In this week’s episode of the “Bitcoin Magazine Podcast,” Christian Keroles sat down with Andy Edstrom and Peter McCormack to discuss their recent contribution to Bitcoin Magazine “Winning Hearts And Minds For Bitcoin.”
Both McCormack and Edstrom believe that Bitcoin is inevitable and that it has already won, but it can be easier or harder to accept this fact depending on how Bitcoin evangelists educate. They believe that through rhetoric and appeals to moral foundation theory, Bitcoin evangelists can better explain to skeptics and newcomers the numerous positive implications of adopting Bitcoin.
Moral foundations theory is a theory on how humans make decisions and establish attitudes about things. The theory has a heavy influence on the book “Righteous Mind,” which is the inspiration for the article.
The foundations from moral foundations theory are:
Care/harm
Fairness/cheating
Loyalty/betrayal
Authority/subversion
Sanctity/degradation
Liberty/oppression.
In the article, the authors apply this mental model toward mining and energy usage.
“Bitcoiners need to educate people on this topic and avoid beginning passively on the back foot. Whenever talking to someone who is concerned with Bitcoin’s environmental effects, it may make sense to lead with this question: ‘Could you please explain to me how we’re going to defeat global warming without Bitcoin?; (I.e., defend your doomed sticks arguments, and I’ll respond with my Bitcoin carrot.)”
