Those Who Know The Least About Bitcoin Want to Ban it the Most: Reason-Rupe Poll April 2014
"Some people, when they don't know what something is, want to ban it," says Reason-Rupe polling director Emily Ekins. "Other people, if they don't know what something is, they think it should be allowed unless it's causing someone harm in some way. And this question really delineates who those individuals are that favor choice and favor prohibition."
Ekins sat down Reason TV to discuss the portion of the results from the April Reason-Rupe poll focused on attitudes towards, and knowledge of, the cryptocurrency bitcoin.
Only 19 percent of respondents had "a lot" or "some" knowledge of bitcoin, but that didn't stop 47 percent of them from saying they wanted to ban it. However, the more someone claimed to know about bitcoin, the less likely he or she was likely to want to prohibit it, with 71 percent of respondents who claimed to know "a lot" about bitcoin saying it should be allowed and, on the other side of the spectrum, only 27 percent of those who claimed to "know nothing" about it wishing to allow it. Among groups polled, the strongest supporters of bitcoin included young people (ages 18-29), gamers, and political independents.
Watch the video above to hear Ekins delve deeper into these results.
For full poll results, check out reason.com/poll.
Approximately 1 minute long.
Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Paul Detrick.
Click the link below for downloadable versions of this video.
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Bans born from ignorance? Say it ain’t so.
Personally, they can use chocolate chip cookies to purchase goods and services for all I care.
Sometimes man you jsut have to roll with the punches.
http://www.GotzAnon.tk
People who know the least about anything are generally the ones who most want to ban that thing.
These poll results make me want to go a top a bell tower with a high powered rifle.
Every time there is talk about bitcoin bans, I want to hear how far the banners would want the government to go to stop people from running a program.
Mandatory watch dog programs on computers? Blocks on github/other sites for the source? Mandatory ISP connection filtering? (oh noes, we can move it to TOR with a command line option!)
How far are they willing to go?
How far are they willing to go?
As far as it takes.
Think about this: I saw a teaser clip from Bill Maher’s show last night, and it had Stephen Merchant saying “If there were lots of people being killed with golf clubs, I would want golf clubs banned and I would go learn to play Tennis.” *rousing laughter and applause*
This is how these people think.
it had Stephen Merchant saying “If there were lots of people being killed with golf clubs, I would want golf clubs banned and I would go learn to play Tennis.” *rousing laughter and applause*
If we need to ban anything it should be people like this Stephen Merchant asshat from opening their stupid idiotic mouths.*
*Not really, 1st ammendment and all that, but God that’s irritating.
My rage does not come from Bitcoin bans but general bans cuz “we don’t understand”
This does explain Net Neutrality support.
“We don’t understand the internet. therefore it should be banned.”
It’s still comes from a lack of understanding. It’s a lack of understanding about how markets work.
What is essentially a temporary market squabble between interested players, if allowed to play out unhindered by the FCC, will result in a better consumer experience.
Knowing how packets flow in the internet has little to do with Net Neutrality.
It’s important to have government making sure that companies treat traffic in a particular way, so that if the companies tried to not allow the government access to user’s data, the government could punish the companies for that traffic treatment/peering arrangements.
Not at all strange.
Look at the trolls we get; those who know the least about libertarianism are the most ‘vocal’ in condemning it.
Vid: Those Who Know The Least About Bitcoin Want to Ban it the Most: Reason-Rupe Poll April 2014
Can’t you just replace ‘Bitcoin’ with almost anything and the headline still works? We know it to be true with ‘guns’.
Also:
Sodas.
E-cigs.
A tangential Iron Law:
The less you know about something, the easier it looks.
Example: when that oil well was leaking in the Gulf, and Obama said, “just plug the damn hole”. I get the visual of a group of petroleum engineers saying, gee thanks Obama, we never thought of that.
The funniest part of the ‘FUD ban’ is the recursive lack of understanding. Rather than being enlightened enough to think;
“I don’t understand, I need to think about it more.”
“I don’t understand but at all, how is it going to affect me?”
or
“I don’t understand at all and have a pretty good grasp on reality so my lack of understanding means you probably aren’t going to adversely affect me one way or the other, go ahead.”…
The ‘FUD ban’ rather clearly indicates that the proponents not only don’t understand, but aren’t even capable of assessing how little they understand. Especially relative to those seeking to circumnavigate whatever circumstances are instigating the ban.
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