wow. You're kidding right?  Can you suggest a _single_ widely adopted financial system in the history of the modern world which made everyone's transactions and 'balances' mandatorily public?

(...)

Used in a poor way (as some wallets have enshrined and some businesses seem to be promoting) Bitcoin is one of the least private transaction and value systems ever created. I'm hopeful for the human-welfare-enhancing possibilities that Bitcoin could create in the future, but if it goes a route that further erodes the privacy we have in our interpersonal interactions then it could instead fuel a terrible dystopia.

There are also some Bitcoin specific risks— In Bitcoin our goal is to build a system of exchange which minimizes the need for trust... but we still must trust miners to establish the ordering of transactions. As a result miners have a substantial power to censor, but privacy undermines that risk— so long as we have enough of it. Anything that creates an incentive to control mining— e.g. to achieve censorship goals— risks undermining the whole system, so we're all better off if the system is more private... even the non-existing hypothetical person that has no need for privacy.

So back to your question— I'd turn it around, if Bitcoin undermines people's privacy how could it possibly be adopted— are people that foolish? And if so, could free society survive the harm such an outcome would create?