Oddbean

Bitcoin doesn’t fix everything. It is a tool that provides people the opportunity to improve their lives if they’re smart enough to take advantage. From the Sovereign Individual: “In 1828, 4 percent of New Yorkers were thought to have owned 62 percent of all the city's wealth. By 1845, the top 4 percent owned about 81 percent of all corporate and noncorporate wealth in New York City. More broadly, the top 10 percent of the population owned about 40 percent of the wealth across the whole United States in 1860. By 1890, records suggest that the richest 12 percent then owned about 86 percent of America's wealth.” Even on a gold standard, before there was a money printer, wealth accumulated in fewer hands. This seems to be the natural state for humans. During this same period, the mid 1800s, about 1/3 of Americans were considered incompetent. They could not read, write, or do simple arithmetic with a calculator. Today, most people can do these things but are still incompetent. The problem is the unwillingness to think. As power accumulated in fewer hands, it became easy to establish the federal reserve and end the gold standard. Is it reasonable to think that power won’t accumulate in fewer hands again on a Bitcoin standard? Will the “good times create weak men” cycle end? Probably not. The people that use their minds will find solutions to the world's problems. The incompetent normies will always suffer and fall for scams. You may not like it, but this is human nature. People are incredibly lazy when it comes to using their minds. Ironically, it’s the most important organ that differentiates us from wild animals. Bitcoin is a great tool that will give people a way to gain more freedom. But Bitcoin didn’t save us. We saved ourselves. If Bitcoin didn’t exist, we would’ve found another way to gain more freedom. Maybe not as much freedom as what Bitcoin allows, but we would’ve found something. The difference between us and normies is that we used our minds to find a solution to a serious problem. We used the internet as a tool to learn and better our lives. Incompetent normies used the internet to find distractions and excuses for their problems. Bitcoin doesn’t save stupid people. It just helps people that actually use their brain. Unless you think humans will suddenly stop being dumb and lazy, the cycle will repeat. The important question is: will bitcoin reduce the damage that these cycles create? Will the cycles be shorter? I think so. Bitcoin, like other technological advances, pulls up humanity as a whole and provides benefits to everyone. But they have to take advantage of it. Your greatest resource is between your ears, it’s not Bitcoin. Bitcoin is just a life raft in the middle of the ocean that will be there for you when you're tired of suffering and ready to use your brain to solve your problems.