Don't follow me, I'm lost 3 (musings and rants on price and value and ephemera)

So.....I don't have an audience and that's okay since I would not know what to do with one if I had one.

I just learned a new Steemea yesterday "follow begging" while reading replies to a chapter of a great story I found (more on that in half a mo). Only mentioning it first because @shayne wrote a great article that was linked by the author. "follow begging" is a considerably more genteel term than the internal term that popped in my head (relates to oldest profession) the first time I saw it happening. Read his article here and share to improve the Steem environment and ecosystem: https://steemit.com/steemit/@shayne/new-to-steemit-follow-begging-will-destroy-you-do-not-do-it-here-s-why

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Attempt at emphasis (kinda pathetic but best I could do in 10 secs or less)

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If you like speculative fiction (his term) or science fiction (what I always called it), there is a great author that has posted an entire book on Steemit. He's @everittdmickey and the book is Soulstone (https://steemit.com/fiction/@everittdmickey/12ldxy-soulstone). Thanks @jagged, I stole the link from your post.

I could not do justice to describing the book or why I like it. Follow the link above and spare yourself the rest of this blather. He writes tons better than me. If you know a sci-fi publisher, hook him up. The world will be glad you did.

But if you're still here...

I choose to make an attempt to establish some credential for rating the author and book as great.

I discovered a box of books behind my father's desk in August of 1968, in Iowa City IA. They had been left there by a student departing the U of I to go to Canada to avoid the draft. The first one I read was Robert Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters". I read them all and spent every dime of my paper route money on more at various used book stores.

In 1973, in 7th grade, my junior high offered an experimental speed reading class that I took and I learned to read somewhere around 4,500 words a minute.

It has been about 18,250 days since I found that box. For about the first 7,300 of those days I averaged almost a book a day. Since then life got in the way and I've maybe averaged one every 3 or 4 days. (@bashadow, you got me thinking about how many books I'd read. I did the math and got this but decided to spare you in my reply. But thanks!)

Somewhere along the way I ran out of readable science fiction and was forced to branch out into mystery, espionage, war, mythology, and my sister's Stephen King books. But I almost never read anything factual or mass market, until John Grisham came along.

I've probably read around 10,000 books and most are science fiction.

I have no problem putting Everitt D. Mickey's "Soulstone" somewhere in the top 10% of them all. He's good. It's good. Go read it. or buy it off Amazon where it is a steal for $4. https://www.amazon.com/SoulStone-Book-1-Saga-ebook/dp/B01C0ND04M/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

I'm only on chapter 95 so far, got distracted by something else (more on that below), had something I decided to put on Steemit but then figured I needed to do this plug for Soulstone together out of gratitude for the enjoyment of reading it thus far. Got to wrap this up soon and get back to it.

Thanks to @carrinm for the first upvote I think I ever got and the very good advice in your reply. Unfortunately, as you may notice I'm not very good at following advice. Best I can manage here is admitting that mistake.

And now to the main reason (but not the cause, more on that later) I'm writing anything tonight.

I watch youtube sometimes (haven't watched TV since 2003) and stumbled upon UDF Tech channel's video titled "Edward Snowden - "Bitcoin Won't Last Forever""

Tantalized by 'what the hell does Snowden know about crypto?' I watched and enjoyed it. I got to about 9:05 and was moved to comment. (Don't normally do that, don't think my thoughts will enlighten anyone, does anyone really read youtube comments?)

And so I wrote:

While I tend to strongly agree with most of the points you have made and most of your expressed opinions, I feel you may have a basic misunderstanding of the value of bitcoin, cryptos, and stocks. In short much of what I've heard in this video speaks to me of confusing price and value. Let me start with stocks and an observation that many (the majority of the most well known) trade at significant premiums to their fundamental "value". I'll support that opinion with the observation that many stocks are "valued" as a multiple of their 'forecasted' future earnings. In the market today people are buying and selling, or pricing the stock, by their opinions or feelings of the unknowable future. It is nearly impossible to know the true value of the stock but incredibly easy to know the actual price. That's what makes a market. After so many years of trading stocks we now have a whole library of metrics by which to value stocks and they work relatively well because the ones that didn't work didn't survive. But relatively well is not perfectly well and you can buy a stock with great metrics (like Apple! IMHO) and lose money.

In contrast and comparison, bitcoin has a value. Let me postulate that the value is based on what it has done which I will not attempt to enumerate. Bitcoin also has a price (or prices) which is incredibly easy to know at any second (as you illustrated). What it does not have is many (or maybe any) metrics which attempt or assume to compare it's price to it's value. Many (most?) confuse the price and the value and come very late to the concept that one of the easiest ways to establish the true value of an asset is to sell it. Similar to how a quantum particle in a superposition state collapses, selling an asset collapses it's value into what you just sold it for (which was it's price before you sold it). It's value was what you sold it for.

I bought bitcoin and paid a price that I knew was far above it's value. I paid that price because I thought that the value of bitcoin had increased hugely from its inception to the point where I decided to buy it. I paid that price because I don't confuse price with value and had (and continue to have) a belief that the value of bitcoin will continue to rise until that future value is substantially higher than the price I paid. I don't make those statements in an attempt to influence anyone to buy bitcoin so I can sell to them at a profit. They are my lame attempt to provide concrete contrasts between price and value.

So I've got some bitcoin and probably could go buy a hamburger with some. I'd get fed but in dollar value it would be a real damn expensive burger. Hey wait, value relates to what you can do with it? Yah, pretty obviously but you can't buy a burger with APPL stock, so does that have value? Rhetorical question, what can you do with a stock?

Hopefully, with that lead in, it won't seem too presumptuous to assert that bitcoin has established a purely digital way to create, store, and transfer value and therefore has some value from those facts. It has value by being the first to do those things in a new and unique way. It has value for many purposes. Ask a Zimbabwan or Venezuelan, buying bitcoin with their local fiat and you'll find it has, perhaps, a critical value far surpassing the price they paid (as a contrast to my case described above).

Now it seems time to address Snowden's assertion that bitcoin won't last forever. He's both right and wrong. The bitcoin that I bought months ago has some continuity with the bitcoin that was traded on Mt.Gox until they screwed up and darwinned out. But it is not the same, as there has been an evolution between then and now. I'm not an expert crypto historian but I'm pretty sure what I bought was calculated or mined significantly differently from whatever traded on Mt. Gox, but they're both undeniably bitcoin. So what we currently think of as bitcoin today, could become something radically different with more value or less at some time in the future, yet still be called bitcoin. Forever is a long time but 100 years from now I might use bitcoin to buy a burger on Mars, Ceres, or Europa. If I do will that make Snowden righter or wronger?

Or, because bitcoin begat ethereum, which begat litecoin, which begat monero, which begat iota, which begat..., by 2021 no one might be using bitcoin for anything anymore. But it is a pretty good bet that a lot of people will be using "son of bitcoin" for some very commonplace use cases and for some we have not thought of yet. (Read the Iota whitepaper for some mindblowing concepts [which I vaguely recognize originating(?) in science fiction I read 40 years ago]). Would that make Snowden right, if everyone has forgotten bitcoin in 2021 while carrying all their worldly wealth in their smartphone?

I guess I've run out of things to say about the value of bitcoin and Snowden's thoughts about it. I paused the video at 9:05 and started writing.

If you got this far, I think it is a very good video in that it is thought provoking.

Regards,
Rick

I have a dim memory of Robert Heinlein writing something to the effect that nasty habits like writing should not be encouraged and I venerate his curmudgeonly memory so I decide to write this and maybe get some feedback.

I've almost purged the urge and it's getting late, and there's more Soulstone I want to read, so I'll strive to be brief.

I suspect the cause of this episode to be some tendency of Angry Orchard Crisp Apple Hard Cider to cause one to run off at the brain and spew verbiage on the internet. Something akin to what too much normal cider causes at the other end of the alimentary canal. It has only been three bottles but that seems to be my limit these days.

Regards,
Rick

PS To @jf or @jojof, my first correspondent in this cultural wasteland. Stay savage, querida mia, we need more like you, everywhere.

All gramatical errors here are mostly intentional, all typos related to the lack of letter p are due to ashes on the keyboard. @leprachaun, critique and/or proof lease.

@%%#%&#@ steemit tag cloud missing tag for science fiction incometence!