Our old WEF buddy is at it again on this bitcoin is a system of distrust thing. He talked about this before but goes into more detail about his thinking here.
When I say that Bitcoin is a currency of distrust, I'm just repeating what Bitcoin fans themselves say. There may be good reasons not to trust the banks and governments that create dollars, yens, and other currencies – but that doesn’t change the fact that the preference for Bitcoin is based on distrust of human institutions. Why is this an alarming development? Because the whole purpose of money is to create trust between strangers. Financial devices like currencies, bonds and shares – 90% of which are just data in computers – build trust between millions of strangers, who can then pool their knowledge and resources together, and cooperate. Humans control the world because we learned to do this. If we now lose trust in human institutions, this will limit the amount of money and handicap economic activity and cooperation. I hope that humanity finds a way to build trustworthy human institutions, instead of adopting technologies of distrust..
Tom Woods wrote a response which is good in his email newsletter
Your personal opinion of Bitcoin, pro or con, is not at issue here, so it is not necessary to send me a treatise on the subject. What is at issue, and what is simultaneously amusing and revealing, is his alarm at the prospect of more and more people coming to distrust fiat money.
First, he tells us that Bitcoin is based on "distrust of human institutions" -- but Bitcoin, not having been sent to us by Mars, is itself a human institution. Its stated purpose is to improve on existing human institutions. So when he says he hopes "humanity finds a way to build trustworthy human institutions," that's pretty much exactly what Bitcoin developers and supporters say they're doing.
If it's a decline in "trust in human institutions" he fears, perhaps he could trouble himself to take a moment to understand where that distrust has come from. Instead of blaming the victim, he might consider why someone might disapprove of fiat money and/or central banks.
We don't like a money that loses its value over time; gold, by contrast, held or gained in value. The Fed's lackeys have tried to gaslight us into believing that it's a bad thing for a money to gain in value over time because this amounts to "deflation," which they have portrayed to us as the worst thing imaginable. I've discussed this on the Tom Woods Show numerous times, so I'll say simply: (1) it is not the worst thing imaginable; it is actually a very good thing; (2) falling prices (which is the flip side of a money gaining in value) is a natural result of unhampered capitalism that only a misanthrope would want to counteract; (3) all the arguments about why falling prices are bad are extremely stupid and not worth anyone's time.
We don't like a money whose supply can be increased at the whim of a small group of technocrats, and used to benefit or bail out particular firms or sectors. This is not only grossly unfair, but it also leads to a moral hazard problem: financial actors are more reckless than they would be in the absence of such a money.
We don't like a money the manipulation of which interferes with the natural level of interest rates, and thereby sets the economy on an unsustainable course that culminates in recession/depression (this is of course the Austrian theory of the business cycle).
So if Yuval Harari would like to make himself useful, he might go ahead and criticize those things, instead of criticizing people who quite understandably are trying to create an alternative to that kind of money.
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207 sats \ 1 reply \ @ez 22 May
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🌝.
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137 sats \ 6 replies \ @k00b 22 May
Seems to be a follow up to the interview we discussed here.
Because the whole purpose of money is to create trust between strangers.
Oooof. He must not have read Broken Money. Or really any book about money for that matter. Money is how we solve transacting with someone whom we don't trust with whom we don't have a coincidence of wants. People aren't, by default, trustworthy, and money allowed us to do business with people we don't trust. Money is built for distrust. Bitcoin is just a better form of it.

I do think there's a point to be made about better money causing trust to be in less demand. That would be an awesome point for someone like him to make, but instead he says whatever he's trying to say here, which sounds an awful lot like Terrance Howard explaining math/physics/chemistry.
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It is interesting to listen to these comments and then listen to WBD Podcast Junseth interview where he plays recording with a scammer. Here's the question I would ask Yuval. OK, what do we do then? Should we just keep getting scammed forever? Are we supposed to believe and trust people that keep scamming us? Are we supposed to vote harder? What is his answer?
If I didn't know any better I would just think this dude is naive.
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200 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 22 May
He's certainly naive on money. I think he's mostly a victim of his success and the genetic lottery winnings of a big ego. He's treated like an expert on everything and he can't help but try to live up to it.
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I haven't listened / read his actual comments in their full context, but I wonder how much of this interpretation is in good faith. If the real thing he wants to say is: trust in people and institutions is vitally important for human flourishing, and it would be sad to write it off then I agree 100%. There is no technological solution that obivates the need for trust and the fruits of it, and any world in which people don't find ways to scaffold trust in each other at scale will be a hellscape.
I view btc as in service of that effort. The quoted excerpt seems to indicate that he does not, so that would be a point of departure. But hard to say without investing more time.
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Yeah, that's a good point. There are many like him. It is interesting how few non-bitcoiner influencers have a huge mental block about bitcoin. How few of them understand it. I really look for smart people that have good arguments against bitcoin. Almost all are just arrogant and ignorant. It has shown me that arrogance is the biggest threat to people once they achieve notoriety. It has deepened my focus on not being arrogant myself. I think bitcoiners need to guard against this on a daily basis. It is an increasing vulnerability as NGU. "Stay humble"
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+100.
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Yeah, that's what I think.
Kinda surprising how much ignorance there is about money.
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All human institutions are corrupted and broken. Plan accordingly.
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Exactly. But he seems to be a secular humanist and probably rejects that idea.
I really wonder if one of his core misunderstandings is not understanding the dynamics of power and evil. Maybe we should send him a copy of the "Lord of the Rings" or a Bible. And then I remember he is a big WEF speaker and it all makes sense.
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Bitcoin is automation that eliminates the need to rely on humans, just like any other technology.
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Exactly, Bitcoin is next level stuff. Before, you always needed to trust for most financial instruments to work. Now, you don't need to, if you don't want to.
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replace distrust with independence, and trust with dependence, and the veil is lifted.
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He is right, we don't trust no fiat MFer....lol we don't trust, we verify !!!
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Well at least he got the message right! :D
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Well, he didn't really get it right. Distrust is the default state so saying what he says is pretty dumb actually. Trust is also very personal and individual. I don't think he really gets anything right. What bitcoiners say is "Don't trust, verify". He only mentions don't trust. Does he trust everything by default? Of course not. This is a psyop. There's a reason why the WEF likes this dude.
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I meant our message :P Then his added opinions are of course calculated
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Gotcha
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He is totally not getting it.
Arguing for humans to get better at running trusted institutions is like arguing for "communism done right this time".
I have a feeling he thinks the algorithm is self-evolving like an AI entity of some sort, which makes me thinks he absolutely has no idea what he is talking about.
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He knows perfectly what he is talking about. The reason they have to attack BTC with those comments is because they understand full well what's at stake for them.
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At this point unless someone proves they understand the technicals of bitcoin I assume they do not. I do think he understands that bitcoin is a threat though.
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"this will limit the amount if money"
He's just parroting what the bankers have told him.
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That's all they need to know
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Money is distrust, credit is trust. And investments that hedge the capacity of institutions to operate well, such as real estate, have always existed
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I could write a long refutation of this BS, or I can just say, what an idiot. Does anyone care what this clown says anyways?
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Confuses distrust with trustlessness.
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