According to the writer, philosopher and financier of lebanese origin, Nassim Taleb, “the majority of bitcoiners are a few complete idiots”. This was said on June 21 on his Twitter account @nntaleb.
Taleb wrote the phrase in the context of a discussion with the maximalist Italian bitcoin Giacomo Zucco. This defender of the ideas of libertarian critical of Taleb for approving state intervention, centralized in extreme situations as, for example, a pandemic.
In response, Taleb expounded on the inability to accept the nuances that you see in many bitcoiners. In addition, he has made it clear that he only approves the actions of the State in specific situations, but not their interference in the daily life of the people.
Despite the clarification, the answers to such an accusation did not take long to appear. For example, Cory Clippsten, founder of SwanBitcoin, told Taleb that his opinion is biased by Twitter. In addition, we provided examples to refute your idea that bitcoiners don’t understand nuances.
They were also able to read voices in favor of Taleb, such as that of Brad Mills. For this a consultant on cryptocurrencies, most of the bitcoiners are extremely antiestatistas to the point of coming to believe that the COVID19 is a threat invented. Mills said that many would fall in a sort of cognitive dissonance when they see that the state response is sometimes effective.
As is usual in the social network where the cryptocurrencies have a prominent place, the humor was present. From the account @ETHTrollAcount replied that, unlike bitcoiners, the “ethereans” they are smart and geniuses in total.
The response of the own Zucco came a few minutes after and was made in the same terms aggressive than the tweet from Taleb. “If by ‘nuances’ you refer to ‘exceptions arbitrary to my own words, when I say that’, then I agree,” he wrote.
It should be noted that Nassim Taleb is from several years ago, an apologist for bitcoin. For example, years ago, in reference to the financial crisis in his native country, assured that this criptomoneda would be a possible solution for the people. “The people do not trust in the ability of the Central Bank which is causing a collapse in the style Ponzi schemes, and bitcoin does not have that,” he said on that occasion.
Despite the controversial, the writer of best sellers like “The black swan”, “is it luck?” or “The bed of Procusto” continues to remain a benchmark for many bitcoiners. Even the same Clippsten, even after having discussed it with the writer, still considered himself, as he states in his biography of Twitter, a fan of Taleb”.