Original | Liu Jiaolian
Last week, the ETH/BTC exchange rate rebounded a lot, from a low of nearly 0.045 to a high of 0.057. This made the long ETH/BTC exchange rate bulls earn a lot. Yesterday, the 5.27 Jiaolian internal reference "Long ETH/BTC exchange rate" is an example. However, every time we hear news that leveraged speculators make a lot of money, the market may have the motivation to move in the opposite direction. "The opposite is the movement of the Tao." This is an unchanging law. Early in the morning of the 28th, the market began to fall back across the board. BTC pierced 69k and fell to 68k.
Yesterday, some people on the Internet were spreading the news that a young man claimed to have recovered 4,000 BTC that had been lost for many years from his father's old computer, and also released a screenshot of the wallet.
Look, look, how much is 4,000 BTC worth at the current price? Nearly $300 million, more than 2 billion RMB.
However, the screenshot of the wallet above is not the one posted by the guy. The one above is the screenshot that Jiaolian took after he imported the 4,000 BTC into the Bitcoin wallet software on his computer.
How is it? Is it really true? Friends who don’t understand “How Bitcoin Works” may be easily deceived by such self-congratulatory lies.
Why are people easily deceived? Because language itself is a kind of deception. As mentioned above, in addition to releasing a picture, Jiaolian also used the rhetoric of "importing these 4,000 BTC into the Bitcoin wallet software on your computer." People who understand the principles of Bitcoin can see through this rhetoric at a glance. However, it is difficult for people who do not understand to see through it. In addition, it is easily fooled and believed in lies when cross-verified by pictures.
I will not explain how to import these 4,000 BTC into my wallet (not photoshopped). I will leave it to the students who have studied my principle class or beginner class to think about it and draw their own conclusions.
To see through lies, the teaching chain summarizes several key points:
First of all, we need to figure out what the proposition to be verified is.
For example, the question of whether the young man recovered 4,000 BTC can be verified by two propositions: the first proposition is that the young man really recovered 4,000 BTC. The second proposition is that the young man’s finding 4,000 BTC is a lie.
For the first proposition, you will find that its characteristic is that it is extremely easy to prove (confirm) it - it only needs the guy to transfer a specified amount of BTC to prove it, but it is almost impossible to disprove it - Jiaolian introduced this logical reason in the 5.17 article "The existence of Bitcoin is a question of the US dollar": proving "non-existence", or in other words, disproving existence, is an extremely difficult or even almost impossible thing to do. That is to say, asking netizens to disprove the guy's recovery of 4,000 BTC, that is, to disprove the first proposition, is equivalent to asking netizens to rely on the so-called evidence published by the guy to prove that the guy is lying, that is, to prove the second proposition, which is an extremely difficult thing.
Because no matter what questions netizens raise about the young man lying, such as he said it was a "Sony computer" but the screenshot showed an Apple system, or he said he bought BTC in 2015 but checking the on-chain records showed that 4,000 BTC were transferred in 2011, etc., the young man - or those who support him for ulterior motives, will find a bunch of reasons to explain every question.
For example, they can cite a bunch of authoritative FBI information on interrogation psychology, slap the doubters in the face, and say that the young man heard it from his father, and his father's memory is biased, and the imperfect testimony just fits the characteristics of human forgetfulness, which proves that they are not lying! Then they can also ask the doubting netizens, if you don't believe me, don't you also believe in authoritative institutions, academic research, and professional papers? !
Think about why so many people have never seen God, but believe that God exists? It is because humans do not have the ability to logically disprove existence.
The second proposition is the negation of the first proposition. So, obviously, the characteristic of the second proposition is that it is difficult to prove, but very easy to falsify.
If we call propositions that are difficult to falsify “not falsifiable” and propositions that are easy to falsify “falsifiable”, then the first proposition is a “not falsifiable” proposition and the second proposition is a “falsifiable” proposition. According to the theory of Soros’s teacher, philosopher Popper, propositions like the first proposition are not scientific propositions, but non-scientific propositions or theological propositions, and the second proposition is a scientific proposition.
In the 5.17 article, Jiaolian used another recent hot topic, the manned moon landing in the United States, as an example. During Nixon's term, the United States completed the first manned moon landing, and the young man recovered 4,000 BTC, or God exists. These are all first-class propositions, that is, non-scientific propositions, or theological propositions. What is the first principle of theological propositions? Believe it, it exists; don't believe it, it doesn't exist.
Truly serious scientists will not participate in discussions ("debates") on this kind of topic, not only because all the "evidence" is provided by the debate opponents, but also because, logically speaking, scientists can never prove to a believer in God that God does not exist.
Therefore, believers in God will say, look, so far no scientist, expert, academician, or government in the world has publicly proved or declared that God does not exist, so they all admit that God exists. If you are an atheist, you may find it ridiculous. But if you change the topic, change to something you believe in that exists like God, like faith, you will immediately feel that what he said really makes sense.
However, if it is impossible to disprove whether the young man really recovered 4,000 BTC, then aren’t we just going to watch the lie spread without being able to do anything?
No, we have the following steps.
The second step is to clarify where the burden of proof lies.
Above we have made it clear that the difficulty of proving and falsifying a proposition is not equal and there is a world of difference between them.
From the perspective of economics, the burden of proof should be on the person who has the easier proof (or is more capable of doing it), because only when the party who has the easier proof has to provide the proof, the overall cost will be the lowest and more economical.
For example, the non-scientific proposition "God exists" is easy to prove but difficult to disprove. So the burden of proof should be on those who believe in God. As long as they can let God take a few steps and show his omniscience and omnipotence, they can convince many people. Instead of asking those who doubt the existence of God to prove that God does not exist, they should not be asked to prove that God does not exist.
In fact, the reverse is also true. For the scientific proposition "God does not exist", it is difficult to prove but easy to disprove. Therefore, those who deny "God does not exist", that is, those who believe in God's existence, should bear the burden of proof.
So dear readers, you see, according to the method of attributing responsibility as taught by the teaching chain, whether it is a theological proposition or a scientific proposition, the burden of proof will be correctly attributed to the same group of people, that is, those who believe in the existence of God.
Similarly, those who believe that "the U.S. manned moon landing" - that is, those who deny that "the U.S. manned moon landing is fake" - have the burden of proof. Those who believe that "the young man recovered 4,000 BTC" - that is, those who deny that "the young man recovered 4,000 BTC is fake" - have the burden of proof.
This means that those who doubt "God exists", "US manned moon landing", and "the guy recovered 4,000 BTC" have no burden of proof. In other words, if you are the one who doubts or does not believe, you have no responsibility to confirm or disprove this matter! You can enjoy full freedom to retain your opinions and views.
Therefore, as to whether the young man has recovered the 4,000 BTC, Jiaolian has no responsibility or obligation to confirm or falsify this fact.
The party that does not bear the burden of proof should feel very relaxed on its shoulders and in its mind.
Step three, don’t believe any non-empirical evidence or proof.
The so-called empirical evidence is to show it to everyone. The so-called non-empirical evidence is to show various circumstantial evidence, materials, papers, patents, expert platforms, government documents, or "miracles", and to make various eloquent arguments to prove it.
Well, we have clarified in the previous point, who has the burden of proof. Then for the other party, the principle to be adhered to is the principle of positivism.
Science has only one principle, which is positivism.
The young man recovered 4,000 BTC, and the burden of proof is on him. His method of proof is very simple, which is to transfer a few BTC for everyone to see. Or, if a netizen posts a text, he can use the private key of the address to make a digital signature on the text, which can also prove his ownership. This is proof.
As for memories, stories, screenshots, voice messages, and witness testimonies, none of them are real evidence.
If there is no empirical evidence or proof, no matter how much evidence or proof you produce, it will be of no use.
The last step is to suspect that the original proposition is false if no empirical evidence can be provided.
Please note that this suspicion is without reason!
People often like to say things like "there is reason to doubt". In fact, if you have gone through the above three steps of judgment and reach this step, you can directly "suspect without reason" that it is false.
If the guy cannot prove that he actually owns the 4,000 BTC, then we can suspect that he is lying or fabricating the facts.
Unless one day the guy can confirm it, we can dispel our doubts at any time.
Believing in an unscientific proposition that cannot be falsified is called "superstition."
Believing in a falsifiable scientific proposition temporarily until it is falsified is called "science."
We should remain skeptical of non-scientific propositions until their proponents can verify them. This is the scientific attitude.
It is ridiculous and absurd that "superstitious" people label others as "anti-scientific" everywhere.
Many online gossip topics, whether superstitious or scientific, may not cause any substantial losses to individuals except wasting time and talking nonsense. However, if it concerns one's own investment positions, then it becomes serious. If one cannot use rigorous logic to see through scams and lies, and is credulous or even superstitious about the sickle, then one is likely to become a harvested leek, and one's own vital interests will be damaged.
As for the "sparrow" we dissected at the beginning - whether the guy actually has these 4,000 BTC, it is actually just a hot topic. Jiaolian took this case and wrote 4,000 words, not to simply draw a conclusion or give an answer, but to break it down and inspire everyone's thinking, and exercise scientific thinking with everyone.
The conclusion or answer to this matter is actually very simple: before he can confirm it, you can think it is fake and just bragging.
(Official account: Liu Jiaolian. Knowledge Planet: reply “Planet” to the official account)
(Disclaimer: The content of this article does not constitute any investment advice. Cryptocurrency is an extremely high-risk product and there is a risk of it returning to zero at any time. Please participate with caution and be responsible for your own actions.)
