[ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 3:04 PM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I kick myself over it now, endlessly, because I have had my financial
> struggles (to say the least), and this could have transformed my life!


Stop kicking yourself, you'll go nuts if you keep thinking "if only".  By
the way  in English it's easy to express things in the subjunctive Mood
like "if I had invested in Bitcoin 4 years ago and gotten out a few months
ago I'd be rich today", but in some other languages it's more difficult to
express that thought.  M. Keith Chen proposed that these differences in
language explain the different savings rates  among nations and even the
degree they practice safe sex.

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/keith.chen/papers/LanguageWorkingPaper.pdf

I would be surprised if it turned out to be true but maybe.

  John K Clark














Well, just as governments and military's view intelligence gathering about
> events in the world around them as keenly important, so do individuals.  My
> own personal intelligence gathering failure has been regarding Bitcoin.  I
> think of myself as a person who knows what is going on in the cutting edge
> of technological development, in large part due to my membership in this
> list, but I don't remember reading anything about Bitcoin here, until quite
> recently.  I feel like this has become an "old fogey" list of people who
> are no longer surfing the edge of real world technological progression, at
> least in a way that can really benefit them.  I suppose I should have also
> been hanging out with the hacker/coder/Libertarian crowd.  But I view the
> Extropy-list as "home."
>
>
> How many of you not only learned about Bitcoin in time to buy/mine coins
> at very low cost (and later make a huge profit), but upon learning about
> it, saw an opportunity, and actually seized it?  In my case, a Mormon
> Transhumanist Association friend posted about it to an email list, in early
> July of 2010, but he was restrained about it, and so not sensing enthusiasm
> and an endorsement (I respect his intelligence and viewpoints), I let it
> pass without grasping the opportunity.  I kick myself over it now,
> endlessly, because I have had my financial struggles (to say the least),
> and this could have transformed my life!
>
>
> Bitcoin only reentered my awareness, over the past six months or so, due
> to news about it finally hitting a critical mass in the media.  I finally
> last week bought myself ten little (they do both scrypt and sha-256)
> miners, and will be putting them to work.  This is probably "too little,
> too late," but at least I am trying, and I view it more as a hobby, than
> anything else.  Also, a very bright FB friend has started up his own
> virtual currency, and I will be investing in it, with my fingers crossed,
> that the value will explode sometime down the road.  My basic strategy is
> to buy/mine currently low value virtual coins, hang onto them for 5-10
> years if necessary, and then sell at least some of them, as the prices go
> (hopefully) steadily up.  And I can of course sell the cheap coin brands I
> mine, to turn around and buy tiny fractions of Bitcoin.
>
>
> Anyway, thank you my friends, for letting me rant.  I feel like I will
> still be regretting this botched opportunity thirty years from now! lol
>  This was most likely, a once in a lifetime event, which I blew.  You
> should see all the people on the net, who wrote about their similar
> experiences of frustration!  It's almost endless...
>
>
> John
>
>
> P.S. If anyone here builds or comes across a time machine, please zip over
> to my location in Mesa, Arizona, and then take me back to the year 2009!
> But not until we look at dinosaurs and then assassinate Hitler!!!  ;  )
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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