Recently Dr. Peter Hotez, a leading vaccine scientist and a frequent target of anti-vaxxer harassment, expressed some puzzlement in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. He noted that many of those taunting him were also “big time into bitcoin or cryptocurrency” and declared that “I can’t quite connect the dots on that one.”
If you regularly follow debates about public policy, especially those involving wealthy tech bros, it’s obvious that there’s a strong correlation among the three Cs: climate denial, COVID-19 vaccine denial and cryptocurrency cultism.
To value the scientific consensus, in other words, you have to have some respect for the whole enterprise of research and understand how scientists reach the conclusions they do. This doesn’t mean that the experts are always right and never change their minds. They aren’t, and they do. For example, in the early stages of the COVID pandemic, top health officials opposed widespread masking, but they reversed course in the face of persuasive evidence, because that’s what serious scientists do.
So, where does cryptocurrency come in? Underlying the whole crypto phenomenon is the belief by some tech types that they can invent a better monetary system than the one we currently have, all without talking to any monetary experts or learning any monetary history. Indeed, there’s a widespread belief that the generations-old system of fiat money issued by governments is a Ponzi scheme that will collapse into hyperinflation any day now.
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