/r/BTC contains a lot of vitriol and trolling. So does /r/bitcoin. Many (but far from all) posters in both subreddits make the assumption that /r/bitcoin is for BTC supporters and /r/BTC is for BCH supporters. In many ways, these are self-fulfilling statements and I do fully expect the voting and replies to reflect this.
However, I'm subscribed to both subreddits because between the trolls, the die-hard no-thinking support-at-all-costs-without-solid-reasoning cheerleaders, and the cult-of-personality fanboys, there are still people who have interesting and useful things to say that I can learn from.
To take a line from Matt Dillahunty, "I want to believe as many true things and as few false things as possible". This is often stated in the context of religion vs atheism, but it applies to all areas of life. I think Bitcoin is an incredible thing, combining complexity from a vast array of disciplines. I have some experience with some of them (e.g. software design, fundamental economics, law, and philosophy) and practically no experience with others (e.g. deep cryptography, market behaviour, international relations). Even those areas I do have experience in, I am more than willing to admit I've got a lot to learn and the subtle interplay of the many fields can bring surprising results that might not be intuitive when looked at without an awareness of each of the inputs/influences.
Here on reddit, the signal to noise ratio is pretty low unfortunately, but that doesn't mean there is no signal. Reddit is a great place to pick out the occasional gem that will start me going down a rabbit hole of learning. And many of those gems have appeared in comments here on /r/btc.
There are also great and intelligent debates to be had. Many of my posts here on /r/btc get downvoted to oblivion when I make positive comments about Lightning or talk about my views on why blocksize increases are a naive approach to scaling; but sometimes someone will answer me with something better than just a troll. Something that gives me a chance to think about another way of looking at it or presenting information that I really wasn't aware of before. Whether they end up changing my opinion or not doesn't matter nearly as much as that each and every one of these posts/answers does help me increase my knowledge and understanding of these complex topics and are therefore extraordinarily valuable to me.
So, is this post just me stroking my own ego with my reasons for being here? No. What I'm trying to achieve here is twofold:
Firstly, to get those of you who do post quality content with links to more information or well thought-out reasoned answers with logic backing it up rather than emotion or appeals to authority to just keep it up. There are people like me who appreciate it very much and you're not just wasting your time throwing it out in to the void.
And secondly, to get those of you who deliberately surround yourselves in an echo chamber to consider the value of not doing so. Try looking for the valuable information in-between the trolls and the fanboys over in /r/bitcoin and spend the time to think about what they're saying. Challenge yourself to honestly understand it and try to refute things with more than just "it's bad". Always ask "why?", "is this opinion backed up by real evidence?", and even "in the hypothetical situation that I'm wrong about this even though I don't think I am, what are the implications?".
If this post encourages even a 1% increase in the above behaviours, I'll consider it to have been a success.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/9s1k3a/why_i_a_btc_maximalist_am_subscribed_here/
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