Quote from: BitcoinRedLight on December 03, 2011, 02:23:25 AM

"Like Western Union via email and almost no fees."

Let them ask the questions.
Answer basic questions with simple answers.
When the questions stop, that is as far as they are ready to go.

Don't pitch the 'currency' to someone who is clueless.
Pitch the transfer of money between private parties using some free software.

Nobody has to hold Bitcoins. i.e. Dollars-->Bitcoins-->Dollars
Boom. Done.

The raison d'etre of Bitcoin is TRANSFER MECHANISM,
NOT
DEFLATIONARY
CURRENCY.

Most guys who are holding hefty chunks of Bitcoins want the
deflation-to-the-moon-currency argument made
so that they rapidly get more wild-eyed
speculators back on board
then cash out.

It's true.
It's also pretty basic human nature.
But it's bad for Bitcoin and bad karma for themselves.

Now, having said that, as more people see the utility
of this transfer mechanism,
they will have the disposition to hold it for longer periods of time.
And in that sense it develops, organically, its currency value, investment status.

But that is way beyond most people. They just want to be able
to move THE MONEY THEY KNOW with as little hassle as possible.

Bitcoin facilitates that.

The "store of value" pitch is a loser. IF people come to that belief then let
them do it out of their own experience with Bitcoin.

Because the world we increasingly live in is characterized by one thing more
than anything else - uncertainty!

So don't promise certainty when, in fact, you cannot. And everything
in people's daily life is telling them that 'certainty sellers' are total
con-men, frauds or idiots.

People are trying desperately hard to make rational decisions in an increasingly
insane environment. DON'T BE, OR EVEN LOOK LIKE, AN EFFING HUCKSTER,
which you immediately will if you hype Bitcoin as investment or start
talking about it as if it were gold.

Bitcoin is not gold; it's code.

In short, the only "certainty" that a newbie needs is a sense that
it is extremely unlikely that the entire Bitcoin system will crash
during the few minutes they use it to send money to Aunt Harriet.

Bitcoin: Where Code Outperforms Gold