Why Bitcoin? Isn’t That Risky?
I am relatively new to bitcoin and since I’ve started this blog, I have started talking with the my friends about it.
The reaction I get is fairly predictable. If they have even heard of it, I get blank stares and the question “Why bitcoin? Isn’t that risky?”
Since I am not an “in-your-face” type, my answer has been a weak-milk kind of “yes, but…” Not really satisfying to me nor convincing to them.
What has driven me intobitcoin is years spent watching the news and impotently railing against the corruption, the insider deals, the out-and-out lies.
I have wanted to do something — join a volunteer group, get out and canvass, quit my day job and take up the cause (whatever that cause might be). But, I also have a family and they are my highest commitment.
I have written before that I think that bitcoin would not even exist as a notion in a better world. If the politicians listened to the will of the people, if corporations viewed themselves as having a responsibility to the society that allows them to exist and prosper, and if the most fortunately amongst us did not think that benefit of money was in fact the benefit of a superior nature, there would be no need for bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a lot of things to a lot of people. It is just getting started, so people can project onto it their deepest desires. What I hear most is the libertarian view that bitcoin is a way to disentangle
themselves from the web of a pernicious government. But I have also heard progressives view it as a way to break the grasp of the banks.
The fact that bitcoin has not yet defined itself is, in-and-of itself, a good thing. Because, a much as anything else, bitcoin is expression. It is expression that we-the-people recognize that our access to fair representation and fair treatment have been taken from us. It is a statement that we will find a way to make ourselves heard.
As speech, bitcoin is at the moment nothing but a whisper. But that whisper is growing in tempo and volume and those with power and privilege will unavoidably have to answer it one day.
The Supreme Court not long ago stated that money is speech. I agree. And by opting into bitcoin, I am exercising my free speech.
Today, I am ending by embedding a video from Lee Camp on the need to speak out on what is important. Enjoy.
What does bitcoin mean to you? I invite you to comment below.
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