[loeber]

Strong agree. This is a lazy polemic. Take, for instance, this one amazing part:

> Goldman Sachs, Citadel, Andersen Horrowitz those guys are making transaction fees

"Andersen Horrowitz"? Does the author have any idea who he is criticizing or what industry they're in?

> Failing microcap stock

GME is not a microcap stock, and it was not a microcap stock, even before this entire saga

> I make no pretense that I don’t despise the bitcoin philosophy

Erroneous double negative here, does he even proofread his own work?

Somewhere in here he states that "Bitcoin doesn't work". I've seen a lot of lazy criticisms of Bitcoin, but this one just falls flat -- of course it works. Say what you will, but the entire system works with continuous uptime, the ability to transact, etc. etc. That's why it's worth a trillion dollars.

Saying that you don't understand how bicycles stay upright doesn't make them fall over. And similarly, saying that Bitcoin doesn't work, well, doesn't make it stop working.

[illumin8]

> "Andersen Horrowitz"? Does the author have any idea who he is criticizing or what industry they're in?

Once I saw this obvious error and realized the author doesn't even understand that VCs are different from a stock exchange, and can't even spell their name properly, I realized how ridiculous this blog actually is. His Bitcoin argument cemented it.

I want the 5 minutes of my life back that I spent reading this drivel.

[Judgmentality]

> > I make no pretense that I don’t despise the bitcoin philosophy

> Erroneous double negative here, does he even proofread his own work?

I think he got this part right.

I make [no] pretense that I do [not] despise the bitcoin philosophy ---> I {admit} that I do despise the bitcoin philosophy.

Unfortunately, this is one of those weird English phrases where the more you look at it, the weirder it is. I'm actually less confident of this now having written it out and reread it multiple times.

[jtbayly]

You're right, he's right, but your analysis is not helpful, actually.

"I make no pretense..." means "I don't claim to..." For example, "I make no pretense at being an bitcoin expert" means "I don't claim to be a bitcoin expert."

So here's some more helpful analysis:

"I don't claim to despise BTC" means I like it.

"I don't claim to not despise BTC" means I don't like it.

Thus, "I make no pretense to not despise BTC" means I don't like it.

[timerol]

See my sibling comment's edit. "I make no pretense at being a bitcoin expert" can mean both "I don't claim to be a bitcoin expert" and "I am an authentic bitcoin expert" depending on context.

[jtbayly]

Yes. I see your edit. I'll only add that although second meaning is certainly allowed by the words, in practice the phrase is understood in the first sense.

[timerol]

I think you've got it backwards. I'm counting it as a quadruple negative when considering "despise" and "pretense" meaning deception. "Make no pretense" means the same thing as "admit", not the logical opposite. Some equivalent statements to the original:

I make no pretense that I respect the bitcoin philosophy.

Edit: I made an bad logical leap here. The statement can only be interpreted about how the author pretends, and not the author's actual position. So everything after this edit is suspect. All we can say is that the author does not pretend to like bitcoin. The statement doesn't say anything about the author's actual opinions of bitcoin, though that is very clear from the article.

I make a pretense that I despise the bitcoin philosophy.

I admit that I don't despise the bitcoin philosophy.

I admit that I respect the bitcoin philosophy.

[jtbayly]

(edit: the below was written before the parent's edit. Still useful for understanding how that phrase works, though, so I'm leaving it.)

Part of the problem with your analysis is that "I make no pretense" is itself a phrase actually is a single negative in use. It means "I don't claim."

"I make no pretense of liking BTC" could technically mean "I am not pretending to like Bitcoin" as in "I'm not pretending to like BTC. I really do like it." But that's not what it means in practice. It means "I don't like BTC, and I like it so little that I'm not even going to pretend to like it."

[mrkeen]

>> I make no pretense that I don’t despise the bitcoin philosophy

> Erroneous double negative here, does he even proofread his own work?

Do you? The double negative stands.

He has previously written extensively on his dislike of Bitcoin. Far from lazily.