"Bitcoin is a cult."
You've likely heard that one before. And I get it too. Bitcoiners are crazy!
Maybe you've seen this as the counter argument:
And I'd say it's pretty accurate, given that's the "cult" that goes unquestioned.
So beyond the USD, what are the real cults out there? The ones we don't talk about enough
A particularly insidious group I have named the ‘coffeeladderati’.
This is a group of, usually boomer generation, home owners who state that any young person could own their own home and get on the property ladder if they ditched their daily latte. They are rarely challenged on the mathematics or assumptions that go into this - whilst their is a strong case for cutting discretionary spending and investing that money the advantages they enjoyed are not available anymore.
The days of secure occupation and eligibility for 5% lifetime fixed rate rate 99% self-certified mortgage on a £100,000 family home are just not there. It is a cult, pushed out by mainstream financial media, which separates the ‘haves who don’t appreciate that luck and hard work played their part’ and the ‘have not and cannot get even with luck’.
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Lol Boomers can't even use excel sheets how do you expect them to understand any patterns or trends, they still talk about how they did it under higher interest rates and don't get that this isn't an argument for them, its against them lol
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Yeah, higher interest rates usually mean lower prices, because they burst the bubbles created by lower interest rates.
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What’s excel? Double entry bookkeeping in my day!
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I think social media has created a lot of microcults where we're all subscribed to a variety of influencers and ideologies.
You can kind of label anything that's popular, self serving, and has an identity as a cult.
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right. along with that we've eroded the meanings of so many words that we use to label others
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The cult of the State predates fiat. I would consider this one a bit different from the cult of the State but there are arguments that they are the same. The cult of "the leader". Basically the a man who is held in such high regard that he is like a god. Kings of old. We still have this in modern culture with the cult of personality. People will take the word of a man over evidence, and logic.
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unfortunately facts carry no inherent emotion, but man does!
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At the moment my favourite cult is the SovCits I love the legal mumbo jumbo they recite thinking its actually meaningful and they're just so enlightened it makes me lol, them at the Q anon peeps are an endless supply of laughs
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Bitcoin is kinda like a cult, but it can't be a cult because we're right!
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you can make it your cult if you want to
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You don't think bitcoin will succeed?
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There has been a lot of study of cults and controlling behaviour. The reality is that genuine cults such as the Mormon Church, Scientology, etc, rely on a lot of controlling and emotionally manipulative behaviour which Bitcoin communities / users do not have. (I say Communities because Bitcoin itself is a technology, and it is only the human structures on top of it that we are talking about here.)
There is a useful model and acronym for understanding culte behaviour: B.I.T.E Model by Steven Hassan

Behaviour Control (B): This category explores how manipulative groups regulate and dominate their members’ actions and behaviors through strict rules, rewards, and punishments, limiting individual autonomy.
Bitcoin Users: There is no control mechanism, there are various subgroups of users within Bitcoiners. At its most basic, a Bitcoin user has a wallet and a node. That is it. There is no one else in the picture. It may seem like there are strong opinions in certain areas, "No shitcoins" etc, but I do not think these are anything akin to real cults.
Information Control (I): Examining the tactics of manipulative organizations to control information flow through censorship and propaganda, restricting members’ access to outside perspectives.
Bitcoin Users: Are often, but not always, pro-free speech and pro independence, actively seeking out truth.
Thought Control (T): Focuses on psychological techniques used by such groups to shape beliefs and attitudes, suppressing critical thinking and promoting conformity.
Bitcoin Users: Many are pro family, pro autonomy, GTFO, critical of everything. Consensus is an aspect of Bitcoin tech and communities, but it is also part of almost everything humans do.
Emotional Control (E): Explores how manipulative organizations manipulate emotions, fostering dependency and loyalty through love-bombing, guilt, and fear-based indoctrination.
Bitcoin Users: Logic, low-time preference, rationality, mathematics, and economic reality.

Note: The public "shunning" of certain outspoken individuals on twitter etc may seem related to some of the above, but it is just typical internet behaviour IMO and would be very similar if you switched "Bitcoin" out for a sports team, brand, or some other thing that people are passionate about. No one is getting actually shunned and forbidden from seeing their family or friends because of Bitcoin (A common cult tactic in Hare Krishna, Mormon Church, etc).
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thanks for breaking this down, the bite model is quite interesting
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The Cult of Respectability
These are your normie friends and family who believe every regime approved narrative as it comes out, but acknowledge many of the past instances of being lied to. No matter how many times they're lied to, they always trust the proven liars and experts who are always wrong over the "cooks" who are skeptical of them.
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I love the apologists for a regime among them as well; ‘they made a mistake but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t believe them.’ No, we shouldn’t believe them because they are proven crooks and liars.
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The defining feature of this cult is that every benefit of the doubt will be extended to the regime and every smear of regime critics will be accepted.
It's all about believing what they are supposed to believe.
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This one really fucks with me. If a person constantly lied to your face, you'd stop believing them.
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I find these to be the most frustrating people to talk to, because they'll grant pretty much all the premises, but still not draw the obvious conclusions. I'd much rather talk to someone who I just disagree with, because we can at least have a real conversation.
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Faith in Government and the slow, relentless relinquishing of your body, mind and spirit to a small centralised powerful group of people who have built an invisible cage for you. The cult of the NPC
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unfortunately 'is a cult' is a sin word in the information age. When you are oppressed and don't know it, that's the essence of cult behavior and the only way out. Amount of people in a cult doesn't change the oppression, I was taught that it was.
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We could make Bitcoin itself look like a cult. Owning a chapel, having a statue of Satoshi in there, and then we have a speaker in robes with beard talking about Bitcoin.
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wait ur telling me you havent been doing this regularly??
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I'm mean yeah I tried to do some speeches and chat about it with some friends here and there in my robes at home with some candles around.
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Woke culture.
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Got another one; CrossFit
If you are not familiar with it you are lucky! Its participants are usually found proselytising with evangelical zeal, 'CrossFit is best. I am right - you are wrong' and everything comes back to CrossFit. They train as 'a community' doing their prescribed workouts-of-the-day but grind other lesser mortals from lesser groups down in brutal competition.
Training doesn't count if you don't post it on MyFaceSpace or similar and a workout isnt worthwhile unless you vomit. You have paid to join our smelly warehouse gym but it costs the same as your car payments... welcome to the cult... sorry; club.
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oh man...i know a few people who went thru a crossfit phase lol
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Lockdowns seemed to close a few of the locations. It was annoyingly popular with the ‘white label’ online retailers hiding out in Bali living their best laptop lifestyles for a while though.
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Cult of Death - Black Magic - Casting Spells
Corporation - death speak; black robes - judges, lawyers; spells - spelling, different meanings and definitions, you vs thou, capitis deminutio maxima, corporations posing as governments, Black's Law dictionary...
ikr
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