Our old WEF buddy is at it again on this bitcoin is a system of distrust thing. He talked about this before but goes into more detail about his thinking here.
You can watch the video here without visiting Twitter
When I say that Bitcoin is a currency of distrust, I'm just repeating what Bitcoin fans themselves say. There may be good reasons not to trust the banks and governments that create dollars, yens, and other currencies – but that doesn’t change the fact that the preference for Bitcoin is based on distrust of human institutions. Why is this an alarming development? Because the whole purpose of money is to create trust between strangers. Financial devices like currencies, bonds and shares – 90% of which are just data in computers – build trust between millions of strangers, who can then pool their knowledge and resources together, and cooperate. Humans control the world because we learned to do this. If we now lose trust in human institutions, this will limit the amount of money and handicap economic activity and cooperation. I hope that humanity finds a way to build trustworthy human institutions, instead of adopting technologies of distrust..
Tom Woods wrote a response which is good in his email newsletter
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Seems to be a follow up to the interview we discussed here.
Oooof. He must not have read Broken Money. Or really any book about money for that matter. Money is how we solve transacting with someone whom we don't trust with whom we don't have a coincidence of wants. People aren't, by default, trustworthy, and money allowed us to do business with people we don't trust. Money is built for distrust. Bitcoin is just a better form of it.
I do think there's a point to be made about better money causing trust to be in less demand. That would be an awesome point for someone like him to make, but instead he says whatever he's trying to say here, which sounds an awful lot like Terrance Howard explaining math/physics/chemistry.
It is interesting to listen to these comments and then listen to WBD Podcast Junseth interview where he plays recording with a scammer. Here's the question I would ask Yuval. OK, what do we do then? Should we just keep getting scammed forever? Are we supposed to believe and trust people that keep scamming us? Are we supposed to vote harder? What is his answer?
If I didn't know any better I would just think this dude is naive.
He's certainly naive on money. I think he's mostly a victim of his success and the genetic lottery winnings of a big ego. He's treated like an expert on everything and he can't help but try to live up to it.
I haven't listened / read his actual comments in their full context, but I wonder how much of this interpretation is in good faith. If the real thing he wants to say is: trust in people and institutions is vitally important for human flourishing, and it would be sad to write it off then I agree 100%. There is no technological solution that obivates the need for trust and the fruits of it, and any world in which people don't find ways to scaffold trust in each other at scale will be a hellscape.
I view btc as in service of that effort. The quoted excerpt seems to indicate that he does not, so that would be a point of departure. But hard to say without investing more time.
Yeah, that's a good point. There are many like him. It is interesting how few non-bitcoiner influencers have a huge mental block about bitcoin. How few of them understand it. I really look for smart people that have good arguments against bitcoin. Almost all are just arrogant and ignorant. It has shown me that arrogance is the biggest threat to people once they achieve notoriety. It has deepened my focus on not being arrogant myself. I think bitcoiners need to guard against this on a daily basis. It is an increasing vulnerability as NGU. "Stay humble"
+100.
Yeah, that's what I think.
Kinda surprising how much ignorance there is about money.
https://m.stacker.news/32050
🌝.
All human institutions are corrupted and broken. Plan accordingly.
Exactly. But he seems to be a secular humanist and probably rejects that idea.
I really wonder if one of his core misunderstandings is not understanding the dynamics of power and evil. Maybe we should send him a copy of the "Lord of the Rings" or a Bible. And then I remember he is a big WEF speaker and it all makes sense.
Bitcoin is automation that eliminates the need to rely on humans, just like any other technology.
replace distrust with independence, and trust with dependence, and the veil is lifted.
Exactly, Bitcoin is next level stuff. Before, you always needed to trust for most financial instruments to work. Now, you don't need to, if you don't want to.
Well at least he got the message right! :D
Well, he didn't really get it right. Distrust is the default state so saying what he says is pretty dumb actually. Trust is also very personal and individual. I don't think he really gets anything right. What bitcoiners say is "Don't trust, verify". He only mentions don't trust. Does he trust everything by default? Of course not. This is a psyop. There's a reason why the WEF likes this dude.
I meant our message :P
Then his added opinions are of course calculated
Gotcha
He is totally not getting it.
Arguing for humans to get better at running trusted institutions is like arguing for "communism done right this time".
I have a feeling he thinks the algorithm is self-evolving like an AI entity of some sort, which makes me thinks he absolutely has no idea what he is talking about.
He knows perfectly what he is talking about. The reason they have to attack BTC with those comments is because they understand full well what's at stake for them.
At this point unless someone proves they understand the technicals of bitcoin I assume they do not. I do think he understands that bitcoin is a threat though.
He's just parroting what the bankers have told him.
That's all they need to know
He is right, we don't trust no fiat MFer....lol
we don't trust, we verify !!!
Money is distrust, credit is trust. And investments that hedge the capacity of institutions to operate well, such as real estate, have always existed
I could write a long refutation of this BS, or I can just say, what an idiot. Does anyone care what this clown says anyways?
Confuses distrust with trustlessness.