Getting it from all angles!

If you haven't noticed lately I've been a bit, shall we say, 'high energy'.
Or perhaps manic.
Or perhaps just loud, rude, and annoying.

Whatever it is, people have noticed!

I've been in a new Discord recently (GO) and been told by multiple users that I need to chill out. It's surprisingly PG in there for a gamer chatroom, which is fine, just unexpected. I listened in to the last CTT and @starkerz seemed to hint at it subtly on-air as well. Don't get into an argument with that @edicted guy; not worth! It's also been a running joke in the LEO Discord as well, in addition to counter-trading me every time I give investment advice. Luckily Jim Cramer came along and completely overshadowed me on that front.

Hm, that's fair.

I often come off as extremely abrasive and rude, especially considering the tone-deaf nature of the Internet in combination with the pseudo-anonymity of my account. It is, after all, very easy to leverage the digital nature of the interwebs as a sort of catharsis valve that allows one to vent all sorts of frustrations; most of them completely unrelated to the topic at hand.

Is that what's going on here?

Eh, I don't know. Maybe. At the same time I don't really get locked into emotional states and can pretty much change up the tone at any time. Comes in handy when things get a bit out of control.

Take this post for example.

In combination with the comments of this other previous post, it could all easily be interpreted as a very nasty and insulting retort to @valued-customer. Which is definitely not my intent but... looking at it in retrospect how could it be interpreted in any other way? In fact the entire post at the core seems to basically call out anyone who's worried about CBDC as a clueless fucking idiot. Considering that most people in crypto seem to be worried about CBDC the reductive outcome of my post is basically just an insult to everyone around me.

How is that helpful?

Ah well again it might be helpful to me in venting frustrations that may or may not even be crypto related, but that's a strategy that oozes weakness and is riddled with diminishing returns. Do people like me really expect to gain ground by insulting the intelligence of others who have different opinions? Surprisingly this seems to be a very common tactic; especially in the political realm.

It's not so much about changing the minds of others but creating a polarization and echo-chamber of like-minded individuals. Other people that already agree with the points being made and also are also frustrated will latch on by proxy and engage in the cathartic venting. Others may jump on the bandwagon simply because they don't want to be ridiculed or ostracized. Of course none of this is helpful in any long term capacity, and reads more like a junkie trying to get their next fix from moment to moment. Coping mechanisms are everywhere.

So circling back to @valued-customer, he makes a lot of points that I don't necessarily agree with, but also I do not throw away the advice. I simply tuck it away for a later date in case they start to become more relevant over time.

And let's be honest that's exactly what happened with all of the COVID conspiracy theory. Win after win after win. Everything the conspiracy theorists said in March and April 2020 that sounded completely ridiculous? Ah well it all started sounding less and less ridiculous over the course of time. To the point that now in the mainstream the idea that it came from a bat is absurd and obviously it was made in a lab. Didn't see that one coming did ja? I didn't.

No contest on the solutions

The funny part of all of this is that usually pointing out the problem is very easy and trivial, while coming up with solutions is the difficult part. Solutions tend to create more problems. Yet, we all know what the solutions are and there is no argument.

WE RELY TOO MUCH ON CENTRALIZED INFRASTRUCTURE.

The Internet itself is centralized.
This is an obvious attack vector.
Food & water production is centralized.
This is an obvious attack vector.
People are physical beings and crypto is digital.
This is yet another attack vector.
Reliance on technology/society to survive bad times is not the best strategy.

It's so obvious that the solution is to not only create strong decentralized digital communities, but to also extend that into the real world and create strong decentralized physical communities. So far this has not happened yet, and it is indeed cause for alarm.

On many occasions I've correctly pointed out that gold and silver are not in competition with crypto. Gold and silver are old and outdated physical money. Gold and silver are redundant. But guess what? You know who loves robust redundancy? Crypto! This makes gold and silver the perfect fix for any and all physical decentralized communities that emerge.

The fact that none of us are printing our own gold and silver coins is actually kind of embarrassing. We should at least be buying old silver dollars that actually have silver in them, as the cost of low quality ones is basically just the value of the junk silver contained therein. We also need a way to verify the authenticity of gold and silver assets that others have produced.

Hopefully soon™ 3D printing will reach the level where accomplishing these tasks is a trivial matter. Until then we probably have to rely on other means. How often would these gold and silver coins actually get used as payment? Well, the entire point of them is that they're only supposed to be used when shit really hits the fan (like the Internet is down and it's impossible to trade crypto). On the other side of that coin crypto users love anonymous P2P transactions, and nothing is more anonymous than hard money that doesn't even have a serial number attached to it.

Conclusion

Ah well it's been fun but perhaps it's time to dial it back a bit. There is no synergy or progress made by insulting those around us. Intent is largely irrelevant, and all that matters is how others interpret our actions. Perception is reality.

Crypto has been a disappointment in a lot of respects. It is too centralized. It is too greed filled, tribalist, and hypocritical. There are too many users trying to extract value from it rather than add value to it. It's clear that we are in dire need of better reputation systems that hold community members accountable for their actions while at the same time (more importantly) reward good behavior that increases value across the board.

The decentralization of money is simply not enough. Decentralized money is the funding mechanism that will allow for all things to eventually experience Balkanization. We need to build strong communities that are no longer apathetic towards one another while trying to extract value in every way possible. We need symbiotic relationships that benefit all parties involved. We need to cut out the parasites. It is known.