We've all done it. We've scared people away from crypto by showing our extreme passion and religiosity. The problem, though, is that the unconvinced will always equate your passion and religiosity with a get rich quick mentality. People actually do conjure images of beanie babies when being proselytized about blockchain technologies.
So, here are a few dos and don'ts I came up with. Feel free to add to them in the comments.
- Don't reveal religiosity - even if you truly feel it. Religiosity is compelled by emotion, based on your knowledge (or belief) that the blockchain technologies have the potential to bring massive societal change. But the individual does not possess this knowledge for whatever reason and thus will be repelled by your religiosity.
- Do, talk about specific problems that crypto can solve. Better yet, take Plato's approach and ask questions to guide your friend to the enlightenment.
- Don't say, "all bankers must die".
- Do ask "So, if you believe that banking works fine, do you believe it should take 3 days for a payment to my credit card to go through? Why should my money be tied up for 3 days? "
- Do ask: "Why should 3-4% be paid on credit card payments? That seems like an awfully high price to pay when there is a less expensive option available. "
- Do ask: "Why should the poorest of the poor in this world be punished by having to pay extraordinarily high fees (anywhere from 5-25%) to send money home when working abroad? Don't you think it would be wise for us to remove these barriers to escaping poverty?
- Do ask: "Don't you want the billions of unbanked in the world get access to the world digital economy. Do you not want to see them flourish in life?"
- Don't say, "The Fed is a corrupt institution run by reptilian Rothschild illuminati"
- Do discuss the fact that paper money was invented 1000 years ago and that digitization of money as we and the move away from the gold standard has given a power to a small group of people to devalue the currency to their benefit.
- Do ask, "Do you believe power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"?
- Do ask, "If in fact a small group of people do have control over the creation and value, do you think they would be corrupted by that power?"
- Don't tell your friend that smart contracts are going to revolutionize how people transact with one another and cut out middle men across the world.
- Give a specific example of a town of farmers selling fresh produce to distributors and using smart contracts to cut out the middleman that would normally be necessary to put payment in escrow until products are delivered. Ask them if they believe cutting out the middleman in this case would benefit the farmers and make them less vulnerable to exploitation.
- Don't tell your friend that stock markets around the world will be transformed by these technologies.
- Do ask them, "Don't you think our stock markets would be smarter and less corruptible if they ran 24 hours a day and anybody on the planet could participate in them? Don't you think the difficulty in participation, after hours trading, privileged access high-frequency trading and the 8 hour trading period allow for manipulation in ways that a fully open and transparent, public database would not?"
- Don't tell them prediction markets (like Augur) will become the google of future events.
- Do explain that prediction markets based on blockchain technologies can provide incentive for experts to share their predictions about future events when they would otherwise keep that knowledge to themselves to be used in secret. Explain also that the wisdom of the crowds, when the crowds are incentivized by money, is far more accurate than any poll will ever be.
- Don't tell your friends that creative people that create digital content will more easily connect to consumers of their work, and cut out the middlemen.
- Do, tell your friend about projects like Muse that are seeking to create artistcoins, so that "the crowd" can seek out talent and buy those artist coins, thus funding the artist's work, in anticipation of making a profit on future sales of that artist's work.
- Don't tell your friend that micropayments can make the internet run much more efficiently and take advantage of resources that would otherwise go to waste.
- Do tell your friend about projects like Storj and Maidsafe that cut out the middlemen, like dropbox, and incentivize users to share their space and processing power.
- Do tell your friend about Steemit, and how people are incentivized to post smart information when they otherwise likely would not muster up the effort to do so. (show them this post).
If, after explaining all of these different facets of crypto without arrogance or anger, they still do not see the benefits then I believe it's time to walk away. Clearly they won't get it until their world begins to crumble and fall as fungal nature of these technologies begin to recycle and reuse the world economy and a fairer, more efficient one can rise.
Please do correct me where I'm wrong and add to my list as you see fit.
xxxxx