We must take ABC's misinformation campaign seriously

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Written by
3 years ago

I'm currently reading the book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. It's an amazing story of how a Stanford dropout got this amazing idea to revolutionize the blood testing industry and founded a Silicon Valley startup that at one point was valued to a staggering $9 billion.

Too bad it was all fake and everything was built on lies.

The story of Theranos reminds me of how successful deceit and misinformation campaigns can be. Their blood testing devices had absolutely zero validation yet highly intelligent people invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the startup.

The best part? To this day, even after the magnitude of the scam has been revealed, people still defend them.

And there's one question on everyone's mind:

How could so many be so fooled?

Nothing new under the sun

If you've been following the cryptocurrency space, this story should be familiar to you. All these garbage ICOs follow the same pattern of people throwing millions at them despite tons of red flags and empty promises.

Bitcoin's so-called scaling solution is another example. The Lightning Network is still years away from reaching the same user experience that Bitcoin had five years ago, yet people still cling to it as the saving grace. If they haven't moved on to promote the centralized Liquid sidechain of course.

Why are people so gullible?

Propaganda works

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.

Hitler

The unfortunate answer is that misinformation and propaganda works.

It's difficult and time consuming to fact check everything you hear. Therefore we rely on heuristics such as listening to a person with perceived knowledge. This often works well, for example it's often a very good idea to listen to your doctor.

But it's of course not a perfect strategy (that's why it's called a heuristic). For example you might be inclined to listen to Adam Back because he's mentioned in the Bitcoin whitepaper, because surely that means he's a Bitcoin expert?

Sadly that's not the case as he'd recommend you to use Tabs™ instead of Bitcoin.

No, "just educate yourself" isn't the simple answer you might think it is. It can take a lot of time and energy to teach yourself difficult topics. We're talking years or even decades of full-time effort depending on the subject and a person's preexisting knowledge.

And of course, when you've done that for one subject (maybe medicine) then you need to do that with all the other subjects (politics, fitness and cryptocurrencies). All while working your job, taking care of your kids and being busy with living.

This is why it's our job to break down these issues into easily digestible pieces so that everyone has a chance to understand the problem and the possible solutions. This is why we, "the experts", must not stay silent when we see misinformation. Because if we do, we doom everyone else.

ABC's misleading message

Now when I've hopefully convinced you of the importance of countering misinformation, I'd like to bring your attention to the latest propaganda piece by ABC.

In it ABC argues that the safest cause of action for businesses is to use Bitcoin ABC for the Bitcoin Cash upgrade in November. And their argument sounds convincing, they say that the profits will be 100% secure, that transactions will always be final and that your business should see an increase in new customers. Sounds perfect!

Except that it's all misleading.

The biggest omission is that if you run ABC you risk getting stuck on a minority fork without any support.

Because if a majority of hashrate runs other software, by their own admission ABC will fork away from the chain. And that's looking pretty darn likely because currently 54.1% are signaling BCHN and 0% are signaling ABC. If this continues then you even risk getting stuck on a chain that's not processing any transactions at all!

Most of the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem has already taken a stance against ABC saying they will not support their chain. This includes all other full node clients, all wallets (other than the Bitcoin ABC full node), the SLP foundation (the de-facto BCH token solution) and this very site.

"Your business should see an increase in new customers" my ass. If you go with the ABC chain your customers won't even have wallets to use.

ABC's propaganda isn't just misleading, it's outright dangerous. And we who care about the BCH community must speak up and educate our fellow men and women.

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3 years ago
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Comments

A very important article. Nice to read this article. Dear, if you allow me, I would like to translate this important article of yours into my own language and present it to my country and my friends. If you allow me, I would like to translate the article in my own Bengali language. If you allow?

$ 0.00
3 years ago

Be my guest, just include a link to the original article.

$ 0.00
3 years ago

https://read.cash/@Sunshine11/amader-obszi-ebisir-vul-tthz-prcarke-gurutwer-sathe-nite-hbe-547c5a89 I provided the link to my article and thank you very much for allowing me to translate your article.I translate this Bengali language. There are many of us who understand English less . Thoughts are very useful for those who understand Bengali well and I am very happy to share the information. Thank you.

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3 years ago

Thank you.

$ 0.00
3 years ago

Welcome😊

$ 0.00
3 years ago

Sir can I translate your article as my own?

$ 0.00
3 years ago

As your own? No.

$ 0.00
3 years ago

No sir I mean can I translate it in another language

$ 0.00
3 years ago

Of course, as long as you link to the original article.

$ 0.00
3 years ago

Ok...thank you

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3 years ago

I don't think the issue is as black and white as some paint it, but I do agree that the communication from ABC is heavily promiting a one-sided view in this case.

Regardless of which side one is on, there is risk. To say that its anything "will be 100% secure" is irresponsible.

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3 years ago

Great article. That's right, even until today many people support CSW even tho evidences didn't support his claims.

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3 years ago

Hitler didnt even say that quote dummy. what propaganda you are talking about? Go to r/btc its all anti ifper losers. you just want to call ABC "hitler" you are delusional

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3 years ago

Completely agree with the noise.

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3 years ago

Propaganda works for real. Great man

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3 years ago

We must set the awareness of ABC propaganda to others,as not to fall prey to it.

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3 years ago

Great thinking man, and a nice article too, keep up the good works and keep up bringing more ideas to keep us informed all the time. Information they say is power

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3 years ago

Propaganda works, and ofcourse, I agree too, very infomative article

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3 years ago

🕵️‍♂️

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3 years ago