Do you guys remember this McDonalds lawsuit?
The mainstream headline was that somebody had sued the fast-food chain because the temperature of their beverage was too high. News outlets ran with it. It was 'outrageous' during a time in which frivolous lawsuits were running wild and everyone was suing everyone for everything. We all collectively ridiculed the situation as a signal of society being in constant decline. The 'victim' was mercilessly mocked by the mob and the target of endless eyerolls.
Appearances can be deceiving.
Very few people actually looked into this situation any further than the headlines, ridicule, and mob mentality. What most never bothered to figure out is how and why someone was ever able to win this lawsuit in the first place. It wasn't just some angry Karen who found some loophole within the legal system, as was heavily implied. The victim in this situation actually experienced 3rd degree burns on her leg. Meaning three layers of skin were destroyed.
I'm tempted to post some pictures of 3rd degree burns, but I'll spare my dear audience. Look it up yourself if you're interested. They're very very bad. I personally know a guy that got 3rd degree burns after escaping a fire. They often require skin graphs and immediate medical attention. This is the kind of severity we are talking about. 3rd degree burns: the kind that you might expect to see on someone who was trapped in a fire, was the injury sustained within the "coffee was too hot" lawsuit. Most just assumed someone spilled their coffee, were mad about it, and then went on with their day, only to sue McDonalds after the fact. That's certainly not what happened.
Don't believe everything you hear.
This is more true now then ever before with AI generated content. MSM was bad enough, but now we will see things with our own eyes that we can no longer trust, especially when they're streamed through the internet or posted on social media. However, many often get it wrong completely on accident just due to basic ignorance.
Forbes article on BTC EFT 'destroying Bitcoin'
Hayes argued that if BlackRock, which is in "the asset accumulation game," vacuums up all the bitcoin, there will be no more bitcoin transactions and those who secure the bitcoin network in return for fees and newly minted bitcoin, known as miners, "would be unable to afford the energy it costs to secure the network. As a result, they would shut off their machines. Without the miners, the network dies, and bitcoin vanishes."
This was written just last month by Forbes magazine.
Was this written in good faith or is it purposefully deceitful? I'd guess it's just the musings of a person that simply doesn't know any better. To say something as blatantly incorrect as Bitcoin could die because "miners can't afford energy costs" is either rooted in ignorance, or maliciously targets an unsuspecting ignorant audience. It's one of the most basic and critical functions that Bitcoin has: retargeting the hash rate difficultly every two weeks. So either Forbes is just lying through their teeth or they have absolutely no idea what they are babbling about. And at this juncture it's hard to tell which one it is, but I guess that's the point this day in age.
So we really have to ask ourselves what the objective is when someone chooses to frame the narrative in a certain way. Why did "the coffee was too hot" story fall in the way that it did? Because that was the narrative that got the most attention and resonated the most for mass consumption. The same is likely true for making blatantly false statements against crypto: this is simply what the consumers (and potentially doomers) of that content want to hear. Silly no-coiners.
Today the story with crypto gets even stranger as trillion dollar asset managers like Larry Fink of Blackrock try to spin BTC as the ultimate store of value and a hard asset like gold or bonds. Does he actually believe that, or is this simply the story he thinks will resonate the farthest? If one thing is certain it seems to be that this subject is quite polarizing. Either someone is all in or all out on crypto, and we see high profile individuals flipping in real time over the last few years.
Conclusion
Everyone has a motive when they tell a story, so I guess in that respect this post is extremely meta and self-referential. What's my own motive for sharing the story of motive and narrative building? I'd like to think it's because I want the world to be a more transparent place that we all understand just a little bit better from one day to the next. Or maybe that's just what I want you to think and this is all part of my master plan.
Return from The Coffee was too Hot to edicted's Web3 Blog
