Oddbean

Okay hear me out, don’t come at me for ignorance. But I’m teaching the last class today for BTC Isla (before they officially graduate next week) and in the last chapter it talks about bitcoin being a revolution and how it its paving the way for a more equitable and decentralized future. The word “equitable” keeps come back because how can it be equal if it rewards early adapters? And of those early adapters most if not all had access to a computer back in the early days. It isn’t equal to those in poverty though, that have no such resources. Why is it that the poor always get the short end of the stick? What do I mean by that? Well the less you have the harder it is for you to succeed, yet the more you have, easier it is for you to reach the top.

And it's more equitable because no one can print BTC and give it to their political donors, or banking bros. Capital formation would be dependent on people's proof of work rather than their power and political status.

Right, but with Bitcoin at least we’re all playing by the same rules. We all have access to this digital asset that increases in value and can’t be printed and mismanaged. Historically fiat has favored the rich and well connected. And the assets that balloon in value during high inflation, gold, real estate, stocks, etc. only the rich could afford to buy these. Bitcoin is accessible to all.

You're not wrong... Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. Equity is often used bycorporateions now to fulfill demographics to prove equality.

Equitable: adjective 1. fair and impartial. "an equitable balance of power" Bitcoin is fair and impartial in its operation. All user are afforded the same rights within the network whether they have 1,000 sats or 1,000,000,000 sats. It’s not Bitcoin’s job or mandate to fix inequality. Inequality cannot be fixed and there shouldn’t be any more attempts to do so as that line of thinking has caused a lot of problems in the past.

I think the internet is equitable. Even though a lot of early adopters have profited greatly out of it. However today wherever you live if you have access to internet you have a powerful tool to learn from and use. If you wished to have a better life wherever you are it gave you tools to achieve that. The same for Bitcoin wherever you are you can build on it and get a better future from that regardless of where you are and who you are

also, equity literally means "a stake of ownership in a group resource" so "equitable" is actually a nonsense you start with less, it is harder to gain the same linear amount, but the power curve is the same in percentage terms

It is equal in itself, but the fiat system existing breaks everything. If I have nothing, I do labour, I earn something, the person with everything pays for labour. The balances shift, granted not very fast. But with fiat, if I am rich, I can get loans and new money for cheap and earn while I pay you while I do nothing. You can't do that as a poor person, you have no credit score. Also rich man can lobby for more benefits that gives him more access to free money. Maybe he can make a donatable charity... you pay for them to get food, the government tops up your donation with new money aka "your tax deductables". Rich man takes a large cut from all of that for facilitating the donation. Some of your money, some of tax money, and you feel good because I told you someone will eat.

The error in your reasoning is in the apriori assumption that it "has to be equal". You need massive levels of tyranny to enforce that, at the cost of destroying merit. Not everyone can be a success, but you can make sure everyone becomes a failure. It's the only level where everyone could conceivably be "equal". That is a victim mentality. You can always find a dimension of experience where someone was handicapped, whether it be due to genetics, the place they were born, etc. Bitcoin is not equitable. It's not meant to be. You can't mandate equal outcomes and not expect to destroy the successful and the risktakers. Early adopters took massive risk and were laughed at by ignorant people who could not be bothered to do even basic due dilligence. Sucks for them. Turns out the early adopters were right. But if they had not been, and had sunk considerable time, expertise and capital into a failed project and a faulty idea, would society then have wanted to make it " equitable' for them and compensated them for their losses? I'm gonna guess you agree the answer is no - they would have taken a shot and missed. Too bad. But it was their shot to take. Why is it any difference when the opposite case is true? It isn't. Equal outcomes are a leftist fantasy, and their attempted implementation only imparts misery, discrimination and resentment - and justified resentment, because it's one thing to be simply unlucky and not have a certain attribute that would have helped you succeed, it's quite another to bar and/or steal from others so that they can be at the same level as the losers. That, in a nutshell, is "equity".

To deserve to become richer (a.k.a. more powerful) than the bad governments and managers of companies, you need to understand exactly and in detail how they operate, what exactly makes them bad, and what exactly they should do if they wanted to be good. It is not enough to just be good in your heart. You have to have walked through all that ugly experience of living close to those baddies and have understood their ways, and yet remained good in your heart. If you have never had nor understood computers, you are not in the position yet.

Access is universal, so equitable Information on Bitcoin now is widely available .. but few are taking the time to learn, or have the benefit of a teacher like your students do Everyone's learning paths in life are unique based on circumstances and their own interests .. bitcoin is part of that .. for some people Equality of opportunity does not equate to equality of outcome .. free will -> choices -> consequences; you are helping your students have the information to make INFORMED choices .. which will hopefully benefit them

Compared to real estate the value of bitcoin is equitable. Rich people buy the best real estate which typically maintains or increases its value more that real estate in poorer less or undesirable areas. This results in situations where desirable property might increase 20%/annum whereas undesirable property increases by 1%/annum. In contrast, all bitcoin increases/decreases at the same rate - the rich don't get to buy better quality more desirable bitcoin. This is just one way bitcoin is more equitable than fiat. The lack of cantillion effect advantage is another. And of course, the course appears to claim it's more equitable, not equitable.

Barrier to entry is more equitable (lower) for bitcoin than for real estate too. Poor young people can't save fast enough for a deposit for a home. Rich kids get given a deposit from their parents. For bitcoin, all you need is to save a few dollars, and you can buy some premium quality bitcoin - you're off to the races!

I think about this all the time. So many factors compound to affect equity- many more than just rewarding early adaptors. Honestly, short term I think equity is a big claim that doesn't accurately reflect the reality of the barriers to entry. But I think the claim is referring to more of the long term potential; like the deflationary aspect is pretty huge in the long term because that means that whatever Bitcoin an individual owns does not ever diminish in value. It solves for the inflation problem that currently amounts to huge theft from working people of the value of their labor. What is the book you're teaching with?

Equality to me is a concept you cannot analyze or even conceive of in isolation. It’s always relative. BTC brings a more equitable system compared to fiat. It isn’t perfect. We shouldn’t try to say it is. To me it’s as simple as that: it’s way fairer than what we currently have so let’s usher in a fairer world.

Everyone is born with a set of genes (traits such as intellectual, spiritual, physical...) and a set of circumstances (parents, birthplace, time...) that will heavily influence their outcomes. In short, Life isn't fair nor equitable, and never has been. Bitcoin doesn't claim to be perfect, nor does it aim to fix all the problems in the world. However, human societies have risen mainly through production, commerce and communication, and all societies (so far) have fallen when one or several of these actions have stopped working. Money is the underlying medium used by humans since the dawn of time, before languages, religion, nations and politics. It is the universal language, thus it underpins production, commerce and communication. Money is utterly broken today, because it is printed by a few for their own benefits, at the expense of the many. And that's why today everything is breaking down at an alarming rate, and the wealth gap between the many "poors" and the few "richs" is getting wider, because however long and hard the many will work, their purchasing power can't keep up with the pace of the money printing by the few. Bitcoin would fix most of the world problems by removing the ability to print money, thus reducing the purchasing power gap between the many "poors" and the few "richs", and allowing people to benefit of the technological improvement of the means of production to live in deflationary societies again. It still wouldn't make Life perfect and equitable, but it would make Life much fairer and much more equitable by an order of magnitude for the vast majority of people in the world.

back in the day was only 2010, even most people in Africa would have had access to a computer, then for a few years it was of no interest to anyone, then plenty of degen drug buyers used it, and it took off. until a few years ago , rich people didnt give two shits about it. it's an equal asset in that 99.9% of people can get exposure, nobody is gatekeeping. people using dumb phones and SMS to send BTC in Africa right now. nobody knew BTC had a chance and since probably the big run up to 20 , you get it at the price you deserve. in the future , people will look at the bitcoiners as a new wealthy class and will hate us because it's not fair , but holding takes balls and when when we try and orange pill people, they usually don't give two shits and think we're assholes , while they carry on quoting warren buffet and making sweet love to the dollar