Comment by shrimpx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shrimpx | Hacker News Reader

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> But even back in 2011, there was a very high number of HNers who seemed personally affronted by the very idea that money was a social agreement. They seemed to believe that money was some kind of official, government activity, end of story. And that anyone who believed otherwise was an evil heretic, to be ridiculed.

This x10. If I were to anthropomorphise HN it would be a middle aged white collar worker, pretty smart, making fairly keen observations about the evolution of a company's product and social structure, but in the dark about executive-level play. Financially conservative, thinks of money as a necessary evil. Stashes money in the bank and is highly suspicious of financial risk.

To this character Bitcoin is a threat because it mixes that which they care strongly about (open source, distributed systems, impact) with that which they've largely ignored and of which they are suspicious (money).

Edit: grammar.

Your anthropomorphized HN rings amusingly true and strikes me as a bit sad. I was here in the early days, and back then HN was full of people reading PG and planning their own startups. I was one of them, but (until recently) ended up settling in as a middle-aged white collar worker, with cash in the bank and self-congratulations for my focus on craft over money. I guess I'm not the only one.

I never found Bitcoin threatening though. When I finally read Satoshi's paper, it struck me as beautifully elegant, and a great experiment in practical economics.

I smiled at your characterization. Although, more realistically, our archetype has done modestly well by working for the man, and has 100k-low millions in index funds and company stock, and some comfort with +/- 30% swings y/y.

But let's also remember, that middle-aged character has seen the hype cycles many times before in previous decades, and recognizes the scam. The sky-high and unstable valuations, the co-dependent press coverage, the hand-waving distraction from the absence of realistic uses, the flurry of me-too startups, the enthusiasm of lay investors.

Hype usually indicates pure bullshit, but sometimes something useful emerges out of it. Most often the original projects are decimated.

That's true, but someone less conservative would see the cycle and want to throw in on the next iteration. The HNer sees the iterations go by and mostly calls BS, but then profits tangentially by getting high salary jobs fueled by the cycle. I would also say the HNer has a bit of a doomsday/apocalyptic tendency, entertaining the idea that the next bust is "the end." E.g., crypto is dead.

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