From Pine View Farm

The Galt and the Lamers 2

Think Progress tries to understand the glibertarian tilt of the fans of bitcoin. A nugget:

. . . there’s a fair amount of privilege built directly into the currency: In order to buy the sometimes wildly expensive currency, Bitcoin users need to be wealthy. And they can afford to put their wealth into a currency that isn’t widely accepted or even recognized. Plus, they move easily through the financial and digital space — the process of “mining” bitcoins demands it; it is all about knowing coding and decryption and how to use an exchange. The sum total of these things — advanced knowledge of computer science, wealth — are also markings of the young, white male.

(snip)

Bitcoin users’ rejection of the government reflects the luxury of being able to live well without state support, while the less advantaged desperately need a larger government role in the banking system to help them them overcome deep, systemic bias.

Read the rest.

Via Zandar.

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2 comments

  1. George Smith

    March 1, 2014 at 12:03 pm

    Yeah, boys’ club, minor subset of WhiteManistan, even though they exist in tech centers. Young right-wingers who don’t get wound up over gay people. Losing 300,000 to MtGox as an affordable loss for someone who lives in a money-laundering hub, Panama City, and posts the truth to “the Internet’s front page,” Reddit.  The perfect philosophy of money for someone freeing the world from government tyranny with a plastic gun until the State Department took it off him for unbelief in the ITAR. Winkdex says BitCoin is still worth $516 today even though MtGox just blew a big hole in the stash. The fanbase is desperate to keep it propped up and they can, for a while I suppose, since most of it is held by a tiny niche of the population. I don’t think I’ve ever run across a female ‘glibertarian.’ I know a few exist, used to see some young fem faces in support videos for Ron Paul.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEQ2nPSL5-0 

     
  2. Frank

    March 1, 2014 at 12:47 pm

    I’ve known a few male glibertarians, never any female ones who were not the SOSOs of the males.  In person, they were very nice persons, readily distinguished by the pocket-size copy of the Constitution which they were ready to misinterpret at a moment’s notice.

     
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