"I then went into my Alex Gladstein imitation, talking about French Colonialism and the CFA. I honestly was not consciously in orange pill mode. We had a good, long conversation."

I said this once and I'll say it again: the best way to make people understand bitcoin, is to make them understand the awful state of money in the world today. That is especially true, in my opinion, when you are talking to people to the left of the political spectrum, as they tend to have a more positive view of government than people on the right. In other words, you must first administer the red pill so that the organism doesn't react negatively to the orange pill. ;)