Is the world too dumb for Bitcoins?

[keithers]

Here's the thing...most people are one of the following:

1) book smart
2) street smart
3) both (very rare)
4) all out idiotic


The amount of people that are #3 is pretty rare nowadays...  The same can typically be said about people's social skills.  The majority of people who are very business savvy and successful, lack certain social skills (i.e. the ability to talk to women).

[1714818678]

1714818678

[kkaspar]

I think when the final demise of bitcoin will start to get closer, then we will hear a lot of this how everyone are stupid for not filling their pockets by buying more expensive coins.

[mercilesssuggy]

The amount of people that are #3 is pretty rare nowadays...  The same can typically be said about people's social skills.  The majority of people who are very business savvy and successful, lack certain social skills (i.e. the ability to talk to women).

Funny thing - My entire career is based on the fact that I have both, and my employers have always said just that ^^. Which is lucky for me as it means I end up in a great job!!

[porcupine87]

Yes. But they were once too dumb for the internet.

+1 

[piramida]

2) I didn't invest to make a quick buck so don't mind that the price is lower.. though I am started to get concerned it won't even ever recover!
3) http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/5492825/man-hires-escort-who-turns-out-to-be-sons-girlfriend.html is the original article, but if you don't want to pay to read it (which I haven't), apparently it's now been copied on other media sites:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/italian-pensioner-hires-an-escort-who-turns-out-to-be-his-sons-girlfriend-9176530.html

There is no alternative that is surpassing bitcoin, and that is the only real danger. Otherwise, it would recover, in a year or two or five, but I wait it this summer actually.

Thanks for the link but I was joking mostly

[rohnearner]

In Few words if i have to reply then i'll say : " HAVE SOME PATIENCE " we human are too ignorant and not everyone will jump into Bitcoins because I did or You Did...! they will take their time , we can't force them to use it, they have some legit concerns..! but i think things will change in near future just give it some more time...!

PS: thanks for mentioning : Anyone reading this post has an IQ higher than the average person.

[kireinaha]

Anyone reading this post has an IQ higher than the average person.

What makes me say that? Well, the average person in England for example reads The Sun which we know due to the popularity of the paper.

Unfortunately, as us intelligent Brits know, The Sun is a sad perspective of news. One of todays top stories:
"70 year old man's escort is son's girlfriend".

Equally, last week, I was at my girlfriends cousins house. He has 4 daughters ranging from 6 to 12 - He's an intelligent investor, very wealthy, but had no idea there were parental controls on the iphones/ipads he's given to his daughters and didn't know about the dangers online *sigh*.

We live in a non technical world where most people aren't technical, but those who are technical tend to be more successful these days...

The bad news, is for BTC to become the type of global currency we want it to be, the world needs to embrace it. In a world where our laws don't embrace international crime over the web, how are people going to ever want to explore something they simply don't understand?

I feel Bitcoin has a major problem and one that can't be solved for a generation or two, and that's to do with intelligence and understanding.

I invested at $1k - As a technical person, I'd been following the rise and can see the long term sustainability and benefits of BTC. If everyone around me non technical who also started hearing about it invested, that price would be $10k+, but I can't see it achieving high limits due to the reasons stated. I now worry we'll see the price lower long term as the world moves away from it..

Thoughts?

It seems rather arrogant to me to claim that we're all smarter than average people because we're interested in bitcoin or technical matters in general. Just because someone doesn't know their way around a smartphone doesn't mean that they're stupid, it only means that cell phone technology is not a priority in his or her life. I know many older folks who barely know how to turn on a computer, but who can run circles around me when it comes to other skills.

What I'm saying is, if your whole world revolves around one thing, whether it be a game like chess or restoring antique cars, you'd obviously spend a lot of time around like-minded individuals and it might be easy to label outsiders as stupid since they don't share your passions, but that's not fair. Maybe that's what's going on here a little.

But to the main point, we can't expect people to embrace bitcoin by becoming "smarter". Bitcoin needs to stand on its own. If it offers incentives over our current financial system, then people will naturally embrace it. If it's required to have a PhD in computer security to use it, then it's obviously flawed and is not destined to succeed. Afterall, you don't need to be an expert in electromagnetic theory to use a microwave oven. I doubt scientists met up in the 1940s and said to each other, "you know guys, most of the idiots out there don't understand how magnetic waves work. I'm not sure if this is going to catch on."

Of course it caught on, because it's easy to use. That's what bitcoin needs to be. Maybe it's just not ready yet. Maybe it never will be. But if that's the case, then bitcoin failed the public... not the other way around.

[DieJohnny]

i am too dumb for bitcoin, tired of hodling, i think i will sell before i lose all my coins to a cracker

[BitchicksHusband]

Anyone reading this post has an IQ higher than the average person.

I haven't found that to be the case.  There are a LOT of idiots on here.

[Lloydie]

The amount of people that are #3 is pretty rare nowadays...  The same can typically be said about people's social skills.  The majority of people who are very business savvy and successful, lack certain social skills (i.e. the ability to talk to women).

Funny thing - My entire career is based on the fact that I have both, and my employers have always said just that ^^. Which is lucky for me as it means I end up in a great job!!

Create something 

[Ibian]

Anyone reading this post has an IQ higher than the average person.

What makes me say that? Well, the average person in England for example reads The Sun which we know due to the popularity of the paper.

Unfortunately, as us intelligent Brits know, The Sun is a sad perspective of news. One of todays top stories:
"70 year old man's escort is son's girlfriend".

Equally, last week, I was at my girlfriends cousins house. He has 4 daughters ranging from 6 to 12 - He's an intelligent investor, very wealthy, but had no idea there were parental controls on the iphones/ipads he's given to his daughters and didn't know about the dangers online *sigh*.

We live in a non technical world where most people aren't technical, but those who are technical tend to be more successful these days...

The bad news, is for BTC to become the type of global currency we want it to be, the world needs to embrace it. In a world where our laws don't embrace international crime over the web, how are people going to ever want to explore something they simply don't understand?

I feel Bitcoin has a major problem and one that can't be solved for a generation or two, and that's to do with intelligence and understanding.

I invested at $1k - As a technical person, I'd been following the rise and can see the long term sustainability and benefits of BTC. If everyone around me non technical who also started hearing about it invested, that price would be $10k+, but I can't see it achieving high limits due to the reasons stated. I now worry we'll see the price lower long term as the world moves away from it..

Thoughts?

It seems rather arrogant to me to claim that we're all smarter than average people because we're interested in bitcoin or technical matters in general. Just because someone doesn't know their way around a smartphone doesn't mean that they're stupid, it only means that cell phone technology is not a priority in his or her life. I know many older folks who barely know how to turn on a computer, but who can run circles around me when it comes to other skills.

What I'm saying is, if your whole world revolves around one thing, whether it be a game like chess or restoring antique cars, you'd obviously spend a lot of time around like-minded individuals and it might be easy to label outsiders as stupid since they don't share your passions, but that's not fair. Maybe that's what's going on here a little.

But to the main point, we can't expect people to embrace bitcoin by becoming "smarter". Bitcoin needs to stand on its own. If it offers incentives over our current financial system, then people will naturally embrace it. If it's required to have a PhD in computer security to use it, then it's obviously flawed and is not destined to succeed. Afterall, you don't need to be an expert in electromagnetic theory to use a microwave oven. I doubt scientists met up in the 1940s and said to each other, "you know guys, most of the idiots out there don't understand how magnetic waves work. I'm not sure if this is going to catch on."

Of course it caught on, because it's easy to use. That's what bitcoin needs to be. Maybe it's just not ready yet. Maybe it never will be. But if that's the case, then bitcoin failed the public... not the other way around.

A proper understanding of bitcoin requires at least some basic knowledge of computers and networking, even better if you know a little programming. It also requires knowledge of and understanding of the underlying economic theory, and it helps to know why competing theories are flawed, especially the day to day fiat system we have all lived with our entire lives - which requires being able to step outside the box. Politics and human psychology on a large population scale also helps.

Individually, these are all high-IQ fields. And we employ them all every day in discussion threads. Forget arrogance, we are as a group not only more intelligent than the average person, we are more intelligent than the average intelligent person.

All that said, the only thing required for the average person to invest is just one thing: Greed. Once people believe bitcoin is here to stay the masses will come flocking in.

[chessnut]

The world is too dumb. period.

enter Darwin - survival of the bitcoin holders.

[lemfuture]

yes because of flouride

[notme]

They don't have to understand it.  They just need the people who do to make it easy to use.

[Lloydie]

yes because of flouride

Not in water supply for teeth that's for sure.

[BittBurger]

I have always felt that 10% of the population runs the world, because 10% (or less) of the population has an IQ significantly higher than the masses.

Very few people operate on an intellectual level capable of grasping anything but the basics of life.

I truly believe that.

But I rarely say it out loud because it would make me sound like a dick.

-B-

[aminorex]

There are enough uses for Bitcoin, including a sufficient number of ways in which Bitcoin can add value to existing financial workflows, and an illimitably vast number of potential innovative applications with concommitant opportunities motivating entrepreneurs, so that the probability of Bitcoin losing its value persistently is vanishingly small.  Just as a portfolio of company shares is unlikely to lose a very large part of its valuation, and will almost certainly be lifted by growth in the broader economy, over the long run, similarly, the myriad potential sources of fundamental economic value attribution possessed by Bitcoin make it stupendously unlikely that all will fail, and the observable growing Bitcoin economy will almost certainly lift its market price.

Holding Bitcoin is more volatile than holding mature, liquid and fully capitalized post-IPO shares, but it is much, much less risky, because Bitcoin value appreciation does not depend on a single management to succeed.  It is a portfolio of all of the future innovations which can be implemented on top of a fully built-out infrastructure implementing the blockchain general ledger algorithm, which is very much a new emerging market. It is like holding a broad portfolio of shares in a newly globalizing emerging market.  Those shares will include many ventures which are only useful to a small minority of the population.  

Suppose that the universe of Bitcoin users were limited exclusively to millionares with 3d std. deviation IQ levels.  That's perhaps 40,000 people, with an aggregate property value in the neighborhood of 800bn USD.  If they are 10% liquid and turn over their liquidity at normal velocity, and use just 10% of it in the form of Bitcoin, and there are 16mm BTC floating, then each BTC must be valued 3kUSD at the first moment.  3000 US$, even after eliminating 99.99995% of the human population from the picture.  Now add back the missing 7 billion people, including the other 99.7% of the millionaires.  Did Bitcoin lose any value when you added those people to the picture?  Not one iota.  If 0.000005% adoption is sufficent to quintuple the current value, I think a much higher future valuation is essentially guaranteed.

[amencon]

I've always maintained that Bitcoin is too complex to experience wide spread adoption, for now.

Most people will never understand how public-key cryptography works, or understand that you never actually have "bitcoins" in your possession but instead possess the ability to access "coins" which are actually just entries in a decentralized ledger.  People will continue to get malware, constantly.  Hoping for education to eradicate insecure computers around the world, while a noble endeavor, is a pipe dream.

The fact is that the world is "too dumb" for most things.  Email, networking, cars, planes and even the current fiat banking system.  I'm "too dumb" (or lazy in many cases) to fully understand lots of technologies I enjoy every day.

The path to main stream adoption is building more and more simplified interfaces to the bitcoin technology.  This will take time but I believe we are making progress month by month.

Hardware wallets will be a necessity I think.  As well as hiding cryptographic keys from the end user.

Bitcoin has to come to the people, because it will never happen the other way around.

[b!z]

i am too dumb for bitcoin, tired of hodling, i think i will sell before i lose all my coins to a cracker

Use a cold wallet. It's not difficult.

[ElectricMucus]

Are Bitcoiners too dumb for Bitcoin?