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Welcome to the Free Cities podcast. My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast

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of the Free Cities Foundation.

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Hello and welcome to this episode number 145 of the Free Cities podcast.

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Brought to you as always by our wonderful sponsor Veritas Villages.

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Veritas Villages are off-grid, energy-self-sufficient, luxury communities in Latin America designed for freedom lovers.

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Bitcoin is accepted at all villages, including for the purchase of property.

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What's not to like?

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Anyway, more info at www.ecovillages.life forward slash free cities.

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Please mention us.

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If you do business with them, everything you could need is in the show notes.

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And if you want to meet these guys in person, well, Patrick Hibbert, he's the creator of Veritas Villages.

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He'll be speaking this year at the Free Cities Conference in Prague, 31st of October to the 2nd of November 2025.

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yes it's just two months away believe it or not seems like last year is still fresh in my mind

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this year is definitely shaping up to be something special by the looks of it

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it's going to be a year of announcements i can't give too much away obviously but if you've been

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to the conference before you'll know that we normally have a lot of focus on our few flagship

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projects the most famous being prospera and ciudad morazan who will of course be there in force but

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big things have been happening behind the scenes this year and i suspect that some exciting new

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developments may be revealed that could really broaden the map of free cities projects going

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forward anyway our conference is where you'll get the inside track on all of this stuff and

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meet everyone in person which is pretty underrated as far as i'm concerned if you're on the fence

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about attending? Well, this year, I would say this is the one. Our network is growing. And I would say

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that currently you're lucky enough to be what I would call a first adopter in this space. So come

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and be a part of it in real life before it gets too big. I watched this happen in the Bitcoin space.

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Early on, everyone was friends and we all knew each other. Now, when you go to a Bitcoin conference,

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Sometimes there's 50,000 people there and you can't get to speak to who you want to.

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Anyway, our conference gets bigger every year.

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This year is going to be the biggest one yet, but it's still pretty intimate and you could

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take advantage of that yourself.

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Anyway, on to today's show.

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I managed to get Freddie New to sit down with me in the Free Cities podcast chair.

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Bitcoiners amongst you will know him.

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He's the head of policy at Bitcoin Policy UK, but for everyone else, he's a lawyer and a political strategist.

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Often heard publicly voicing his concerns about unchecked bureaucracy and government overreach.

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And let me say this episode is no different.

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Here's what my AI made of it.

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This episode explores why the state is failing from bloated regulation and surveillance to economic fragility and the erosion of personal freedom.

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We examine the dangers of the online safety bill, the risks of data collection and algorithmic enforcement and the creeping possibility of a social credit system.

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system. We look at how debt, currency debasement and government overreach threatens financial

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security, while tools like Bitcoin, VPNs and Freedom Tech offer individuals a path to sovereignty.

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Ultimately, this is a conversation about responsibility, resilience and the urgent

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need to reclaim liberty in a world where control is tightening. Yep, that sounds pretty good or

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as freddie put it he's a fellow brit we don't live in a police state yet now it's amazing i think that

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these conversations are even being had but hey here we are this is the world we live in now is the time

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to probably sharpen your wits a little bit i actually do honestly believe it's important to

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think quite deeply about the strategies that you will be using to navigate the next epoch of human

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history yes really right thanks to all our wonderful subscribers and please if you're a

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value for value listener you can pledge just six dollars a month for the subscriber benefits one of

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which is bonus episodes a new one of which is coming out right now and it's part two of my

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amazing conversation with a gentleman by the name of gg bitcoin is once again will know him and this

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one goes very deep is a quick ai summary just for the curious if you're wondering about subscribing

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this episode dives into the fallout from robert breedlove's bit clout controversy it was a really

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interesting uh discussion that because it was fresh in the news at the time and the debate over

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bitcoin's energy use and the surprising spiritual dimensions of bitcoin from questions of trust and

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sustainability to profound personal awakenings the conversation explores how bitcoin challenges

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power reshapes world views and even sparks religious like experiences yes uh gg actually

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talks about what happened to him when he discovered bitcoin and i'm i'd never heard it anywhere before

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um i definitely had a lot of fun listening back to this episode in fact it was the first time i'd

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listened to it since it was originally recorded and there's a lot going on there anyway i think

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you'll like it gg's one of the most important thinkers in the bitcoin space as far as i'm

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concerned right that's enough from me time for the alpha and this week you might want to listen

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to this one from inside your wonderful faraday cage because the powers that be aren't going to

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be very happy with you. You will though, of course, as you sit back, relax and enjoy my

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conversation with Freddie New.

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The core of the Free Cities idea is governance, competition between governance. We know competition

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works in the world and everywhere else. It's just in government, they don't really have

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it and and in governance they don't really have it because you are sure you can move country

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it's not a lot of options um of of different types of governance models you get a lot of um obviously

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um democracies but modern democracies are i mean you just have to look at our democracy currently

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in the uk to see that it's not working because hardly anyone cares as we see voter turnouts

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low and the people that win win on a small amount of the constituents who actually even voted let

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alone people that actually live in the country so it doesn't serve you you know um so you've got

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you've got limited options the main um interesting thing that the that we promote are private cities

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there's a couple of them around the world they get independent jurisdiction status legal status

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from the host government so they can change their own regulations the free zone in dubai

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at all similar to that well free zones yeah they are i mean dubai is almost one whole free zone now

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there's this but they they they were part of the evolution for sure they were the special economic

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zone aspect the newest sort of evolution are special economic zones where you reside at the

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moment special economic zones you if you were a business like when you came to dubai financial

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district you brought your capital over and you got preferred deals and you got i mean the main

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reason that they were so successful is because they they did away with sharia law within that

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small bit and brought in common law and that's what attracted people but as a there was no resident

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tax breaks or etc i mean obviously did biden have any tax anyway so it was all good

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but the new the new versions the new iterations which are two main ones are in honduras now

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are independent from the government of honduras on legislation regulation they still have to abide

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by all the laws of, you know, don't murder anyone, don't do this, don't do that.

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But businesses can come and start with various regulations.

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They can choose from OECD regulations from around the world.

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And also, as a resident, you get the same tax breaks.

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So you get 2 tax there or 2 corporate tax You know it what I mean ideally what we want to see in the next hundred 150 years are thousands of competing smaller places And I think I heard you talk

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about this, actually, the, the, the idea that one of the things that that's kind of broken about

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what's going on now, I mean, God, I'm in fact, actually, it's very difficult to know where to

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start because it's such a huge subject but i think it might be useful to use our own home country the

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uk as an example of how a place can be run particularly badly um not in it and i'm not

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i'm not even pointing fingers i don't i don't when you look at all the problems with the way that

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governance works um i don't necessarily blame the people that are doing all this stuff i think there's

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a lot of well-intentioned people doing i just think the incentives are there and easy to take

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to run the country as they are.

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And I think, you know, in a nutshell,

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the way things have evolved now is you've basically got

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productive people, entrepreneurs,

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staying clear of the government

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because they don't want to go anywhere near it,

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but feeling the wrath of the government,

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which is run by the other group of people

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who tend to be career politicians, non-productive people.

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And they are, the whole thing's a mess now

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You've got people struggling to run a business or people struggling to create a better life for themselves because the people who they don't even like or respect or certainly don't respect as business people are creating all these legislations and laws that make their life even harder.

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And the result, really, when you actually look at it, is they go away.

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They go somewhere else.

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I don't know many people now in the UK that I know who have the stay and fight attitude

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there's not many of them left not if I took a survey of my friends most people are like right

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this is this is very difficult there's a limit to how long I can pursue this it's easier for me just

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to move if they have the kind of situation in their life where they can move obviously if you've

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family and all that kind of stuff i don't know you you're you're kind of quite heavily embedded

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i think in the world of you form a lawyer right you are still a lawyer yeah but also you you do

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work with the governments you advise you do all this kind of stuff i pester is probably a nicer

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way of probably more accurate way very low but should we get rolling um yeah let's go we already

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are just tilt the mic up a little bit so it's going a bit more towards you i say but yeah so

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just start there start there sure um yeah so as you say i'm i am a lawyer so fairly embedded in

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uh the way that the system works uh just to clarify though i'm not a lawyer who necessarily

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drafts laws or who litigates i'm uh i was always a transactional lawyer so i started off in m&a

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uh moved into special situations which are you know effectively trying to rescue collapsing

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companies and then became more and more involved in the regulatory side, more on the critique

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rather than the drafting.

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So a lot of the work I do with Bitcoin Policy, the group that I set up with Susie, whom we

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recently had on, Bitcoin Policy UK, is trying to advise regulators and politicians who are

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drafting bad laws and how to make them better.

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because as you've rightly pointed out,

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the incentive for any politician coming in,

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and actually while you were saying that,

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it occurred to me, I forget who said this,

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but the raison d'etre of a politician is to create more law

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and I think it's impossible to point to a single government,

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maybe Millet is doing it, a single government anywhere

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where there are fewer laws in the statute book

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after they leave office and before they arrived.

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The whole purpose of you being in parliament is to make more laws.

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And at some point, it seems to be that that is the only reason for your being any longer.

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And if you fail to make more laws, somehow you failed as a politician.

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I think that's an idea that's well worth re-examining.

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Well, it's also the fact that...

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It's interesting, on this podcast, I've interviewed a lot of people who came from former communist regimes.

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and it's in as a as a as a brit it's fascinating to hear what what it was like and one of the things

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everyone talks about the pettiness of the superhuman number of laws that start appearing in the late

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stages of it and i not being funny mate but i woke up recently and i looked and i was just i

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don't know reading twitter looking at what was going on and thinking it's happening it's happening

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the the the kind of stuff that you know like i looked a few up earlier before this interview

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there was like it got to the point where they were banning blue jeans haircuts had to be a certain

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length you know we're not there yet but i for me the canary in the coal mines already singing you

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know there there's talk of banning vpns ever since the the new bill came out to the online safety bill

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i've heard already people are reporting that right vpns need to be banned you know i've i've seen that

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kind of mentality in china and i remember thinking wow this is full on you know this is full on this

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is this is obviously not good vpns are absolutely fine i've used vpns for years and my whole family

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does and it's purely to stay anonymous and to not have our data leaked and just it's none of your

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business what i'm looking at online it was officially encouraged by one of the firms that

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I worked at whenever we went on a foreign trip, take certain steps in order to protect

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the data that's on your phone because it's valuable.

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And so is your personal data.

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You mentioning banning VPNs, I don't know if you saw a post recently by a human rights

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activist who works for the Human Rights Foundation about Myanmar.

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They brought in a new rule that the police can stop and search you and they can look

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at your phone.

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And if they find a VPN on it, there's grounds for arrest immediately.

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So if the UK wants to put itself in the same bucket as Myanmar,

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we're doing a bloody good job of it so far.

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Well, they are.

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This is what I mean.

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They are.

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The online safety bill is ridiculous.

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You know, it's porn and kids.

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That's the way they sell it.

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But it's not.

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If you are someone who just uses a normal internet connection,

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many websites that you go to now, which are nothing to do with porn,

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are saying, give us your credit card details.

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And this is already happening as far as I'm concerned now.

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This is it.

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Yeah, it's worth drilling into that a little bit.

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I don't think many people will have read exactly what the legislation says.

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You know, why should they?

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I think it's as long as war and peace.

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Probably.

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Yeah, and probably less well written.

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But if you look at the scope of what can potentially be bound,

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is extraordinarily wide and is left largely within the purview of Ofcom and the Secretary

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of State who can increase the ambit of what's deemed to be harmful content. And it's interesting

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you mentioned the kind of websites that are being stopped. The day it came into force,

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I went on to Reddit's craft beer and I posted a screenshot of what happened. I can't read

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about craft beer unless I prove my age. I saw a record of a hamster owners forum, which

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which they had to take the form down because they said, you know,

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we're just a small organisation.

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We cannot fund the cost of compliance.

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So the only option we have is to come off because otherwise we'll get an enormous fine.

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I had a rather interesting thought that, you know, Mumsnet, the forum.

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I know it too well.

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You know it too well.

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Too well, yeah.

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Well, I'm always quoted Mumsnet.

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That's one of those things that my wife, well, less so now actually,

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But when we had small kids, I used to get the Mumsnet quotes all the time.

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I mean, we all, you know, I think our children may be of similar ages.

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It occurred to me that probably Mumsnet's going to fall foul of this as well,

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because they talk a lot about wine and gin on Mumsnet.

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Too much, probably.

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I'm actually not joking.

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Because the rules apply to any forum that allows user-generated content,

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which could potentially be harmful,

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and that would include talking about alcohol, according to the Reddit.

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I suspect the Guardian comment sections,

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to the extent that they enable you to mention wine and beer,

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should probably, actually, maybe it'd be a funny exercise

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to troll them and report the Guardian to Ofcom.

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But do you think, then, that that is part of the plan?

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I mean, in the end, it's obvious to me, at least,

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that there will be ID to surf the internet if you want to do it the legitimate way.

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There'll be a million and one workarounds, obviously,

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but just like there are now in China and behind the Great Firewall,

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you can still do most of what you want to do if you just know how.

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And like you say, if you were a foreigner going in,

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they might even advise you to do that.

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A governmental employee might even be advised to do that.

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Just don't do it at home.

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It's not what we do.

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Yeah I think there a non risk of that happening which is terrifying It the equivalent of requiring a license to leave your house and to walk around the streets I not talking about driving a car

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you know, proving that you have the necessary skill set in order to operate a piece of potentially

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dangerous machinery, I think is generally a sensible thing. And the same with a pilot's

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license. You know, you want someone operating that machinery to be changed. But that speaking

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is not something for which anyone needs particular training,

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and having ideas is a natural human thing to do.

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And the attempt to police both of those things, I think, is terrifyingly shocking.

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And because of the very clever way that this has been done,

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and again, I'm often at a bit of a loss here,

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I'm torn between the two ends of the spectrum.

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On the one hand, as you mentioned earlier,

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I think a lot of this was originally well-intentioned.

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We want to prevent suicide alleviation, for example.

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I think that's an honorable aim.

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Anyone who's experienced self-harm or suicide in their family would, I think,

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support wanting to prevent people being encouraged from hurting themselves.

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And again, no one wants children to see unsuitable material online.

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So I think we can agree that those things are honorable aims.

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but then extrapolating that out to an attempt to stop people thinking things,

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free consenting adults from reading things and having opinions that an authority figure doesn't like,

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that's very chilling.

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And certainly in the UK we get a bit, I think we get a bit complacent with the fact that

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we've lived in a relatively free society for so long.

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We don't think that can happen here.

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We're recording this in a former Soviet Socialist Republic.

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and it's within 1991 i think latvia finally got independence after the war came down

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it's very very recent in what is now a member of the eu where these kind of things happen so we

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know what was the quote that the tree of liberty must be perpetually refreshed with the blood of

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patriots and hopefully it won't come to that but but complacency develops relatively easily if you

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haven't been tested doesn't it you do find i don't know whether you've spoken to many locals

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but we we work a lot out of prague and everyone in those kind of countries it's still fresh in

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their minds and you get phenomenally solid good people there and um you know you're right uh

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nobody back home would consider the same thing happens in it's happening in canada right now

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canadians think they live in the most of them still think they live in the best country in the

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world and it's a beautiful place no doubt about it but the way it's run is is creeping and it's

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the creep that does it the worst the most insidious part of it um but interestingly talking about the

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the online safety bill again really what's happening is it's gonna come down to the compliance

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which is really bad because the rules could be stupid which they are we can look at them now and

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that's ridiculous and stupid but people will enforce it now and the more they enforce it the

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more ridiculous it'll be and the less likely that there there'll be a backtrack you know are they

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gonna do you think they're gonna relinquish the sort of craft beer reddit forum do you think

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they're gonna say do you know what let's let them off no they can't really do that unless the whole

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country goes this is ridiculous but most people probably especially brits you know aren't going

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to and before you know it's going to be so late they're going to be what we are going to be arguing

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with talking to Susie about this yesterday there was someone ranting on Nost the other day about

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a parcel delivery that came to their house that they had to sign for because it was an over 18

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item and the guy insisted on I need ID I need to photograph it for their app and he's like

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I mean, I'm 50 or 45.

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I'm more than 18, obviously.

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No, no.

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Computer says no.

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And in the end, he just had to turn this package away.

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And that's what it comes to.

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You get these ridiculous situations.

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That's what happened towards the end of the Soviet empire.

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These ridiculous rules that people then enforce.

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And this burgeoning set of people who are enforcing the rules is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

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they're like oh justify my job let's we need to do this oh that would be a good idea let's do this

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and you get this horrendous situation which i think we're we're we're i wouldn't say we're in

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the late stages of well possibly we are but we're in a we're living in a world now where

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you have to think about so many rules and it's and they're quite punitive as well it's not like

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that a lot of them aren't obvious a lot of them are just ah you've discovered the rule

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and you've broken it this is your problem and you're like there's 450 000 rules what what you

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want me to know all of them you know and and it's it's it requires and this is the the really

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disturbing part of it it requires a complete rehashing of of everything it appears to me

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and i don't really know how you do that i mean you the two options are collapse or leave isn't it

291
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It's like as an individual, the whole thing either collapses and starts again.

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And that's seldom a good thing, actually.

293
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I think even the results of that kind of system, you normally get the void filled by something similar.

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Or you leave and you go and look for a place where, in my case, it would be you either go where lots and lots of really rich people are.

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or you go to a place where lots and lots,

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where a country really hasn't got a system ingrained yet,

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somewhere that's, you know, to be left alone.

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You've either got to be very rich

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or you just go and live somewhere that hasn't quite made it yet.

300
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It's surprising that it's so difficult just to be left alone.

301
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Yes, which is the base of it, for sure.

302
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Yeah, exactly.

303
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So how do we get left alone then?

304
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Quite a few things to pick up on there, actually.

305
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So before we sort of segue away from the online safety bill,

306
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the key reason why I personally am so opposed to it is actually one of privacy and data collection.

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My general principle for giving information away on the internet is that you should assume that

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anything you give to an organization, whether that's a corporation or a government, is going

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to become public information relatively quickly. Because we can demonstrate, I can reel off a list

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as long as my arm of recent data leaks. They include data leaks from the Ministry of Defence

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in Britain. If the Ministry of Defence can't protect information, who the hell can?

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HMRC leaking data continuously.

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The NHS leaking private medical details and blood sample records.

314
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You can go on and on and on.

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I think the biggest one I saw recently was Ticketmaster, which leaked more email addresses

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than there are people on the planet.

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it uh so i mean that so basically with that if you if you give and and this is this is where i

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think the act is so dangerous if you give your age verification details to any of these websites

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you are creating and have i think in just two or three weeks that the act has been live

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huge data pots will already been completed because i think your port of my compliance is completely

321
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right. A lot of people will simply tart and roll their eyes, and they'll age verify, they'll give

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their name, they'll give their driving license. The people who are incentivized not to comply are,

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you know, 16-year-old boys, or people who care about the privacy, and I think that's always going

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to be a relatively small subset. But what's almost inevitably going to happen, and your question as

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to what's going to happen to this act specifically. When the act begins to affect the way that the

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people who made it live their lives, then I think you have a chance for changing it. Because I

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suspect most of the politicians who voted for this didn't realize the full implications of it.

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In fact, there was a very interesting exchange that I had on Twitter with a sitting MP who didn't

329
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realized that it also applied to technology companies was i mean actually she deleted this

330
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post after she made it um she said what exactly she said it only applies to porn and age verification

331
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happens all the time why is the harm you know each of those three limbs of her post were incorrect

332
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she clearly hadn't read the act it's not just for porn it's for all kinds of things effectively an

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ever-expanding set at the discretion of the Secretary of State. And I mean, the danger of

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huge pots of data is completely obvious. So I think there's going to be a very interesting

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piece of news to watch out for when, I think as is almost inevitable, Pornhub's data set is going

336
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to be leaked at some point. There's going to be a lot of fun to be had going through that and

337
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how many MPs are in it.

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They not going to give Seriously I mean it bad enough giving your details to Reddit let alone to Pornhub I mean the moment you tapping in your details

339
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must be a sad moment.

340
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Well, exactly.

341
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And what's doubly horrific,

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and I don't want to get too graphic here,

343
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but a lot of these sites are actually using age estimation,

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using your face.

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Are they?

346
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Yeah, they are.

347
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How are they doing?

348
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Oh, you mean when you click the button to sign up?

349
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So not to take control of your webcam.

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who in their right minds gives control of their webcam

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to a third-party company.

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You, you know, unless you're very, very...

353
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I think it's too late.

354
00:28:39,220 --> 00:28:40,380
Well, yeah, it's terrifying, isn't it?

355
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:40,720
Yeah.

356
00:28:41,220 --> 00:28:43,680
That data, they allege is deleted.

357
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Most people don't understand how difficult it is to delete something

358
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once it's been recorded on a hard drive.

359
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I don't think it ever gets deleted.

360
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:53,060
Well, why would it?

361
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Why some, you know, data storage exists,

362
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and if it's not full why not store everything exactly and most people don't realize that when

363
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you hit delete on a file on your hard drive that the file isn't deleted it's just that the pathway

364
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to it is cleared so that it can be recorded over again um anyway so where i'm going with this is i

365
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think there's a very very substantial risk that these data pots which have been collected by

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embarrassing websites will be leaked and they will contain details of people who potentially voted for

367
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this and that's the point at which i think they may consider that perhaps it's gone too far and

368
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maybe we should think of a different way of achieving this really though i mean i think at

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that point it just gets more absurd i i don't i mean i i've i've my first thoughts of the kind of

370
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surveillance state happened probably in the 80s when i look back people were talking about it then

371
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being tracked and monitored and etc etc and i remember feeling quite depressed about it back

372
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then i was only i was like in my sort of i was an 18 year old boy thinking yeah this does make

373
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sense and that was even before the internet really started kicking in because once that happened you

374
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see the ability to monitor it just increases exponentially in fact it scales forever that's

375
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the terrible thing about it i think when you look at a lot of previous authoritarian regimes they

376
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often collapse under the weight of their own size because they can't find enough people to enforce

377
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what they're doing but actually algorithms are infinitely scalable and you can see that the

378
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whole system will turn into a way of testing compliance is what it is you so you're you're

379
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i mean i could easily predict for example that the next step when they realize that the online

380
00:30:46,820 --> 00:30:51,440
safety access is an absolute shit show they'll go do you know what the easiest thing saves us money

381
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just everything you look at like so you have to sign up for the internet then we don't have to

382
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worry about this that and the other and then they've got you because at that point now you

383
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can integrate all that data into a are you being a good citizen score which we see already starting

384
00:31:08,180 --> 00:31:13,580
in a number of countries around the world and if you're not you lose access to this you lose

385
00:31:13,580 --> 00:31:19,480
privileges you lose this this is the and then the law you're a lawyer you see the law suddenly

386
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:25,340
disappears and it becomes an algorithm you know here's here are the rules when you break them you

387
00:31:25,340 --> 00:31:30,340
lose privileges and you don't even need to enforce them through through legal means the you know i

388
00:31:30,340 --> 00:31:34,900
mean i'm going way into the future there like no but you're right and the cost of enforcement is

389
00:31:34,900 --> 00:31:41,000
something i return to a lot and it's historically been a relatively decent defense against bad law

390
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:46,780
frankly um so you know obviously we're we're here for a bitcoin conference at the moment and one of

391
00:31:46,780 --> 00:31:51,160
the one of the key things that bitcoin is going on about a lot is uh executive order 6102

392
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obviously the uh the confiscation of private ownership of gold in the united states

393
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which was actually a relatively ineffective law because it did it thinking about it it

394
00:32:02,300 --> 00:32:06,420
functioned in a very similar way to the online safety act a lot of people complied a lot of

395
00:32:06,420 --> 00:32:13,280
people didn't. Now, the cost of enforcement of 6102 was vast. The government, even the US

396
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:18,760
government, couldn't send agents on house-to-house searches, so they relied on a relatively large

397
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:23,800
proportion of compliance and wrote off the non-compliance without house-to-house searches

398
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:31,400
in order to find your gold. And in a digital sense, until relatively recently, house-to-house

399
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:37,280
search equivalents of going through vast amounts of digital material was again relatively hard and

400
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:42,720
often human driven but I think you correctly point out that if we're moving into a world of

401
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:48,320
algorithmic searching and enforcement as we clearly are the it comes out of data processing

402
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:56,140
functionally the processing of facial recognition data for example is reaching quite scary levels

403
00:32:56,140 --> 00:33:00,820
and is also being rolled out at scary levels in the United Kingdom.

404
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:06,200
Big Brother Watch, with whom we've worked on a few important ventures,

405
00:33:06,500 --> 00:33:08,340
pushing back against CBDCs, for example,

406
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,220
they are campaigning to try and roll that back.

407
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:15,860
But it's an uphill battle because, as you say,

408
00:33:15,860 --> 00:33:21,600
if a government's given access to lots of data that it can process extremely quickly and powerfully,

409
00:33:22,540 --> 00:33:23,360
why not?

410
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:25,820
They want to control their citizens as much as possible.

411
00:33:26,140 --> 00:33:32,240
This is a complete inversion for me of Alan Moore's famous line out of FIFA Fendetta.

412
00:33:32,900 --> 00:33:34,720
People shouldn't be afraid of their governments.

413
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:36,760
Governments should be afraid of their people.

414
00:33:37,060 --> 00:33:41,140
They are our servants as long as we live in true democracies.

415
00:33:41,900 --> 00:33:50,980
And the idea that they are there to tell us what to do and how to behave and what to think and what to say is completely abhorrent, I think, to anyone who feels the way that we do.

416
00:33:52,660 --> 00:33:54,760
You say we shouldn't be afraid of our governments.

417
00:33:54,760 --> 00:34:01,900
At least I did show signs of fear of my own government yesterday.

418
00:34:02,100 --> 00:34:06,080
I found myself saying something on this podcast about VPNs,

419
00:34:06,220 --> 00:34:10,460
and I let it roll, but in the back of my mind I was thinking I might have to cut that out.

420
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:13,380
I then went, fortunately, I checked.

421
00:34:13,540 --> 00:34:19,120
It's not illegal to bypass the online safety bill yet.

422
00:34:19,240 --> 00:34:19,780
Not for you.

423
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:20,300
Right.

424
00:34:20,460 --> 00:34:20,760
Okay.

425
00:34:21,500 --> 00:34:23,580
So it's using a VPN.

426
00:34:23,580 --> 00:34:52,860
So I'm going to leave it in now. But my instant thought after that is, well, you could in the old days, I would have said, let's say I've done like 150 episodes of this podcast. It's like, yeah, little things slip by, they disappear. You know, you can't really be held accountable. It's too difficult. Now, not true at all. An AI would take 10 minutes to scan everything I've ever said and pull out the parts where I said things that are illegal. As in, you know, that's why I had to check.

427
00:34:52,860 --> 00:34:58,640
thought crime yeah well the thought not even a thought crime a real crime me admitting to using

428
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:03,840
a vpn like i say had i have gone online after that interview yesterday and discovered that yes

429
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:08,560
i was committing an offense i would have pulled it out of the episode i would have just cut that

430
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:15,380
bit out and um that's that is me being scared of my government right exactly that's wrong

431
00:35:15,380 --> 00:35:21,760
for totally wrong because because they can be far more petty than me and when it comes down

432
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:28,040
to things like um if you have any kind i mean governments tend to leave you alone until you

433
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:33,480
start garnering attention from a certain number of people i suppose there's a limit and suddenly

434
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:39,860
right this is a person of interest now as soon as you're a person of interest in a way you you

435
00:35:39,860 --> 00:35:47,740
you're doomed in many senses of the word because at the at the very last moment um they're there

436
00:35:47,740 --> 00:35:54,200
they've got more resources than you i'm not even sure how you defend yourself against um against

437
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:58,900
that an attack a big attack from the state like that if you're someone who's got a big mouthpiece

438
00:35:58,900 --> 00:36:04,380
a lot of people are listening to you not least because they could bankrupt you legally just take

439
00:36:04,380 --> 00:36:10,340
you to court over some ridiculous thing let it run for so long that you know i think you have to go

440
00:36:10,340 --> 00:36:15,780
into exile you right exactly you move to another country and then you start reporting from there

441
00:36:15,780 --> 00:36:19,740
or whatever. But that's not good. And that shouldn't be happening in our country.

442
00:36:20,020 --> 00:36:25,800
Absolutely not. On your worry about VPNs, I don't know if you saw this immediately after the act

443
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:31,760
came out, Politico did some digging into MPs' expenses. And it turns out rather amusingly that

444
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:36,360
Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, and Sarah Champion, just to name two people,

445
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:40,720
are not only using VPNs, but they're also charging them back to us as expenses,

446
00:36:40,720 --> 00:36:47,300
uh which is nice um this was revealed on the same day that peter kyle went on um all of the news

447
00:36:47,300 --> 00:36:52,860
shows and basically said uh this is a paraphrase not a good you know if every time you use a vpn a

448
00:36:52,860 --> 00:36:59,800
child dies yeah i i think you posted that one on twitter didn't you yeah click it's so grating

449
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:06,880
though it's so like the the worst thing about that whole sentiment is that and you're a parent

450
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:10,560
It's none of the government's business what your kids are looking at online.

451
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:11,660
It's your business.

452
00:37:11,660 --> 00:37:12,560
You're their father.

453
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:14,480
You have a chat with them.

454
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,060
If they're rebellious, you ban them yourself.

455
00:37:17,060 --> 00:37:24,400
You don't ask someone who really doesn't give a shit about you to try and ban them ineffectively.

456
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:25,940
Because they don't even know them.

457
00:37:25,940 --> 00:37:27,160
They're not even close by them.

458
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:28,940
I don't know if you saw this.

459
00:37:28,940 --> 00:37:29,940
Someone has...

460
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:36,420
actually set out in relatively significant detail how they would have gone about protecting children

461
00:37:36,420 --> 00:37:39,360
from unsuitable material, and a lot of it's to do with certification.

462
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:47,340
So, for example, an adult website is required to broadcast as part of its data package

463
00:37:47,340 --> 00:37:49,400
when you try to access that website.

464
00:37:49,900 --> 00:37:52,500
This site contains 18 plus material.

465
00:37:52,500 --> 00:37:59,800
and then you can set your router and your devices either to accept or reject 18 plus or 18 below

466
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:04,260
material so your child's phone for example you could put a setting there to say that this

467
00:38:04,260 --> 00:38:10,420
this phone is used by a 12 year old and material for 12 and under only can be viewed on this

468
00:38:10,420 --> 00:38:17,300
and then the device will ping the website and once that certification has been recognized and

469
00:38:17,300 --> 00:38:23,040
knowledge then it's it's parental guided access to unsuitable material which i think is what we

470
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:27,580
should all be doing you you should you care for your children you decide what they can and cannot

471
00:38:27,580 --> 00:38:33,080
see it's not up to the states to tell me you know if my 17 and a half year old wants to read about

472
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:39,820
craft beer it the craft beer one is very it's horrible but i mean the other thing is as well

473
00:38:39,820 --> 00:38:45,040
that your that certification method also doesn't work because plenty of websites aren't going to

474
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:52,180
certificate you know like people think porn hub everyone uses porn hub i think yes a lot of people

475
00:38:52,180 --> 00:38:58,740
do but there's probably more porn websites than any other genre on the planet i mean i'd assume so

476
00:38:58,740 --> 00:39:02,200
and uh i mean i assume so well

477
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:07,880
so i just thought this data set there are

478
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:10,980
I forget as well.

479
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:16,400
The actual volume of material on the internet that's not crawlable,

480
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:18,280
for example, by Google search engines

481
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:23,360
and is only accessible through Tor is mind-blowing.

482
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:25,420
But that comes back to a point you made earlier

483
00:39:25,420 --> 00:39:28,720
around the majority of people won't use Tor

484
00:39:28,720 --> 00:39:30,660
and they won't know how to access the dark web.

485
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:33,200
And the huge worry, I mean,

486
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:37,760
and quite apart from the honeypot issue that we raised earlier,

487
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:42,740
the huge worry is the people who actually want to access this material are now going to be driven

488
00:39:42,740 --> 00:39:48,020
into places where a whole lot of other most horrific stuff is also lurking so not only is

489
00:39:48,020 --> 00:39:55,460
the act illogical it's unenforceable and it's arguably worse than the situation we had before

490
00:39:55,460 --> 00:40:03,180
i i think that's par for the course these days i could i could quote you a number of things like

491
00:40:03,180 --> 00:40:10,760
that in the modern world that don't work um that i mean the the most obvious one of late was um

492
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:18,180
taxing wealthy people and then ending up with less revenue i mean yes um there are incompetent

493
00:40:18,180 --> 00:40:24,300
people not in i don't know whether incompetence the right word there are people who have risen to

494
00:40:24,300 --> 00:40:32,660
positions of power in at least our government who don't understand who don't they just don't

495
00:40:32,660 --> 00:40:37,980
think things they they don't think things through they they kind of stop at the original idea it's

496
00:40:37,980 --> 00:40:44,900
like i know let's tax the rich yay right let's get that sorted without necessarily wondering that

497
00:40:44,900 --> 00:40:50,380
the the rich might leave at that point and the answer yeah the answer is well the rich shouldn't

498
00:40:50,380 --> 00:40:56,060
leave because that's not that's not right it's like the rich are going to leave people are going

499
00:40:56,060 --> 00:41:03,320
to do use vpns people don't really care what you say like they do it because you're bigger than

500
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:07,800
them and they want to comply to make their life easier on the whole but a lot of what you say

501
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:14,360
is complete nonsense and nowadays i don't i couldn't tell you a single politician who says

502
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:21,440
anything coherent that who says actually that's not true that's not true there is a kind of

503
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:26,960
there is a new sort of group of politicians coming through we see it in the uk now it's a bit like

504
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:32,680
what happened in america with trump a number of interesting people are actually starting to speak

505
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:38,400
on alternative media i'm talking about the kind of the mainstream if you turn the tv on if you

506
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:46,000
listen to talk radio you hear nonsense you hear that double speak you hear people skirting questions

507
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:53,680
it's so obvious now that you have this world where there are people who can talk candidly for two

508
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:59,300
hours and people who can't and the people that can't talk candidly for two hours are currently

509
00:41:59,300 --> 00:42:04,060
in charge and the people who can talk candidly for two hours so you know listen to anyone for

510
00:42:04,060 --> 00:42:09,640
two hours you get a good sense of who they are and they're there they're there and their arms

511
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:15,580
are up in the air going what the hell's going on but but my worry is we have a we're obviously well

512
00:42:15,580 --> 00:42:20,100
according to me at least we'll have a regime change at the next election and it'll as far as

513
00:42:20,100 --> 00:42:25,360
i'm concerned it'll go to one of the new parties i think everyone's underestimating how quickly a

514
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:30,120
change like that can happen but they'll get into power and they'll just hit a brick wall like

515
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:36,640
everyone else and go oh my god this is a shit show well i can't just stop doing what everyone

516
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:40,420
else has been doing well i think a huge problem i've spoken about this before i'm interested to

517
00:42:40,420 --> 00:42:47,940
here you'll take on it too. The real power in the United Kingdom is the bureaucratic civil service,

518
00:42:48,460 --> 00:42:56,360
and it's utterly unaccountable to the electorate. It's unaccountable in many ways to ministers and

519
00:42:56,360 --> 00:43:03,700
to MPs. So there's so much focus is on who's in power, which government is there,

520
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:09,480
but we always forget the faceless people who sit behind them. My contemporaries,

521
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:14,080
my friends from university who went into the civil service at the age of 22, 23, and are going

522
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:20,120
to stay there for 40 years, entrenched in these enormous buildings, incentivized to keep their

523
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:25,860
jobs and to keep adding to the numbers of civil servants that there are. We've increased the

524
00:43:25,860 --> 00:43:32,720
number of civil servants by 150,000, I think, between 2019 and now. Why on earth? We now have

525
00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:38,080
half a million civil servants in the United Kingdom. We used to run the entire empire on 40,000.

526
00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:45,100
why do we need half a million civil servants do you probably need them because they're they're

527
00:43:45,100 --> 00:43:50,420
not doing the job well enough they probably need more people to do a simple job i mean exactly right

528
00:43:50,420 --> 00:43:54,580
did you see the headline recently uh reeve says that she's going to have to massively increase

529
00:43:54,580 --> 00:44:00,620
the size of the civil service to address the inefficiency problem you i mean i thought you

530
00:44:00,620 --> 00:44:05,020
i thought you were going to mention that headline but that's exactly well that's a real headline

531
00:44:05,020 --> 00:44:05,860
That's a real headline, yeah.

532
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:06,980
I think it was a telegraph.

533
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:08,360
That's ridiculous.

534
00:44:08,460 --> 00:44:10,360
Yeah, well, maybe that's a hit piece, isn't it?

535
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:11,040
Yeah, perhaps.

536
00:44:11,820 --> 00:44:13,040
But, you know, what you said.

537
00:44:13,060 --> 00:44:13,880
Did she say it like that?

538
00:44:14,220 --> 00:44:14,420
No.

539
00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:16,060
I mean, did she literally say it like that?

540
00:44:16,500 --> 00:44:19,100
I mean, maybe we can look it up and stick it in your show notes afterwards.

541
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:19,640
But, yeah.

542
00:44:20,260 --> 00:44:22,000
I mean, I don't care anymore.

543
00:44:22,300 --> 00:44:24,500
I expect that now.

544
00:44:24,500 --> 00:44:34,160
You expect bullshit from these people because I think what the life they're living in them is just full of these.

545
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:44,380
non-complementary ideas and and paradoxes and you know it's like all terrible regimes they they fall

546
00:44:44,380 --> 00:44:51,000
down with honesty kills them you can't just come out and say like i'm i'm longing for the day that

547
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:57,900
someone just says the truth out there or like do you know what um we we could have done better but

548
00:44:57,900 --> 00:45:03,220
we tried our hardest and this happened and now these people have been disenfranchised but we're

549
00:45:03,220 --> 00:45:08,120
going to try a different way or or mille you know mille is like bulletproof when you look at the way

550
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:14,700
he's dealing with things he really doesn't give a shit and he doesn't care to burden that

551
00:45:14,700 --> 00:45:20,680
uncomfortable feeling that maybe um a lot of people are going to dislike him the i suppose

552
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:27,120
the advantage in in argentina was a lot of people were looking for change i'm not sure what's your

553
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:33,560
take on how many people in the uk for example are looking for change i think it's i'm a bit

554
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:39,060
more optimistic actually i think it's a i think it's a non-trivial amount now and i say that

555
00:45:39,060 --> 00:45:43,980
partly because if you look at the the speed of collapse and support for labor even among

556
00:45:43,980 --> 00:45:48,680
left-leaning people you know i'm reasonably left-leaning myself i i categorize myself as

557
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:55,000
a left-leaning libertarian uh i think the state does have some some functions i tend to devolve

558
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:59,080
to the Hayek and four or five key functions as the principal ones

559
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:01,460
and maybe toss in some healthcare and education

560
00:46:01,460 --> 00:46:03,560
for those who can't afford it on top of that.

561
00:46:05,060 --> 00:46:08,940
But even among my own relatively left-leaning friends,

562
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:11,700
the collapse in support for labour has been catastrophic,

563
00:46:12,240 --> 00:46:15,920
and I think it's largely because they've had 14 years to prepare,

564
00:46:16,340 --> 00:46:20,460
have come in, and I don't know if I can swear on the talk,

565
00:46:20,460 --> 00:46:23,340
but utterly fucked everything up.

566
00:46:23,340 --> 00:46:27,200
your Laffercove tax point is a perfect example.

567
00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:29,200
That's first order thinking only

568
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:31,520
without following the consequences through.

569
00:46:32,100 --> 00:46:35,340
But I really think a lot about both the kinds of people

570
00:46:35,340 --> 00:46:38,180
who go into politics and who go into the civil service.

571
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:42,460
They are individual human beings like you and I.

572
00:46:42,860 --> 00:46:45,700
I genuinely believe most people want to do a good job

573
00:46:45,700 --> 00:46:47,000
and they want to do good things.

574
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:57,960
I think the number of people who go into power wanting to trample on the faces of the poor is hopefully relatively small because most humans aren like that

575
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:08,420
But there's something about the inefficiency of a monumentally disorganized state that means, you know, when you...

576
00:47:08,420 --> 00:47:14,600
I think a lot of it is throwing your hands up in the air and just accepting that this is the way that things always have been, and so this is the way we do things here.

577
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:18,940
And you see this not just in governments, but in very big organizations as well.

578
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:22,160
Actually, Microsoft is an interesting one to look at.

579
00:47:22,740 --> 00:47:29,680
Microsoft, obviously, under Gates and Paul Allen, very nimble originally, became incredibly dominant.

580
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:34,740
And then it became extraordinarily moribund for a very long period of time.

581
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:41,140
And part of that was that people would join Microsoft full of vim and vigor and good ideas

582
00:47:41,140 --> 00:47:44,900
and get bogged down in an extraordinarily lengthy approval process

583
00:47:44,900 --> 00:47:46,300
to do and change anything,

584
00:47:47,540 --> 00:47:51,380
which Nadella has actually reinvigorated and turned around

585
00:47:51,380 --> 00:47:53,260
by stripping away some of those inefficiencies.

586
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:59,280
So we do have real-world examples of scenarios

587
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:03,940
where companies have taken the wrong path and can go the other way,

588
00:48:03,980 --> 00:48:06,480
and I think we're beginning to see some of them in nation-states.

589
00:48:06,740 --> 00:48:08,100
Argentina is an example.

590
00:48:08,100 --> 00:48:17,120
um el salvador i'm still in two minds around how el salvador is working um obviously some people

591
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:22,520
are of the view that bukele is is a dictator he's obviously got a very very strong law and order

592
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:28,820
focus um but at the same time he's drastically reduced the murder rate and made it a safer

593
00:48:28,820 --> 00:48:35,560
country to live in so um you pay his pipe and take your choice yeah i mean what you're describing

594
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:46,020
in a way is a natural life cycle of an organization and the question is what happens at the point of

595
00:48:46,020 --> 00:48:52,340
death is it death or rebirth is it change is it transformation you know you're i was just trying

596
00:48:52,340 --> 00:48:58,440
to think whether or not i thought argentina was transforming or was it i mean there was no bloody

597
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:05,800
battle obviously so um and also we have to wait to see the problem with all these things i i'm with

598
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:11,640
you on bukele i think um in i've been to el salvador a number of times and every everyone

599
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:17,140
i've ever spoken to loves him there so i'm fully on board with that the only worry i have is that

600
00:49:17,140 --> 00:49:23,540
he is still a leader and a politician and i remember various countries in central america

601
00:49:23,540 --> 00:49:29,500
on South America who had in the beginning had similar scenarios everyone super excited you could

602
00:49:29,500 --> 00:49:36,940
even say what happened I mean it's happened to us even do you remember things can only get better

603
00:49:36,940 --> 00:49:42,420
I was working in London I was a journalist then I worked for the independent and I remember getting

604
00:49:42,420 --> 00:49:48,740
swept up in all that shit you know and thinking wow change is coming or Trump you know change is

605
00:49:48,740 --> 00:49:53,380
coming you know and then or government's going to get smaller doge is going to smash everything

606
00:49:53,380 --> 00:49:59,240
oh wait a sec government's getting bigger we're spending more money you know uh in the end do do

607
00:49:59,240 --> 00:50:05,940
we do we get to trust any of these people it's very difficult to see how how they can how we can

608
00:50:05,940 --> 00:50:15,120
and in some ways i believe the only choice you have is to be as independent on an individual

609
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:21,980
basis as you possibly can, whether that's remaining where you are and living your life

610
00:50:21,980 --> 00:50:28,360
as freely as you can, or unfortunately moving somewhere else. And I think it's a supertanker

611
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:35,740
problem. The state, and by the state in the UK, I mean the civil service and the government is so

612
00:50:35,740 --> 00:50:40,740
preponderant. And again, returning to a lot of my friends who work in the civil service,

613
00:50:40,740 --> 00:50:44,420
they're generally good people. I've been friends with some of them for 25 years.

614
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:47,420
So I trust them implicitly as individuals.

615
00:50:48,040 --> 00:50:51,340
But they're stuck in an organization where to make the simplest decision

616
00:50:51,340 --> 00:50:54,980
requires five different levels of approval, 18 different forms.

617
00:50:55,800 --> 00:51:00,560
And three of the people who need to approve those forms are not in the office

618
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,760
because they've done their 25 hours for the week in the first three days.

619
00:51:03,760 --> 00:51:05,260
So they get the rest of the week off.

620
00:51:06,540 --> 00:51:09,800
And then they get a much bigger pension than I will when they retire,

621
00:51:10,240 --> 00:51:14,240
which will be funded for by continual debatement and dilution of the currency.

622
00:51:14,240 --> 00:51:17,320
I mean it's impossible to

623
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:19,240
and you mentioned

624
00:51:19,240 --> 00:51:21,500
the Soviet

625
00:51:21,500 --> 00:51:22,840
Socialist Republic before

626
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:25,160
it's just you get to a point where the bureaucracy

627
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:27,440
is so completely

628
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:28,680
incomprehensible that you

629
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:30,180
can't get anything done

630
00:51:30,180 --> 00:51:32,700
try to build anything in the United Kingdom

631
00:51:32,700 --> 00:51:35,760
I return again to the idea that

632
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:37,500
high energy is

633
00:51:37,500 --> 00:51:39,380
high quality of life and high income

634
00:51:39,380 --> 00:51:41,660
there are no low energy high income

635
00:51:41,660 --> 00:51:42,560
countries on the planet

636
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:47,260
it. So the whole idea that we need to be using less energy is, to my mind, completely absurd.

637
00:51:47,940 --> 00:51:51,960
We need to be using more energy. It's not as though energy is a scarce resource in the universe.

638
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:57,140
Fundamentally, everything is made of it. That's the mass energy equivalence equation, for God's

639
00:51:57,140 --> 00:52:03,260
sake. It's a question of harnessing it and storing it and deploying it. Obviously, storing energy is

640
00:52:03,260 --> 00:52:10,420
hard, and there are various solutions for that. Trying to build a new nuclear plant in the United

641
00:52:10,420 --> 00:52:17,480
Kingdom, which to my mind is what we should be doing everywhere, Rolls-Foyce, one of the builders

642
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:23,480
of SMRs, is, I mean, God knows how difficult it's going to be then to deploy their SMRs in the United

643
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:29,020
Kingdom, because our planning regulations are literally Byzantine. You talked earlier about

644
00:52:29,020 --> 00:52:33,720
collapse. It's interesting to look at previous collapses of extraordinarily complex bureaucracies,

645
00:52:33,720 --> 00:52:40,160
and the reason we call these things Byzantine is because it was the tail end of a 1400-year-old

646
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:47,800
empire filled with grand viziers and and strange eunuchs who had extraordinarily complicated job

647
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:53,100
titles and no one knew what they did you can learn a lot of lessons from the past though the the the

648
00:52:53,100 --> 00:53:00,240
places that lasted the longest um ran in a specific way i'm thinking of places like venice

649
00:53:00,240 --> 00:53:06,440
that were run by merchants basically you look at dubai now in a way it's run by merchants

650
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:12,980
in a way i mean it's run by families but there's no politics to speak of if you're an immigrant

651
00:53:12,980 --> 00:53:20,040
90 of dubai is for is immigrants and you go there to make money you don't go to vote on anything

652
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:27,080
um there are i mean this is why in the free cities movement private cities are is is one of our big

653
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:34,900
things thousands of competing small jurisdictions not necessarily cities but just makes sense because

654
00:53:34,900 --> 00:53:41,360
the reason that all this stuff we're talking about, the bad governance is happening, is because

655
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:47,100
there's no competition in governance. There's no accountability in governance, especially in the

656
00:53:47,100 --> 00:53:51,540
civil service. I mean, the civil service, as you mentioned, is the worst out of all of them.

657
00:53:52,200 --> 00:53:54,820
Do people lose their jobs in the civil service? I don't know.

658
00:53:55,340 --> 00:54:00,080
No, they get promoted, actually. It's funny you mentioned that. You probably saw recently,

659
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:06,260
there was an MOD official who emailed the Taliban a list of the enemies of the Taliban,

660
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:09,080
including our own spies from MI6.

661
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:12,000
Why? Just did a chat by mistake.

662
00:54:12,220 --> 00:54:13,860
It was worth looking up.

663
00:54:15,300 --> 00:54:18,940
That was why, and this was covered up by a super injunction for three years.

664
00:54:19,560 --> 00:54:25,260
This was why we pulled a whole load of the Afghans who'd been our allies into the United Kingdom,

665
00:54:25,260 --> 00:54:27,840
because they were at risk of being murdered, obviously,

666
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:29,680
because all of their names and addresses.

667
00:54:29,860 --> 00:54:30,460
Oh, that's right.

668
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:30,800
Yeah.

669
00:54:31,180 --> 00:54:31,940
I read that.

670
00:54:31,940 --> 00:54:32,140
So that story.

671
00:54:32,780 --> 00:54:34,840
It's worth looking at what happened to the chap who sent it.

672
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:36,720
I believe he's now been promoted.

673
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:37,500
Yeah.

674
00:54:37,780 --> 00:54:39,140
Well, fact-checking me on that.

675
00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:42,900
Well, I mean, name me a politician who'd done a shitty job

676
00:54:42,900 --> 00:54:47,080
who didn't end up in a nice job straight afterwards.

677
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:48,740
Well, I mean, you mentioned Tony Blair earlier.

678
00:54:48,960 --> 00:54:49,400
Oh, my God.

679
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:50,320
How much is he worth now?

680
00:54:51,060 --> 00:54:55,660
He's also, I mean, he's a really nasty character.

681
00:54:55,660 --> 00:54:57,480
I used to, I worked for the Independent, right?

682
00:54:57,480 --> 00:54:59,680
And I, we did a lot of politics.

683
00:54:59,680 --> 00:55:05,440
I was a, I was a photographer and one election cycle, it wasn't the things can only get better

684
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:05,660
one.

685
00:55:05,740 --> 00:55:06,380
It was another one.

686
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:07,500
I was on their bus.

687
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:08,600
Yeah.

688
00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:08,840
Yeah.

689
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:10,600
Well, we all got assigned to different buses.

690
00:55:10,780 --> 00:55:12,420
That was, I don't know whether they still do that now.

691
00:55:12,460 --> 00:55:16,880
Do they, I mean, but there was like 20 photographers back then there's, there's probably one agency

692
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:17,860
guy now who does it.

693
00:55:18,100 --> 00:55:22,040
And we used to go to the conferences and I, you know, I, I spent a fair bit of time with

694
00:55:22,040 --> 00:55:25,760
Tony Blair in, you know, in, in relatively intimate situations.

695
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:32,800
Not that he would know who I was now, but he's a really nasty character now.

696
00:55:32,900 --> 00:55:34,180
I didn't notice it at the time.

697
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:35,340
I wasn't really looking.

698
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:45,740
But if you look at what he does in the world, he's that kind of, he's our guy that we send out to convince other countries to do this, that, and the other.

699
00:55:45,900 --> 00:55:48,880
You know, during COVID, he was massive on digital ID.

700
00:55:49,040 --> 00:55:53,520
Whenever you hear Tony Blair say anything, it's like, did you ID, did you ID, did you, you know.

701
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:58,560
he's one of those guys i know what your views on the world economic forum are but he's one of those

702
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:04,720
guys who's a slimy weff kind of guy and i always thought he was slimy to be honest but even back

703
00:56:04,720 --> 00:56:20,380
in 97 yeah i didn i was i was swept i think i was swept up in the wow change is coming you know i mean he he yeah he he in fact if you look closely there a picture of me on the internet shaking his hand and it nothing to do he just an award i got he was just giving an

704
00:56:20,380 --> 00:56:28,280
award but it does look like i'm like but but no i shouldn't probably shouldn't say that but no he

705
00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:32,700
yeah he what i mean what do you think of the world economic forum and all that kind of stuff i mean

706
00:56:32,700 --> 00:56:41,360
are they as bad as everyone makes out you know uh i not as perhaps i should have um should have

707
00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:46,400
spent more time watching what they say i i mean i i tend to have focused on them from a sort of

708
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:55,460
cbdc perspective uh and the i think they share characteristics with other people in government

709
00:56:55,460 --> 00:57:01,520
that i also find worrying and troubling in in a nutshell um so you know a couple of quotes from

710
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:03,820
various different WEF forums over the years.

711
00:57:04,660 --> 00:57:07,760
There was a chap talking about CBDCs,

712
00:57:07,860 --> 00:57:11,840
and he was getting very excited that you could permission tokens

713
00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:15,660
to be used only for food, for example, or for water,

714
00:57:16,380 --> 00:57:18,500
which I find extraordinarily chilling.

715
00:57:18,780 --> 00:57:21,480
It cuts against the very nature of money for me,

716
00:57:21,540 --> 00:57:24,160
which is the most saleable good and can be freely exchanged

717
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:25,980
for anything that you need or want.

718
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:31,240
And there's another guy whose name I can't now remember.

719
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:35,640
But he was, I think he was an ex-Indian central banker.

720
00:57:36,200 --> 00:57:38,000
And it's worth digging up the clip of him.

721
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:45,920
He's got this horrible smile on his face when he's talking about how excited he would be to prevent things,

722
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:49,640
to prevent money being used to buy tobacco or alcohol or other things.

723
00:57:50,740 --> 00:57:59,460
So I think that's a characteristic that a lot of those people who speak in these forums would share with the worst privacy offenders in our own governments,

724
00:57:59,460 --> 00:58:01,000
which is that they have an

725
00:58:01,000 --> 00:58:03,020
and it comes back to a point we made earlier

726
00:58:03,020 --> 00:58:05,240
a politician's raison d'etre

727
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:07,200
now seems to be to make more laws

728
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:09,200
so if they've made laws

729
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:11,240
the existing statute book

730
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:12,640
never gets smaller it only gets bigger

731
00:58:12,640 --> 00:58:15,360
so they need to keep on looking for new things

732
00:58:15,360 --> 00:58:16,220
to make laws about

733
00:58:16,220 --> 00:58:19,220
and one of the areas they're obsessed with

734
00:58:19,220 --> 00:58:21,340
making laws about now is personal freedom

735
00:58:21,340 --> 00:58:23,460
to do what you want, go where you want

736
00:58:23,460 --> 00:58:25,620
and to spend what you want as you see fit

737
00:58:25,620 --> 00:58:27,000
so I think

738
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:28,520
there was a bit of a long winded answer

739
00:58:28,520 --> 00:58:37,600
No, but all those things you just mentioned are all part of the same thing, which is, for want of a better word, a social credit score.

740
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:39,200
They're all to do with that.

741
00:58:39,820 --> 00:58:43,620
Travel, you know, what you can and can't do, basically.

742
00:58:44,300 --> 00:58:46,520
And algorithms will enforce them.

743
00:58:46,700 --> 00:58:52,000
You won't need a knock on the door by the police to say you've used up your carbon allowance today.

744
00:58:52,140 --> 00:58:54,120
You just won't be able to buy a ticket.

745
00:58:54,120 --> 00:59:00,540
and when you get to the station if you've got a fake ticket the facial id will say no that's not

746
00:59:00,540 --> 00:59:07,440
your ticket you know is it i i'm i'm i'm really i really don't know i used like i say are you i used

747
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:12,420
to be quite depressed about it then bitcoin appeared in my life and suddenly i was full of

748
00:59:12,420 --> 00:59:18,240
hope and now i feel i feel like i've got over another hill in the in the life cycle of all this

749
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:24,760
stuff and it is yeah bitcoin's still phenomenally it's hope no question about it but if you can't

750
00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:32,560
spend it because you are wading through a sea of bureaucracy and kyc and i mean it already happens

751
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:37,460
now you can't buy a car with bitcoin anonymously unless you know a friend who's selling up a bitcoin

752
00:59:37,460 --> 00:59:42,140
you can do small transactions anonymously and you can do 100 billion dollar tractions

753
00:59:42,140 --> 00:59:47,820
100 billion dollar type transactions you know they're not taxed at that end of the spectrum

754
00:59:47,820 --> 00:59:53,680
But in the middle there where the government derives taxes, they want to know every single thing you're doing.

755
00:59:53,820 --> 00:59:59,900
And that's the thing that most people, when they look at it to begin with, go, yeah, that seems fair.

756
01:00:00,860 --> 01:00:03,300
You know, they've got to know what we're spending our money on.

757
01:00:04,700 --> 01:00:09,200
But you and I and people who care about that kind of stuff know that that is horrendous.

758
01:00:09,300 --> 01:00:12,660
And even just morally, that's wrong.

759
01:00:12,740 --> 01:00:15,520
I mean, you know, we lived on cash for years.

760
01:00:15,580 --> 01:00:17,020
We lived on gold coins for years.

761
01:00:17,020 --> 01:00:18,960
No one knew who was swapping what.

762
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:21,620
It's really important.

763
01:00:21,780 --> 01:00:23,280
It's really none of anyone's business.

764
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:29,920
It's a total mindset of liberty that most people don't seem to have these days,

765
01:00:29,940 --> 01:00:32,260
or it's been beaten out of them, at least in our country.

766
01:00:32,260 --> 01:00:34,500
That point about cash is fundamentally important.

767
01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:39,620
The reason cash exists is because it enables people who don't know each other to transact with each other.

768
01:00:39,620 --> 01:00:44,900
the whole conceptual ideation of a banknote

769
01:00:44,900 --> 01:00:46,980
is that you and I don't know each other.

770
01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:48,240
We don't need to trust each other.

771
01:00:49,380 --> 01:00:51,760
I don't even need to get your name

772
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:54,100
if you come into a shop and hand me over a £10 note.

773
01:00:54,220 --> 01:00:55,520
You definitely don't need your name.

774
01:00:55,720 --> 01:00:56,960
It's none of your business.

775
01:00:57,100 --> 01:00:57,700
Absolutely none.

776
01:00:58,700 --> 01:01:00,940
But people have, I think,

777
01:01:00,940 --> 01:01:03,900
part of the process of moving away from cash

778
01:01:03,900 --> 01:01:05,620
and into tapping,

779
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:07,560
people have lost sight of the fact

780
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:10,400
that money is a KYC-less technology.

781
01:01:11,820 --> 01:01:13,540
And as you were talking there,

782
01:01:13,780 --> 01:01:16,580
I also kind of, I think I'm with you on,

783
01:01:16,840 --> 01:01:18,240
having gone over that second hill,

784
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:20,160
I became very excited.

785
01:01:21,080 --> 01:01:23,240
And I'm now more cognizant of the fact

786
01:01:23,240 --> 01:01:25,000
that we are very much on the back foot

787
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:28,560
in terms of preserving, frankly, you know,

788
01:01:28,600 --> 01:01:30,120
our ability to transact.

789
01:01:30,540 --> 01:01:31,960
I go on about this a lot,

790
01:01:32,040 --> 01:01:34,100
but I think that's a very, very fundamental freedom.

791
01:01:34,100 --> 01:01:38,400
the train ticket point you made.

792
01:01:39,160 --> 01:01:40,500
I know in Hong Kong,

793
01:01:40,980 --> 01:01:44,640
when people were going to the pro-democracy protests,

794
01:01:45,160 --> 01:01:46,580
their travel was being monitored

795
01:01:46,580 --> 01:01:49,280
and they developed a system

796
01:01:49,280 --> 01:01:53,740
whereby you'd leave spent tickets in machines

797
01:01:53,740 --> 01:01:54,960
for other people to pick up

798
01:01:54,960 --> 01:01:57,120
to try and throw people off the track.

799
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:00,380
But being able to,

800
01:02:00,500 --> 01:02:03,820
I think for merchants accepting Bitcoin,

801
01:02:04,100 --> 01:02:08,680
is a huge Trojan horse to keep this going forwards.

802
01:02:08,680 --> 01:02:11,800
Because once you can pay for things

803
01:02:11,800 --> 01:02:14,200
in a currency that's not controlled by the government,

804
01:02:14,480 --> 01:02:17,600
that's quite a powerful pushback against it.

805
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:19,380
And you said, obviously, the government wants to know

806
01:02:19,380 --> 01:02:20,740
exactly what we're spending.

807
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:23,320
The reason they want to know what we're doing with our money

808
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:24,420
is because they want it.

809
01:02:25,660 --> 01:02:26,580
They want to cut off it.

810
01:02:26,580 --> 01:02:27,460
Yes, exactly.

811
01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:30,680
Government is fundamentally a non-productive enterprise.

812
01:02:31,460 --> 01:02:33,720
Governments only make money either by tax

813
01:02:33,720 --> 01:02:35,560
in their population or by borrowing.

814
01:02:37,060 --> 01:02:38,700
Which is getting harder and harder for them.

815
01:02:38,780 --> 01:02:40,040
Both of them are getting really difficult.

816
01:02:40,940 --> 01:02:46,080
And you asked earlier, do I think a change is coming in the United Kingdom?

817
01:02:46,080 --> 01:02:51,300
I really do think that we are on the verge of some kind of sovereign debt crisis.

818
01:02:52,580 --> 01:02:56,440
The extent of our indebtedness is enormous.

819
01:02:57,580 --> 01:03:01,680
By sovereign debt crisis, I don't mean what the man in the street might typically say,

820
01:03:01,740 --> 01:03:02,840
oh, the UK is bankrupt.

821
01:03:03,720 --> 01:03:10,000
Governments that can print their own currency and whose debts are denominated in their own currency, as you know, don't go bankrupt.

822
01:03:10,160 --> 01:03:11,260
They just print more and more money.

823
01:03:12,520 --> 01:03:14,080
Weimar Germany didn't go bankrupt.

824
01:03:15,560 --> 01:03:16,040
They just...

825
01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:17,020
It's a big balance sheet.

826
01:03:17,220 --> 01:03:17,740
Yes, exactly.

827
01:03:19,220 --> 01:03:23,820
And we're already getting to the point where, you know, you'll laugh a curve point.

828
01:03:24,280 --> 01:03:28,220
We're getting to the point where it's very difficult to tax anyone anymore.

829
01:03:28,220 --> 01:03:34,520
largely because even regular people are beginning to notice that they can't afford anything any

830
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:41,040
longer so to my mind the only way of fixing this is via an enormous debasement of the currency

831
01:03:41,040 --> 01:03:45,960
that's the only way that our unfunded civil service pension liabilities are going to be paid

832
01:03:45,960 --> 01:03:50,460
personally i'm you know i'm in my mid-40s i don't expect to be getting a state pension

833
01:03:50,460 --> 01:03:57,260
i don't see how it's fiscally possible i don't see how it would be enough either really really

834
01:03:57,260 --> 01:03:59,180
I mean, it's one thing getting a pension.

835
01:03:59,320 --> 01:04:01,800
It's another thing being enough to actually live.

836
01:04:02,580 --> 01:04:05,360
I mean, that time is gone, I think.

837
01:04:06,600 --> 01:04:12,380
You can live poorly on it if you want, but if you had any kind of life, you know, I think, yeah.

838
01:04:12,500 --> 01:04:15,200
I mean, that's a whole other point.

839
01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:17,800
I was just, as you were speaking, then I thought of something.

840
01:04:19,540 --> 01:04:21,440
What were you just saying then about?

841
01:04:22,120 --> 01:04:25,660
Were you talking about unfunded pension liabilities, talking about?

842
01:04:25,660 --> 01:04:32,860
Oh, yeah, the slow looting of everyone, basically, which is what's happening.

843
01:04:33,380 --> 01:04:39,980
And so your result would be some form of collapse in the form of a debasement or a conscious debasement.

844
01:04:40,560 --> 01:04:45,500
I think that, I mean, historically, that's what people have done to solve this kind of indefinite problem.

845
01:04:46,500 --> 01:04:55,100
There's sort of two related solutions, Israel in the 80s and I think maybe started in the 70s, but definitely in the 1980s.

846
01:04:55,100 --> 01:04:58,980
they had a short period of very, very high inflation, which effectively wiped out a lot

847
01:04:58,980 --> 01:05:05,180
of their national, or the real value of a lot of their national debt. And then certainly in 1920s

848
01:05:05,180 --> 01:05:11,840
and 30s Germany, we saw three or four different currencies, I believe, until eventually the third

849
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:16,920
or fourth stabilized. But that was after an enormous period of horrendous hyperinflation.

850
01:05:18,140 --> 01:05:22,660
And I'm sure you will have read When Money Dies. Yeah, fantastic, but I recommend that to people

851
01:05:22,660 --> 01:05:29,800
all the time harrowing yeah and really interesting to notice how people live through that kind of

852
01:05:29,800 --> 01:05:43,620
situation i find that fascinating because we there a very sorry to buy and there a slim version of that happening right now And in as much as in our country groceries have doubled since the pandemic That goes without saying now

853
01:05:43,680 --> 01:05:46,720
I know that from my own bills that they've doubled.

854
01:05:47,160 --> 01:05:52,600
And that means my income is halved, potentially, because everything's doubled.

855
01:05:53,160 --> 01:05:55,160
You know, inflation doesn't happen in just one sector.

856
01:05:55,280 --> 01:05:55,740
It happens everywhere.

857
01:05:55,840 --> 01:05:59,740
And in fact, it happens more in a lot of other sectors rather than things like food.

858
01:05:59,740 --> 01:06:06,240
so and we and you've noticed my me start to change the way i live my life already i know it's not

859
01:06:06,240 --> 01:06:12,000
hyperinflation where you spend your paycheck the moment you get it and just stock up on xyz but

860
01:06:12,000 --> 01:06:18,100
there are versions of that happening now and the meme that assets are where you store your wealth

861
01:06:18,100 --> 01:06:24,160
is suddenly happening all over the place it's bizarre i think and this should be considered a

862
01:06:24,160 --> 01:06:32,980
positive thing i think in a way but 10 years ago i don't think my father-in-law ever spoke about

863
01:06:32,980 --> 01:06:38,300
assets it wasn't something i mean if you're in the financial world it is second nature but the

864
01:06:38,300 --> 01:06:44,440
average person if you're a teacher or a bus driver or whatever you don't the most the nearest you got

865
01:06:44,440 --> 01:06:50,300
to investing was buying british telecom shares or whatever premium bonds premium bonds yeah exactly

866
01:06:50,300 --> 01:07:01,160
But all of a sudden, and a lot of it's to do with Robin Hood and things like that, but all of a sudden, people get this idea that people that have been staying rich have been leveraging their assets.

867
01:07:01,380 --> 01:07:03,360
They haven't been holding on to cash.

868
01:07:03,440 --> 01:07:04,620
They've been XYZ.

869
01:07:04,760 --> 01:07:11,940
And suddenly, it's common knowledge, it seems anyway, which is a good sign because I think that can happen with absolutely everything.

870
01:07:12,240 --> 01:07:15,460
And I think the next stage after that is, why is this happening?

871
01:07:15,780 --> 01:07:16,920
Oh, my God, it's the government.

872
01:07:16,920 --> 01:07:23,400
yes you know and and then you get that point where and that could be for us next election cycle

873
01:07:23,400 --> 01:07:29,260
where people go right i want i don't want those guys because they were terrible and i don't want

874
01:07:29,260 --> 01:07:34,660
the guys that are in there now as well because they did they did even worse who we got and there's

875
01:07:34,660 --> 01:07:40,220
some interesting folk coming through but but i'm not sure they have a whole government coming with

876
01:07:40,220 --> 01:07:46,180
them if you know what i mean i mean where do they find where well i don't know do you have you must

877
01:07:46,180 --> 01:07:51,200
have seen the latest electoral map predictions for the next election i haven't but are they all

878
01:07:51,200 --> 01:07:58,000
in it's i think the latest one i saw had reform at close to 400 seats wow which would be a total

879
01:07:58,000 --> 01:08:02,540
wipeout for both labor and the conservatives and i believe that poll was conducted before

880
01:08:02,540 --> 01:08:07,780
jeremy corbyn's new party which would leak this doesn't exist does it well it'll steal some vote

881
01:08:07,780 --> 01:08:13,080
from labor no but it doesn't his new party is just the there's a it's like a white paper isn't it

882
01:08:13,080 --> 01:08:18,860
well yeah it doesn't exist yet he's just said i'm gonna do this i hate it's like the the

883
01:08:18,860 --> 01:08:23,620
announcement before the announcement yeah but you know by the time when you know incredibly we've

884
01:08:23,620 --> 01:08:27,540
got was it four years until the next three four years until the next election 29 well there's a

885
01:08:27,540 --> 01:08:31,880
petition online now of people saying we need another election already you know one of those

886
01:08:31,880 --> 01:08:37,640
online petitions where they have to i know nothing will happen but um it's got i saw it yesterday it's

887
01:08:37,640 --> 01:08:39,960
got 500,000 signatures on.

888
01:08:40,320 --> 01:08:41,420
Well, that itself is indicative.

889
01:08:41,420 --> 01:08:42,460
Which is almost as much.

890
01:08:43,120 --> 01:08:47,060
Well, you know, I mean, how many people voted in the last election?

891
01:08:47,220 --> 01:08:47,380
Anyway.

892
01:08:47,680 --> 01:08:52,420
Yes, but that shows, to your point, are we seeing a desire for change in the UK?

893
01:08:52,780 --> 01:08:58,100
The fact that that poll's got 500,000 signatures in the space of about a week, it tells you

894
01:08:58,100 --> 01:09:02,120
how, because that's just, that'll be a subset of the people who are discontent.

895
01:09:02,520 --> 01:09:06,120
That's a relatively small subset of people who are motivated enough to find that poll,

896
01:09:06,120 --> 01:09:09,900
to bother to click on it, and then to verify their email address.

897
01:09:10,160 --> 01:09:14,380
So those 500,000 people have gone through quite a lot of hoops

898
01:09:14,380 --> 01:09:15,660
in order to get their names in that poll.

899
01:09:15,880 --> 01:09:18,660
There are vastly more people who are discontent.

900
01:09:19,260 --> 01:09:22,040
I wonder if it had online safety on it, because you have to be 18 to vote.

901
01:09:22,160 --> 01:09:24,440
Oh my gosh, that would be hilarious.

902
01:09:26,080 --> 01:09:29,780
Is it harmful stuff?

903
01:09:29,900 --> 01:09:32,320
I mean, voting is pretty harmful if you think it's going to change anything.

904
01:09:32,320 --> 01:09:35,260
Well, it's harmful if you're in a government that's about to lose power.

905
01:09:35,260 --> 01:09:36,440
Yes, for them.

906
01:09:36,780 --> 01:09:41,560
My big worry, though, is that we obviously tried the Conservatives

907
01:09:41,560 --> 01:09:43,720
and the coalition government for 14 years.

908
01:09:43,920 --> 01:09:44,720
That was a disaster.

909
01:09:45,840 --> 01:09:48,320
Labour is an unfolding disaster at the moment.

910
01:09:49,800 --> 01:09:52,400
Whoever comes in is going to have one chance

911
01:09:52,400 --> 01:09:55,480
before people completely switch off,

912
01:09:56,000 --> 01:09:57,240
and we effectively get into...

913
01:09:57,240 --> 01:09:59,300
And I actually don't know what the conclusion there will be.

914
01:09:59,580 --> 01:10:03,520
If you get voter turnout of 9% or 10% at subsequent elections,

915
01:10:03,520 --> 01:10:05,380
because people say, well, we've tried literally everyone

916
01:10:05,380 --> 01:10:06,600
and it's all been terrible.

917
01:10:07,920 --> 01:10:11,920
And the country is clearly run not by whichever bunch of idiots

918
01:10:11,920 --> 01:10:15,180
we vote into power, but it's run by a faceless grey mob

919
01:10:15,180 --> 01:10:19,460
of bureaucrats who are unaccountable to the people.

920
01:10:19,720 --> 01:10:21,660
But the civil service doesn't change, right?

921
01:10:21,780 --> 01:10:22,420
No, no, it doesn't.

922
01:10:22,460 --> 01:10:23,260
That's the whole point.

923
01:10:23,480 --> 01:10:24,100
I think that's that.

924
01:10:24,100 --> 01:10:26,420
Because I know they're not allowed to be political,

925
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:27,480
but they are political.

926
01:10:27,800 --> 01:10:28,580
Everyone's political.

927
01:10:28,800 --> 01:10:29,940
You have a leaning, don't you?

928
01:10:29,940 --> 01:10:34,920
And they're almost all well-educated Oxford people who lean slightly left.

929
01:10:36,740 --> 01:10:39,440
Which is, you know, I'm not making it.

930
01:10:39,500 --> 01:10:40,360
That's not a value judgment.

931
01:10:40,540 --> 01:10:41,540
It's just an observation.

932
01:10:42,680 --> 01:10:44,020
Lastly, it was a lot of them my friends.

933
01:10:46,160 --> 01:10:51,640
So if you come into power and you did something about the civil service,

934
01:10:51,740 --> 01:10:54,740
I think that would make a really interesting change.

935
01:10:55,320 --> 01:10:58,020
Like Vivek Ramaswamy, I don't know if you saw a couple of interviews with him

936
01:10:58,020 --> 01:10:59,180
while he was still running for president.

937
01:10:59,180 --> 01:11:02,020
he said his plan was to come in and he would,

938
01:11:02,340 --> 01:11:03,720
I forget how he was going to do it,

939
01:11:03,740 --> 01:11:06,080
he was either going to do it via random selection

940
01:11:06,080 --> 01:11:08,800
of social security numbers or give everyone an A and a B.

941
01:11:09,420 --> 01:11:11,380
And then he said, right, all the B's are fired.

942
01:11:12,360 --> 01:11:14,860
That's a kind of Millet move, isn't it?

943
01:11:14,920 --> 01:11:16,240
That's a kind of thing Millet would do.

944
01:11:16,740 --> 01:11:19,120
Yes, and then see if the apparitions.

945
01:11:19,120 --> 01:11:20,060
But he didn't get in, did he?

946
01:11:20,060 --> 01:11:20,480
No, he didn't.

947
01:11:20,700 --> 01:11:22,540
And he didn't get anywhere near getting in either.

948
01:11:22,680 --> 01:11:24,300
I mean, he was liked by people,

949
01:11:24,300 --> 01:11:25,440
but at the end of the day,

950
01:11:25,440 --> 01:11:33,200
the competition was won by the you know the celebrity guy which doesn't i mean what what's

951
01:11:33,200 --> 01:11:40,620
your take on america and because america is the place for me in my mind anyway it's it's the

952
01:11:40,620 --> 01:11:45,660
libertarian country it's the one with the interesting it's the one that took our model

953
01:11:45,660 --> 01:11:52,380
and improved it and implemented it and it's still the place that has an identity of liberty

954
01:11:52,380 --> 01:11:57,960
on the whole when you go there it's like you you can say there's a large section of the population

955
01:11:57,960 --> 01:12:02,360
that actually believe in this stuff and are prepared to defend their houses if you come

956
01:12:02,360 --> 01:12:06,020
and tell them what to do you know and stuff like that so what's your take on that because

957
01:12:06,020 --> 01:12:12,640
like i said earlier my worry with anything happening in the uk is that a similar but

958
01:12:12,640 --> 01:12:18,200
more exaggerated version of what happened in america recently happened which is trump's

959
01:12:18,200 --> 01:12:24,260
really exciting because he's he's going to smash the blob he's going to destroy the deep state

960
01:12:24,260 --> 01:12:29,940
and then you realize now he there are some things that he appears to be doing especially in the

961
01:12:29,940 --> 01:12:35,680
bitcoin space and that's my meter that i would look at because that's all i really care about

962
01:12:35,680 --> 01:12:41,100
i'm a single i'm a voter of i think if if someone's pro bitcoin i'm going to vote for them

963
01:12:41,100 --> 01:12:46,360
because i think bitcoin is a long-term solution whether they know it or not to the problem of

964
01:12:46,360 --> 01:12:53,180
government um mainly because it takes away the ability to fund yourself by just basically creating

965
01:12:53,180 --> 01:12:57,120
money out if you're from your mates you know and the flip side of that if someone's opposed to

966
01:12:57,120 --> 01:13:02,140
bitcoin they're probably a wrong one yes and that yeah without and you can see that now around the

967
01:13:02,140 --> 01:13:09,200
world where is bitcoin forbidden do you want to live there yes no yeah that's right well it's

968
01:13:09,200 --> 01:13:15,440
heuristic i know i mean it's an obvious one yes it's it you know really so so i would i do use

969
01:13:15,440 --> 01:13:21,340
that as a signal. But what's your take on America? Do you think change is actually happening

970
01:13:21,340 --> 01:13:27,440
there? Or do you think that it's, as a lot of people think, you know, it's the Roman

971
01:13:27,440 --> 01:13:33,140
Empire thing, it's the declining end of an empire, biggest government that's ever existed,

972
01:13:33,260 --> 01:13:33,560
I think?

973
01:13:34,660 --> 01:13:39,720
I mean, I find America fascinating for a lot of the reasons that you've said. I absolutely

974
01:13:39,720 --> 01:13:42,080
love the founding principles of the United States.

975
01:13:42,080 --> 01:13:42,520
Me too.

976
01:13:42,520 --> 01:13:56,100
The Constitution is a phenomenally well-drafted document, and I profoundly admire the minds of the people who created it, who decided how much power they were willing to see to the state and how much they would.

977
01:13:56,700 --> 01:14:06,440
As far as I know, it's the only country where people voluntarily chose how much power to give up to the state rather than finding themselves oppressed by the state from the moment of their birth.

978
01:14:06,440 --> 01:14:12,820
and a lot of the Americans that I know and like hold those principles

979
01:14:12,820 --> 01:14:15,240
and actually think about them in a way that British people don't.

980
01:14:16,160 --> 01:14:18,580
And I wonder sometimes if that's because all of the British people

981
01:14:18,580 --> 01:14:20,460
who thought and felt like that went.

982
01:14:20,460 --> 01:14:21,400
Went, yes.

983
01:14:21,540 --> 01:14:22,980
And the people who stayed,

984
01:14:23,160 --> 01:14:26,100
and we are the descendants of the people who stayed behind.

985
01:14:26,980 --> 01:14:29,480
I wonder if there's some kind of evolutionary selection pressure.

986
01:14:29,800 --> 01:14:30,160
Almost certainly.

987
01:14:30,580 --> 01:14:32,360
I mean, it almost certainly is,

988
01:14:32,620 --> 01:14:35,580
because I think that's why the attitude is in America.

989
01:14:35,580 --> 01:14:40,860
it's it's it's something you're born with there in a very subtle way it's not something you

990
01:14:40,860 --> 01:14:47,160
necessarily learn you can learn it but well I mean I'm not sort of weird at this end of sort of

991
01:14:47,160 --> 01:14:53,760
obstreperous colonials myself my family had various stints in South America and in Africa

992
01:14:53,760 --> 01:14:59,960
twice in Africa my great-grandmother was born in South Africa and then my family I grew up in

993
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:00,800
Zimbabwe myself.

994
01:15:01,320 --> 01:15:02,300
Wow, Zimbabwe.

995
01:15:02,780 --> 01:15:03,260
Yes.

996
01:15:03,720 --> 01:15:05,540
Wow, that's...

997
01:15:05,540 --> 01:15:08,780
Were you in Zimbabwe when all the shit was going down?

998
01:15:08,820 --> 01:15:09,120
Some.

999
01:15:09,500 --> 01:15:11,580
Actually, you were mentioning earlier around...

1000
01:15:11,580 --> 01:15:12,780
It was when we were talking about Bukali.

1001
01:15:12,960 --> 01:15:14,380
I remember something about Mugabe.

1002
01:15:14,840 --> 01:15:19,480
When Mugabe came in, people forget that he was a popular president.

1003
01:15:20,040 --> 01:15:24,300
And when I was a kid, Zimbabwe was a wonderful place to live and to grow up in.

1004
01:15:24,300 --> 01:15:31,920
and unfortunately as he clung on to power his government became increasingly

1005
01:15:31,920 --> 01:15:40,960
sclerotic and repressive and undemocratic so we saw a sort of live fire exercise of

1006
01:15:40,960 --> 01:15:46,560
what happens when you know a popular freedom fighter basically comes into power

1007
01:15:46,560 --> 01:15:53,300
and then suddenly decides to ruthlessly stamp down on opposition and then obviously the

1008
01:15:53,300 --> 01:15:58,300
hyperinflation but it wasn't as bad when i left it was about inflation was running about 50 60 percent

1009
01:15:58,300 --> 01:16:04,380
uh in the late mid to late 90s when uh i left but a lot of my friends stayed there so i left just

1010
01:16:04,380 --> 01:16:12,260
before sixth form still there now very few one or two um but yeah close friend of mine actually i

1011
01:16:12,260 --> 01:16:18,100
know for a fact his his family had savings which were entirely wiped out and that's true for the

1012
01:16:18,100 --> 01:16:23,380
majority of people who had who had cash savings at the time i think at its worst hyperinflation

1013
01:16:23,380 --> 01:16:30,960
got so bad that it was no longer possible to put a number on it it and i mean it was just an

1014
01:16:30,960 --> 01:16:37,660
extraordinarily weird i've got a hundred billion dollar note actually i bought it in um in um

1015
01:16:37,660 --> 01:16:43,500
what do you call it uh amsterdam was there's a i found a shop in amsterdam it's a lovely little

1016
01:16:43,500 --> 01:16:45,460
a place that sells old currencies.

1017
01:16:46,260 --> 01:16:48,520
And I just, I walked past and I went on the off chance.

1018
01:16:48,620 --> 01:16:49,540
I even got 100 billion.

1019
01:16:49,560 --> 01:16:50,960
It cost me like 60 euros.

1020
01:16:51,420 --> 01:16:53,040
Yeah, it's a lot more than it would have been worth at the time.

1021
01:16:53,160 --> 01:16:53,640
Right, exactly.

1022
01:16:53,760 --> 01:16:55,880
But it's a phenomenal looking thing.

1023
01:16:56,220 --> 01:16:57,160
And it's a pristine one.

1024
01:16:57,220 --> 01:16:57,580
It's an A.

1025
01:16:57,700 --> 01:16:59,600
It's like never been crunched up.

1026
01:16:59,640 --> 01:17:00,980
Not that they were being used anyway.

1027
01:17:01,080 --> 01:17:03,100
They were just bundled up in piles, weren't they?

1028
01:17:03,120 --> 01:17:04,420
No, people were using the US dollar.

1029
01:17:04,940 --> 01:17:08,840
In fact, the physical US dollars in the country are now beginning to collapse.

1030
01:17:08,840 --> 01:17:12,260
And actually, the paper's disintegrating because they're used so much.

1031
01:17:12,680 --> 01:17:13,000
Wow.

1032
01:17:13,500 --> 01:17:15,460
Do they use stablecoins down there?

1033
01:17:16,180 --> 01:17:17,760
Or is the technology not really?

1034
01:17:17,760 --> 01:17:17,860
Beginning.

1035
01:17:18,580 --> 01:17:20,440
So a friend of mine, actually, a school friend,

1036
01:17:20,520 --> 01:17:22,480
set up a business called KuvaCash,

1037
01:17:22,600 --> 01:17:26,600
which is designed to help with cross-border remittances,

1038
01:17:26,740 --> 01:17:28,580
and they'll use stablecoin and Bitcoin as well.

1039
01:17:28,820 --> 01:17:31,980
And I'm in touch with the Bitcoin movement in Zimbabwe.

1040
01:17:32,700 --> 01:17:35,240
I've joined a few calls, done a few spaces with them.

1041
01:17:36,560 --> 01:17:39,480
Hopefully I'll be going back to the Africa Bitcoin conference this year.

1042
01:17:39,480 --> 01:17:41,400
I attended in Kenya last year,

1043
01:17:41,780 --> 01:17:43,340
although sadly there weren't many Zimbos.

1044
01:17:43,500 --> 01:17:50,560
A few friends from Zambia, some guys have crossed the border and are now actually mining in Zambia in some instances.

1045
01:17:50,660 --> 01:17:51,080
Bitcoin mining.

1046
01:17:51,120 --> 01:17:51,260
Yeah.

1047
01:17:52,380 --> 01:17:54,120
Yeah, you've got to be careful when you say mining.

1048
01:17:54,300 --> 01:17:55,260
Yeah, actually it's funny.

1049
01:17:55,460 --> 01:17:56,860
I mentioned my great-grandmother.

1050
01:17:56,960 --> 01:18:01,100
Her dad then moved from South Africa to, as it was, northern Rhodesia.

1051
01:18:01,200 --> 01:18:03,280
There's a mine named after her mother somewhere.

1052
01:18:03,680 --> 01:18:04,460
He was a copper miner.

1053
01:18:05,560 --> 01:18:13,440
But yeah, so back to my slightly random point, I feel a little bit different from a lot of people I went to school and university with.

1054
01:18:13,500 --> 01:18:19,000
the UK and I think partly because you know I'd grown up in these slightly rough and ready places

1055
01:18:19,000 --> 01:18:24,320
where you know something goes wrong you fix it you make a plan you don't I mean we used to our

1056
01:18:24,320 --> 01:18:32,260
cars were held together with you know chicken wire and ingenuity and unfortunately you see the same

1057
01:18:32,260 --> 01:18:39,320
in countries like Cuba which is devastating impacts of both the political situation and

1058
01:18:39,320 --> 01:18:40,620
and poor government.

1059
01:18:42,020 --> 01:18:45,820
And you mentioned Trump coming in

1060
01:18:45,820 --> 01:18:48,340
and everyone thinking he was going to drain the swamp.

1061
01:18:48,920 --> 01:18:53,380
I mean, fundamentally, I think gigantic bureaucracies

1062
01:18:53,380 --> 01:18:54,800
only ever kill themselves.

1063
01:18:56,160 --> 01:19:00,500
I can't think of an instance where someone has successfully come in.

1064
01:19:00,740 --> 01:19:01,860
Well, Millet is a work in progress.

1065
01:19:01,860 --> 01:19:04,560
Is Millet actually reducing the size of government?

1066
01:19:05,780 --> 01:19:07,220
I mean, has anyone...

1067
01:19:07,220 --> 01:19:11,920
I know that he's got inflation down and I know that people love him and this is all good.

1068
01:19:12,940 --> 01:19:14,880
But is he actually reducing the size of government?

1069
01:19:14,960 --> 01:19:16,760
Because I think that is the solution.

1070
01:19:17,300 --> 01:19:21,900
The only solution I can ever come back to is the government is too big.

1071
01:19:22,120 --> 01:19:31,920
Because if the government was, and as you said, as a sort of left-leaning libertarian, you know roughly the real purpose of a government.

1072
01:19:32,180 --> 01:19:36,100
When it comes down to it, the government shouldn't be telling your kids not to look at porn.

1073
01:19:36,100 --> 01:19:40,980
the government should be defending private property on the whole yeah or or maybe a few

1074
01:19:40,980 --> 01:19:45,300
other bits and bobs as well you know a lot of people are undecided about that the main point

1075
01:19:45,300 --> 01:19:51,440
is it's it should be tiny in the same sense of the founding fathers there was no need for

1076
01:19:51,440 --> 01:19:57,800
to to fleece people of money to sort of like fund themselves they had very limited job titles

1077
01:19:57,800 --> 01:20:04,660
and it and it worked beautifully um but well i mean there was a lot of you know there was a lot

1078
01:20:04,660 --> 01:20:09,360
of inviting and stuff i suppose but um i don't know where i'm going with this it's just yeah

1079
01:20:09,360 --> 01:20:13,720
the government needs to do small basically yes i mean it's an interesting observation at the

1080
01:20:13,720 --> 01:20:19,000
moment so we're talking earlier about dubai and the free zones trying to map countries which have

1081
01:20:19,000 --> 01:20:25,840
relatively low tax rates uh against where against sort of energy producing nations is an interesting

1082
01:20:25,840 --> 01:20:30,440
mind game to play i mentioned earlier that governments are an unproductive enterprise but

1083
01:20:30,440 --> 01:20:36,040
if the state owns, if the state effectively has an energy monopoly, everything for me always comes

1084
01:20:36,040 --> 01:20:42,440
back to energy. If the state's able to fund itself through its energy resources, then it technically

1085
01:20:42,440 --> 01:20:48,620
doesn't really need to tax anyone. I often return to the idea that the only reason, it's a bit of a

1086
01:20:48,620 --> 01:20:52,860
facetious point, but I think there's some truth in it. The only reason the state needs to tax people

1087
01:20:52,860 --> 01:20:57,040
is to prove to the international bond markets that it's going to be good for the money,

1088
01:20:57,040 --> 01:21:02,180
that it can service its debts that other nations are buying

1089
01:21:02,180 --> 01:21:05,460
and can pay the coupon on those debts.

1090
01:21:07,080 --> 01:21:10,600
Because I mentioned earlier, obviously, most states only have two sources of income,

1091
01:21:11,420 --> 01:21:13,240
bond markets and their own citizens.

1092
01:21:14,460 --> 01:21:19,440
To the extent, and I'm far from a fan of state-run enterprises,

1093
01:21:19,440 --> 01:21:23,700
and again, we're in a country where there's a living demonstration of why they don't work,

1094
01:21:23,700 --> 01:21:30,380
But to the extent that you have energy-rich nations, they don't need to tax their population

1095
01:21:30,380 --> 01:21:35,040
so much because a lot of their income is derived from oil, and Saudi Aramco is a perfect example.

1096
01:21:37,020 --> 01:21:50,932
Obviously we not in a great position for energy abundance in the United Kingdom as we seeing in terms of our electricity bill So maybe the UK is not a good example there But to the extent and again I don necessarily want governments to have more money

1097
01:21:51,012 --> 01:21:52,612
because they'll probably just spend them on more civil services.

1098
01:21:52,612 --> 01:21:59,712
Yeah, but don't forget that Dubai has began in this sphere, but then pivoted.

1099
01:22:00,132 --> 01:22:04,592
And one of the places it innovated the most was in financial services,

1100
01:22:05,172 --> 01:22:06,212
Dubai Financial District.

1101
01:22:06,212 --> 01:22:14,512
well the uk's got a massive financial hub you know why not like dubai is a i know people either love

1102
01:22:14,512 --> 01:22:19,552
or hate dubai but i think you should look at dubai from the governance perspective and see

1103
01:22:19,552 --> 01:22:26,752
it's basically a family run seven families that run seven jurisdictions now a lot of people don't

1104
01:22:26,752 --> 01:22:31,352
like that already because they think it's undemocratic well you know tough shit you know

1105
01:22:31,352 --> 01:22:38,272
kings and queens run countries often much better than democracies do because they get to think

1106
01:22:38,272 --> 01:22:43,452
longer term they can decide right let's my son's going to inherit this we've got a good hundred

1107
01:22:43,452 --> 01:22:48,092
years of governance here the problem with those kind of places if you get a bad guy

1108
01:22:48,092 --> 01:22:52,132
your son's an idiot he can run the place into the ground and that does happen

1109
01:22:52,132 --> 01:22:59,272
but on the whole like i said earlier people go to um go people go to dubai because they receive

1110
01:22:59,272 --> 01:23:04,792
a good service. Government should be a service. They go there to receive a good service. If the

1111
01:23:04,792 --> 01:23:11,072
service is bad, they often will leave as quickly as they went. If Dubai starts spiraling out of

1112
01:23:11,072 --> 01:23:14,932
control and turning into an absolute nightmare that they don't like, people are going to go.

1113
01:23:15,672 --> 01:23:20,632
And that's the way governance should work in my head. Government should be competing for you,

1114
01:23:20,952 --> 01:23:27,652
not seeing you as just a way to generate income. And unfortunately, Dubai has that option. It had

1115
01:23:27,652 --> 01:23:34,432
some wealth behind it from resources doesn't need to do it and it treats its own citizens incredibly

1116
01:23:34,432 --> 01:23:41,372
well like emiratis they're only 10 of the population there but they are given a lot of stuff

1117
01:23:41,372 --> 01:23:47,272
same with qataris actually right yeah and and as a result they're happy all the incomers are happy

1118
01:23:47,272 --> 01:23:51,912
because they're they're hardly being taxed at all the only reason they're actually being taxed is

1119
01:23:51,912 --> 01:23:56,552
because of pressure from the rest of the world to say hey it's not fair you know about that right

1120
01:23:56,552 --> 01:24:02,832
They would be happy if there was a single tax rate for the whole world that everyone had to comply to.

1121
01:24:03,132 --> 01:24:05,672
And all that is, is doing away with competition again.

1122
01:24:05,752 --> 01:24:08,432
And it's like, this is the thing that keeps coming up.

1123
01:24:08,832 --> 01:24:14,112
Governments want to eradicate competition between them and other people.

1124
01:24:14,292 --> 01:24:18,332
And the problem that they run, they run like that.

1125
01:24:18,632 --> 01:24:20,532
They don't need to compete.

1126
01:24:20,692 --> 01:24:21,332
They don't care.

1127
01:24:21,332 --> 01:24:26,932
if if if the if your local council runs out of money they're not going to lose their job

1128
01:24:26,932 --> 01:24:31,012
the guys aren't going to lose their job they're they're going to just charge you more for a bin

1129
01:24:31,012 --> 01:24:35,212
and the people who cause the problem will probably be the ones who are paid to try and fix it and

1130
01:24:35,212 --> 01:24:43,032
yeah exactly and they're and and they're they've got a pension they were during the pandemic they

1131
01:24:43,032 --> 01:24:47,452
were treated very well it's almost like the rules were based around those kind of jobs you know

1132
01:24:47,452 --> 01:24:54,832
the whole thing is is is an absolute shit show i don't we're so far down the route anyway back to

1133
01:24:54,832 --> 01:24:59,552
the question about america are you positive do you think something's happening there is something

1134
01:24:59,552 --> 01:25:03,792
good happening i'm yeah i'm generally quite sanguine about it i'm certainly given the

1135
01:25:03,792 --> 01:25:08,072
contrast between you know by but the biden administration the trump administration

1136
01:25:08,072 --> 01:25:15,272
you know weirdly i'm i'm i'm obviously not an american voter and my opinions of the biden

1137
01:25:15,272 --> 01:25:22,072
administration were mainly based on his aggressive pursuit and attack on on bitcoin uh and and the

1138
01:25:22,072 --> 01:25:25,352
industry in general nothing wrong with that like i say it's the canary in the coal mine yeah it

1139
01:25:25,352 --> 01:25:32,272
really is and the i think you're completely right you know it was your your one second test as to

1140
01:25:32,272 --> 01:25:36,692
whether it's a good place yeah or a good person yeah good person yeah i mean if it if you do it

1141
01:25:36,692 --> 01:25:43,812
with a person if if i i don't like speaking about him but um he's come up a number of times recently

1142
01:25:43,812 --> 01:25:45,452
on this podcast, Gary's Economics.

1143
01:25:45,692 --> 01:25:46,272
Oh, Christ.

1144
01:25:46,612 --> 01:25:48,052
Yeah, but he's a perfect example

1145
01:25:48,052 --> 01:25:51,852
of someone who speaks authoritatively about Bitcoin

1146
01:25:51,852 --> 01:25:53,652
and doesn't understand it at all.

1147
01:25:53,652 --> 01:25:54,632
Yeah, no one's saying it.

1148
01:25:54,632 --> 01:25:56,272
Right, so that's my red flag

1149
01:25:56,272 --> 01:25:58,412
in a personal relationship as well.

1150
01:25:58,912 --> 01:26:00,892
It's fine to not understand Bitcoin,

1151
01:26:01,332 --> 01:26:03,332
but if you talk about it authoritatively,

1152
01:26:03,412 --> 01:26:06,072
I doubt everything you're saying now.

1153
01:26:06,632 --> 01:26:07,192
Well, exactly.

1154
01:26:07,612 --> 01:26:10,452
It's completely undermined my belief in the FT.

1155
01:26:12,052 --> 01:26:13,032
Are they backing him?

1156
01:26:13,072 --> 01:26:13,632
I didn't even know that.

1157
01:26:13,632 --> 01:26:18,212
Oh, no, no, I meant their incorrect attitude towards the last 15 years.

1158
01:26:18,472 --> 01:26:20,792
I thought he was becoming a columnist at the MT or something.

1159
01:26:20,792 --> 01:26:24,492
It got to the point where I was thinking, you know, the old joke,

1160
01:26:24,972 --> 01:26:27,712
those who can do and those who can't teach,

1161
01:26:27,912 --> 01:26:29,592
and if you can't do either, you work for the FT.

1162
01:26:29,912 --> 01:26:30,192
Right.

1163
01:26:33,172 --> 01:26:34,752
But anyway, you're completely right.

1164
01:26:34,912 --> 01:26:38,552
He speaks about it with great authority and great conviction,

1165
01:26:38,552 --> 01:26:42,212
and he looks like the kind of man who's never even turned on a computer.

1166
01:26:43,632 --> 01:27:02,392
He's also a closet socialist, and I'm not sure he even understands that. But the reason I think Gary's a really good, interesting example is he defaults to the government solving the problem without even a thought, I think. And this is important because I think a lot of people think the same way.

1167
01:27:02,392 --> 01:27:10,732
when a problem arises they look to the government and there's a much bigger view of that whole

1168
01:27:10,732 --> 01:27:16,712
equation which is is it the government's problem is it their fault should they solve it but people

1169
01:27:16,712 --> 01:27:22,032
don't they they it's we especially in the uk we live in such an ingrained system where the

1170
01:27:22,032 --> 01:27:28,292
government solves problems like i'm poor right the government's not helping me you know like

1171
01:27:28,292 --> 01:27:33,172
that's the kind of natural response to it from so many people whereas you find in america it's a bit

1172
01:27:33,172 --> 01:27:40,352
more of a you know pick yourself up by your bootstraps kind of place well i think i know i

1173
01:27:40,352 --> 01:27:44,992
grew up in a country where if you were poor no one was coming to help you if you were poor you lived

1174
01:27:44,992 --> 01:27:51,652
on the freaking streets and i think that's very deeply ingrained into me from when i was a small

1175
01:27:51,652 --> 01:27:58,232
child i grew up in a scenario with it in a country where there were no free schools every kid when

1176
01:27:58,232 --> 01:28:03,152
went to school, their parents paid even a small amount. The government schools were

1177
01:28:03,152 --> 01:28:11,672
charged fees. There was no free health care. It was a tough place to grow up. It forged people

1178
01:28:11,672 --> 01:28:18,752
who were incentivized to change things. So your point is completely correct. We do have this

1179
01:28:18,752 --> 01:28:30,104
mental attitude that someone will look after us someone else will fix this Why are the roads full of potholes Now you see Rod Stewart at the front of his house filling in holes

1180
01:28:30,224 --> 01:28:32,024
Yeah, there's a video from somewhere

1181
01:28:32,024 --> 01:28:35,044
filling in a pothole outside his own house

1182
01:28:35,044 --> 01:28:36,964
because the local council isn't able to do it.

1183
01:28:36,964 --> 01:28:40,364
And in this terrible state of our system,

1184
01:28:40,484 --> 01:28:44,324
I wouldn't be surprised if someone from the bureaucratic system

1185
01:28:44,324 --> 01:28:46,904
came to stop him and said, it's our job.

1186
01:28:47,104 --> 01:28:47,324
Yes.

1187
01:28:47,324 --> 01:28:51,564
I mean, this is how ridiculous everything's becoming.

1188
01:28:52,004 --> 01:28:57,744
And when you look at that, it's basically the collectivist versus the individualist.

1189
01:28:57,804 --> 01:29:00,724
The individualist says, oh, there's a pot outside my house, right, I'm going to go and fix it.

1190
01:29:00,964 --> 01:29:03,164
The collectivists are like, wait a minute, wait a minute, no.

1191
01:29:03,644 --> 01:29:04,864
Whose job is that?

1192
01:29:05,284 --> 01:29:11,344
And we've also over-regulated to the point where if you fill in a pothole with incorrect material,

1193
01:29:11,344 --> 01:29:16,844
then perhaps that is now going to create a health and safety problem where some other regulation has been tripped.

1194
01:29:16,844 --> 01:29:19,244
You know, that's been filled in with gravel, not with bitumen.

1195
01:29:20,184 --> 01:29:25,824
You know, that's not going to meet with, you know, the highways agency standards for road composition.

1196
01:29:26,364 --> 01:29:30,724
And you have so many different interlocking layers and rules that effectively,

1197
01:29:31,744 --> 01:29:34,364
there's something that a lot of the Silicon Valley company directors talk about.

1198
01:29:34,424 --> 01:29:35,504
It's a bias for action.

1199
01:29:36,584 --> 01:29:40,364
As a country in the United Kingdom, we've completely lost our bias for action.

1200
01:29:40,884 --> 01:29:45,464
We now have a throw your hands up in the air and wait for someone else to fix it attitude.

1201
01:29:45,464 --> 01:29:49,044
and unfortunately I mean if I had to sort of

1202
01:29:49,044 --> 01:29:52,224
sum up a lot of my frustration with this

1203
01:29:52,224 --> 01:29:57,024
is that we need to take more personal responsibility

1204
01:29:57,024 --> 01:29:59,744
for actions and really look at the way

1205
01:29:59,744 --> 01:30:00,744
that our system functions

1206
01:30:00,744 --> 01:30:03,084
and understand what it is about the system

1207
01:30:03,084 --> 01:30:04,564
that stops us from taking those actions

1208
01:30:04,564 --> 01:30:08,424
and is there then anything that we can do about it

1209
01:30:08,424 --> 01:30:11,084
and actually returning to something we said recently

1210
01:30:11,084 --> 01:30:13,764
if a government comes in and really decides

1211
01:30:13,764 --> 01:30:15,564
to make those kind of changes,

1212
01:30:15,764 --> 01:30:18,264
to try and reduce the size of the civil service

1213
01:30:18,264 --> 01:30:20,404
or get rid of unnecessary...

1214
01:30:20,404 --> 01:30:23,764
Some regulation is good, for example.

1215
01:30:23,964 --> 01:30:26,904
I think it's sensible that we have a legal system

1216
01:30:26,904 --> 01:30:30,904
which protects people's rights to own property

1217
01:30:30,904 --> 01:30:34,864
and, you know, I know to have those property rights

1218
01:30:34,864 --> 01:30:36,664
enforced in a court of law, fine.

1219
01:30:37,724 --> 01:30:40,304
The back tunnel, I return to a lot.

1220
01:30:41,064 --> 01:30:42,524
Have you read this story?

1221
01:30:42,524 --> 01:30:44,024
on HS2.

1222
01:30:45,084 --> 01:30:46,804
They had spent £100 million

1223
01:30:46,804 --> 01:30:48,784
building a tunnel for some bats

1224
01:30:48,784 --> 01:30:50,304
which may actually not even be there.

1225
01:30:51,264 --> 01:30:52,184
£100 million?

1226
01:30:52,204 --> 01:30:53,004
£100 million, yeah.

1227
01:30:54,084 --> 01:30:56,844
I know people that have been done on bat houses

1228
01:30:56,844 --> 01:30:59,164
when they've been doing an extension

1229
01:30:59,164 --> 01:30:59,884
on their house.

1230
01:31:00,104 --> 01:31:02,904
And that was like £60,000

1231
01:31:02,904 --> 01:31:04,424
but £100 million?

1232
01:31:05,644 --> 01:31:06,844
It was because

1233
01:31:06,844 --> 01:31:08,884
the line was going to run through

1234
01:31:08,884 --> 01:31:10,984
an area of woodland in which it was

1235
01:31:10,984 --> 01:31:15,244
alleged some of these endangered bats might live but it wasn't proven that they were actually there

1236
01:31:15,244 --> 01:31:22,084
but this is why we can't do anything in our country well interestingly you know i was speaking

1237
01:31:22,084 --> 01:31:27,944
to michael monnelly the lord mayor of london yes on the last pod he he's he's into being into

1238
01:31:27,944 --> 01:31:32,384
regulation and understanding that and he did make a really valid point that i hadn't really hit home

1239
01:31:32,384 --> 01:31:38,404
on me prior to that conversation which is most regulation arises out of the industry you think

1240
01:31:38,404 --> 01:31:42,644
of regulation as being something the government does it's something that they might enforce

1241
01:31:42,644 --> 01:31:50,404
but really most business most you know sectors create regulation because they want their products

1242
01:31:50,404 --> 01:31:55,944
to be good and they want some kind of you know like people to believe in them or you know the

1243
01:31:55,944 --> 01:32:02,464
perfect example is cruise ships which are private floating cities basically and there's no guy from

1244
01:32:02,464 --> 01:32:08,204
the government on board enforcing the regulations but they create their regulations they're they're

1245
01:32:08,204 --> 01:32:11,424
in order that their customers have a good experience

1246
01:32:11,424 --> 01:32:13,384
and they don't lose their customers, which was, you know.

1247
01:32:13,784 --> 01:32:16,884
So the regulation things are often quite misunderstood.

1248
01:32:17,224 --> 01:32:19,324
It's just always, oh, it's bloody regulation.

1249
01:32:19,604 --> 01:32:21,024
It's terrible.

1250
01:32:21,404 --> 01:32:23,364
Yeah, I'd agree with that from maybe two perspectives.

1251
01:32:23,524 --> 01:32:26,584
One sort of standardization, which I think is a good form of regulation.

1252
01:32:27,364 --> 01:32:29,844
And that's the kind of experience that I think you're describing

1253
01:32:29,844 --> 01:32:31,264
on like a Carnival cruise ship.

1254
01:32:31,264 --> 01:32:35,304
You know that the industry has certain standards

1255
01:32:35,304 --> 01:32:37,484
which are then enforced by the courts and by the government.

1256
01:32:38,204 --> 01:32:42,404
The other southern negative flip side of that, where I might sort of challenge him slightly,

1257
01:32:42,604 --> 01:32:49,084
is that, yes, industries often do push for regulation because it creates a regulatory moat and reduces competition.

1258
01:32:50,484 --> 01:32:54,724
So that, I think what he said is true, but it can have positive and negative outcomes.

1259
01:32:55,244 --> 01:33:00,064
If what you're doing is creating a moat such that no new entrant can ever break into your company.

1260
01:33:00,724 --> 01:33:02,604
And actually, interestingly, this is what we saw.

1261
01:33:02,904 --> 01:33:04,484
Oh, God, I'm going to get the technology wrong.

1262
01:33:04,484 --> 01:33:11,944
it's worth the United States Postal Service I think tried to push back against either Telegram

1263
01:33:11,944 --> 01:33:18,104
or the email you probably know the story I don't but I was going to say email I could have been

1264
01:33:18,104 --> 01:33:23,644
that uh there was there was some form of I'm so sorry I can't I can't recall the exact story but

1265
01:33:23,644 --> 01:33:28,884
it's worth worth digging up it's quite quite an old story and it was around um whether or not

1266
01:33:28,884 --> 01:33:36,884
email should be effectively run by a particular bot. And obviously, the war was successfully

1267
01:33:36,884 --> 01:33:42,144
fought. The SMTP protocol is an open protocol, and anyone can use it and build on it.

1268
01:33:42,964 --> 01:33:47,464
But that was an interesting example. And I think, returning to the money question,

1269
01:33:48,564 --> 01:33:55,284
Bitcoin undermines the state's monopoly of money, which is why a lot of defensive states

1270
01:33:55,284 --> 01:34:01,144
don't like it and tying that back into america the fact that america has now looked at bitcoin

1271
01:34:01,144 --> 01:34:06,424
and seen all of its manifest advantages i think is a hugely positive step forwards

1272
01:34:06,424 --> 01:34:12,224
because usually where america goes the world follows even reluctantly i did though here

1273
01:34:12,224 --> 01:34:16,984
recently which was an interesting take i think it was preston pish was saying that

1274
01:34:16,984 --> 01:34:25,164
the us's interest in bitcoin and particular stable coins because they're so closely

1275
01:34:25,164 --> 01:34:33,984
related is to do with them requiring liquidity for um sovereign debt oh i completely agree right

1276
01:34:33,984 --> 01:34:38,484
okay but it's not all no i think a lot of people would look at what you said and think wow they

1277
01:34:38,484 --> 01:34:42,984
support bitcoin they believe in liberty and freedom and all this kind of stuff well i think i think

1278
01:34:42,984 --> 01:34:48,144
that i think president's point i completely agree on the stable coin front uh it's very important

1279
01:34:48,144 --> 01:34:54,444
for there to be global demand for united states dollars um and i think they've got some very very

1280
01:34:54,444 --> 01:34:56,484
clever people who've looked at the stablecoin market

1281
01:34:56,484 --> 01:34:59,844
and realized that it is only going to grow exponentially.

1282
01:34:59,844 --> 01:35:13,936
And it a fantastic way of creating US dollar demand in countries that can normally access US dollars It basically the same as the Eurodollar market in the 70s and 80s You enable offshore entities to create US dollars via

1283
01:35:13,936 --> 01:35:19,516
making bonds denominated in dollars. The US doesn't know how many, no one knows how many

1284
01:35:19,516 --> 01:35:21,816
dollars were created in the Eurodollar market.

1285
01:35:21,956 --> 01:35:25,416
I don't think many people knew it existed until recently. I think it's just been talked

1286
01:35:25,416 --> 01:35:25,736
about.

1287
01:35:25,756 --> 01:35:28,376
It's kind of a geeky thing that people, I mean, even I was in the future.

1288
01:35:28,376 --> 01:35:30,376
But it's a really important thing to understand.

1289
01:35:30,516 --> 01:35:31,516
I don't understand it.

1290
01:35:31,576 --> 01:35:35,936
I've dug into the euro-dollar thing, and I kind of get it,

1291
01:35:36,056 --> 01:35:37,296
but I don't really understand it.

1292
01:35:37,336 --> 01:35:38,816
I don't really understand how it functions.

1293
01:35:39,476 --> 01:35:42,016
I mean, very few people do, but at its simplest,

1294
01:35:42,336 --> 01:35:46,076
let's say you're a bank in Luxembourg, and you make me a loan,

1295
01:35:46,256 --> 01:35:47,956
and you denominate that loan in US dollars.

1296
01:35:48,216 --> 01:35:49,556
You've just created some US dollars.

1297
01:35:49,896 --> 01:35:51,496
But that seems really weird.

1298
01:35:51,596 --> 01:35:51,956
It is.

1299
01:35:52,376 --> 01:35:52,696
Yeah, yeah.

1300
01:35:52,696 --> 01:35:56,916
But I mean, I find it all delightfully weird,

1301
01:35:56,916 --> 01:36:02,596
but you know that they're sort of weird i mean this is why i can't why i don't have conversations

1302
01:36:02,596 --> 01:36:05,756
at the dinner table because if i start talking about this kind of stuff my wife will just get

1303
01:36:05,756 --> 01:36:12,996
up and leave but i find it all geekly fascinating i i we're running we're over an hour and a half

1304
01:36:12,996 --> 01:36:19,056
and we did you've got a hard stop i know i i want to leave on a positive note though um from your

1305
01:36:19,056 --> 01:36:24,136
perspective from where you are and like i say you're you you've got a unique perspective because

1306
01:36:24,136 --> 01:36:30,416
you you know you know you were you're in that sector that a lot of people don't have access to

1307
01:36:30,416 --> 01:36:38,396
i think um what how do we how do we deal with this going forward and i mean this problem of

1308
01:36:38,396 --> 01:36:47,016
constant state encroachment bad governance and those are the two main things what what does the

1309
01:36:47,016 --> 01:36:53,536
individual do the normal person who's just trying to run a business or just living their life what

1310
01:36:53,536 --> 01:36:55,216
What should they do?

1311
01:36:56,216 --> 01:37:02,116
Again, trying to end positively, I did just sort of two fronts, one macro and one individual.

1312
01:37:03,316 --> 01:37:09,616
So on the macro level, I think it's very important to try and make it clear to the people for whom we vote

1313
01:37:09,616 --> 01:37:16,236
that there is an increasing groundswell for a reduction in the cost of running the state,

1314
01:37:16,236 --> 01:37:17,516
however that's achieved.

1315
01:37:18,536 --> 01:37:21,636
And that covers all kinds of things that we've been talking about,

1316
01:37:21,636 --> 01:37:26,056
the impossibility of building infrastructure in the UK, the fact that there's no money for councils,

1317
01:37:26,256 --> 01:37:30,216
the fact that pension liabilities are unfunded, the fact that we have too many civil servants,

1318
01:37:30,656 --> 01:37:36,856
and that getting those, I'm sure, good civil servants to do anything is borderline impossible

1319
01:37:36,856 --> 01:37:41,796
because of the loopholes that they have to go through. So reducing the cost of running the state

1320
01:37:41,796 --> 01:37:47,176
is hugely important. And voting for people who have in the manifesto they want to do that,

1321
01:37:47,216 --> 01:37:50,736
I think is an important step. It may not be successful, but it's a step in the right direction.

1322
01:37:50,736 --> 01:38:02,896
And then on an individual level, I mentioned earlier, well, we are very much on the back foot in terms of privacy and surveillance, but there are a lot of new pieces of what's commonly called freedom tech coming to market.

1323
01:38:03,796 --> 01:38:05,656
Jack Dorsey's BitChats is a great example.

1324
01:38:06,356 --> 01:38:09,756
If you haven't downloaded it, you probably have, actually.

1325
01:38:10,556 --> 01:38:13,396
But any of your listeners, that's a fantastic piece of software.

1326
01:38:13,536 --> 01:38:19,236
It sits on your phone and enables you to create a mesh network using Bluetooth with other people who use it.

1327
01:38:19,236 --> 01:38:25,736
that kind of technology is going to be extraordinarily powerful your point earlier

1328
01:38:25,736 --> 01:38:30,236
was what made me think about it about around needing permission to go on the internet

1329
01:38:30,236 --> 01:38:36,616
other forms of internet communication exist and a localized mesh network is one of them

1330
01:38:36,616 --> 01:38:44,036
and using facilities like starlink is another the to the extent that you can reach outside

1331
01:38:44,036 --> 01:38:47,776
a firewall that your country may be intending to impose.

1332
01:38:48,496 --> 01:38:51,256
Learn about those kind of technologies now before you need them.

1333
01:38:51,856 --> 01:38:53,056
There are lots of them out there.

1334
01:38:53,276 --> 01:38:56,036
There is a list of them in my pinned tweet at the moment.

1335
01:38:57,116 --> 01:39:00,836
An increasing number of companies and people and programmers and developers

1336
01:39:00,836 --> 01:39:03,116
are working on this kind of stuff.

1337
01:39:03,776 --> 01:39:07,896
And it is possible to use a browser like DuckDuckGo or like Opera,

1338
01:39:08,596 --> 01:39:11,576
which have built-in VPNs which don't track you.

1339
01:39:12,236 --> 01:39:15,276
You can pay for VPNs like MulVad using Bitcoin

1340
01:39:15,276 --> 01:39:18,656
without surrendering your personal information.

1341
01:39:19,336 --> 01:39:20,656
Explore those, understand them,

1342
01:39:21,116 --> 01:39:24,276
learn how to buy Bitcoin KYC-free.

1343
01:39:25,636 --> 01:39:27,356
Prudently, if you're going to buy Bitcoin,

1344
01:39:27,756 --> 01:39:29,836
I'd suggest that you maintain a KYC stack

1345
01:39:29,836 --> 01:39:31,256
and a non-KYC stack.

1346
01:39:32,116 --> 01:39:33,556
You can then, if, for example,

1347
01:39:33,596 --> 01:39:34,516
you ever need to sell any,

1348
01:39:34,516 --> 01:39:37,556
you can prove chain of title for the KYC stack.

1349
01:39:37,556 --> 01:39:44,056
explore operating systems like graphene os that you can use on an android phone which again won't

1350
01:39:44,056 --> 01:39:48,816
track you won't surveil you won't sell your data to other people and again a lot of this i think is

1351
01:39:48,816 --> 01:39:54,036
precautionary steps as an individual can take we don't necessarily need to use them yet because

1352
01:39:54,036 --> 01:40:00,156
we still don't quite live in a police state but if we ever did it's just as well to have made that

1353
01:40:00,156 --> 01:40:05,756
those preparatory steps first and know that you're a little bit ahead of the game rather than

1354
01:40:05,756 --> 01:40:07,936
how everyone else will be.

1355
01:40:09,956 --> 01:40:11,396
Freddie, many thanks.

1356
01:40:12,156 --> 01:40:12,816
Thank you, Jim.

1357
01:40:12,916 --> 01:40:14,156
I've enjoyed talking to you.

1358
01:40:14,636 --> 01:40:15,556
I've enjoyed it as well.

1359
01:40:15,556 --> 01:40:15,956
I really enjoyed it.

1360
01:40:16,436 --> 01:40:19,096
And I'm surprised you're being so candid

1361
01:40:19,096 --> 01:40:20,016
about things like that.

1362
01:40:20,096 --> 01:40:21,756
When I hear people say things like that,

1363
01:40:21,776 --> 01:40:23,756
I think, dude, they're coming to get you.

1364
01:40:23,836 --> 01:40:25,516
Well, I put a lot of this stuff

1365
01:40:25,516 --> 01:40:27,916
after the online safety hack came

1366
01:40:27,916 --> 01:40:29,216
and then I thought, maybe,

1367
01:40:29,456 --> 01:40:31,576
I hope in my photo I don't have a fire.

1368
01:40:31,576 --> 01:40:33,136
Maybe that's to do with your past

1369
01:40:33,136 --> 01:40:34,956
and where you grew up and stuff.

1370
01:40:34,956 --> 01:40:40,496
you're kind of you're used to living a little bit on the edgier side perhaps but i think it's

1371
01:40:40,496 --> 01:40:45,716
important and remember that you know there are more of us than there are of them correct but

1372
01:40:45,716 --> 01:40:54,776
as as i always think i've decided to put myself in a public arena um but that makes you a target

1373
01:40:54,776 --> 01:40:59,336
and makes you a very simple and easy target in fact and one that might be chosen because you can

1374
01:40:59,336 --> 01:41:06,256
being made uh and you know an example out of but it is important for people to publicly talk about

1375
01:41:06,256 --> 01:41:11,776
these things it's just it is it's just a it's just a horrible horrible situation to be in i find

1376
01:41:11,776 --> 01:41:16,996
although staying positive yes there are still things we can do i'm like that guy i know the

1377
01:41:16,996 --> 01:41:21,916
painter yeah what's that with the fuzzy hair and in the end i painted the thing yeah

1378
01:41:21,916 --> 01:41:27,576
right we're ending on a good one and freddie thank you very much indeed and thank you so much

1379
01:41:27,576 --> 01:41:30,936
And yeah, I look forward to hearing your talk today later at Honeybetter.

1380
01:41:31,096 --> 01:41:31,456
Thank you.

1381
01:41:31,556 --> 01:41:32,436
Real pleasure to have me on.

1382
01:41:32,496 --> 01:41:32,776
Thank you.