Check your openminded Privilege, we are *so* early \ stacker news ~FiresidePhilosophy

Check your openminded Privilege, we are *so* early

1040 sats \ 40 comments \ @redlight_pleb 11 Jul FiresidePhilosophy

I suspect most of us on SN and those that have done the work to understand Bitcoin find it easy to forget just how early we are.

A normie at work was complaining about having their debit card details hacked and was worried about getting another. Had no idea about disposable cards, virtual debit cards, wise etc. Even telling this person about these options blew their mind, it wasn’t the time nor place for an OrangePill and quite honestly I don’t think they would have got it anyway.

I used to think Bitcoin is for everyone, and I still want and hope for that to be true… But I’m starting to think of Bitcoin being for the few not the many - because most just don’t care or have the ability to widen their view enough. They will live on a Bitcoin denominated standard but through financial institutions. They won’t know nor care that Bitcoin is backing their new version shitcoin Fiat.

I’m coming to realise many people don’t really want to be free autonomous beings - they want to be told what to do, how to think and be governed harder. I mean most people think that taxing the rich will solve their countries problems!!

I take for granted being an open minded person, not being beholden to dogma and the status quo, questioning everything. Always.

Stay humble, be grateful for our freethinking minds - I need to touch grass now. Few.

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198 sats \ 8 replies \ @TNStacker 11 Jul

Talk economics, finance, or money and banking to most people and their eyes glaze over. Even when they ask a question.

201 sats \ 7 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 11 Jul

I heard a quote that I’m going to butcher but : You spend 90,000 hrs working yet don’t spend 100hrs knowing how money works 🤔

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @SpaceHodler 11 Jul

That was Michael Saylor. He said "You spend 90k hours making money, you can spend 100 hours learning how to keep it."

31 sats \ 5 replies \ @0fje0 11 Jul

Nice post! I agree with the gist of it.

Now I'm going to butcher your butchered quote:

spend 100hrs knowing how money works

As bitcoiners, we tend to interpret the above as spending those 100hrs on learning how bitcoin works. It may be time to allocate more of those hours on learning how fiat money doesn't work?

66 sats \ 4 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 11 Jul

Damn 2 butchers having a turn = mince!

Learning how fiat money doesn’t work is learning why the government does what it does. Until money and state are separated its citizens are the yield and will be squeezed as such. I’ve been reading Sovereign individual and it is really an eye opener on the many renditions of governments over time. Wild yet makes our current situation unsurprising

34 sats \ 3 replies \ @Nuttall 11 Jul

Allow me to butcher the carrot further...

Spend a myriad of weeks chasing crap or spend a myriad of minutes understand what crap is.

110 sats \ 2 replies \ @TNStacker 11 Jul

You play with shit. You smell like shit.

~@DarthCoin

55 sats \ 1 reply \ @Nuttall 11 Jul

I thought it was just my upper lip. Now I have to question all of my activities.

Why Kurt Vonnegut was better than Tom Robbins and Douglas Adams sometimes, Skinny Pages and All.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 11 Jul

I love Vonnegut, but also Adams.

reply on another page

35 sats \ 1 reply \ @sagars209 11 Jul

Modern day societies , institutions, schools, universities, workplace, Religion to some extent are so fantastic at brainwashing normies that their only Existential questions in life are how can I be best employee? Or date that most beautiful girl? How can I be that best at that sport, or attend that concert or my favourite musician . If not all that it’s where am I going to get food on my table for next meal. Given that yes it is too much to expect them to understand bitcoin. Sometimes I wonder how lucky I am or have self doubt reg bitcoin but when I try to use first principles to answer my self doubts I always get the answer they can’t stop bitcoin. And if they can’t stop it it’s going to grow. So until the normies face existential crisis I guess it’s a far fetched possibility of them getting bitcoin

24 sats \ 0 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 11 Jul

The best part about this whole journey is the skills that have been acquired are applicable to so many other avenues in life. Being able to problem solve and go back to first principles when stuck in a quandary to being able to levitate above the cesspool of media, government, consumerism etc. Above all it’s taught me to ask the question : “what are my values”. I’d rather wait to meet the right girl with certain values than hook up at the next one that smiles at you. Would I rather support local food growers or a conglomerate supermarket. On it goes.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 11 Jul

Most people are followers. I agree with everything you've said here. That said, things could change quickly provided the right circumstances arise.

People in the USA and most of Europe really don't see their need for Bitcoin. My guess is that adoption will happen in emerging countries over the next 50 years. Could be faster but that's the timeline I see.

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 12 Jul

100% the last group of people who will “get” Bitcoin is your traditionally well off western countries that have been socially looked after and have had stable currencies for the last 50 years.

Reckon your 50 year frame might be conservative, dunno about you but it feels like we really are in the fourth turning, the empire is collapsing under its own bullshit buuut these things always take longer than it seems it should. Printer goes Brr again, the herd are happy.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinAbhi 11 Jul

Yes we are too early and we are on the right path.

37 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 11 Jul

Change happens on the margins. The important thing will be that a bitcoin standard can be kept honest, by the small group of people who care enough to keep it that way.

It was good of you to bring some better financial options to your colleague's attention. Even that is a big step towards undermining the fiat regime.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @zapsammy 11 Jul

i asked an Uber driver if he wants to know about bitcoin. he said no, he has his and father's health on his mind. so for 30 min i talked about how to achieve better health. we can chip away from all angles.

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 12 Jul

I really like this, self improvement regardless of the tangent is self improvement

14 sats \ 1 reply \ @thecommoner 11 Jul

We are certainly still so very early....but please, please, please remember that each and every one of us - writes our own futures!!! This is so very important - and I don't want to sound preachy so I will keep this short (as being a bitcoiner you are already living in the future every day). We all have the ability to manifest the future we want to see - it just takes that damn proof of work :)

While you are absolutely right in your thinking that many people don't want to be free autonomous beings...that is only half true... as they don't believe they have the ability to be anything other than cogs in the wheel of life and I believe that mindset is in part reinforced by the broken monetary system they live in and once they are incentivized to take part in the new system we all know to be Bitcoin that defeatist attitude will be beaten right out of them :) IMHO

56 sats \ 0 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 11 Jul

Agree on all counts. A comment below mentioned how nearly every institution in society, schools, universities, work etc etc become indoctrination instruments that keep you on the hamster wheel. Finding comfort in the herd is the accepted way of being it seems. I’ve decided to live differently and let others notice and ask about it rather than ram rod all these wild thoughts and different view points.

13 sats \ 4 replies \ @Fabs 11 Jul

"Early"... yeah right.

13 sats \ 3 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 11 Jul

Reckon you can flesh this one out a bit further? We are only 16 years into a unique time,information layer? Early in what way friend?

14 sats \ 2 replies \ @Fabs 11 Jul

We're not "early" anymore in terms of getting in at life-changing prices, nor are we discovering a "niche" technology; Bitcoin has been around for 15+ years, people know it's there, they simply don't care.

I'm not saying Bitcoin has- or is failing [them] - they're failing themselves -, it's simply not fitting to say that we're "early" anymore.

People who think that they're still early - often times newbies - hold onto that belief because they hope to a) have gotten in at life-changing prices, b) because they don't have "enough" bitcoin yet, or c) both.

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 12 Jul

Agree with this , framing over what early meant should have been included in the post. My “early” moment was a colleague complaining of their fiat payment methods, not knowing about alternate options within fiat let alone other payment options. In that moment I was thinking about the disposable Visa cards you could purchase with btc on the Bitcoin Co. App for example. Let’s be honest: we are using lightning to interact on a social media platform… we are fucking early. Early = use cases, different ways of interacting etc

Appreciate you fleshing out your ideas

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 11 Jul

agree

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @fm 11 Jul

I’m coming to realise many people don’t really want to be free autonomous beings

If you are born into submission, its very hard to free yourself. Most of the times its not a choice but hard conditioning.. Fucking matrix

111 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei 24 Aug

Indeed, the greatest affordance Bitcoin gifts us is the freedom of our mind. Enjoyed the read

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 28 Aug

Thankyou sensei 🙏

112 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 11 Jul

I’m coming to realise many people don’t really want to be free autonomous beings - they want to be told what to do, how to think and be governed harder. I mean most people think that taxing the rich will solve their countries problems!!

Bingo!

112 sats \ 1 reply \ @OneOneSeven 11 Jul

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 11 Jul

😆 honestly, as long as my people have btc - fuck em!

1 sat \ 2 replies \ @john_doe 11 Jul

You mentioned Wise as a solution. Let me highlight that on Wise, unless you periodically delete your digital credit cards and set up a spending threshold for your credit card, you are far from being free of worries. The panacea is I think one-time only usable credit cards, unfortunately Wise doesn't offer this service. So the only way on Wise to be "safe" is to at least delete your digital cards periodically after using it.

Coming back to the topic, I strongly believe that it is a problem of UX and secondarily a problem of curiosity. For example just to show to a friend how to have his hardware wallet displayed conveniently as a watch-only wallet, I had to change manually the xpub to a zpub. The software (Green wallet in this case) didn't do the conversion automatically. Wallet of Satoshi makes it easy for example, we don't have to tell the user what is a channel, whereas for other wallets we have to. So I think when the UX gets better more people will get interested.

Personally I want to drive manual bikes but I don't blame others if they prefer automatic ones, it is indeed simpler. However you lose the freedom to use the engine brake. Similarly I think Bitcoin is for everyone given things become more automated in wallets over time.

34 sats \ 1 reply \ @redlight_pleb OP 11 Jul

Yes you’re very correct about the wise parameters to be setup - I’ll pass this on thanks!

You have no idea how apt the Motorbike/manual philosophy resonates, but again, I am one of the few who would pay more for a manual transmission… and enjoy that engine braking.

Getting the itch to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance again

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @john_doe 11 Jul

Haha, nice! You're welcome for the tips. Tell him also that by being lazy and not deleting my credit card for half a year I have experienced around $500 stollen myself, and someone I know around $2000. This should motivate him.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @wingalt 11 Jul

Most people will never go deep on bitcoin and understand any of it, they might just end up using it without knowing it once it has become the money standard

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 12 Jul

We’ve got to celebrate understanding things more deeply, not for a narcissistic pat on the back, but to enable us to do this in every facet in life. Our bodies, relationships, religion etc etc. Question all the things

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Gendon 11 Jul

Ok gww cek brow

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @leo 11 Jul

We've been early for 15 years now!

18 sats \ 0 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 11 Jul

You been in for 15 years?! Fourth turning friend. Reckon we are right on time.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SatsMate 11 Jul

I think we are so early, and I am grateful to be very openminded now. I will say, it didn't come right away, it probably took me 2 years to become fully open minded.

I agree - most people will have fidelity, vanguard or BlackRock hold their bitcoin - and they will be happy to have it like that. This is why it is key to get more hardware wallets that have the 90 year old grandma and the non-technical person in mind. If not, even if they wanted to do things a certain way - they might screw it all up.

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @redlight_pleb OP 11 Jul

I fully hear you, I love the coldcard but it has more Linux vibes than say a Mac. Honestly I’m wondering what a btc bank looks like, the next evolution of an exchange but with more regulation, customer protections etc for the non-technicals.