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Comment by krichman | Hacker News Reader

I thought this was funny, but downvoted because it was also rude and unproductive.

I wish we could talk about Bitcoin without saying either 1. that its expected value is negative infinity dollars and pyramid tulip 2. that its expected value is infinity dollars and oppression fiat. I think both sides are well aware of the counter arguments.

But even though that will never happen, I think we can stop short of allowing ad hominems to be acceptable posts.

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Is "uses an online dating service" still an ad hominem? It seems to be a pretty widely used way to meet people these days.

In this case it was obviously intended to be a criticism of Bitcoin enthusiasts. I personally don't see a problem with online dating.

Yes. You'd expect a community such as hacker news to be above the usual nerd-shaming.

You'd expect that from any community, but unfortunately, as much as you'd expect that, that much its not the case, regardless of the community type. Simply put, people are everywhere.

It's called tongue-in-cheek self-referential humor.

Naturally, you'd expect a community such as Hacker News to be below such subtlety. :D

PS: I am a fat nerd wearing a black t-shirt, love bitcoin, and have used OKCupid to get dozens of successful dates over the last 8 years.

Fair enough. I agree it can be funny, just somewhat immature. The line between bullying and "self referential in-group humor" is pretty thin sometimes. I guess it's a bit like sexist jokes, in that some things that are meant as funny can be interpreted wrongly and hurt.

Seriously? You're getting bent out of shape over this??? Despite being very likely true, the statement was funny and targeting just the right people for it to be funny.

Trying to write off the discussion of the speculative bubble nature of bitcoin as "just one side of a polarized debate" is, to my mind, grossly immature. Speculation and runaway inflation are things that are commonplace with currencies and investments, and for a sound currency there very much needs to be a robust and thorough debate on those topics. It does need to be discussed to death. If the argument of bitcoin proponents on the matter is "shut up" then you're doing a disservice to bitcoin.

I think that we can all be pretty certain that inflation is not, and will never be, a problem with bit coin.

While there's some deflation built in as keys get lost and the economy grows, periods of inflation are still possible as bitcoin billionaires start going on shopping sprees.

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