Sunday, 11 August 2019

But *why* is it dumb? (aka: Don’t forget what your ‘aha moment’ felt like)

After a certain point, you forget what it was like to ever not know. And that’s not a good thing. Perspective is the most valuable thing in the universe, and all perspectives are powerful wisdom for understanding how to motivate others and yourself.

Do you remember your first thoughts about Bitcoin? I remember getting the same feeling about it that I did all world changing technologies and games: “nah, that’s dumb... right?”

I felt the same way about the first iPhone too before I became wildly enthusiastic about it, and about Pokémon, and prolly a hundred other things throughout my life. And I remember thinking Bitcoin must be some silly nerd money that people had gotten rich on. It was dumb, right?

We can’t forget to ask the question: but why is it dumb?

If it really is you should be able to find a good reason. And if you find more questions, attack those too. And if you end up not being able to prove it’s dumb to yourself... then start asking yourself what the implications are.

I remember that investigation I did in 2014, pouring through the white paper. I remember the ‘click’ of my brain going - wait, WHAT. And I remember spiraling into amazement as I realized this was literally a new epoch for humanity.

It doesn’t have to be so epic. This lesson applies to smaller things too: When Marvel first hit gold with Iron Man, you might have been tempted to think, “nahh, comic book movies are played out, right?” But after an analysis of the facts you would start to realize the same nerds that had desperately wished for big budget comic book movies with heart now we’re adults with money and a cursory viewing of the first Iron Man would have shown you it was special. You could have bought Marvel stock back then, a lot of my friends did.

Takeaway point is that remembering how you first felt about Bitcoin will help you more quickly identify world changing memes and technology throughout your life. Because the next Fortnite is right around the corner, and cryptocurrency too will continue to innovate and expand itself. You need to be able to recognize which innovations are inevitable expansions that will conquer the world, and which deserve to be cast aside. But remembering that feeling of first being skeptical about Bitcoin will help guide your intuition into specifically what to spend your time attacking, and how to proceed when you can’t find anything wrong with it.

submitted by /u/katiecharm
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