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> Behind me is a painting by a Slovak artist. She is a bitcoiner, in her 60s.

Well sure - just slap "bitcoin-only" on something and bitcoiners will go for it. In this way they're a perfect consumer demographic: books, art, butter, meat, whatever. As long as it signals tribal membership, critical thinking goes out the window.

21: The culture communicates hostility without needing to say it explicitly. When your entire community is built around inside jokes about "shitcoiners", you don't need to explicitly tell people they're not welcome - they already know. That's exclusion through cultural signals.

This is exactly why these technologies can't grow beyond their bubbles. You've locked people into echo chambers with the only acceptable perspective. Anyone curious but not already converted gets filtered out by the culture before they even encounter the tech.

tree 木 1w ago 💬 1

Most people aren't like you or me - they don't have time to think deeply about these things. They navigate the world through social proof and trusted authorities. But it makes people vulnerable to social manipulation, even well-intentioned manipulation. Groups like Jednadvacet probably mean well, but they're providing a ready-made identity package: approved opinions, tribal markers, in-group boundaries.

For me, crypto was supposed to teach us to defend against this - to verify, not trust. To think independently. To resist tribal thinking. Instead, Bitcoin culture just swapped one orthodoxy for another. Central bank authorities became Bitcoin influencers. Government dogma became maximalist dogma. Same social dynamics... Most people still aren't thinking for themselves, they've just changed which tribe tells them what to believe.

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Juraj 1w ago 💬 1

They're free to choose their tribe.

Leftist - top down authoritarian control. GDPR/ MiCA or else...

Libertarian - here are the tools, join a tribe if you want. You can choose one of many, or start your own.

I don't see a problem. You can't force people into independent thinking. People are social creatures (at least most of them) and they will join tribes. Bitcoin provides the tribes, but people are free to do whatever they want.

I don't see a problem here. There are many people who think differently, even people going to dvadsatjeden meetups. Providing an option is not a problem.

Toxic maximalism is just annoying. Way different than authoritarian.

tree 木 1w ago 💬 1

You're right that you can't force independent thinking. But you can build cultures that encourage it versus cultures that punish it. Bitcoin culture chose the latter, then acts surprised when it stays small and tribal.

Toxicity is just the first stage of authoritarianism. Right now everyone says "we don't block anyone, it's voluntary". But i'm sure when the masses arrive (if they ever do), most bitcoiners will want to vote out the "wrong" people.

You think smart bitcoiners won't allow capture, but it will come naturally through sheer numbers and social dynamics. The infrastructure might be neutral, but when the culture demands conformity, people will find ways to enforce it. First through social pressure, then through technical gatekeeping, eventually through explicit exclusion.

Juraj 1w ago

I would worry about this honestly more in Ethereum ecosystem. Bitcoin is super conservative and any blocking or exclusion is laughed out of the room. That's the positive part about Bitcoin culture. Ossification is bad in many aspects, but good in the fact that it's basically impossible to technically mandate censorship.

Bitcoin is also technically better in this than Ethereum (at least until the privacy upgrades, which I'm looking forward to). Zcash and Monero make it hard even now.