What’s popular isn’t always what’s true: white gods, alphas & Satoshi

A few things before we move in today’s musings.

• Calls emerge for China to deploy digital "Helicopter Money”

• The future of community relies on micropayments for the metaverse

• A must-read from Y combinator about the current state of the economy and how to prepare

• I made some updates to my website and seem to have a lot of posts about wolves

• Vitalik Buterin moves $1.3 billion worth of Ether, but where?

I’ve also realized that my emails can get quite long, so if you prefer condensed versions, and perhaps then a link to an external article to reduce the text-overload, let me know!

I may play with the format over the coming weeks until I find the right one for readers. 

Let’s get on with it 💪

“What’s popular isn’t always what’s true.”

As I’ve learned more and more behind the scenes about blockchain technology, Web3, DAOs, and even NFTs, I’ve realized one fundamental truth: what’s popular isn’t always what’s true.

This can be seen throughout history.

Popularity contests are almost always a game about attention, like-ability, and charm. Unfortunately, some of the best scammers and manipulators play this game the best (not all, but many).

There’s a great article about this by Kenneth Freundlich, Ph.D., titled Why so many people fall for scams.

This partly explains why politics, social media, and lotteries are so appealing to the masses.

But let’s take a look at history, and how popular myths became “truth”, when the actual truth may have have been the opposite.

We'll cover three myths: indigenous Mexicans believing Spaniards were gods, the term "alpha", and BTC being Bitcoin. 

Subscribe to Premium Membership to read the rest.