Message to the Bitcoin Community on Misogyny and Sexual Harassment
This is a message to the Bitcoin community, especially to abusers and those that support them:
Rape glorification, misogyny, and sexual harassment — and the enabling and tacit assent of such behaviors — are completely unacceptable in all circumstances. It’s never OK. No exceptions. No mulligans. There’s no way that anyone alive in 2022 couldn’t know better. I’m not just writing this in support of the women and LGBTQ+ individuals being bullied because it’s the right thing to do as an ally. I’m writing this because I don’t want to live in a world where my friends — where anyone — is bullied and harassed simply for being who they are without hurting anybody. Existing is not a crime, yet so often it’s legally and practically treated that way. Everyone deserves better than to live in that sort of nonsensical, arbitrarily-abhorrent world.
At this point, I understand that “stop it” or “that’s hurting her” is not going to make some people stop (even though they should obviously stop immediately) and that they’ll just tell me to cry harder, so that won’t be the thrust of this message. This message is about how stupid it is to think and act that way, how it discourages the free and open exchange of ideas and proliferation of the Bitcoin network, and how it curtails the potential flow of talent into Bitcoin that’s required for it to become a truly global force.
Bitcoin isn’t inevitable. Bitcoin presents a revolutionary opportunity. An opportunity to build a fairer world. To be more thoughtful people. To make more judicious choices with our time and resources. To undermine and overturn the fiat regime behemoth that punches down to discourage dissent and holds up human innovation to support the entrenched and entitled. We need all hands on deck to make the transition to a Bitcoin world as successful and indomitable as possible.
Harassing innocent people, causing them to question their safety for a laugh is not only disgusting, but peak fiat behavior. Unproductive. Cowardly. Wasteful. Pathetic. It’s high-time preference bullshit. Laugh today, breed distrust for years. Congratulations — you just made the world a worse place for someone else and no better for you. How does that align with the ‘proof of work’ ethos you claim to believe in? What exactly do you think you’re accomplishing? It’s worse than unproductive. It’s destructive. And not the good kind of destructive that topples autocratic institutions and leads to liberation; the bad kind of destructive, that alienates those who want to help topple and liberate alongside you.
To the bullies specifically: whether you care or not what other people feel, trying to turn a productive, inclusive environment into someone’s personal hell just demonstrates that freedom isn’t important to you after all. You’re using the moniker of freedom to instill fear, shill your shitcoin personality, and prove why you deserve the rejection you’ve clearly found in a life that’s led to bullying someone on Twitter. Taking your issues out on women and LGBTQ+ individuals through attempted intimidation and harassment proves not strength, but weakness of character.
To the enablers: why are you aligning yourself with cyber bullies? Actively or passively encouraging or enabling this kind of personal attack shows an unwillingness to protect and defend those who mean to help you achieve the vital goal of widespread Bitcoin adoption and a desire to align yourself with idiots who are seemingly incapable of caring about anyone but themselves in this moment. That means they don’t care about you either, and will turn against you whenever its convenient.
I would love nothing more than for those who either lack or ignore empathy for others to realize that cooperation, treating people with respect, and, at the very least, not harassing people who did nothing other than exist — and likely share (or shared) many of the same goals that you do — is a better way to build resilience into the Bitcoin network than to take a picture of somebody’s ass for lulz and bro clout. Bitcoin is code, but code is written and run by people. Infrastructure is built by people. Orange-pilling is done by people. People have to choose it for it to be the reserve asset of the world. People have to choose it for communities to adopt it. We must show that Bitcoiners are better than the heartless, destructive fiat regime. Bitcoiners are better than legacy institutions that demand assimilation and punish women, non-whites, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other marginalized peoples for existing. Better means that we don’t sexually harass women. It means that we stop wasting time bullying people for a temporary high and focus on building a broader community, from which individuals can onboard their communities and in which everyone has the security of knowing they can help build without being undermined, slandered, or abused by supposed confederates.
Rape glorification, misogyny, and sexual harassment — and the enabling and tacit assent of such behaviors — are completely unacceptable in all circumstances. It’s never OK. No exceptions. No mulligans. There’s no way that anyone alive in 2022 couldn’t know better. We must do better.
