Digital scarcity - the orange pill journey for mainstream journalists

Introduction

An entire generation of journalists have spent their careers grappling with the consequences of digital abundance.

In many cases those careers have been upended, while a minority have been fortunate (or savvy) enough to end up with a well-paid job behind a fiat firewall (or having carved out a livelihood in self-publishing).

That ‘abundance’ narrative goes some way to explaining how hard it has been for mainstream journalists to even find the rabbit hole, let alone make the leap into a brave new world of information, knowledge and (eventually) understanding.

Proof of Work

One of the principles on which vBTC was founded is “Proof-of-work”, which in our case means:

Don’t take the easy path, do the hard yards.

In the case of journalists (and in due course politicians), this means undertaking the advocacy work required to overturn deeply held value systems amongst a cohort for whom the fiat system is still delivering.

Crossing The Chasm

Anyone wanting to understand just how important journalists are to getting bitcoin across the chasm need look no further than a recent interview between ABC 7:30 host Sarah Ferguson and former US Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

In describing the progressive decline of the US Republic, Sanders spent 20 minutes paraphrasing just about every chart found on the www.wtfhappenedin1971.com website.

Had Ferguson already understood that the 50-year decline in real wages in the US was a direct result of the ending of sound money, the interview would have gone very differently.

Next Steps

As it’s still early days for vBTC, Jemima Kelly has done us a big favour.

Like so many others she has dropped bitcoin into a steaming pile of crypto poo, and in doing so has illustrated that our first priority (in terms of education) must be the ability to distinguish bitcoin from any other shitcoin.

Without that foundation any subsequent advocacy will be compromised.

Conclusion

Given their inherent reach, a world in which mainstream journalists like Sarah Ferguson, Jemima Kelly or Jennifer Hewitt have been successfully orange-pilled would be very different to the one Bitcoiners live in today.

But that is just the first step, because we also need to empower them to communicate complex concepts to an ‘early majority’ audience in a way that propels bitcoin across the chasm.