In the depths of the fiat mines, it's easy to get used to your own skillsets, knowledge, assumptions, and experience.
I know that I can forget sometimes that what comes intuitively to me is completely foreign to someone else. I can take my own skills for granted.
But there are certain moments where I'm reminded of the value from my own unique perspective.
While helping out with my friend's startup, I would consistently get asked questions that seemed utterly basic to me. He was quite far along in getting things going -- seems like he knows what he's doing -- why does he want my help??
Oh, of course, I've spent years accumulating this information, so passively that I forget it's not simply common knowledge. Damn, I can probably make a lot of money doing this!!
I know talking about Bitcoin can feel a similar way sometimes. There's so much about Bitcoin that we understand as basic reality that's completely foreign to others. The disconnect between bitcoiners and "normies" that arises when trying to orange pill them I think stems in part from this fact; that we assume normies have more baseline understanding of certain concepts than they actually do.
The flip side of this is that you can leverage that gap in knowledge to your advantage. Channel it healthily towards work, your own business, side projects, or whatever instead of frustration that others "just don't understand."
That's why politics is so toxic.
Have you had a similar experience? When was your eureka moment where you realized your "basic" skills were much more valuable than you thought?
I had been interested in Bitcoin for a few years and was about half through writing my master thesis on Coin Selection in 2016, when a seasoned Bitcoin protocol developer invited me to get coffee. He brought another friend, a Bitcoin Core maintainer. We ended up chatting about Bitcoin for hours and I could contribute to the conversation throughout…
That day I realized that I’d find a fulltime job in Bitcoin after graduating.
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Yep same, one of the few topics where I realized I could talk infinitely about it seemed l
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This is cool. Can you share more? Was it a mathematical or SE thesis?
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Not that mathematical, it's mostly about a simulation. You can find it here: http://murch.one/erhardt2016coinselection.pdf
Don't be discouraged by the one-page summary in German, the thesis is in English
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Nice work, I just had a read through. You say:
”Dust” refers to transaction outputs that are less valuable than three times the mininum transaction fee and are therefore expensive to spend. Transactions creating dust outputs are not relayed by most nodes and not considered for confirmation by the majority of the miners.
I did not know this. If I try to send a 1 sat transaction what is the mechanism for it to not be relayed? A user setting? Do you have any details on the way miners do it please?
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Transactions with outputs that are smaller than the dust limit are non-standard to Bitcoin Core nodes. They are not added to the mempool and not relayed by Bitcoin Core.
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Nice, I see you wrote that reply too!
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Yeah, Bitcoin Stack Exchange was how I really got into Bitcoin. I found the site pretty early when I started tumbling down the rabbit hole. First I was just reading, then suggesting improvements, and soon one of the most active users on the site.
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273 sats \ 1 reply \ @ek 21 Oct 2023
The disconnect between bitcoiners and "normies" that arises when trying to orange pill them I think stems in part from this fact; that we assume normies have more baseline understanding of certain concepts than they actually do.
This so much. It's hard to meet them where they are if you don't know where they or you are.
I realized my networking skills are of value when someone wanted to pay me 1M sats to configure their network based on my blog posts of which there were only two at the time.
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Great education requires great self awareness from the teacher it does seem
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For me is when I finished my first project as a civil engineer. The homeowner was so happy with the services they received I was like wow I can make a difference in this world with my limited skill set. And be paid a livable fiat wage and become independent
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I definitely skew substantially more towards "imposter syndrome" than "damn, I'm the shit ain't I" on a perpetual basis.
But one time I was casually talking to a friend who was a very successful individual investor, and we were talking about a ticker that I had found interesting just doing some independent research. It was a great conversation but I thought it was just banter.
He sent me a text later to tell me he invested the equivalent of a healthy down payment on a nice home in the Midwest into the ticker and thanked me for bringing it to his attention.
Fast forward a few years, I think the stock is up 2.5X since we spoke. I'm still flabbergasted to this day he acted on my casual idea so decisively. I'm glad it worked out so well for the both of us; I was scared that we wouldn't be friends anymore if it didn't!
It's a memory or factoid that I'll come back to just to remind myself that my reasoning and analytical skills aren't half-bad.
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When my father told me (19 years old) to leave and do something to finance my studies... one moment that changed anything and I discovered my talent
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Interesting, I've seen this a lot in the context of "The Curse Of Knowledge". In that - people who really know something just have no understanding of how incomprehensible it may be to normal people.
This really shows up in software. The guy who wrote the software thinking it's so easy to use, meanwhile completely blind to what it looks like from the viewpoint of someone new to it.
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Also like Van Halen...legendary guitar player, couldn't teach it for shit
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I remember after like a year into bitcoin I was surprised most people didn't actually know how bitcoin worked outside of a very high level understanding. Most people were learning about econ when I spent time learning about the tech.
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Still waiting on the world to come around to my unique skill set.
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It’s sports meta on SN!
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Add in raising my kids to be strong, independent, and critical thinkers and I will take it.
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The current world is scared of those types
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We used to have a joke in Hungarian : "I buy & sell English classes." To me that's a way of life. Pick any lane. Anything you are passionate about. When you are constantly pushing your limits and learning something new within a specific industry, you will become a teacher for some people. Meanwhile you will feel like a lifelong student continuously learning. Bitcoin is one of those journeys. You may end up innovating the code or creating a cool project, you may end up falling in love with the community, economic simulations, commerce etc. So many corridors within the Bitcoin maze.
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Exactly how bitcoin feels...
Many would benefit from this approach, but many also don't think they have a "passion", but the funny thing is is that passion doesn't just naturally arise within you. Typically passion comes from having put a lot of work into xyz already
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nym 18 Apr
I notice this the most when I hear folks talk about a subject I know very well, and how many false assumptions people make.
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I studied computer science because I really liked it. I honestly expected a public school teacher's salary when I graduated at best.
While I spent a summer taking visual design classes my junior year, my friends got internships at FANGs and were getting loads of money for producing literally nothing. That's when I realized.
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Sometimes it is not even about your skill set; it can be something as simple as showing up. So I have been a semi-active member on this Facebook page meant for many teachers and heads of departments in my country’s Ministry of Education. I have been sharing my lessons and insights once every term in this group. Sometimes, I share the lessons I create and curate at Singapore Learning System, our online learning management system. Other times, I share my experience with AI tools and with teaching students with dyslexia.
So when the admins wanted to organise a physical party for the teachers in our nation (the first one since the COVID pandemic), they thought of me and asked me to be one of the conversation leaders. It seems to be a fairly prestigious event. An important director from the Ministry will come to have a fireside chat with us at the end of our sharing.
Well I never thought that sharing my lessons and insights would position me to be a thought, forward-looking leader in the eyes of other educators. I’m flattered, to say the least.
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