I work with a lot of software engineers and tech people, and I have noticed an interesting trend.
I have found that these same people who are eagerly awaiting the next node.js release, pre-ordering the latest gaming devices, or constantly browsing Hacker News for tech updates, are some of the most reluctant to want to understand bitcoin.
Why is this?
From the outside it seems natural that tech people would gravitate towards bitcoin as new and exciting tech, but often when I bring it up they seem to mentally 'shut down' and not want to have anything to do with it. I am not particularly pushy, just talking general ideas and concepts. But often people I have spoken with are not even interested in trying out a wallet or playing around with some free sats.
At a high level I think this because bitcoin fundamentally is not about the tech. The technical aspects such as the distributed ledger, blocks, UTXOs, and consensus can be highlighted in a 10-minute YouTube video and many people already know how this works. The real innovation is the political, philosophical, and second-order considerations for what all of this means.
Fundamentally bitcoin is an anthesis to the current order, requiring a certain critical mindset. Acknowledging the reality and consequences of bitcoin by virtue also acknowledges the fallibility and inevitable collapse of the current system and paradigm. As CBDCs start to become deployed, as currencies inflate and fail, and as authoritarianism creeps into western democracies, the prospect of a changing world order presents an existential question which for many people is far more comfortable to not consider.
Interestingly, this may also explain the continued wasted interest in s**tcoins by otherwise talented developers. People can work on 'blockchain tech' within more structured confines without needing to develop a real political conciousness.
Software and tech people will likely have done well over the last few years as WFH and soaring salaries makes this a highly lucrative career path. However this same corporatisation has captured the tech market massively, meaning the demographics of hackers / developers from the 90s and early 2000s internet and cypherpunk movement are a lot different to the current cohort.
Energy use, tax, and equality are quickly parroted as rote counterpoints to bitcoin, but really they are a knee-jerk justification of intent: "I no longer need to care about this thing you are talking about as it challenges my world view."
I have also found that in general younger people are also a lot less open to understanding bitcoin than older people. I have found explaining bitcoin and its implications to someone who lived and worked through 2008 or Web 1.0 is a lot more straight forward than people who were too young at the time to remember much. This is only exacerbated by the increasing influx of ideology as the legacy order tries to justify itself.
I do see this trend with young people flipping eventually, as more people emerge into a world where bitcoin is naturalised and the issues with the current financial system are more and more obvious. The apathy towards change will get rerouted into a desire to seek out solutions, I hope.
I have experienced exceptions to all of the above ideas, and they are of course generalisations, but it makes me realise the importance of developing nuanced dialogue and discussion for communicating the idea of bitcoin.
– CE