1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:17,320
Welcome to the Free Cities podcast. My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast

2
00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:19,020
of the Free Cities Foundation.

3
00:00:19,020 --> 00:00:37,800
hello and welcome to this episode number 143 of the free cities podcast brought to you by of course

4
00:00:37,800 --> 00:00:44,120
veritas villages veritas villages are off-grid energy self-sufficient luxury communities in

5
00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:51,940
latin america designed for freedom lovers just like yourself bitcoin is accepted at all villages

6
00:00:51,940 --> 00:01:01,060
and that includes purchasing property there as well more info at www.ecovillages.life

7
00:01:01,060 --> 00:01:07,260
forward slash free cities also in the show notes they've got four big projects on the go

8
00:01:07,260 --> 00:01:14,420
at the moment to in panama veritas village coronado and veritas village chirokee chirokee

9
00:01:14,420 --> 00:01:22,080
is the new one launched near vulcan and boquette solar powered communities with riverfront home

10
00:01:22,080 --> 00:01:29,580
sites beautiful place that nicaragua their place is playa pacifica that's a beachfront village and

11
00:01:29,580 --> 00:01:38,300
hot off the presses brand new land acquired in Atenas Costa Rica. Atenas is known for having one

12
00:01:38,300 --> 00:01:47,140
of the best climates in the world. Right ecovillages.life forward slash free cities for more info

13
00:01:47,140 --> 00:01:53,640
please mention us when you do business with them if you choose to and just to let you know I did

14
00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:59,400
an interview with Patrick, their CEO, about three weeks ago, and it's on their channel.

15
00:01:59,740 --> 00:02:05,060
Now you can hear all about my trials and tribulations in the wonderful country of the

16
00:02:05,060 --> 00:02:10,220
United Kingdom and all the shenanigans going on there. See the show notes for more on that. Right,

17
00:02:10,760 --> 00:02:18,480
deep breath. Before I tell you about today's show, I'm going to talk to you about the absolute

18
00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:26,800
nightmare of a last few days that I've had tech wise. It will also help explain why there is

19
00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:33,740
currently no video with this episode. Basically, I've been in Riga for the last week and a bit

20
00:02:33,740 --> 00:02:41,580
recording interviews. And I have to say, I think it's been my favorite trip of all time

21
00:02:41,580 --> 00:02:47,100
for content on this pod so look out for those i've got nine phenomenal interviews

22
00:02:47,100 --> 00:02:53,760
coming up over the next nine weeks however right at the end of the trip

23
00:02:53,760 --> 00:03:04,140
just before i left my most important podcast hard drive in history had an absolutely catastrophic

24
00:03:04,140 --> 00:03:11,220
failure quite randomly it appears one of those photons just hitting something and doing something

25
00:03:11,220 --> 00:03:17,520
anyway there's nothing obvious that triggered it now whilst there was actually none of my

26
00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:23,500
unpublished episodes on there so all the content I recorded in Riga was absolutely safe fortunately

27
00:03:23,500 --> 00:03:30,220
I put that on a different drive and I back it all up no that was every single other piece of content

28
00:03:30,220 --> 00:03:38,420
that I have created for this podcast and stupidly I suppose it wasn't backed up mainly I think my

29
00:03:38,420 --> 00:03:43,460
thought process was I've published it so I don't need to think too much about it but actually

30
00:03:43,460 --> 00:03:51,960
what I've realized is there are lots of files that I need on that drive to produce this podcast

31
00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:59,860
not least all the video and audio templates and all the assets that go into those templates anyway

32
00:03:59,860 --> 00:04:08,000
what this means in reality is that I need to record a lot of stuff again from scratch if I

33
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:13,480
can't retrieve it from the broken drive. That was a couple of days ago and with the help of

34
00:04:13,480 --> 00:04:22,160
ChatGPT I've been trying to recover the data. However this is a five terabyte drive filled up

35
00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:29,080
to 4.65 terabytes and as you can imagine that's a lot of data crunching. A single process takes

36
00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:34,220
about 20 hours and I have to do quite a few of them to try and recover the data. Anyway

37
00:04:34,220 --> 00:04:42,920
what it means is i will only be putting out an audio episode right now the video one will be

38
00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:50,600
coming in due course please accept my apologies i'll have to wait until either i get the data back

39
00:04:50,600 --> 00:04:55,720
which is going to be at least another two to three days or i can recreate all the templates and i will

40
00:04:55,720 --> 00:05:02,800
decide to do that if i realize i can't get the data back anyway just to let you know i'm on it

41
00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:09,500
I'm trying to fix it, but it takes a hell of a long time to probe a five terabyte corrupted drive.

42
00:05:09,960 --> 00:05:10,840
And I'm doing my best.

43
00:05:10,980 --> 00:05:12,040
Right. Today's guest.

44
00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:13,680
It's a good one.

45
00:05:13,860 --> 00:05:14,720
It's a really good one.

46
00:05:14,760 --> 00:05:20,840
In fact, he's a returning guest and he's a bit of a legend in the Bitcoin and privacy tech world.

47
00:05:21,420 --> 00:05:28,440
Max Hillebrand brings cypherpunk and praxeological principles to his work.

48
00:05:28,440 --> 00:05:31,760
And I, for one, am definitely here for it.

49
00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:35,200
My new best friend ChatGPT.

50
00:05:35,420 --> 00:05:39,200
Yes, I had to get a paid subscription because I'm doing so much coding.

51
00:05:39,300 --> 00:05:43,040
I'm getting it to write all the scripts for delving into my drive.

52
00:05:43,740 --> 00:05:46,340
It's analysed the episode this week.

53
00:05:46,340 --> 00:05:51,480
Max joins me to explore freedom, privacy and property in the modern world.

54
00:05:51,800 --> 00:05:58,840
As we enter the broader battleground of ideas, we discuss concepts like mean time to harassment

55
00:05:58,840 --> 00:06:04,780
as a measure of personal freedom, the cypherpunk strategy of raising the cost of attack

56
00:06:04,780 --> 00:06:11,940
and the appeal of Bitcoin, free cities and digital nomadism as ways to resist creeping

57
00:06:11,940 --> 00:06:19,000
socialism and surveillance. Drawing on Lockean ownership theory, Austrian economics and his new

58
00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:24,540
book, Max makes the case for combining decentralisation, community and technology

59
00:06:24,540 --> 00:06:31,840
to defend liberty in both physical and digital realms correct that's choc gpt's summary my summary

60
00:06:31,840 --> 00:06:38,640
mind blown again uh last time i spoke to max it was a four and a half hour epic and i i was come

61
00:06:38,640 --> 00:06:44,160
away from conversations with him needing a lie down if you know what i mean um and i really like

62
00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:49,920
pushing myself and you'll probably hear my brain grind to a halt a couple of times during this

63
00:06:49,920 --> 00:06:56,900
episode as i sort of reach the edge of what's conceivable for me that is anyway many thanks

64
00:06:56,900 --> 00:07:03,300
max always a pleasure mate my philosophical journey continues right more thanks before we go

65
00:07:03,300 --> 00:07:12,160
into it thanks to antcb christopher albanese bullish my cousin vinnie dovidas matthias to name

66
00:07:12,160 --> 00:07:20,920
but a few for actually choosing to send your hard-earned bitcoin to this podcast's strategic

67
00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:27,820
bitcoin reserve in the form of your monthly subscription to the show uh the bonus episode

68
00:07:27,820 --> 00:07:32,280
should have been coming this week but i didn't anticipate all the problems i was having

69
00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:37,400
with the hard drive so sorry about that i'll try and get it in next week the new bonus episode

70
00:07:37,400 --> 00:07:44,320
with gg another bitcoin og uh if you find value here and you're not one of those people just

71
00:07:44,320 --> 00:07:51,180
mentioned please consider doing this yourself hit the subscribe button on the fountain app

72
00:07:51,180 --> 00:07:55,420
and you'll gain early access to long interviews the bonus episodes i just spoke about

73
00:07:55,420 --> 00:08:01,280
and obviously the warm fuzzy feeling that you're helping out this phenomenal podcast

74
00:08:01,280 --> 00:08:09,920
disseminating ideas of freedom and liberty right many thanks to you all time to have your mind

75
00:08:09,920 --> 00:08:19,760
altered come on up to my studio in Riga grab a coffee in a chair adopt a relaxed position why

76
00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:27,480
you could even sit back relax and enjoy my conversation with Max Hillebrand

77
00:08:31,280 --> 00:08:44,120
looking forward to this yeah what is it my my second appearance i think on the show it is

78
00:08:44,120 --> 00:08:49,340
first one was epic yeah blew my mind there was another conference where we're sitting in your

79
00:08:49,340 --> 00:08:54,680
very small hotel room you did upgrade it's bigger now we were that that was the that was the free

80
00:08:54,680 --> 00:09:00,320
podcast when it was just starting out we were literally in prague in a weird little hotel

81
00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:06,280
down the side of the bed weren't we how far we've come i'm glad you remember that because wonderful

82
00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:13,580
it's um it's quite exciting actually i really enjoy this job uh it's kind of making money

83
00:09:13,580 --> 00:09:27,520
kind of you know it like um it not exactly can you maybe just bring that across a bit like Being a podcast is the most ridiculous job right Because you have the best excuse to talk to people Yeah That all it is

84
00:09:27,620 --> 00:09:28,760
It's talking around the fire.

85
00:09:29,240 --> 00:09:29,960
It is.

86
00:09:30,060 --> 00:09:31,220
It's like the same thing.

87
00:09:31,220 --> 00:09:36,040
Like if Neanderthal men realized they could make a living sitting around the fire talking,

88
00:09:36,420 --> 00:09:37,420
they'd be much happier.

89
00:09:37,520 --> 00:09:40,680
I think they wouldn't always have that sullen look on their face whenever you see them.

90
00:09:40,680 --> 00:09:49,560
But, um, no, it is, um, I honestly believe mate, um, that the, the kind of battleground

91
00:09:49,560 --> 00:09:55,060
of ideas is it's the new, the new place to be.

92
00:09:55,060 --> 00:09:59,140
I mean, really, when you think about it, if you think about all the places that you could

93
00:09:59,140 --> 00:10:06,080
operate in the physical world, the digital world, the, this, the realm of ideas in this

94
00:10:06,080 --> 00:10:08,040
day and age is, is, is where to be.

95
00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:14,880
And you're fighting, putting in your own ideas and hoping that they catch on.

96
00:10:15,200 --> 00:10:18,680
Yeah. Mises was already saying this many years ago, right?

97
00:10:18,700 --> 00:10:21,600
That this battle for freedom has to be fought with ideas.

98
00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:25,580
That's why he was a prolific writer and author and lecturer, right?

99
00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:28,720
So we're just standing on those shoulders of giants.

100
00:10:28,900 --> 00:10:33,720
I haven't done this yet. We've started, but I'm better just do one of those.

101
00:10:33,720 --> 00:10:41,820
the reason why i'm so dis uh disheveled is because i've just had the most infuriating

102
00:10:41,820 --> 00:10:49,060
um interaction with the with the with normie world in the form of that's traumatic my

103
00:10:49,060 --> 00:10:56,820
it was it's not traumatic it's just like most things it's like end of the end of it soviet era

104
00:10:56,820 --> 00:11:03,960
bullshit yeah you know and it basically involves me getting it starts with me getting the most

105
00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:11,040
expensive vodafone plan i can because i don't want any bullshit right so just leave me alone

106
00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:16,580
take my money it literally says unlimited everywhere unlimited unlimited unlimited unlimited

107
00:11:16,580 --> 00:11:25,120
limited of course unlimited doesn't mean unlimited unlimited data means in when i'm in latvia means

108
00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:32,840
25 gigabytes which disappeared after two days i'm a bloody i'm a bloke you know like and i run my

109
00:11:32,840 --> 00:11:40,120
business on the internet so um and i'm like so it's called fair use it's obviously not fair use

110
00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:48,600
i'm not an unfair person i'm very fair i'm a very fair person so my unlimited so me trying to keep

111
00:11:48,600 --> 00:11:55,960
bullshit at bay doesn't work bullshit is there i said is anyone on vodafone getting unlimited i've

112
00:11:55,960 --> 00:11:59,540
just been on the phone to them first thing is first of all first thing is i get a text saying

113
00:11:59,540 --> 00:12:05,420
you've just run out of data i'm like well on unlimited i've run out of data um and in the

114
00:12:05,420 --> 00:12:11,540
text it said if you want to increase your limit go to this web address so i pressed it and it's like

115
00:12:11,540 --> 00:12:14,900
i've got no data i can't go to the web address

116
00:12:14,900 --> 00:12:21,380
it literally directs you to a web address obviously they're expecting you to have wi-fi

117
00:12:21,380 --> 00:12:26,000
i don't have wi-fi here funnily enough i don't know why this is the first airbnb i've ever

118
00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:32,720
got that didn't have wi-fi so now i'm like pressing the button it's not going to the page

119
00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:41,520
oh my god anyway a good future uh tech for this is called tollgate it is a a wi-fi router

120
00:12:41,520 --> 00:12:43,620
whom you can pay in Bitcoin to get online.

121
00:12:44,580 --> 00:12:46,180
But the thing is, you're offline, right?

122
00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:48,300
So how are you going to pay with Bitcoin for the internet

123
00:12:48,300 --> 00:12:49,780
when you're not even on the internet yet?

124
00:12:49,860 --> 00:12:50,080
Correct.

125
00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:51,620
And so the answer is eCash.

126
00:12:52,260 --> 00:12:53,240
CashU specifically.

127
00:12:53,420 --> 00:12:56,360
You can make CashU payments as a sender while being offline.

128
00:12:56,860 --> 00:12:58,820
And the receiver is a router, so he is online.

129
00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:01,620
So you just paste some eCash and you get internet.

130
00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:03,520
Well, there's a topic of conversation.

131
00:13:03,620 --> 00:13:04,480
Because I use CashU.

132
00:13:04,480 --> 00:13:07,500
I use the Minibits wallet for small payments, right?

133
00:13:07,500 --> 00:13:14,100
so and i know i don't care to know exactly what i'm doing i just know that everyone thinks it's

134
00:13:14,100 --> 00:13:18,640
really good and people i trust say use that use cashew but anyway can we come back to that i've

135
00:13:18,640 --> 00:13:24,520
got to get to the end of my story because basically i had this wonderful morning planned my wife

136
00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:30,460
arrived in riga last night so woke up this morning let's go out for a coffee i've got plenty of time

137
00:13:30,460 --> 00:13:36,000
on my hands i i've got a bit of research to do i'm interviewing max sort of one so it'd be great

138
00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:42,740
you know and then basically the whole thing starts crumbling beside me i got no internet i can't

139
00:13:42,740 --> 00:13:48,400
research you i can't even talk to you i sent you that text saying saying and you the last i heard

140
00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:54,240
of you was i'm on my way and basically people don't realize where i'm recording is in a big

141
00:13:54,240 --> 00:14:00,300
commie block you can't just arrive see the doorman say send him up you know it's like

142
00:14:00,300 --> 00:14:05,840
you have to go in through the kitchens to get to get up here you know and you're on your way and

143
00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:11,620
i'm like oh no and i've got no data i can't get your messages blah blah blah and so i've basically

144
00:14:11,620 --> 00:14:17,000
done no research at all not that we need to do research but i did want i did want to i want to

145
00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:21,480
know what you've been up to because we haven't spoken for quite a long time i'm not sure i sure

146
00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:26,480
i've seen you since prague probably over a year ago or something that's been a while but but um

147
00:14:26,480 --> 00:14:28,260
But I now am back online.

148
00:14:28,400 --> 00:14:29,620
Cut a long story short.

149
00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:34,800
I've actually, I'm so vindictive, mate.

150
00:14:35,100 --> 00:14:37,560
I have told Vodafone I'm leaving.

151
00:14:38,100 --> 00:14:41,660
And they've sent me one of those codes to go to port me to another.

152
00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:43,020
I just went there.

153
00:14:43,100 --> 00:14:44,560
I just went, right, dude, I'm out.

154
00:14:44,660 --> 00:14:46,020
This is absolute bullshit.

155
00:14:46,620 --> 00:14:48,400
How do I cancel my contract?

156
00:14:49,060 --> 00:14:53,100
And, you know, like sometimes when you get that irate, they say, oh, here's some data.

157
00:14:53,420 --> 00:14:53,740
Here's a...

158
00:14:53,740 --> 00:14:55,160
You get your fix.

159
00:14:55,160 --> 00:14:59,920
basically they're gonna lose i don't know i've been with vodafone like what 20 years

160
00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:05,500
what have i been spending 60 a month 50 a month you know that's like five six hundred a year that's

161
00:15:05,500 --> 00:15:09,580
a lot of that's a lot that's a lot of money yeah back then that's a lot of money right

162
00:15:09,580 --> 00:15:14,720
and going forward i had no plans on changing from vodafone that's another 10 grand

163
00:15:14,720 --> 00:15:19,520
so they're basically for the sake of what does 25 gigs of data cost them

164
00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:24,160
the marginal cost is really small right you have the upkeep of the whole infrastructure that's

165
00:15:24,160 --> 00:15:29,500
ballistically expensive yeah but once it's there sending a couple bits it's fine right and they are

166
00:15:29,500 --> 00:15:35,060
prepared because i said can i have some data please you know i'm i've been with you 20 years

167
00:15:35,060 --> 00:15:40,440
you've told me it's unlimited but it's not and now you're telling me this is fair use which

168
00:15:40,440 --> 00:15:46,920
like i'm one of the fairest people i know i'm like mr scales i want the scales to to really be fair

169
00:15:46,920 --> 00:15:53,380
so it's obviously not fair use and you've kind of sold it to me with you know and they just went

170
00:15:53,380 --> 00:15:58,680
computer says no and i said right i'm out dude so they've now sent me one of those codes to port me

171
00:15:58,680 --> 00:16:02,600
to another network so now i've got to find another network i'm not going to do it today but i think

172
00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:09,800
i'm going to do it i'm like no f you like i why are you doing business like that yeah why are you

173
00:16:09,800 --> 00:16:14,680
treating your customers like that and the answer is because the guy i was talking to on the phone

174
00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:19,940
it's not his problem he he was computer said no the other guy was computer said no and all this

175
00:16:19,940 --> 00:16:26,840
stuff is like this is end of an era stuff like i heard the same story that we've been doing the

176
00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:32,180
rounds at this conference about this guy who ordered some knives off amazon and they arrived

177
00:16:32,180 --> 00:16:37,840
at the door and the guy said um you need to prove how old you are you know and this is some old dude

178
00:16:37,840 --> 00:16:45,260
at the door saying here i am like you know do i look under 18 no no i need you i need i need some

179
00:16:45,260 --> 00:16:49,740
id and he's like what do you mean he said no i need to take a photo of your id and and he's like

180
00:16:49,740 --> 00:16:51,740
he's a kind of privacy person.

181
00:16:51,840 --> 00:16:54,380
He's like, no, just give me the stuff.

182
00:16:54,480 --> 00:16:56,260
And in the end, they sent it away.

183
00:16:56,840 --> 00:16:59,120
And this is like the kind of shit you see

184
00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:01,740
in the Soviet era,

185
00:17:02,260 --> 00:17:04,580
you know, like these itty bitty little laws

186
00:17:04,580 --> 00:17:06,560
that get more and more tedious

187
00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:08,460
and more tedious and more tedious

188
00:17:08,460 --> 00:17:10,580
until they're literally dictating

189
00:17:10,580 --> 00:17:12,080
how long your fingernails can be

190
00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:13,240
and all that stuff.

191
00:17:13,240 --> 00:17:13,540
Yeah.

192
00:17:14,100 --> 00:17:16,520
Rothbard would call it a triangular intervention.

193
00:17:17,540 --> 00:17:19,380
And so this means that the state intervenes

194
00:17:19,380 --> 00:17:22,140
how two, three people get to do their business.

195
00:17:22,740 --> 00:17:25,120
You're not allowed to buy the knife from this merchant

196
00:17:25,120 --> 00:17:26,180
and get it delivered.

197
00:17:26,300 --> 00:17:27,440
That's a ridiculous notion.

198
00:17:27,520 --> 00:17:28,940
That sounds like terrorism to us.

199
00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:32,220
We would like to see some ID to protect the children.

200
00:17:33,660 --> 00:17:35,380
This is unfortunate.

201
00:17:35,380 --> 00:17:38,700
And there's this intervention cascade.

202
00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:41,420
Mies has also spoke about this greatly in his book,

203
00:17:41,480 --> 00:17:41,900
Socialism.

204
00:17:42,020 --> 00:17:44,720
As soon as you start with one set of interventions,

205
00:17:44,880 --> 00:17:46,780
let's say price control for socialism

206
00:17:46,780 --> 00:17:49,360
or these types of things,

207
00:17:49,380 --> 00:17:54,280
then the market fails or like it stops being nice.

208
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:55,920
And so it gets worse.

209
00:17:56,100 --> 00:17:59,340
And then the state, of course, is, well, let's try some more intervention.

210
00:17:59,560 --> 00:18:00,660
Maybe that will fix it.

211
00:18:00,780 --> 00:18:02,420
And that just makes it worse.

212
00:18:02,460 --> 00:18:04,660
And the only answer is more intervention and so on.

213
00:18:04,700 --> 00:18:06,900
And that leads to nowhere.

214
00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:10,620
And in the end, it almost certainly collapses.

215
00:18:11,020 --> 00:18:11,240
Yeah.

216
00:18:11,420 --> 00:18:15,000
Because everyone is falling foul of the rules.

217
00:18:15,280 --> 00:18:17,860
So everyone's committing crimes constantly.

218
00:18:17,860 --> 00:18:19,020
A felony a day.

219
00:18:19,020 --> 00:18:38,300
Yeah. And I'll be honest, you know, I've always been aware that I break the law, obviously, in little bits and bobs and ways and this and that. But, you know, like take our online safety bill that's just come. That's one step away from VPNs being banned, which is being talked about.

220
00:18:38,300 --> 00:18:52,980
Now banning a VPN is going to make me a bonafide criminal because I been using a vpn for a long time purely for simple reasons like yeah i don really like to know what i don think my isp has any interest

221
00:18:52,980 --> 00:18:58,200
knowing what i'm doing and i don't want them to sort of sell that data use that data release that

222
00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:04,880
data reveal that data yeah nothing wrong with that simple privacy even but even the the kind of

223
00:19:04,880 --> 00:19:08,500
I don't trust you guys to look after my bank details or my this or my that.

224
00:19:09,400 --> 00:19:13,160
And so when that happens, which they're talking about it now,

225
00:19:13,220 --> 00:19:15,860
you know, when they start talking about stuff, it's not that far.

226
00:19:15,860 --> 00:19:16,500
It's already done.

227
00:19:16,840 --> 00:19:17,740
Yeah, yeah.

228
00:19:18,740 --> 00:19:23,080
And, you know, where else have you seen VPNs banned?

229
00:19:23,300 --> 00:19:23,460
What?

230
00:19:23,820 --> 00:19:24,420
North Korea.

231
00:19:25,040 --> 00:19:26,480
Where else is VPNs banned?

232
00:19:26,620 --> 00:19:29,560
Probably China in a roundabout way.

233
00:19:29,660 --> 00:19:30,140
They're probably not.

234
00:19:30,560 --> 00:19:32,900
You probably get penalized, you know.

235
00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:34,380
You get penalized everywhere.

236
00:19:34,380 --> 00:19:40,760
like you know these captcha portals yes they're way more prevalent when you use a vpn right they

237
00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:46,560
know that you're using a vpn or tor and then every business every like website is making your life

238
00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:51,800
just a little bit more difficult because there's a risk behind it right yeah well yeah but the risk

239
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:57,660
is for them to get to get into trouble exactly it's nothing they're not they're not thinking oh

240
00:19:57,660 --> 00:20:02,980
you know this this is very risky some you know they're literally worried that the rule says you

241
00:20:02,980 --> 00:20:08,400
can't do that or the rule says you need to identify who's on your website and send it to us and if you

242
00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:13,300
don't you're in trouble and that's basically how they enforce it in the beginning i think probably

243
00:20:13,300 --> 00:20:18,660
in the later stages they start enforcing it on you do you know what i mean that's when you know

244
00:20:18,660 --> 00:20:24,020
it's getting serious but i'm not even sure and this is amazing look a bit of plastic literally

245
00:20:24,020 --> 00:20:29,480
just came off my water bottle this is this is like this is a criminal offensive how did these

246
00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:33,840
get through the net look they haven't even got that i suppose it is still attached but

247
00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:41,340
oh my god you know anyway when they start coming directly for you and i think it's almost like

248
00:20:41,340 --> 00:20:46,400
in the old world you could do that you could be an authoritarian and you could steam in with guns

249
00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:51,120
point them at people and say do what we say and then in the more in the more contemporary kind of

250
00:20:51,120 --> 00:20:56,420
western world it's like people would would think that was bad so they just say right everyone that

251
00:20:56,420 --> 00:21:01,000
you do business with everyone you deal with everyone you have to they have to police you

252
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:06,520
and now it's like oh i'm dealing with a friendly face i'm not dealing with the state the you know

253
00:21:06,520 --> 00:21:12,260
it's it's i don't know it's it's getting serious don't you think it is getting serious it has been

254
00:21:12,260 --> 00:21:16,380
getting serious for for many years and the trend is definitely in the wrong direction right like

255
00:21:16,380 --> 00:21:21,900
it got worse over the last 10 years a lot right and and so unfortunately it will continue to get

256
00:21:21,900 --> 00:21:28,140
worse the real question is when does this socialist system fall apart and i do hope that it does fall

257
00:21:28,140 --> 00:21:34,000
apart like the soviet union more with a whimper than with a bang right but war and and a lot more

258
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:41,620
destruction is definitely on the menu do you know what though um i it's taken me a long time as a

259
00:21:41,620 --> 00:21:47,240
as someone i would think of as quite free thinking quite inquisitive quite it's taken me quite a long

260
00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:53,980
time to comprehend that this is a sort of socialist system a communist system it's bizarre because

261
00:21:53,980 --> 00:22:03,440
and and you know voting and and and democracy and all these things are kind of communistic in their

262
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:11,960
nature yeah i know but that's a i i don't think um 99 of people are anywhere near and not

263
00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:17,240
acknowledging that yeah yeah no but i mean read through the communist manifesto by karl marx right

264
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:21,880
and there's a little list of bullet points with what what what should be there in a communist

265
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:27,800
society right and we have like centralization of education right so in in germany for example if

266
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:31,920
you want to homeschool your kids the police show up like literally this happened to many of my

267
00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:37,640
friends that kids got dragged by the police into the school building right so it's that's a thing

268
00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:43,600
then we have of course that like the the the central bank let me name me a country that does

269
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:48,840
not have a central bank right now and so that those those two aspects already if you have

270
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:54,940
the power of propaganda and the power to print money then all of the other thing kind of is

271
00:22:54,940 --> 00:22:59,760
becomes very easy because the people just kind of do what you want them because you taught them

272
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:04,420
literally and you have unlimited budgets because you can print it and trick everyone into using

273
00:23:04,420 --> 00:23:08,340
that fiat currency, that together is extremely powerful.

274
00:23:08,340 --> 00:23:11,680
So we're deep down the socialist rabbit hole.

275
00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:13,960
We're very far away from a free market.

276
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:18,060
But people would never think that.

277
00:23:18,060 --> 00:23:20,860
No, people would never think that.

278
00:23:20,860 --> 00:23:24,700
I didn't think that for a very, very long time.

279
00:23:24,700 --> 00:23:30,640
You look at communist empires and you think, ah, there's communism.

280
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:31,640
That's communism.

281
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:37,040
But I suppose the sort of owning the means of production and no private property stuff and that.

282
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:39,240
Although you will own nothing and be happy.

283
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:39,840
Yeah.

284
00:23:40,460 --> 00:23:44,800
And you know, there's a real actionable metric of success of freedom.

285
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,200
It was defined by Rayo, an anonymous author from the 70s.

286
00:23:48,540 --> 00:23:51,200
And he was saying, what's your mean time to harassment?

287
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:54,620
And in other words, when was the last time you were stolen from?

288
00:23:55,360 --> 00:23:57,680
When was the last time someone physically assaulted you?

289
00:23:58,020 --> 00:24:01,580
When was the last time you had to ask for permission to use your stuff?

290
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:06,960
right and all of a sudden you realize wait a second i just had to ask for permission from

291
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:12,140
vodafone to get my internet back right that that didn't happen so long ago it was their internet i

292
00:24:12,140 --> 00:24:16,980
suppose yeah theoretically but i know what you mean yeah or like you you know you pay taxes on

293
00:24:16,980 --> 00:24:21,060
that internet bill right you pay taxes on the bubble gun if you want to drive your car you need

294
00:24:21,060 --> 00:24:24,960
to have to drive a license if you want to start a business you need to ask for permission to have

295
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:30,200
that business license the meantime to harassment if we analyze the the intervention of the state

296
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,320
is within hours or days, right?

297
00:24:33,420 --> 00:24:35,000
Not weeks or months.

298
00:24:35,580 --> 00:24:37,180
So we really are in a situation

299
00:24:37,180 --> 00:24:40,820
where the amount of theft is so pervasive

300
00:24:40,820 --> 00:24:42,740
that we don't even realize anymore.

301
00:24:43,120 --> 00:24:44,380
We're like the fish in water

302
00:24:44,380 --> 00:24:51,100
and completely unaware of the extent of the tyranny

303
00:24:51,100 --> 00:24:52,460
that we're suffering through.

304
00:24:53,340 --> 00:24:55,020
But once you step out of it,

305
00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:57,700
specifically, for example, Bitcoin is the perfect example.

306
00:24:57,700 --> 00:25:07,020
Once you opt out of the theft of the fiat system, now all of a sudden you realize, wow, this is not just a little bit better, that's like so much better.

307
00:25:07,300 --> 00:25:13,960
And we all adjust our life completely around this new phenomenon that we've experienced and move on in a much freer way.

308
00:25:14,180 --> 00:25:19,320
And then are baffled of how long could we have used this fiat money without even asking it, without questioning it.

309
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:23,460
It's interesting coming to Latvia now and obviously being around.

310
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,340
Honey Badge is the real cypherpunk kind of gathering.

311
00:25:27,700 --> 00:25:30,840
mainstream anyway, cypherpunks.

312
00:25:31,460 --> 00:25:35,180
But for me, it's the one place where I do tend to mix more

313
00:25:35,180 --> 00:25:39,020
with those people who really do live the principles.

314
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:42,920
And I've got a lot of respect for people whose mindset is

315
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:46,100
what's legitimate and what's illegitimate.

316
00:25:46,380 --> 00:25:49,240
Like, you know, someone telling me what to do.

317
00:25:50,020 --> 00:25:53,840
This is some guy wearing a police outfit.

318
00:25:54,340 --> 00:25:56,480
And being able to stand in front of that person

319
00:25:56,480 --> 00:26:00,460
and consider them illegitimate.

320
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:04,220
It's quite a power and it takes quite a lot of power

321
00:26:04,220 --> 00:26:07,020
and a lot of knowledge and a lot of understanding

322
00:26:07,020 --> 00:26:09,080
that you can just do stuff.

323
00:26:09,180 --> 00:26:10,220
You know, this meme that's going around,

324
00:26:10,260 --> 00:26:11,100
you can just do stuff.

325
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:14,920
You can just not listen to that thing, you know.

326
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,720
And this is the place where, you know,

327
00:26:17,780 --> 00:26:19,860
in my yearly calendar, if I get to come here,

328
00:26:19,860 --> 00:26:21,720
where I actually get to mix with those kind of people.

329
00:26:21,860 --> 00:26:23,260
And it's a real skill.

330
00:26:23,360 --> 00:26:25,000
It's something that I forget so easily

331
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:27,920
and lose myself in my head and before I know it,

332
00:26:27,980 --> 00:26:30,640
I'm looking for permission or looking for, you know,

333
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:32,380
am I legitimate?

334
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,320
You know, we've moved to a new area, right?

335
00:26:35,360 --> 00:26:38,560
We need to register here to get a doctor

336
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:40,680
or we need to do this or do that.

337
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,020
And then you need to sit back and relax and go,

338
00:26:43,100 --> 00:26:44,400
actually, no, I don't.

339
00:26:44,820 --> 00:26:45,380
No, I don't.

340
00:26:45,500 --> 00:26:48,580
I'm a, it's something going on outside.

341
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:51,620
I'm a human being walking the earth

342
00:26:51,620 --> 00:26:53,980
or something along those lines, you know.

343
00:26:53,980 --> 00:26:57,760
So I'm, or even worse, I'm a spirit just here.

344
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:05,340
And, you know, it's a funny old matrix that's imprisoned us.

345
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:06,340
Do you know what I mean?

346
00:27:06,740 --> 00:27:07,340
Yeah, absolutely.

347
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:07,920
Right.

348
00:27:07,980 --> 00:27:09,140
It's propaganda.

349
00:27:09,300 --> 00:27:11,140
Propaganda is extremely powerful.

350
00:27:11,360 --> 00:27:12,820
It was powerful 100 years ago.

351
00:27:12,940 --> 00:27:14,320
It got exponentially better.

352
00:27:15,060 --> 00:27:21,760
So to this mind control of making sure people don't ask the right question and that people don't go against the mainstream.

353
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:24,100
it's literally been

354
00:27:24,100 --> 00:27:26,900
like carefully designed and implemented

355
00:27:26,900 --> 00:27:28,820
starting basically from birth

356
00:27:28,820 --> 00:27:31,120
especially from kindergarten or school

357
00:27:31,120 --> 00:27:34,900
and that's really really difficult to get rid of

358
00:27:34,900 --> 00:27:38,700
and it actually takes like a de-culting

359
00:27:38,700 --> 00:27:41,200
we need to de-brainwash people

360
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:43,720
and that's why ideas are so powerful right

361
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,220
and you're part of the counter propaganda machine

362
00:27:46,220 --> 00:27:50,340
to instill a new form of way of thought

363
00:27:50,340 --> 00:27:51,620
in the minds of people

364
00:27:51,620 --> 00:28:14,220
I had a conversation in America about six or eight months ago and it was put very well that if you survive school and you a freedom lover you done incredibly well Because school teaches you authoritarianism It literally teaches you the relationship between you and the person in charge

365
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:17,680
This is all based on outcome-based education

366
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:22,840
that was first introduced in Prussia, specifically Bismarck.

367
00:28:23,360 --> 00:28:25,840
And he wanted to have obedient soldiers.

368
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:30,140
Prussia was a military regime, let's say.

369
00:28:30,140 --> 00:28:37,020
So they needed to have frontline soldiers that walk into death without flinching, without questioning.

370
00:28:37,220 --> 00:28:38,980
If you get the order, you move forward.

371
00:28:39,380 --> 00:28:42,960
And if you die, that's all right, because the body of the army has survived.

372
00:28:44,020 --> 00:28:45,560
That's scary shit.

373
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:51,460
And that's literally, literally what that system is built upon with the intent of creating soldiers.

374
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:53,980
Now, back then it was for military school.

375
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:55,540
Now it's for everyone.

376
00:28:56,220 --> 00:28:57,120
Here's the teacher.

377
00:28:57,260 --> 00:28:58,040
He's the authority.

378
00:28:58,160 --> 00:28:59,140
He stands in front of you.

379
00:28:59,140 --> 00:29:01,220
He knows what is correct, right?

380
00:29:01,260 --> 00:29:05,360
He will tell it to you and you shall repeat it until you repeat it correctly.

381
00:29:05,740 --> 00:29:07,620
And if you don't, then you get punished.

382
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:09,740
First, you got hit on the fingers, right?

383
00:29:09,820 --> 00:29:13,700
And now you have to leave the room and go for detention or whatnot.

384
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,380
But ultimately, you do as you are told to.

385
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:24,720
And that's just not an encouraging mindset to explore and to be creative and to be who you actually want to be.

386
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:39,500
Do you, I mean, when you think about the way it's implemented now, it seems like there's a lot of useful, and this is a horrible way to describe it, but it's kind of true, useful idiots that implement this stuff.

387
00:29:39,500 --> 00:29:47,380
um are you are you someone that believes in a grander plan or is this just a natural incentive

388
00:29:47,380 --> 00:29:54,000
of power to sort of secure itself look for more power look for more obedience or the or is it

389
00:29:54,000 --> 00:30:00,840
is it something more conscious than that do people sit around thinking i want to control someone else

390
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:06,720
that's what i kind of mean i suppose i think it's a bit of both like there there are thieves out

391
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:12,080
there right no question they they want to get more money more capital from others without actually

392
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:16,960
getting their permission they always have been there they always will be there right the question

393
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:24,320
is how what what are the systems we we utilize and do they incentivize and make this theft

394
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:29,180
profitable because thieves are entrepreneurs too right there's a proxiology to violence

395
00:30:29,180 --> 00:30:37,080
meaning that if you have to spend 10 bitcoin on an attack on equipment on time on fuel etc

396
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:43,200
and at the end of the day you earn one bitcoin in by stealing from your victim then you just lost

397
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:47,800
nine bitcoin you're no longer profitable and that that means you have less capital than before

398
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:51,100
right and maybe you have so much less that you cannot afford to do the next run

399
00:30:51,100 --> 00:30:58,460
and and so thieves need to be profitable and and then obviously thieves are incentivized to decrease

400
00:30:58,460 --> 00:31:05,760
their cost and to increase their revenue. And that will naturally lead to some structure where

401
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:11,980
they make sure that this is more towards their favor. And so they become in charge of, for example,

402
00:31:12,100 --> 00:31:18,760
the school system and then dictate that, no, you should actually hand over your money to the thief

403
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:23,300
without questioning, without resisting, because that's the right thing to do. That's what we do

404
00:31:23,300 --> 00:31:24,960
in a civilized society, etc.

405
00:31:25,700 --> 00:31:26,880
And all of a sudden,

406
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:29,140
you've decreased the amount of resistance,

407
00:31:29,340 --> 00:31:30,860
you've decreased the cost of attack,

408
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,140
and therefore you become more profitable.

409
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:37,240
And that gets iterated like on a free market, right?

410
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:38,940
There's not just one gang of thieves.

411
00:31:39,340 --> 00:31:40,960
There's countless thieves

412
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:43,160
who are more or less interoperating

413
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:44,620
and coordinating with each other.

414
00:31:45,180 --> 00:31:48,900
But ultimately, there's a massive demand for this,

415
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:51,640
and so people figure out solutions to it.

416
00:31:51,640 --> 00:32:05,440
The real trick then and how we make the stop and that's the cypherpunk insight is to increase the cost of attack and to decrease the cost of defense because then we have an economic solution to theft and to slavery.

417
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:21,380
That's literally what ended slavery in America. It was more profitable to work with free people than it was to enslave them. You simply made more money by not stealing from them because they were more incentivized to actually do the work etc.

418
00:32:21,380 --> 00:32:37,380
So the slavery in America did not fall because some politician said, oh, no, no, we don't do that anymore. It fell because entrepreneurs on the market realized that there is more profit opportunity in collaborative, voluntary interaction than there is with slavery.

419
00:32:37,380 --> 00:32:47,440
And the exact same thing is happening now with the added bonus that we have builders of technologies, of tools, who have now optimized for this metric specifically.

420
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:49,360
How do we make theft more expensive?

421
00:32:49,860 --> 00:32:52,200
How do we make using defensive force cheaper?

422
00:32:52,820 --> 00:33:00,640
And that's ultimately cryptography is the prime example of what we've achieved here, of making theft so expensive that it becomes completely uneconomical.

423
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:10,780
And so, and you could, and as I mean, modern day slaves tend to be people that just work under the, under an inflationary system, I suppose.

424
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:14,380
That's kind of, that's, that's the modern definition of a slave, right?

425
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:14,880
Yeah.

426
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:18,220
And it's, it's not only the inflation, right?

427
00:33:18,260 --> 00:33:20,020
I mean, Germany, for example, right?

428
00:33:20,060 --> 00:33:21,700
Many other European countries are the same.

429
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:24,180
There's a 50% income tax, right?

430
00:33:24,780 --> 00:33:28,280
Then you have a 20 or 19% value added tax.

431
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:33,520
whatever value was added here is a bit out of scope, but we're already at 70%, right?

432
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:34,900
Is that what it is in Germany?

433
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:39,920
Yeah. And then when you buy diesel, there's like a 300% tax on that because we're saving the planet,

434
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:44,060
right? If you would buy some tobacco, that's not good for you. So we actually have to punish you

435
00:33:44,060 --> 00:33:52,980
with another 250% tax rate, right? So we're getting above 90% easily, easily, just by direct

436
00:33:52,980 --> 00:33:54,540
taxation of goods.

437
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:56,980
You think that in Germany

438
00:33:56,980 --> 00:33:58,860
90% of your income is

439
00:33:58,860 --> 00:34:00,620
being taken from you? Absolutely.

440
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:02,560
90? Before inflation.

441
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:05,140
How can it be 90, mate? How do you live?

442
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:07,080
That's the thing.

443
00:34:07,380 --> 00:34:09,220
You actually don't.

444
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:12,860
But I mean, I've heard

445
00:34:12,860 --> 00:34:15,180
70, I think, when you add it all up

446
00:34:15,180 --> 00:34:17,080
and 90 just seems like...

447
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:18,900
How do you get like

448
00:34:18,900 --> 00:34:21,220
one month of the year of your own money?

449
00:34:21,860 --> 00:34:22,120
Yeah.

450
00:34:22,980 --> 00:34:24,400
I just have to believe you, I suppose.

451
00:34:24,900 --> 00:34:26,280
God, that seems crazy.

452
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:29,520
Yeah, no, it really is crazy if you think about it like this.

453
00:34:30,060 --> 00:34:34,920
And then we haven't even talked about the regulatory cost of everything, right?

454
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:44,060
If you want to start a bakery, you need like 50 hours, 500 hours of lawyers to get all the licensing that you need to have the permission properly.

455
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:50,840
You need to invest in all types of weird building constructions that might not actually be necessary for you to provide a good service.

456
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:53,220
but they are required in order for you to do it.

457
00:34:53,660 --> 00:34:55,640
And so if we add up all of this cost,

458
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:57,700
it's baffling.

459
00:34:57,920 --> 00:34:58,480
It's baffling.

460
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,340
Like it's more balls and shackles slavery

461
00:35:01,340 --> 00:35:02,980
than it used to be

462
00:35:02,980 --> 00:35:06,440
just by the percentage of what of your work

463
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:07,140
has to be given away.

464
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:08,280
So, okay, let's,

465
00:35:08,940 --> 00:35:10,600
I need to get this straight in my mind

466
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:11,880
because I've never thought about this before.

467
00:35:12,060 --> 00:35:16,220
So take your example of the original abolition of slavery

468
00:35:16,220 --> 00:35:21,960
and what made the cost of attack more.

469
00:35:22,380 --> 00:35:26,660
And then tell me how the modern-day version of slavery gets solved.

470
00:35:27,860 --> 00:35:34,520
So ultimately, if you enslave someone, you need to police him.

471
00:35:34,620 --> 00:35:36,800
Because if he doesn't do what you want him to do,

472
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,880
you need to make him change his opinion and change his actions.

473
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:45,460
So ultimately, for every, I don't know, 10 slaves that work on the field,

474
00:35:45,460 --> 00:35:51,080
you need like what two guys with guns to make sure they don't run away to make sure they're

475
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:56,340
not lazy right to make sure that they actually do stuff um and and do it adequately not not just

476
00:35:56,340 --> 00:36:02,180
lazily and then half-assing it and so you have costs of of two guys in order to enforce these

477
00:36:02,180 --> 00:36:09,580
10 guys for for doing stuff right and and these two like protectors they or or guards let's say

478
00:36:09,580 --> 00:36:17,240
they need to get paid as well right and and um funnily the kind of it's often recounted as the

479
00:36:17,240 --> 00:36:22,600
worst kind of slaves were the house slaves right the slaves who could live in the house of the lord

480
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:28,860
um and who in exchange did their bidding right they these were the slaves who who kicked down

481
00:36:28,860 --> 00:36:33,700
all the other slaves and made sure that they did not revolt they and they were politicians

482
00:36:33,700 --> 00:36:35,620
Kind of.

483
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,580
So these slaves were the most vicious,

484
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:41,280
according to some accounts,

485
00:36:41,380 --> 00:36:45,020
because they could have a leg up on the others.

486
00:36:45,180 --> 00:36:46,240
They still weren't free,

487
00:36:46,740 --> 00:36:49,460
and they would ensure that the others aren't free either.

488
00:36:50,140 --> 00:36:51,740
So that's quite sad.

489
00:36:51,900 --> 00:36:53,480
And we see, of course, a lot of that happening

490
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:56,920
with politicians, with military personnel,

491
00:36:57,140 --> 00:36:57,920
with police, etc.

492
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:02,760
They have quite a good time of telling others

493
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:04,940
that no, you cannot meet two people in a park bench.

494
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:06,740
We have a virus going on.

495
00:37:06,780 --> 00:37:07,720
You're supposed to be at home.

496
00:37:08,980 --> 00:37:12,480
And this type of intervention is costly.

497
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:14,740
Plus, you have the unseen,

498
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:20,200
the opportunity of what would have a group of free people achieved.

499
00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:24,220
That's way more than what any group of slaves would achieve

500
00:37:24,220 --> 00:37:25,740
because they don't have skin in the game.

501
00:37:25,820 --> 00:37:27,620
They don't have that fire, that creativity.

502
00:37:27,620 --> 00:37:29,940
Here's the problem though, right?

503
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:36,340
The internet made the cost of policing cheap, didn't it?

504
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:37,260
That's the thing.

505
00:37:37,260 --> 00:37:37,880
Really cheap.

506
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,180
What I'm saying, the cost of attack, the cost of defense,

507
00:37:41,300 --> 00:37:43,820
and how technology can aid us freedom fighters,

508
00:37:44,060 --> 00:37:46,060
it can also aid the thieves.

509
00:37:46,780 --> 00:37:50,840
If we have a massive dragnet surveillance, as we currently do,

510
00:37:51,380 --> 00:37:53,420
if nobody has any privacy,

511
00:37:53,860 --> 00:37:56,180
then the cost of attack becomes very cheap.

512
00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:59,420
Because you know exactly whom to attack, when to attack,

513
00:37:59,420 --> 00:38:00,640
and what to attack for.

514
00:38:01,460 --> 00:38:05,500
And then you can make a much more educated economic decision

515
00:38:05,500 --> 00:38:08,820
of will I get my money's worth from this attack?

516
00:38:09,260 --> 00:38:11,160
You're not going to attack the guy who doesn't have any money

517
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:13,240
because you know exactly that he doesn't have any money.

518
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:16,960
Rather, you focus on the guy who just was productive

519
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:19,580
and sold some stuff and now has capital to spare.

520
00:38:20,340 --> 00:38:23,040
If you have a perfect surveillance system,

521
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:28,440
then that makes the profitability of the attack way in your favor.

522
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:37,780
So the cost of attack on the internet becomes more costly if you employ cryptography. Is that the kind of theory?

523
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:38,800
Yeah, exactly.

524
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:43,660
That's the one tool to make those things costly.

525
00:38:43,660 --> 00:38:44,660
So, yeah.

526
00:38:44,660 --> 00:38:45,660
Yeah.

527
00:38:45,660 --> 00:38:50,100
And like, I mean, let's take encryption as one example, right?

528
00:38:50,100 --> 00:38:54,540
Like encryption depends on private public keys.

529
00:38:54,540 --> 00:39:00,240
So you have a private key, that's your secret number, basically, a password that gets you

530
00:39:00,240 --> 00:39:02,260
to decrypt stuff.

531
00:39:02,260 --> 00:39:08,040
And you have a public key, which I can use to encrypt messages to you.

532
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,340
In order to create a private key, all you need to do is flip a coin.

533
00:39:11,340 --> 00:39:13,660
56 times, done, you have your private key.

534
00:39:14,180 --> 00:39:16,480
Your computer can do it a million times a second.

535
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:22,000
It's basically free, a tiny bit of compute power, electricity,

536
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:24,880
which amortized across the entire use of the computer is nothing.

537
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,820
In order to create a public key out of a private key

538
00:39:29,820 --> 00:39:31,780
is, again, just a simple math formula.

539
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:34,160
You need to multiply some numbers, and that's it.

540
00:39:34,540 --> 00:39:35,480
Again, almost free.

541
00:39:37,180 --> 00:39:39,540
But now, if I have your public key,

542
00:39:39,540 --> 00:39:41,880
and I would like to have your private key.

543
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:45,420
All of a sudden that requires such an enormous amount of computation

544
00:39:45,420 --> 00:39:47,940
that it's not just infeasible.

545
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:52,000
Like if we would have a computer that could do this in the classical setting,

546
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,500
it would consume so much electricity that we would create a black hole.

547
00:39:56,240 --> 00:40:01,280
It's just unbafflingly how much more difficult it is

548
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:03,740
to get the private key from a public key.

549
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:06,320
And now this is an asymmetry.

550
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:10,180
and that is part of what makes it so powerful.

551
00:40:10,420 --> 00:40:13,080
It's literally free and instant

552
00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:15,320
for you to create the private and public key

553
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:18,220
and it's virtually impossible for me

554
00:40:18,220 --> 00:40:20,180
to get your private key from the public key

555
00:40:20,180 --> 00:40:23,080
and that extends to things like encryption.

556
00:40:23,720 --> 00:40:25,640
Now I can encrypt messages to you

557
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:28,820
so that for me to encrypt it, it's trivial.

558
00:40:29,020 --> 00:40:31,820
I take my message, I multiply it with your public key basically

559
00:40:31,820 --> 00:40:35,480
and I have something, a new number that I can send to you

560
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:40,520
and other people will not have any ability to get to the actual true message.

561
00:40:40,980 --> 00:40:44,560
It will be, again, infeasibly expensive for them to read that message.

562
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:50,160
But for you, it's, again, just multiplying that ciphertext number with your private key,

563
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:54,880
and all of a sudden you have a clear text message, exactly what I sent you,

564
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:59,220
and it was extremely cheap for you and me to do this,

565
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,720
and basically impossible for anyone else to intervene,

566
00:41:02,720 --> 00:41:07,300
to make sure that we cannot use this because it's just math right once you know it you know it

567
00:41:07,300 --> 00:41:14,240
and then also to undo the math formulas that we made and so these trapdoor functions are are

568
00:41:14,240 --> 00:41:21,020
miracle technology like the fact that this works in this universe is is wild is absolutely wild and

569
00:41:21,020 --> 00:41:26,520
and it's kind of like a gift of god that we have to use in in our favor and and that's ultimately

570
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:27,860
what cypherpunk is about.

571
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:29,820
Herein lies the problem, though.

572
00:41:30,420 --> 00:41:37,160
And this is the, I think this is the number one question for freedom lovers right now.

573
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:41,660
What you've just described in the digital realm is pretty much the solution,

574
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:44,740
currently at least, and for probably quite a long time into the future.

575
00:41:45,220 --> 00:41:48,780
This is the solution in the digital world.

576
00:41:49,820 --> 00:41:51,500
But we live in the physical world.

577
00:41:51,620 --> 00:41:51,720
Yeah.

578
00:41:52,060 --> 00:41:52,280
Right?

579
00:41:52,420 --> 00:41:53,480
And so do our computers.

580
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:54,480
Right.

581
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:55,080
Okay.

582
00:41:55,080 --> 00:42:07,460
Now, the physical realm is the realm where the search for freedom and privacy is way more esoteric, way more difficult, way more.

583
00:42:07,780 --> 00:42:14,980
And I think I've always thought of our movement, the Free Cities movement, is searching for freedom in the real world.

584
00:42:15,220 --> 00:42:19,560
You've got the cypherpunk world or the Bitcoin world or the Nostra world.

585
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:21,760
This is searching for freedom in the digital realm.

586
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:35,280
And it's quite easy, actually. It is now, at least. But there's no route in the physical world that's easy. And in fact, I don't actually think there's a definitive solution like cryptography in the real world. What do you think?

587
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:47,540
Yeah, that's a really good point. And I just like to highlight that all of these beautiful things that we can do in cyberspace, these constructs of the mind, they absolutely depend on a secure physical space.

588
00:42:48,160 --> 00:43:04,700
The perfect example is you want to create a new Bitcoin wallet, you want to send a thousand Bitcoin into it. And so you sit in front of your computer and the computer generates your private key and shows it to you as 12 words. So you write down the 12 words and super secure, only you know it. Now you can receive and send money to it.

589
00:43:05,280 --> 00:43:10,620
But unfortunately, over there is a small drone with a telescopic camera like a kilometer away.

590
00:43:11,180 --> 00:43:14,700
And it's zooming in and sees exactly what you're doing in front of your computer.

591
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:18,060
It sees exactly what the screen is doing, sees exactly what you're typing in.

592
00:43:18,620 --> 00:43:23,800
All of a sudden, cyberspace can no longer protect you because meatspace was compromised.

593
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:27,820
And everything in cyberspace is anchored to meatspace.

594
00:43:28,240 --> 00:43:32,100
Not just for your backups of your private keys, but literally for the computing hardware.

595
00:43:32,100 --> 00:43:38,120
with any computer basically whoever has physical access to the computer can do whatever he wants

596
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:43,020
there are some great advancements in computer science that does not make that so you can have

597
00:43:43,020 --> 00:43:47,740
secure enclaves that even with physical access to the machine you cannot really intervene or read

598
00:43:47,740 --> 00:43:53,280
what was happening amazing tech but that's not really implemented wildly yet and and that's that's

599
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:58,840
a serious serious problem and that's why we absolutely do need to fix freedom in in meatspace

600
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:00,380
in the physical reality.

601
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:03,040
That's why I'm such a massive supporter of your work

602
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:04,280
and the Free Cities Movement's work

603
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:08,820
because we need to have a secure, long-lasting,

604
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:13,740
decentralized alternative to the violence of the state

605
00:44:13,740 --> 00:44:15,000
in the physical world.

606
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:17,680
And that's really hard because the state has a money printer

607
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:21,540
and they can literally print tanks and missiles and spies.

608
00:44:21,980 --> 00:44:22,860
I've never heard it.

609
00:44:22,900 --> 00:44:24,020
You print it perfectly, mate.

610
00:44:24,340 --> 00:44:26,280
I would have said they print money to make tanks.

611
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:27,660
He's like, no, they print tanks.

612
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,320
No, but it's true.

613
00:44:31,500 --> 00:44:31,700
It's scary.

614
00:44:31,940 --> 00:44:32,320
All right.

615
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:32,620
Okay.

616
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:44,220
So let's talk about that then because creating sort of safety and freedom and privacy in the meat space is a very, very difficult thing.

617
00:44:44,780 --> 00:44:47,380
I've only nailed down three techniques.

618
00:44:47,620 --> 00:44:50,780
This has been from three years almost of talking about it.

619
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:52,660
You've got three ways to do it.

620
00:44:52,720 --> 00:44:54,060
One is legal.

621
00:44:54,060 --> 00:45:00,720
so you've got the whole legal system this this bit of meatspace technology that kind of it's

622
00:45:00,720 --> 00:45:06,180
that exists well it exists in the digital realm almost now but it's there and and it's like a

623
00:45:06,180 --> 00:45:11,400
an abstract power that you can you can use to protect your physical space that's number one

624
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:19,600
number two is you've got community so you've got the ability to get everyone on board with your

625
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:28,380
safe place that they all want to protect it. Right. And the third one is that, um, well,

626
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:35,600
in the case of a free city, um, you're, you're, you're making, everyone is making such, so

627
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:40,280
everyone, yeah, is that the community one? Everyone's making so much money, a bit like Venice,

628
00:45:40,420 --> 00:45:45,020
you know, Venice is, is such a, or somewhere like Dubai at the moment, no one's attacking Dubai

629
00:45:45,020 --> 00:45:48,420
because everyone that's living there is pretty good. And they're, they're all making money and

630
00:45:48,420 --> 00:45:53,960
they're all doing things and so you've got this kind of no one wants to be the person that attacks

631
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:59,120
this thing um everyone is makes a profit out of it right yes if we would attack it we would make a

632
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:04,660
loss yes exactly so you join the profit rather than the loss and you've got so you've got these

633
00:46:04,660 --> 00:46:09,680
three things you've got defending it you've got legally defending it and you've got the fact that

634
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:13,980
it doesn't need defending because no one wants to attack it but there's not much else i can think of

635
00:46:13,980 --> 00:46:18,700
There's no, you know, guns are all included in that, you know.

636
00:46:18,920 --> 00:46:23,060
And we've got an example of that right now happening in Prospera in Honduras.

637
00:46:23,220 --> 00:46:28,620
We've got this, and interestingly, and I don't know how much you know about what's going on over there at the moment.

638
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:34,120
I'm not sure about the very, very latest work, but the whole drama with the new opposition is.

639
00:46:34,120 --> 00:47:02,040
Well you be pleased to know that people over there are relatively hopeful and think that not only are the socialist well the socialist government are backed down and they already started spinning this new narrative that they managed to stop There were a number of things they stopped Basically they said that Prospera is illegitimate

640
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:06,500
and kind of backed themselves into a corner because at that point now they need to basically

641
00:47:06,500 --> 00:47:13,000
go in with guns and shut it down. That's what they do. They didn't. They didn't. And now they

642
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:18,560
started saying, well, we stopped the new occurrence of these places.

643
00:47:18,820 --> 00:47:24,660
So they're backtracking to that because they basically realized, obviously, that they couldn't do that.

644
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:27,300
And Prospera was using legal.

645
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:33,560
What they weren't using very well, I mean, legal was their big one, this treaty that they have,

646
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:38,840
which basically allows them to go to an international court,

647
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:43,340
and they ended up basically suing the Honduran government for an astronomical amount of money.

648
00:47:43,980 --> 00:47:47,080
So that kind of, that part of the plan worked.

649
00:47:47,180 --> 00:47:48,120
It seems to have worked.

650
00:47:48,420 --> 00:47:53,640
Where they weren't so strong was in the community,

651
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:57,220
because there was a lot of rumors spread about the whole thing.

652
00:47:57,300 --> 00:48:01,380
And there's so much misinformation that they didn't really get on top of.

653
00:48:01,420 --> 00:48:02,920
It's a very difficult one to get on top of.

654
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,660
And then, of course, there's the fact that, I mean,

655
00:48:05,660 --> 00:48:09,880
they've just had a massive new round of investment in there and in amongst all this so that people

656
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:14,180
realize the potential to make money so they're still they're still pumping money in but what's

657
00:48:14,180 --> 00:48:19,440
good about that situation is is if you can beat the socialist government and they're a proper

658
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:23,620
socialist government they're not like you know they're not like democratic socialists or whatever

659
00:48:23,620 --> 00:48:31,260
then that's a really good precedent that's just been set as far as i can tell and you know that's

660
00:48:31,260 --> 00:48:37,300
securing an independent place. And it's a small one as well. It's not like a vast place. There's

661
00:48:37,300 --> 00:48:42,280
hardly anyone there. And it would be a wonderful, wonderful precedent to be set.

662
00:48:42,940 --> 00:48:48,740
Yeah, absolutely. But as you say, it's a small place. It's only one place. It's not going to be

663
00:48:48,740 --> 00:48:55,240
enough. We need to decentralize, so to say, because the likelihood of any one physical

664
00:48:55,240 --> 00:49:01,540
location being compromised is there, right? It's not zero for sure. And so we need to have

665
00:49:01,540 --> 00:49:06,800
basically an evacuation plan, right? Because when in direct conflict with the state,

666
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:14,980
oftentimes de-escalation and evacuation is the more profitable way to go. Because either you can

667
00:49:14,980 --> 00:49:21,120
stand your ground and fight it out against tanks and missiles, right? And again, they print them

668
00:49:21,120 --> 00:49:26,180
faster than you could ever spend your own money on it. So a direct conflict with the state,

669
00:49:26,300 --> 00:49:31,780
the cards are not in your favor. Plus, you're wasting all of this time trying to destroy the

670
00:49:31,780 --> 00:49:37,900
other guy's tanks, when instead you could evacuate, pack up all your stuff, move to a new location

671
00:49:37,900 --> 00:49:42,920
that does not attack you, and then continue building. So instead of fighting a destructive

672
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:49,540
fight, we move on and continue creating something more beautiful. That is the frontiers minertitude,

673
00:49:49,540 --> 00:49:53,880
In fact, that's why America was founded, that exact thing.

674
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:58,480
I've often thought about this because I used to think I was a stay and fight guy.

675
00:49:58,780 --> 00:50:00,440
And I don't think I am now.

676
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:01,760
I've noticed that.

677
00:50:02,180 --> 00:50:13,340
And it's even as I've adopted more libertarian ideas that I've become the, there's a point where I go, okay, now I'm better off leaving and creating something new.

678
00:50:13,620 --> 00:50:17,800
But this is the problem because a lot of, this is what free cities are pretty much.

679
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:19,620
They're frontier cities.

680
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:20,660
They're frontier places.

681
00:50:21,180 --> 00:50:22,540
You need a frontier though.

682
00:50:23,140 --> 00:50:26,960
And frontiers currently don't really exist other than at sea.

683
00:50:27,100 --> 00:50:34,920
And seasteading is a phenomenal idea that may have a number of years still to go before the really influential things start happening.

684
00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:35,660
Or space.

685
00:50:36,180 --> 00:50:37,380
And space is coming.

686
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:39,860
And space will come.

687
00:50:40,020 --> 00:50:43,900
I'm not sure it's going to be something I'm going to jump on board straight away.

688
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:46,560
But these are the only frontiers left.

689
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:51,860
or what, Liberland, you know, or there's one in the desert of Chad, there's a bit of unclaimed

690
00:50:51,860 --> 00:50:55,880
land there, but no one wants to live there because it's so hot. Or there's Liberland,

691
00:50:55,960 --> 00:51:01,080
you know, in Serbia, Croatian border, you know. There is no frontiers. I mean, the internet was

692
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:06,620
a frontier. And that's why it was so free until now. They started to police it and they want to

693
00:51:06,620 --> 00:51:11,200
police this and they want to tell you what you can and can't look at in this new frontier, you know.

694
00:51:11,460 --> 00:51:16,240
So maybe we don't necessarily need a frontier. Maybe we just need a parallel

695
00:51:16,240 --> 00:51:22,800
space, the parallel economy that can be anywhere. Because regardless of where you are, regardless of

696
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:29,720
how much state intervention there is, there are groups of free men and women pushing their path

697
00:51:29,720 --> 00:51:36,680
forward, despite all of the intervention. The free market is anywhere. And so potentially,

698
00:51:36,680 --> 00:51:43,080
we don't really need to have this plot of land with our flag, where we stand strong on the hill.

699
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:50,000
because again that's that's quite a target maybe to go about it more subtly is at least in the

700
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:57,500
meantime until new frontiers open up or the old tyranny falls this parallel system seems for me to

701
00:51:57,500 --> 00:52:05,000
be the more actionably doable in the short run i think that's a common experience in totalitarian

702
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:10,480
places anyway yeah i've spoken to a lot of people you know in czech public and you know the kind of

703
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:16,460
alternative world that runs parallel to clown world, which is kind of what we have now. We have

704
00:52:16,460 --> 00:52:22,700
clown world and we have our kind of world where everyone knows everyone and there's transactions

705
00:52:22,700 --> 00:52:28,860
that can occur outside of that system and there's business that can be done. And, you know, that is

706
00:52:28,860 --> 00:52:34,320
something that's very commonly reported on in, you know, former socialist countries at the end.

707
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:37,780
there's this thing that they're saying on the TV

708
00:52:37,780 --> 00:52:40,300
and everyone's going, yes, yes, yes,

709
00:52:40,300 --> 00:52:41,640
and then no one's doing it

710
00:52:41,640 --> 00:52:44,240
when they're not being watched, I suppose.

711
00:52:44,620 --> 00:52:45,620
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

712
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:47,720
And that, of course, is risky

713
00:52:47,720 --> 00:52:49,060
because there are informants,

714
00:52:49,180 --> 00:52:50,660
there are mules, etc., right,

715
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:53,480
that try to subvert these underground movements

716
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:55,380
and very successfully so, right?

717
00:52:55,380 --> 00:52:56,280
This is not a new thing.

718
00:52:57,100 --> 00:52:58,440
The tyrants do have strategies

719
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:00,360
to go against this type of movement,

720
00:53:01,100 --> 00:53:03,420
but at least it's something, you know.

721
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:28,680
I don't know what. Yeah. I mean, do we have any examples, historical examples where people didn't amass together en masse like that? I mean, arguably, I suppose the digital nomad sort of revolution, which is a new thing because it's that's kind of who they are.

722
00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:34,480
they don't really have a state per se i mean ironically i went to a conference a digital

723
00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:39,120
conference recently and they were talking about that they were saying that as a as a group of

724
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:44,160
people we all should there's a couple of things that really unite us all and that's looking for

725
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:48,280
certain visas looking for a place to live you've got a good standard of living blah blah blah but

726
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:55,340
we as an we're not a nation you can't ring anyone up and say hey tell the digital nomads to do this

727
00:53:55,340 --> 00:53:57,160
because they could be a powerful group.

728
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:01,280
But I suppose they are one of the best examples of that,

729
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:03,040
the largest examples.

730
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:05,280
And they do feel an identity.

731
00:54:06,140 --> 00:54:09,040
Because then you've also got the kind of network stake type of people,

732
00:54:09,380 --> 00:54:12,320
but they're not as real to me.

733
00:54:12,980 --> 00:54:17,540
They don't appear to be doing it to the same degree as the digital nomads,

734
00:54:17,540 --> 00:54:20,880
who really are out there living in different cities,

735
00:54:21,240 --> 00:54:24,320
once every few months moving to another one

736
00:54:24,320 --> 00:54:28,240
because they're treated better or because it's a favorite place of theirs you know all that kind

737
00:54:28,240 --> 00:54:34,540
of stuff so yeah and here again like the internet really made this possible because we we like to

738
00:54:34,540 --> 00:54:40,200
have community right we want to continue working and continue talking to people to to get things

739
00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:46,980
done and without an instantaneous global transfer of information and not money with bitcoin this

740
00:54:46,980 --> 00:54:54,220
simply isn't possible so this idea of the digital nomad is a new and very exciting area of of

741
00:54:54,220 --> 00:54:56,340
design space for freedom fighters.

742
00:54:56,840 --> 00:55:01,240
It's also very costly to attack, the digital nomad.

743
00:55:01,460 --> 00:55:01,820
Exactly.

744
00:55:02,240 --> 00:55:07,420
And again, the de-escalation and evacuation is lived.

745
00:55:08,100 --> 00:55:12,840
As soon as someone makes you trouble, as soon as you have a bad gut feeling about the place,

746
00:55:13,180 --> 00:55:13,920
you just leave.

747
00:55:14,500 --> 00:55:18,100
As a nomad, the question of where do you want to wake up tomorrow?

748
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:24,160
You actually have to ask yourself that seriously, because you could literally wake up anywhere

749
00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:29,900
on this planet in the next 24 hours if you really wanted to right and and so why would you choose to

750
00:55:29,900 --> 00:55:36,560
wake up in a place where where you are in under fear and under attack and under extortion well

751
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:46,900
the reason is probably um to do with the reason why we stay long term anywhere family roots

752
00:55:46,900 --> 00:55:54,800
familiarity you know and these are all very strong things but but for example like i think bitcoin

753
00:55:54,800 --> 00:56:00,120
events are the perfect example because that feels to me like a family gathering right we all know

754
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:04,180
each other we've seen each other for many years we know each other's stories we want to help each

755
00:56:04,180 --> 00:56:09,000
other we don't see each other all the time but we actually see each other frequently right maybe

756
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:21,120
there a year or so in between but there people that i see like every every two weeks or something on the next conference well you bet you also see them online i mean exactly you feel i mean i i feel very

757
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:27,940
in touch with most people that i only see once every two years yeah because i i'm watching what

758
00:56:27,940 --> 00:56:33,400
they're saying publicly anyway exactly and privately then you get all the good stuff yeah

759
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:41,480
you know but you're yeah the yeah the digital nomad thing it's i'm gone you should say something

760
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:46,160
and and one super common objection is i i don't always want to move to a new place

761
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:53,060
and you really don't have to um digital nomadism works great if you have like i don't know two three

762
00:56:53,060 --> 00:56:59,540
four locations that you really like and you just travel in a circle from one to the next and you

763
00:56:59,540 --> 00:57:04,660
you know all the people there, you know the best restaurants, you know the nice spots in nature,

764
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:10,260
and you can build a relationship there across years. And sure, you're not there all the time,

765
00:57:10,940 --> 00:57:15,320
but that just means that when you are there, you actually want to experience the place to the

766
00:57:15,320 --> 00:57:24,500
fullest. And arguably, that is the free cities dream. And, you know, it's almost like what you're

767
00:57:24,500 --> 00:57:29,900
describing is the parallel universe of free cities. Exactly. We need a network. Within the

768
00:57:29,900 --> 00:57:35,380
network. Yeah. You're right, actually. I've never thought of it like that. It really is

769
00:57:35,380 --> 00:57:43,980
one form of it. I wonder what, or you might know this actually, is the state cottoning on to digital

770
00:57:43,980 --> 00:57:48,800
nomadism, digital nomadism in that sense? I know they went through a phase of really

771
00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:53,840
trying to attract them. And quite quickly, they retracted all that. They didn't really,

772
00:57:53,840 --> 00:57:57,920
lots of places went yeah come and then they were like no now we're going to tax you a lot of money

773
00:57:57,920 --> 00:58:04,600
really really quickly but there will probably come a time if people move carry on moving as freely as

774
00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:09,280
possible and these ideas become more prevalent because it's something that like i just came

775
00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:16,940
i'm not even a digital nomad dude i live in um you know like a house an old house in which we own

776
00:58:16,940 --> 00:58:19,500
and we're going to be there for a long time and blah blah blah and all this kind of stuff

777
00:58:19,500 --> 00:58:25,060
but when i knew that there was a i was coming to honey badger i didn't come for three days i booked

778
00:58:25,060 --> 00:58:31,820
it i booked like 10 10 days because i knew i could work from here yeah and the this is a latvia is

779
00:58:31,820 --> 00:58:37,380
cheap much cheaper than where i live so the actual cost is not that much different and i'm not even a

780
00:58:37,380 --> 00:58:43,520
digital nomad so youngsters coming through now i've got have got to sort of like cotton on to

781
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:49,080
this fact on the whole, unless you have a job which is very geographically specific,

782
00:58:49,560 --> 00:58:55,800
you have to stay site-specific or whatever, it would seem silly not to at least try that when

783
00:58:55,800 --> 00:59:05,060
you were young. But then, and the reason I know that it's a costly attack, costly to attack,

784
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:09,560
you know, to tax people, for example, who are digitally nomadic,

785
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:13,400
they're obviously going to try and clamp down on it.

786
00:59:13,820 --> 00:59:15,540
I mean, is that starting already?

787
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:16,500
Or have you noticed that?

788
00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:16,840
Yes.

789
00:59:16,960 --> 00:59:17,340
Absolutely.

790
00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:21,240
I mean, one extreme example is Ukraine, right?

791
00:59:21,480 --> 00:59:27,720
A war zone where the state warmongers want to get more slaves to die for them, ultimately.

792
00:59:28,240 --> 00:59:29,580
And so there's conscription, right?

793
00:59:29,580 --> 00:59:33,820
If you're a male adult, you're going to get drafted.

794
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:38,620
And so a lot of people fled this, obviously, and switched to the digital nomad life.

795
00:59:38,620 --> 00:59:41,080
but then Ukraine stopped

796
00:59:41,080 --> 00:59:42,820
reissuing new passports

797
00:59:42,820 --> 00:59:44,240
for people right so

798
00:59:44,240 --> 00:59:46,940
if your passport expires

799
00:59:46,940 --> 00:59:48,700
or your driver license expires or whatever

800
00:59:48,700 --> 00:59:51,240
you need to come back in order to do it

801
00:59:51,240 --> 00:59:53,060
right and then they kidnap you

802
00:59:53,060 --> 00:59:55,020
so that's a real thing

803
00:59:55,020 --> 00:59:55,620
right and

804
00:59:55,620 --> 00:59:58,580
could you in that moment

805
00:59:58,580 --> 01:00:00,820
claim refugee status somewhere

806
01:00:00,820 --> 01:00:01,260
do you think?

807
01:00:01,720 --> 01:00:03,960
probably not in the EU because they all support it

808
01:00:03,960 --> 01:00:04,540
right

809
01:00:04,540 --> 01:00:07,520
but do they support

810
01:00:07,520 --> 01:00:09,220
conscription, I suppose they do.

811
01:00:09,700 --> 01:00:11,680
Of course they do. And they're seriously

812
01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:13,560
thinking of adding this back in most European

813
01:00:13,560 --> 01:00:15,100
countries. Really? Yeah.

814
01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:17,540
Do you mean like, not in wartime,

815
01:00:17,680 --> 01:00:19,760
just you need to do, like in Israel,

816
01:00:19,860 --> 01:00:21,340
you have to do two years of

817
01:00:21,340 --> 01:00:23,660
military service or whatever. This used to be the

818
01:00:23,660 --> 01:00:25,540
case in Germany as well, like you have to

819
01:00:25,540 --> 01:00:27,740
go there for a year, then they stopped that, thankfully.

820
01:00:28,120 --> 01:00:29,560
Now they're thinking of doing it again.

821
01:00:29,660 --> 01:00:31,600
They will start in a voluntary way, and then if

822
01:00:31,600 --> 01:00:33,460
nobody signs up, which most likely will happen,

823
01:00:34,020 --> 01:00:35,500
they will say, no, you will have to.

824
01:00:35,500 --> 01:00:40,880
and and that's not wartime right and when wartime comes absolutely they're gonna draft their

825
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:44,920
citizens that's what they're there for that's what the whole prussian outcome-based system

826
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:49,860
literally was designed to do right to have obedient slaves that come to your calling and

827
01:00:49,860 --> 01:00:57,760
die for you on the front lines when you so choose god and you know every now and then i i i i'm from

828
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:06,060
on Twitter or something, or you see those horrendous videos from Ukraine or Russia.

829
01:01:06,660 --> 01:01:08,160
It's either one side or the other.

830
01:01:08,260 --> 01:01:10,820
They're kind of these weird semi-propaganda things,

831
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:13,440
which are basically drones killing people.

832
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:18,320
And it's the most depressing, you know,

833
01:01:18,420 --> 01:01:24,740
this bit of technology that costs probably a hundred bucks flying in

834
01:01:24,740 --> 01:01:26,940
to this guy on the floor who's just given up.

835
01:01:26,940 --> 01:01:32,020
he's smoking a cigarette and then it's just, I mean, this is what we've come to.

836
01:01:32,160 --> 01:01:37,160
This is, I know war has always been hell, but when you see it like that,

837
01:01:37,220 --> 01:01:42,540
it's absolutely despicably disgusting and horrendous, you know.

838
01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:45,640
Maybe that's actually great for us because in the past,

839
01:01:45,780 --> 01:01:47,380
bullets didn't have cameras attached.

840
01:01:47,700 --> 01:01:52,360
You didn't see that fear and devastation and mode of giving up on the victim.

841
01:01:52,920 --> 01:01:54,560
Now with drones, you actually do see it.

842
01:01:54,560 --> 01:02:01,260
And I hope that that brings back a little bit of humanity, because it's actually hard to kill someone with your bare hands.

843
01:02:01,780 --> 01:02:04,200
Not physically, but spiritually hard.

844
01:02:05,120 --> 01:02:06,900
With a sniper rifle, that's different.

845
01:02:08,440 --> 01:02:11,060
You're way more disattached from it.

846
01:02:11,860 --> 01:02:12,720
And I don't know.

847
01:02:13,040 --> 01:02:15,760
The thing with a drone is you can do it on the other side of the planet.

848
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:21,480
So there is a certain amount of physical separation, but at least you see the devastation coming close.

849
01:02:21,480 --> 01:02:39,500
Do you know what I heard the other day? I don't know who told me, but it was even more depressing was that apparently drones that are operated from base are under the threat of being intercepted with radio waves or whatever. I don't know how they control them.

850
01:02:39,500 --> 01:02:45,580
So the new thing was just pop an AI in it, an independent AI in it and send it off on its way.

851
01:02:46,120 --> 01:02:48,000
I mean, it just got even more depressing.

852
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:51,660
There's something out there that's job is to hunt you down.

853
01:02:51,720 --> 01:02:52,340
You could be anyone.

854
01:02:52,880 --> 01:02:56,800
It's going to try its hardest to kill the opposition, which is bad enough anyway.

855
01:02:56,800 --> 01:03:00,400
But you could just be some guy walking along the road mistaken.

856
01:03:01,080 --> 01:03:06,100
And that's, you know, that used to be something we would laugh about predicting.

857
01:03:06,100 --> 01:03:13,960
like you know this is skynet or i know it's not run by skynet but this is autonomous drones going

858
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:21,000
out and massacring people and slaughtering people this is this is like um this is like a

859
01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:31,300
this is disgusting and evil and oh i can't even i don't know yeah this tyranny sucks it's the

860
01:03:31,300 --> 01:03:32,300
It sucks so much.

861
01:03:32,380 --> 01:03:36,200
It's the abstract nature of it that's the most disturbing.

862
01:03:36,720 --> 01:03:40,140
I hate it when machines do things to living things.

863
01:03:40,300 --> 01:03:41,720
It really irks me.

864
01:03:41,840 --> 01:03:42,880
It really, because it's just this.

865
01:03:43,040 --> 01:03:44,320
Because someone designed that machine.

866
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:44,640
Yeah.

867
01:03:44,960 --> 01:03:45,240
Yeah.

868
01:03:45,480 --> 01:03:46,040
Do you know what?

869
01:03:46,420 --> 01:03:52,680
That's, I was really, when I was young, this is going to sound like a strange story, but I just came to mind then.

870
01:03:53,260 --> 01:03:59,740
When I was quite young, I used to go to the library and sometimes I used to sit in the library and just pull books off the library and just look at them.

871
01:03:59,740 --> 01:04:02,880
And I ended up looking through this agricultural book.

872
01:04:04,000 --> 01:04:08,520
And in it was, for the first time in my life, it was so disgusting.

873
01:04:08,740 --> 01:04:14,460
I saw a slaughter line of, you know, and it just, I wasn't ready for it at age, whatever, nine.

874
01:04:14,580 --> 01:04:25,060
And it was just like chickens hanging up on this thing, going through an automatic system of getting stunned, getting killed, getting their throats cut by a spinning blade.

875
01:04:25,560 --> 01:04:27,300
And I was so disgusted by it.

876
01:04:27,300 --> 01:04:30,040
I still to this day can't stop thinking about it.

877
01:04:30,080 --> 01:04:32,980
This is like 50 years ago.

878
01:04:33,200 --> 01:04:34,780
It's still something I think about.

879
01:04:35,480 --> 01:04:40,000
And it was that fact that someone, I thought that exact thing.

880
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:46,500
I thought somebody sat down on a drafts board, you know, drafting this machine.

881
01:04:46,880 --> 01:04:47,740
Optimizing it.

882
01:04:47,840 --> 01:04:48,700
That kills things.

883
01:04:49,500 --> 01:04:54,640
And they had to stay with it for all that time.

884
01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:59,340
you know because after things you know the spinning disc that cuts their throat doesn't

885
01:04:59,340 --> 01:05:06,680
always get it it misses slightly and just injures them and and i was like oh my god this is like what

886
01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:14,160
how do people do that this abstract force that you just send out into the world and it does your

887
01:05:14,160 --> 01:05:20,060
bidding and it doesn't know about emotion it doesn't know about doesn't care it doesn't do

888
01:05:20,060 --> 01:05:25,060
And that's where, you know, we're getting a long way down that route with humans now.

889
01:05:25,060 --> 01:05:30,060
There's a scary book that talks about exactly that called Ordinary Men.

890
01:05:30,060 --> 01:05:44,740
I know it Is it the people the Nazi Germany the people that killed were sent out to just kill people They were a regular police battalion basically civilians you know firefighters butchers whatever

891
01:05:45,940 --> 01:05:52,280
And they were created, ultimately, like, got the mission to, hey, we need to exterminate this village, right?

892
01:05:53,940 --> 01:06:01,500
And interestingly, on the very first order that was given, the general said, hey, if that's not for you, you can leave, right?

893
01:06:01,500 --> 01:06:06,940
and a couple people put up their hands and like hey i'm out and sure right you you can go nobody

894
01:06:06,940 --> 01:06:13,520
thinks worse of you you go to the kitchen i do whatever um and then they started killing right

895
01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:20,160
and and most people stopped the killing after a couple deaths like um and it's worth saying this

896
01:06:20,160 --> 01:06:26,700
was women and children as well this wasn't like soldiers this was take that woman over there and

897
01:06:26,700 --> 01:06:30,900
put a bullet in her head take this child over there and put a bullet in its head yeah

898
01:06:30,900 --> 01:06:33,500
and that just escalates

899
01:06:33,500 --> 01:06:34,620
and you get used to it

900
01:06:34,620 --> 01:06:36,600
and there's propaganda

901
01:06:36,600 --> 01:06:38,500
dehumanizing the victims etc

902
01:06:38,500 --> 01:06:40,760
like this is real

903
01:06:40,760 --> 01:06:42,840
I think also in that situation

904
01:06:42,840 --> 01:06:45,240
I can understand

905
01:06:45,240 --> 01:06:47,960
the emotion behind those guys

906
01:06:47,960 --> 01:06:49,920
if we're a band of brothers

907
01:06:49,920 --> 01:06:51,220
all on the same team

908
01:06:51,220 --> 01:06:53,260
and one of us says

909
01:06:53,260 --> 01:06:54,500
look we've got to do this

910
01:06:54,500 --> 01:06:58,100
you kind of default to your band of brothers

911
01:06:58,100 --> 01:06:58,760
right let's do it

912
01:06:58,760 --> 01:06:59,660
it's going to be horrible

913
01:06:59,660 --> 01:07:04,760
but let's do this you forget that this is a person you think we have got to do that we've

914
01:07:04,760 --> 01:07:11,700
got to suffer because you will you'll suffer intensely forever basically the person at least

915
01:07:11,700 --> 01:07:17,960
that you killed dies they don't carry that you know memory with them but i can understand the the

916
01:07:17,960 --> 01:07:25,420
the the power that drove those people to do that and then after you've done it once i can imagine

917
01:07:25,420 --> 01:07:28,220
that you could probably do it again.

918
01:07:28,500 --> 01:07:32,280
Once you've committed that, you know, that taboo,

919
01:07:32,680 --> 01:07:36,540
once you've done that taboo, it's like, whatever, bang, whatever, bang.

920
01:07:36,620 --> 01:07:39,020
Because same thing happens to me when I have something,

921
01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:40,560
when I have to resist something.

922
01:07:41,160 --> 01:07:43,800
I'm fine as long as I resist it forever.

923
01:07:44,480 --> 01:07:47,660
The moment I go, all right, just one, then it's 100.

924
01:07:48,220 --> 01:07:48,960
You know what I mean?

925
01:07:48,960 --> 01:07:54,580
Because you devalue that moral stance that you just took.

926
01:07:54,580 --> 01:08:01,040
and then you know obviously the killing of innocent people is the ultimate taboo i would

927
01:08:01,040 --> 01:08:09,580
have thought i don't know there may be more but but i don't know it's it's it really yeah it we

928
01:08:09,580 --> 01:08:15,680
really are entering some bizarre times the weird thing is many more people many more good people

929
01:08:15,680 --> 01:08:26,000
exist than bad many more i would i would hazard a guess it's like 95 5 99 1 i don't know and yet

930
01:08:26,000 --> 01:08:31,780
we still end up in this situation which is really bizarre we've got it we it's it's we're a we're a

931
01:08:31,780 --> 01:08:37,160
strange species yeah when you think about it i think there's there's some very small percentage

932
01:08:37,160 --> 01:08:43,760
of actual psychopaths people who who just don't have the empathy don't care they'll kill if they

933
01:08:43,760 --> 01:08:51,040
detail and are fine with it. And then there is a much larger percentage of people who get easily

934
01:08:51,040 --> 01:08:56,960
influenced by psychopaths and who do what they say, right? And who just need that authority to

935
01:08:56,960 --> 01:09:00,940
tell them, no, no, it's all right. You should do that. And that is a scary large percentage of

936
01:09:00,940 --> 01:09:07,540
number. And that's where propaganda becomes so dangerous because they're influenced by whatever

937
01:09:07,540 --> 01:09:15,800
propaganda is out there and then go with it. And I would say a very minority of people

938
01:09:15,800 --> 01:09:23,020
actually would resist a compelling psychopathic authority telling them to do bad stuff.

939
01:09:24,140 --> 01:09:26,940
Do you know what? Something I've been thinking a lot about recently.

940
01:09:27,880 --> 01:09:34,740
You know the meme that, oh, if you lived in Nazi Germany, you would have been a Nazi.

941
01:09:34,740 --> 01:10:03,680
There's quite a common meme, isn't it? And people like myself think, I won't do that. I wouldn't have done that. I would have been the guy defying it. And people say, yeah, but would you? Do you know what I'm noticing happening, which is absolutely crazy and bizarre, is when you look at the, um, the filification of Israel and Jewish people, I don't know whether you've noticed it, but it's becoming much more of a meme again.

942
01:10:03,680 --> 01:10:11,540
you know and when you look now you get to look at it as that person you really do like when you're

943
01:10:11,540 --> 01:10:18,900
online and you look at some propaganda saying you know something in the palestine israel and

944
01:10:18,900 --> 01:10:23,780
it's really pro-palestinian and it's showing israelis knocking on people's doors and

945
01:10:23,780 --> 01:10:31,060
you know and taking property and stuff like that that's the moment that you are now being tested

946
01:10:31,060 --> 01:10:38,120
as you know the that's the propaganda that's deciding whether you go oh they're the bad guys

947
01:10:38,120 --> 01:10:43,740
or they're the bad guys you know it's really interesting because i it you really do get to

948
01:10:43,740 --> 01:10:49,160
to test your your ability because i've noticed there's a there's a massive i don't know whether

949
01:10:49,160 --> 01:10:55,380
it's just on my social media or what but it's back the village the vilification of jewish people

950
01:10:55,380 --> 01:11:03,280
for example, appears to be back. There's lots of people coming out quite openly and saying this,

951
01:11:03,380 --> 01:11:06,840
that, and the other. And there may be truth in what they're saying. They may not. I don't really

952
01:11:06,840 --> 01:11:13,080
know. But what is happening is you're being offered an opportunity to vilify a whole group of people.

953
01:11:13,540 --> 01:11:19,040
And are you taking it? Do you know what I mean? It's absolutely fascinating because you think,

954
01:11:19,120 --> 01:11:22,780
when you think of it, when you think of things like, you know, Nazi Germany, you think, well,

955
01:11:22,780 --> 01:11:28,620
when's that ever going to happen to me right it's happening now it's happening in the the internet

956
01:11:29,340 --> 01:11:34,460
the internet is the nation in which that thing is happening what are you doing who are you you know

957
01:11:34,460 --> 01:11:40,300
it's it's unbelievable the times we're living through it really is bizarre what's going on you

958
01:11:40,300 --> 01:11:48,700
know but um yeah and and you know like it's it's it extends to to just regular like european

959
01:11:48,700 --> 01:11:55,460
nations right like because like we know that printing money is bad right um we know that

960
01:11:55,460 --> 01:12:00,540
using printed money is bad as well and whenever you pay someone with printed money you're continuing

961
01:12:00,540 --> 01:12:04,200
that kantion effect right you're stealing from all the people who received his newly created

962
01:12:04,200 --> 01:12:12,720
money after you um it's still we all do it right we we know that all the taxes go to fund wars and

963
01:12:12,720 --> 01:12:16,060
and pedophiles and whatnot, and we still do it, right?

964
01:12:16,380 --> 01:12:23,600
It's just a very easy excuse to keep proliferating this system of theft and slavery.

965
01:12:24,120 --> 01:12:27,280
And most people don't care, right?

966
01:12:27,320 --> 01:12:29,800
Most people don't care enough to do something about it.

967
01:12:30,380 --> 01:12:34,500
For most people, it's just way easier to just go along with the mainstream, right?

968
01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:37,320
And that includes radicals, right?

969
01:12:37,380 --> 01:12:39,280
Like, I mean, I'm pretty radical about this.

970
01:12:39,620 --> 01:12:41,360
I still use fiat sometimes, right?

971
01:12:41,360 --> 01:12:47,400
If you were really consistent about it, I could be much more radical.

972
01:12:48,140 --> 01:12:49,300
But it's hard, right?

973
01:12:49,460 --> 01:12:50,960
And not convenient.

974
01:12:52,260 --> 01:13:00,420
So there really is, it's hard to, when you're in it, to stop the bad things that you're doing.

975
01:13:00,700 --> 01:13:01,920
That's hard work.

976
01:13:03,020 --> 01:13:04,180
Convenience is the word.

977
01:13:04,180 --> 01:13:08,460
It's a really, it's the word of our time, isn't it?

978
01:13:08,520 --> 01:13:08,960
Convenience.

979
01:13:08,960 --> 01:13:13,960
It's like we are in the most convenient time in history, probably.

980
01:13:14,480 --> 01:13:18,040
I mean, you can literally sit here, press a button,

981
01:13:18,240 --> 01:13:21,760
and a car appears and takes you places or delivers food to you.

982
01:13:21,860 --> 01:13:24,080
I mean, we've gone...

983
01:13:24,080 --> 01:13:28,820
I get that probably if you look deep into the psyche of the human being,

984
01:13:28,900 --> 01:13:32,220
you realize that the desire for convenience is a good desire.

985
01:13:32,580 --> 01:13:35,160
It's the desire to save energy almost, isn't it?

986
01:13:35,160 --> 01:13:47,960
It's like, and when you're a Neanderthal, you don't, if someone, if there was a machine that killed, that killed wild animals, so you don't have to strangle them with your own arms, of course you're going to take it.

987
01:13:48,380 --> 01:13:50,820
But we've just created this world.

988
01:13:50,960 --> 01:13:53,100
We've gone, we've gone so far.

989
01:13:53,420 --> 01:13:56,520
I mean, I don't, I really don't know what, what the future holds anymore.

990
01:13:56,520 --> 01:14:05,280
I don't, I, I, I used to have a bunch of ideas about where we were going and there've been such radical changes recently in things like that.

991
01:14:05,320 --> 01:14:08,740
I mean, take convenience to its natural end.

992
01:14:09,500 --> 01:14:15,260
It's AI and robots basically doing everything for you.

993
01:14:15,320 --> 01:14:17,680
And at that point you have a choice.

994
01:14:18,040 --> 01:14:19,360
Do you let them?

995
01:14:19,900 --> 01:14:26,500
And what happens if they don't let you let them, you know, like, like what, where does it, you know, what's your, are you, are you a fan?

996
01:14:26,520 --> 01:14:31,940
fan of AI? I mean, do you even think AI is a thing? I know a lot of techie people who just say,

997
01:14:32,040 --> 01:14:38,460
look, it's good, but it's not what you think. I mean, AI is definitely a buzzword, right?

998
01:14:39,520 --> 01:14:46,540
If like we think, for example, with coding, the code that actually runs on the machine is called

999
01:14:46,540 --> 01:14:51,100
like assembly, right? It's just ones and zeros that come in. Humans cannot really read that.

1000
01:14:51,100 --> 01:14:59,980
So we use programming languages that compile into assembly and those programming languages are much more human readable.

1001
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:04,880
English words in there, right, with some weird syntax and stuff, and the semicolon has to be

1002
01:15:04,880 --> 01:15:09,700
exactly in the right place and this type of stuff. But ultimately, humans don't code in assembly.

1003
01:15:10,640 --> 01:15:16,140
And to a large extent, I think large language models are an extension of this, because now you

1004
01:15:16,140 --> 01:15:22,540
can code not in a programming language, but just English, like verbal, logical English,

1005
01:15:23,320 --> 01:15:27,660
compiles into source code now, and that compiles into assembly now.

1006
01:15:27,660 --> 01:15:34,540
so I think we've just walked up on the stack of making it easier to build code per se right if

1007
01:15:34,540 --> 01:15:40,920
so if we're looking at LLMs just for coding and that I think is incredible like even a bloke like

1008
01:15:40,920 --> 01:15:47,200
you and me can can now write code that that does something that we wanted to do so that's that's

1009
01:15:47,200 --> 01:15:52,160
really exciting especially because that now increases the number of people who can build

1010
01:15:52,160 --> 01:15:57,180
freedom tech right like I can build freedom tech now that's ridiculous I never really programmed

1011
01:15:57,180 --> 01:15:59,500
and I never wrote a line of code

1012
01:15:59,500 --> 01:16:01,760
other than like some little bash script

1013
01:16:01,760 --> 01:16:02,260
or whatever.

1014
01:16:02,480 --> 01:16:03,580
I just got a button in there for a second.

1015
01:16:03,880 --> 01:16:05,460
But that's not intelligence, is it?

1016
01:16:05,520 --> 01:16:07,800
Like you say, that's just coding.

1017
01:16:08,060 --> 01:16:08,200
Yeah.

1018
01:16:08,400 --> 01:16:09,460
Like all it is,

1019
01:16:09,560 --> 01:16:09,780
do you remember,

1020
01:16:09,900 --> 01:16:11,980
like I started my coding,

1021
01:16:12,080 --> 01:16:13,160
I'm not a coder at all,

1022
01:16:13,200 --> 01:16:13,940
but when I was young,

1023
01:16:14,000 --> 01:16:15,040
I coded in BASIC.

1024
01:16:15,300 --> 01:16:15,560
Do you remember?

1025
01:16:15,720 --> 01:16:16,040
I don't know,

1026
01:16:16,120 --> 01:16:17,480
are you old enough to know BASIC?

1027
01:16:17,600 --> 01:16:17,700
Yeah.

1028
01:16:18,040 --> 01:16:18,240
Right.

1029
01:16:18,640 --> 01:16:20,380
And I did it on a ZX Spectrum.

1030
01:16:20,460 --> 01:16:21,700
I don't know whether you know that computer.

1031
01:16:21,700 --> 01:16:25,580
It was like a 48K computer it was.

1032
01:16:25,580 --> 01:16:27,680
There was a 24K one and a 48K.

1033
01:16:27,680 --> 01:16:28,720
I had the 48K one.

1034
01:16:29,180 --> 01:16:32,520
But the point was that you were using a language

1035
01:16:32,520 --> 01:16:34,200
to make the computer do something.

1036
01:16:34,900 --> 01:16:37,420
So using English to make the computer do something

1037
01:16:37,420 --> 01:16:39,180
is not some crazy...

1038
01:16:39,180 --> 01:16:40,100
It just got more convenient.

1039
01:16:40,220 --> 01:16:40,660
Yeah, exactly.

1040
01:16:40,840 --> 01:16:42,560
But it's not even a crazy advancement.

1041
01:16:43,000 --> 01:16:47,580
It's basically just teaching a computer

1042
01:16:47,580 --> 01:16:50,880
to convert English to code.

1043
01:16:51,720 --> 01:16:51,800
Right.

1044
01:16:52,220 --> 01:16:54,820
So is that what you think AI is?

1045
01:16:54,820 --> 01:17:01,540
or is it bigger than that that's a big part of of the current technology and and i think the most

1046
01:17:01,540 --> 01:17:06,500
exciting one because like code is either correct or it isn't like either it compiles or there is a

1047
01:17:06,500 --> 01:17:12,340
bug you know so we can get really really good at optimizing the large language model to write great

1048
01:17:12,340 --> 01:17:20,120
code and so there was massive massive improvements in the last i know five years and it will basically

1049
01:17:20,120 --> 01:17:25,320
be perfect in the next five years like any code that you want to write you will get it from english

1050
01:17:25,320 --> 01:17:31,280
on the first shot all the time for basically free or like compute you reckon in five years yeah

1051
01:17:31,280 --> 01:17:37,620
absolutely absolutely we're almost already there like there's a website called shakespeare.xyz

1052
01:17:37,620 --> 01:17:45,140
or something or.diy whatever and it's a website with a chat interface and you type in whatever

1053
01:17:45,140 --> 01:17:51,480
nostre client you would like to develop and literally five minutes later you have a website

1054
01:17:51,480 --> 01:17:56,320
that people can use where they can log in with their private keys yeah then start posting messages

1055
01:17:56,320 --> 01:18:03,180
and whatever nuance you want right um that's that's here right and it costs you like i don't

1056
01:18:03,180 --> 01:18:10,080
know 10 bucks an hour to use it right for um and that will you know it's a buggy the software is

1057
01:18:10,080 --> 01:18:17,400
aren't perfect and but in in five years most maximum that your phone will be able to do it

1058
01:18:17,400 --> 01:18:23,400
i designed my own app it's already been designed but i just wanted to see i i wanted to see if it

1059
01:18:23,400 --> 01:18:30,080
could do it and it did i designed a calculator that that is basically an inter an interface for

1060
01:18:30,080 --> 01:18:35,660
private message uh private things i want so if you type the right code into the it looks like a

1061
01:18:35,660 --> 01:18:39,980
calculator and you can use it as a calculator but if you type a certain number in you get to

1062
01:18:39,980 --> 01:18:45,500
a bunch of you get to an encrypted box full of secret things and stuff and it did it pretty much

1063
01:18:45,500 --> 01:18:51,420
first time i had to change the ux a little bit but that is it is it is quite amazing that's wild

1064
01:18:51,420 --> 01:18:57,580
right and and then so on the other hand we have for example robotics right robotics made also in

1065
01:18:57,580 --> 01:19:03,280
the last five years in an insane amount of progress like if you look at robots five ten years ago they

1066
01:19:03,280 --> 01:19:09,540
could barely stand and keep themselves balanced right now they do backflips and cartwheels right

1067
01:19:09,540 --> 01:19:11,180
And they can run fast.

1068
01:19:11,940 --> 01:19:18,540
Now, they're still incredibly inefficient, consume an insane amount of electricity and all of this.

1069
01:19:19,200 --> 01:19:21,160
But in five years, they won't.

1070
01:19:21,720 --> 01:19:23,320
They will get extremely efficient.

1071
01:19:23,760 --> 01:19:24,740
We can engineer this.

1072
01:19:24,860 --> 01:19:26,120
Humans are really good engineers.

1073
01:19:26,660 --> 01:19:31,760
And we can engineer the killing machine to work like 99.999% of the time.

1074
01:19:32,320 --> 01:19:34,380
And the same will happen with robotics.

1075
01:19:34,380 --> 01:19:37,360
And then we put large language models into the robots.

1076
01:19:37,360 --> 01:19:39,760
and all of a sudden we can talk to them about anything

1077
01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:41,880
and have deep philosophical conversations

1078
01:19:41,880 --> 01:19:43,800
and they can code for you, right?

1079
01:19:45,280 --> 01:19:46,680
That's wild, right?

1080
01:19:46,980 --> 01:19:49,640
I'm not sure if that is artificial intelligence,

1081
01:19:50,200 --> 01:19:52,500
but I guess if you would ask any researcher

1082
01:19:52,500 --> 01:19:53,840
like 10, 20 years ago,

1083
01:19:54,060 --> 01:19:56,600
if we would have this in the future,

1084
01:19:56,700 --> 01:19:58,800
would you say that we have reached a singularity

1085
01:19:58,800 --> 01:20:00,500
in artificial intelligence or whatever?

1086
01:20:00,840 --> 01:20:01,920
They probably say yes,

1087
01:20:02,520 --> 01:20:03,500
but now that we're here,

1088
01:20:03,680 --> 01:20:05,820
doesn't really feel like it, right?

1089
01:20:05,820 --> 01:20:09,460
There's still a lot of stuff that isn't really there.

1090
01:20:10,820 --> 01:20:13,000
John Verveke is really good on this topic.

1091
01:20:13,180 --> 01:20:19,020
And I think one of the aspects that these AI models cannot do is have good taste.

1092
01:20:19,740 --> 01:20:22,720
To decide what to do and what not to do.

1093
01:20:23,120 --> 01:20:24,880
To make this value judgment.

1094
01:20:25,760 --> 01:20:28,320
They will do whatever you put on the input side.

1095
01:20:28,320 --> 01:20:30,960
It's just an algorithm that returns you an output.

1096
01:20:31,500 --> 01:20:33,740
But the question of what should I put in the input side?

1097
01:20:33,740 --> 01:20:56,500
Do you know what really helped me understand it was someone said, and I mean, somebody said, look, go on to the best AI you've got and ask it to generate a picture with all the clocks saying 20 past four or something.

1098
01:20:56,840 --> 01:21:03,040
And it comes back with a picture of all the clocks, but all the clocks are set to four o'clock.

1099
01:21:03,040 --> 01:21:12,680
And the reason is, is because most clocks on the internet are set at that time, because that's what looks best when you sell a watch, right?

1100
01:21:13,460 --> 01:21:16,480
So that shows you they have no understanding.

1101
01:21:16,900 --> 01:21:18,880
There's absolutely no understanding there at all.

1102
01:21:19,200 --> 01:21:24,880
It's purely what's most likely to be the correct answer to what I'm being told.

1103
01:21:25,780 --> 01:21:28,060
But I wouldn't say that's intelligence.

1104
01:21:28,520 --> 01:21:32,340
It's just incredible how far this goes if you scale it up.

1105
01:21:32,340 --> 01:21:42,200
I think that's the very surprising thing that researchers didn't really get of, hey, the simple prediction model, right, of what is the next word, what is the next pixel, right?

1106
01:21:42,960 --> 01:21:47,920
We just need to increase compute power in training, inference, and so on.

1107
01:21:48,740 --> 01:21:52,280
And we'll get outcomes that are surprisingly good.

1108
01:21:52,560 --> 01:21:54,440
But is that how intelligence works, do you think?

1109
01:21:54,440 --> 01:21:55,660
No, probably not, right?

1110
01:21:55,660 --> 01:21:56,780
But maybe it does.

1111
01:21:56,940 --> 01:21:57,620
I don't know, yeah.

1112
01:21:57,980 --> 01:21:58,180
Right?

1113
01:21:58,180 --> 01:22:03,860
And that's kind of the crazy thing of like you as a baby, you can learn language just by observing it.

1114
01:22:04,580 --> 01:22:06,720
And it seems likewise computers did that.

1115
01:22:06,820 --> 01:22:08,420
They just observed language.

1116
01:22:08,600 --> 01:22:09,920
They just observed pictures.

1117
01:22:10,520 --> 01:22:13,540
We didn't tell them this is the grammar written out.

1118
01:22:13,640 --> 01:22:14,580
These are the rules.

1119
01:22:15,040 --> 01:22:19,200
But there's a visceral feeling of understanding, isn't there, when you look at a picture.

1120
01:22:19,200 --> 01:22:25,420
there's a difference between generating a picture based on likelihoods and understanding

1121
01:22:25,420 --> 01:22:34,460
that's a fat cow or something you know and isn't there is there i don't know i don't know either

1122
01:22:34,460 --> 01:22:40,360
that's really deep questions i don't know well it would be sad to think that all we're doing

1123
01:22:40,360 --> 01:22:46,320
is when we're thinking and when we're conscious it's just like error correcting or you know like

1124
01:22:46,320 --> 01:22:53,180
it would it would be a sad insight into human intelligence i think to to think that it's like

1125
01:22:53,180 --> 01:22:58,200
a guessing game it's a bit like it's a bit like hashing in a way isn't it it's like you chuck as

1126
01:22:58,200 --> 01:23:05,840
much compute at something until the correct the correct result comes you know and the way you

1127
01:23:05,840 --> 01:23:12,180
understand the result is getting feedback from you know your teacher or something you know you know

1128
01:23:12,180 --> 01:23:12,680
I don't know.

1129
01:23:13,520 --> 01:23:16,960
Maybe we are really that brutal as a species

1130
01:23:16,960 --> 01:23:19,460
and there's nothing deeply, you know.

1131
01:23:19,480 --> 01:23:22,560
What is impressive is how energy efficient we do it.

1132
01:23:23,340 --> 01:23:24,560
That really is something.

1133
01:23:24,660 --> 01:23:27,060
If you compare the energy consumption of the human brain

1134
01:23:27,060 --> 01:23:30,420
and of like an AI supercomputer GPU cluster,

1135
01:23:30,920 --> 01:23:32,280
it's insane.

1136
01:23:32,280 --> 01:23:36,240
Like these machines are so, so, so inefficient at the moment

1137
01:23:36,240 --> 01:23:39,440
that there's no short-term path

1138
01:23:39,440 --> 01:23:42,000
where we can get to the same efficiency as the brain

1139
01:23:42,000 --> 01:23:43,280
anytime soon for sure.

1140
01:23:43,300 --> 01:23:45,660
Do we know how the brain computes?

1141
01:23:46,100 --> 01:23:47,320
Is it something like quantum?

1142
01:23:47,660 --> 01:23:50,280
Sorry, something like, what's it called?

1143
01:23:50,340 --> 01:23:52,320
What's the next iteration of computers,

1144
01:23:52,440 --> 01:23:53,760
the one that everyone says is going to break?

1145
01:23:54,280 --> 01:23:55,080
Quantum computing?

1146
01:23:55,260 --> 01:23:56,040
Is it quantum computing?

1147
01:23:56,160 --> 01:23:56,300
Yeah.

1148
01:23:56,840 --> 01:23:58,200
Is that how we think then?

1149
01:23:58,580 --> 01:23:59,040
Is that?

1150
01:23:59,160 --> 01:23:59,760
I'm not sure.

1151
01:24:01,220 --> 01:24:02,540
Certainly not how I think.

1152
01:24:02,660 --> 01:24:03,920
My brain's all over the place.

1153
01:24:05,620 --> 01:24:06,440
I don't know.

1154
01:24:06,440 --> 01:24:09,640
Yeah, I'm, I, at the moment,

1155
01:24:09,640 --> 01:24:16,580
And like I say, my theory at the moment is AI is intelligent if that's how we think.

1156
01:24:16,980 --> 01:24:28,780
If that literally we just don know it that we are way advanced down the line but the human mind began life in the same way Like you imagine language began like that

1157
01:24:28,860 --> 01:24:30,860
You and me have no language between us.

1158
01:24:31,060 --> 01:24:36,880
So what we do is we make sounds to each other and we look for the response to see whether it works.

1159
01:24:37,000 --> 01:24:44,020
So if I do that or if I'm like pointing and you move that way, I think, all right, that's pointing because it works.

1160
01:24:44,020 --> 01:24:50,680
and and and and you know ai is kind of the same right it's it's looking at everything that's ever

1161
01:24:50,680 --> 01:24:58,900
been done and from that predicting what should happen next according it according to to you know

1162
01:24:58,900 --> 01:25:07,540
like what it's computing you know like so maybe maybe yeah maybe we're just really simple beings

1163
01:25:07,540 --> 01:25:13,380
you know yeah might might well be but i think out of simplicity comes a lot of beautiful complexity

1164
01:25:13,380 --> 01:25:20,040
on top and so there's not there's not much nuance if you zoom in close enough right like dna

1165
01:25:20,040 --> 01:25:24,480
turns out to be super simple building blocks but what you can do with it is wild

1166
01:25:24,480 --> 01:25:31,900
yeah i don't i i'm i'm i'm at a loss with all that stuff something i wanted to talk about actually

1167
01:25:31,900 --> 01:25:38,020
and you almost certainly already know this um but i discovered this for the first time

1168
01:25:38,020 --> 01:25:45,320
yesterday and it really blew my mind um i was supposed to be interviewing a jacomo zuko

1169
01:25:45,320 --> 01:25:52,280
yesterday but he he didn't turn up whatever but i did some research to to sort of i was thinking

1170
01:25:52,280 --> 01:25:55,180
what we're going to talk about because i want to talk about freedom and he'd done a really

1171
01:25:55,180 --> 01:26:02,460
interesting talk about freedom for plan b forum and he explained something to me on this video

1172
01:26:02,460 --> 01:26:05,000
that I'd never heard of before.

1173
01:26:05,500 --> 01:26:10,140
And it was to do with the Lockean theory of ownership.

1174
01:26:10,480 --> 01:26:13,400
So John Locke says, you know, like homesteading,

1175
01:26:13,460 --> 01:26:18,620
if you go to a place, a frontier, that's not owned, let's say,

1176
01:26:18,740 --> 01:26:20,780
it's just nature, it's just nothing, whatever,

1177
01:26:21,160 --> 01:26:24,200
and you add your labor, it becomes your property, right?

1178
01:26:24,340 --> 01:26:26,200
You know about this, obviously, right?

1179
01:26:26,200 --> 01:26:36,620
now bitcoin's basically the most perfect example of that you have and i i can't believe i've lived

1180
01:26:36,620 --> 01:26:43,580
this long and not thought that thought that you have the miner basically has this frontier of

1181
01:26:43,580 --> 01:26:53,560
nothing adds work creates the bitcoin and the bitcoin is property yeah that's amazing like how

1182
01:26:53,560 --> 01:26:55,200
Why did no one ever tell me that before?

1183
01:26:55,440 --> 01:27:03,200
That's the best way to explain proof of work and ownership and why Bitcoin is perfect ownership.

1184
01:27:04,540 --> 01:27:11,320
And I think on top of that, similar applies actually to private keys, which I think is even more mind-blowing.

1185
01:27:11,740 --> 01:27:13,840
Because the private key is just a number.

1186
01:27:14,060 --> 01:27:15,560
It's literally a number.

1187
01:27:17,200 --> 01:27:18,400
Numbers are not scarce.

1188
01:27:18,400 --> 01:27:22,540
If I tell you number 4729, I didn't lose it.

1189
01:27:22,700 --> 01:27:23,320
I didn't give up.

1190
01:27:23,320 --> 01:27:30,360
control over it. You got a copy. So there is not really ownership in ideas. Stefan Kinsella

1191
01:27:30,360 --> 01:27:35,540
is fantastic on this. His book Against Intellectual Property, great read. So he's basically saying

1192
01:27:35,540 --> 01:27:40,220
ideas are not scarce. Therefore, we don't need to allocate our resources because we can just

1193
01:27:40,220 --> 01:27:45,420
copy it. Therefore, we don't need property rights. Therefore, there is no exchange. There is no IP.

1194
01:27:46,420 --> 01:27:47,520
With ideas, though.

1195
01:27:47,520 --> 01:27:48,700
With ideas specifically.

1196
01:27:49,300 --> 01:27:53,500
And that idea includes the number, whatever your private key is.

1197
01:27:54,380 --> 01:27:57,360
And that's what my new book actually is about.

1198
01:27:58,160 --> 01:28:11,540
That when the ideas itself cannot have property rights, but access control or coordination of these ideas, there are scarce aspects in here.

1199
01:28:11,540 --> 01:28:17,980
like if I have a secret like my private key right then I can exclude you from knowing this private

1200
01:28:17,980 --> 01:28:24,340
key by not telling you the secret right so there is a a rivalrousness either you know it or you

1201
01:28:24,340 --> 01:28:29,600
don't and it's all in my hands because I'm the only one who knows the secret that is a scarce

1202
01:28:29,600 --> 01:28:35,820
aspect and that behaves like a property right right like if you would hit me with a five dollar

1203
01:28:35,820 --> 01:28:42,700
wrench until I give you the secret, then ultimately that would be unjust acquiring of the access

1204
01:28:42,700 --> 01:28:48,820
right to this information with physical coercion on top of that. But ultimately, you're trying to

1205
01:28:48,820 --> 01:28:52,720
get something that I don't want to give you. And so that's a violation in property rights.

1206
01:28:53,220 --> 01:28:58,760
So I actually think we homestead not just land on the frontier, not just Bitcoin as a miner.

1207
01:28:58,760 --> 01:29:02,200
I think we actually homestead private keys as well.

1208
01:29:03,160 --> 01:29:10,860
And then we do have the power to open up what we've homesteaded and make it a public good simply by telling others about it.

1209
01:29:11,400 --> 01:29:13,680
And then the secret becomes worthless.

1210
01:29:14,600 --> 01:29:22,780
A secret is worth a lot if it's only kept in the mind of one person because then he has exclusive ownership of it.

1211
01:29:22,780 --> 01:29:28,900
but when it is shared with others and then some things that we could do before are no longer valid

1212
01:29:28,900 --> 01:29:34,040
specifically in cryptography like if i am the only one who knows my nostril private key i can make a

1213
01:29:34,040 --> 01:29:40,880
post and you can be very sure that this comes from me if i would send my private key to someone else

1214
01:29:40,880 --> 01:29:47,180
all of a sudden you no longer have these assurances so when we are in this uniquely homesteaded

1215
01:29:47,180 --> 01:29:53,260
concept of private keys and ideas specifically where only one person knows them, a secret,

1216
01:29:53,260 --> 01:29:59,340
then cryptography works. And as soon as we have the drone flying over you as you're making your

1217
01:29:59,340 --> 01:30:08,480
backup, that's where it breaks apart. What blew my mind about what Giacomo said, though, was that

1218
01:30:08,480 --> 01:30:17,240
it implies that john locke's theories of ownership on are real are naturally a real are a real

1219
01:30:17,240 --> 01:30:23,940
naturally occurring thing because in the digital world of bitcoin the only way to create private

1220
01:30:23,940 --> 01:30:30,700
property is to add your work to it isn't it yeah that's that that's literally blown my mind

1221
01:30:30,700 --> 01:30:37,120
because when i when you think about you know like i mean john locke's theories have given rise to

1222
01:30:37,120 --> 01:30:43,840
property right legal spiel all over the world really haven't they and and but when i when i

1223
01:30:43,840 --> 01:30:48,400
thought about it before i thought this is just a guy this is a philosopher who's had some ideas

1224
01:30:48,400 --> 01:30:53,980
and it's become part of um you know the way we the way we'd work and the way we do business and

1225
01:30:53,980 --> 01:30:59,700
the way we have contracts and all this kind of stuff but the truth is his theories on property

1226
01:30:59,700 --> 01:31:06,840
are like physics they just exist that's amazing mate that's absolutely amazing

1227
01:31:06,840 --> 01:31:24,640
That's why I'm such a huge fan of praxeology, right? Because it's evident, it's self-evident, right? We assume a couple things, like we assume humans act. That was Mises' grand assumption, like the axiom, the action axiom of humans act purposefully, right?

1228
01:31:24,640 --> 01:31:30,400
we have a problem and then we strategize on how can we allocate our resources available now

1229
01:31:30,400 --> 01:31:35,660
so that the problem is gone in the future. And then we act and we manifest a temporal change

1230
01:31:35,660 --> 01:31:40,020
of solving a problem that we have, not just for us, also for others, right?

1231
01:31:41,080 --> 01:31:48,380
If from the starting point, we can deduce a bunch of stuff on top, right? And so Mises went

1232
01:31:48,380 --> 01:31:54,640
incredibly far with deducing economic reason out of a simple axiom of humans act purposefully

1233
01:31:54,640 --> 01:32:00,820
and and and then we get property rights right that's that's the thing like i have own self

1234
01:32:00,820 --> 01:32:06,920
ownership is is a conclusion of of this very obvious starting point and the thing is it's a

1235
01:32:06,920 --> 01:32:13,140
self-evident starting point like if you would tell me that hey i am not acting like i cannot

1236
01:32:13,140 --> 01:32:18,360
act right now right i'm not acting purposefully well you're just forming the words right that's

1237
01:32:18,360 --> 01:32:22,120
that actually tried to convince me that you're not acting purposefully,

1238
01:32:22,160 --> 01:32:23,340
but that itself is an action.

1239
01:32:23,340 --> 01:32:27,800
So it's this tautology where you cannot really deny it.

1240
01:32:28,820 --> 01:32:32,380
Hoppe added on top of this the axiom of argumentation,

1241
01:32:32,580 --> 01:32:36,280
and also quite similar of humans have the ability to, with reason,

1242
01:32:36,640 --> 01:32:42,000
come to the truth and to argue and to try to convince the other person of that sad truth.

1243
01:32:42,700 --> 01:32:46,680
And from this point, Hoppe argues that we can actually deduce an ethics.

1244
01:32:46,680 --> 01:32:52,280
and he comes to the conclusion that property rights are not just a value-free logic from

1245
01:32:52,280 --> 01:32:59,840
action. It's inherent in saying basically what ought not to be done. So you shall not steal

1246
01:32:59,840 --> 01:33:07,460
is a objective rationale, a response or like a conclusion from the action axiom and the

1247
01:33:07,460 --> 01:33:14,860
argumentation axiom both applied. And then what I think the third addition to this trilogy of

1248
01:33:14,860 --> 01:33:18,620
axioms is from Eric Voskule, a contemporary economist and

1249
01:33:18,620 --> 01:33:22,920
bitcoiner, who introduces the axiom

1250
01:33:22,920 --> 01:33:26,540
of resistance. Meaning a system can be designed

1251
01:33:26,540 --> 01:33:30,940
to resist external control. We can

1252
01:33:30,940 --> 01:33:34,380
have a system that, and if the user

1253
01:33:34,380 --> 01:33:37,220
resists the attacker, he will be secure.

1254
01:33:38,640 --> 01:33:56,200
And that allows us to build technologies that enshrine this property right in reality in an unfuckwithable way Cryptography is perfect If you resist the attacker and you do not share your private key

1255
01:33:56,720 --> 01:34:02,980
then encryption is secure and bulletproof and cannot be violated. And so all of these three

1256
01:34:02,980 --> 01:34:08,740
things together, I would say, is a proof that freedom exists. Freedom is a good thing. And we

1257
01:34:08,740 --> 01:34:15,960
can engineer freedom into existence. And that's wonderful. That's amazing, mate. I mean, that's,

1258
01:34:17,540 --> 01:34:25,500
I'm just astonished that I kind of only just having these thoughts that even that the idea

1259
01:34:25,500 --> 01:34:35,060
of property rights might be as natural as one plus one equals two. You know, like it's encoded

1260
01:34:35,060 --> 01:34:38,400
into the framework within which we live.

1261
01:34:38,400 --> 01:34:44,500
And you know, it's really interesting because I had a great discussion with a space scientist

1262
01:34:44,500 --> 01:34:50,720
about a year ago, and we were talking about Mars.

1263
01:34:50,720 --> 01:34:54,120
And when you get to Mars, who's going to own Mars?

1264
01:34:54,120 --> 01:34:55,120
Because it's true.

1265
01:34:55,120 --> 01:34:58,760
Who's going to own, when Elon gets to Mars, who's going to own?

1266
01:34:58,760 --> 01:35:05,380
And the UN in the 60s came up with an agreement that nobody owns Mars.

1267
01:35:05,380 --> 01:35:09,140
In fact, they said nobody owns the universe, I think, outside of the Earth.

1268
01:35:09,140 --> 01:35:11,000
Typical communists, right?

1269
01:35:11,000 --> 01:35:13,000
It's like they do, right?

1270
01:35:13,000 --> 01:35:19,200
But the truth is, and he said this, he said, look, it's the John Lockean principle.

1271
01:35:19,200 --> 01:35:22,940
If you get to Mars first and you build a city, of course it's yours.

1272
01:35:22,940 --> 01:35:25,880
You know, it's not anyone else's.

1273
01:35:25,880 --> 01:35:27,880
That's theft.

1274
01:35:27,880 --> 01:35:38,880
But it was just really mind-blowing to realize yesterday morning that this isn't some made-up idea.

1275
01:35:39,300 --> 01:35:42,660
This is an idea that has been discovered.

1276
01:35:43,220 --> 01:35:47,960
It's like a bit of physics that got discovered or a bit of math theory that got discovered.

1277
01:35:47,960 --> 01:35:49,460
It was always there.

1278
01:35:49,720 --> 01:35:52,880
We didn't just really know how to phrase it and how to look at it.

1279
01:35:52,880 --> 01:36:01,540
And then some guys just come and put the reality into verbal thoughts that just make sense, that adequately describe it.

1280
01:36:01,540 --> 01:36:11,020
Well, in the case of property rights, the digital realm offers you the possibility to create like the purest form of property.

1281
01:36:11,560 --> 01:36:16,160
Because property is quite an intangible thing, really, isn't it?

1282
01:36:16,160 --> 01:36:18,440
When you actually talk about what is yours.

1283
01:36:18,440 --> 01:36:26,380
but in in the digital realm property is a very specific thing and i'm not even sure

1284
01:36:26,380 --> 01:36:34,800
that that say take bitcoin for example bitcoin's not property really but your ability to access it

1285
01:36:34,800 --> 01:36:39,240
is the property exactly you know what i mean yeah but what is that what what is that that's like well

1286
01:36:39,240 --> 01:36:43,160
in my book i call it coordination just make me what's your book i didn't know you had a new book

1287
01:36:43,160 --> 01:36:45,560
Is it written and published already?

1288
01:36:45,800 --> 01:36:47,140
Well, kind of.

1289
01:36:47,460 --> 01:36:49,360
So it's called The Praxeology of Privacy.

1290
01:36:50,460 --> 01:36:54,680
And the idea of the book is to bridge Austrian economics,

1291
01:36:55,020 --> 01:36:59,380
Praxeology, with cypherpunks, cryptoanarchy, and privacy,

1292
01:36:59,640 --> 01:37:00,740
and to make that synthesis.

1293
01:37:00,940 --> 01:37:03,400
Because I first fell down the Austrian rabbit hole.

1294
01:37:03,680 --> 01:37:05,440
I'm an economist first and foremost.

1295
01:37:06,720 --> 01:37:10,720
Later, I discovered software and freedom tech and technologies.

1296
01:37:10,720 --> 01:37:13,900
And that turned me into a cypherpunk.

1297
01:37:14,540 --> 01:37:21,540
And so I would like to bridge that gap and to show that there is incredible support between those two ways of thought.

1298
01:37:22,640 --> 01:37:31,020
So far that privacy, Mises, Hoppe, Voskule, they assume privacy to be the case.

1299
01:37:31,500 --> 01:37:38,640
If you want to act purposefully, you need to have a private space for your mind to come up with your decisions.

1300
01:37:39,340 --> 01:37:45,160
If that private space is not there, then we don't have purposeful action, actually.

1301
01:37:45,440 --> 01:37:46,540
Things turn into behavior.

1302
01:37:47,180 --> 01:37:53,720
If someone else can spy on you and see what you're thinking, and he can interfere with you before you make your decisions,

1303
01:37:54,100 --> 01:37:57,280
then you're no longer for yourself deciding on how to act.

1304
01:37:57,280 --> 01:38:00,460
You're behaving according to someone else who has told you.

1305
01:38:01,240 --> 01:38:07,160
And so action, argumentation, resistance, they presuppose that privacy exists.

1306
01:38:07,160 --> 01:38:10,940
and I think that's a powerful realization.

1307
01:38:11,840 --> 01:38:13,240
And then on top of that,

1308
01:38:13,300 --> 01:38:17,600
we can actually build systems of interaction

1309
01:38:17,600 --> 01:38:20,100
both in meatspace as well as in cyberspace

1310
01:38:20,100 --> 01:38:23,140
that follow economic reasoning,

1311
01:38:23,280 --> 01:38:24,340
that follow economic laws.

1312
01:38:25,140 --> 01:38:27,540
So like for example homesteading a private key

1313
01:38:27,540 --> 01:38:30,020
to the later use to encrypt your communication.

1314
01:38:30,500 --> 01:38:33,820
You're not claiming ownership in the number itself

1315
01:38:33,820 --> 01:38:36,840
but you're claiming ownership in the access right

1316
01:38:36,840 --> 01:38:39,100
to that information.

1317
01:38:39,100 --> 01:38:42,900
And so this opens up a large amount of coordination markets

1318
01:38:42,900 --> 01:38:45,380
that I think in traditional Austrian literature

1319
01:38:45,380 --> 01:38:48,100
has been dreadfully underdeveloped.

1320
01:38:48,380 --> 01:38:50,240
Stefan Kinsella's Against Intellectual Property

1321
01:38:50,240 --> 01:38:53,840
is probably the main book that covers this quite well.

1322
01:38:54,980 --> 01:38:57,640
And then the cypherpunks are not bullish enough.

1323
01:38:58,220 --> 01:39:01,200
They don't understand of how fundamentally,

1324
01:39:01,640 --> 01:39:03,600
deeply correct they are

1325
01:39:03,600 --> 01:39:05,440
and the technologies that they build are.

1326
01:39:05,440 --> 01:39:13,880
so we need that bridge that's the book privacy and property it was almost like privacy is the

1327
01:39:13,880 --> 01:39:20,060
that's why it's called privacy is the property privacy is the property though isn't it yeah it's

1328
01:39:20,060 --> 01:39:28,400
like the the property isn't the thing it's the access to the thing and deciding what to do with

1329
01:39:28,400 --> 01:39:32,940
And privacy is kind of stopping people having access.

1330
01:39:33,200 --> 01:39:34,340
Yeah, exactly.

1331
01:39:35,400 --> 01:39:40,060
Eric Hughes defines privacy as the ability to selectively reveal yourself to the world.

1332
01:39:41,080 --> 01:39:41,980
That's a choice.

1333
01:39:42,500 --> 01:39:46,020
That's you choosing what to say when and to whom.

1334
01:39:46,120 --> 01:39:51,980
Do you think that anything to do with the reason why privacy is such a bad word at the moment?

1335
01:39:51,980 --> 01:39:55,980
Do you think that's anything to do with people trying to...

1336
01:39:55,980 --> 01:39:58,940
So, of course it is.

1337
01:39:59,360 --> 01:40:01,900
That's the communism versus individualism.

1338
01:40:02,040 --> 01:40:03,440
That's the battle that goes on.

1339
01:40:03,560 --> 01:40:04,800
It's private versus public.

1340
01:40:04,920 --> 01:40:05,640
Yes, it is.

1341
01:40:05,860 --> 01:40:08,760
A private, sovereign individual versus the public common good.

1342
01:40:08,860 --> 01:40:09,180
Yes.

1343
01:40:09,640 --> 01:40:14,020
This is fundamental at the pivot point between freedom and slavery.

1344
01:40:14,280 --> 01:40:15,520
A slave does not have privacy.

1345
01:40:16,380 --> 01:40:19,240
A slave has to tell the master what he has done.

1346
01:40:19,240 --> 01:40:21,380
Otherwise, he gets whipped until he tells him.

1347
01:40:22,960 --> 01:40:24,540
It's fundamental, isn't it?

1348
01:40:24,560 --> 01:40:25,820
It is extremely fundamental.

1349
01:40:25,820 --> 01:40:30,440
But it's probably as old as we are as well.

1350
01:40:30,520 --> 01:40:34,440
And it's probably a cycle that will continue forever.

1351
01:40:35,120 --> 01:40:37,660
It's just what side are you on, isn't it?

1352
01:40:37,740 --> 01:40:38,560
It's like, who are you?

1353
01:40:38,940 --> 01:40:42,920
Are you the collectivist or are you the individualist?

1354
01:40:43,760 --> 01:40:43,880
Yeah.

1355
01:40:44,680 --> 01:40:50,140
And again, I think it's just clearly articulating these everlasting truths

1356
01:40:50,140 --> 01:40:55,720
and seeing if this is actually a correct articulation thereof.

1357
01:40:55,820 --> 01:41:01,380
and then adjusting your behavior to be in accordance with what we know to be true.

1358
01:41:02,200 --> 01:41:07,080
And I'm pretty convinced at this point that property is a thing.

1359
01:41:07,780 --> 01:41:09,060
Like you own yourself.

1360
01:41:09,300 --> 01:41:09,740
It is.

1361
01:41:10,120 --> 01:41:10,460
It is.

1362
01:41:10,460 --> 01:41:14,700
I think cryptography and Bitcoin proved it.

1363
01:41:15,260 --> 01:41:16,460
It's proven.

1364
01:41:16,820 --> 01:41:21,940
And it's also proven that the way to create property is to add work to it.

1365
01:41:22,820 --> 01:41:23,780
Proof of work.

1366
01:41:24,160 --> 01:41:25,160
It's so amazing.

1367
01:41:25,160 --> 01:41:33,940
It's so amazing that someone in the 17, John Locke's like 1700s or something, realized this.

1368
01:41:34,520 --> 01:41:40,520
Because he didn't have a kind of, I mean, all he had was what it felt like in real life.

1369
01:41:40,660 --> 01:41:41,280
That's mine.

1370
01:41:41,560 --> 01:41:51,060
Because it's not intuitive to think that just because I add my labor to this piece of land, it's now mine.

1371
01:41:51,460 --> 01:41:54,580
I suppose it becomes more intuitive when someone comes to take it.

1372
01:41:54,580 --> 01:41:56,500
And they're like, what did you do?

1373
01:41:56,600 --> 01:41:59,340
Well, I'm now just, this is a separate thing.

1374
01:41:59,420 --> 01:42:00,600
I'm now just bigger than you.

1375
01:42:01,180 --> 01:42:06,100
This is, the land is now mine, not because I toiled on the land, but because I'm bigger than you.

1376
01:42:07,040 --> 01:42:13,440
And it's, yeah, my mind is, my mind, it's just been blown a bit more, actually.

1377
01:42:13,640 --> 01:42:17,040
It was, I don't think, I thought about it yesterday and I thought, that's incredible.

1378
01:42:17,220 --> 01:42:22,480
I'm just realizing now it's deeply incredible that as an understanding.

1379
01:42:22,800 --> 01:42:23,280
Yeah.

1380
01:42:23,280 --> 01:42:27,380
Yeah. And it's a difficult understanding to reach and it's easy to make mistakes there.

1381
01:42:27,560 --> 01:42:29,960
Like Locke made a lot of mistakes, right?

1382
01:42:30,480 --> 01:42:32,220
Menger cleaned up some of his mistakes.

1383
01:42:32,340 --> 01:42:35,000
Like Locke still assumed that value is intrinsic to the good itself.

1384
01:42:35,380 --> 01:42:37,140
So did Adam Smith, right?

1385
01:42:37,200 --> 01:42:42,440
Like actual Marxism is in line with Adam Smith's thoughts, basically.

1386
01:42:43,100 --> 01:42:48,480
Like Adam Smith made mistakes that if consequentially applied leads to Marxism, ultimately, right?

1387
01:42:48,740 --> 01:42:52,200
So that's where Carl Menger comes in with subjective individualism, right?

1388
01:42:52,200 --> 01:42:57,200
or subjective value theory and individualism as a methodology.

1389
01:42:58,540 --> 01:43:02,120
And still, Menger made mistakes that Mises fixed,

1390
01:43:02,120 --> 01:43:14,900
in terms of time preference for example Rothbard makes mistakes or Rothbard fixes some of the inconsistency of mises like mises was still a statist right rothbard is is way more radical in in his anarchism

1391
01:43:14,900 --> 01:43:19,860
right and and rothbard makes mistakes that that hoppy fixes and hoppy makes mistakes that that

1392
01:43:19,860 --> 01:43:27,540
voskiel fixes and so on um it's really really difficult to to come up with with a proper actually

1393
01:43:27,540 --> 01:43:34,380
correct statement but it's not impossible and you might not have a fully correct magnum magnus open

1394
01:43:34,380 --> 01:43:39,720
theory but but some parts of those are correct and then you just have to be careful to to not

1395
01:43:39,720 --> 01:43:44,840
apply the mistakes continuously right which which certainly happens and will probably lead to some

1396
01:43:44,840 --> 01:43:50,840
some suffering but but ultimately when we when we're serious with ourselves and we don't lie to

1397
01:43:50,840 --> 01:43:57,180
ourselves we realize that some of these things are actually correct and it's scary like if to to

1398
01:43:57,180 --> 01:44:07,520
To realize that freedom is correct, the state is evil, that's a scary thing because it literally subverts hundreds, thousands of years of propaganda.

1399
01:44:07,520 --> 01:44:08,060
It's not scary.

1400
01:44:09,020 --> 01:44:20,600
I think sometimes it's hard to act on an intuition or on a feeling, but on a provable theory like that.

1401
01:44:20,640 --> 01:44:24,400
And I know all theories are falsifiable potentially, I suppose.

1402
01:44:24,880 --> 01:44:26,940
But really, things like that do help.

1403
01:44:27,180 --> 01:44:39,700
Like if you know those things, you carry their abstract power with you into your interactions with the world. You really do.

1404
01:44:39,700 --> 01:44:44,600
And to some extent, you're just not ashamed anymore to be free.

1405
01:44:45,280 --> 01:44:48,780
You realize that, hey, I'm standing on solid ground here.

1406
01:44:48,960 --> 01:44:49,740
This is correct.

1407
01:44:50,400 --> 01:44:55,040
I don't need to be ashamed for living and acting freely.

1408
01:44:55,200 --> 01:44:56,680
This is just how it's supposed to be.

1409
01:44:57,080 --> 01:44:57,740
And I'll do it.

1410
01:44:57,800 --> 01:44:59,700
And if someone doesn't like it, so what?

1411
01:45:00,000 --> 01:45:06,940
Yeah, it's justifiably a reason to exist in that state, in that way.

1412
01:45:07,580 --> 01:45:08,920
And that is really powerful.

1413
01:45:08,920 --> 01:45:17,080
I mean, that is the power of abstract ideas that can propel human beings to stand strong.

1414
01:45:17,160 --> 01:45:19,260
It's not even that it makes you angry and to want to fight.

1415
01:45:19,380 --> 01:45:19,960
It's the opposite.

1416
01:45:20,500 --> 01:45:21,680
It's like standing your ground.

1417
01:45:22,260 --> 01:45:32,440
It's like when something comes at you, you just stay as you are because you believe so deeply in this, in who you are and the ideas that you hold.

1418
01:45:33,200 --> 01:45:34,560
It's really amazing, mate.

1419
01:45:34,560 --> 01:45:40,700
Do you know, I never thought about that before.

1420
01:45:40,820 --> 01:45:41,220
It's weird.

1421
01:45:41,360 --> 01:45:41,900
I'm 54.

1422
01:45:42,840 --> 01:45:44,280
I've been alive a long time.

1423
01:45:44,740 --> 01:45:47,200
And you've been interested in freedom for a long time, right?

1424
01:45:47,300 --> 01:45:47,660
Yes, yes.

1425
01:45:47,940 --> 01:45:53,020
So that just shows you stuff is unintuitive.

1426
01:45:53,380 --> 01:45:59,040
Or maybe that's part of the intelligence is that humans are so good at ignoring stuff.

1427
01:45:59,040 --> 01:46:09,240
what what i what it is though is it's like i i didn't think to i didn't realize how powerful it

1428
01:46:09,240 --> 01:46:14,560
was i didn't realize how powerful it was that's all it's like if you if you told me one plus one

1429
01:46:14,560 --> 01:46:19,820
is two and i go yeah i know and then someone comes in and says no one plus one is three i'll

1430
01:46:19,820 --> 01:46:24,920
i'll fight that battle if they're not insane obviously it's very easy to fight that

1431
01:46:24,920 --> 01:46:27,340
because you're like, dude, I'm going to win.

1432
01:46:27,880 --> 01:46:29,340
I'm definitely going to win.

1433
01:46:29,940 --> 01:46:31,120
Probably not, actually.

1434
01:46:31,280 --> 01:46:35,400
I was about to say, I met a guy who was very, very confident

1435
01:46:35,400 --> 01:46:37,240
that 1 plus 1 is actually 3.

1436
01:46:37,400 --> 01:46:39,360
Come on, I think I read about this.

1437
01:46:39,940 --> 01:46:42,180
What is the theory behind it?

1438
01:46:42,180 --> 01:46:43,140
I have no idea.

1439
01:46:43,300 --> 01:46:46,060
No, but there was a guy that went on.

1440
01:46:48,080 --> 01:46:50,180
I can't remember how he justified it.

1441
01:46:50,180 --> 01:46:52,320
It was something to do with negative numbers as well.

1442
01:46:52,320 --> 01:46:57,860
and abstract maths, you know.

1443
01:46:59,480 --> 01:47:00,480
I don't know.

1444
01:47:01,140 --> 01:47:02,840
It all sounds very confident,

1445
01:47:03,380 --> 01:47:05,440
but then probably if you get an actual mathematician

1446
01:47:05,440 --> 01:47:09,500
to argue with him, it will get confusing very quick.

1447
01:47:09,620 --> 01:47:10,960
That's probably the gist of it.

1448
01:47:10,960 --> 01:47:15,200
I don't know, real foundational mathematics is weird.

1449
01:47:15,900 --> 01:47:16,680
Yeah, of course it is.

1450
01:47:16,840 --> 01:47:21,440
I mean, I think at some point everything just collapses as well,

1451
01:47:21,520 --> 01:47:21,820
doesn't it?

1452
01:47:21,820 --> 01:47:26,440
it's a bit like physics you know you can learn a bunch of stuff but then at some point

1453
01:47:26,440 --> 01:47:33,500
it's all it's all wrong you know the the theory is it's almost like the theory is it's all wrong

1454
01:47:33,500 --> 01:47:38,900
you know the theory is there's no theory well there's the map and the territory and the territory

1455
01:47:38,900 --> 01:47:45,540
is not the map and vice versa right and we're trying to reason about and articulate this crazy

1456
01:47:45,540 --> 01:47:53,860
reality that we find ourselves in and obviously words don't do it justice um we probably need

1457
01:47:53,860 --> 01:47:58,500
way more bandwidth like we probably need some terabytes of data being between us

1458
01:47:58,500 --> 01:48:05,040
so that we get a more serious grip on the situation so i'm we don't know all that much

1459
01:48:05,040 --> 01:48:11,260
what else is going on in your new book then and where can people buy it or is it still so right

1460
01:48:11,260 --> 01:48:13,000
Now I'm mainly asking for review.

1461
01:48:13,400 --> 01:48:14,140
That's the main thing.

1462
01:48:14,220 --> 01:48:16,520
So it's version 0.1.0 is released.

1463
01:48:16,880 --> 01:48:18,980
I started writing this like five years ago,

1464
01:48:19,100 --> 01:48:22,920
and then I didn't do anything for like 4.9 years.

1465
01:48:23,140 --> 01:48:23,680
I get that.

1466
01:48:24,080 --> 01:48:25,100
I get that.

1467
01:48:25,260 --> 01:48:25,920
I really do.

1468
01:48:26,420 --> 01:48:29,200
You know, that journey into a book,

1469
01:48:29,760 --> 01:48:32,880
especially when it's about this kind of stuff,

1470
01:48:33,120 --> 01:48:35,700
you can't just say, right, this morning I'm going to,

1471
01:48:35,700 --> 01:48:38,780
you know, I'm going to write the chapter.

1472
01:48:38,780 --> 01:48:46,400
you might need to go and spend days hiking up a mountain and just meditating the whole way before

1473
01:48:46,400 --> 01:48:50,400
you even get anywhere near what you want to talk about and then you gotta find the words you know

1474
01:48:50,400 --> 01:48:56,600
so i the i the title came to me first like i was the praxeology of privacy i was like

1475
01:48:56,600 --> 01:49:01,780
someone needs to write a book about that um and nobody did for i'm not sure i even really

1476
01:49:01,780 --> 01:49:08,100
understand it can you explain praxeology to me praxeology to me twice and it's one of those things

1477
01:49:08,100 --> 01:49:15,820
where you go okay but then what is it but i still don't really know what it is well i like it almost

1478
01:49:15,820 --> 01:49:22,460
literally it means the the logic of human action yeah but but that's just that's not a thing is it

1479
01:49:22,460 --> 01:49:29,200
well it's it's like what what can we what can we deduce what can we say with certainty based on on

1480
01:49:29,200 --> 01:49:34,740
the fact that humans act right like what is the consequences of human action maybe one one

1481
01:49:34,740 --> 01:49:41,080
interesting way of saying is like a very praxeological statement is if we introduce a

1482
01:49:41,080 --> 01:49:48,380
minimum wage that leads to unemployment and that is a logically correct statement

1483
01:49:48,380 --> 01:49:56,560
once we define our terms and and assumptions etc but ultimately if we forbid merchants or

1484
01:49:56,560 --> 01:50:01,320
entrepreneurs to pay people less than a certain amount then they will simply not hire them because

1485
01:50:01,320 --> 01:50:05,960
that person has a marginal benefit to the business that is less than the marginal cost,

1486
01:50:06,040 --> 01:50:08,740
and therefore it's not profitable, right? And so people will not get employed.

1487
01:50:09,060 --> 01:50:11,560
But why is that praxeology? Why isn't that not just...

1488
01:50:14,300 --> 01:50:17,660
It's almost like you don't need to put a word on it. It's just logic, right?

1489
01:50:17,920 --> 01:50:23,320
Well, but there's different types of logic, right? And maybe one other way of differentiating is,

1490
01:50:23,380 --> 01:50:26,060
and I'm not even sure if that's correct, but that's how I have it in my mind, is that so

1491
01:50:26,060 --> 01:50:32,400
Praxeology is about the consequences of human actions, like what happens when we act in a certain way.

1492
01:50:33,080 --> 01:50:38,100
And psychology, for example, is the reasons for acting in a certain way.

1493
01:50:38,100 --> 01:50:44,960
Like why do people act this way rather than what is the consequence of whatever particular way people have acted.

1494
01:50:46,280 --> 01:50:55,460
And so it's this maybe praxeology also is so weird because there was like the war of the methods, Mises called it.

1495
01:50:55,460 --> 01:50:56,740
der Methodenstreit,

1496
01:50:57,360 --> 01:50:59,260
where it really,

1497
01:50:59,360 --> 01:50:59,940
a hundred years ago,

1498
01:50:59,980 --> 01:51:00,760
it was not clear

1499
01:51:00,760 --> 01:51:01,720
how should we think

1500
01:51:01,720 --> 01:51:02,420
about economics.

1501
01:51:03,160 --> 01:51:04,760
There was the historicism

1502
01:51:04,760 --> 01:51:06,140
out of Germany,

1503
01:51:06,280 --> 01:51:06,420
I think.

1504
01:51:06,620 --> 01:51:06,660
Popper.

1505
01:51:07,180 --> 01:51:08,260
Yeah, exactly.

1506
01:51:08,460 --> 01:51:09,500
Who was basically,

1507
01:51:09,640 --> 01:51:10,540
well, we can deduce

1508
01:51:10,540 --> 01:51:12,380
historical activity.

1509
01:51:12,620 --> 01:51:15,060
We can deduce economic loss

1510
01:51:15,060 --> 01:51:16,280
based on historical activity.

1511
01:51:16,720 --> 01:51:17,920
It has always been like this,

1512
01:51:17,980 --> 01:51:18,920
therefore it will be like that

1513
01:51:18,920 --> 01:51:19,400
in the future.

1514
01:51:19,920 --> 01:51:21,560
Sorry, that wasn't Karl Popper,

1515
01:51:21,660 --> 01:51:21,840
was it?

1516
01:51:21,900 --> 01:51:22,880
I think it was Popper.

1517
01:51:22,880 --> 01:51:23,600
Well, you wrote a book

1518
01:51:23,600 --> 01:51:24,880
called The Poverty of Historicism.

1519
01:51:25,460 --> 01:51:31,920
didn't he which is that you can't prove anything you can only disprove it which is slightly different

1520
01:51:31,920 --> 01:51:37,740
to what you're talking about i think but anyway um yeah so so and mises basically said that no

1521
01:51:37,740 --> 01:51:45,240
they're humans act right so or in other words maybe humans act differently right we we're we're

1522
01:51:45,240 --> 01:51:51,720
all we're ever changing it's not like we pick up a rock we drop it and it falls with the same speed

1523
01:51:51,720 --> 01:51:53,920
at the same time all the time, like physics, right?

1524
01:51:54,680 --> 01:51:56,340
Economics is not really like that

1525
01:51:56,340 --> 01:51:58,840
because humans do weird stuff all the time.

1526
01:51:59,300 --> 01:52:02,400
We're not really predictable that much, right?

1527
01:52:02,460 --> 01:52:06,460
So instead of seeing how things were in the past

1528
01:52:06,460 --> 01:52:07,720
and then trying to figure out

1529
01:52:07,720 --> 01:52:08,780
how they're going to be in the future,

1530
01:52:09,560 --> 01:52:16,280
let's instead come up with some foundational assumptions, right?

1531
01:52:16,340 --> 01:52:19,100
Axioms like human action, like time preference, et cetera.

1532
01:52:19,100 --> 01:52:24,100
And then from there on out we simply use logic, right?

1533
01:52:24,100 --> 01:52:29,980
Like, and logic similar to as mathematics or physics but not applied to these

1534
01:52:30,000 --> 01:52:32,040
and eight objects that just behave,

1535
01:52:32,520 --> 01:52:36,940
but applied to human ingenuity and creativity

1536
01:52:36,940 --> 01:52:40,200
to come up with different solutions in different situations.

1537
01:52:41,420 --> 01:52:45,400
How do you describe then something like property rights,

1538
01:52:45,880 --> 01:52:47,600
the theory of property rights?

1539
01:52:47,900 --> 01:52:52,400
So the gist is humans act,

1540
01:52:52,400 --> 01:52:57,520
meaning we use our body and other resources that we have available

1541
01:52:57,520 --> 01:53:01,760
to solve our problems, to remove our uneasiness, as Mises would say.

1542
01:53:02,460 --> 01:53:09,220
And for this, we need to have control over scarce resources like our body,

1543
01:53:09,540 --> 01:53:15,260
like clothing, like food, like fire or fuel, etc.,

1544
01:53:15,260 --> 01:53:17,200
in order to solve these problems.

1545
01:53:17,200 --> 01:53:21,240
And the thing is that humans have an infinite amount of problems.

1546
01:53:21,500 --> 01:53:22,800
We're really a troubled creature.

1547
01:53:24,780 --> 01:53:26,720
And there's a lot of humans, right?

1548
01:53:26,720 --> 01:53:35,280
but resources are limited and scarce meaning we can only if we have a steak and in front of us

1549
01:53:35,280 --> 01:53:41,020
either you eat it or i eat it there's a potential conflict over who can allocate these resources

1550
01:53:41,020 --> 01:53:48,860
according to his own problems and and so we need to address this conflict in in any shape or form

1551
01:53:48,860 --> 01:53:53,660
right and and there is a couple different ways that we could go about it we can do it like the

1552
01:53:53,660 --> 01:54:00,980
un nobody owns it neither of us gets to eat it it will rot on the table and we both starve so that's

1553
01:54:00,980 --> 01:54:05,980
not a great solution but when they say nobody owns it they mean we own it basically that's the second

1554
01:54:05,980 --> 01:54:11,700
thing of both of us the plebs don't own it but there's a priest over there right and he's a

1555
01:54:11,700 --> 01:54:18,120
special human so he actually owns it he gets to decide who gets it right and you know he chooses

1556
01:54:18,120 --> 01:54:22,520
whichever of us gets to eat it or maybe he just takes it all for himself right so here we have a

1557
01:54:22,520 --> 01:54:29,940
priest class, different quality of human. And that doesn't seem right. This guy is just a dude like

1558
01:54:29,940 --> 01:54:36,020
you and me. So we would like to have a rule that is defensible across all the categories, right? So

1559
01:54:36,020 --> 01:54:42,920
to make sure that it just makes sense for everyone involved ultimately. And so this

1560
01:54:42,920 --> 01:54:49,200
slave and master differentiation doesn't seem to be right. There's also economic reasons why this

1561
01:54:49,200 --> 01:54:53,740
leads to all types of misallocation of resources but that's kind of a later part of the conclusion

1562
01:54:53,740 --> 01:55:01,140
and then the third way would be well either you or i own it specifically whoever homesteaded it

1563
01:55:01,140 --> 01:55:07,180
right who raised the cow right who butchered it who cooked the steak that was intermingling your

1564
01:55:07,180 --> 01:55:14,160
labor with scarce resources and that were previously not owned and therefore the person

1565
01:55:14,160 --> 01:55:21,420
who did it gets it. And that is a property right, right? The right of how to allocate the scarce

1566
01:55:21,420 --> 01:55:28,640
resource that can only be allocated in one place at one time in one way. And that is property rights

1567
01:55:28,640 --> 01:55:34,180
based on homesteading. And this is one of the three options of how we can allocate those resources.

1568
01:55:34,180 --> 01:55:41,260
And it's clearly the most defensible from common sense logic, but also from the consequences that

1569
01:55:41,260 --> 01:55:46,640
rise out of that because obviously if nobody owns it we all die right because nobody gets to eat

1570
01:55:46,640 --> 01:55:51,900
anything if we have a priest class then naturally all the capital will flow to them and so we will

1571
01:55:51,900 --> 01:55:59,760
have insanely rich slave masters and very poor and suffering slaves um obviously not great and

1572
01:55:59,760 --> 01:56:05,360
and and so the third way is that whoever is productive gets to choose how to allocate the

1573
01:56:05,360 --> 01:56:10,760
fruits of his labors in his continual quest of productivity and this means that we reward those

1574
01:56:10,760 --> 01:56:16,680
who create and to some extent we punish those who who don't right if if you cannot raise your

1575
01:56:16,680 --> 01:56:21,780
own meat and butcher it and and and cook it then you will go hungry because you cannot go to your

1576
01:56:21,780 --> 01:56:29,640
neighbor who did it correctly and just hit him until he gives you the steak and what i just my

1577
01:56:29,640 --> 01:56:38,400
mind is blown and it's reeling what happens to ownership when and this may not happen but i think

1578
01:56:38,400 --> 01:56:46,780
probably will when ai takes scarcity away because then we we live in a really great world

1579
01:56:46,780 --> 01:56:52,560
because we'll have abundance right abundance is having scarce resources that can only be

1580
01:56:52,560 --> 01:56:57,560
allocated for one specific task by one specific person at one specific time but we have so many

1581
01:56:57,560 --> 01:57:04,080
goods available that we simply don't care about it like ownership so ownership doesn't even become

1582
01:57:04,080 --> 01:57:06,280
a thing. Ownership is a solution

1583
01:57:06,280 --> 01:57:08,540
to a problem of a conflict

1584
01:57:08,540 --> 01:57:10,160
of allocating resources. Of scarcity.

1585
01:57:10,420 --> 01:57:11,340
Yes. Ownership

1586
01:57:11,340 --> 01:57:14,080
is the solution to scarcity.

1587
01:57:14,400 --> 01:57:16,400
Yes. So without scarcity, you don't

1588
01:57:16,400 --> 01:57:18,420
need ownership. One great example for this.

1589
01:57:18,440 --> 01:57:19,720
It's a bit communistic, mate.

1590
01:57:19,720 --> 01:57:21,080
It is, but

1591
01:57:21,080 --> 01:57:22,980
it's a good type of communism.

1592
01:57:24,460 --> 01:57:25,640
So, for example,

1593
01:57:25,900 --> 01:57:27,840
I'm a communist of air

1594
01:57:27,840 --> 01:57:29,840
here, right? There's air in this room.

1595
01:57:30,460 --> 01:57:31,960
And it's

1596
01:57:31,960 --> 01:57:33,840
abundant, right? You can breathe as much

1597
01:57:33,840 --> 01:57:38,640
as you want we won't run out of it i can breathe as much as you want there is no real conflict over

1598
01:57:38,640 --> 01:57:44,380
who gets to breathe this air in this room it's abundant our atmosphere is amazing right now let's

1599
01:57:44,380 --> 01:57:50,740
go underwater on a scuba diving session and we have one bottle of compressed air right and we're

1600
01:57:50,740 --> 01:57:55,620
very far down and it'll take us a long way to come up and we have only so much air and it's not enough

1601
01:57:55,620 --> 01:57:57,200
for the both of us, right?

1602
01:57:57,340 --> 01:57:58,460
Now, all of a sudden,

1603
01:57:58,540 --> 01:58:02,560
we've reintroduced the unabundance,

1604
01:58:02,660 --> 01:58:05,060
like air is abundant above water.

1605
01:58:05,220 --> 01:58:08,380
It's very much not abundant below water, right?

1606
01:58:08,420 --> 01:58:10,900
And as soon as it's not abundant and scarce,

1607
01:58:11,400 --> 01:58:13,340
then we need to allocate the resources

1608
01:58:13,340 --> 01:58:16,120
and there needs to be a way that we figure it out, right?

1609
01:58:16,120 --> 01:58:17,560
So in the scuba diving example,

1610
01:58:18,080 --> 01:58:19,560
whoever packed it gets it.

1611
01:58:20,380 --> 01:58:22,700
Maybe out of the goodness of your heart,

1612
01:58:22,700 --> 01:58:28,360
you decide to sacrifice your own use of error and give it to someone else but it's still your

1613
01:58:28,360 --> 01:58:35,440
property it's still your property yeah that's incredible oh my god i'm so retarded sometimes

1614
01:58:35,440 --> 01:58:41,520
there's a lot of things that i i i wish i'd thought about a long time ago um but

1615
01:58:41,520 --> 01:58:49,860
property it's such a it's on the face value it's such a boring subject but actually it's a

1616
01:58:49,860 --> 01:58:59,540
deeply, deeply, deeply interesting thing. And, um, and it's funny because economics is the same and

1617
01:58:59,540 --> 01:59:04,800
it's all wrapped up in the same, you know, value transfer property, all this kind of stuff. You,

1618
01:59:04,880 --> 01:59:10,400
you'd never know as a young child that this is, could be as deeply fascinating as it is,

1619
01:59:10,580 --> 01:59:15,600
but it is. And they don't teach that. I mean, I'm already thinking about how I'm going to broach

1620
01:59:15,600 --> 01:59:21,320
this subject with my kids because because i'm gonna and it's it's it's completely important

1621
01:59:21,320 --> 01:59:27,740
because it solves all kids have a real problem with property don't they it's like a it's a real

1622
01:59:27,740 --> 01:59:33,800
issue for kids oh it's my stuff or it's this or kind of and and this is really helping me

1623
01:59:33,800 --> 01:59:39,500
mediate it's really helping me understand the best way to mediate these things you know

1624
01:59:39,500 --> 01:59:43,040
I started my economics career as a kid.

1625
01:59:43,460 --> 01:59:46,840
And the main reason why I got interested in this was because I had to work.

1626
01:59:47,820 --> 01:59:55,320
Work is a great teacher on a lot of aspects, specifically about, let's call it entrepreneurial logic.

1627
01:59:55,940 --> 01:59:59,700
I wanted to understand why do we have to work in the first place because it sucks.

1628
02:00:02,000 --> 02:00:03,600
But that's scarcity as well, right?

1629
02:00:04,020 --> 02:00:05,720
That's the reason we have to work.

1630
02:00:06,380 --> 02:00:06,860
Scarcity.

1631
02:00:06,860 --> 02:00:10,160
And the reason, and work creates property.

1632
02:00:10,160 --> 02:00:11,000
Yeah.

1633
02:00:11,000 --> 02:00:13,400
And work creates abundance, right?

1634
02:00:13,400 --> 02:00:36,974
Which cures property right Yeah No Oh no The solution of how can we reach communism is really hard work oh my god uh i don know i don know i i i just reached the edge of my um my sort of

1635
02:00:36,974 --> 02:00:43,534
psychological aura i think you know how you've got this kind of bubble of knowledge i'm sitting

1636
02:00:43,534 --> 02:00:49,094
on the edge yeah and my feet are dangling into chaos i can feel it i'm that's a great place to be

1637
02:00:49,094 --> 02:00:54,994
in that's where the fun starts it is where the fun starts but if in my case it's where i just go

1638
02:00:54,994 --> 02:01:01,694
i look like i'm looking at the tv as a young child yeah no but like that's that's the thing

1639
02:01:01,694 --> 02:01:07,894
man when when i so after i started working i i picked up like keynesian bullshit economics books

1640
02:01:07,894 --> 02:01:09,574
from the library ultimately, right?

1641
02:01:10,114 --> 02:01:11,914
And I didn't get it at all.

1642
02:01:12,054 --> 02:01:13,114
It was so weird.

1643
02:01:13,274 --> 02:01:14,514
It didn't make any sense.

1644
02:01:15,174 --> 02:01:16,554
It was not useful, right?

1645
02:01:16,574 --> 02:01:18,494
I came there with a problem of like,

1646
02:01:18,534 --> 02:01:19,134
why do we work?

1647
02:01:19,194 --> 02:01:20,954
How do I become a better entrepreneur?

1648
02:01:21,154 --> 02:01:23,114
Basically, none of that was discussed.

1649
02:01:23,974 --> 02:01:24,794
So I kept looking

1650
02:01:24,794 --> 02:01:26,774
and eventually found the Austrian school.

1651
02:01:27,394 --> 02:01:30,914
And compared to the crap of Keynesianism

1652
02:01:30,914 --> 02:01:33,034
and communism and that economic theory,

1653
02:01:33,554 --> 02:01:34,534
it's so obvious.

1654
02:01:34,814 --> 02:01:37,414
It's so naturally obvious

1655
02:01:37,414 --> 02:01:40,374
that you don't need fancy words to describe it.

1656
02:01:40,774 --> 02:01:43,274
You don't need crazy math formulas or whatever.

1657
02:01:43,834 --> 02:01:46,754
You need like a paragraph of logic, basically.

1658
02:01:47,474 --> 02:01:51,414
Why are communistic ideas so prevalent, though, in the West?

1659
02:01:51,894 --> 02:01:52,694
What's that all about?

1660
02:01:53,274 --> 02:01:57,574
I mean, really, you have to think of it like that.

1661
02:01:57,574 --> 02:02:01,714
You have to look at Western civilization in its current form and go,

1662
02:02:02,014 --> 02:02:07,054
there's a lot of collectivist ideas absolutely in control.

1663
02:02:07,414 --> 02:02:12,514
Yeah. Well, propaganda, brainwashing, and mind control.

1664
02:02:12,634 --> 02:02:13,214
Yeah, but why?

1665
02:02:13,634 --> 02:02:13,994
Why?

1666
02:02:14,314 --> 02:02:16,274
Because the slave masters profit from it.

1667
02:02:17,334 --> 02:02:21,574
But how come they manage to profit from it? It's insane.

1668
02:02:21,574 --> 02:02:31,674
I mean, if the slave thinks that his current situation is just and good and proper, then why would he ever rebel, right? Or do anything about it?

1669
02:02:31,674 --> 02:02:34,214
Yeah, I'm thinking more about the motivation of the slave master.

1670
02:02:35,094 --> 02:02:37,394
I mean, he gets to keep the slaves. That's great for him.

1671
02:02:37,394 --> 02:02:41,214
I don't think there's many of them compared to the other ones.

1672
02:02:41,334 --> 02:02:42,714
It's a really weird quirk.

1673
02:02:42,714 --> 02:02:44,854
That's why the psychology is so important.

1674
02:02:46,114 --> 02:02:49,174
Today's slave masters are master psychologists.

1675
02:02:50,234 --> 02:02:52,334
They might know nothing about economics,

1676
02:02:52,334 --> 02:02:56,214
but they do know psychology deeply, deeply well.

1677
02:02:57,194 --> 02:03:02,854
And how to twist the mind into doing something

1678
02:03:02,854 --> 02:03:06,614
that is anti-human and anti-the person who does the actions.

1679
02:03:06,614 --> 02:03:14,354
right but there is thousands tens of thousands year of years of of wisdom tradition built up

1680
02:03:14,354 --> 02:03:20,034
on how to make sure that the king stays the king right that is the number one concern of anyone

1681
02:03:20,034 --> 02:03:25,834
in power with power over others of how do i make sure that the slaves don't rebel against me and

1682
02:03:25,834 --> 02:03:30,854
kill me because they have every reason to it's the asymmetry of it though that doesn't seem

1683
02:03:30,854 --> 02:03:37,354
sustainable. Do you know what I mean? Like the fact that we often trend towards this

1684
02:03:37,354 --> 02:03:44,474
arrangement of a couple, a small number of people in charge of masses of people,

1685
02:03:45,114 --> 02:03:51,474
just, it seems illogical. There's this weird asymmetry, but it's, but it's obviously part of

1686
02:03:51,474 --> 02:03:56,374
the human condition, isn't it? I don't know what, I mean, maybe we're evolving out of it. Maybe we

1687
02:03:56,374 --> 02:04:12,754
Maybe this is a journey. Maybe these ideas of freedom, free market are this time. There's an evolutionary step there. I don't know. Is it possible or is this just a merry-go-round that just keeps going around and around and around?

1688
02:04:12,754 --> 02:04:35,214
I think a lot of the old tricks still work very well. And technology has made new tricks work way better. I mean, if the masters of propaganda would have today's technology available, back in the days, you could make maybe a radio broadcast and everyone had the same propaganda.

1689
02:04:35,214 --> 02:04:41,334
And, you know, people were probably talking about it and in their own club saying, you know, how this is BS or whatever.

1690
02:04:42,054 --> 02:04:55,594
Nowadays, we can make tailor-made propaganda specialized for that one individual where we have terabytes of data of what are his preferences, what are his weaknesses, how can we control him and manipulate him.

1691
02:04:55,594 --> 02:05:14,934
And then on top of that, if there is anyone resisting, then we will catch that in our surveillance efforts and we can exclude that person, call him a racist anti-Semite terrorist and single him out so that his influence of getting other people out of the propaganda will be tragically diminished.

1692
02:05:14,934 --> 02:05:34,314
I spoke to a guy a few months ago about AI and he pointed out that probably in the not too distant future, like TikTok-like platforms, if not TikTok itself, will just be 100% AI generated content in the moment, specifically for you.

1693
02:05:34,314 --> 02:05:39,534
It'll be like, you know, you think social media is addictive now.

1694
02:05:39,734 --> 02:05:49,374
You wait till in real time an AI is generating lifelike videos specifically for your brain and pumping them out at you.

1695
02:05:49,894 --> 02:05:52,294
And what kind of dystopia is that, man?

1696
02:05:52,414 --> 02:05:55,114
That is unbelievable when you think about it.

1697
02:05:55,374 --> 02:05:59,814
Well, but there is a chance that we use this tech for good.

1698
02:06:00,314 --> 02:06:03,534
And we just need to put our freedom propaganda and ship it first.

1699
02:06:03,534 --> 02:06:09,434
you know maybe that's how we get everyone no i don't think it is because i don't think people

1700
02:06:09,434 --> 02:06:16,154
want that yeah you have to want it like the the way the algorithm works is on your attention is

1701
02:06:16,154 --> 02:06:21,834
it spots what you like very very quickly and it could be a microsecond that you pause that it's

1702
02:06:21,834 --> 02:06:26,434
aha you know and then it pulls that thread and then it goes for it and if you're not interested

1703
02:06:26,434 --> 02:06:31,594
in freedom mate there's no way they're going to show you freedom freedom content and i don't think

1704
02:06:31,594 --> 02:06:37,054
many people are. I think it's 15, 20% of the world at any one time, probably less.

1705
02:06:37,054 --> 02:06:37,834
Probably less.

1706
02:06:38,074 --> 02:06:42,954
Yeah. And I don't think that's going to change. That's what makes me, I don't know.

1707
02:06:43,574 --> 02:06:47,914
You know, like the dream would be, especially if you believe in freedom, is I want everyone to be

1708
02:06:47,914 --> 02:06:53,674
free. And I think if you go down that path for a number of years, you realize actually,

1709
02:06:54,674 --> 02:06:59,434
whilst I still would like everyone to be free, I'm not fighting for that. I'm fighting for myself

1710
02:06:59,434 --> 02:07:04,574
and my family and probably right at the end you're just fighting for yourself you know and and some

1711
02:07:04,574 --> 02:07:10,454
people just actually don't want it so who are you to tell them what they would like that that's why

1712
02:07:10,454 --> 02:07:16,194
i love the second realm and crypto anarchy so much because we're not trying to force anyone to join us

1713
02:07:16,194 --> 02:07:23,234
like we're not trying to take down the old system and and and make it stop those systems can continue

1714
02:07:23,234 --> 02:07:28,594
we're not fighting against them we're building something better that we think is better right

1715
02:07:28,594 --> 02:07:37,474
Maybe you disagree and that's totally fine and sure you can try to stop us, but we will continue building something that we prefer and then we'll use it.

1716
02:07:37,474 --> 02:07:56,854
And it seems to me that the value created, the capital accumulated in a free system will be so outrageously larger than whatever the slavery system can produce that over enough time it will be clear which system is more beneficial to more and more people.

1717
02:07:56,854 --> 02:07:59,814
and then people will move at that point.

1718
02:07:59,814 --> 02:08:02,654
That was what first got me interested

1719
02:08:02,654 --> 02:08:03,714
in the Free Cities movement.

1720
02:08:04,034 --> 02:08:16,388
Titus was talking about something on a stage and he said you know we going to build this thing right And if you like it great come If you don don And people kept saying opt in to me opt in opt in And it really started making sense

1721
02:08:16,968 --> 02:08:20,288
And I had a very funny conversation recently on this podcast

1722
02:08:20,288 --> 02:08:24,088
where we were discussing the notion of free cities

1723
02:08:24,088 --> 02:08:26,888
as thousands of competing jurisdictions.

1724
02:08:27,548 --> 02:08:30,748
And the natural conclusion you draw from that is,

1725
02:08:30,848 --> 02:08:33,128
sure, a free city can be anything.

1726
02:08:33,128 --> 02:08:39,508
it's just that it's competing right so you can have a communist free city if you want

1727
02:08:39,508 --> 02:08:43,728
but what's going to happen is it's going to attract the people that want the free shit

1728
02:08:43,728 --> 02:08:49,108
and no one's going to go there and it's going to collapse and what free cities if they really did

1729
02:08:49,108 --> 02:08:56,628
evolve into a competing set of places slowly but surely they would show what governance works best

1730
02:08:56,628 --> 02:09:02,948
they'd literally be a signal yeah it's incredible really and you know it's a little bit

1731
02:09:02,948 --> 02:09:08,868
similar to what happened with with cryptocurrencies right like cypherpunks tried to build online money

1732
02:09:08,868 --> 02:09:16,088
for decades right satoshi figured something out that still works today which is a miracle but

1733
02:09:16,088 --> 02:09:21,108
what he mainly figured out was that he started the age of anarchy in money

1734
02:09:21,108 --> 02:09:28,388
where back in the day it was outrageous to even think or contemplate that a private person could

1735
02:09:28,388 --> 02:09:33,948
issue his own money right that would be ridiculous only the central bank can do that it was highly

1736
02:09:33,948 --> 02:09:38,168
restricted of who can start a new money and if you were the one starting a new money you got killed

1737
02:09:38,168 --> 02:09:44,228
straight away right um even if you dare to for example use gold right like gaddafi or whatever

1738
02:09:44,228 --> 02:09:51,228
um straight to gulag um then after satoshi we've decreased the cost of creating a new money

1739
02:09:51,228 --> 02:09:57,888
like tragically like you there's literally a website to it now is there there's a website

1740
02:09:57,888 --> 02:10:02,928
where you with a couple clicks and a nice pretty user interface can create a fork of bitcoin that

1741
02:10:02,928 --> 02:10:09,328
has whatever parameters you want you know two minute block time five megabyte blocks and you

1742
02:10:09,328 --> 02:10:14,428
know whatever hundred million tokens in total circulation whatever right it's it's super easy

1743
02:10:14,428 --> 02:10:22,308
to do it's just code and we can now do it not once but a million times every day it's so cool

1744
02:10:22,308 --> 02:10:28,268
So hardcore anarchy free money in a free market in the production of new money.

1745
02:10:29,268 --> 02:10:35,208
And that started a competition of money that is something that we've never seen before.

1746
02:10:36,068 --> 02:10:42,468
And sure, Bitcoin is still to this day the best one that we found so far, right?

1747
02:10:43,148 --> 02:10:44,728
And that's great.

1748
02:10:44,908 --> 02:10:50,608
But the fact that there is competition will make sure that we will find a solution.

1749
02:10:50,608 --> 02:10:55,188
like i'm not married to bitcoin people think that if bitcoin fails for whatever reason that that was

1750
02:10:55,188 --> 02:11:02,768
it i don't think so at all right we've we finally are over the hump where individuals can anonymously

1751
02:11:02,768 --> 02:11:08,368
even create a new money and design it however they see fit and then publish it and people on the

1752
02:11:08,368 --> 02:11:14,648
market will will choose it to use it or not isn't it that the free market can only exist in a place

1753
02:11:14,648 --> 02:11:17,508
where people aren't making decisions in a way.

1754
02:11:17,728 --> 02:11:20,828
Not making decisions, but like a free market

1755
02:11:20,828 --> 02:11:22,268
can't really occur in the world.

1756
02:11:22,788 --> 02:11:25,368
There's always going to be some limitation

1757
02:11:25,368 --> 02:11:30,168
because to be human is to sort of meddle a little bit

1758
02:11:30,168 --> 02:11:30,908
with the free market.

1759
02:11:30,908 --> 02:11:35,488
Whereas online in code, without the human element,

1760
02:11:35,928 --> 02:11:39,768
you get pure free market principles, don't you?

1761
02:11:40,228 --> 02:11:40,748
Is that true?

1762
02:11:40,748 --> 02:12:03,388
Well, I guess free market is an absence of coercion, right? And I guess specifically if we want to pin down on one thing that makes a free market, it's the non-existence of monopolies. So a monopoly, according to Austrian economics, happens whenever someone can prevent a new market participant from providing a service.

1763
02:12:03,388 --> 02:12:04,988
Which is coercion, though.

1764
02:12:05,248 --> 02:12:06,308
It's coercion, exactly.

1765
02:12:06,508 --> 02:12:17,448
You can, at point of force, stop someone from doing a service because you need a license, because you need to pay some taxes, because you need to have special education or whatever.

1766
02:12:17,448 --> 02:12:20,208
But all those things are human interactions.

1767
02:12:20,608 --> 02:12:23,068
You can't do that in code, can you?

1768
02:12:23,068 --> 02:12:33,868
If everyone is using, say Bitcoin, if everyone's using the same software, you can try, you can introduce a bit of malicious code that does that, but it doesn't have an effect.

1769
02:12:33,948 --> 02:12:35,948
It only has effect on your version of it.

1770
02:12:36,348 --> 02:12:41,228
Well, I mean, maybe one example for this is the cookie banner bullshit that the EU put upon us, right?

1771
02:12:41,268 --> 02:12:47,048
That every website now has to declare that it's using something as basic as a cookie and annoy users with stupid pop-ups.

1772
02:12:47,048 --> 02:12:48,488
And you have to say yes or no or whatever.

1773
02:12:48,488 --> 02:12:59,948
Exactly. Right. So that is an intervention, a triangular intervention where the state says to people, you can only have a website if you put up the stupid cookie banner. And if you don't, you go to jail.

1774
02:13:00,108 --> 02:13:00,488
Do you?

1775
02:13:01,028 --> 02:13:03,228
Probably. Right. I mean, that's the thing.

1776
02:13:03,228 --> 02:13:07,868
I've got one of those. We're not in the EU, am I? Probably the same in the UK.

1777
02:13:07,868 --> 02:13:14,568
Okay, but that's with any time where you're violating a state law, ultimately death is the consequence.

1778
02:13:14,568 --> 02:13:23,108
Like if you would consistently resist and say, no, I will not do a cookie number or cookie banner, whatever, then they come by your door and say, hey, you have to do this.

1779
02:13:23,148 --> 02:13:25,488
And say, no, then we'll take you to jail.

1780
02:13:25,648 --> 02:13:28,448
And when you still say no, then they will threaten to shoot you.

1781
02:13:28,468 --> 02:13:30,368
And if you still say no, they will shoot you.

1782
02:13:30,868 --> 02:13:30,988
Right.

1783
02:13:31,048 --> 02:13:34,288
The ultimate tool of the state is death.

1784
02:13:34,908 --> 02:13:35,728
Always has been.

1785
02:13:35,728 --> 02:13:40,368
And the threat of death is usually enough to get people to do what they want.

1786
02:13:44,508 --> 02:13:46,688
I was going to say, let's end it there.

1787
02:13:47,948 --> 02:13:49,808
We've been talking for a really long time now.

1788
02:13:49,888 --> 02:13:52,368
And I would go on for another five hours.

1789
02:13:52,508 --> 02:14:04,088
But I need to process some stuff because you've really just helped me to discover a whole new avenue that I'm going to pursue.

1790
02:14:04,088 --> 02:14:04,788
It's funny.

1791
02:14:04,788 --> 02:14:14,768
I'm still in shock that there is, once again, another aspect of thought that I just didn't bother thinking about.

1792
02:14:14,968 --> 02:14:16,728
Which is weird when you think about it.

1793
02:14:16,828 --> 02:14:18,308
We're so great at ignoring stuff.

1794
02:14:18,548 --> 02:14:22,068
Like really deeply, we ignore so much of the sensory input that we get.

1795
02:14:23,108 --> 02:14:24,748
And the same goes for ideas.

1796
02:14:24,908 --> 02:14:29,228
I mean, there's too many ideas to ever contemplate, even partially, right?

1797
02:14:29,408 --> 02:14:30,208
I know what you mean.

1798
02:14:30,548 --> 02:14:33,268
I feel like I'm entertaining too many at the moment.

1799
02:14:33,428 --> 02:14:34,768
I need to go and lie down.

1800
02:14:34,788 --> 02:14:45,648
let's end on a really positive note mate um um what is there like let's go back to your book

1801
02:14:45,648 --> 02:14:50,108
because i think and by the way can i call this episode the praxeology of privacy is that is that

1802
02:14:50,108 --> 02:14:54,508
cool yeah sure because i think that's a really interesting set of words and i think it would be

1803
02:14:54,508 --> 02:14:58,408
interesting people would see that and go what the hell does that mean i think it might draw people

1804
02:14:58,408 --> 02:15:05,208
in i'm not stealing it i i'm i'm borrowing it like the the good thing is uh you can't steal ideas yes

1805
02:15:05,208 --> 02:15:11,888
and i published this book in the public domain like have you yeah like so you can get the book

1806
02:15:11,888 --> 02:15:19,348
on towards liberty.com slash pop um will be in the show notes as well i'm sure and um there is

1807
02:15:19,348 --> 02:15:25,948
just all the chapters all the pdfs etc do whatever the fuck you want with it um i'm gonna print it

1808
02:15:25,948 --> 02:15:31,748
after some round of review already some people started printing the book you know great um but i

1809
02:15:31,748 --> 02:15:37,968
i want to make sure those ideas are at least not terribly wrong i know what you mean it is it is it

1810
02:15:37,968 --> 02:15:43,068
is scary isn't it committing a bunch of especially if you took a long time to to come up with them

1811
02:15:43,068 --> 02:15:51,988
it's quite scary to commit them to a piece of paper or or a tome and then think uh you know a

1812
02:15:51,988 --> 02:16:14,602
year later going oh my god at least if it digital you can kind of edit them a bit but i mean i i i think certainly in its in its core is quite a bit like well my john locke experience it like it it using extreme logic i can prove that thing so so there

1813
02:16:14,602 --> 02:16:19,762
is a limit i mean we're talking about if in order to disprove certain things you need to enter some

1814
02:16:19,762 --> 02:16:25,642
weird quantum realm of of brand of madness or whatever and i don't think that people are going

1815
02:16:25,642 --> 02:16:32,502
there you know but you're pretty sure you've you've got it cornered all right with praxeology

1816
02:16:32,502 --> 02:16:38,682
of privacy yeah yeah it's it it's a it's a really cool topic and like i i know there's a lot of

1817
02:16:38,682 --> 02:16:41,982
austrian economists listening to your to your show i mean there's a lot of other people as well

1818
02:16:41,982 --> 02:16:47,502
which is great but especially the austrian economists it's such a shame that they don't

1819
02:16:47,502 --> 02:16:52,202
get the cypherpunks like there was i don't know why do you say that though what what is it they

1820
02:16:52,202 --> 02:16:59,402
don't get about the cypherpunk. I mean, cypherpunks tend to be Austrian economists, right?

1821
02:16:59,642 --> 02:17:06,622
Exactly. That's the thing. So many cypherpunks are Austrian economists, and a lot of them make

1822
02:17:06,622 --> 02:17:13,422
quite big economic errors, but still, there's way fewer Austrian economists that are actually

1823
02:17:13,422 --> 02:17:20,002
cypherpunks. And I'm not exactly sure why that is. It might be that the Austrian economists are

1824
02:17:20,002 --> 02:17:20,842
just a bit boomers.

1825
02:17:21,322 --> 02:17:22,022
No, yeah.

1826
02:17:22,262 --> 02:17:23,742
It's like a suit and tie event.

1827
02:17:24,062 --> 02:17:25,502
I think cypherpunks are too edgy.

1828
02:17:25,782 --> 02:17:26,622
Yeah, they're a punk.

1829
02:17:26,702 --> 02:17:28,562
I think your average Austrian,

1830
02:17:28,762 --> 02:17:29,822
that I know anyway,

1831
02:17:29,822 --> 02:17:33,042
I mean, would see, yeah,

1832
02:17:33,242 --> 02:17:35,362
you know, someone with a hoodie at a computer.

1833
02:17:35,462 --> 02:17:36,242
That's a cypherpunk.

1834
02:17:36,822 --> 02:17:38,122
Whereas an Austrian economist

1835
02:17:38,122 --> 02:17:42,042
is like gliding around Vienna

1836
02:17:42,042 --> 02:17:45,582
who is spitting facts, you know?

1837
02:17:46,662 --> 02:17:46,862
Yeah.

1838
02:17:46,862 --> 02:17:54,082
And so there are a lot of great Austrian economists that did get Bitcoin, etc. early on.

1839
02:17:54,282 --> 02:17:56,162
Stefan Kinsella, Conrad Graf, etc.

1840
02:17:58,002 --> 02:18:07,602
And so they did a tremendous benefit of getting Bitcoiners up to speed with what the economic facts underlying Bitcoin are.

1841
02:18:08,702 --> 02:18:15,022
And so I just want to be part of that tradition to bridge that gap and to tell economists that

1842
02:18:15,022 --> 02:18:23,842
maybe the thing i had a really depressive period in my life when i deeply understood economics and

1843
02:18:23,842 --> 02:18:31,742
the evils of inflation and intervention and i had no i could not see a way out of it right that is

1844
02:18:31,742 --> 02:18:36,822
unspeakably depressive of seeing how the world is systematically collapsing

1845
02:18:36,822 --> 02:18:42,702
and not knowing how to fix it and i feel like that that is the mindset of most austrian economists

1846
02:18:42,702 --> 02:18:49,462
even mises was like yeah we can try it with ideas you know maybe if we talk about it enough we can

1847
02:18:49,462 --> 02:18:56,142
fix it that's such a bullshit solution i mean obviously it's important right but that's not

1848
02:18:56,142 --> 02:19:05,262
gonna help us they're just gonna burn the books and then that to to get out of that um out of that

1849
02:19:05,262 --> 02:19:11,622
kind of depression you need to have a a golden future an orange future to look forward to it's

1850
02:19:11,622 --> 02:19:17,942
something where you can see that hey actually we have it in our power to fix this not not just

1851
02:19:17,942 --> 02:19:24,882
to stop the pain but to make it work so incredibly well like the amount of capital that we can

1852
02:19:24,882 --> 02:19:33,442
accumulate in this new world in this new cyberspace is is outrageous it's it's baffling like look at

1853
02:19:33,442 --> 02:19:40,862
bitcoin what we achieved in what 15 years i mean damn like it's now larger than most companies are

1854
02:19:40,862 --> 02:19:43,222
It's larger than most fiat currencies are.

1855
02:19:43,402 --> 02:19:46,362
And it was just a bunch of dudes in hoodies on their laptop.

1856
02:19:46,982 --> 02:19:48,942
That's insane, right?

1857
02:19:48,982 --> 02:19:55,662
That is the most mind-blowing, actionable improvement in the human condition for thousands of years.

1858
02:19:55,822 --> 02:19:57,762
And we just did it, right?

1859
02:19:58,122 --> 02:20:03,842
And we did it knowing the underlying economic reasoning for why this is going to work.

1860
02:20:03,842 --> 02:20:11,582
and the theoretical and cryptological underpinnings of these are the cryptographic tools we can deploy

1861
02:20:11,582 --> 02:20:18,162
to make sure that it becomes unfuckwithable right it will succeed to resist right the cost

1862
02:20:18,162 --> 02:20:24,902
of resistance is now so low in fact resistance has become profitable if you resisted fiat inflation

1863
02:20:24,902 --> 02:20:34,062
in the last 10 years you're a billionaire right so resistance is no longer just this dangerous

1864
02:20:34,062 --> 02:20:40,182
thing that only weird people do right people that we shun from society no it's the people who

1865
02:20:40,182 --> 02:20:47,622
resisted now have the treasury the capital to build new nations ultimately so this really is

1866
02:20:47,622 --> 02:20:54,602
is an incredible success and bitcoin is just the beginning right we have so much more that

1867
02:20:54,602 --> 02:21:01,702
the cypherpunks can build for us that especially if the cypherpunks understand just how deeply

1868
02:21:01,702 --> 02:21:07,262
correct they are right we can give the cypherpunks even as economists we can give the cypherpunks

1869
02:21:07,262 --> 02:21:14,862
even more wind in their sails by showing them how how how deeply correct and and how

1870
02:21:14,862 --> 02:21:22,242
foundationally solid they are that they don't have to apologize for hey like we're working on

1871
02:21:22,242 --> 02:21:28,602
this new privacy technology, please don't put us in jail, right? But rather, we're working on

1872
02:21:28,602 --> 02:21:34,842
something that helps people express themselves to the fullest, that leads to them being able to

1873
02:21:34,842 --> 02:21:41,182
calculate their allocation of resources, right? If we don't have perfect privacy, we have the same

1874
02:21:41,182 --> 02:21:47,182
calculation problem as socialism had. We don't have adequate prices that tell us how much things

1875
02:21:47,182 --> 02:21:54,322
are worth in a state of surveillance that is quite equivalent and so we we really have a massive

1876
02:21:54,322 --> 02:22:00,702
theoretical underlying foundation that cypherpunks can build on top of and become even more radical

1877
02:22:00,702 --> 02:22:08,882
i like we're not radical enough by far we can go even harder and i hope this book is is part of

1878
02:22:08,882 --> 02:22:14,322
saying thanks to the economists for for what you did and look at what the cypherpunks did and it's

1879
02:22:14,322 --> 02:22:20,882
perfectly in line and likewise to the cypherpunks i keep going even harder max that was a beautiful

1880
02:22:20,882 --> 02:22:28,582
monologue wait um we've got to end it there that's just perfect really really thank you again

1881
02:22:28,582 --> 02:22:33,102
appreciate it you blew my mind last time it took four hours this time it only took two hours so

1882
02:22:33,102 --> 02:22:38,822
you must be getting better but but um i really appreciate you and i'm always thankful that

1883
02:22:38,822 --> 02:22:43,742
whenever i send you a message you just turn up and we sit down and have a conversation i i i and

1884
02:22:43,742 --> 02:22:44,282
Thanks for that.

1885
02:22:44,382 --> 02:22:48,742
And I really hope other people can listen and go the same route,

1886
02:22:48,802 --> 02:22:50,382
because that's why I do this.

1887
02:22:50,462 --> 02:22:52,902
I want people to hear what I'm thinking.

1888
02:22:53,722 --> 02:22:56,082
And because I'm learning it in real time,

1889
02:22:56,182 --> 02:22:58,142
and my mind, my clogs are turning,

1890
02:22:58,402 --> 02:23:03,922
and I'm really starting to understand a new level of stuff.

1891
02:23:04,402 --> 02:23:05,962
And you're part of that journey, mate.

1892
02:23:06,022 --> 02:23:07,062
So many, many thanks indeed.

1893
02:23:07,062 --> 02:23:10,522
And yeah, thanks for coming over and see you next time.

1894
02:23:10,922 --> 02:23:11,122
Thanks.

1895
02:23:11,122 --> 02:23:13,882
No, I'm really looking forward to all of our conversations.

1896
02:23:14,302 --> 02:23:19,382
I'm looking forward to the next one, which might be in the Gulag, you know, when they put you in jail for thought crime.

1897
02:23:19,482 --> 02:23:22,382
I'll come visit if I'm not locked up by that point.

1898
02:23:22,482 --> 02:23:23,742
You'll be locked up, mate.

1899
02:23:23,882 --> 02:23:25,522
You'll be locked up before me.

1900
02:23:26,982 --> 02:23:28,622
We'll have so much fun in the Gulag.

1901
02:23:29,002 --> 02:23:29,442
We will.

1902
02:23:29,522 --> 02:23:30,902
We'll orange pill the captors.

1903
02:23:31,102 --> 02:23:31,722
It'll be fun.

1904
02:23:32,642 --> 02:23:33,782
Great to talk to you anyway.

1905
02:23:33,882 --> 02:23:34,522
Thank you very much.

1906
02:23:41,122 --> 02:24:11,102
Thank you.