I think to the outside world that may look like a game of one upping where the goal is to be the craziest.
Discussion
You’re probably right. Nobody said this was gonna look good to the outside world.
In truth - the Bitcoiners that fit themselves to a definition will be cannon fodder for those who don’t because they will be easily modeled.
Failing purity tests can be fatal if you do it wrong (eg dump your savings into ETH just to be a nonconformist). There’s likely a threshold one uses to make sure they don’t get rekt and constant self-vigilance so you don’t believe the lie and make being a contrarian’s contrarian an identity - lest you become another version of a conformist.
ETH has a real world cost.
Look at me nonconformity is best done with low cost crazy.
No flat earther is giving up their GPS. As far as I can tell chemtrail people are literally just yelling at clouds as their life changes based on secret knowledge.
This got me thinking.
Dennet (I think, possibly wrong attribution) talked about belief in belief. Being Dennet he was talking about religious people who no longer believe in their god but believe that they would benefit if they held that belief. Think a Christian arguing for the morality tales of the bible and community of the church being valuable even if God is not real. So they carry on doing the actions and doing their best to fool themselves back into the original belief.
I was noting that we could use skin in the game as proxy information for odds of belief in belief. It would be a u shaped signal curve though. Average chemtrail believer only sometimes yells at clouds, low cost. Many bitcoiners have sold everything from fiat land to buy in, high cost so unlikely to be a belief in belief. The U shape comes from influencers in the space, they have a direct financial incentive for believing accurate or not, where a hodler who has a financial incentive to accuracy of belief.
Would that make an influencer belief in belief in belief if they are away of the incentives?
So look at other fringe beliefs that many bitcoiners hold. Not much skin in the game required compared to hodling.
Skin in the game is proof of work but also makes susceptible to sunk cost fallacy I think.
Belief in belief ppl are never gonna make it. They want the benefits of spirituality without the risk - pure fiat.