Language/Mental Hack #423
Zealot speculators of crypto-currencies like to call their assets/obsessions "crypto".
It is misleading, as "#crypto" usually means "#cryptography", a useful science! It therefore brings confusion, associating cryptography with the speculative gambling of a few privileged people.
I decided that to balance that, i would only refer to "crypto-currencies" as "currencies", in order to emphasize their monetary/financial nature.
Words matter.
@jz Bingo. Needs to be said. When a millennial asked me to tell him what I know about "crypto", I started into symetric & asymetric differences. He had this confused look on his face. So I slowed down, to try to work out what he wasn't picking up on, and he eventually stopped me to say he meant "#cryptocurrency". I was a bit frustrated that the discipline had been hijacked.
"I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as "crypto", is in fact, "crypto-currencies", or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, "ponzi plus currencies". crypto is not a casino scam unto itself, but rather another scientific component of a fully functioning free society..."
