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You've confused a critique of your rhetoric for a critique of yourself. There's no need to defend a turn of phrase so vigorously. If you'd just led off with,
by xapata 6y ago
You've confused a critique of your rhetoric for a critique of yourself. There's no need to defend a turn of phrase so vigorously. If you'd just led off with, "No, I didn't mean it like that," as you've done here, then I'd have shut up. I mean, come on, surely you recognize how "Do you have a citation?" falls into the camp that both of us apparently dislike.
Anyway, back to the topic of Bitcoin. I think your assessment is right in that the bulk of Bitcoin transactions are speculative investments. However, given that the value of Bitcoin as an asset lies in its assumed eventual use as a currency, the original comment might also be correct in that non-speculative transactions are predominantly related to illicit activities. I'm unaware of any common legitimate purpose beyond financial speculation.
When one thinks of world trade, there's (these numbers are from a faded memory of an international trade class about 2 decades ago, so they're horribly wrong) something like $50 billion in goods exported daily. That's the world economy. Then there's $500 billion in currency derivatives traded daily to ostensibly enable exports across currencies, but it's really just speculation. It's not real trade. So when someone talks about the Bitcoin economy, it's hard to know whether we should be talking about just the actual economic activity conducted using Bitcoin as a currency, or whether we should include the speculative trades as well.
- javert 6y ago> You've confused a critique of your rhetoric for a critique of yourself. If you call my comment hypocritical, I think you're calling me hypocritical. Apparently you don't think so. That's fine. It could be a cultural difference. Let's not litigate it. > There's no need to defend a turn of phrase so vigorously. If you'd just led off with, "No, I didn't mean it like that," as you've done here, then I'd have shut up. I don't think this is a charitable thing to say. If there was no need for me to defend it, there was no need for you to "attack" (criticize) my comment in the first place. If you don't agree, that's fine. Again, let's not litigate it. > I mean, come on, surely you recognize how "Do you have a citation?" falls into the camp that both of us apparently dislike. I don't agree. As I already explained, I think it's OK to ask for a citation, in a certain context. I don't think I was doing the thing you're complaining about and which annoys me. If you disagree, that's fine. Let's not litigate it. I would have liked for you to find a way to continue communicating without continuing to criticize, but it didn't happen. Oh well. Let's call this conversation finished. Take care. On the bitcoin stuff you are bringing up, that looks fine to me. I don't have anything more to say about that.
- xapata 6y agoYeah, it's interesting how similar our viewpoints are, including the stubborn itch to debate rhetoric. Have a good evening.