Frustration at the Digital Money Forum

[Gavin Andresen]

Myers-Briggs tests are crap, very similar to horoscopes.

There was a good Skeptoid podcast about it.

Our brains are really good at pattern-matching, and are really good at fooling us into seeing patters where none exist.

[genjix]

Myers-Briggs tests are crap, very similar to horoscopes.

There was a good Skeptoid podcast about it.

Our brains are really good at pattern-matching, and are really good at fooling us into seeing patters where none exist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw

this experiment sums it all up.

[freeman]

Payment processors can bring value to the bitcoin economy by facilitating ever lower transaction fees, increasing trusts, etc.

I doubt that sounds very appealing to them. Bitcoin is like a disruptive technology as explained in "The Innovator's Dilemma".  I'm pretty sure the big players in a bitcoin monetary system are not going to be related to the traditional players.  The traditional players are just too hooked on high margins to adapt.

Also, I have to wonder how many non-technical people just will not be able to accept that bitcoin could work at all.  If you don't understand the cryptography then you have to take it on faith that the system could work as designed.  It's easy for them to brand bitcoin advocates as kooks (see "Time Cube").

[eMansipater]

Myers-Briggs tests are crap, very similar to horoscopes.

There was a good Skeptoid podcast about it.

Our brains are really good at pattern-matching, and are really good at fooling us into seeing patters where none exist.

For me Myers-Briggs is a personality description system with 4 bits of precision.  Not a heck of a lot but it's more useful than, say, geek/nongeek which has 1 bit.  If horoscopes let you pick which one you were, then they would be similarly useful (and would actually probably coalesce instead of remaining purposefully as vague as possible)

[error]

It's easy for them to brand bitcoin advocates as kooks (see "Time Cube").

Eh? The Time Cube guy IS very obviously a kook. (Aside: If you need a good laugh, this radio show interviewed him - TWICE - pretending to play along with him. He's absolutely nuts.)

Attempting to brand someone as a kook only works if there's something kooky going on. Bitcoin is exactly what it claims to be. One might find a security hole in it, but that's about all you can credibly do to discredit it.

[Anonymous]

The masses wont use bitcoin till famous people mention it.

WINNING !!!

[hazek]

The masses wont use bitcoin till famous people mention it.

And by famous it can be any kind of famous really! For instance I sent an email to a youtube starcraft 2 caster who has 400k subscribers and accepts paypal for donations.. Imagine if we could find a few of these famous youtubers to start accepting BTC and maybe even make a video about it, especially the more technical and geeky ones, we could spread the word very fast.

[MoonShadow]

It's an entertaining clash of cultures.  

Bitcoin is a bit like going to a Swiss private bank and being attended by a punk sporting facial tattoos and a ripped anarchy t-shirt.

People who work with money tend to be very conservative, parochial, risk-averse, authoritarian, uptight, narrow-minded, detail-oriented, left brained, and ISTJ, because traditionally, those traits were advantageous in this industry.

The Bitcoin ecosystem contradicts pretty much everything they stand for: It's revolutionary, unpredictable, anti-authoritarian, disruptive, concept-oriented, "weird", right-brained, and rather INTP.

It's no surprise these people are not enthusiastic to learn about Bitcoin. There will be a lot of cognitive dissonance once market forces force them to learn about it.

Bravo!!! Particularly love your application of ISTJ and INTP.
 
I bet that current bitcoin population has like 50% or more of INTP's as opposed to 3-5% in general population.

Considering that I'm a strong INTP also, I accept your conclusions as correct, intuitively.

[no to the gold cult]

Myers-Briggs tests are crap, very similar to horoscopes.

There was a good Skeptoid podcast about it.

Our brains are really good at pattern-matching, and are really good at fooling us into seeing patters where none exist.

People need to classify themselves. Human nature I guess, as is pattern matching and seeing faces in clouds.

[freeman]

Attempting to brand someone as a kook only works if there's something kooky going on. Bitcoin is exactly what it claims to be. One might find a security hole in it, but that's about all you can credibly do to discredit it.

For the layman, I submit that bitcoin sounds no less kooky than Time Cube (okay, maybe a little less kooky, at least the website styling doesn't burn your eyes and people write in grammatical sentences).

My point is that the average person doesn't understand science and much of what they believe is based on faith.  In fact, that's really true for anyone, scientifically inclined or not.  I didn't prove to myself all that I believe, I have sources I trust. Witness the continuing popularity of pseudoscience in popular media (astrology, natural healing, etc).  People don't always believe the best sources, they have their own personal trust "network".

For many people, they will believe bitcoin works only when told so by someone they trust. Telling them to read the design paper will get you nowhere.  I'm pretty sure this will happen naturally, it will just take some time.

[MOON]

Also, I have to wonder how many non-technical people just will not be able to accept that bitcoin could work at all.  If you don't understand the cryptography then you have to take it on faith that the system could work as designed.  It's easy for them to brand bitcoin advocates as kooks (see "Time Cube").

Unfortunately its still not proofed if it works (NP=P) . So even the technical people cant be really sure

[Gavin Andresen]

For the layman, I submit that bitcoin sounds no less kooky than Time Cube (okay, maybe a little less kooky, at least the website styling doesn't burn your eyes and people write in grammatical sentences).

Conversation I had tonight:

"So Gavin, what are you working on these days?"

"A really exciting project that is... well, OUT THERE.  My wife calls it my 'pretend money project,' but I'm wearing really nice wool socks that I bought with my pretend money."

People who know me aren't shocked that I'm working on something wild and crazy, and by saying up front "this is a wild and crazy idea that may or may not work" I think they're more likely to really think about whether or not bitcoin makes sense.

[Anonymous]

I received a phone call the other day. It was someones mother looking to buy bitcoins. Her son told her she needed to own some.

True story. 

[eMansipater]

Also, I have to wonder how many non-technical people just will not be able to accept that bitcoin could work at all.  If you don't understand the cryptography then you have to take it on faith that the system could work as designed.  It's easy for them to brand bitcoin advocates as kooks (see "Time Cube").

Unfortunately its still not proofed if it works (NP=P) . So even the technical people cant be really sure

True, modern cryptography and hashing functions could have systemic issues such as a low-cost NP->P algorithm etc.  But Bitcoin itself is properly hedged against this since much bigger and more powerful systems/organisations would have to deal with this problem before Bitcoin would.  Also, in all likelihood if there were a weakness in these systems it wouldn't come about all of a sudden--rather there would gradually be results in academia, then applications of those results, then more results, etc.  So there would be time to adapt.

[Steve]

Don't get too frustrated...these aren't the people you need to convince anyway.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

The masses wont use bitcoin till famous people mention it.

WINNING !!!

Actually, it's enough that one large investor or veeeeeeeeery famous person starts using it.

What is happening now is that everybody who is watching bitcoin is waiting for the first big fish to take the risk. If the big, "alpha-male" fish takes the bait, the herd will follow. After that it will be a massive, unstoppable snowball effect (and bitcoin may rise 10-fold or 100-fold in few days after they announce that they jump on BTC bandwagon).

I believe there's a name for that phenomenon in psychlogy/sociology, i just can't find it now.

This effect doesn't work on us, free thinkers/libertarians/minarchists, because we are natural black sheeps, outsiders. We don't follow the herd usually. That's why we are early adopters, because we 1) actually think where we are going 2) look the other way than the herd looks, so we notice weird/unexpected/unusual things before everyone else.

----
I imagine that if GoldMan Sachs or Santander adopted Bitcoin, everyone would follow. But of course they won't.

[wb3]

The "Big Fish" follow the "little fish", if enough little fish gather, the big fish will come out of necessity to eat.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

The "Big Fish" follow the "little fish", if enough little fish gather, the big fish will come out of necessity to eat.

Hahahahaha i didn't think of it this way.
Well, it's probably true.

[MoonShadow]

The masses wont use bitcoin till famous people mention it.

WINNING !!!

Actually, it's enough that one large investor or veeeeeeeeery famous person starts using it.

What is happening now is that everybody who is watching bitcoin is waiting for the first big fish to take the risk. If the big, "alpha-male" fish takes the bait, the herd will follow. After that it will be a massive, unstoppable snowball effect (and bitcoin may rise 10-fold or 100-fold in few days after they announce that they jump on BTC bandwagon).

If a 'big fish' like you describe were to jump into bitcoin, such as Warren Buffet (unlikely), they would be wise to not announce that fact until well after they have accumulated as much as they intended to.  Considering that much of the reason that such 'little fish' follow 'big fish' is that they are perceived to be wise in matters of money, I would be shocked to find out that any such 'big fish' openly advocating for Bitcoin before they were well entrenched.

[kiba]

I like to imagine that we're in a beginning of a exponential take-off.

Heck, the hashing rate of the network is doubling 27 days for the past 15 months.