1) What exactly would I be wrong about? A good test for cognitive dissonance is comparing your predictions to reality, and I do not believe that I ever stated that BitCoin is inevitably going to become the most important currency in the world. I think crypto is great conceptually (which will never be not true) and that it may or may not succeed in the marketplace. Bitcoin itself may not succeed long-term even if crypto does. I acknowledge all of those things.
2) If crypto "fails", I'd say that the reason for the failure is important in making an assessment. If it fails because the technology is too slow long-term or not enough people choose not to use it for a very long-time, that's one thing that would be harder to argue against. If crypto fails because it's effectively legislated out of existence, that would be hard to see that as anything but a vindication of the concept.
3) For what it's worth, while I consider myself to be a fairly rational person, nobody is absolutely immune to cognitive dissonance. You should constantly check your premises and examine your past predictions. That's part of why I support the absolute right to free speech and debate ideas and play devil's advocate a lot.
4) I stand firm on one prediction. If some government out there decides to use some crypto for their central bank, they're going to have their media pump out support for it, and many former crypto opponents will be reprogrammed on the fly and take on a pro-crypto viewpoint without skipping a beat if they're told to.
That's all well and good. The only thing I'll say is, I think you vastly overestimate how many people are programmed one way or the other. I think a few people have formed their own opinions, a few people have been politically programmed, and the vast majority have no real opinion on the goodness or badness. For them, Bitcoin is just a curiosity or a fun casino to play in.
I also wouldn't neglect that a lot of people have been programmed by crypto ideology.
> If crypto fails because it's effectively legislated out of existence, that would be hard to see that as anything but a vindication of the concept.
If the concept is "decentralized payments are resistant to government intervention", then wouldn't the government killing crypto be proof that the concept failed?
> If the concept is "decentralized payments are resistant to government intervention", then wouldn't the government killing crypto be proof that the concept failed?
Anything can be physically destroyed and anybody can be physically jailed or killed, so I suppose there will never be a currency that is 100% immune to punitive government action.
But it seems like a vindication of the concept if some government felt threatened enough by crypto to have to forcibly go after it. Harmless bad ideas are generally not targeted (see furries for example) the only things that are forcibly banned are things that pose some kind of threat to the power structure.
1) Despite crypto being around for just over a decade and real commerce being transacted with it, we're still in the frighteningly early days of its use. I'd say that even super-smart technical people are just barely scratching the surface and it's probably going to be about 3-5 years before an average technical person has a proper understanding of what a blockchain is and how it works, let alone understanding the ramifications of oracles when combined with smart contracts. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but there's no chance that the general public really understands crypto right now, especially when their impression of it comes from a media that doesn't understand it either.
2) Regardless of most peoples' understanding of it, it should go without saying that human rights should not be up to a poll.
> want crypto banned simply because its uses seem to be almost entirely restricted to criminal activity
1) I don't know what percentage of crypto uses are normal commerce and which are criminal actions, but I know firsthand that crypto is used for all kinds of business payments for years.
2) You might as well advocate banning paper cash, most banks, etc if you want to ban something tied to crime.
> and speculation (i.e. gambling).
It should go without saying that even the worst excesses of gambling are legal in a free society.
If you want to ban all financial speculation, you might as well ban all betting and the stock market too.
I stand by my statements. Bitcoin is a bad currency for anyone but criminals and speculators. People toy with using it for legitimate purposes, but it's fundamentally not competitive.
Most of your response is based on a failure to understand how useful things that can be misused are different from things that have virtually no good use and lots of bad ones. If Bitcoin was banned tomorrow, the world would be no worse off.
2) If crypto "fails", I'd say that the reason for the failure is important in making an assessment. If it fails because the technology is too slow long-term or not enough people choose not to use it for a very long-time, that's one thing that would be harder to argue against. If crypto fails because it's effectively legislated out of existence, that would be hard to see that as anything but a vindication of the concept.
3) For what it's worth, while I consider myself to be a fairly rational person, nobody is absolutely immune to cognitive dissonance. You should constantly check your premises and examine your past predictions. That's part of why I support the absolute right to free speech and debate ideas and play devil's advocate a lot.
4) I stand firm on one prediction. If some government out there decides to use some crypto for their central bank, they're going to have their media pump out support for it, and many former crypto opponents will be reprogrammed on the fly and take on a pro-crypto viewpoint without skipping a beat if they're told to.