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Bitcoin is Morally Agnostic

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This blurb is simple

Bitcoin is morally agnostic.

I’m writing this because often I am faced with a very silly argument.  The argument: “Bitcoin is only good for illicit activities.” Another iteration: “Bitcoin is drug money.” Another…”Bitcoin serves no utility except for those that want to use it for illegal activities.” All three versions, and many more of the same type, are nonsense. The reason this argument is nonsense is because tools are morally agnostic, yes…tools.  Inanimate objects are morally agnostic.  For instance, society does not blame the hammer for bludgeoning someone, it blames the person who swung the hammer.  Conversely, society does not praise the hammer for crafting a beautiful home, it praises the craftsman.  Bitcoin, just like the hammer, is a tool.  A financial instrument, as well as a brilliant and paradigm shattering computer science  advancement.  A tool with the power to restore the tangible wealth within a unit of exchange.

In my experience, there is never going to be a better existence between good and evil than a 50/50 shared world.  There will always be an equally good amount of people as there are bad.  My challenge to us, the bitcoin community, is to be the good  half of the split:

  • Plan local meetups
  • Identify scams
  • Learn through teaching
  • Build inclusion-centric apps
  • Donate to great causes
  • Promote great causes that accept bitcoin donations

There are many ways to use this new and amazing instrument that Satoshi graciously opened up to the world.  Don’t be a jabroni (jah-bro-knee) and seek out the evil half of the split.

Bitcoin is simply a tool, and that makes it morally agnostic.

Comments
  1. Rachael

    8 years ago

    This max amount is, by the way, one of the tinhgs I find weird and impractical about the BTC. It’s supposed to be an international currency available to everyone. There’s almost 7 billion people in the world right now, which means the average BTC per person if divided would be 0.003. You should read a bit more about bitcoins before you start commenting if the value of bitcoins is too high, they can be divided into very small pieces. the explosive increase in value will also be the fall of the BTC I’m afraid. People have started to buy bitcoins as if they were stocks because of the rapid growth. It’s kind of like a legal version of insider trading People who do that are missing the point of bitcoin, which is to be used primarily as a currency, and they will suffer as the value of the currency fluctuates. As for the comparison with insider trading, note that insider trading is illegal because it involves the insider profiting from knowledge from inside the tent that the general market doesn’t have yet (i.e. it is unfair). Anyone can buy bitcoins, and no-one knows which way the price will go (they may have a theory, but that’s just speculation, not knowledge), so it is *nothing* like insider trading.Your final point, about liquidity, is important though. If there are lots of bitcoins, and nothing to spend them on, sooner or later your point will come true people will want to convert to dollars and the conversion rate will collapse. However, there are increasingly a number of tinhgs to spend them on. Furthermore, there are many tinhgs (e.g. online virtual goods, in game currencies) that have limited real-world value, but that people pay for and that rise in value over time even though people can never use them or convert them to dollars.

    • [email protected]

      8 years ago

      I think the point of having a floating decimal allows for 21 million units to be more thatn enough. They are divisible to the millionth. In my opinion (Dee) this is why the community should get more comfortable with the “bits” unit of account.