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te_platt

Setting aside the contents of the article for a moment, I find the tone fascinating. Consider these phrases:

"everything wrong with Silicon Valley"

"crypto-libertarian political agenda that smacks of nerds-do-it-better paternalism"

"intellectual sinkhole"

"near-total obliviousness to reality"

"alarmingly magical thinking"

"unchecked predatory capitalism"

"short-sighted hypercapitalism"

There are interesting conversations to have around bitcoins but I can't quite put my finger on why they tend to get so intense.

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Freedom is a terrifying thing to people who have a naturally authoritarian mindset.

I don't personally believe that Bitcoin is the road to some techno-utopia. Frankly, I expect that ultimately it will just be a blip on the radar; but there's no reason to get so angry about it unless its fundamentally a scary idea. Its a direct challenge to the authoritarian worldview and that's frightening.

I don't think it's accurate to characterize the OP as criticizing (or being terrified by, for that matter) the freedom offered by Bitcoin as if freedom is a bad thing. Rather, he argues (somewhat convincingly) that the freedom offered by Bitcoin is of most value to the people who are already rich enough (either in time, resources, or USD) to profit from speculation, asic mining, and other aspects of the Bitcoin market.

The freedom provided by this new financial system does nothing to enrich the people who are imperiled by the existing financial system; quite the opposite, the lack of regulations endangers them because they are not highly educated, rational financiers so they have increased exposure to risk/fraud.

I don't find it convincing at all.

When I was in college, I hated banks. Once I bought a cup of coffee for $2 only to find I had racked up $40 worth of NSF fees accidentally. I'm sure this happens to poor folks all the time. Poor people often don't use banks because banks prey on the poor and often make them poorer.

Why didn't I just use cash? Because I wanted to buy things online, accept payments from others, and didn't want to carry cash around all the time.

If Bitcoin was less volatile, it would actually do a good job of solving some of the issues faced by poorer "underbanked" people.

I'm with you on all the stuff about why banks are awful. They are awful.

The problem is that it is an incredibly difficult leap to even imagine a potential universe where Bitcoin is better for the people currently victimized by banks. At present, it is massively, catastrophically worse for them. The volatility is only one of a numerous set of problems that apply there.

I'm still interested to see how it will get used to solve real problems, but the protocol itself is at best a single tool that can be used to construct a system that actually helps the poor and the underbanked.

> At present, it is massively, catastrophically worse for them.

It has been less than four years since Bitcoin was invented. Looking at every major invention at age four, how many of them would be unequivocal successes for the group of people that eventually benefitted? Four years after the invention of computer networking, I'm sure computer networks were much worse than libraries for people doing research projects. Likewise with automobiles and travelers, airplanes and travelers, etc.

That sounds exactly like the kind of wishful thinking the OP is railing against. For "retail" folk who are having trouble navigating through regular life without getting screwed by their regular bank account, what does bitcoin offer? Less than nothing. Bitcoins may have their uses, but it is primarily an advantage to very sophisticated persons (or criminals).

>>If Bitcoin was less volatile, it would actually do a good job of solving some of the issues faced by poorer "underbanked" people.

Bitcoin won't help poor people _directly_, but when it stabilizes I can think of at least a few ways it can help them indirectly. Another start-up company with a bitcoin backend challenging Western Union. All the not-wealthy immigrants who want to send money home without western-union's fees. Or maybe even bitcoin credit cards? Avoid the whole Visa/MasterCard infrastructure and whatever fees/rules it has. Of course, I still don't know how to deal with fraud & chargebacks..... so....

I think there are several vastly different levels of "rich people." While I think Bitcoin right now mostly benefits the middle class with disposable income, I also think it is, at least conceptually, a huge threat to the very rich, specifically the people in the financial sector whose wealth comes from their close ties with the governments that control the world's monetary systems and economies.

Technically the only way Bitcoin can threaten the very rich is if it directly undermines the value of their assets. How exactly will it do that if, right now, any one of them can sink a huge amount of USD into amassing a Bitcoin stockpile (either by buying lots of ASICs or buying them directly)? There are literal examples of this already - the Winklevoss twins have claimed to own over 1% of all Bitcoins, effectively converting some of their massive USD wealth into BTC. Even if you were to undermine the existing monetary systems, any rich person that saw it coming would easily be able to amass a giant BTC stockpile and ride it out. In that scenario, they would not stand to lose very much in a BTC transition, as long as they saw it coming before USD's value was completely destroyed.

The 'very rich' can afford to spend extravagantly to acquire bitcoins, and can afford to do so at 'a loss' if they actually have some good reason to convert money from other currencies to BTC. The average poor or middle-class person who has bitcoins to sell will be unlikely to turn down an offer to buy BTC at above market prices or similar other arrangements.

You can argue that Bitcoin is a threat to the revenue streams that the 'very rich' rely on to become wealthy and stay wealthy; however, it is mostly a threat in that it displaces those revenue streams. Speculators that currently work in things tied to USD can just as easily do their speculation against BTC; you do nothing to put those people out of work. Investors, likewise, are not somehow directly threatened by a Bitcoin-based economy. It's just currency to them.

Why do you think banks and governments have been so hostile to Bitcoin? Do you think it is the desire to protect the citizens for their own good, or is it to maintain control? For a quick benchmark, I would also ask a similar question: why do you think the US government spies on its citizens?

Right. Who has rallied hard against BTC? The Chinese government and Bloomberg News. Are those people you trust?

IMO, what gets people raging against bitcoin (me included), is that it has "that smell".

By this I mean a certain likeness to many other speculative schemes that came before. I remember reading somewhere that Groucho Marx had lost a significant portion of his assets in the stock market in the 20s, because he had invested without knowing what he was doing at a time when everybody was investing without knowing what they were doing.

The tone of much of the writings these days that push Bitcoins leads me to believe that we might be heading in a similar direction with Bitcoin. Now imagine yourself in the position of a person that thinks as I do. Wouldn't you say that some of the hurrah-praise of Bitcoin in technology corner to me might reek of hubris?

Too many people wanting to get rich quick. Too much fluctuation. Too much speculation.

But there's a big difference between advising against wistful investment in Bitcoin as if there's guaranteed payoffs, and denying that Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough in technology.

You could say the same thing about the dot com scene around 2000. It was overvalued, but that doesn't mean it had no value.

People don't just tolerate government, or think it's necessary, or even appreciate government. Most people in the world love government, and respond passionately against any perceived threat to the existence or steady growth of government. Government is in first place, ahead of organized religion, in the race to obtain the most passionate, unquestioning, dedicated followers.

Most people neither love nor hate "government" particularly, rather, they take it for granted as an essential feature of society and have preference for what it does and does not do.

There are some people who are genuinely anti-government, and more people who are against government doing particular, broadly popular things and find it easier to adopt a rhetorical "anti-government" stance in advocating against these function than to advocate against them specifically.

On the other side, people rarely -- either honestly or as rhetorical cover for another position -- advocate for government qua government, rather than for particular government action. This suggests that people tend to have a, if any opinion on government as a general thing, a negative opinion, which can be more positive when it comes to particular government actions.

I disagree. I really do think that most people have a deep love for government, or at least their own government. People love taxes (although they often think the taxes on themselves are too high), they consider government to be virtuous ("who would take care of the poor without government"), and they believe that (and are grateful that) they are completely dependent on government for their own welfare and safety. It's not surprising, given the large amount of resources that governments spend on making people love government.

Now obviously I'm not saying that people are for any type of government or any specific action of government. But most people will adamantly defend the goodness and necessity of government in the face of any undesirable action or aspect of a particular government. It's very common to hear phrases like "democracy isn't perfect, but it's the best system there is," or "if you don't like something, you can vote to change it," or "government represents the people," etc.

> I really do think that most people have a deep love for government

I believe that the examples you give, to the extent tht they are valid at all, support my idea (that people take government for granted but have positive or negative views of government doing particular things) more than yours (that people love government).

> People love taxes (although they often think the taxes on themselves are too high),

This particular one I think is garbage. People tend to think that some level of taxation is necessary, because they think that some government functions are necessary. That's different than "lving taxes" in a general sense.

> they consider government to be virtuous ("who would take care of the poor without government")

Thinking that government is an essential mechanism for a desirable function does not mean that they think government is "virtuous". Or that government qua government (as opposed to particular governments or particular people in goverment) is even the kind of entity to which "virtue" or "vice" could meaningfully apply.

> and they believe that (and are grateful that) they are completely dependent on government for their own welfare and safety

I've certainly observed some people believing that certain government functions are desirable because they contribute to welfare or safety, but I've never encountered anyone that both viewed themselves as completely dependent on government for anything that did not resent that complete dependence, nor have I seen many people that show any signs of feeling completely dependent on government for welfare or security.

> It's very common to hear phrases like "democracy isn't perfect, but it's the best system there is,"

That's not a defense of government, that's a statement that given the inevitability of government, one particular way of organizing government is better than the alternatives.

> or "if you don't like something, you can vote to change it,"

That's a statement of an route of problem resolution available in a particular form of government, not a statement in favor of government qua government.

> or "government represents the people,"

I've never heard that statement made in a general sense (the closest is the observation that all governments are ultimately limited in power to what those subject to their power will tolerate), though I've heard similar statements about particular governments or forms of government, or as normative statements about what government should do.

> People tend to think that some level of taxation is necessary, because they think that some government functions are necessary. That's different than "lving taxes" in a general sense.

I simply disagree. I think most people believe that without taxation (i.e. without forcefully taking funds from people who aren't willing to give, even if that's only a small portion of the tax base), many things which are generally considered good (like care for the poor, infrastructure, public defense, etc.) simply cannot exist. To me, that is equivalent to "loving taxes."

Granted, the word "love" is a very complex and vague one, so perhaps I should have phrased it differently, like "people are intensely thankful for government."

> but I've never encountered anyone that both viewed themselves as completely dependent on government for anything that did not resent that complete dependence, nor have I seen many people that show any signs of feeling completely dependent on government for welfare or security.

I hear it quite often. My father believes very sincerely that military conscription is a great thing, because without it no region of people could hope to survive due to the threat of invasion and attack. People are also gratefully dependent on simpler things like food and drug regulations, public transportation, and even government postal services. I think most people sincerely believe that, without government, there is no way to have a stable, thriving, "civilized" society. I have even often heard people say things like "without government, we are just apes beating each other to death with sticks."

Honestly, apart from the people I have met (mostly online) who are explicitly against the existence of the state (who are obviously in a tiny minority), I don't know of anyone who doesn't think of government as the most fundamental and primary cause for the enjoyability of modern society.

> I simply disagree.

The only way you seem to disagree, now that you provide more detail, is that you use the word "love" in a bizarre way.

> I think most people believe that without taxation (i.e. without forcefully taking funds from people who aren't willing to give, even if that's only a small portion of the tax base), many things which are generally considered good (like care for the poor, infrastructure, public defense, etc.) simply cannot exist.

That's exactly what I said -- people believe that some government functions are desirable, and that taxation is necessary to those functions. That's very different than loving taxation, by any normal use of language.

> To me, that is equivalent to "loving taxes."

This is where we disagree. I think that, as I am overweight, continuing to lose weight is desirable. I believe that without controlling both the quantity I eat and what it is that I eat, that weight loss will not occur.

This is not equivalent to "loving dieting".

> Granted, the word "love" is a very complex and vague one, so perhaps I should have phrased it differently, like "people are intensely thankful for government."

I think you'd still be wrong.

People aren't "thankful for government" in some generalized sense, they are thankful for particular governments taking particular actions (and, quite often, the same people are also resentful of the same government taking different actions, and often broadly disapproving of even the existence of many other governments.)

This is essentially (among other errors) the fallacy of composition -- taking something that is true of some component (some particular action by some particular government) of a larger category (government in general) and treating it as if it was true of the larger category as such.

I've frequently seen this in the particular area of feelings about government from people whose own feelings are anti-government, and I think its easily understandable as an instance of the natural tendency to think that the things one thinks of as important subjects of positive or negative (in this case, "government" as such) are the same thing others think of as important, and that differences are all in the direction of feelings rather than their subject.

> that you use the word "love" in a bizarre way.

Is it really that bizarre? I obviously didn't intend to invoke the romantic or familial definition of the word, which leaves the more general definition. As I clarified, I mean that most people attribute most things that are good about the world (on all scales larger than the individual or family), and thus are extremely thankful for government. I don't think it's bizarre to describe this as "love."

> That's exactly what I said -- people believe that some government functions are desirable, and that taxation is necessary to those functions. That's very different than loving taxation, by any normal use of language.

No, I don't think it is. Would you agree that people would use the opposite word, "hate," to describe the act of removing taxes and thus (in their minds) removing the possibility of having all these nice things like welfare and infrastructure?

> This is not equivalent to "loving dieting".

There is a subtle difference, because the act of dieting is a purely personal decision that essentially only affects the dieter. It's more analogous to one's personal amount of taxation, which I already conceded is not widely loved. But even so, if dieting is the only effective way of acquiring a healthy weight, then it's not unreasonable to love that fact. It would certainly be vastly preferable to having no way of acquiring a healthy weight.

> People aren't "thankful for government" in some generalized sense, they are thankful for particular governments taking particular actions (and, quite often, the same people are also resentful of the same government taking different actions, and often broadly disapproving of even the existence of many other governments.)

I have already addressed this. I never said that people are thankful for any and all government actions. I said that people are thankful for government, because government does things they believe are overwhelming good and that could not be done without government.

> This is essentially (among other errors) the fallacy of composition -- taking something that is true of some component (some particular action by some particular government) of a larger category (government in general) and treating it as if it was true of the larger category as such.

Absolutely not. The key here is that people believe that only government can do the things that they are thankful for. They think that no government means a bad society. It would be a fallacy of composition if I said "people like social welfare programs, therefore people like governments since governments provide social welfare programs." But it's no longer a fallacy of composition if I assume that only governments can possible provide social welfare programs.

> The key here is that people believe that only government can do the things that they are thankful for.

Believing that government is essential for some desirable things does not mean loving government (or even having any emotion at all about government as such), any more than believign that government is essential for some undesirable things (a belief shared by many of the same people) means hating government.

> It would be a fallacy of composition if I said "people like social welfare programs, therefore people like governments since governments provide social welfare programs." But it's no longer a fallacy of composition if I assume that only governments can possible provide social welfare programs.

Yes, it is still exactly the fallacy of composition, the same way that "People hate aggressive wars, and people believe only governments can launch aggressive wars, so people hate government" is the fallacy of composition.

People can like or dislike things for which they see government as necessary without liking or disliking government. It is exactly the fallacy of composition to conflate like or dislike of particular actions of government with like or dislike of government, regardless of whether or not government is essential those actions.

I find your analysis of the fallacy of composition to be ridiculous. Again, I am not saying "people love infrastructure, therefore people love governments." I am saying "people love governments because they believe governments are the only way to have infrastructure." This isn't a fallacy, it's a true description of what many people actually believe and would openly admit to believing.

> the same way that "People hate aggressive wars, and people believe only governments can launch aggressive wars, so people hate government" is the fallacy of composition.

That's not a fallacy either. It just happens to be false, namely because most people don't hate aggressive wars.

> But most people will adamantly defend the goodness and necessity of government in the face of any undesirable action or aspect of a particular government.

You make that sound like a bad thing, but it really depends what the discussion is like. If someone criticizes the government and someone else responds with a smarmy comment like "hey, stop whining or move to Somalia" then yeah, that's just blind patriotism.

On the other hand, if someone says "The government did X wrong, therefore government is bad and should be dismantled," then I would say it's perfectly logical to respond with "Government also does Y and Z, which are both good, so maybe it's worth trying to reform rather than demolish." I wouldn't consider that blind patriotism, but rather a "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" style of reasoning. I'm not trying to take either side here (what kind of government we need or don't need is a valid open question), but arguing that government is still necessary despite failures in the system does not make someone a shameless government apologist; it can also be seen as a pragmatic position.

> I would say it's perfectly logical to respond with "Government also does Y and Z, which are both good, so maybe it's worth trying to reform rather than demolish."

Certainly so. That's why the libertarian/anarchist/anarcho-capitalist (whatever you want to call it) arguments I am most attracted to are the ones that attempt to show why societies without governments can also do Y and Z, and perhaps do them more effectively than governments. I dislike the more prominent libertarian line of argument, which appeals to "natural rights" and morality, and basically says "I don't care if government is the only way to do Y and Z, government shouldn't do it because it violates my rights."

I have no idea who these people are that you're talking about, but I don't think I've ever met a single one of them.

Have you met many people from the United States?

See, to me, "freedom" from a democratically elected government (which is by no definition authoritarian) sounds more like good-old oppressive feudalism. It was far worse than anything a democratic government has ever done. I see a strong, regulating, democratic government as liberating me from oppressive corporations. And we're not talking about the middle ages. The US suffered greatly under the oppressive power of the robber barons only 100 years ago. People like Carnegie, Frick, Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan and Rockefeller ruthlessly exploited an entire country, and it took a lot of effort and the courage of Teddy Roosevelt to free America from those people through regulation.

I don't understand how people in a country freed from corporate oppression by government regulation a mere century ago can think that doing away with regulation can "free" you from anything.

That's really insightful. Well put.

Indulge me here for a bit; but how does a multi-million dollar investment (raised from the same existing authoritarian framework) into Bitcoins make it anti-authoritarian?

Best case scenario is that this is a good hedge with decent risks, worst case scenario is that it is a worthwhile asset class to manipulate at a lower cost compared to other asset classes.

EDIT: I don't agree with the larger tone of the article, but there are merit-worthy points that are made in it.

I never claimed that Coinbase, the company you seem to be referring to, was anti-authoritarian: only that the idea of Bitcoin itself was. Coinbase is, as you said, very much a product of the existing framework.

Bitcoin's creator satoshi wrote extensively about economics and politics and, to my understanding, its invention was explicitly anti-authoritarian.

But you do recognize that people are buying Bitcoins using the day-to-day authoritarian tools, right? This is the equivalent of popularization of denims as a statement of rebellion from the 1970s; or the prevalence of Che Guevara tees in capitalist nations. Gives you that warm fuzzy feeling, but, in reality, it is no different from anything else.

Of course. As bitcoin isn't a viable currency and no one is really conducting btc->btc transactions, paying salaries in btc or anything else, the only method of utilizing them is going through the traditional, already existing banking infrastructure.

The only part that I may slightly disagree with is that unlike the case of denim or Che shirts, there is at least a theoretical endgame that escapes the traditional framework.

Note that I don't think bitcoin will reach that endgame, but I think that is a slight distinction.

Replying to the reply to my parent comment, since I seem to have reached HN's nesting limit.

Forms of control are not always very direct. Let us, hypothetically, say the big state actors jump in to take control of 80% of the available bitcoins available, under various entities, they have control and authority and little accountability.

This is already a reality in some equity markets, where retail investors are under 20% and rest of the players are institutional players. It will take much lesser than what it takes to move a large equity market, to move BT.

There is a good reason why there is no global barter system. It simply won't work at that scale. A global barter system -- that would be truly subversive.

I've noticed this, too. There's often a violent rejection of bitcoin at an intensity that doesn't correlate to how much it's hurt them. In fact, the nastiest remarks about bitcoin come from people that own zero bitcoins.

My theory is that the more something challenges your world view, the more violently against something you will be.

When you're confronted with people getting rich off of other's unfettered optimism with zero grounding in reality while you see the truth of the matter, it can drive you batty.

It's like trying to explain to an 8 year old why Justin Beiber is just a fad. They have their hopes and dreams tied up in something you can't battle no matter how hard you argue.

I don't think it's appropriate to tell an 8-year-old they should be listening to better music. Why would you argue with such intensity over something that, presumably, doesn't or won't affect you in the least.

It's interesting that you point to music, one of the most subjective and deeply personal areas of human culture, as your analogy for supposed objective qualities of Bitcoin.

I think the Justin Beiber analogy is probably pretty good. Certainly there are adults that get rather upset over what children like to listen to.. but should they? I am not a Justin Beiber fan, but why in the world would anyone waste their time being upset that other people are?

The fact that there are adults who get upset that children like Justin Beiber probably suggests that irrational negative reactions do not necessarily suggest that there is an element of feeling as though your political ideology is being threatened (as others and myself have already suggested in this discussion).

Most people who are not interested or excited about bitcoin are also not threatened or offended by it. They don't write articles about it because they just think it is a silly fad.

Only people who really care one way or the other are going to be bothered to write about their feelings towards it.

(I own no bitcoin, but am not threatened by it either. It is fun to watch and read about, and I'm not getting hurt so I don't see any reason to be angry at it.)

> There are interesting conversations to have around bitcoins but I can't quite put my finger on why they tend to get so intense.

It's because it's more a religious discussion than a rational debate. You see the exact same pattern of phrasing used by proponents of Bitcoin, by American fundamentalists and spinoffs, and by atheists who are actively pushing for the complete removal of religion.

I've given up learning anything useful about Bitcoin since I don't find any of the people talking about it trustworthy.

Why not just read about Bitcoin itself, on a technical level? All politics and economics aside, it's a remarkable technical achievement, even if you just phrase the problem it solves as "how can we coordinate and agree upon a list of arbitrary transactions without a central authority that we have to agree to trust?"

Obviously, anyone who realized that Bitcoin provides a solution to this problem will immediately theorize that it could potentially replace things in the world they don't like (and thus really like Bitcoin), and anyone who likes those things which could be replaced will really dislike Bitcoin, and maybe most of them will be so passionate that they become untrustworthy. But still, the technical marvel of Bitcoin is still there and can still be enjoyed.

The technical side of Bitcoin isn't interesting to me, unfortunately. For a programmer, I am woefully cursed with an interest in social issues.

I kinda wish we had a Castronova-style petri dish virtual world to experiment with, but that still doesn't isolate variables well enough, nor would it be quite inclusive enough, to form conclusions I'd accept as legitimate.

So it's a chicken and the egg problem...Bitcoin provides a platform of trust, but you don't trust anyone enough to explain it to you.

Edit: I hear you below! :) I should have clarified that Bitcoin will GIVE WAY to a way to trust people through their monetary transactions. Think credit agencies and lobbyists.

Bitcoin doesn't provide a platform of trust for explaining concepts. It provides a platform of trust for monetary transactions.

It's like a preacher once told me. God is good because the Bible says so. The Bible is right because God says so. At no point is there anyone qualified to say, "Look. This is God and this is what he's doing. Come to your own conclusion."

Edited to add:

> I should have clarified that Bitcoin will GIVE WAY to a way to trust people through their monetary transactions. Think credit agencies and lobbyists.

That's still a different problem. If I give someone a million dollars, that doesn't make me trust them to teach me truthful information; it makes me trust them to teach me the truth as they know it. A preacher will tell me God is good whether or not I've given them a million dollars. That doesn't actually verify that God is, in fact, good.

The blogger has an incredibly malicious attitude towards individual people.

Everyone is ruining everything, everybody is bad, and we ought to regulate everything to fix it. Because somehow bureaucrats are immune from whatever ails people that are seeking the pursuit of happiness.

The blog post is disconnected from reality in so many places that I couldn't even begin to respond.

Somebody who kept their thinking connected to reality would have a pretty hard time getting to those kinds of views in the first place.

I don't understand why you think a person with experience in the banking and software industries who wrote a detailed post sharing thoughts on Bitcoin and surrounding culture, with links to reference material that he believes supports his argument, is 'disconnected from reality'. All I see in your post is a really weak generalization of the themes of his post in an attempt to undermine them.

Because he is disconnected from reality. The post is absolutely chock full of mistaken and fantastic premises.

It's just an observation I've made. People will have to agree or disagree based on their own judgement.

I acknowledge that I am not providing any evidence for this. It wouldn't be worth the effort to me of deconstructing his post sentence by sentence.

~sigh~

Enough.

Save your unsupported observations and your fucking breath.

Your contributions and the contributions of other libertarians in this thread amount to little more than endlessly bleating that (in the opinion of the greedy), greed couldn't possibly have led to financial calamities, and that impediments to greed like democratically elected governments and legislated, popular laws are to blame for financial calamities....the disasters that history has shown repeatedly arise only when those same laws are weakened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Economic_disasters_in_...

> ~sigh~ Enough. Save your unsupported observations and your fucking breath.

I think this kind of statement speaks for itself.

> other libertarians

I'm not a libertarian. I think libertarians are terribly mistaken.

> the disasters that history has shown repeatedly arise only when those same laws are weakened

That's right. When "deregulation" actually means something like "let's allow private ownership and operation of a coropration that has a government-granted regulatory monopoly," it is a total disaster. You have to get rid of coersion from the market completely for it to function as a market. So I agree with you---a mixed economy is complete and utter crap.

It's because Bitcoin is truly a massive political issue, with the potential to completely overhaul existing power dynamics. It is Establishment Leftism vs everyone else, and the battle lines are being drawn.

If there's anyone more irrational and emotional that a Bitcoin fan, it's someone who dislikes Bitcoin. I'm not sure where all the vitriol comes from, and I'm not sure where the straw man arguments come from.

I suppose the intensity is interesting, but I'm not crazy about focusing fully on the tone of an argument. You didn't set aside the contents of the article for a moment, you completely set them aside to make a point about tone.

The author is working for Simple which is "Worry free alternative for traditional banking".

The author is no longer involved with Simple, and he notes this in the article, so you would have known that if you had read the article.

And I'm sure he's severed all his ties to the payment space, right? No more friends or stocks at Simple? No future ventures planned?

If not, he's got a very good reason to talk down Bitcoin, since it's catching on and he's smart enough to recognize the threat that this poses to traditional banks and banking.

Add to that his political biases, and there's no way he could ever form a positive opinion of Bitcoin, no matter how innovative or positive a force in society.

Helianthus:

>Chase has 2.5 trillion in assets. It does not care about Bitcoin.

You sure about that? Check out this thread, and all the Bitcoin businesses who have been shut down. Chase has banned all Bitcoin-related businesses. Doesn't sound like ignoring to me.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1t0yk5/final_word_f...

Truth is, anyone who's been paying attention knows that banks have been systematically shutting down Bitcoin related businesses for the past few months. Again, not ignoring.

>he's smart enough to recognize the threat that this poses to traditional banks and banking.

... for Christ's sake. Give it a rest, he's not a mustache-twiddling dastardly capitalist and the banking system is not trying to keep Bitcoin down.

The banking system is ignoring you.

I'm not talking about Winklevii clowns or a few comments from a few figures or a Senate hearing.

I'm talking about the corporations for whom 8 billion ('market cap' for Bitcoin) is pennies. Chase has 2.5 trillion in assets. It does not care about Bitcoin.

More importantly, no one in Bitcoinland seems to realize that Bitcoin is re-implementing our financial system, and doing it badly--perhaps because when they do, they realize how silly it all is.

Does he own any stock of Simple?

"am now an advisor to the company as well as a happy customer"

From the about page.

I felt it was a little hard to follow honestly. To me it felt more like a piece of creative writing than really trying to get at anything, politically/economically/philosophically/whatever. Nice writing, but it hasn't change how I think or feel about bitcoins.

Though, even the recent events that have caused the price to crash hasn't changed my views. I still think bitcoins show a huge amount of potential and 2014 is going to be a big year for crytocurrencies.

Hand-waving is easy, dialog is hard.

Us technobabblers need to unite on why Bitcoin is valuable. I've been hammering on the part where the Bitcoin network is doing 7 quadrillion hashes a second right now. All of that work/energy is going into securing the coin for current and future transactions.

It is, simply put, a platform of trust powered by the most massive compute engine humanity has ever built.

It doesn't matter. There are plenty of good things about Bitcoin which folks need to do <5mins of research to find out about.

The vitriol on HN shocks me though. I would've thought this community would love something like bitcoin. But instead of good quality discussions most bitcoin threads here turn into haters vs 'fanboys'. You are a 'fanboy'. It's pretty hard to get taken seriously once that happens.... :(

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