I got some fellow small business owners interested enough to check out, first they could not post or ask any questions (awesome move that), then once they dug around the tax evasion and "lets overthrow the government" derp scared them off.
Good grief!!
Those poor little things. I do hope they were wearing their 'big girl' Pull-ups. Those 'business tycoon' types, can be such delicate little treasures. Next time you might like to let the mods know you're sending guests, so they can have the place sanitized and renovated to look like a part of the Microsoft PR website.
Most of us would not think of plastering our political party logo on our business.
Most of us are far too selfish and greedy to stand by our convictions and openly discuss our true values. The fear of what is good for our own personal profit/resume/social standing etc, does have a lamentable tendency towards cognitive dissonance, tempting us to rationalize our motives and decide what is 'best', is the thing that makes the most profit or popularity for me. Of course, nobody is required to place a political logo on their business. Your business colleges are not required to adopt any particular political view (even if it is predominant here), let alone endorse it with a badge of honor, simply because they happen to use bitcoin. Are they really so intellectually challenged, that they can't differentiate between using a piece of software and endorsing/embracing a political ethos? Fortunately for them, the very ethos that underpins the development of this software and the whole open source movement for that matter, also happens to emancipate them from being required, by external forces (monopolies governments) to endorse anything.
Who is expecting them to nail their flag to the mast? Let me guess. I know!! It's the stigma and public perception factor isn't it?
As far as customers are concerned, Bitcoin.org is the face of Bitcoin. The two are largely inseparable.
Ahhh! Thought so. Once again, those who are incapable of separating a community and its (individuals) political values, from the piece of software it uses/endorses, are conduits of a deplorable social problem. I say conduits, because the problem is deeper. They are prone to petty whims and vanity and vexing psychological concern like 'what will the neighbors think' and 'ew... that's yellow, nobody likes yellow things anymore'. The throngs of vacuous automaton like consumers, hungry for populist conformity, irrepressible gluttony and who need to be told what to think, what to believe, what values to uphold and a myriad of petty, voguish little conceits, which fill them with programed piety, conditioned self-worth and indoctrinated allegiances. Norms and fragile egos that collude to endorse them, must be conserved as the precious treasures of humanity. The "done thing", they cry. It isn't the 'done thing'. So when they see somebody, who happens to be doing something they happen to associate with evil/wrong/bad or... 'not the done thing', it's not just the actual thing they perceive is wrong, but also anything or anyone to do with it or standing too close to it. Guilt by association.
We already have a front of spin doctors pushing the line that bitcoin is used to buy illicit drugs. well whop-de-do. Government cash is also used to buy illicit drugs. Are your pantie piddling business associates, also decrying the guilt by association they will have to endure, because the money they hungrily clutch at already, is used to finance the black market drug trade. HEY! That was started and fueled by the cash economy and granted it's premium profits by the war on drugs making it massively lucrative. No? I suspect they don't recoil from government cash, because society isn't programed to despise it. They go along with what's good for them. Pandering to the hoards of ignorant sheeple and helping to reinforce their stupid prejudices and petty egocentric norms.
You come here to get the client software, and linking to it or advocating it leads your customers (as well as others) to think that you subscribe the the values expressed here.
Linking to it and advocating it huh? That's what leads to people thinking wha... WTF? It's such a pity to have to admit, that there may be some element of truth to this claim. You make it sound so 'par for the course', I most like you understand or sympathize with this Neanderthal tribalism. I don't know that this 'public perception' is anywhere near as prevalent as you suggest; at least, not if you think it's a fatal detriment to the eventual widespread acceptance of bitcoin. I think bitcoin will at least become extensive as an on-line currency and that will be success enough. I also think it will do so, whether we pander to these conformist, spin-doctored populist PR charades you seem to endorse. My guess is that there are well more than enough people out there, who are not so intellectually lobotomized, by coercive social programming, that they need everything they see, to be sanitized and commercialized, with a squeaky plastic facade, of conformist mass marketing bullshit.
What anybody with a modicum of intelligence should be aware of, is that bitcoin isn't a commercial product. Nor is it a brand or a coercively marketed corporate entity. How hard is it to realize, that these forums are inhabited by INDIVIDUALS? Each and every one of us, is the vehicle of a separate individual value system. I only have to worry about how, whatever I post reflects on me. I don't expect anybody who can make their own breakfast, to be incapable of understanding that whatever I might say, should not be taken as YOUR opinion. Nor should YOUR values be expected to stand for anything other than your values. This is a shamelessly low blow, to pitch an issue of such petty minded appeal to the most lamentable vices of mass ignorance.
There are too many people who expect you to think what they think, eat what they eat, do what they do and wear what they wear. The need belong and 'fit in', to satisfy their fragile ego and be given recognition in a kin group and so they conform and adopt the prevailing trends and norm of their identity group. Like little monkeys they mimic each other because, 'if I'm like you, you are more likely to like me'. We establish norm just to support social bonding, but anybody doing something different is less acceptable.This is how social groups are manipulated. this the basis of fear about anything different and 'weird' it fuels social conflict, bigotry and war. Here it's just being promoted to support bigotry and censorship. The 'people won't like it' war cry, is a lot like the 'not the done thing' motive. It's fueled by ego-paranoid petty and debilitating human emotions. You do it or don't do it, because everybody else wants you to do it, or not.
The problem lies not with people who come here to discuss their thoughts freely, but with those who can't keep their own prejudices to themselves. People who cant say 'it's none of my business' also have a hard time with saying "that's you opinion and we can agree to differ". Those ones, go around demanding others either agree with them, else they don't deserve to speak their mind. Many places (like this) have already made provisions for those people. They are granted the same rights as everybody else. Wanting to shut people up because you don't like what they have to say is called censorship. It may be the next worst thing to outright bloody war except that censorship fuels ignorance and ignorance causes war. Freedom of speech is the most fundamental and precious liberty we posses. It enables us to engage in constructive criticism and undermine deception and coercion.
The libertarian values you seek to undermine, by calling for the politics forum to be closed, could only be a threat to those who would benefit from harnessing the ignorance of the lowest common denominator. It's places like this that people can come, to learn about the kind of liberties and freedom that are absolutely intrinsic to the open source movement and the grass roots projects like bitcoin, which it has spawned. You don't like what people are talking about in the politics section? If you don't agree you are free to do so. If you want to say you disagree, you are also free to do so. If you don't want to read the political content, or perhaps you just cant make any cogent argument to support your censorial bias, well then, you don't have to go in there. The same goes for all the people, who you think will be so scared they will have to run away from the freedom of open discussion. If there is an argument to make about any topics in there, then go and make your point to address the issue at hand. Argue against the topics if you wish, but not the fact that they exist at all.
What kind of crazy business owner is going to link their business to a site and brand that advocates tax evasion and the overthrow of the government?
One who understands that his businesses is not being represented in any way by the individual people of this forum or their ideological views. Supported? Yes Educated? emancipated? Yes Represented? NO. In case it isn't clear yet, this is a community and when people come to a community place of discussion, they should have no reason to expect anybody to represent anything but themselves. For those who don't get the idea, that every individual can speak for him or her self, then it's damn well time that they DID. This is far more serious than an image problem with the forum. It's an issue that cuts to the heart, very of the mental health of society. Some people just cant think for themselves as individuals. They cant like what they themselves like, believe what they themselves believe, want what they themselves want. They've have been brainwashed and indoctrinated as blind little consumer sheep, on the corporate ranch. So when they meet people they project their own expectations onto that other person. That other person uses bitcoin? 'Well... they must think like everybody elde who uses bitcoin'. 'Some people buy drugs with bitcoin - he's probably a heroin addict and a criminal'.
As for toppling governments. Whether you like it or not, there is going to be a revolution in political governance, just like the one in economics bitcoin has already begun. Government will inevitably be one that is OF the people and BY the people. It will be globalized and our legislation will be tabled and thrashed out on forums much like this, while the voting system will likely be done over a P2P network, very similar to bitcoin. People had better pull their heads out of their ass, learn a bit about what's going on in the world and make some contribution to the collective welfare of society. Governments WILL be toppled, it's not a matter of IF, but WHEN. It seems, you would have the education resources that people need, to help them escape from their mindless fog of oppressive manipulation, removed.
Yes, Bitcoin MAY change things- but it will never get a chance if people don't keep their politics on political web forums. You may be able to get people to adopt your currency- but not if you insist on linking it to your politics.
The
MOST important thing that it would change, would be as a result of those libertarian values it empowers, through the decentralization and the finite supply, that will make the political paradigm shift possible and allow freedom from corporate tyranny. So the only thing that is wrong with what you said there, is that the exact opposite is true. The very fact that you don't want people exposed to politics is a deplorable attitude. People need to become involved with and learn about it. We need to foster free speech and learn use our mind and ideas as currency also. Until people snap out of their state regulated, corporate funded fog, of insular, materialist consumer apathy and learn what they need to know, to take mutual responsibility for representative governance, we will never have a fair system. If there is a way for bitcoin to fail, it would be at the hands of government. We are in for a rough ride if we are not prepared to nip this in the bud and empower ourselves. This forum, is the center of the universe in terms of it's political potential to bootstrap a new democratic system and the big political battle with government, will happen whether we like it or not if bitcoin is successful enough to be common currency beyond the net.
Pulling the plug on the politics forum, would only be about the stupidest thing anybody ever did.
