i feel like many bitcoiners have a similar journey from sceptic to learning, to buying some to becoming a maxi.
for me, one way bitcoin, or going deeper down the rabbit hole, has changed me is it has given me an education about the history of money, about debasement, and how the whole modern dollar intertwined system was born. opened my eyes to how absolutely rotten things are to the core.
i was never a huge fan of governments in general, but after understanding the harms of fiat and the all-encompassing effects, it's fundamentally changed my belief system.
i was never given any financial advice at all until my late 20s when some rich guy i knew told me to read the millionaire next door and save 10% of my monthly income. that was it. once i lost my job , i spent my little bit of savings in a few months. there was never any talk of debasement or anything.
i tried reading things like Tony Robbins money master the game, but it was all US-centric and i was clueless. i paid a lot of money for some course from agora financial and it was just about selling puts.
now i feel safe and confident in my financial future, stacking my hardest (which isn't amazing by western standards, but better than nothing) with something that cannot be ruined and destroyed by central banks.
i suppose goldbugs were aware of these issues for probably decades, but I never met one in the wild.
have any of you lot had an interesting transformation when you got into btc?
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"Bitcoin is not only about money, IT’S ABOUT EVERYTHING." — Darthcoin
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that was a great read, i see some parallels to myself , from freelancing to living in a village lol
were you ever tempted to become a goldbug pre bitcoin?
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to become a goldbug pre bitcoin?
No. Gold for me was always a shiny rock used for electronic circuits.
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Honestly, no. I am skeptical of anything that is based on 'money' so to speak. It all has the potential for corruption and greed. I think for me like Jesus said,
"The Parable of the Rich Fool
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
What does this mean "Rich towards God"? I think ultimately this all has been nearly impossible for humankind to achieve the balance.
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For me, it was given me hope that I never knew I was missing. I knew the world wasn't working right but I couldn't have explained it to anyone, it just felt wrong. My journey with Bitcoin has more of a spiritual one, not as much intellectual. It feels right to me. I don't understand code and I have no desire to get into the weeds of the current system. However, as I have healed and grown, I have learned that I deserve to be abundant. I deserve a better reality and i believe everyone does. This is where Bitcoin came in. Its so simple, limited supply and decentralized. Thats all I really need to know. Now we have money that we can build with and have hope for a brighter future. This is divine in my opinion. It is all about the simple idea. And sataoshi figured how o execute. And ideas cannot be killed so I feel good about where we are headed. I am so grateful for Bitcoin. It has helped me want to live in this strange place. 💚
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A lot less stress about who's elected.
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If Kamala is elected, USA will never be the same. Point of no return.
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I should've mentioned I'm not American. And I still understand voting for a lesser evil and then moving on with life. It's just better mentally to know we can build alternatives and don't have to be slaves to the system, thinking the only way to improve things is to "vote harder".
I also said a lot less, not "none" :P
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It’s one thing to not vote. It’s another thing to vote for the wrong candidate like so many SN users
Look at Venezuela in 1999. They made a regrettable decision by voting for free healthcare. What alternatives have they built for peace of mind? Elections have consequences even if it’s fashionable to say they don’t
You can decide to opt out of society but sometimes you don’t have a choice
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Fair point.
Though on that note I wish I had opted out in 2015 instead of contributing to Trudeau. Fell for the "sunny ways" scam
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What was the turning point for you?
For me it was in 2018 or 19 when I realized I underestimated the corruption and dishonesty of the left. I knew they were terrible but didn’t grasp the extent of it.
Then covid happened in 2020 which was another turning point. Censorship and free speech. Plus election interference by Twitter and big tech.
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @nichro 17 Sep
Around the same time. 2017-2018. I think it was an because of the 2016 Trump era by extension.
I had a lot of friends on both side of it, but the MAGA side seemed to have a lot more fun and better memes (r/thedonald was still around). Through following that and how the MSM and culture skewed reality, swayed minds or lied, it made me more critical about ours at home.
It also came at a time when I started reading more economics and realpolitik type stuff. I was already turned by then, nail in coffin and all, but with 2020 coming around and then the convoy it was further beating a dead horse.
Edit: it's late and realpolitik isn't the right word. I meant generally reading and paying attention to more "realist political theory", how power works in reality beyond the flowery promises and how it's easily corrupt
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The corruption of media was a big deal for me too. Thanks for mentioning. Mainstream media is now Pravda
Don’t be so apocalyptic.
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apocalypse means unveiing of something hidden; the word has nothing to do with chaos, if that's what u had in mind.
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that's not the original meaning, stop consulting diction-aries. we don't call them definition-aries for a reason. these sources do not define, but dictate what words should mean, not what they really mean.
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You asked what I had in mind.
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the word chaos is much more fitting for proper english. when a population is taken over by some external monarchy, it starts changing the language. we must stay vigilant.
End of the world doom and gloom
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Her statements about price gouging are indefensible
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excuse me, return to where?
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Accelerated decline
USA will never survive or recover from President Kamala because of her Marxist ideology and low intelligence
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Bitcoin helps you change and keep your mentality focused on the future, instead of the now.
In terms of writing posts, I would say Bitcointalk and SN both make you write better posts in general. Of course there will be lots of spam, but there are so many gems in both places...
Bitcoin also reminds you about the power of being self sufficient.
You don't need a bank, those extremely wealthy people are constantly taking the money from everyone in every single transaction (MasterCard, VISA, etc). Bitcoin changes that model, you pay directly to another person, just like cash, but electronically. Much better.
It's really a game changer. But I still think that most people are not into it.
We kinda recently moved from a cash society into a card society. I think it will take some time to become a Bitcoin society.
Although the recent increases in fees from these companies might accelerate this process.
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i think people are starting to really feel the inflation sting , but they're not understanding the true cause, they attribute it to Biden or whatever, when the problem runs much deeper.
sadly, mainstream institutions are fully captured by Keynesian thought and self-discovery is the only way out.
also sadly most people associate btc with shitcoins and all the bad things that went down on exchanges etc .
they just think 'scam' and good luck deprogramming that.
my auntie once said 'i hope you're not involved with bitcoin' as if it was some terrible evil. but this is because the wanks on the news sit there all day saying drug lords use it to launder money. then fucks like Buffet call it rat poison etc
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Yes, with fiat the rich get richer.
Here's a good video from Garys Economics that explains these concepts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkWPXVUteY
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No it hasn't. I have always been a fan of decentralized everything. Even when google launched their android OS and i got a smart phone I didn't like the idea of having my mail linked to my phone linked to youtube linked to the apps I download ... I looked at all the p2p file sharing solutions. I liked Skype when it launched, but even there I didn't like that your identity there was still centralized. I am even more for decentralization than most guys here. I created this for making nostr peer to peer: #668686 . However even there i was met with the same "you don't need this" attitude that I am seeing whole my life when i say to people that i would like to use something that is not centralized. Back in the day I was thinking how p2p money would work and mentally i thought that since data can be copied, you can't really have a decentralized money. In 2009 I found bitcoin, I even got 0.5 btc from some tap for free (that I lost on some formatted hard drive), played around and stopped following it, since I thought this could not scale (I was surprised when lightning network appeared and that's when I started having the mindset that some problems that I can't think the solution of do find their solution). I also don't like the idea that bitcoin (as a token) is just something that isn't really backed by anything (yeah, i know this is a criticism of the anti bitcoin people, but i find it true), but I also changed my mindset on that. Not because anything other but because when I run mental experiments in my head I find all other real (fiat, gold) or imaginary (Paul Grignon's digital coin) solutions way inferior (when put in the real world). So yeah, nothing changed for me and I hope the scalability problem will be really solved (lightning increases greatly scalability, but doesn't offer whole planet scalability).
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this is quite interesting, it seems like a key to understanding btc comes in large part from an understanding or perception of an issue (decentralisation ,fiat printing etc ) so some people got the appeal right away
since i was, maybe like many, asleep at the wheel and not paying attention to any of this , nothing stood out. it was just new thing, number go up, get distracted by shitcoins etc and then a long road of discovery.
still, better late than never i suppose
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The millionaire did not give you bad advice, he only gave you incomplete advice, save 10% in BTC, but well, I think you have portrayed almost all of us who are here. In my case, I approached bitcoin out of economic necessity and due to ignorance, I tried how many shitcoins there were until I lost the little I had earned. Now I only use BTC to save and to acquire goods, which although I do not pay for them directly in BTC, it is still my support.
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the arc of the shitcoin is a learning tax i think for many, i walked away for years but thank god i came back and got smart(er).
my millionaire friend was giving this advice pre bitcoin and he was an accountant, but if he had just explained inflation or something, i could have started learning. i did read the confessions of an economic hitman back then. but i had never heard about Austrian economics etc
the funny thing about that dude is he was from Texas and never bought property and, ironically, in 2007 i was always asking wtf he didn't just pick something up (we were both expats and he was making 20k a month USD, paid apartment and paying 13% tax). i was like you could have one paid off in no time.
looking at what happened to property prices in texas, i bet he regrets that lol
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Yep i thibk that too i have same journey as your
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Thereal 16 Sep
Stacking is my daily goal,
Because Bitcoin made it easier for me to see how I had been a money slave, I am concerned about the people in my immediate community right now. They are angry about the mysterious fiat theft and are blaming everything without knowing who stands to gain economically from it.
It still bothers me that they are constantly exposed to FUD.
However, I think they are watching, and they will soon respond as I did.
I am grateful for the stacker news.
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im going to get some of those inflation stickers and start sticking them around. many people think we're crackpots for even mentioning btc sadly. want to help, but people don't want to hear it a lot of the time
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It has definitely changed my life. Quoting Jesus Christ, he said, "know the truth and the truth will set you free." Jesus himself said that the word of Jehovah is the truth. That truth frees us from the slavery of governments, rotten wealth and false religions.
But Bitcoin is the truth against the slavery of bandit governments, rotten wealth and also false worship.
The financial and government system has always hidden the reality of fiat money from people. I was never taught anything about money or economics, they told the story however they wanted, one thinking that they were close to fulfilling a dream and that dream getting further and further away. My grandparents telling how in their time everyone ate with 20 cents and I trying to understand why with 8000 pesos I can't even support myself.
Bitcoin has taught me not only about economics, history, money and finance, it has taught me that PoW is the only way to get what we want, but when we get it in the form of BTC, it is safe. It has also taught me to teach, to be a better person, to put V4V into practice, something so far from the minds of people who do not know Bitcoin.
It has changed my life for the better. And in the accompaniment of Bitcoin, I have to say MY FRIENDS FROM CUBA_BITCOIN, along with others who know that they have helped me a lot and STACKER NEWS
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nah, bitcoin is money.
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Leaning into Bitcoin has helped me grasp the concept of low time-preference. It made me aware that good things take time and that I should use sats to build a life I believe in rather than make some quick bucks
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I like to say it helped me to discover few things about myself 😉
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Well, from a socialist to libertarianist was a huge hike in one way for sure. But bitcoin is still bigger.
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COMPLETELY
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I regret not realising the full power of Bitcoin sooner. Today we can rely on blockchain technology that has incredible potential that is valid for every sector. And then Bitcoin offers real freedom from this obsolete monetary and economic system. It gives us some hope, anyone can set aside satoshi, slowly, to find themselves a solid asset in the near future. Which is impossible to do with traditional finance because if you invest 100 maybe you get 101.
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Absolutely,
Understanding the value and importance of work.
Focusing my energy on building for the future.
Giving me a unit of account that more accurately depicts reality.
I'm pretty much "Going Galt" and leaving most people, apps, services and routines in clown world, where they belong.
Shout-out to Nostr
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Bitcoin has turned my existence around 3.60 degrees, from knowing what fiat money really is to knowing that Bitcoin has created a revolution and has become the new benchmark for the world economy.
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My experience is that I have a hard time knowing what BTC actually is.
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studying bitcoin means to be on a never-ending pursuit of knowledge, which is inherently hard.
bitcoin supercharged my ability to focus on esoteric knowledge.