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I feel you on the bitcoiners = crazy people count. I've had group chats that look a lot like that. And usually, I cave because I don't like being annoying.
Do you think it is leading you to expect less from orange-pilling efforts, or to abandon such efforts in general?
My only orange-pilling at the moment is attempts to spend bitcoin at Square terminals...
Do you think it is leading you to expect less from orange-pilling efforts, or to abandon such efforts in general?
Nope. I had a short-term friendship about this time last year with a guy who's sister had been trying to send money to their mother for seven years with no luck. I taught him how to use lightning, that night he taught her, the next day she was finally able to do what she wanted (send to mom) with the money that she had worked for all that time. Stuff like that puts getting made fun of in the group chat in perspective pretty damn quick.
...thanks for asking. I'm suddenly in a really good mood. lol
This guy was from Zimbabwe and didn’t know about stable coins. He was working as a server in South Africa and asked for his tip in cash, sayings that the restaurant took a cut on top of the CC cut off his tips. I was just like, “You know what’s even better than cash?” He was all ears. His mom was back in Zimbabwe and his sister was in Florida.
I have exactly the same experiences. It is extremely rare for me to have discussions with people who see bitcoin in a positive light, coworkers friends etc included.
Despite the negativity they have towards it... They don't know the first thing about it. They have never had a 'wallet' they have no clue what a 'node' is, they literally have (the vast majority of them) zero idea as to what bitcoins purpose is or even why it was originally created.
Many see it is a speculative fast-money scam (that they cannot describe or articulate of course) especially the older generations, and countless people only believe exactly what they are 'told'.
Our financial press has an incredible opportunity to educate readers on lightning and more importantly bitcoin's purpose but they don't do it - at all actually. Its just sitting there and they (bloomberg for example) don't even mention it.
Why is that?
The only and I mean only group that seem open to bitcoin are the libertarians, and IMO that interest in bitcoin scales exponentially with intelligence and curiosity.
Bloomberg has something like ~22,000 employees. I would be shocked if 1 employee at Bloomberg has used lightning. Possibly, there is a CashApp user who has used it, but even that seems unlikely.
I believe it really is a case of "I don't think about you at all."
Every time I use lightning, despite the ui/ux challenges, thinking about this future of lightning and its possibilities makes me feel like a crazy person. I don't know why there aren't more 'bloomberg employees' but if I didnt know better I would say its some weird kind of conspiracy.
Perhaps due to my birth lottery luck, I don't think I ever really concerned myself with payment tech beyond "how much does it cost?" prior to falling down the bitcoin rabbit hole. And it's very easy to feel that the tradfi options don't cost too much.
Despite all the friction and misery of this financial system, we sort of just seem to accept it, like breathing the air. Might their be air that is better to breathe? Sure, but nobody is going to put much effort into finding it because this is the air we have on planet earth.
The dollar is the product of... A literal paper printer. Whether its a 100$ bill or a 1$ bill its effectively the same.
The fact that the government is borrowing extensively and already 40 trillion in debt... Doesn't help things.
Bitcoin on the other hand is a product of large sums of energy and is extraordinarily difficult to fake. That alone got me into bitcoin and is why I believe everyone eventually will use it if in their own way.
I'm scared about mining centralization, but think we're better off with bitcoin than anything else right now. So it definitely serves as freedom money currently, but the future of it looks grim.
As far as normies getting it, my experience is that they usually get it when we do a proper job outlining the problems with the current financial system in a winsome manner. Then again, many don't see the need at all, and sometimes really discouraging things like this happen:
This was a tough pill to swallow given these are my real friends/coworkers who have real families, real jobs, real lives, and definitely view bitcoiners like crazy people.