if you want to convince people, in the face of all factual evidence, that bitcoin is not powered entirely by a parasitic speculation bubble, i am not sure you are going to do it by revealing that you have literally no counterpoint to their arguments
First, I know it's a big celebration, the bitcoin defender of the thread has given up, but like I said, the info is out there for people who want to inform themselves...me getting tired of treading the same old ground doesn't make any of these arguments any more valid or delete that information. It's a typical internet situation where a bunch of people have ganged up and act like this conversation is taking place in a vacuum, which is why I don't really mind quitting. A lot of the stuff thrown at me is stuff that can be looked up quite easily and it's my choice whether I feel like doing that for people or not. But the bar is really set to "bitcoin must be perfect" and I'd be expected to answer every last dumb quip before changing anyone's position. That's just not happening.
Also, some seem to think that telling them to read and inform themselves means something more condescending, like I'm saying "once you learn, you'll understand, and come to love bitcoin" but I'm just talking about basic learning here. You can safely do that without drinking any kool aid.
They don't want to learn about it though, so it's just endless arguing forever. They say things like you can only hoard it or spend it on silk road, which hasn't been true for a good long while. Places do take bitcoin. Tiger direct and overstock are the two big ones, along with tons of independent businesses and casinos in vegas. It's not a whole lot, but it's a lot better than, say, December of just last year. I don't care if that's good enough for some of the people in this thread, but it's progress.
"The writing is on the wall, it's gonna go to zero and die" when it had a relatively small drop compared to past crashes, when it was already in the process of recovering while we were posting yesterday. Not to mention the times its crashed, it only came back stronger. Or the constant media attention. Or the various government responses that mostly endorse it or at least let it play out (along with some that try to limit it, of course.) But all this will mean nothing if you just want to believe it's going to die in the future regardless of anything happening today, so why would I spend time arguing it?
Plus, you simply can't convince someone it's not some pyramid-bubble-whatever. I guess one thing I learned yesterday is that maybe it's impossible to start a new currency without it looking like that, particularly at the general public level. You've got a weird currency, places to spend it, or you can trade it as sort of a commodity--what else is there to say? They focus on trading and how people lose money--that's not really offering any special reason why it's a scam or different from regulated currency. Dollars disappear into various shady markets and clever trading set ups all day every day.
My point was, there's tons of information out there. If you want to believe it's a huge scam, none of it will mean anything to you and I'm not going to spend much time arguing about it with you. I don't ask for anyone to agree, but walls of text loaded with assumptions based on very old information are just not something I want to deal with. I've seen empty_vessel do this in plenty of other bitcoin threads and it's obvious it can just go on forever. I can tell the difference between people who want to actually learn some stuff (they ask questions, they don't get dramatic and snarky or post massive amounts of conjecture just to deal with a simple point) and people who just want to argue and agree with each other. Bitcoin threads on gaf seem to be for people who just want to argue and totally own some dude on the internet with a slick quip. So, I know when to quit.
It's not my responsibility to post every last bit of information and defend bitcoin's honor, just like people apparently have no responsibility to research stuff before posting outdated info and bad arguments/assumptions. I'm not even a "bitcoin is the future, fiat is useless" guy, nor am I into the idea of totally unregulated currency running around doing whatever it wants. I am probably in agreement with a lot of people here on that, but that doesn't mean you flush the whole damn thing down the toilet...that would be throwing away a pretty awesome technological achievement that could be the foundation for others in the future--it's as simple as that to me. Plus I threw in a little disposable income and it has served me nicely. but the thread would like me to defend where I put my money and what I do with it as well. I'm going to need to post bank statements soon enough.
You come into a thread like this and the conversation is already mostly in the gutter, inviting nothing more than jabs from people who disagree with each other, not really looking ready to learn anything. Sometimes I'm on the other side of the fence, playing the snarky ass (ok, a lot of the times), so I know about how much progress I can make as an individual arguing against 50 others who agree with each other.
The game here is that I keep going, trying forever, while any little point raised on the other side, no matter how easily researched or dumb it is, means absolute defeat for me until I disprove it. Along the way, I'll deal with ad hominem attacks that say I'm a fanatic just for even entering the debate. And even just me writing too many words in this post will make someone quote this and say "tl;dr: u salty" and act like that's a victory lol
Hence, giving up. This isn't really about bitcoin per se, but rather about the argumentation style that we're currently engaged in.
but just remember that crypto jesus died for your sins.
