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Why should I have explained Bitcoin to France Info rather than to my grandmother?

Updated the 28 December 2017 - 0 Comments - bitcoin, Free, news, Planet-free

ⓘ Cet article peut avoir été partiellement ou totalement traduit à l'aide d'outils automatiques. Nous nous excusons des erreurs que cela pourrait engendrer.

If you visit this site regularly, you've probably noticed that we published an article a few days ago to explain Bitcoin to beginners.

In this article, we must recognize that we are not always fond of the media and their treatment of Bitcoin, especially when the subject is discussed by journalists or economic experts.po

In this article, we said in particular that "all these so-called experts of the trays do not understand anything, confuse, invent, deceive and deceive the other."
Hard? Yes. Just? Definitely. And we were able to verify this yesterday, when we spoke on Twitter with Emmanuel Cugny, economic journalist on France Info and president of the Association of Economic and Financial Journalists.

In this article, we will therefore return to the exchange we had with Emmanuel Cugny, in order to fully demonstrate what we were saying previously on the fact that many journalists/economic experts "do not understand anything, confuse, invent, deceive and deceive the other [sur le Bitcoin].".

So here's "Why I should have explained Bitcoin to France Info rather than to my grandmother."

How did we end up talking to Emmanuel Cugny?

Every time we publish an article, we do a little propaganda session to try to give it visibility. Newsletter, possible requests for relays by email, addition on RSS aggregators, but above all, communication on the Twitter account of Raspbian France. Not only do we relay information to our subscribers, but we also try to contact people who can be vectors to other communities.

For our article on Bitcoin we particularly insisted on the last point, not least because the subject is very fashionable.

If you read our article on Bitcoin, you know that I predicted that my family would end up talking about Bitcoin during Christmas dinner. It just so happens that I should set up a small cabinet of vision (or profiling, you see), because I made what is called a solid cardboard. Not only did it talk Bitcoin, but every member of the family said exactly what I had planned!

So inevitably, when my aunt heard a show on France Inter about Bitcoin, she told me about it. I, always in my post-editing propaganda exercise, I take a look, I find the show, and I send a message to Fabienne Sintes the host of the program in question, telling me "must always try".

And since Fabienne Sintes is really nice, and she seems to be really interested in what she's talking about on her show, she retweeted my message. Thank you Fabienne!

And until then, bah I was funny happy! I was right (and I love to be right), and I managed to get a great retweet! Anyway, a good night. But things didn't stop there…

Indeed, as Fabienne Sintes works on France Inter, his account is necessarily followed by a number of colleagues, including Emmanuel Cugny, who also mentioned Bitcoin in his column of the day, this time on France Info, but in a very negative way.

Stung, and visibly very dissatisfied that we did not share this opinion (see that we questioned it), the man sent us a tweet.

How we tried to talk with Emmanuel Cugny, to propose a real reflection on Bitcoin…

Meanwhile, during this time I was quietly banging a christmas log when I received a text message from the co-creator of Raspbian France telling me that we received a tweet from an eco journalist from France Info.

So I'm going to see, and I'm a little sad to see that Emmanuel Cugny questions our objectivity, especially since the criticisms he makes are widely discussed in our article. I therefore conclude that he did not read this one (I may be wrong eh, but for sure he did not understand it, or did not want to understand it), and I answer him.

And then I take the opportunity to put forward a number of arguments, show, curves to support, that volatility is not specific to Bitcoin:

  • Emmanuel Cugny says Bitcoin is volatile? I tell him that this is true, but that he is not the only one, obviously wishing to emphasize that it does not seem to bother him for other currencies.
  • He says that Bitcoin is not a currency because it is used for speculative purposes? I illustrate my point with a graph of the action of the Russian ruble, an official state currency, which clearly shows its speculative nature.

And then I push the nail a little, I try to dig the subject, to go further, not to limit myself to the surface, to propose a real debate of idea in short, with arguments, sources, a logic built.

It seems to me that Emmanuel Cugny is trying to highlight the instability of the market and to show that Bitcoin has collapsed, I draw his attention to the context of this collapse.

But I also recognize the points where he is right: Yes, Bitcoin is very speculative. But I don't stop at the surface, I look further. He is very speculative in agreement, but he also carries many questions and challenges, a true philosophy.

I try to stimulate debate, to create intelligence, not to get stuck on everyone's position. Emmanuel Cugny talks to me about economic risk, so I show him that there is no more risk with Bitcoin than with the traditional economic system, but that Bitcoin proposes to limit democratic risks.

And basically, it's not me saying it, it's classic monetary institutions. If Deutsche Bank's Torsten Slock publishes a ranking where Bitcoin is ranked as the 13th most important financial risk, it means that the 12 most important risks belong in one way or another to the "classic" financial system.

… And how Emmanuel Cugny showed us brilliantly that we were right to say that some eco journalists don't understand Bitcoin, and don't try to understand.

After all this, I, good pear, on the part of an information professional and editorialist, therefore a professional of thought in short, I expected a real answer; A debate on the merits; with ideas, arguments; control of his subject, at least, is still the minimum for a journalist who spoke to hundreds of thousands of people that morning on the radio!

But no, Emmanuel Cugny chooses only one point, far from being the most interesting, but the one who, I presume, seems to him to question his work most directly.

Except that here, not only does Emmanuel Cugny simply and simply refuse the substantive debate on the ideas carried by Bitcoin, but he also falls completely by the wayside.

First, it seems to refute the fact that Bitcoin had to undergo many articles explaining (often badly) that Bitcoin was going to explode. This is all the more ridiculous because he himself wrote a column in the morning on France Info that said exactly that.

He presents this as an objective fact, but no one has said that the speculative aspect of Bitcoin is not real. The question is not even there.

The argument I made was basically: "If all the media says that a currency is going to explode, I don't know of any currency that doesn't explode." To simplify, "it's not specific to Bitcoin, it's true for everyone". Only here, Emmanuel Cugny does not answer this argument.

For him, the goal is not to think, only to defend his morning column. He gave his opinion in the public space, now it's over, he can't change it. Anyway, it's not even conceivable that he was wrong … Cognitive dissonance is fatal.

Next, Emmanuel Cugny explains once again that Bitcoin is not a currency, but a speculative object. Again, he completely ignores one of the points I put forward earlier in our conversation, or even earlier in my article: All coins are speculative objects.

As president of the Association of Economic and Financial Journalists, one would hope that Emmanuel Cugny would know the Bretton Woods Agreements, either aware of the end of the gold standard, or at least aware of the existence of Forex, i.e. the stock market (and therefore speculation) on currencies.

The example of the Russian ruble shows this in an extreme way, but it is not the only one. Emmanuel Cugny himself gave a good example later that evening on his Twitter account, relaying the following tweet:

Tweet to which I gave the answer:

This was a response to which Emmanuel Cugny did not wish to follow up. Again, impossible to enter into a real debate, we simply relay news without analyzing it, as a sports commentator punctuating the match with his remarks rather than as a journalist.

Finally, and going back to the previous tweet of the president of the AJEF, he points out that Bitcoin would serve the cause of the blockchain which would be a real technological innovation.

How can one even say such an absurd thing? Bitcoin not only created the blockchain, but it also made it popular. To consider that it serves the blockchain would be like to consider that butter serves butter cream on the pretext that it gives cholesterol… (Christmas metaphor, we adapt to the seasons).

(Note in passing that Emmanuel Cugny insists on the need for "two readings to be[pouvoir]tter understand", thus a reading "speculative active" and a reading "currency", but that he rejects purely and simply the reading of money: "Bitcoin is presented as a currency but is only a speculative object.").

So I referred to Emmanuel Cugny the following tweet (in which I unfortunately did not highlight the universally speculative nature of currencies. I had already answered it before, but on this one, I recognize that I totally missed this point).

Once this basis of response (unfortunately too incomplete for my taste with a little hindsight) brought, I once again wanted to go further. Trying to push the journalist on the ground that should always be his, that of reflection.

Wouldn't the heart of the Bitcoin problem for some journalists or economic experts finally be next? His ideological aspect? Its desire to free itself from an economic system regulated less by the state than by the major financial or banking powers?

On this point, again I had no answer. The question, however, seemed legitimate to me. Only here, this is a question that requires a real reflection, a real analysis, we can not just do two Google searches to spit out the information found in a barely modified form.

Meanwhile, rather than enter the debate or take a step back on the issue, Emmanuel Cugny preferred to occupy the space of his Twitter profile by simply repeating his own assertions already made a little earlier, but this time without having an adversary.

Rather than leave his message to which I had answered, and which therefore offered a kind of right of reply, he preferred to repost the same message, this time accompanied by an image (simple desire to illustrate or way to make disappear the original message under the waterline, I have no idea).

Then a second message explaining exactly the same thing (and thus potentially allowing – again, it's just a possibility – to make the contradiction disappear even more), in an even more alarmist way (see the impact of fear on crowds).

Amusing little point, following this message a fellow journalist asks him if he could explain Bitcoin to him one day.

And again, rather than give him a concrete answer, to explain to him, finally to really get into the subject, the journalist merely replies that "no one understands", without providing any other explanations (hence whether he is included in this "person").

How I was going to give up, until I ended up having a doubt about Emmanuel Cugny's figures

I thought the debate was going to end there, that it was over. Emmanuel Cugny obviously didn't want to argue.

For me, by re-writing his own messages to affirm the truth of his arguments; trying to make the debate go away so you don't have to question yourself; relaying, too, the first message that could even a very small go in its direction (and too bad if it is contradictory with what he said on the blockchain), to reassure himself; he had reached a gentle mixture between the stage of denial and that of decreased cognitive dissonance. The kind of stage where cult followers who realize that the end of the world did not arrive in 2012 begin to rationalize, justify, and above all to seek a new date, recruiting more energetically than ever.

For me, the game was over. I was right on the merits, but wrong with the human spirit. A good subject of philo in short "Can we be right against the facts?".

And then all of a sudden, I started doing a little calculation in my head. I don't know why, but I started to think that 16.5 million (the existing number of Bitcoins), times 17,000 euros (the maximum price reached by Bitcoin), it was not to be much more than 200 billion euros in fact. And that Bitcoin had to lose a hell of a lot of its value to generate the loss of 200 billion euros that Emmanuel Cugny was talking about.

So I did my homework, I grabbed a calculator, I did two or three searches to check my numbers, and I asked my equation. And then Emmanuel Cugny and I, we didn't have quite the same results…

I figured he'd have to answer for that. Really answer.

There, I was not just telling him that I did not agree with him, I was not simply telling him that in my opinion he missed the true meaning of Bitcoin, I no longer spoke philosophy, ethics, or economic concepts more or less abstract. Now I was saying, or rather I was asking him to say whether or not he was rigging his numbers.

And he answered…

But not where I expected it. He did not explain to me that his numbers were the right ones. He did not apologize for his mistake. Didn't delete his posts talking about $200 billion, or just added a small comment to rectify the error.

Not. He just said, "Bah it's still 100 billion."
More a little trick that there is nothing to do there on the Bettencourt, which personally I do not necessarily carry in my heart, but which, for the time being, have not asked for anything. Little thing that I will choose to put on the account of a failed joke, it does not matter, we all do, me first.

NB: Emmanuel Cugny sent us a tweet explaining that he gave the right figure (100 billion euros) in his radio column. Except that no, in his column he says "twice the market valuation of L'Oréal (100 billion euros)". However, 100 billion euros is the market valuation of L'Oréal. He is talking twice about this valuation, i.e. 2×100 – 200 billion euros in losses.

Except it doesn't stop there… Because not only does Emmanuel Cugny not respond on the merits, but he also seems to ignore some kind of basic principle of the economy and especially of trading.

Well yes, because in fact, if a person has bought a Bitcoin 17000/unit and it is only worth 12,000, in this case, the 17000 are in the seller's pocket. Bitcoin cannot make disappear 100 billion "real money" as proposed by Emmanuel Cugny, since we exchange money for Bitcoin. If there is exchange then it means that both exist before, and after the exchange, autonomously.

As for "where?" disappears this money, as Emmanuel Cugny asks, well since the money has never disappeared, we might as well ask whether the little mouse makes the change without checking before it exists.

This message has not received a response.

But then, did Emmanuel Cugny tell anything about Bitcoin on the radio without understanding anything?

After this exchange, if I was convinced of one thing, it was that Emmanuel Cugny did not understand Bitcoin. However, I had not yet listened to his morning column on France Info, so I went to do it.

I was not disappointed.

The column shows, in my opinion, that Emmanuel Cugny simply does not understand what Bitcoin is, but this is only symptomatic, and I will talk about it after this analysis, the major problem when processing Bitcoin (but also any other subject) by journalists or economic experts.

Not to mention philosophical or political objectives, without going far, without ever bringing the slightest step back or the slightest reflection of substance, the chronicle nevertheless manages to chain sensationalism, approximations or errors outright and simple.

Sensationalist introduction

To begin the column, the presenter introduces the topic by explaining that:

"The Israeli stock exchange gendarme is considering banning it[Le Bitcoin]."

That's true, okay, but it's mostly a big sensationalist bias. Starting like this is scary, so it attracts attention. So, of course, adding something like "But Japan recognized Bitcoin as a real currency.", it would have nuanced the subject, it would better convey a complex truth. Only here, it becomes complicated and therefore it attracts much less attention …

But the fault here is the presenter, let's focus instead on the chronicle of Emmanuel Cugny.

A wobbly etymology and an incomplete and oriented definition

Emmanuel Cugny, therefore, begins by explaining the etymology of Bitcoin, explaining that "bit means digital". That's not true. A bit is "the simplest unit in a number system, only taking two values, most often referred to as the numbers 0 and 1." (Source Wikipedia). To make it simpler, it is the smallest amount of information in a computer system. On the other hand, the term "bit" of Bitcoin reflects its connection with computing.

He goes on to explain that "Bitcoin is therefore presented as a virtual currency to circumvent major international currencies, the Euro, the Dollars in particular."

This is true, but it does not explain what a virtual currency is, does not even address the notion of cryptocurrency. Even when the definition, the subject is only touched and never deepened.

Moreover, by presenting Bitcoin as "a virtual currency to circumvent major international currencies", Emmanuel Cugny seems to indicate that it would have been thought to defraud. However, the idea behind the creation of Bitcoin is much less to bypass the financial system to defraud, than to create a distributed financial system less subject to centralized decision-making power. In short, in a way, more democratic.

An ill-explained, sensationalist, even totally false fatherhood

The rest is no better, since Emmanuel Cugny explains (under the exasperated sigh of the presenter), that "bitcoin was created in 2009 by a certain Satoshi Nakamoto that no one knows or has never seen".

If this is factually true, it is again oriented and simply aims to show the unreliability of Bitcoin. Classic amalgam of "we don't know who it is, so it's dangerous, don't trust strangers". Successful effect if judged by the presenter's sigh.

Again, explain that we do not know the real creator, but that we know his motivations, explain that he is not pslus involved in the project, or say that the code is freely searchable and that thousands of reviewers have not found a flaw or hidden mechanism, all this would have allowed to relativize, nuance, deepen the subject. But no, too complex, too long, not manichean enough, not catchy enough, especially.

He went on to explain that according to rumors, "it would be Elon Musk, the American billionaire behind it".

This time, it's just anything. No one is serious or informed for a second who would think that Elon Musk is the creator of Bitcoin. A few Google searches are enough to realize this. Just check out the gentleman's Wikipedia page:

  • Elon Musk is not close to the ideological movements behind Bitcoin
  • He has never worked on a subject close to Bitcoin.
  • During the period 2007-2009 when Satoshi created Bitcoin, Elon Musk was CEO of both Space X and Tesla, two companies on the brink of financial bankruptcy, before being rescued in-extremis and signing a very large contract with Nasa in 2008. Elon Muksk had, on the face of it, absolutely no time to create Bitcoin in parallel.
  • The word Bitcoin doesn't even appear on his Wikipedia page.

In addition, a quick tour of Satoshi Nakamoto's Wikipedia page offers a list of people who may have been thought or thought to be Satoshi. Elon Musk just isn't one of them…

But here, Elon Musk, it's easy to hold back, the guy is classy, rather eccentric, very media. So inevitably, when Emmanuel Cugny prepared his subject with Google search, if the name of Elon Musk was proposed for whatever reason, he retained him, rather than Nick Szabo, illustrious unknown media, but who would be a much better candidate for the post of Satoshi Nakamoto.

If Emmanuel Cugny really knew the subject, he would have seen in a flash that Elon Musk could not be the creator of Bitcoin, that it made no sense…

Emmanuel Cugny, even if you chose a crazy American billionaire, you could at least have chosen John McAfee:

  • Close to libertarian movements (so may find some commonalities with cypherpunks)
  • He has spoken publicly and positively on the subject of cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin.
  • He worked in the field of computer security and cryptography at a key time for the birth of the idea of Bitcoin
  • He had plenty of time to work on it in 2007-2009, when he was "retiring"
  • He was said to be financially ruined, just before suddenly becoming rich again some time later…

It's probably completely bogus, but at least it's believable…

In short, a simple verification of the sources, a simple cross-checking of the information. A simple job as a journalist, in short, would have made it possible for Emmanuel Cugny to never say that Elon Musk was thought to be behind Bitcoin. Is it necessary to conclude that Emmanuel Cugny did not do the b.a.-ba of this work which is his?

A sloppy explanation of the generation of Bitcoins and a false explanation of the miners

In the sequel, the journalist explains that "Bitcoin is obtained by computer calculation, there is a community of miners, so they are small workers, who are also unknown. They use blockchain technology. The blockchain is the storage of the data on the participatory mode, so without any official control."

Again, the approximation is total, the concepts evoked are never developed, always summarized in a false or oriented way.

First of all, Bitcoin is not just obtained by computer calculation. Computer computing is used to validate transactions and ensure network security. The Bitcoin obtained, on the other hand, is primarily a means of encouraging people to participate in the maintenance of this network through a reward mechanism. While providing an elegant way to inject funds through time.

Moreover, Emmanuel Cugny completely ignores the fact that there are only a limited number of shabby Bitcoins, and that this number is distributed over time. However, it is an absolutely fundamental technical basis and allows, in particular, to justify the value of a Bitcoin, preventing the arbitrary generation that would lead to a collapse of the currency.

The presentation of the miners, on the other hand, is simply ridiculous and risks making listeners who do not know Bitcoin at all think that minors are real people (I hope it's just a bad presentation by Emmanuel Cugny, and not an comprehension error on his part).

Finally, the description of the blockchain completely misses the fact that it is publicly searchable and contains all the payment history, ensuring their traceability. Passing at the same time the fact that if we do not know the physical identity of a minor, we know on the other hand perfectly their digital identity on the blockchain.

By the way, Emmanuel Cugny suggests that it is not known who the miners are, while many large miners are very clearly identified, and many others are identifiable. And it also completely misses the fact that the identity of minors does not really matter, since the security of the network does not rest on them.

A complete misunderstanding of who sets the price of Bitcoin

Emmanuel Cugny goes on to explain that "they[les mineurs] define its value in this way, and it is used to make purchases on the internet, there are more and more sites that accept it."

This is simply totally false, and this sentence shows that Emmanuel Cugny does not in fact understand the workings of Bitcoin at all. Indeed, it is not the miners who define the price of Bitcoin, but the sellers and buyers on the exchange places, this simply by the law of supply and demand… The miners have nothing to do with it.

For an economic journalist, not understanding this is a shame…

Especially since for the moment, it is a real misunderstanding of Emmanuel Cugny, since he will say later in his column about Bitcoin that "we do not know who sets the price of this thing".

The part "without any official control", on the other hand, is factually true, but once again the journalist remains on the surface and offers no real reflection, especially on the advantages offered by this lack of regulation, especially in terms of security or guarantee of freedom of expression.

Finally, for the internet buying part, Emmanuel Cugny gives an excellent illustration of the fact that Bitcoin is indeed a currency, this according to a definition more than 2000 years old and still used today, and which wants a currency to be "a unit of account, a reserve of value, and an intermediary of exchange." (source – Wikipedia).
If sites accept Bitcoin, it means that they count in Bitcoin, that people have it (so reserve value), and that it serves as an exchange intermediary. Bitcoin is therefore, among other things, a currency.

Emmanuel Cugny's chronicle does not seem to survive his own internal logic…

And many other mistakes… I think I have largely demonstrated that Emmanuel Cugny's column was oriented, unreliable, but above all absolutely not mastered.

Let's note a few extra points, such as this exchange or the presenter says that "All this is quite mysterious" and that Emmanuel Cugny replies "Ah yes!" demonstrating that he did not really understand what Bitcoin was, since if he had done all this would not seem so mysterious.

My mother understood what Bitcoin was, for her, it's not mysterious. And yet my mother is neither an economist nor a computer scientist…

Explained as in this column, there, on the other hand, it can seem very mysterious …

We should also note this sentence of the journalist "no one knows who is responsible and who decides the value of this thing somewhere in the world", a phrase that perfectly illustrates that he has not done (or at least not done enough) his research work, since we know perfectly how and by whom is decided the value of Bitcoin, as I explained a few lines above (law of supply and demand in the markets).

Or "no monetary authority is able to guarantee the value of Bitcoin", a phrase that is certainly true, but in which Emmanuel Cugny seems completely unaware that this is true for all actions and, in absolute terms, for many currencies (the case of the ruble crisis is a typical example).

So yes, Emmanuel Cugny told anything on the radio about Bitcoin. Willingly or not, he has deceived the listeners who trust him and rely on him to help them understand.

However, let's not be too Emmanuel Cugny, let's try to understand why he got to this point?

But then what's the problem? Why do some business journalists tell anything about Bitcoin in the media?

In my article on Bitcoin, I had already explained in the section on arms and drug trafficking why THE TV experts (or radio of the blow, it also works), persisted in spreading the idea that Bitcoin would just be used for the trafficking of arms, drugs, or to finance terrorism.

I described a mechanism composed of a mixture of sensationalism, ignorance of the subject, fear of the unknown and poor media portrayal.

I also described a process that I suspect is quite similar to that used by Emmanuel Cugny to write his editorial, which I could summarize as follows:

  1. The news requires an interview/article/editorial topic.
  2. We are looking for an expert or journalist who is both quickly reachable and who will seem legitimate to the viewer (in the case of Bitcoin, an expert or financial journalist will do the trick).
  3. The expert does not really know the subject (after all, Emmanuel Cugny is not an expert in Bitcoin, nor in computer science, nor in fiduciary regulation, he is "economic and financial journalist"), he must do research.
  4. As he has to prepare his interview/article/editorial for the next day, the expert in question does as everyone else, he will search on Google to find info.
  5. As the expert is a human, he is full of a mixture of bias, ideology and the search for ease that leads him almost invariably to a confirmation bias that leads him to consult as a priority simple articles, written by other experts he knows or who work in the same way as him.
  6. As he is pressed by the rhythm of the information, he does not have time to dig, check or really understand his subject.
  7. He delivers a poor quality interview/article/editorial, often in good faith.
  8. Since neither the presenter of the show nor the majority of the viewers really master the subject (if they listen, it is because they do not already know), it is impossible for them to see the lack of seriousness of the interview/article/editorial, and this one becomes for them a reference that gives THE truth on the subject.
  9. Once the expert/journalist has given his opinion publicly and built his own opinion base, it becomes impossible for him to go back or change his position. No one likes to acknowledge that he was wrong, especially in front of a witness (see the previous passage on the followers of sects).
  10. The next time the subject is to be dealt with, the same journalist/expert will be re-invited, with his theoretical legitimacy on the subject, until he becomes Mr. X (here Mr. Bitcoin) in the eyes of the public or the profession.

We can find, both in the chronicle and in the exchanges I have had on Twitter with Emmanuel Cugny, all the steps of this system.

This system is not specific to Bitcoin. It is the same system that can be found when a so-called expert takes up the notion of Marianas Web (a so-called secret level of the internet) in the national magazine of the gendarmerie for an article supposed to train citizens to a responsible use of the internet. It is also the same system when the media talk about the Dark Net, or even the suburbs.

So when I spoke with Emmanuel Cugny, I was disappointed that he didn't go any further, that he never got into the background. But in truth, it's not entirely his fault. The problem stems mainly from the media rhythm, from the time required for thought and which is no longer left to those who are responsible for feeding it.

Emmanuel Cugny is not guilty of writing a bad and misleading editorial, he is not even really guilty of persisting in his mistake. The only thing Emmanuel Cugny is guilty of is not saying to France Info "No, I don't know the subject, I won't have time to find out properly."

When I wrote my article about Bitcoin, I did so after being interested in the subject on a regular basis for 6 months, and it took me a week to write it.

Looking on "Emmanuel Cugny Bitcoin" on the internet, I did not find a single result highlighting a link between the two, nothing that suggests that Emmanuel Cugny had, in the past, the opportunity to take time to be interested in the subject, the opportunity, why not, to use Bitcoin himself.

How in these conditions imagine that Emmanuel Cugny could have made a good editorial on Bitcoin. I would not have done that. No one would have done that.

Nor do I blame Emmanuel Cugny for clinging to his preconceived ideas, for not trying to push the subject when he had the opportunity. He had already adopted a public posture, had already trained and formulated his ideas, already had an opinion. In these circumstances, going back requires a long time for the human mind as well as daily reflection and documentation. He simply did not have any of the three.

I don't even blame Emmanuel Cugny for not refusing to do this editorial. He's like everyone else, he might have a wife, kids, a dog and a credit on his car. And he knows that if he says publicly "no I don't know anything about it, it will take me longer", it risks being bad for him and tarnishing his image with the profession.

On the other hand, I blame France Info for not choosing its specialists better, for not having done its job: to inform us.

Another processing of information is possible, at least I hope. Otherwise, at this rate, the real danger to the media will surely not be the centralized monetary control against which Bitcoin intended to fight, nor censorship, but simply death by gluttony. The suffocation of wanting to overeat without taking the time to chew the information.

We will no longer be able to trust the media for anything, but we will do it anyway, because basically we will not really have a choice. This is already too often the case.

I don't know what the solution is. I don't know how we can act. Better choose our sources of information? Perhaps. ; Lobbying, using hacking if necessary? Why not. ; To set up our own media so that we can, at least on the subjects that affect us, take that time that we miss so much? Some do, and others should soon do so. It's worth seeing.

There is one thing, however, of which I am certain. It is that we must remain accessible to those who want to take the time to ask ourselves, time to dig into the subject, time to really learn. We must not let mistakes pass by laziness, not give up on weariness. Stay demanding.

Even though my grandmother continues to believe Emmanuel Cugny rather than me. Although I would have been better off explaining Bitcoin to France Info rather than my grandmother…

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