Popescu Gives High Class Narrative of “Why Dogecoin is a scam”

The BitCoinistas are getting a bit anxious, what with their one-true-ring not ruling them all quite as much as hoped.

I already remarked on Marc Andreessen’s class act last week.

This week there is buzz about a childish rant from “Mircea Popescu”, partly titled “Why Dogecoin is a scam“.

I haven’t got the time or energy to deal with all the nonsense here, but that isn’t really important.

This is a beautifully revealing exposition, that brings out many of the underlying themes of the Bitcoin narrative. And his statements about Dogecoin shed light on the cultural meaning enacted in the Dogecoin narrative.

It’s obvious that Dogecoin threatens the very core of MP’s strongly held moral beliefs about cryptocurrency, which was also clear in Andreessen’s rant.  The personal attacks on opponents is a dead giveaway that something more than technology is at stake:  these zealots have a lot of personal ego tied up in the Bitcoin narrative.

The article itself is a gold mine (oops!  Perhaps I should say, “BitCoin mine”) of rhetoric, heavily laden with cultural and political baggage.

We are told that, by definition, Dogecoin is a scam because it has taken slightly different engineering choices. It is also asserted that, by aiming for goals other than currency speculation, Dogecoin is morally corrupt and criminal.  Oh, and it operates like (the hated enemy), “fiat” currency.  (Interestingly, our everyday life experience with money is said to be sustained by “exercises in cognitive dissonance that are used to misrepresent the fiat regime as “normal””.  Apparently, real life doesn’t conform to ideological “normality” here.)

The creators of Dogecoin, who, in this post, appear to be a large number of anonymous conspirators.  They are “the sort that have never done anything useful in their lives so far and will not be doing anything useful ever.”  Interestingly, this moocher class apparently includes “Marketeers, “creators” of pointless web 2.0 crud, tradeshow freaks, braindamaged pseudo-entrepreneurs working in VC entertainment. The scum of this Earth.”

Some of the charges of “scam” are a bit weakened by the fact that no one is making money off Dogecoin–that’s one of the great heresies.

It is clear that a big problem with Dogecoin is that “those people” like it.  We are treated to vicious smears, basically indicating that all those blood sucking “takers” favor Dogecoin.  Dogecoin users are “idiots” and “retarded”; they are “silly kid[s] so deprived of human contact”, “halfwit[s] spending his hard-earned government dole to be “part of something””, “everyone with something to give”.  “[T]he kids, the unemployed, the unemployable”.

Those people.

(IMO, it’s not a brilliant rhetorical strategy to slash at “everyone with something to give”.  Next, you’ll be blasting the deep immorality of cute pictures of puppies. Oh, wait.  Dogecoin is based on the “pictures of cute doggies” standard.  Uh oh.)

In contrast, Bitcoinistas “are in crypto for crypto”, and understand the true “rugged beauty” of BC (to quote another enthusiast). Bitcoin isn’t deflationary, which isn’t a problem anyway, because I said so. Anyone who says otherwise, “They’re that stupid, these people.”

Phew!

You don’t need me to connect this rhetoric to the Ran Paul/Paul Ryan strain of libertarian politics.  The references to “those people” make that very clear.

But why all this flame directed at Dogecoin specifically?  Clearly, Dogecoin has gained popular recognition, nearly as great as Bitcoin.  The son is rivaling the father, which is a tense situation. (I might say “the daughter is rivallng the mother”, but this is an all male affair, as far as I can see.  Which reminds me:  isn’t it time for “FemCoin”?)

Dogecoin’s narrative is deliberately designed to mock and undermine aspects of Bitcoin’s narrative. Judging by the vehement and irrational responses, there are enthusiasts who have considerable personal commitment to these narratives, and are therefore threatened by alternative narratives.

If Dogecoin can succeed despite not being serious, and by taking alternative design choices from Bitcoin, then neither Bitcoin’s technology nor its narrative are self-evidently “right” (nor inevitably successful).

For those true believers (and MP obviously is a very true believer), the “success” of Dogecoin is deeply wrong and even immoral.

This psychological dynamic probably drives some of the Dogecoin narrative.  From the start, Dogecoin was deliberately a story about being “not Bitcoin”. The design decisions (e.g., to not have a cap, and to welcome regulation) were made for very good ideological reasons, which is why they are so “idiotic” for Bitcoinistas:  Dogecoin dared to choose “wrong”, and, astonishingly, the heavens didn’t fall.  This cannot stand.

Wow!  Such religion.