The Doomsday Cult of Bitcoin

[MindMover]

On December 21, 1954, a woman named Dorothy Martin thought the world was going to end. Martin, a Chicago housewife, claimed to have received a message from aliens, warning her of an impending flood that would kill everyone on earth except for true believers, who would be carried away to safety on a flying saucer. For months, Martin had been gathering a band of followers who called themselves the Seekers and quietly prepared for their alien abduction. The Seekers left behind family and friends, sold their possessions, and on December 20, they waited. When midnight came, they waited some more.

When they realized the flying saucer wasn't going to come, and that Martin's prophecy had been wrong, something odd happened: Rather than giving up, the Seekers began furiously calling up newspapers and trying to spread their message as widely as possible. In order to overcome the cognitive dissonance of their situation and convince themselves their sacrifices had been worthwhile, they needed to proselytize.

This is, we now know, a psychologically normal response for prophetic groups whose central predictions fail to come true. And today, you can see something similar going on with another group of failing zealots. I'm talking about the cult of Bitcoin.

For months now, Bitcoin soothsayers have proclaimed that the virtual currency is going to Change Everything. The mass adoption of Bitcoin, they told us, would utterly transform the way the world stores and exchanges value. Government-backed currency would become obsolete. Farmers in Kenya would use the same Bitcoin-based payment systems as cafés in the Mission. With the future of money in the hands of Satoshi Nakamoto's brilliant protocol, inexact central planning would be replaced by algorithmic decentralization.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/doomsday-cult-of-bitcoin.html?mid=twitter_nymag

[Blue_Tires]

1. Get ready to be labeled a "hater"

[ZombieHorde]

2. I haven't been following the bitcoin story very closely.

I think this is the second article I have read on it, but those who oppose bitcoin seem desperate to me. This article is over the top in its representation of those who like bitcoin. The negative posts about bitcoin seem really insulting, but I'm not sure why. Unless there is just a simple guilt by association thing going on, I am missing a serious piece of this puzzle.

I may have to read some more articles on it.

[yurbud]

3. it's over the top, but it's hard to see how a currency based on nothing works

even our Rube Goldberg system of the Fed making money that we borrow that is paid back with real labor and taxes makes slightly more sense.

[Demeter]

4. It's a marker system

as is all fiat currency. Except there's no "currency" behind it, even. Just bits on a disk drive, and apparently, all too easily stolen by hackers.

[cprise]

5. What's the alternative?

Even gold has such scant practical uses that its value, too, is representative. Only certain items like food, shelter and land fall into a more fundamental value category (and even then, only to a point).

What the bitcoin boosters didn't realize is just how similar to gold it is: If someone takes it, that's it. So if you don't trust banks, you have to pony up for a whole lot of security to protect your savings.

Only.... computer security in general tends to be crap.

[Demeter]

6. Under this GOVERNMENT, which wants NO ALTERNATIVE, there is none

This government has deviated so far from the Founding Principles as to bear little resemblance to the original intent of the People. It can't or won't uphold the Rule of Law and equality and justice, so why think it would display any impartiality to property?