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228 sats \ 2 replies \ @antic 12 Nov 2023 \ parent \ on: Lyn Alden book club part I bitcoin
Yes. For the first 4 years of bitcoin, I didn’t think digital scarcity made sense. As a software engineer, I thought that software always goes out of date and gets replaced so I didn’t expect Bitcoin to remain dominant. What I had missed was that the network effect itself was the meta-sentient entity that came into existence and remains antifragile (using software as a substrate). It took examining the staying power of social networks for me to grok this and, having grown up mostly without the internet, that wasn’t native to my mindset.
Almost the same for me -- first was to view btc as software. Applying a software (or tech) perspective leads you to certain assumptions, so I was not very interested in it, figured it would get upgraded a few times before I needed to pay attention. Thus why I am still a working stiff :/
Even the "network effect" frame isn't how it sits in my head now -- it's human coordination / belief, which I suppose is a function of network effects, though the dynamics are hard to untangle. That makes it a lot easier to reason about, and leads to quite different places than where the software / tech metaphor will take a person.
I still don't rest completely easy on the network effect / coordination distinction, though. Whether it even is a distinction.
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I also had to spend 10 years learning about economics in the context of a massive desire to retire early :)
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