essay: visible and felt impacts of bitcoin culture

while many of us are concerned with financial legacy and the amassing of monetary wealth (be it in the form of liberty or actual material wealth), i would argue that the cultural legacy of bitcoiners up to the present block (902948), also, will echo throughout the future generations--for better or for worse. and while i don't purport to put financial and cultural legacy at odds with each other, i think it is worthwhile, at least, to consider the cultural import of bitcoiners today alongside the economic, intellectual and philosophical; nor do i wish to split hairs and attempt to take these apart from the idea of 'culture' more broadly. therefore, when speaking of culture, i am thinking about three things primarily: (1) popular narratives, (2) artistic contributions and (3) the way and manner in which people interact in-person and online.

in short, i am arguing that the culture seen online from bitcoiners is generally deficient (as, i think, are most cultures) and risks being remembered as such because it appears as (a) disingenuous or (b) self-referential, at least in the mainstream. bitcoiners concerned about cultural legacy should focus on continuing to memorialize the more niche, freedom-focused and tech-focused elements of bitcoin, in ways that outlast the 24h news cycle. my suggestion is that the felt cultural impact of community building and family values will long outlast the virtue-signalling, pseudo-culture that predominates in the more visible online spaces.

here are my personal observations, regarding these three categories, according to what is more visible versus what is the felt experience as a bitcoiner. In other words, i will attempt to look at the three categories from an exogenous and endogenous point of view, respectively.

(1) popular narratives

• visible: saylor/trump-isms seem to dominate in non-bitcoiner realms, which might appear (whether it is true or not) from the outside as stealthy state propaganda disguised as counterculture. financial circles (as @denlillaapan does a good job writing about) are slowly coming around and, i fear, are quickly financializing/engineering in ways that fiat-ishize bitcoin. while i don't believe this renders the technology any less useful, again, these financial products certainly appear to be infiltration of the culture and values that carried bitcoiners this far.
• felt: none of these financial products really adds to the felt experience of the people using them in any meaningful way--there was nothing culturally hearty about the shitcoin tokenomic hype-cycle of 2017 (and i'm open to evidence to the contrary), and so the bitcoin-treasury hype-cycle most likely will prove to be virtue signalling noise without much long-standing cultural impact.

(2) artistic contributions

• visible: bitcoin art exists but often appears as very uninteresting from the outside since it is usually based on an ideological premise, i.e. 'bitcoin is liberty' or 'satoshi as savior,' which contradicts the poplar narratives (above). memes and podcasts might occupy this second category, since there is arguably some aesthetic decision-making in these, and i suspect in many cases these seem to be made more for the bag pumping and bitcoin-evangelism than the actual procurement of good art.
• felt: a closer inspection of many such creations show genuine appreciation of the finer, felt elements that make bitcoin wonderful. those that focus on the proliferation of freedom of thought, the challenging of conventional explanations of finance and the exploration of new and compelling technologies in service of those ideals. shout outs to those like @plebpoet and madex whose creations make bitcoin culture feel worth showing up for. i hope these artists penetrate into the mainstream without compromising their authenticity

(3) human (inter)action

• visible: the most compelling category, to me, of the visible elements of bitcoin culture are the meetups. the communicative and interactive patterns, discourses and partnerships forged at meetups and conferences, no matter what their size is, are captivating to people especially in an our increasingly information-based lives. also compelling is focus on education there and in countless online blogs, presentations, tutorials, podcasts and forum spaces, especially wrt narratives that challenge the status-quo and freedom-technology. these, to me, are the bastion of resistance, especially in the visible, marketing elements of bitcoin.
• felt: bitcoiners tend to have stronger family values because of their low-time preference. i would suspect that the proliferation of bitcoin circular economies make for more localized, small-business focused and high-trust communities, although the empirical evidence for this is not readily available. the fact that bitcoin is able to minimize trust in financial transactions incidentally enables communities to interact in a higher-trust capacity. communities, families and individuals all come in alignment with common principles and goals.

so what can be done and how can the grain be separated from the chaff in terms of the visible, virtue signaling diverge and the felt experience? what are the cultural artifacts of today that will be memorable to our posterity?

in closing, i truly believe that culture, in general, is deficient nowadays because most of the informational artifacts we consume are extremely fleeting and temporary. it is not that only rich and powerful are capable of generating a lasting impression; conversely, the impressions of counter-culture may be less obvious, but no less felt to those involved. family legacies and community meetups are great examples of culture that is relatively small-scale but that has lasting cultural impact. books and stories created by bitcoiners, also, seem to have relative longevity, if we look at history. in sum, i would say that those involved in building on bitcoin, whether it be on the level of technology, circular economies, community or their nuclear family, should consider the distinction between what is the visible versus the potential felt impact of their actions, and weight these carefully with the cultural and financial legacy they wish to leave behind.

https://stacker.news/items/1017209