can't grasp Bitcoin because it disrupts their world-ending narrative. Reality doesn’t fit their doomsday script. 📉🔄
If someone asks if they have 'missed the boat' on bitcoin, they have the pessimistic conviction. Trying to figure out how to wake them out of it. I think it's a slow, gentle, persistent grind.
Absolutely, and I totally get that a lot of Bitcoiners and Nostr users genuinely are just really passionate about the tech. I'm sure the trolling comes from a minority of the community, and maybe some of them don't even realize they're acting the way they are. I just think that the easier we make this stuff for people, the quicker we'll start seeing something closer to mass adoption. There's a lot of skepticism in the world of blockchain (rightfully so), so keeping things difficult definitely doesn't help matters haha
Technically, yes. So does it require faith that the sun will rise tomorrow. But I've studied astronomy and so I have a lot of data that supports that theory.
It also requires faith that the laws of physics will not change tomorrow.
Everything, if you boil it down far enough, requires faith.
Fortunately it's possible to study bitcoin deeply enough to have conviction that if the sun rises tomorrow and physics doesn't break that bitcoin will continue to thrive.
my usual reply to them, when I’ve invested time to #ELI5 and change what could have been changed:
“Just because you don't understand how #Bitcoin works, it doesn't mean that the explanation does not exist.”
* inspired by #SatoshiNakamoto #quote:
“If you don't believe it or don't get it, I don't have the time to try to convince you, sorry.”
Actually is not easy to grasp the concept of #Bitcoin is one doesn't really go into studying it. My self also take years and is still studying it today, but at least now I have enough confidence in #Bitcoin.
This non believer will only come it after it become mass adoption, they will only rush to protect what they had but unable to fully maximise the early benefits of adopting Bitcoin. They may satisfied with just anti inflation benefits.
It took me 6 years to totally get it. Be patient, it's not easy.
it’s for people in pure. not everybody dares
Or normalcy bias that assumes everything is great and will always be so.
It's difficult to grasp Bitcoin when one's salary comes from the government. Whether value is provided or not, "money" gets printed and shared to everybody, for the sake of being on the pay-roll. But Bitcoin flips everying inside-out: one has to work hard (sometimes, more harder) in order to provide value and get paid in bitcoin. In other words, rent-seeking is far easier than standing on one's competence.
an intellectual**
Agreed. I have a nihilistic friend that asks all the right questions but only accepts doom for answers. After almost 2 epochs, he’s still not convinced. I’m probably just not very convincing. At this point, I’m full dark side.
Where else is he going to go?
El Salvador
Completely agree! And introducing them to wallets like Aqua for self custody, bitkey etc is the way. Bitcoin is such a major shift in how we think about everything so us being conscious that it’s going to be A LOT of information for anyone to take is so important. Little by little though, we’ll get there. I imagine bitcoin will be much bigger 15 years from now than it is today so we’ll get there.
Gotta surround yourself with the right people and do the right things. Always listen to your conscience, aim upward, and find the answers. Easier said than done but if you can remove temptation and build habits, you'll be rewarded and you'll love doing it. Though I'm just preaching here, I'm not putting forth a tangible, public example.
I think it's as simple as the "intellectual" having his beliefs rooted in lies.
View quoted note →El Salvador for one.
It’s easy to tear down. It’s much harder to build up.
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Truth !!
I realised this during the covid hysteria years
