I was interviewed about Bitcoin on more than 100 Radio stations! ~100K Listeners

[cbeast]

I understand that many people have very different political views,  but please keep in mind that the majority of the listeners to this radio show
think:

1.Taxation is the moral equivalent of theft.
2. The draft is the moral equivalent of kidnapping and slavery.
3. The government is the most successful organized criminal gang in a particular area.
4. Because of the first three items,  they want nothing to do with the state.

Thank you all for your advice.
I am taking all of it into consideration.

Excellent insight on freetalklive's listener base but remember, somewhere down the road another interview may take place with a different type of audience, as you mentioned, and taboo talking points could easily come back to haunt us.

Hmm. I've actually thought for a while that Bitcoin may first be adapted by fringe and radical groups.

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[Steve]

1.Taxation is the moral equivalent of theft.
2. The draft is the moral equivalent of kidnapping and slavery.
3. The government is the most successful organized criminal gang in a particular area.
4. Because of the first three items,  they want nothing to do with the state.

I understand that most people do not agree with the above,  but because most listeners of this show do,  I think they will be interested in my original points.

Actually, I think most people agree with these things (or at least could very easily be persuaded to those points of view).  If bitcoin is to survive, the average person is going to need to be supportive of it.  If you talk about all the ways bitcoin can be used to break laws, every word you say will be used as propaganda against bitcoin and the average person, not really knowing any better, will form an opinion against bitcoin.  Your audience in this forum is intelligent enough to put 2 & 2 together and see where this is headed, I don't think you need to spell it out for them.  The best thing the powers that be could hope for is a bunch of people to start ranting in public about all the ways bitcoin can be used to break the law or destroy the system.  The media will have a field day portraying those people as a bunch of fringe lunatics or terrorists…they'll have all the support they need from the voters to pass all sorts of draconian laws or regulations to put a stake in the heart of bitcoin.  Governments will pass all sorts of heavy regulations around the use of virtual currencies by businesses that it makes it so costly to deal with bitcoin in a compliant manner that it's simply not economical to use.  It probably wouldn't completely kill bitcoin, but it might set it back a few decades.

[silverfuture]

There is really little anyone can do to stop bitcoin from being maligned by the ignorant or the financially interested. It already has been and is going to be for a long time.  No sense in beating around the bush because in the end there will be as much or more gain in adoption from bad press as good. I guarantee there are more than a few "establishment types" who will publicly discredit but privately use the bitcoin network.

Knock 'em dead Roger!

[tvbcof]

On the plus side, I would say that the kind of people that you might lasso in would tend to be among the most capable of looking out for themselves in the Wild West that is the Bitcoin world at this time.

On the minus side, the higher the percentage of tax cheats and so on that compose the Bitcoin community, the easier it will be to make the shit which is thrown at it stick.

On balance I think that the project would be better served by not becoming to much more Libertarian heavy, but I could be wrong so I do wish you the best of luck.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Everyone,

Thank you for your input.

For those concerned about the illegal aspects of Bitcoin,  I they will surely come up durring the interview.
The main host openly admits that he refuses to pay federal income taxes because he doesn't support the things the federal government does.
He spoke of the silk road way back in 2010 as the potential "killer app" for bitcoins.

I understand that many people have very different political views,  but please keep in mind that the majority of the listeners to this radio show
think:

1.Taxation is the moral equivalent of theft.
2. The draft is the moral equivalent of kidnapping and slavery.
3. The government is the most successful organized criminal gang in a particular area.
4. Because of the first three items,  they want nothing to do with the state.

I understand that most people do not agree with the above,  but because most listeners of this show do,  I think they will be interested in my original points.
If I was going on the Oprah Winfrey show,  I should certainly use a different list of talking points.

I will continue to monitor this thread for about the next 10 hours.
I will post the interview on youtube as soon as it is available.

Thank you all for your advice.
I am taking all of it into consideration.

Excellent insight on freetalklive's listener base but remember, somewhere down the road another interview may take place with a different type of audience, as you mentioned, and taboo talking points could easily come back to haunt us.

Exactly it isn't just the direct audience.  Your words as a Bitcoin supporter could be used to undermine the credibility of Bitcoin movement.  "See Bitcoin supporters promote criminal tax evasion. It should be shut down".

[btc_artist]

1.Taxation is the moral equivalent of theft.
2. The draft is the moral equivalent of kidnapping and slavery.
3. The government is the most successful organized criminal gang in a particular area.

I don't disagree. But consider the following:

If bitcoin is to survive, the average person is going to need to be supportive of it.  If you talk about all the ways bitcoin can be used to break laws, every word you say will be used as propaganda against bitcoin and the average person, not really knowing any better, will form an opinion against bitcoin. 

Your words as a Bitcoin supporter could be used to undermine the credibility of Bitcoin movement.  "See Bitcoin supporters promote criminal tax evasion. It should be shut down".

[o]

btc_artist gives good summary, but two more points:

Legal aspect: Bitcoin is not designed for illegal stuff, but the other way around. It is new architecture, so new laws needs to be created for it. It is an bold attempt as a global and Internet currency, so all old laws does not applied for it. It is operated different from money, gold, debt, bond and stock. Audience should realize themselves the reason of illegal activities at the moment is because the laws does not fit.

Potential usage: Talk about the big markets and the benefits, say exchange of virtual goods, online games, IT supports, new business model for website other than advertisement, etc. Benefit is that it is across any country and website, no exchange fee and easy to use. Maybe talking about bounty economics here, someone raise programming problem, other solves it and get BTC rewards, and money.

The most important thing is to raise audience interests. These should answer questions like: Why do we care about it? Why is it useful? Is it legal?

1.Taxation is the moral equivalent of theft.
2. The draft is the moral equivalent of kidnapping and slavery.
3. The government is the most successful organized criminal gang in a particular area.

I don't disagree. But consider the following:

If bitcoin is to survive, the average person is going to need to be supportive of it.  If you talk about all the ways bitcoin can be used to break laws, every word you say will be used as propaganda against bitcoin and the average person, not really knowing any better, will form an opinion against bitcoin.

Your words as a Bitcoin supporter could be used to undermine the credibility of Bitcoin movement.  "See Bitcoin supporters promote criminal tax evasion. It should be shut down".

[cbeast]

I say pander to the audience. Let's not coddle Bitcoin. It will survive or die based on it's own merits. If it is robust enough to survive all the attacks it has so far, then that says a lot. If people want to use it for illegal purposes, they can try, but there is risk and law enforcement is getting much better with cybercrimes. Right now gambling seems to be one of the most popular aspects and while it may or may not be illegal, libertarians may like the idea. Only a very small minority of people will commit crimes with Bitcoin anyway.

I know it's late and you may not even see this, but I thought I would add one more item anyway:
With Bitcoin you can hand someone a physical note for a purchase which they can turn around and spend or send online. This is probably the most important feature. You cannot do this with cash or even debit cards without having bank accounts to go through.

[fivebells]

For those concerned about the illegal aspects of Bitcoin,  I they will surely come up durring the interview.
The main host openly admits that he refuses to pay federal income taxes because he doesn't support the things the federal government does.

I understand that most people do not agree with the above,  but because most listeners of this show do,  I think they will be interested in my original points.

These are fascinating aspects of bitcoin's potential effects, and definitely worth talking about.  It's worth keeping in mind that you won't necessarily be talking only to the show and it's listeners, because it will be recorded.  If another journalist decides to do a critical piece on bitcoin and finds an interview with a bitcoin proponent pushing evasion of government requirements as bitcoin's key selling point, they will present that in a negative light.  I'm not saying you shouldn't talk about it, just that diplomatic language would be smart.

Also, it is probably worthwhile to scan the "Bitcoin notable press hits" thread for an hour, reading the negative articles and preparing yourself with ready responses to the criticisms they raise.  Even if the radio interviewer is totally in favor of bitcoin, he would be a poor journalist if he didn't push back at you on at least some of the problems with it.  (Wallet security, scams and high-profile hacks, price fluctuation,  not backed by any tangible feature, concentration of wealth, are a few which come to mind off the top of my head.)   These are not things you would want to bring up uninvited, but you should be ready to talk about them persuasively if they come up.

Congratulations and good luck!

[freequant]

I understand that most people do not agree with the above,  but because most listeners of this show do,  I think they will be interested in my original points. If I was going on the Oprah Winfrey show,  I should certainly use a different list of talking points.

If you have character, don't fall in the trap of delivering a message that your conscience wouldn't approve of, just to fit with your audience's expectations.
Don't tell something at Free Talk Live that you wouldn't feel comfortable with at Oprah Winfrey's show.
In short, and this is true whatever the context: act with integrity.

[BadBear]

Ugh he's gonna do it anyway.  Oh well, it could have been good. 

[Shawshank]

I would stick mostly with the points that are currently legal, and not on avoiding taxes, hiding wealth, etc.

I would add the following:

1) Some people hoard gold or jewelry in their homes. Bitcoin is safer.
2) In the case of high inflation, your savings are safer with Bitcoin. Bitcoin can potentially keep up with inflation.
3) If there is a war in your country or some political instability, you can always move to some other country with no baggage at all, connect to a server, download your wallet and start a brand new life with your hard-earned money.
4) Most gold-owners just own gold-certificates. That is definitely no the same as gold. On the other hand, Bitcoin-owners really have the wealth on their wallet file.

[tvbcof]

I would stick mostly with the points that are currently legal, and not on avoiding taxes, hiding wealth, etc.

I would add the following:
...
3) If there is a war in your country or some political instability, you can always move to some other country with no baggage at all, connect to a server, download your wallet and start a brand new life with your hard-earned money.
...

All of your points are valid as are most others made on this thead.  But this one really stands out in my mind.  There were many things which induced me to finally start figuring out Bitcoin, but this one was possibly the biggest.

I would have thought that this feature in and of itself would have launched BTC values to well in excess of the $30/BTC bubble with no where near the correction we've seen.  In fact, I did think that.  I was wrong and am sitting on a sizable loss in USD terms because of that.

I guess I am about the only person in America who does not believe that the full body scanners popping up like mushrooms are necessarily there to look for bombs.  I do buy into the idea that these scanners exist to identify 'terrorists', but only because the word 'terrorism' can be applied to almost any activity, and most certainly to activities involving monetary issues.

I cannot recall who to credit for this bit of wisdom, but some observant person once stated:

  "The vagueness of the term 'war on terror' is not a bug; it's a feature."

[finway]

waiting for youtube video/radio

[Littleshop]

I one point should be put out there:

Bitcoin is an alternative to Paypal for movements as well as individuals.  I think that alone makes it worth while.

With OWS and Wikileaks being blocked people need a way to get around financial 'censorship' . 

[MemoryDealers]

Show is starting now on www.freetalklive.com

There is a link to stream the show live.

[sadpandatech]

Show is starting now on www.freetalklive.com

There is a link to stream the show live.

  Listening to you right now. Awesome!

  And to the people that would say, "a currency should be backed by gold, etc", are dreaming a hell of a lot more than what is requiered to believe in Bitcoin. No currency from here on out will EVER be backed by gold again. perdiod. And if it were then those that actually control the gold would still have just as much ability to manipulate its vale as they do now....

[cypherdoc]

Show is starting now on www.freetalklive.com

There is a link to stream the show live.

  Listening to you right now. Awesome!

  And to the people that would say, "a currency should be backed by gold, etc", are dreaming a hell of a lot more than what is requiered to believe in Bitcoin. No currency from here on out will EVER be backed by gold again. perdiod. And if it were then those that actually control the gold would still have just as much ability to manipulate its vale as they do now....

are u listening live right now?  i'm not getting any live link.

[Electrongolf]

Nice job!

[sadpandatech]

are u listening live right now?  i'm not getting any live link.

  Yes, using Windows Media from this link here; http://www.freetalklive.com/listen/live