Bitcoin attitude test
This makes you Somewhat Bitcoinian (59.8%).Jäh I think it's accurateSomewhat Bitcoinian
Exciting, isn’t it? A whole new way of understanding money and value. Suddenly, we find ourselves freed from the grasp of banks, stock-market brokers, centralized governments, and spendthrift politicians. Who knows how things will develop with a new decentralized system of finance like this? It’s an interesting social experiment; one that might prove very lucrative for you if it hasn’t already.
You keep up with the world of Bitcoin. You’re in on the jargon and follow the markets. Still, you can’t really be bothered to engage too deeply with the over-enthusiastic, cultish following that has gathered around Bitcoin. The hard-boiled Bitcoinians can keep their ideological musings. Pragmatic and rational, you simply know a good thing when you see it. You’re into Bitcoin for the money, not because you’re convinced that the salvation of humanity lies in blockchain. Indeed, there might be tangible societal benefits if or when Bitcoin enters the mainstream, but in the end, you’re mostly concerned with the bulk of your own wallet.
In Bitcoinian terms, one might liken you to a scholar of religion rather than a theologian. You see things in a greater perspective, not clouded by dogmas or over-enthusiastic beliefs. In this manner, you’re perfectly equipped to understand the phenomenon from an objective perspective and, thus, to eventually profit from this knowledge.
This makes you Not Bitcoinian (30.4%).Don't Fight the Fed.Not Bitcoinian
You’re not convinced by the hype. Despite the immense enthusiasm you’ve witnessed, and in spite of the huge spikes in value Bitcoin has experienced over recent years, you remain a skeptic, if not an outright naysayer.
Surely investments need to create value and have some draw other than the investment itself. Bitcoin seems to be some fantastical game of make-believe; not something sensible people would want to invest a single dollar in! Frankly, you see the whole thing as a bit of a scam, and despite witnessing the early birds lining their pockets, you’re pleased not to have gotten involved with this volatile trend. In your opinion, it’s just a matter of time before the bubble bursts.
You’re equally unconvinced by all the ideological babble. Why all this enthusiasm about a so-called decentralized financial system, which is just numbers in a computer and not backed by any states? And isn’t Bitcoin mostly used for illicit activity? It all seems suspiciously covert; probably catering mostly to anarchists and illegal transactions anyway. You’re rather more pragmatically minded and prefer your money in fiat, precious metals, and stocks and bonds – thank you very much.
Essentially, you consider Bitcoin a kind of fool’s gold. Nice and shiny – perhaps even lucrative if you can convince somebody else to purchase it – but fundamentally worthless once its true nature is uncovered.
I got 59.8 too. I found this to be a weird quiz. There really isn't a religious element to Bitcoin from what I've seen.
A lot of anarchists have become extreme Bitcoin enthusiasts (and of Crypto. in general) and have incorporated it into their ideology. But I wouldn't call it 'religious', either. It's just run-of-the-mill ideological conviction.Originally Posted by ouronis
Those guys would invest in burnt twigs and dead bugs if they thought it would subvert the government.
I got Anti-Bitcoin -14.3%.
I'm not Anti-Bitcoin. I'm not Anti-Super-Yachts, either, but please don't expect me to invest in one. Or to pretend that they are investments.
All fiat currencies are backed up by the future productive capacities of the issuers, and your obligation to accept them "for all debts, public and private" is enforced by real, military armies. Wake me when Bitcoin has a standing army that can defeat the US military.
When Saddam tried to displace the US dollar as the default petroleum currency by instead accepting a basket of currencies, the US and its trading partners destroyed his country.
The same thing happened to Libya's Gaddafi, for the same reason.
If Bitcoin ever threatened the value of the dollar, it would be eliminated. The US depends on printing dollars freely to maintain its position, and it really isn't going to let something like a cryptocurrency challenge that.
So, the US government can be counted on to oppose it. Why hasn't it done anything yet?
My guess is that the powers that be have seen that Bitcoin is an entertainment for nerds, and not a threat at all.
Last edited by Adam Strange; 01-16-2022 at 10:02 PM.
Bitcoin isn't really a safe investment in the long run, but if it does end up succeeding, boy howdy are those early adopters going to be rich fucks.
Same as in a Ponzi scheme.
Same as in every system of wealth generation thus far
If you are talking about currencies, then yes. They all tend to inflate away. Even silver has inflated away from gold since ancient Egyptian times, but that is because gold has the unique property that its supply is expanding at about the same rate as real human wealth.
The good thing about printing money and deficit spending is that we are able to build real stuff that has real value and not have to wait a lifetime to accumulate real capital.
I'm not a fan of huge wealth inequality, but I'm a big fan of money.
This makes you Anti-Bitcoin (22.3%).Anti-Bitcoin
Watching the whole frenetic Bitcoin worship unfold around you, you react with a disapproving frown and a healthy dose of skepticism. In your eyes, Bitcoin is little more than a glorified Ponzi scheme; you’d prefer to keep your money in traditional equities rather than “invest” in the smoke and mirrors of the cryptocurrency world. For you, the unbridled excitement with which the world of digital currency has been welcomed signifies nothing but the fads and feeble minds of gullible people. It is a trend not unlike at school playgrounds, where obtuse kids can be convinced to trade this week’s allowance for an especially shiny new stone.
You tell yourself that trends die out, as this one will, eventually. Clearly, Bitcoin reflects no real, underlying value, and eventually the market will come to reflect this absence of any true worth.
In spite of whatever grand ideological ideas and quickly whipped-up fortunes exist out there as a result of Bitcoin, you remain sure of one thing – for most ordinary citizens, this whole thing will end in tears.
The Barnum or Forer effect is the tendency for people to judge that general, universally valid statements about personality are actually specific descriptions of their own personalities. A "universally valid" statement is one that is true of everyone—or, more likely, nearly everyone. It is not known why people tend to make such misjudgments, but the effect has been experimentally reproduced.
The psychologist Paul Meehl named this fallacy "the P.T. Barnum effect" because Barnum built his circus and dime museum on the principle of having something for everyone. It is also called "the Forer effect" after its discoverer, the psychologist Bertram R. Forer, who modestly dubbed it "the fallacy of personal validation".
No, I just mean as with every opportunity, if you recognize it first, you have the ability to grow faster earlier, whether that's an investment, or a small business. or whatever. I don't think that makes it a ponzi scheme.
I have been toying with the idea of crypto as a side economy, or hedge economy, for when things are not going so well in the real economy. The stated end goal for crypto is as a currency used to coordinate human activity, so it would have to be beyond this initial speculative stage to get there. This could lead to problems if the activity around it stays unregulated, but if we continue to have needs unmet and downward economic shocks, crypto could be a way to bridge the gap between good times. I don't think it makes sense to talk like it'll replace fiat, I just don't think there's a need for that, which is why I believe that in the long long run it'll need to find a niche like the side economy I've stated.
What would a world look like in which things weren't going so well?
No jobs? No electricity? No food?
If that happens, then a computer-based currency is not going to save you.
My IEI brother-in-law has been preparing for the end of the world since he was ten. He now lives in an adobe house on a mountaintop outside of Durango. He can't grow food outside because the animals there are really fucking hungry. His water comes from a well which is a few thousand feet deep, and the pump needs electricity to run. For an Ni guy, he seems to have overlooked some very real Te problems.
I think that society (the world as a whole, that is) is seeing a decline in resources on a per-person basis, but this decline is likely to be slow, especially in the US, where we have a decent climate, lots of food and fuel, and not that many people. For China, things don't look so great. But I think that the decline here will be slow and gradual.
Nah, I don't mean that bad. I mean like Great Recession-level. Bad enough that lots of people lose their jobs and their means but not so bad that society can't continue.
Hopefully it could alleviate some suffering in those situations where the government opts to bail out the banks instead of the people.
My ideal is still to use state power to fix the issue, but until that is more than a whisper of a joke, we need to rely on other systems to see us through, therefore bitcoin (and other crypto with more advanced features) which was originally conceived as an anarchist replacement of state, will ride alongside it.
OK, I see.
Well, consider this:
It has been known since the 1920's that deficit spending by the government can head off depressions and can even achieve full employment. In other words, the government can just give people money so they can survive and pay their bills. This benefits everyone in a monetary sense. See Kalecki for more on this. https://monthlyreview.org/product/la...of_capitalism/
Up until recently, government support for poor people, or people unemployed because their jobs were exported to a lower-labor cost country, was vehemently opposed by conservative rich fucks. EVEN THOUGH FULL EMPLOYMENT ADDS TO THESE GUY'S INCOME! It's not enough for these guys to be well off; they require that a lot of other people be poor.
The economy was left to recover on its own after each recession, even though every economist who isn't a second-rater who is bought by a conservative think tank knows that you can fix an economy with deficit spending.
But that recently changed. Government spending on poor people these last two years prevented a horrible, drawn-out depression.
Take a look at this chart (second one down in the linked article). https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2...sand-jobs.html
It shows that recessions are getting deeper and longer with each passing cycle. This reflects the failure of the government to step in when the real resources are declining.
But note what happened in the 2020 recession. The government poured in money (I got two checks, can you believe that?), and the economy headed back towards full employment.
You know, the rich fucks actually DO benefit from full employment, but they do so monetarily, not from a "I'm happy now that the po' folks can invade my country club" standpoint. But you know, if their business goes under for lack of paying customers, then they aren't going to be rich folks any more.
Yeah, this is what I meant by gov choosing to pay the banks instead of the people. When we start having mass structural unemployment caused by automation, the gov should give people money, but given how goddamn stupid they are, they probably won't.OK, I see.
Well, consider this:
It has been known since the 1920's that deficit spending by the government can head off depressions and can even achieve full employment. In other words, the government can just give people money so they can survive and pay their bills. This benefits everyone in a monetary sense. See Kalecki for more on this. https://monthlyreview.org/product/la...of_capitalism/
Up until recently, government support for poor people, or people unemployed because their jobs were exported to a lower-labor cost country, was vehemently opposed by conservative rich fucks. EVEN THOUGH FULL EMPLOYMENT ADDS TO THESE GUY'S INCOME! It's not enough for these guys to be well off; they require that a lot of other people be poor.
The economy was left to recover on its own after each recession, even though every economist who isn't a second-rater who is bought by a conservative think tank knows that you can fix an economy with deficit spending.
But that recently changed. Government spending on poor people these last two years prevented a horrible, drawn-out depression.
Take a look at this chart. https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2...sand-jobs.html
It shows that recessions are getting deeper and longer with each passing cycle. This reflects the failure of the government to step in when the real resources are declining.
But note what happened in the 2020 recession. The government poured in money (I got two checks, can you believe that?
You know, the rich fucks actually DO benefit from full employment, but they do so monetarily, not from a "I'm happy now that the po' folks can invade my country club" standpoint. But you know, if their business goes under for lack of paying customers, then they aren't going to be rich folks any more.
And the funny thing is that when they do, crypto goes crazy because of inflation.
I was thinking about the unemployment caused by automation. It seems to me that if a company or a person chooses to automate some task, then that's because the automation can produce the same (or better) result for less money or effort, and that's almost the definition of how to get richer. You get more stuff for less effort.
So for every task that can be performed by a $75 barrel of oil (which contains two man-years of labor energy in it), society gets the labor-equivalence of two men for a year at the cost of $75. That's a big win for society over paying those two guys wages for two years. Society just got a lot richer. Those two guys, not so much.
BUT, if society taxed the gains from that automation for a set amount of time, it could compensate the two men somewhat less than their full wages for that same set amount of time. The Automator would still be richer and, presumably, the two men could do something else with their time. Goof off, re-train for Aardvark grooming or balloon-mending, whatever.
The key is in taxing the increase in wealth of the automators.
Now, long-term, for this to work, you'd need to have some of those guys who were sacked start a Tesla or an Amazon or an Intel, but hey, Henry Ford was mowing hay before he made his first auto.
I don't think every laid off person needs to start their own business. Part of the benefit of an automated society is that a lot of us who didn't want to work wouldn't need to, or we could do things that were much riskier (research) and not guaranteed to bring profit. One of the problems we have right now is that if we can't sell it, we don't do it, and unleashing all that manpower on these previously forbidden problems would be like the good version of the icebergs melting. Instead of increasingly causing the world to accelerate towards our doom, it would help us get closer to a singularity.
I'd add that the USD's status as the world's reserve currency makes it unlikely to buckle anytime soon. Too many countries and people own U.S. treasury securities. Even China, its geopolitical rival, owns over one trillion dollars of American debt (which, incidentally, means they have every incentive to keep their debtor alive and well). American bonds are still one of the safest ways to store wealth. People are still eager to buy American debt.
As for the proponents of civil war, especially those who expect the American military to defect to their side, they should consider the fact that soldiers tend to expect payment, and that the U.S. Government likely won't be the side that's running out of money in such a scenario.
This makes you Anti-Bitcoin (7.1%).
Bitcoin is idiocy.
They can't do anything to stop outside of outlawing its use/purchase/exchange - but how do you control that? Same as in trying to control illegal downloads, not much could be done except arrest a few people "to set an example", which are basically politcal prisoners.
I like crypto because it does pose a threat to the gridlock that the finance industry has. I watched a documentary on Arte about HSBC. After watching it, I concluded that investment banks are basically untouchable, and if you're concerned about vast wealth concentrations, that should alarm you. I wish I remembered the actual reference to the documentary though, I'll send it to you if ever I find it.
I don't think anything can stop governments from investing in Bitcoin. In fact, at some point they will have to deal with it somehow. The Chicago stock exchange allows transactions in Bitcoin since a few years now. I see crypto as a threat to the finance sector, as well as to government, but not an existential threat. It will simply force them to remodel their priorities, and that's something alot of people want nowadays.
No, lol. A Ponzi scheme is centralized, and planned out, and crypto is neither of these things.
@Uncle Ave, the finance industry is a threat to the US republic because it has captured most of the politicians through campaign contributions and it is free of any morality aside from making money and is entirely self-interested. In other words, it would sell your children into slavery if it could make a profit at it.
I agree with this.
Really, the LIEs are the worst. ILIs are bad, but they seem to have some trace of a moral foundation and have some respect for stable, concerned, and working government. LIEs, not at all. An LIE will steal your treasury, poison the water, and enslave half the women and children and will then sail off to wreck another country with the profits made from the last adventure. Those fuckers should be on very short leashes when they are allowed near Finance.
I see that Pillow Man's bank just dropped him and will be closing his accounts. Is this because he tried to overthrow the government of the United Stated through force and violence?
No, not at all.
It's most likely because the guy is going broke chasing his delusional fantasies, coupled with the fact that money is probably sloshing back and forth between his for-profit and non-profit businesses, and US REGULATORS WILL FUCK A BANK OVER WHEN IT VIOLATES BANKING RULES.
So, his bank isn't dropping him because he's seditious. Nope. Rather, he just won't be making the bank a lot of profit in the future and he could get them entangled with bank regulators, which no bank wants to have happen, ever.
Last edited by Adam Strange; 01-17-2022 at 01:48 PM.
There is a movie called Burn, starring Marlon Brando, in which a private agent is hired by the British to overthrow the government of a sugar-producing island.
Brando is SEE, but he could easily be playing an LIE.
I think this is one of the greatest movies ever made. Not because it depicts the suffering of the slaves on the island caused by their colonial oppressors, but rather because is shows very clearly how the rich but politically unempowered use the poor to carry out a revolution and put themselves into power. And then, once in power, the new masters continue to crush the poor.
Really, this should be required viewing in every History of Moral Philosophy class.
WHAT? marlon brando is an IEI, most likely a dominant subtype
@Alive, in your opinion, who is NOT an IEI?
You.
Why would you type an idealist and one of the most important actors of the last century that was an activist for civil rights and native americans as SEE? blows my mind
The questions weren't very good. They were generally more about Bitcoin than about cryptocurrency generally, or blockchain technologies.
He might have looked like an idealist and native American rights advocate to the casual observer, but he bought a bunch of land as a tax dodge, and on the day before the taxes were due on it, he held a press conference where he publicly "donated" the land to some tribe. I think the tribe was entirely surprised to later discover that the gift came with a huge tax bill.
This doesn't guarantee SEE, though, but it should make one more skeptical of IEI.
I think that Olimpia had some very insightful things to say about Brando in his typing thread on this forum.
I feel like this is higher than I actually feel.
This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies.
The question about our attitude towards Bitcoin is a good one. I personally see it as a gamble wrapped in a technological innovation. There's a chance it could revolutionize finance, but it's also full of unknowns. Like putting all your chips on red at the roulette table (though maybe https://www.crypto-casinos.com is a better metaphor for actual gambling?).
For me, the jury's still out on Bitcoin. It's fascinating, but it feels a bit like the Wild West of finance right now. What do you guys think? True harbinger of a financial future, or just a fad fueled by hype? Let's hear some reasoned opinions from both the believers and the doubters!
Last edited by laurenewison; 04-15-2024 at 09:39 AM.
So, do you think Sam Bankman-Fried is LIE?
He really saw his chance with his crypto exchange. I still laugh knowing he met with Joe Biden (allegedly after donating a lot of money to his campaign). Or the fact that Tom Brady and his ex-wife lost ~$70 million and did a commercial for him. But he did get caught. I wonder how many people get away with this kind of thing. Sounds like his ego got out of control, otherwise he could have created a backdoor hedging firm with other people's money. In terms of other shady LIE behavior, I wonder how hard it would be to create AI that tries to manipulate people into another Gamestop pump-and-dump. I'm sure an LIE has already done something like this. I both respect and loathe you guys.
I am Batman.
but I could easily get an entirely different result on a test about cryptocurrencies in general. I don't care about Bitcoin specifically but I would prefer if Monero was more widely accepted and had a better reputation for example. Cryptocurrency projects should strive for achieving the privacy properties of physical cash and encourage using them as such. Too bad money hawks hijack all these projects and turn these currencies into investment assets. But ideally and in principle, being able to privately buy goods and receive payments online and having access to your money at all times at all places where there's Internet access without the oversight of any third party arbiter are good things. No wonder the number one goal for governments is to regulate the crypto market in a way that renders both impossible at which point there's nothing fundamentally new or positive these currencies can bring to the already existing money market or to technology (other than the model of distributed immutable ledgers).45.5% - Not Bitcoinian
IEE
I read something the other day about how he ran Alameda Research. Apparently, he didn't hire anyone that knew anything about finance and only created the name to sound official so a bank would give him a business account. And his hedging wasn't really hedging. He was just buying other crypto with customers money. He didn't plan for when crypto eventually collapses and perhaps didn't even understand the pyramid-scheme nature of it all. He does seem to be described by weak thinking.
I think if I was in his position I would have hired somebody that knew a lot about finance and created Alameda Research to use a small percentage, maybe 1%, of customers money for hedging or my own version of short-selling. Sell when it's going down and buy back after it goes down a certain amount more, determined by whatever advanced computer model AI thinks. In theory you should be right more than you are wrong. Don't tell the customer, they still have their crypto and don't need to know, and you pocketed untracked money through your exchange with crypto. Now you can tell the IRS you mined the crypto in whatever coin is untraceable (Monero?), pay taxes so they are happy and stay off your back, and win? Easier said then done...I can dream...wait maybe Sam did do this part and there's a bunch of crypto he has that we don't know about?
I don't really want to scam people though...and that's kind of what crypto is. They don't tell you that more people lose money than make it or how it negatively effects energy costs and the computer industry or anything like that.
I am Batman.
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