This is an opinion editorial by Mickey Koss, a West Point graduate with a degree in economics. He spent four years in the infantry before transitioning to the Finance Corps.
Barely a week past 2023, and I’ve seen Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano debates Michael Shellenberger Y Joe Rogan interviews Peter Ziehan. While these media impressions may seem unrelated, a common thread is sewn between the two: experts in different fields confidently profess uninformed opinions on Bitcoin.
Ziehan’s the misunderstandings can be heard in the last 20 minutes of the interview. In fact, our friend Guy Swann just did a nearly 90 minute feature. “Bitcoin Audible” episode dedicated to trashing Ziehand’s analysis. Bitcoin Coffee did the same recently in the first half of its January 9, 2023 episode.
shellenberger he made it a bit easier to spot his misunderstandings, apparently going on Pomp’s podcast for the sole purpose of proving his complete and utter ignorance.
I think one of the more pertinent questions to consider after these conversations is: How are these two gentlemen qualified to make such assessments in the first place?
How can someone feel so comfortable saying something they obviously know so little about? If these two are so trusted with opinions that are obviously wrong and uninformed, why should you trust them with anything else?
While discussing these two interviews in a small group, one of the members said something that inspired the idea behind this article:
“For now they both feel safe in their statements. In the next bullish cycle, these clips will haunt them and tarnish their credibility.”
–alex brammermember of the board of directors of the Bitcoin Today (BTC) Coalition
He even turned that sentiment into a tweet, seen below:
A common characteristic of Bitcoiners is their low time preference: a willingness to sacrifice short-term comfort for long-term gain, rather than follow every whim.
These individuals are the epitome of what the fiat system is doing to people, a symptom of what happens when money fails to communicate clear price signals. Their time preference has been so skewed that they are willingly sacrificing their long-term credibility for short-term notoriety. They do it without thinking, with little understanding of what they are criticizing, let alone the long-term implications of what they are saying. They do it because they have to, lest they be cast aside as simpletons, like the rest of us.
What happened to just saying “I don’t know”? Perhaps most importantly, what happens when all these naysayers are not only proven wrong, but completely, spectacularly, utterly wrong in every way?
I predict that in the months and years to come, those who chose to speak carelessly will quickly begin to lose any semblance of credibility they once had.
The cure for Gell-Mann amnesia is absurdity
“Simply put, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some topic you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see that the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often the article is so wrong that it actually presents the story backwards, reversing cause and effect. I call them the ‘wet streets cause rain’ stories. The paper is full of them.
“In any case, one reads with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turns the page to national or international affairs, and reads as if the rest of the paper is somehow more accurate about Palestine than the nonsense that just ended.” to read. You turn the page and forget what you know.”
Bitcoin is the orange pill that wakes you up from the womb, yes, but what if the narrative gets too absurd? What if the criticisms and complaints became so obviously wrong that these so-called experts were no longer respected, much less listened to?
I was a fan of Ziehan. I found the books interesting and informative by him. They seemed well thought out and thoroughly researched. But after that interview, I don’t know what to think anymore. After hearing him speak, even before hearing his critique of Bitcoin, all I really heard was quasi-automaton; a character who was well rehearsed to speak with polished sound bites. His analysis of Bitcoin was very smooth, well written and confident. Man, he was confident. And everything he said was absolutely wrong.
I see the next few years as the precipice of the dissolution of the current experts. Like the economist uncle in the dystopian tale “The Mandibles,” these experts will have answers to everything and yet they will not be able to explain anything. Slowly but surely, people will realize that the world that these “experts” have created inside their theoretical minds no longer exists. Reality will eventually collapse.
But you don’t have to wait for that.
Once you understand Bitcoin, you’ll understand that the long-term price slowly approaches infinity as central banks gradually add currency units to the system to manipulate the cost of capital as they see fit.
Saving in bitcoin can be a bumpy road for those who don’t yet see the value, but in my opinion, it’s the safest thing to do. As I sit back and reflect during this tumultuous week in the bear market, I feel like I have never been more bullish than I am now.
This is a guest post by Mickey Koss. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
