Yesterday, a neighbour asked me if I know anything about "cryptocurrencies". A couple of years ago I would jump at the opportunity to explain to him all about it, teach him how to set up a wallet, open a Kraken account, etc. Now, I just replied "I've been reading about it, seems to be a thing. Don't know much more than that though, sorry..."
Can't be bothered anymore. It's the same old story, the more others know about you and what you can do, the more work and trouble will fall on you, because, in the end, it comes down to human nature. Everyone's looking for a free lunch, a pill they can swallow and suddenly solve their lives' problems. Well, I say "fuck you, get on your bike and work for it."
Hm. I checked my records and I got into Bitcoin in late 2012 when someone told me about it in casual technical conversation. Granted it's a problem that I had been working on since the mid 1990's, but when I heard the concept that each block had a checksum that included the PREVIOUS block's checksum I suddenly thought *FUCK, THAT'S IT!!!* and started looking.
If that person hadn't talked to me about it I wouldn't have really given it thought till the mid 2010's. So in honor and respect of that I'll give a basic discussion to anyone who asks. And if they start arguing about how it USES THE WORLD'S POWER or is a fraud, or HOW ABOUT THIS SHITCOIN I'll just say "sounds like you already know a good bit, nothing I could say can further that" and start talking about hookers and blow or shit like that.
If someone has a root already nailed into their mind it's pretty impossible, pointless, and annoying to try and weed it out. Better to let life do what it does and let them learn for themselves. Glinda understood this with Dorothy, that's why she had D loot the Witch of the West and follow a pointless road.
Oddly enough I had a root already in my head and saw bitcoin as the right solution to the damn problem of what happens when some fuckhead hacks the database chain and changes an earlier block. And here we are.
I know exactly what you mean. I'm also eager to explain things to people, it's in my nature, some even say I'm overly enthusiastic and even talk too much and over-analyze things (a similarity to Jay, perhaps?). That's all true. I'm happy when others are also happy, especially people I care about, and I always like to share my enthusiasm and help them understand a new idea and how it can benefit them and the world.
The thing is, I've tried to explain Bitcoin to several people in the past, and, sadly, almost all of them outright ridiculed me, especially at work. Back in 2016, I could hear them whispering about how fool I was and how I would lose all my money and how I could not understand that Bitcoin is a Ponzi or a Pyramid, or a fraud, etc. Even then, I politely tried to explain that they were wrong, showed them YouTube videos, even set up wallets on their phones and sent them $1 coins. Nothing worked. Only two of my friends listened to me and bought some BTC. One bought almost 3 BTC and is now the richest member of his family, and the other bought 0.X BTC, and is now crying like a baby for not buying more when I told him to.
Now, I'd like to think that I'm not a vindictive person, but 2021 has so far been the most satisfying year for me, in that most of the people mentioned above have now realised who was the smart one and who was the fool, and are slowly admitting it. The less selfish ones are apologizing to me, want to talk about it, and are asking me for advice on how to buy BTC (and shitcoins too, actually almost all of them now want shitcoins!), and generally how to get into the cryptocurrency space. The more selfish ones keep quiet and some still dismiss Bitcoin.
Long story short, all of the above has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I've found that people generally believe what they want to believe, no matter what you tell them. They've made up their minds, and it's pointless to over-analyze things. Just say "yeah, Bitcoin is a good thing, it's a revolutionary thing, it's the future of money, all of us should look into it", and stop there. That's enough. Let them take that seed and grow it themselves. If they don't, they are not worth your effort, time and energy.
tl;dr: As
strawbs wisely said:
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink."