Quote from: rayt5 on April 17, 2013, 03:17:37 PM

Unfortunately, the only real way to know anything for sure about a controversial topic is to study it yourself.

I would advise you to be skeptical of people that say things like "Bitcoin doesn't apply to these economic arguments, because it's different." A lot of these people are exhibiting special pleading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading. From the article, examples of this logical fallacy include:

unexplained claims of exemption from principles commonly thought relevant to the subject matter
claims to data that are inherently unverifiable, perhaps because too remote or impossible to define clearly
appeals to "common knowledge" that bypass supporting data
assertion that the opponent lacks the qualifications necessary to comprehend a point of view
assertion that nobody has the qualifications necessary to comprehend a point of view

Examples of this fallacy on this forum include: "There is no bubble, because Bitcoin is different", "Deflation in Bitcoin isn't bad, because Bitcoin is different than other previous currencies", or "X criticism doesn't apply to Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is different."

It doesn't mean what they're saying isn't true, but the reason will almost never be because "Bitcoin is different," and when it is, if they can't explain why Bitcoin does not belong in a certain category of things that an argument puts it in other than the fact that it's new or unique or people just don't understand it, then it's probably safe to dismiss their argument.

Examples of strawmen arguments include mischaracterizing the argument, Deflation in Bitcoin isn't bad because deflation is inherently good" as "Deflation in Bitcoin isn't bad because of some special characteristic of Bitcoin."