This Christmas on social media has been interesting to watch when it comes to the subject of bitcoin. As an example, I was browsing Fishbowl app where someone mentioned bitcoin as an investment in a thread about market performance. As is common, this poster was attacked for days by a wide range of critics compelled to refute his positions. He felt obliged to defend himself, only to be mocked for spending his holiday break arguing about bitcoin.
"Never Argue with an idiot, they'll drag you down to their level and then beat you with years of experience" - Anon (often misattributed to Mark Twain)
Throughout this conversation, the full spectrum of logical fallacies appeared - from strawman attacks to appeals to authority. What struck me most were the uninformed comments over the next couple days that prompted me to write this article.
Bitcoin educator Jameson Lopp summed it up best with his quote:
"If your mental model of Bitcoin is too rigid, you're gonna have a bad time. To achieve Bitcoin Zen one must have the humility to admit that one does not fully understand Bitcoin.”
That exchange and the above quote, and the rest of this article will show the essence of why bitcoiners so often have an educated confidence in their positions, and adds to the myth of the toxic maxi that can’t be corrected. While critics tend to make claims that display their lack of understanding, bitcoiners appreciate that understanding bitcoin requires exploring an interconnected web of multidisciplinary knowledge spanning technology, economics, philosophy and more.
Let's talk about a much simpler analogy for a minute. I want to visit France. In my efforts to prepare, I pick up an elementary French 101 course and phrase book, and after a couple of months of study I head off to France feeling pretty impressed with myself. However I quickly realize that my elementary knowledge of French will only get me so far, I find that a lot of things are lost in translation, people try to converse with me but I can only pick up some words here and there as I try to understand the gist of what people are saying from my limited clues. Not only do I lack vocabulary, but also context, and social norms that differ from my own culture. This is obvious in hindsight because without more of the basic language and further immersion there's no way I can gain contextual depth. Perhaps after a year of further study, I might be able to have good conversations at an elementary level. After two years and a couple more visits, I might start to understand more of the colloquialisms and nuance in the language and be much more accomplished but I'll still have a lot to learn to become adept
Let's now move this concept to something more advanced like quantum physics. I got great grades on my physics finals at school, this should be easier, right? After all everyone is speaking the same language as me. Wrong. Although physics has the same name as quantum physics the two bear little resemblance to each other, and the latter has entirely different set of models, and its own specific language. Even though I speak english, I'll need far more background and context than I have. But perhaps after a year of personal study I'll be able to talk with people in the field in a more knowledgable way. After two years I might start to be able to understand more of the intermediate concepts and ideas and start to build my own models. Even then I'll still have a lot to learn before I can come close to competence. But as we’ll see quantum physics is a cakewalk compared to the rabbit hole that is Bitcoin.
Let's a talk briefly about the four stages of competence, a model or matrix that was developed in the 1970s by psychologists Noel Burch, Gordon Training International, and others as a way to categorize the process of learning a new skill. So from the perspective of our French language example.
Unconscious Incompetence - This is the phrase book stage. We learned some phrases took them to France feeling pretty good about our knowledge, but we were completely unaware of how little we actually knew. We underestimated our lack of knowledge and thought we'd be fine. But we visited France and ran headlong in to the reality of our knowledge limitations.
Conscious Incompetence - Our eyes have been opened, and during our time in France we were rudely awakened by how little we actually knew and how far we still had to go in our French learning. This stage of competence in many disciplines is the hardest to reach because it involves understanding our limitations, and building frameworks and pathways to pursue in order to level-up our knowledge. If you have a "curriculum" provided for the subject it becomes easier because someone has already mapped out that path of discovery and you can understand exactly how little you know and how far you have to go on your journey by looking at the curriculum and finding French 201, 301, 401, etc.
Conscious Competence - You've been studying French for some years now and you've visited France a few more times. You can converse and read at a good level, but doing so requires focus and effort. But you're proud of your achievements, and rightfully so, you have expended a few years of dedication to this pursuit and your knowledge and ability is your proof of work, your return on investment. Not only can you see it, but the people you speak to in French can see you've put the effort in and they'll often show you the respect that comes with the effort you've put in. Your friends and family are suitably impressed by your knowledge and application of the language because they're looking at this from the perspective of unconscious incompetence. Your French appears sufficiently advanced to them to seem almost native, but you’re very aware that to a French native person it's far from where it needs to be.
Unconscious Competence - You've been working on your language for 10 years now, you're not only able to speak French, but you can also think in French. Conversation in French is comfortable, and easy, and apart from perhaps some residual accent, people assume that you live or have lived in France because you’re so natural. Your attitude has changed from stage 1 where you had something to prove, to this last stage where you have nothing to prove and accept your skill as the ultimate outcome of the journey you undertook.
So what does this all have to do with Bitcoin, well as I'm sure you've already recognised this is the journey all bitcoiners undergo (or are undergoing) in our quest to better understand bitcoin. However, it's not quite as simple as the prior examples, because bitcoin and the Bitcoin ecosystem is multidisciplinary. Here's examples of SOME of the subjects we unpack in our pursuit of bitcoin knowledge becoming complete. It's important to remember that EACH of these disciplines has it's own stages of competence, and shows why our journey is so long and involved.
Cryptography - Understanding cryptographic hashes, digital signatures, public/private keys, etc. allows one to understand Bitcoin's secure, pseudonymous, and immutable nature.
Distributed Systems - Knowledge of peer-to-peer networks, fault tolerance, consensus protocols, decentralized systems critical for Bitcoin.
Game Theory - Insight into strategic decision-making, incentives, and system-wide behavior very relevant to miners, validators, attackers.
Physics - Appreciation of thermodynamics, energy consumption, proof-of-work in Bitcoin mining and security model.
Austrian Economics - Scarcity, subjective value, inflation, monetary history essential for getting Bitcoin's economic premises
Keynesian Economics - Contrasting economic framework helps underscore flaws in central banking and fiat monetary policies.
Economic History - Real-world context for previous monetary regimes, financial crises, storeholds of value over centuries.
Psychology - Importance of cognitive biases, logical fallacies, emotion, mass manias in driving Bitcoin narratives.
Philosophy - Foundational questions around ontology, trust, ethics, governance, anonymity, underlie Bitcoin space.
Law/Regulation - Necessary context as laws/policies surrounding cryptocurrencies continue evolving.
Programming - While optional, some coding knowledge helps understand protocol, transactions, wallets.
Finance - Lens for investing mindsets and historical stores of value aids in seeing Bitcoin's financial use cases.
So let's revisit (from conscious incompetence) the subject of whether we have a curriculum for our subject of Bitcoin. As we can see there are many disciplines that go into the subject of Bitcoin. There are some curriculums out there created so we can have a path to help us towards Bitcoin competence. Others use the knowledge shared by folks on social media to springboard down a particular rabbit hole, and with enough rabbit holes we quickly find ourselves building mental models and frameworks that help us start bringing the different areas together. But this is a considerable undertaking and we can easily see is why so many people talk about Bitcoiners being the smartest people they know. Bitcoiners are generalists, this makes bitcoiners who are invested in their personal bitcoin journey of knowledge acquisition incredibly good at abstract problem solving, innovation, and entrepreneurship, because they have a broad pool of knowledge across many abstract disciplines to pull from.
Much of the FUD that bitcoiners deal with comes from this lack of knowledge, a common source of it is from those like Warren Buffet and the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy. The position of "I've made billions, I've forgotten more about money than you'll ever learn, son!". But bitcoin, as we've seen is about far more than money, as we already mentioned it requires multidisciplinary study, it requires the homogenization of a huge range of ideas and concepts. Most of the FUD you'll deal with doesn't come from a place of knowledge, it comes from an NYT headline, or quote from a friend that "lost money on crypto", or "a guy I know who's a financial advisor says... "
The next time you're having a conversation about bitcoin and someone starts to make irrational claims or quotes FUD, or clearly shows holes in their knowledge, instead of engaging toe-to-toe with them, it might be better to redirect them to the areas where their knowledge is lacking. Here's a handful of examples of FUD where I've attempted to align some of the FUD with the knowledge area that is lacking.
Too volatile - Lack of finance and economic history context around other speculative emerging technologies and past monies like gold, Internet, Smartphones.
Lacks inherent value - Philosophical/economic misunderstanding of subjective value theory and positive network effects.
Wasteful energy - Physics and systems analysis needed to contextualize proof-of-work security model and energy critiques.
Used only by criminals - Psychological projection and economics history focus on previous money beginnings and ethical emerges.
Bubble that will crash - Finance and mathematics skills to model crypto asset volatility and lack of market knowledge.
Lacks adoption - Tech diffusion and monetary history insight on gradual non-linear growth of novel inventions.
Not actually scarce - Only surface-level grasp of capped supply and the meaning of digital scarcity from cryptography, computer science lens.
Miners control Bitcoin - Distributed systems basics showing decentralization and user validation power against assumptions.
Bitcoin is a Ponzi/pyramid scheme - Lacking grasp of economic incentive structures, network effects, and historical monetary transitions from Austrian economics.
Bitcoin’s price is artificially manipulated - Immature modeling and data science around crypto markets and price discovery dynamics.
Bitcoin might exhaust all energy available to people - Needs wider context in physics/thermodynamics on global energy budgets and perspective on Bitcoin's fraction of consumption.
Being a bitcoiner is simple but it's NEVER easy. Becoming a bitcoiner is simple in concept yet intensely challenging in practice. Rather than calling critics "idiots," we must acknowledge they are often merely at stage one "unconscious incompetence" regarding bitcoin. They do not comprehend the sheer depth of knowledge still lacking. Just as impressing upon "French 101" tourists how little of the language they grasp, many bitcoin skeptics confidently overlook massive gaps in their own understanding.
“Remember, when you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only painful for others. The same applies when you're stupid.” ― Ricky Gervais
Often these critics have expertise in a single domain like economics or computer science. Their fluency in one discipline convinces them bitcoin fits neatly within their existing mental models. Unfortunately, bitcoin’s multifaceted nature means even advanced domain knowledge only scratches the surface. Programming prowess or investment sophistication represent only small fragments of the bigger picture.
Debating simply can't convey this larger context. Explaining distributed systems alone would require an entire book, let alone cryptography, game theory, physics, and so on. This means we have to have empathy for the narrow perspectives of our critics rather than hostility. The interdisciplinary openness required for comprehending bitcoin escapes many brilliant single-subject specialists at first. But encouraging them to reflect on the boundaries of their knowledge is more constructive than fighting them.
While critics fall back on centralized authority as inevitable reality, Bitcoin's versatile mindset readily reimagines decentralized models fit for the digital future in money and beyond. Unburdened by the past, evaluating new paradigms through first principles becomes almost second nature.
It is understandable why bitcoin draws such intense skepticism - it fundamentally challenges assumptions across disciplines ranging from computer science and cryptography to economics and monetary theory. Even highly educated critics and experts often struggle to properly analyze bitcoin through the limited lens of their specific domain, or to use the familiar Zen Koan “their cup is already full” . This results in superficial dismissals and critiques based on fragmentary grasps of bitcoin's technical and economic realities.
Meanwhile, bitcoin’s most dedicated and enlightened supporters have taken a fundamentally different approach. They embarked on an intellectual pilgrimage across unfamiliar terrain to construct deeper first-principles knowledge foundations. By remaining intensely open-minded yet skeptical, they synthesized mental models encompassing both bitcoin’s technological innovations as a decentralized cryptocurrency and its long-term economic and social implications.
This stark dichotomy reveals much regarding human cognition and overconfidence. Indeed, many bitcoin criticisms seem almost case studies in the Dunning-Kruger effect - the tendency for poor performers to lack the meta-cognitive self-awareness to recognize the depth of their deficits. Developing subject-matter expertise naturally breeds confidence bordering on arrogance and closed-mindedness against unfamiliar domains outside one's competency. Yet the essence of truth-seeking requires nurturing intense humility regarding the boundaries of one's own worldview. As pioneering thinker Elon Musk encapsulates:
“I do think there is a good framework for thinking. It is physics. You know, the sort of first principles reasoning.”
Properly grappling with bitcoin demands the ability to unpack and reconcile many complex, counterintuitive concepts from first principles across a mosaic of disciplines. Doing so leads not just to pivotal revelations about the nature and future of programmable money in an digital age. More profoundly, by exposing gaps in critics' knowledge frameworks, bitcoin beckons as a teacher encouraging perpetual rebirth and expansion of ideas on the ever-evolving frontier of human understanding.
For skeptics, cultivating this renaissance mindset represents the most constructive response to bitcoin’s mental dissonances rather than attacks born of confusion. Indeed, the unprecedented innovations behind bitcoin should be welcomed as harbingers of progress challenging ossified thought patterns, not threats to fragile egos and prevailing preconceptions. For in the wise words of pioneering philosopher Eric Hoffer,
“In times of profound change, the future belongs to the learners. The learned, find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”