No offense, but I'm probably on the other end of the spectrum on this. What I have learned about online discourse is that people show you who they are pretty early on. But the faux politeness people can waste a lot of your time.
But more so, I roundly reject the idea that we should be *more* concerned with being polite than with the harm being done. I believe that is one of the *primary* ways that we have created a society where harm cannot be effectively addressed.
We constrain ourselves from the outset. So the people doing the harm are afforded the benefit of the doubt. They learn to take advantage of these constraints we place on ourselves. While they are not bound by any such handicap.
I've watched @kelseyhightower engage with the crypto community and display superhuman levels of patience and grace. But reading his exchanges, I didn't learn anything I didn't already find out myself by taking these clowns to task.
I will also acknowledge that I'm conflating being polite and what Kelsey actually said, which is giving people respect. I should explain why, because it helps to unpack how I feel about this discourse with harmful people/communities.
Respect is a versatile word and can be examined in many different ways. I believe most crypto people tip their hand early. Because they are "polite" but not actually respectful in the way they engage.
However politely you might approach them, most crypto people I've talked to will not actually meet you in the conversation you're trying to have. Instead they insist on mischaracterizing and misrepresenting anything you say as a way of dodging accountability.
Crypto people do not have any respect for these critiques. I believe you believe differently when you wanna show respect. They search out people who they label "detractors" for the express purpose of providing a bad faith opposition.
I show people the respect they deserve when I ask them legitimate questions and expect them to engage in good faith. As soon as they turn on the smarmy bullshit instead of showing at least some awareness of the harms being done, I know where we stand.
We already know how this works. If a person in the fiat financial markets keeps talking slick and pretending nobody ever gets hurt, you know it's bullshit. It's not different here. But the people you talk to in crypto refuse to acknowledge what we can plainly see with our eyes.
Those are not people who are deserving of your time and energy in respectful discourse.
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Yes, they are legitimately mad about it. There was a point when I understood that this isn't only political theater. It's a real ethos that has developed under modern capitalism. If individuals aren't "doing their part" to help the economy then that is morally wrong.
I almost went on a tangent to tie this idea into a previous thread. This is the situation with the manager trying to bully somebody back to work after they quit.
This article seeks to capture some of the controversy around the event where Hannah-Jones spoke with MLK's words. What it doesn't do is hold to account those who tried to silence her. chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/…
The actual people who wrote the emails trying to whitewash MLK's legacy are not listed. Only the people who decided to be on her side. This is how it goes. White people who participate in racist backlash never have to actually be accountable to it.
I've been having some form of this conversation with white men for years now. My understanding of it as a moral ideology gets more and more refined over time. "Build nameless, faceless systems and blame them for the world's ills so that individuals cannot be held accountable."
Let me be extra clear in the statement that I'm making. I believe that Western white supremacist capitalist imperialism requires this kind of mental gymnastics in order to justify and sustain its continued violence. No one is to blame. The violence simply emerges naturally.
Blaming nameless, faceless systems is the perfect form of disenfranchisement. Because every single human in the system can claim that they don't actually have any agency. Their decisions are simply dictated by the system and have nothing to do with their values.
I've gone back and forth on the right nuance here. What I tell people is to work hard on your own growth. Don't find yourself working hard because you expect that you'll magically be recognized and rewarded for it. That's often not how it goes, and it's a hard lesson for people.
What gets you recognized and rewarded is way more situational and way less predictable than people want to believe. In order to know how to get ahead, you have to understand what kind of organization you're in and how it operates.
The important thing to understand is this. You want to get rewarded for the *value* you bring. You do not want that to be tied to how many hours you work or how intensely you work. That is a recipe for burnout. Or at least for feeling overworked and underappreciated.
This is a thoughtful thread. But I want to say something real simple. Trying to keep people from getting scammed is not a bad thing. This isn’t about ego or “scolding” people. I’m trying to prevent harm. Like I try to do everywhere else.
Saying “it won’t work” is true in some sense. But it misses the point. You can’t really keep people from jumping on a bandwagon and getting harmed as a result. People are gonna to do what they want. But I believe we can help people see the truth sooner rather than later.
Cryptocurrency and NFTs are not too big to fail. I think the ideas will evolve in a few different ways. It’s not going to die completely. But it is unsustainable in its current form. Because a lot of people are going to get hurt. And at some point, that’s going to come to a head.