Ideologies are great! You pick a side, pick an enemy and dedicate time to it. You surround yourself with likeminded people who agree with you on everything. This leads to loads of validation, subsequent dopamine hits and an increase in self-esteem over time. You get to be a part of something bigger, a great network of minds all working towards one goal, one great emotional payoff where you get to shout
I TOLD YOU SO!
It’s a wonderful way to live. It’s also short sighted. Should an ideology succeed in reshaping humanity (you know they have) there will be winners and losers. Sacrifices will have to be made. There is no room for nuanced thought as that gets in the way of the emotional pay off. If your ideology dictates your thoughts then you aren’t thinking critically and are likely to ignore the red flags until it is too late.
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Ideologies Get Stuff Done
When building a new system (or replacing an old one) you need a support base from a portion of the population. You can’t get this support by having a nuanced, balanced conversation where you carefully weigh the pros and the cons of a particular situation. Every system has winners and losers but it’s best to gloss over the ugly bits because you wont get to change anything by being rational and considerate. You need to win over a decent chunk of the people who may lose out in order to get it done.
Picking an enemy is always useful as it can keep your support base focused on the cause. Humans are tribal animals and love having an enemy to fight.
Communists: Capitalists are bad!
Capitalists: Communists are bad!
Climate Change activists: Oil companies are bad!
Feminists: The patriarchy is bad!
Bitcoiners: Central Banks and fiat money are bad!
Insert your own here
The important thing is to keep the messaging simple so you can onboard as many people as possible.
The Bitcoin Ideology
Bitcoin was a technological breakthrough that has grown into a global political movement that promises to change the world (like all ideological movements). It lays the blame for societies failings at the feet of central banks and their fiat currencies and promises to rectify those failings with a Bitcoin centred financial system. The societal problems Bitcoin aims to address are as follows:
Top-down financial mismanagement of the world’s economies by governments and central banks
Wealth inequality
The banks
Expensive international transaction costs
Property Rights
The argument is as follows. Before Bitcoin the average person had very few ways to protect their wealth. Assets that accumulated value over time (property, gold, stocks & shares) were not available to the majority of the population as you needed a substantial amount of money to buy them and most people could not afford them as they needed their income to meet their basic needs and had very little left over to save up and acquire assets. Combine that with the societal pressure to spend and take on debt to keep up with the neighbours and we found ourselves in a society with high levels of personal debt and low levels of savings. Governments took the predictable route and looked to micromanage people’s lives with handouts and centralised systems, the effect of which was to further increase dependency on the state.
For an ideology to flourish and change the world it still needs sound engineering as well as political clout. a good example of an ideology with terrible mechanics and massive political clout is communism/socialism. Mechanically it doesn’t work but the concept is so seductive there are always new idealogues willing to try anyway. The communist ideology will continue to be flogged and cause pain and misery wherever it takes route because of these mechanical failings.
The Bitcoin movement is based on solid engineering but its complexity means it has been slow to attract followers. However, as the existing system wobbles the case for Bitcoin becomes stronger and more apparent. Whether the movement will generate the power needed to replace/upgrade our existing financial system remains to be seen.
Until Next Time
The Wealth Gap
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