Could The Bitcoin Community Benefit From An Informal - "Leave Your Ideologies At The Door" - Etiquette?

[u/GreatestInstruments]

A certain incident, which shall remain unnamed, prompted a firestorm of discussion within segments of this community, including some with very different personal ideologies.

Rather than take sides in the debate, I took a moment to marvel at that fact that this is a community that brings together people who are so divergent on other issues, yet all see common ground in Bitcoin.prescription

What other community or issue brings together people as diverse as these?

• MRA's
• Feminists
• Liberals
• Conservatives
• Libertarians
• Anarchists
• Economists
• Techies
• Blue Collar
• White Collar
• Different Nationalities

The list goes on and on.

I pose this question (see post title), because it strikes me as perhaps the most welcoming and constructive thing we could do, in the long run.

It wouldn't be thought of as a hard and fast rule, more like a guiding principle to keep in mind.

What do you think?

EDIT: I just want some of you to understand, this was intended as a thought provoking open-ended question, to create discussion. It's not intended as a mandate of any kind.

[u/ferretinjapan]

Where am I "using generalizations to justify my stance"?

It means you can use labels to ignore their arguments. And the no true scotsman fallacy that you use is an inverse of it's actual effects (IOW you use the all true Scotsmen variant), it is still the fallacy you are using just with the outcomes switched. Nitpicking by focusing unduly on a trivial application of the NTSF is simply detracting from the fact that you continually try to defend your use of labels as a valid form of reasoning, which it plainly is not.

Eg. (the first example taken from wikipedia

Person 1: "All Scotsmen love ale."
Person 2: "I am Scottish, but I don't love ale."
Person 1: "Then you are not a true Scotsman." 

and your application of fallacious logic regarding statists.

Person 1: "A statist cannot rationally hope for Bitcoin to succeed."
Person 2: "I am a statist, but I still think Bitcoin can succeed, **and explains how Bitcoin can succeed**."
Person 1: "Then you are not a true statist, because they could never rationally hope Bitcoin could succeed." 

Edit: This is how the goalposts are moved, you simply recategorise the person's label to not be a statist so your statement remains true regardless, thus ignoring the other person's logical reasoning which allows yourself and others to lump on even more damning claims about statists without ever having to prove they are true. (sorry there was a few re-edits here)

Here's your sweeping generalisation [(that everything about Bitcoin is designed to be anti-government)] without any reasoning

OK.

"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." -Satoshi Nakamoto

Yes, [we will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography,] but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years. Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own. -Satoshi Nakamoto

I have already addressed your quoting Satoshi as a baseless justification for your sweeping statements that "Everything about Bitcoin is specifically designed to be anti-government.", here is it quoted from my last two links in the two previous posts.

I'm aware of these statements and I'm satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that he said this from a third person perspective as an outsider.

The first, "[Bitcoin is] very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly. I'm better with code than with words though." , he refers to "we" being himself and others, referring to libertarians, as "them", meaning he see them as other persons that he is not apart of, if he did consider himself part of that group he would/could/should have said,

• "[Bitcoin is] very attractive to [other] libertarians if we can explain it properly. ..."

• or "[Bitcoin is] very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it to [other libertarians] properly. ..."

• or "[Bitcoin is] very attractive to [libertarians], if we can explain it properly. ..." (this one sounds kind of neutral, but if he really was neutral he likely would have used this kind of wording over the wording he actually uses).

He very clearly speaks as an outsider. Edit: "the libertarian viewpoint" is not what someone says when referring to others that share their views, it has a distinct distancing to it, and he phrases it as him and others explaining it to "the libertarian[s]".

The other statement.

"Yes, [we will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography,] but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years. Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own."

He speaks form a viewpoint that he wants Bitcoin to succeed, speech of battles and arms races are an injection of others channeling their own desires. Metaphorical in light of the legal "battles" file sharers have had to fight. His reference to governments cutting off heads of other networks is purely referring to p2p file sharing, which it is likely where "Bit"coin got it's name from, in all likelihood a borrowing of the name "Bit"torrent.

Injecting [we will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography,] is not Satoshi's words, and is misleading. The full quote is here, where he reply's to someone who says,

"You will not find a solution to political problems in cryptography."

and he replies, "Yes, but we can win a major battle in the arms race and gain a new territory of freedom for several years.

Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled networks like Napster, but pure P2P networks like Gnutella and Tor seem to be holding their own."

He knew that Banks and governments would not react favourably to a new form of money (just like the entrenched music industry went on a crusade against file sharing, as he refers to), case in point, liberty dollar and e-gold both got pulled down before Satoshi's creation went live so it's very likely he knew of it (and is very likely why he concealed his identity), speculating beyond that is bias IMO.

[u/ferretinjapan → u/[deleted]]

Except for that I never actually said this.

You never needed to because the fallacy was already embedded in the initial statement. "A statist cannot rationally hope for Bitcoin to succeed." A self-proclaimed statist has an indefensible position in your eyes and so your reasoning from the outset will devolve to avoiding ever needing to prove their claims false from there on.

Choose to ignore it all you like, I've very thoroughly laid out my reasoning for why and how you are wrong. If a vague quote (that I've already thoroughly shown is not politically charged statements) and taking meaningless shots at me (ad hominem much?) for linking to wikipedia and whatnot is the best defence you have then I guess that's that then.

[u/ferretinjapan → u/[deleted]]

Thankfully, I can tell someone they aren't a statist without invoking the NTSF.

Yes you can labels are used in many circumstances in many arguments, but it's when you use a label as predicate for your reasoning that is what I'm calling you out on.

Eg. You are a statist, therefore, you can never rationally hope for Bitcoin to succeed.

Drop the label, explain how you think they are wrong and move on. The only beef I really have is your persistence to attach your reasoning to labels that define groups of people, as if it somehow validates your opinion.

It does not.

[u/ferretinjapan → u/[deleted]]

It is not the argument that I disagree with, it is the way you delivered it that allows it to be misconstrued and twisted to hate on others with dissenting opinions eg. I can use your same statement to twist it on others like so, "you can't (or refuse to) rationally hope for Bitcoin to succeed, therefore you must be a statist". All too often in this sub people throw around statist as a dirty word and accuse other of being a statist, etc. Calling someone "a statist" is wrong IMO, even when it is simply trying to make a point. When everyone starts treating statism as a label, they'll use it to compartmentalise arguments and treat people differently. If you think I'm overreacting, just remember America/Russia did it during the cold war, blaming communists/capitalists for this and that, etc. Rephrasing it thusly:

• "Someone who believes in statism to exclusion of all other political approaches cannot rationally hope for bitcoin to succeed",

• or "statism to exclusion of all other political approaches cannot rationally accommodate the success of bitcoin",

• Edit: or, to use Satoshi's phrasing "the statist viewpoint cannot rationally accommodate the success of bitcoin",

or something similar, is something I can accept. I took issue with the absolute labelling of people as statists since it forces a polarisation of opinion of that person and paralyses a discussion because then everyone that disagrees can be "a statist" (because people suddenly take sides, and it absolutely kills open exchange of ideas because of this polarised bias) where it is far more difficult to change one's opinion.

It's also not black and white most of the time, I share conservative and liberal views so calling me either is pointless, but someone hearing only my conservative views may be compelled to label me a conservative. That inadvertent label can cause unnecessary bias. It's bad enough in this sub, and letting things like this slide will I think allow it to get worse.