The Crypto Thread

The Gold had/still has me puzzled but it was in there so I left it - the point was to compare Banking to Bitcoin but whatever.

Yeah I call this the kitchen-sink argument style, where people’s reaction to some argument being countered is just to drop that and pick some other argument with the same conclusion. You know, like the Earth isn’t actually warming, that’s a hoax, but if it is then it’s just natural climate variation, not anthropogenic, but actually if humans are causing it then it’s not going to be a big deal, but if it is going to be a big deal then it’s GOOD, actually, our crops will grow better or whatever, and if it’s going to be bad then we can’t do anything about it, but if we can then OK maybe we COULD have, but it’s too late now. You can tell when people argue like this that you’re not seeing the actual motivation behind their opinion, which in the case of global warming is typically a worldview which says that coordinated government action is bad.

zikzak pointed this style of argument out for crypto earlier:

Everyone does this to some extent, but it’s good to recognise when you are doing it because then you can at least realise that you’re approaching the subject with a bias.

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It’s basically variations of these:

So is nearly everyone here

They basically see crypto as having the same utility as rolling coal. It’s not hypocritical so much as it’s wrong, if it is wrong. People make money off rolling coal, too

But I’m with you on it’s hypocritical if they’re not also saying you shouldn’t fly for leisure or whatever. Which they aren’t, because they do it. So I don’t know what I’m saying I guess it is hypocritical

I have defeated myself

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Think of how much more energy crypto uses just by all the posting in this thread.

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Not only will they not do this, they’ll still claim that it requires tons of energy just like they continue to claim that the vast majority of transactions are for iLLeGaL AcTiViTy.

Do not tell me to post less

I will not post less

I will never post less

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Wow, I didn’t know it was such a high percentage.

Sorry bud, the law is the law

It’s different to the Gish Gallop in that the point there is to overwhelm people with a firehose of arguments, with what I’m talking about the arguments are taken one at a time. I’m really just talking about bad-faith argument, but a particular subgenre of it. And the problem with “bad-faith argument” is that it generally implies that people are doing it deliberately, whereas the sort of people who deploy the global warming arguments I mentioned are all totally convinced that they are coming from a place of pure rationality.

Literally everyone in the entire world

I’m curious about this.

Which of these more closely describes you?
  • Capitalist
  • Socialist
  • Other/Not sure

0 voters

Your overall impression of capitalism is
  • Positive
  • Negative
  • Bastard

0 voters

Capitalist more closely describes Bernie than socialist

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That’s overstating the case I think. Some people who engage in bad faith argument are knowingly playing games, as ably described by Sartre:

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

Those type of people see arguments in terms of a struggle for dominance, and for them logical argument is a game played to establish that dominance. But it’s true that for the subset of people for whom rationality is part of their identity, they always think they’re being rational in argument.

I chose capitalist and negative, heh. Same as I would say I’m a supporter of democracy and also my impression of democracy is negative.

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Before anyone says this is a no true scotsman take, or “nobody is as eXtReMe as me” take, it’s just a vocabulary take

If socialism doesn’t HAVE to mean workers owning the means of production, then you need to come up with some other word to replace what socialism originally meant… the workers owning the means of production

A big part of the political ideology game is the battle for the definition itself.

Crypto is cool and it will solve world hunger.

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Bernie’s movement definitely has aspects that move the Overton window to the right, and other elements that move it to the left. Not really sure the net is as far left as people think.

Like yeah a lot of people become “actual” socialists after being introduced to his brand of social democracy that he brands as socialism. But a lot of other people now think social democracy is socialism.

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