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I'm calling it a "PR problem" because despite the threads on the subject we still don't really have any sort of PR strategy. People are letting the things that individually attracted them to Bitcoin become representative of the entire idea despite the fact that many others (who simply aren't as loud in public) didn't get into it for the same reason, and that those reasons are unlikely to ever attract a large population at all.

Very true, but the conclusion I came to from seeing this is that the community that has grown around Bitcoin is a testament to the fact that Bitcoin really isn't something that will be adopted by the masses. It's not that the Bitcoin community looks like a bunch of kooks, its that most of them are. For their part, the developers - being able to see what even I can having been here for only a month - *are* to blame for failing to provide anything in the way of safety and polish in their more recent client updates that would offset the smell given off by this forum. I can understand some tech guys failing to take into account the polish and simplicity needed for the average person when first starting this project, but not now. As I've said in several earlier posts, the key to Bitcoin is safety and simplicity, and Bitcoin is neither. And, with the most enthusiastic of the community out to chant Randian slogans while peddling ponzi schemes like "Bitcoin Doubler" and chastising anyone who posts about stolen coins or the like, how could it ever come to be as such? To this day, the emphasis on trying to create a consumer goods economy is absolutely dwarfed by interest in creating speculation games. Just look at the folks begging for free coins that were brazenly stolen. People want this to be like the "Wild West" and literally get off on it. How in the hell will anyone legitimate ever touch this with a ten-foot pole?

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It becomes an issue of slippery slopes because the more people soap-box about the evils of government and whatnot here, the less people like me want to talk about Bitcoin to others for fear of being lumped into the same category as these people whom I disagree with politically.

Exactly. It's quite validating to read this, but to see posts like yours so rare in comparison to the rest of the bruisers here, leads me back up to the conclusion mentioned above.