[apo]

I've run into the sentiment you're talking about both online and IRL. It puzzles me as well.

Three factors come to mind:

1. There's a deep-rooted idea today that money comes from the government and that everything else is a scam. Bitcoin challenges that idea.

2. Bitcoin refuses to die despite the predictions of just about everyone who first learns about it.

3. The technical underpinnings of Bitcoin are counterintuitive to say the least. That makes Bitcoin hard to understand even for the technically-oriented.

The combination of longevity, casual disregard for convention, and counterintuitive nature gets annoying after awhile.

Nor are these factors restricted to those who can't stand Bitcoin, its users, or the idea of private money. Many of the most vocal Bitcoin advocates today went through a period of disbelief or outright hostility toward the idea.

[stegosaurus]

As I posted further down - most of the issues here seem to stem from people having this idea that in the extreme long term Bitcoin takes over the world and 'their' (as if this is some sort of holy war?) green bits of paper become firewood or something.

That isn't a realistic model for how the world works and is really just an odd way of thinking.

I can play Quake 3 and have fun with it, and post blogs about it, without thinking it's going to destroy every other video game out there ever, without debating whether it even is a video game, etc. Hey, it has fast inverse square root, that's cool, but it's not going to result in the actual world being deleted and exchanged for CGI VR land.

Fundamentally it seems to be that there's some element of 'faith in the concept', that is turned off when it comes to money, perhaps as a protection mechanism. I don't know.

... Just chill out, you know? I might go out for a run soon. You can still walk, don't worry, it's not banned (I also walk, it's useful, maybe we can be friends?).

[pjc50]

In the pre-Gox days of the Bitcoin subreddit you could find plenty of people advocating exactly that - that Bitcoin would make not just 'fiat' money obsolete but government itself.

Any idea, good or bad, is vulnerable to being discredited by its most annoying public advocates. Bitcoin 'hate' is mostly a reaction by people who encountered this and got fed up with it.

Not to mention that Bitcoin is explicitly anti-environmentalist: it's built on vast amounts of wasted electricity.

[clarkmoody]

> anti-environmentalist ... vast amounts of wasted electricity

Ironically uses politically-charged language when discussing how bitcoin gets political.

How about: "I'm concerned with the amount of electricity devoted to mining."

Some of the bitcoin-is-going-to-take-over advocates could counter with, "That electricity cost is a lot better for the environment than the standing armies required to secure fiat money."

[Frondo]

And, of course, the idea that bitcoin changes the world so radically that no one has an army anymore is absurd. But I think you've just touched on another reason why people react so strongly to bitcoin-related articles.

It's like, bitcoin started out with a pretty good-sounding idea: decentralized currency, like the old Gnutella network except for money! hey I like it!

Then people start talking about it and the first next step is "hey and bitcoin takes control over money and puts it into the hands of the PEOPLE" except it doesn't! It doesn't at all! Control over the money supply, there's at least some tenuous link between votes we regularly cast as citizens and the people making those decisions. Decisions over bitcoin's economics? Better start coding, except no one will accept your patches to bump up the 21 million bitcoin supply...not so democratic.

Then the conversation turns to pretty goofy new-world-order stuff, like "bitcoin will eliminate the need for nations to have standing armies!!" Except the reality is, look at how the bitcoin people themselves squabble like a bunch of old hens, in the face of what seem to be legitimate critiques. These are the people leading the way to a new world order? I don't think so.

And then we look at the environmental costs, and that's not good. Or the deflationary economics of the system itself, and those aren't good either. Or how it seems a lot more like an elaborate ponzi scheme, and that's not good either.

Basically, what bugs me about bitcoin is that legitimate critiques are always brushed off with really absurd replies. Kinda kills the whole thing for me.

[clarkmoody]

I'm not sure which bitcoin advocates you're talking to, but they seem pretty far out there.

As for monetary policy, I would look to the history of currency devaluations in the wake of wars and emphasize that bitcoin cannot be devalued in the same way. Not that a nation would use bitcoin as its currency, but it begins to look more like the gold that used to back fiat currencies.

Even Rome debased its currency to continue paying soldiers, while throwing the citizens under the bus.

Re environmental costs: a future protocol change could update the proof of work function if this gets out of control.

> deflationary economics of the system itself

Strictly speaking, bitcoin's monetary base is monotonically increasing and never actually shrinks, which would be monetary deflation. I would also challenge the conventional wisdom that says "Deflation bad! Inflation good!" Again, not that a nation's currency will be bitcoin. It exists alongside other systems, behaving more like gold.

Ponzi scheme is almost not worth mentioning as the allegation is obviously ridiculous.

[EdHominem]

> Better start coding, except no one will accept your patches to bump up the 21 million bitcoin supply...not so democratic.

That's a horrible change.

But it's a perfect example of the ultimate democracy. Everyone has the freedom to listen to you, they're choosing not to.

[Frondo]

Well done.

You've just demonstrated the breach with reality in Bitcoin-land that is most personally irritating to me--the conflation of democracy with consensus/mob rule.

Democracy isn't (and never was) just "majority preference that is inferred from behavior". It's the regular, structured process of checking in and putting the rules that affect people up to a group decision, i.e. voting on stuff on a regular basis, and exposing the rules of the system to that process.

Having a regular vote on the # of bitcoins? That'd give it an element of democracy. But bring that up, and you get the kind of nonsense you just gave us.

And it's funny, in bitcoin-land, the very idea of democracy seems really offensive, and I think I know why; I think that the hardcore bitcoin advocates look at bitcoin as a way to get into a system and come out on top. The actual levers of power in the world are closed off to most of us, and getting into them is a long, hard process that involves skills very few in the computer industry have (or want to develop). Bitcoin gives its adherents a way to feel like they're going to be kings in the new world order, and suggesting the democratizing of this system would of course threaten that.

No one in bitcoin-land ever comes back to me and says "Yeah, you're right, we should involve more people in the decisions behind how this thing is run." That power's seductive (well, that fictional, imagined power of being a king in bitcoin-land), I guess.

[CyberDildonics]

> no one will accept your patches to bump up the 21 million bitcoin supply...not so democratic.

Why would anyone willingly dilute their own money?

> legitimate critiques are always brushed off with really absurd replies

> And then we look at the environmental costs, and that's not good. Or the deflationary economics of the system itself, and those aren't good either. Or how it seems a lot more like an elaborate ponzi scheme, and that's not good either.

These are not legitimate critiques without real data to back them up. Without real data they are conjecture based on emotion.

[Forbo]

> "That electricity cost is a lot better for the environment than the standing armies required to secure fiat money."

There are better alternatives to brute-forcing hashes and generating nothing but waste heat in order to mine cryptocurrency. At least those cycles could be put toward something useful, like the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC). Gridcoin uses proof-of-research in BOINC as the basis for compensation.

[AgentME]

Who would decide which BOINC projects work with Bitcoin? What if I made a BOINC project for calculating the number 4 and did it before anyone else noticed it was available? How much bitcoin should that be worth? There have to be ongoing decisions about what BOINC projects are accepted and how much they're worth. Who makes those decisions?

More realistically, what if I privately know a fast algorithm for an obscure type of protein folding, and then I push for a new BOINC project to be accepted that focuses on the specific type of problem? I'll be the only one that can mine it efficiently for a long time. If I calculated my expected profits, I would probably see that it's worth it for me to pay a lot of money to lobby the people in charge of the BOINC-coin decision process to get my project accepted. Unless BOINC-coin only uses a fixed set of projects over all time, or is only worth negligible amounts, then lobbying like this is going to influence what projects it accepts.

Even if BOINC-coin uses a fixed set of projects, then there's a problem of what work units are given out. I imagine many projects work like SETI@Home where some data is given out to users to process. If processing the data is worth money, then it might make sense financially for me to artificially construct datasets that I've already solved, and bribe the SETI@Home administrators to insert my dataset into the worker queue, which I will then quickly "mine" for BOINC-coin.

A BOINC-coin isn't fully decentralized. It requires trusted people to be in control choosing which projects are worth it and to secure the authenticity of the data sets. Bitcoin is about minimizing the need for trust in administrative systems like this.

Even if you solve the above problems, the proof-of-work system needs to be hard to compute but cheap to verify. Many BOINC projects' work units aren't cheap to verify. They just have several users redundantly recalculate the same work units to check that they get the same answers.

[VMG]

If the PoW serves any other purpose than mining bitcoin, it can't be used, since there won't be any opportunity cost in mining on the most recent chain.

[bduerst]

Their point is that the PoW is wasteful because the redundant work is useless.

See primecoin.io for an example of more useful PoW.

[Forbo]

I'm not sure I follow what you mean. I didn't mean that this be used for mining bitcoin, but rather that there are other cryptocurrencies that have useful by-products. Am I misunderstanding your comment?

[CyberDildonics]

I understand the arguments that people have against proof of work but unfortunately they are extremely short sighted with respect to the whole system. You could say the same thing about all the infrastructure surrounding gold, but crypto-currencies and gold have serve a very valuable purpose that gets lost in the details: they have many of the properties of ideal money.

Gold isn't as valuable as it is today for any other reason. You can dream about a theoretical currency with a proof of work that accomplishes something but it won't have the same properties of ideal money until it is more widely used, mined and attacked.

Also don't forget that space heaters _actually_ do nothing but generate 'waste heat' and no one seems worried about those.

[stegosaurus]

>> In the pre-Gox days of the Bitcoin subreddit

This is true! You don't have to agree with them, though. The network still exists and is cool and useful regardless. You don't even need to use Reddit! I don't hang out on reddit.com/r/visa (does it even exist?)

>> Not to mention that Bitcoin is explicitly anti-environmentalist

I think it would be fairer to say that it's 'a-environmentalist'. The badness or goodness of energy use for PoW just wasn't really a concern.

When I play Quake 3, my computer uses more energy. I consider that an acceptable compromise. Perhaps there are people out there that don't, so they don't play it.

I would find it quite odd if they criticized my habits, though. We should be trying to get along, not looking for chances to grumble at each other, you know?

[gnaritas]

> Not to mention that Bitcoin is explicitly anti-environmentalist: it's built on vast amounts of wasted electricity.

That like saying Tesla's are anti-environmentalist, it's built to waste vast amounts electricity.

It's quite literally non-sense. Point at any other nations currency that consumes less energy than Bitcoin; you think printing bills and minting coins doesn't use energy? You think moving giants piles of cash around in big trucks between banks doesn't use energy? You think banks and guards and trucking don't use energy?

Bitcoin is the pro-environmentalist approach, it uses far less energy than a typical currency does.

[CJefferson]

But the whole bitcoin network does a tiny, tiny number of transactions compared to any of those other systems. The cost per transaction (of the system, not to the user) of bitcoin is comparatively huge.

[Natanael_L]

And yet the actual expense each transaction incurs is trivial, a boost in the number of transactions wouldn't increase the expenses of mining.

[Rmilb]

I think the perception that all Bitcoin advocates think that Bitcoin will "Destroy" all fiat money and we will all be worshiping Satoshi for delivering us, is wide spread and mostly false.

[matt4077]

...And I'm sure you thought you're writing a perfectly objective, well-argued post. However, while speculating on bc-distractors' motives, you've characterized them as naive technophobes.

If someone with, let's say a doctorate in cryptography and a preference in 'fiat' reads that, he's going to feel a bit insulted and double down on his position.

He may (and I'm just speculating a hypothetical here) start daydreaming about going around with a metaphorical hammer of wisdom trying to beat some ideas into every bc-daytraders' head. Like the idea that a majority of western societies actually support the general concept of democratically-elected governments wielding some power. Or that having some screws to adjust in regards to monetary policy may be preferable to not having them, some problems notwithstanding.

All this is not new, by the way. This discussion lines up pretty well with the conflict over libertarianism, both demographically as well as philosophical.

[btcprint]

To point 1. Most who don't understand bitcoin think the federal Reserve is a government agency. But these same people got (and still are) angry at the banks for their part in the great recession. If they really understood what happened in 1913 with the creation of the fed their heads would spin.

Those that understand the big picture and the threat central banks pose to a nations sovereignty, and the debt slavery of its citizens, are the ones who truly appreciate bitcoin

[wyck]

This is why many bitcoin proponents comes across as naive, broad political statements bordering on false beliefs come across as juvenile and in many cases fanatic.

Stay with the facts and reality, a.k.a. the technology, statements like the above create a toxic environment in which the bitcoin community currently finds itself deeply mired in.

[fjidodhofjf]

How false is it criticize central bank policy?

They are dragging the world into another great depression, destroying the lives of billions along the way.

At some point it gets tiresome to speak with those who have no understanding of economics nor history.

Can you defend the last 8 years of Central Bank policy, are you even schooled in this area of study? Your criticisms are naïve.

[wyck]

I will be the mature one here in hopes you understand the problem with the "bitcoin" attitude.

If you want bitcoin to succeed talk about the technology and adoption, this is a complex enough topic in of itself with many real issues. The success of bitcoin depends on this 100%.

If you want to talk about economic saviorism cut the bullshit, it has a nagtive effect on bitcoin. Putting people down you don't know is a sure sign of immaturity that will get you no where and you have exemplified what is wrong with the bitcoin community 2x in this very thread.

[bildung]

Inflation for the last decade is at a record low.

http://cdn.tradingeconomics.com/embed/?s=cpi+yoy&v=201604202...