pull down to refresh
Most people have no idea what money is. They swipe their credit card and figure if they can make the monthly payment... They can 'afford' something.
They are content paying each other in pieces of paper.
Then when they get tired of their car or whatever they financed they 'sell' it (they never owned it) and have 'negative equity' which means they have to make payments on a vehicle they don't own that total more than the vehicle is worth (a depreciating asset on top of that).
Millions of Americans do this it's 'popular' its how you "buy things" (which is actually financing things through a bank?)
Is it any surprise then that 'hold your own keys' 'hard money' 'that you can't fake' that you either own OR DON'T is so unpopular?
How do you make your "monthly payment" on owning bitcoin?
People aren't really ready for bitcoin yet. There needs to be another financial crisis and people will figure our what that paper money is really worth. Not until then.
Yea, I agree with you. I don't ascribe to Ver's hypothesis, but I think it's interesting and worth keeping in mind.
As for what comes next, here's my 2 Sats:
Listen to a political radio show or podcast, left or right leaning. Most of the time on those shows, you will hear people complaining about one social issue or other. They always blame the other side of the isle for all their issues. I can't stand these shows because I just keep yelling at the radio: "It's the money, stupid! What do you think happens when there is a money printer at the top??!!!!"
I bring that up to emphasize how much appetite there is for real change. But no one knows that the money is the problem. No one has read Alex Gladstein's books, and Bitcoiners are NOT getting that message out.
Now, listen to Bitcoin podcasts. All I hear there are macro-economics, focused on debasement-trades and fiat-based technical analysis. No wonder we aren't getting the message out to the world, we're circle-jerking monetary nerds. Like a stereotypical computer nerd from the 1990's getting excited about the internet... no one understands what we're talking about.
What we desperately need is someone getting Alex Gladstein's message out to the masses, NOT James Check's message.... not Jordi Visser's message. Those podcasts are great for the nerds, but people are not going to listen to that for fun like we do.
We need a messaging shift. Get the heart strings. Fiat destroys ecosystems, enables wars, kills babies. Get this on the mainstream news, not another Bitcoin chart or negative segment about Bitcoin miners making too much noise. Show the people WHY Bitcoin is good.
Simultaneously, Bitcoiners need to make more of a stand against fiat. We have read Gladstein's books.... we have read "The Creature from Jekyll Island." We understand why fiat is so bad. So.... why do we continue using it without even a flinch? What message do we send when we talk shit about fiat and then immediately start asking for donations in fiat, and continue using fiat terminology?
I think we need to start practicing what we preach. When 10% of the world boycotts fiat merchants and fiat systems, the other 90% will start listening to us. Because right now, we just look like a bunch of hypocritical, fiat-maxis. I know we can't all immediately move off of fiat for everything, but I know we can do A LOT more than we are. And I know we are coming across stupid to the world lately.
We've solved many of the technical problems. Now, we need to solve the social ones. Get people to start using what we've built. We can start with ourselves. Do more to stop using fiat, and stop making excuses for why we can't do more than we are.