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How it must feel to have had enough awareness of bitcoin in 2011 that you felt qualified to make offhand snide comments about it then 7 years later wake up and

How it must feel to have had enough awareness of bitcoin in 2011 that you felt qualified to make offhand snide comments about it then 7 years later wake up and realize you could have been a centi-millionaire if only you'd been a little less cynical. The r/buttcoin subreddit was made in 2011 or 2012. I sometimes wonder if some of the original posters haven't thrown themselves out of a window by now. edit: And in come the down votes. Cognitive dissonance is a cruel mistress.

zimablue 8y ago
I heard of bitcoin pretty early on in /b/ and have no regrets. I also don't regret that I wasn't alive to cash out at the right time on tulips or penny stocks or dot com companies, or even stuff which turned out to stick around like Apple. There are lots of places to gamble and lots of people winning and losing all the time, much more often through luck than genius. If some of those people end up fantastically wealthy and rather smug about it it's definitely not the biggest problem for me or my ego. People who become fantastically successful through skill, determination and creativity, they're a bit more bruising.
- jokes_on_you 8y ago
  >I also don't regret that I wasn't alive to cash out at the right time on tulips or penny stocks or dot com companies, or even stuff which turned out to stick around like Apple. Begging the question of whether tulip mania is even relevant in this context, were you going around at the beginning of it or when Apple got listed making snide comments? Yeah. Thought not. But then again, this is """Hacker""" News so critical thinking isn't exactly what anyone would expect. For instance, a significant fraction of this thread is debating whether Goldman Sachs "believes" in Bitcoin. What? Who cares. The significance of them opening a trading desk is people who like to do their gambling with them can now buy Bitcoins. More buyers, more sellers, more volume. But carry on having no regrets. Oh and, nice cope.
lmm 8y ago
I make a decent living improving software to make real people's lives easier. I'll probably never be a millionaire but I'll never have trouble sleeping at night. There are plenty of points in my career where I could've chosen to make more money by selling something that doesn't work to idiots, and I don't regret missing out on any of them.
- jokes_on_you 8y ago
  >I'll never have trouble sleeping at night. If it bothered you that much, you could have had millions to donate to any charity of your choice. >I'll probably never be a millionaire You won't with that attitude. >There are plenty of points in my career where I could've chosen to make more money by selling something that doesn't work to idiots You started with airs of the moral high ground and now you're the supposed smart guy to the rest of the idiots. By extension, you're implying Bitcoin buyers are also idiots. The hubris. The gall. The cope.
  - lmm 8y ago
    > If it bothered you that much, you could have had millions to donate to any charity of your choice. Donating a fraction of my ill-gotten gains wouldn't make them any less ill-gotten. There would still be real people who'd lost money on the other end. > You started with airs of the moral high ground and now you're the supposed smart guy to the rest of the idiots. By extension, you're implying Bitcoin buyers are also idiots. I believe it's worthless. I'm not going to make money selling something I believe is worthless (to the people I'm selling to; I have no problem selling e.g. fashionable clothes to people who put value in that even if I don't personally). If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'll lose out. > The hubris. The gall. The cope. People selling things that have actual value don't talk like this. You're sounding like a huckster.
    - jokes_on_you 8y ago
      >Donating a fraction of my ill-gotten gains wouldn't make them any less ill-gotten. There would still be real people who'd lost money on the other end. The gains are not "ill-gotten". Slamming people who buy Bitcoin and implying they are somehow morally wrong and that you are somehow superior is disgusting. But that's another moral argument so I guess I could be hypocritical like you except I'm right. >I believe it's worthless. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'll lose out. "it's worthless" "If" "I will lose out" Sorry to break the news but a Bitcoin is worth 9200 US dollars. You are wrong and you have already lost out. >People selling things that have actual value don't talk like this. You're sounding like a huckster. It wouldn't matter what I said, you've obviously made up your mind so no matter what, to you, I'm going to sound like a "huckster" and bitcoin doesn't have value and people who buy it for some reason plucked from your imagination have trouble sleeping at night (I mean what?) on and on. I hope that makes you feel better.
Chris_Jay 8y ago
Nocoiners seem to pingpong between an attitude of sour grapes and one of schadenfreude, depending on valuations. Perhaps it's a natural reaction to being too risk-averse to invest in something that's been profitable for people one considers intellectual inferiors. It seems far more reasonable to assess technology this nascent by the quality of teams working on it than anything else. Unfortunately, that's difficult to do in a rigorous fashion.

zimablue 8y ago

I heard of bitcoin pretty early on in /b/ and have no regrets. I also don't regret that I wasn't alive to cash out at the right time on tulips or penny stocks or dot com companies, or even stuff which turned out to stick around like Apple. There are lots of places to gamble and lots of people winning and losing all the time, much more often through luck than genius. If some of those people end up fantastically wealthy and rather smug about it it's definitely not the biggest problem for me or my ego. People who become fantastically successful through skill, determination and creativity, they're a bit more bruising.

jokes_on_you 8y ago
>I also don't regret that I wasn't alive to cash out at the right time on tulips or penny stocks or dot com companies, or even stuff which turned out to stick around like Apple. Begging the question of whether tulip mania is even relevant in this context, were you going around at the beginning of it or when Apple got listed making snide comments? Yeah. Thought not. But then again, this is """Hacker""" News so critical thinking isn't exactly what anyone would expect. For instance, a significant fraction of this thread is debating whether Goldman Sachs "believes" in Bitcoin. What? Who cares. The significance of them opening a trading desk is people who like to do their gambling with them can now buy Bitcoins. More buyers, more sellers, more volume. But carry on having no regrets. Oh and, nice cope.

lmm 8y ago

I make a decent living improving software to make real people's lives easier. I'll probably never be a millionaire but I'll never have trouble sleeping at night. There are plenty of points in my career where I could've chosen to make more money by selling something that doesn't work to idiots, and I don't regret missing out on any of them.

jokes_on_you 8y ago
>I'll never have trouble sleeping at night. If it bothered you that much, you could have had millions to donate to any charity of your choice. >I'll probably never be a millionaire You won't with that attitude. >There are plenty of points in my career where I could've chosen to make more money by selling something that doesn't work to idiots You started with airs of the moral high ground and now you're the supposed smart guy to the rest of the idiots. By extension, you're implying Bitcoin buyers are also idiots. The hubris. The gall. The cope.
- lmm 8y ago
  > If it bothered you that much, you could have had millions to donate to any charity of your choice. Donating a fraction of my ill-gotten gains wouldn't make them any less ill-gotten. There would still be real people who'd lost money on the other end. > You started with airs of the moral high ground and now you're the supposed smart guy to the rest of the idiots. By extension, you're implying Bitcoin buyers are also idiots. I believe it's worthless. I'm not going to make money selling something I believe is worthless (to the people I'm selling to; I have no problem selling e.g. fashionable clothes to people who put value in that even if I don't personally). If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'll lose out. > The hubris. The gall. The cope. People selling things that have actual value don't talk like this. You're sounding like a huckster.
  - jokes_on_you 8y ago
    >Donating a fraction of my ill-gotten gains wouldn't make them any less ill-gotten. There would still be real people who'd lost money on the other end. The gains are not "ill-gotten". Slamming people who buy Bitcoin and implying they are somehow morally wrong and that you are somehow superior is disgusting. But that's another moral argument so I guess I could be hypocritical like you except I'm right. >I believe it's worthless. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'll lose out. "it's worthless" "If" "I will lose out" Sorry to break the news but a Bitcoin is worth 9200 US dollars. You are wrong and you have already lost out. >People selling things that have actual value don't talk like this. You're sounding like a huckster. It wouldn't matter what I said, you've obviously made up your mind so no matter what, to you, I'm going to sound like a "huckster" and bitcoin doesn't have value and people who buy it for some reason plucked from your imagination have trouble sleeping at night (I mean what?) on and on. I hope that makes you feel better.

Chris_Jay 8y ago

Nocoiners seem to pingpong between an attitude of sour grapes and one of schadenfreude, depending on valuations. Perhaps it's a natural reaction to being too risk-averse to invest in something that's been profitable for people one considers intellectual inferiors. It seems far more reasonable to assess technology this nascent by the quality of teams working on it than anything else. Unfortunately, that's difficult to do in a rigorous fashion.