“Real knowledge is knowing the extent of your own ignorance.” – Confucius
Previous articles talked about Bitcoin and the cognitive biases that lead to misunderstandings about Bitcoin.
If we withdraw a little, we can look at the knowledge or ignorance that contributes to these misunderstandings.
It is important to understand a little more about ignorance so that we can understand the differences in some of the ignorant narratives surrounding Bitcoin.
Most importantly, we need to understand that some of the narratives come from a situation where you really don’t know, and some of the narratives are purposely misleading.
These stories perpetuate ignorance.
Ever heard of agnotology? Agnotology is the study of conscious, culturally determined ignorance or doubt.
A book called “Agnotology; The Making And Unmaking Of Ignorance “by Robert Proctor illuminates the topic.
The word “ignorance” has some rather negative associations such as stupidity, bigotry, and willful factual denial.
In reality there are different flavors of ignorance and they can be on a continuum from positive to neutral to negative.
Proctor divides ignorance into three main areas:
- Something you just haven’t learned yet. Think how much children don’t know, or how much more you know today than you did five years ago.
- Something that is the result of passive selection or culture or geography. You know this area well, but you don’t know it well. A common example is the area of your profession versus the area of another profession.
- Something that you are manipulated into being true or not. The facts can be the opposite of the “knowledge” that results from this manipulation.
Most people who know anything about Bitcoin have no idea which directions I am headed here.
Ignorance of what you have not yet learned
This ignorance can be the motivation to learn more as you age. It is this type of ignorance that drives personal and institutional learning, research, and innovation.
For many, Bitcoin is something they haven’t learned anything from.
There are a variety of styles of learning, so many different educational pathways and time preferences are required to educate everyone. The group that has not yet learned goes through the whole gamut of age, life situations, work situations, available time, energy and ability to learn.
There are many who have this type of ignorance about Bitcoin because of the peculiarities of their life situation.
Ignorance through choice
If you work in one area, you may not learn about another area because of the time it takes to become an expert or worker in that area.
Perhaps you operate within a financial system and have not yet learned about others.
Or when you learn something, hold onto something that confirms your existing beliefs, is within your bias, and is therefore pleasurable.
Most people grew up and learned to operate in a particular financial genre.
There are many reasons for ignorance in making a choice, and they range from factors such as age to time factors to benign lack of exposure to a warlike desire not to learn anything new.
Let’s help people learn more about Bitcoin.
Made ignorance
“It’s not what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for sure that it just isn’t like that. ”- Mark Twain
Certain institutions have become quite effective in producing ignorance.
I believe there are two areas in which ignorance is produced:
- The environment in which you grow up as you are mostly dependent on others and the educational system.
- Actual narrative propaganda and manipulation, also known as spin, manipulated information that your mind trains and learns.
I also believe that separating the two is difficult, as history and narrative are written by the winners and the successful.
The term agnotology was invented by Proctor when a paper called the Smoking and Health Proposal went public. The document detailed how cigarette companies attempted to disguise research that cigarettes were carcinogenic.
The Greek word “agnosis” means “ignorance” and “ontology” means “nature,” so Proctor invented the term agnotology to mean the study of the nature of ignorance.
Proctor was inspired to study this field because he saw that a long and very powerful industry was able to cast doubt on the health effects of tobacco.
Similarly, the long-standing and powerful central banks, financial institutions, and government industries create their ignorance in two ways:
- Stories about monetary policy and “boiled” data about the realities of the economy.
- Stories that cast doubt or fear about Bitcoin and its possible uses or consequences. These narratives use catchy negative phrases like “shadowy supercoders” and point a finger at criminal use or energy consumption (while three other fingers point to fiat-based crime and inflation).
On Twitter and in articles for Bitcoin Magazine such as the FCA Influencer Program and the Bitcoin article, attempts are made to document and counteract this constructed ignorance. Much of the negative bitcoin and energy debate seems to be deliberately constructed ignorance.
One also has to be careful not to construct the same ignorance around Bitcoin. For example:
- Bitcoin doesn’t fix everything: it fixes the underlying money and thus fixes MANY things. I also believe that Bitcoin will enable solutions to areas that we don’t even know will be fixed. Bitcoin won’t fix everything, however.
- Destruction of Fiat Industries: Many of the people who care about Bitcoiners to really be hit by inflation are the same lower-level workers in the companies that Bitcoin will destroy in the wake of the financial shift. There are people who work at the Western Union counter in El Salvador and people who work on calling lines for Visa. Many will be injured in a similar way to the shutdowns that took place when production was outsourced. Let’s not applaud and create narrative without knowing the reality here.
Reactions to artificial ignorance
Understanding the different types of ignorance can help find appropriate answers.
If you can get people to understand, people will go down the rabbit hole and get a better understanding.
- Highly Authoritative or Deceptively Truthful Statements: These sources are most likely engraved in your views and deliberately created ignorance.
Call them up and deliberately and directly combat the narrative with facts that counteract it.
This artificial ignorance is intentional in order to preserve the obsolete Fiat product, system and those who will benefit from its continuation.
Don’t pull your no-nonsense punches.
Agnotology, or the breeding of ignorance, is a marketing strategy for many who employ it.
This strategy is used to create a message that distracts from the reality of the situation and benefits certain interests.
It’s easier than fixing the problem or finding an alternative solution.
Like bitcoin.
This is a guest post by Heidi Porter. The opinions expressed are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
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