It’s Thursday morning. Almost 8am. I woke up at 6:15 and tried to snooze but was not successful.
I haven’t opened my elegoo computer kit yet. I need to get to it but I was focused on the garden yesterday.
There’s a bitcoin meet up in Boise at the end of the month. I think on the 25th. I doubt I’d attend but I’m interested in seeing what the local Bitcoiners are like. They’re anti alt-coins for sure. They encourage you not to bring them up if you attend. Haha. It sounds like a lot of Bitcoiners are that way.
I don’t think I’m a maxi like these people are. But I’m struggling to argue against the points bitcoin evangelists present. It’s not like church where blind faith is required and you don’t even feel anything in your body indicating what you believe is the truth. This is different. This not only triggers the “I believe this data” feeling but listening to the data and exploring more of it leads to further conviction that this probably is a solution to a lot of our modern problems.
That said I feel like a lot of speakers in this arena say that. This solves this. While I understand it will solve problems I wonder what the unintended consequences of those problem’s resolutions will be? The world will get used to the new way and new problems with rear their heads to keep us busy. So what problems would arise in a purely sound money future?
A lot of the opponents of sound money fear that it will all accrue to the 1%. It will. There’s a bell curve for this stuff. Or even the Pareto distribution. But that’s the same with Fiat or government money. It accumulates more or less in line with the Pareto principle. The opponents think that this distribution occurs because of some top down control, but if they would observe nature they’d see it happens in spite of attempts to control the outcome.
The problem with a lot of the opponents is they want control. They for whatever reasons feel like they’ve been marginalized or overlooked and they need significance. Once they find some significance in the form of societal influence they try to control the behaviors of others. For good or bad reasons. It’s commonly agreed that you shouldn’t drink and drive. It’s not commonly agreed that you shouldn’t drink. Science/health data says you shouldn’t. What am I getting at? Some control emerges from the obvious best practices. The group intuitively knows some truths about life paths and will shame you to keep you on that path. It didn’t come from a dictator. Just culture. That culture could come from a dictator if the borders are closed but otherwise it’s difficult to imagine emergent group intelligence being controlled precisely.
Demagogs try and often find themselves hoist on their own petard. I love that phrase. I’m not sure where I learned it. Maybe pink panther or the great race. Anyways… this all comes to mind because folks who I once had in my orbit due to social media could be observed changing their behaviors based on their group’s opinions. Those groups tended to be political. One month some technology was amazing and worth exploring. The next month all mentions of it were erased, content explaining their folly and rationalizing their pivoted stance to their new enemy were posted, social credits were earned. But they’re all meaningless.
All they were doing was echoing their tribe and losing a fan in the process. I should know what it means to echo one’s tribe. I suffer from attention seeking. When I find myself in a community I’m immediately unconsciously forced to peacock. I need to stand out and find my niche. If I can’t I can’t be a part of that community. When it begins to control my behaviors enough that it feels as restrictive as it did when I was a child attending church, I flee to freedom.
I tend to avoid groups these days. I take care of my kids, I tend my parents property, I learn what I can, and I try to improve my skill sets that I genuinely use on a daily basis or aspire to use one day. It’s difficult. I’m sure I have cognitive biases I don’t understand yet. But I will endeavor to seek the truth in all things, and I hope others will too.