On a silly piece I just saw on Forbes \ stacker news ~bitcoin

pull down to refresh

On a silly piece I just saw on Forbes micah-warren.ghost.io/on-the-stupid-piece-that-forbes-published-2/

566 sats \ 16 comments \ @k00b 7 Dec bitcoin

If you assume from the start that everybody is going to eventually buy Bitcoin, sure, you should buy it first. But if you're not stuck in this forever loop, you don't need to play, and you can ignore other nations buying Bitcoin. If you assume everybody in the world is going to speak Esperanto; you should probably learn Esperanto as soon as possible.

It does seem like a stupid circular argument that people will buy bitcoin because people will buy bitcoin, but is it? We buy bitcoin because it's a better money, presuming other people will recognize it as such. People aren't compelled to use better money, but why wouldn't they? And doesn't a money become better money as more people recognize it as such?

view all related items

1437 sats \ 4 replies \ @gnilma 7 Dec

From his writing, the author gives me the impression that he does not believe bitcoin is a good idea nor a better idea compared to other monetary technologies (primarily gold). With that premise set in mind, his arguments will naturally be against the adoption of bitcoin, because according to him, it is not a good idea.

You are absolutely correct, many of us adopt bitcoin not just because of NGU, but probably mainly because it is better technology and a better idea than other monetary technologies. But he will never see it the way we do until he sees bitcoin as a better idea.

An example outlining his bias from his piece:

Bitcoin is not gold Gold cannot be attacked by someone producing faster computer chips.

It's as if designing and fabricating cutting edge chips is easy. The dude clearly has no idea about foundry construction and the expertise required to run them. Let alone understand the cost and time required for semiconductor design. It's easy to type up a line to say "just produce more faster chips", it's another thing to actually produce them. By that logic, I could argue gold is not bitcoin. Bitcoin cannot be attacked by someone mining more gold from digging more gold mines. Better yet, just shoot a rocket into space and mine gold from asteroids, easy.

231 sats \ 2 replies \ @ek 7 Dec

It’s like arguing against gold by saying it can be attacked by fusing atoms together.

115 sats \ 1 reply \ @gnilma 7 Dec

I feebly brought up asteroid mining, but you brought the argument to another level by introducing material creation via atomic fusion. Easy peasy, simply fuse iron (Fe 26) with iodine (I 53) to make gold (Au 79), amiright?

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 7 Dec

Central banks hate this simple trick

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @0231bbfa83 9 Dec freebie

This statement about computer chips has nothing to do with foundries, it's something that is immediately obvious if you read the white paper.

The question is not whether one can go out and produce 1 trillion exohash by tomorrow morning.... more of a question of, what happens if in late 2046 there is a fallow period in the AI boom, and someone takes an opportunity and spends $100 million to produce enough chips to wreck the system. You don't need to be expert on VLSI to understand that what is expensive to make today will probably be cheap to make in the future, and also that we can't predict the market swings and geopolitical economics in the future. What if China invades Taiwan?

89 sats \ 2 replies \ @jakoyoh629 7 Dec

To my disappointment, more than 90% of my acquaintances who are familiar with Bitcoin see it solely as an investment.

50 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 7 Dec

Same here. Some will progress past that. Some wont

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 7 Dec

I think that the problem is they are thinking in fiat all the time. They are not flexible enough to look through the binoculars using the small end to their eyes. They like the big end to eyes, thus only seeing fiat.

17 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 7 Dec

It seems like this is an argument that someone would make if they are just not interested in getting into bitcoin. They will make whatever excuse to not buy, and will always tell you when bitcoin is dipping.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 7 Dec

Why not? Isn’t it an ego contest? To belittle an idea makes them feel good. They won’t feel good when the time comes to notice their fiat is good only for heating and toilet usage.

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 7 Dec

Truly silly.

31 sats \ 3 replies \ @ek 7 Dec

I wonder why so many people don’t consider the possibility that they might be wrong about something and hedge their bets.

In the case of Bitcoin, being against it but still buying some 'in case it catches on' seems like the safer bet. So even if you don’t understand bitcoin, it still makes sense to buy some.

But this might also lead to a circular argument.

16 sats \ 0 replies \ @denlillaapan 7 Dec

Easier to go with the status quo. Cognitive dissonance + OPP cost of learning/doing hard things.

The pain of being "wrong" by abstaining is less than the pain of trying to figure out something new.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @0231bbfa83 9 Dec freebie

Name a cryptocurrency, any of the 10,000, and then apply this argument.

You can do a version of pascals wager to every God or to one God, or you can not do it at all

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 7 Dec

I guess you could call it arrogance! They are so convinced of their rightness that they can see nothing else. This is a trap if you need to be flexible at times. I don’t think these people have ever been involved in dealing in or with commodities: sometimes you have to hedge your bets because the future is unknown.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @000w2 8 Dec

You can ignore the better money, but you can't ignore the consequences of others using the better money.