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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33967 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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Twenty years ago, in college, I was a neocon/hawkish liberal/big government conservative and I was wrong everything they were wrong about: the Iraq war, the idea "no excuses" schools were the solution to fix the racial achievement gap, the idea that modern economists had basically figured out the business cycle and how to stop it, that the gold standard was a barbarous relic, the idea that it's women who want "nice guys" and marriage and its men who are generally the cads.

I was wrong not to buy bitcoin in 2010 (this was partly laziness and partly that I thought it was too risky, that I would end up sending money to drug dealers by accident or something and get roped into an investigation).

I was wrong in thinking in 2010 that American cities would continue to have smarter leadership and be on the upswing from their nadir in the 70s and 80s.

More recently, I was wrong in thinking that the Internet could fuel a new generation of elites (think 2010 era Y Combinator, Reddit and Google leadership) that would create their own better information ecosystem, and not be bound to all the myths and lies that academia and mainstream media had been peddling for decades. Instead, the same people and type of people who ran the old media-academia-NGO-government axis ended up converging the big tech companies and people like Paul Graham ended up on the outside.

I was terribly wrong in predicting in March 2020 would lead to moderating American political divisions and hatred of Trump, and would lead to liberals wanting to be tougher on crime, particularly against blacks and the underclass if they were to disobey covid lockdown rules.

I was effectively wrong in believing Pfizer and Modern when I read their study results that showed the covid vaccine was 95% effective against symptomatic infection.

Twenty years ago, in college, I was a neocon/hawkish liberal/big government conservative and I was wrong everything they were wrong about: the Iraq war, the idea "no excuses" schools were the solution to fix the racial achievement gap, the idea that modern economists had basically figured out the business cycle and how to stop it, that the gold standard was a barbarous relic, the idea that it's women who want "nice guys" and marriage and its men who are generally the cads.

Isn't it awesome how you've learned that all those things the people in the circles you moved in twenty years ago believed were wrong and all the things the people in the circles you move in now believe are right?

I was wrong not to buy bitcoin in 2010 (this was partly laziness and partly that I thought it was too risky, that I would end up sending money to drug dealers by accident or something and get roped into an investigation).

This isn't quite like saying "I was wrong not buy yesterday's winning lottery ticket", but I think circa 2010 it was hard to tell exactly the kind of mania/cult of enthusiasm that would grip bitcoin. You could've maybe predicted that an alternative currency would generate some buzz, but to have picked Bitcoin specifically (let alone imagine what kind of heights it would rise to) would have been to much to dream.

I was tapped into the circles that had been discussing alternatives to a dollar standard for a while, so I knew exactly why bitcoin was so exciting. It was only a $1 a coin, I was making six figures at the time with minimal expenses, so putting down $100 or $500 (or $10,000) to take a flyer would have been a no-brainer move, except that I was too cowardly. I console myself with the knowledge I have done financially very well regardless, and with the thought that if I was a bitcoin billionaire I would have a new set of problems, like worrying about kidnapping.

cc /u/amadan

I was wrong not to buy bitcoin in 2010 (this was partly laziness and partly that I thought it was too risky, that I would end up sending money to drug dealers by accident or something and get roped into an investigation).

I don't think anyone could have honestly been certain it wasn't too risky. Crypto is like stock-picking and forex and every other highly variable investment; it's easy to feel justified/regretful with 20/20 hindsight. The people who bought into Bitcoin were lucky, but they could have been unlucky and crying about it now.

What always consoles me is that I'd have likely been a mt. gox victim.

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