You’re in a room full of people, you don’t remember how it started but the conversation somehow turns to the future of cryptocurrencies. Should I invest? Is it too late? Do you think cryptos can replace Fiat in the future?
Out of nowhere, someone starts to yell: “It will never happen!”.
Funny how it always comes from the loudest voices who usually are not very akin to analytical arguments nor rational interpretations, but rather emotionally fueled repetitions of prepackaged populist lines.
In this case it was this one:
“It’s just a phase, no one will change the way how they do business. Deal with it!”
Oh God! Here we go again.
You the drill: “This is just a phase”… “People will never change the way they do things”... “People have been using gold for centuries”... Etc.
Yeah, well people have been using candles for centuries too… You think to yourself
But you don’t say anything, anything at all. Because you on the other hand, you remember.
Requiem for a Déjà Vu
You are still there, in the middle of a heated conversation whose temperature is only set to increase, though luckily for you, you’re only present in body as your mind starts to wonder around in the boulevard of forgotten memories.
You start to remember how many times you’ve heard the exact same things from the exact same people who are bound to keep falling for the exact same trap:
The always misleading, always inaccurate populist narrative.
But as far as you’re concerned, all those heated arguments are now merely blurred noise that is dissipating as the stroll continues down memory lane.
You look around the room and your eye lands on the most vocal person of all. You really can’t miss him, with his angry reddened face and tense eyebrows, along with some ridiculously exaggerated facial expressions and way over the top gesticulation.
All you can decode from the noise is this: “This will never happen!”.
His head is actively shaking from right to left, and so is his plausible thumb.
Tinder.
Yes, having an argument and ‘techno-fliring’ at the same time. His head and thumb are engaged in some kind of strangely choreographed left-right movement.
You remember how merely a few years ago he was laughing off the invention and so did she, your other friend across the room.
And now look at them, funny how times change.
A few years earlier when the invention just came out, she was convinced that online dating was meant for just a few outcasts who were unable to get a date on their own.
Fast forward to mass adoption and there you have it: From vocal critic to avid user. Metamorphosis complete.
Invention, it has that effect on people.
You take a walk and around the room while people are still arguing. You decide head for balcony. Across the street your see your old neighbors from the fourth waiting for something with a smartphone on their hand.
You realize that they’re calling an Uber and again… You remember.
You remember how everyone around you was laughing off the idea that such a thing would ever take place in our society let alone replace the current system.
“People will NEVER trust a stranger and get in their cars.”
Isn’t that what they all said?
You remember how you tried to explain that change is part of life, that these inventions are born out of necessity, and it’s because the cab licences were too damn expensive that it would require a lifetime to pay that perfectly avoidable debt which above all, was caused by the ridiculous incompetence of the central planners.
But your arguments mostly drew blank stares. You were just wasting your time from the beginning but you didn’t know it.
The game was over before it has even began, because back then, you’ve miss-read the game entirely.
Though now, for the first time, you’re starting to learn the nature of the game, and that’s because…
You start to remember.
... To be Continued.