I don’t.
That’s it. That’s the post.
Extracts from one of my favorite pieces of writing ever, two years ago for Bitcoin Magazine:
In all sincerity, that is the full message: Just don’t do it. It’s not worth it.
You’re not an excited teenager anymore, in desperate need of bragging credits or trying out your newfound wisdom. You’re not a preaching priestess with lost souls to save right before some imminent arrival of the day of reckoning. We have time.
This, though, I suppose American HODL or Erik Cason might disagree with. Saving souls—or at least their wealth/purchasing power—is the task of all upstanding Bitcoiners who love thy neighbors, and honor their father and mother, etc.
Gigi's quote here always resonated with me
It’s highly unlikely that your uncle or mother-in-law just happens to be at that stage, just when you’re about to sit down for dinner. Perhaps on the porch, one-on-one, whisky in hand, with the most curious and intellectually balanced precoiner—that might be worth a shot.
Those are the standard rules of engagement that apply:
Now, I’m not saying to never ever talk about Bitcoin. We love to talk Bitcoin—that’s why we go to meetups, join Twitter Spaces, write, code, run nodes, listen to podcasts, attend conferences. People there get something about this monetary rebellion and have opted in to be part of it. Your unsuspecting family members have not; ambushing them with the wonders of multisig, the magically fast Lightning transactions or how they too really need to get on this hype train, like, yesterday, is unlikely to go down well. However, if in the post-dinner lull on the porch someone comes to you one-on-one, whisky in hand and of an inquisitive mind, that’s a very different story. That’s personal rather than public, and it’s without the time constraints that so usually trouble us. It involves clarifying questions or doubts for somebody who is both expressively curious about the topic and available for the talk. That’s rare—cherish it, and nurture it.
And remember, nobody gives a shit:
Everyone has some sort of impression or opinion of bitcoin—and most of them are plain wrong. But there’s nothing people love more than a savior in white armor, riding in to dispel their errors about some thing they are freshly out of fucks for. Just like politics, nobody really cares.
Bitcoin is more important that probably anything else. But not at the margin, not in others' face, and probs not at all at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
PEACE, friends
