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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @aljaz OP 18 May \ parent \ on: What makes society thrive? BooksAndArticles
This has been something I've been thinking a lot about and I think studying bitcoin alone is definitely not enough because I feel it can put people into false sense of security and passive approach to things. Low time preference, hodling and ngu have pacified people into "ahh i'll just wait and shitpost and bitcoin will fix everything" instead of realizing that now we have the tools to fight back. To some extent bitcoin is making people lazy because if they were early enough or had enough disposable income they are so much better off than an average person that its easy to just enjoy the spoils and see the world rot.
Until now we have mostly just applied fiat things to bitcoin world and thus havent really figured out a way to show people something that would instantly make them convert to believers (silk road is an eample of things that worked with bitcoin but not before and every user of it got it instantly because it solved a problem in a much better way)
now we have the tools to fight back
It is not a fight, it becomes a game. A really really funny game when one learn and play with the rules.
Until now we have mostly just applied fiat things to bitcoin world
Ad that's what is continuously happening, unfortunately people do not know better and continue to register businesses in the fiat world, putting some B logo here ad there ad calling themselves bitcoin business. The B in these cases stands for BS.
The approach silk road took was the right one, unfortunately someone did not like it because of the items sold. But that's just a detail. The platform offered a service, people decided what to sell... everything worked.
My question still unanswered, what else can we provide or facilitate to achieve the goal? How can we better teach people to do business in the private realm?
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i think the problem is that we want to teach people to do business in private realm instead of making it obvious to them why they should
we need to make it clear and demonstratable that free private markets are the superior solution on their merits, not just the fact that they are private. This is obviously the case just by the fact that if you're not paying taxes (or at least less taxes) your business is much more profitable/needs less resources etc. But then it becomes a problem of spotlights etc.
Essentially I think building out communities and invite only systems is the only way, which to some extent you're already doing with agora territory. We need to build communities (irl and online) that can generate a decent amount of demand for services to pop up there.
I think most people like to do business in private by default, they just don't put a label on it. I don't meet a lot of small business owners who don't like cash for their services instead of a card payment (most of the times with decent discount on the cash payment). I've stayed in a lot of places where the concept of an invoice was a foreign one for most services (it would be either cash of revolut for payments), but i'm sure noone there thought of "oh we're doing business in private realm". They just don't give a shit and local enforcement of tax codes was non existent. Basically supporting small businesses instead of big corporations and paying in cash everywhere is the foundation of this. I'd stay away from trying to force bitcoin down peoples throats for in person payments or payments in general. This tends to alienate people more than anything else at this point. Obviously if you do it Darth style and pay someone in bitcoin and they give you services on a regular basis thats great and should be encouraged, but the two should not be tied together.
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i think the problem is that we want to teach people to do business in private realm instead of making it obvious to them why they should
isn't the latest part of the former?
The main issue I see is that people do not know—even worse, hardly disbelieve—that contracts are NOT regulated by governments. Furthermore, that there's the gov system of courts to take care in case anything goes wrong, that they can open a lawsuit for whatever reason. Discharging in this way their moral responsibilities and obligations defined in the contract itself.
The case you rise is currently working in small local communities outside the eyesight of legal enforcers. And that's great, I agree, there are plenty of cases around the world where this happens. What are the numbers thought? I believe are a tiny minority.
I see the main issue here is to teach people moral core values that define the core of human behaviors, because honestly, the current ones aren't working. What I'd like to focus is probably younger generations, due to the fact that for the majority of us, adults men and women, it is already probably too late to unlearn and re-learn how to live. Because at the end of the day, as I said earlier, life is about dealing and trading, not only good and services, but also emotions and relations with ourselves and others in a community.
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