Bitcoin Forum

Raise money to attract more asshats to bitcoin. As if the concentration of asshats wasn't sufficient to repel normal people already.

Is there a way I can pay to have funds for this project confiscated?

Keynesian ex-banker threatens to sabotage progress.  No surprise here...

Please define "asshat".

There is no consensus definition. As in the supreme court decision on obscenity, it is easy to give examples, but hard to define rigorously.

Some examples of Asshats:
 
1) Ron Paul Supporters
2) People who support a return to the gold standard
3) People who promote gun ownership
4) People who home school their children
5) Religious fundamentalists

Asshats are an extremely tiny minority in the community that adopts new technological innovations. They are repulsive to most of the world community.
Bitcoin has an extremely strong concentration of asshats among its core supporters. This is a problem because it creates irrational hostility to bitcoin among the broader world.
The technology itself is okay (has some problems but it could be fixed), however the people associated with the technology are absolutely disgusting.
Most of the hostility surrounds the people associated with bitcoin and not bitcoin itself. Hiring an asshat to make a video to promote bitcoin is a bad idea because it just makes this problem worse.

Hope that helps.

So, by definition, it's anybody who you strongly disagree with that are asshat.  ::)

Not quite true, it is anybody who I disagree strongly with that is on the libertarian side of the political spectrum. Asshat is used elsewhere to describe these types of people. It is not my own term.

Precisely. You do not like libertarians coming to use bitcoin on the ground that they are asshat and politically undesirables but you give us no evidence as to why we should give a rat ass or even if they are asshats.

The reason I gave you is that targeting asshats as a focus audience is bad for bitcoin's image in the broader community. Most people strongly dislike asshats. It is not just me. I mean it's great that the rabid Neo-Nazi groups are all pro-bitcoin, but what about the rest of the world? Won't it be hard to convince them to accept Nazi Coin if it continues to be closely associated with political extremism? I'm sure you're an asshat yourself and therefore don't care. Whatever, point still stands.

You said that they are asshats. You have yet to prove that this isn't yet another hatred of tribes that you disapprove of. Face it, politics is tribal, not rational.

Unintelligible drivel. 'Prove people are asshats?' That's clearly asinine. Congratulations asshat, your IQ qualifies you for inclusion on my ignore list!

And you're on my ignore list for being an idiot and polluting this thread with rationally unjustifable opinion and then not admitting your mistake like a true rationalist.

I would like bitcoin (or ideally something like bitcoin but much better designed) to be attractive to a broad spectrum of people. To facilitate this, any spokesperson should be someone who is attractive to a broad spectrum of people. 'Stateless society' is attractive to radical right-wing ideologues and abhorrent to the vast majority of people in the world. I don't think bitcoin should be strongly associated with radical right-wing ideology. Bitcoin should be sold as a payments technology, not an extremist political platform.

Almost as hard as convincing them to use the SRcoin or the GirlsGoneBitcoin...

Unfortunately Bitcoin isn't just a payment technology.  It's a currency.  The two are very different.

This naive stupidity of portraying Bitcoin as just another payment technology is what led directly to the disappointment of the last year, on the part of the general public, as governments attacked it and the price fluctuated wildly.

Treating Bitcoin as a currency instead, we should be encouraging steady growth of the real economy, not just the carry trade.  If you want a payment technology, people like BitPay have built payment systems on top of Bitcoin.  Use those.

cunicula, you obviously either have no clue what is in the best interest of Bitcoin, or you are trying to actively sabotage it.  So, really just stop.

Bitcoin will need to do a good job of attracting "asshats" for the next few years, since its current state of development makes political and technological enthusiasts the only group that are open to adopting it in high numbers. Without maintaining and growing this core group, bitcoin will not be developed at an appreciable rate, and won't reach a state where it's attractive to common users.

+1

Bitcoin is still only a passing interest to most libertarians or technology enthusiasts. There is much work to be done in growing our presence within those groups. Bitcoin is most definitely a niche interest at this point and I don't think that talking about mainstream matters yet. This video is exactly on the right track, getting noticed more in the libertarian circles is exactly what we need.

I honestly think that cunicula is really pushing it lately, not only does he not have a clue what Bitcoin is really about (hint: freedom, currency of the people), he seems to be directly insulting a good portion of the Bitcoin community. Bitcoin is not, and is not supposed to be, just an efficient payment system. It's much more than that.

Also it seems that lately the ratio of cunicula's productive posts vs insulting/derailing posts has gone from bad to worse. I hope the moderators take this seriously. It's starting to be a problem.

Scientists and highly educated people are overwhelmingly liberal in outlook. You can appeal to asshats or technologists, not both. Purge the technoligists appears to be the asshat response to this dilemma. Good luck with that.

While it may be unfortunate there is some truth to this.  The layperson's impression that only criminals use Bitcoin is a good example of this.

While the public's perception may be obtuse or unfair an element of PR is necessary to communicate that Bitcoin is good for everyone - not just Libertarians.  Extending this thinking it may not be a good idea to have Libertarian spokespersons attempting to communicate to a broad, non Libertarian audience.

LOL... yes and a hundred years ago scientists and highly educated people were even more overwhelmingly white. And?

Nobody would argue that libertarians (ie those who disapprove of the initiation of force) aren't a fringe minority. Abolitionists of tyranny in all its forms tend to be a small and dedicated group, constantly mocked and chastised by a public majority unwilling to relinquish the yokes of slavery.

Tell me cunicula, how Bitcoin is in any way associated with "radical right-wing ideology." And are you suggesting that libertarians are "right wing"?  Would you also suggest that as one approaches the radical right, one approaches fascist sympathies? Please address the discrepancy, as libertarians are the polar opposite of fascists. If you claim libertarians are radical right-wing, then fascists by definition cannot be.

Usually left/right wing is a different scale than conservative/liberal. The former is X axis and latter is Y axis. Radical right-wing refers to highly conservative right-wing, not so much to liberal right-wing, who are also called anarcho-capitalists.

I'd say that a very large majority of the Bitcoin community is liberal, but not everyone is necessarily right-wing. I used to be a radical left-wing libertarian (look up libertarian socialism), now after being involved with Bitcoin for a year, I'd say that I'm pretty much nowhere on the X axis. Perhaps the center because I'm willing to try and support different approaches.

Agreed, it's becoming annoying seeing his insulting posts appear more often.


Those who work in academia are overwhelmingly liberal in outlook, but that's not the same thing as "scientists and highly educated people". Furthermore, liberal views are least common among business and engineering professors, and most common among social science and humanities professors. Guess which type of people we want to attract.

Education and intelligence are correlated somewhat with being politically liberal, but they are also correlated with having libertarian economic views, so it's possible that political self-identification is not a good indicator of actual views on economics.

Finally, libertarian views are most common among men, who are much more receptive to adopting new technologies than women. I would guess more than 98% of this forum's members are male, and that's not going to change for a while no matter how bitcoin's political qualities are marketed.


There you go, that should put aside all concerns.

I just realized... you ARE Krugman.  I also just realized that I was stupid enough to get out of NEWBIE status to say that YOU sir, are the ultimate ASSHAT.

Wow! Thanks, I'm not often mistaken for a nobel prize winner, usually that only happens in my fantasy life. You made my day!

@whoever is organizing this video. I'm glad that you realize that advertising bitcoin as a step towards a state-free society is counterproductive. That was my principal point.

@everyone else. There is no point in hand-waving over semantics and philosophy with you. Clearly, an asshat is an asshat. Nothing else to say on this matter. You can make a new thread to discuss why you feel I should be banned from the forum. It is not really on topic here.

Without knowing your nationality, I also just realized that you called the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitution asshats.  If you are not American you're just ignorant; if you are, your're a traitor.  And I'm not even religious. 

canicula is a troll who spreads anti Bitcoin FUD (either as a paid agent or simply as a jealous idiot I am not sure which).  

Still he isn't a traitor and I am sure the founding fathers would agree.

Just click the ignore link under his name like most of us have indicative of how orangey it is.