Cryptocurrency
It’s Sunday morning and so as always I’ll ramble on and share my thoughts with you. I admit that I did once own crypto for a while. I thought I could make a few quid from XRP (Ripple) and I did make a few quid despite thinking cryptos are a scam. I invest a little in company shares. I can’t buy a half share in a major company but even owning a small fraction of a company gives me a share of the profits and a return when the company does up in value. Owning cryptos gives you a share in thin air and a share in the belief that that particular crypto will appreciate. That belief is often fostered by celebrities and rich people like Elon Musk who stand to benefit if the middle classes buy crypto. They won’t care if the crypto bubble bursts and everyone loses money. That is what is happening and the celebrities that promoted crypto are being sued by unlucky punters.
NFTs and the Metaverse
While we think about what is real and what is a scam, we should beware of NFTs and virtual property. The bubble in that realm could burst too. I like the idea of a metaverse. I play Grand Theft Auto which is a virtual space and I like exploring it. It is violent and it doesn’t have a moral philosophy. I think there are probably better games that you can explore. A really huge game like GTA where the object of the game wasn’t so violent would be a winner and then maybe it would work if people could use their loose change to buy their own virtual house or business property. Investing in land in a virtual space doesn’t seem realistic to me unless the game offers a lot of entertainment and ownership offers real rewards.
Dividing reality from the virtual.
In our minds, we must divide reality from the virtual. We must divide real money from virtual crypto money. You can spend real money in shops, crypto money is just dreamed-up money that people hope to make real money from. Reality has rational thought supporting it.
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin is someone who has problems separating fantasy from reality. He looks to history to create an alternative reality in his mind. He cannot accept the present and so looks to the past. This is a dangerous delusion. If he can convince himself that Ukraine is part of Russia as it once was, where does that delusion stop? Can he then lay claim to NATO countries like Poland and become a threat to neutral countries like Finland and Sweden? We all need to stay in the here and now and accept reality.
Confused?
The dividing line between what we believe and reality can be confusing. If a billionaire buys a painting for a million dollars, is that rational? Is buying a car that goes twice as fast as the speed limit rational? Is Putin’s war rational? Clearly not. Is owning a gun rational? Not in the UK and in many cases gun owners in other countries are irrational or perhaps downright crazy. The lines are often blurred between what is rational and what is irrational. I tend to think science is rational and everything else is part of a crazy belief system. Some people believe in political ideologies like Corbyn did. The ideology might make socialism sacred or capitalism sacred, whatever, it is just a fantasy. It is irrational because the fantasy will never become a reality. The reality is a political system somewhere in between the two extremes where we reject totalitarianism regardless of what flavour it happens to be. I’ve had three covid vaccination shots and that is a result of science and no, I don’t have a microchip designed by Bill Gates in my arm!
A Zillion Ideas 
Leave a Reply