Welcome to the Free Cities podcast. My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast
of the Free Cities Foundation.
Hello and welcome to this episode number 150 of the Free Cities podcast. What a lovely round number
brought to you as always by our wonderful sponsors of the show Veritas Villages.
Veritas Villages are freedom-oriented, energy-self-sufficient, luxury communities
in Latin America designed for people who want to enjoy peace of mind and real freedom in these
uncertain times. You can live amongst like-minded neighbours in communities that use Bitcoin,
and you can buy your property with Bitcoin as well. www.veritasvillages.com forward slash free
cities. It's in the show notes, as I'm sure you know. And to remind you once more, Patrick,
the founder of Veritas Villages, will be speaking at the Free Cities Conference in Prague
in just a few weeks freecitiesconference.com you cannot miss that one i'm getting actually
genuinely excited now can't wait to be there loads of great speakers all listed on the website now
and more coming it's just the place to be if you're in the free cities movement be there or
be square as they say right today's show and it's a returning guest knut svanholm you may know him
quite well. I certainly do. And I'm going to go straight to my AI for the summary. Tim interviews
Knutts von Holm, who shares a distinctive perspective on Bitcoin, its culture and security.
They discuss Bitcoin's alignment with natural law, property rights and peaceful trade,
as well as its potential to promote honest money, deflation and increased purchasing power.
The conversation touches on personal responsibility, critiques of democracy and historical examples of limited government societies.
Svonholm presents Bitcoin as a tool for individual freedom and economic empowerment.
That's it, he sure does.
And my two sats that I will add, he also defines the most red pill of red pills.
As the title suggests, yes, we challenge the unchallengeable idea that democracy is the pinnacle of human governance technology.
See you soon in the gulags, guys.
We're saying the unsayable.
Talking of gulags, I'm observing what's happening in the world and the powers that be
really have started ramping up the privacy invasion slash digital ID thing in the last
couple of weeks. I don't know whether you've noticed it yourselves. It all seems to be
happening in lockstep. Alarm bells are ringing. Remember, it's never what they say it's about.
It's hard not to see this as preparation for something big in the future. My bet
would be on monetary reset at some point, probably in the 2030s.
That's a bit of a wild prediction, I know.
Anyway, wrapping your head around decentralized networks
is never more important than it is now.
And I'm going to say this again.
Don't forget, start using decentralized privacy tools now.
Start making them part of your day-to-day life.
Start using decentralized money now.
start using it on a daily basis start living in a parallel world whenever you can
start now so that it becomes second nature that would be my advice
right rant over subscribers on fountain my beautiful subscribers many thanks to you all
i'm going to give you all a little mention here nicholas cousin vinnie shadrach silas thornbrook
set in stone a n t c b there's an n pub there i think it's christopher albanese i don't know
why it's not showing up bullish mike matthias tim guess what guys i published a new bonus
episode a couple of days ago if you haven't seen it already you have access to that now
It's another massive conversation, this time with a Bitcoin slash Erbit developer by the name of Jake Hamilton.
It's basically me talking with a gigabrain for nearly four hours about literally everything from technology to religion to psychedelics to basically the future of mankind.
and if you add that to the four hours of bonus episodes i recorded with gg
in your brain can thank me later anyway please subscribe for these private episodes and more on
fountain.fm you get the bonus episodes you get early access to some other episodes you also get
a guaranteed readout of your comments like this one from subscriber.
Bob John.
Bob says, I love, and he's talking here about the episode with VIT,
the president of Liberland.
That was last week's episode.
I love the spirit of Liberland and what they've accomplished.
Thanks for asking tough questions about the shit coin.
He's talking about that's BTC maximalist speak for their own coin that they have, which isn't Bitcoin.
I think they would be able to bring in higher quality peeps if they dropped their own coin.
It's a personal barrier for me.
That may well be true, Bob.
It's hard to say.
I certainly agree that Bitcoin maximalists, Bitcoiners would take Lieberland slightly more seriously if they didn't issue their own coin.
however that's the route they have decided to go down or vit he's he talks about it in the podcast
actually he's quite resolute about his ideas about economics and also the fact that they have quite
a large treasury in bitcoin as well listen to the episode if you'd like to draw your own conclusion
to that debate right let's get into this grab your copy of the bitcoin white paper make a small prayer
to the gods of Bitcoin maximalism. It's time to speak to Knut. Once you're in your calm state,
you know what to do. Sit back, relax and enjoy my conversation with Knut Svonholm.
now what were we just talking about before we went on air and i said oh let's talk about that
on the pod um yeah well first of all thank you for having me on again tim like the last time around
we did the longest pod ever done in my life like more than four hours it was it was epic yeah i did
get your full backstory though and stuff which we obviously don't need to go to now no no everyone
knows that now yes everyone knows it after after the two million views the the previous one did
yes of course i saw actually i have seen other people talk to you about
seafaring and all that kind of stuff i hadn't spotted that one before but now it seems to be
one of your go-to uh topics well it's not voluntarily though other people want me to
talk about well it's almost like in the bitcoin world it's like bitcoin and yeah isn't it bitcoin
and seafaring great right let's do it what what can we what what conclusions can we draw from
bitcoin and see no but the thing about that my background like um my whole um public bitcoiner
career if you can call it that you can definitely call it it's it started here uh baltic hannah
Badger in 2019. And back then I thought like, I do not come from computing or like systems
engineering or and I do not know anything about economics really like I haven't studied that.
So I thought my seafaring background would be to my detriment. But the opposite was true,
because I had a perspective that no one else had because I had a different background.
So I think that's one of the things that Bitcoin does.
It makes people...
You can be appreciated for your unique perspective.
I believe that over the course of a lifetime,
your path becomes more and more unique because no one else has it And the older you are the more unique your path is And there value in that And you can sort of look back on dreary boring episodes
of your life and realize that there's actually something of value to be extracted from that.
It's not like I believe in some greater purpose or anything like that. It's just like, maybe
wasn't all waste maybe maybe you wouldn't have been where you are now if all those things hadn't
happened leading up to something always and there's there's power in that and like finding
stuff from your past that you thought was useless but it can actually be valuable i do remember a
time in the bitcoin world when there weren't any celebrities other than people like possibly adam
back and a few people like that now andreas antonopoulos yes andreas definitely andreas
ironically andreas isn't as well known really anymore but i think most people i know from back
in the day or say the the 2017 people yeah were were basically turned on by and and and and
antonopoulos probably when he went on rogan the first time i think yeah and uh he was like the
only one doing this like traveling to conferences and stuff and in 2019 here he had just released
his mastering ethereum book and like uh and 2019 everyone was uh very much in slay your heroes mode
we were proud that we slayed our heroes uh and whenever someone stepped out of line and started
shitcoining or anything they were immediately called out uh and rightfully so like that's one
aspect of the community that i really loved is like that no one's safe here it doesn't matter
your credentials if you if you bullshit you're out so like we're not going to respect you anymore
uh and what what happened there was um so so we were slaying all our heroes except andreas it's
like he had plot armor yeah so so so i started poking people on the shoulder and they're like
why is no one saying anything about Andreas?
He obviously took a bag of shit coins
and is now shilling this Ethereum bullshit.
But no one dared to call him out on it.
And then eventually people did.
And I think Andreas sort of,
I guess he was bored with his,
well, fed up with his path.
And he sort of went into the shadows and started,
I mean, he blocked me.
What is he doing now though?
I think he's doing the same thing as he always was, just on a smaller scale.
And he doesn't get the whole maximalism Austrian economics angle, really.
Really?
He spoke like an Austrian economist when he used to talk about Bitcoin.
A lot of it, yeah.
I mean, you could argue he's one, well, not anymore, but he was the most valuable brand in Bitcoin at one point.
Absolutely.
And like if Andreas, if you're seeing this and if you want to unblock me, please feel free to do so.
Because on the whole, like I try to judge people on their, like everyone's a human being, right?
And we have goods and bads.
And if Andreas is still definitely tilted more towards the good side than the bad side for me.
So I think.
I'd say, I would say he's a hero of mine.
He basically completely changed my life.
I would not, I mean, I already knew about Bitcoin prior to that, but he, I'd heard about it.
It didn't mean anything to me.
I watched him on the internet and the penny dropped with me, literally looking at that
guy's face.
And I would imagine that happened to a hell of a lot of people because he had a very good
way of, he was very eloquent about it.
Very good public speaker.
Excellent.
But when you think how long ago it was as well, it's taken, like nowadays we get very
used to being able to talk quite authoritatively about the bitcoin but he was he he got it deeply
all the way back yeah ahead of the curve which is why it was so uh disappointing when he started
shitcoining like still like ethereum to me um is an obvious scam 70 pre-mine uh it reached its peak
in 2017 and then there was a slight run-up in 2021 when they changed their narrative from world
computer to ultrasound money or whatever the fuck and it never got to 50 percent of the peak in 2017
in fiat terms it did it did but if you're measuring in fiat you're using the wrong
denominator and you you don't detect that you're being ripped off if you denominate in bitcoin it
never went to 50 of its initial hype so the rug pull had already happened like there was never a
flippening it was a scam through and through and i don't think andreas is willing to admit that but
i mean i shouldn't speak for him i like i said he's still definitely a net benefit and he had
some of the best clips about bitcoin out there are from him so i've all the respect for that
but i'm still going to call out the bad stuff and chilling ethereum is crap any idea why
um um like as a as a was he i don't know whether he was particularly technologically
minded or not but he was so do you do you think well he must have he had a background in computer
science so maybe he did think the theorem was revolutionary or a natural progression or
something i don't know yeah but but still i mean the information is false regardless of your
intention with it sort of like is it malice or just uh bad thinking i don't know but the message
is wrong and it's like that's what social media is for like someone's wrong on the internet i'm
going to point it out but then again if he wrote a book about how to program on ethereum in a way
it's neutral i mean it's like i know you know i i don't think there's any chance that he didn't get
paid to do that of course it is okay yeah but and i'm almost certainly he needed to get paid as well
i mean if you think back as well i've heard many people say that he did spend i mean he obviously
had a fair bit of bitcoin because it was hard not to back then but i think he spent it all because
it wasn't really valuable. Absolutely, because he financed his own. And then there was a
hashtag thank you Andreas thing where he
collected like 13 bitcoins or something. Really? With people just donating
to him because they liked him. Recently? No, it's
like five years back. I was going to say, 13 bitcoins. Probably even more.
Yeah. Well, it wasn't as much back then, of course.
I mean, the thing Andreas did for me on a personal level
is just, I looked at this guy
and he's flying around the world
teaching people about Bitcoin
and seems to have this fantastic life
where you can just go wherever you want
and make money off of telling people the truth.
And I looked at it as like,
maybe I could do that.
That was very much an inspiration.
I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now
if it wasn't for that.
Do you know what?
I've got a feeling.
I wear this Bitcoin pin whenever I go and I've worn it for a long time.
I've got a feeling he gave me that idea because he said in a small way, it's nice to, it's
probably not so good these days, but back then it's nice to signal to people that you're
a Bitcoiner because if you run into someone on a plane, like I still get it to this day.
If they spot the sign, they're like, hey, things are different now.
I like the subtler ones.
I suggest the everything divided thing is better to every Bitcoiner knows it.
And it's not signaling to bad guys that you're a Bitcoin.
And talking of bad guys, you know Elena.
Oh, yeah.
She's not a bad guy.
No, she's not a bad guy.
But did you see her talk this year?
No, I missed that one.
But I'm catching it in Helsinki next weekend.
Do you know what it's about?
Yeah, about the security stuff.
Yeah.
And that was a real eye-opener.
She showed for the first sort of like 15 minutes of the talk behind her, she had flashing news articles constantly for ages, probably about over 300 of them, of people that have been kidnapped and had their Bitcoin stolen in some shape or form from all around the world.
Yeah, I have a slightly controversial view on all of that.
Everyone's a FUD salesman.
the guy who sold you this water bottle sold you the fud of not being able to quench your thirst
if you didn't buy his bottle of water so and in bitcoin like there's levels of fud salesmanery
i guess uh but in bitcoin is very common like you need this steel plate you need this hardware
wallet you need this security course or whatever Like everyone selling this And of course it a good thing We should take care of how to secure our bitcoins
We should do all the measures.
We should know what to do when there's a kidnapper in your house.
Panic buttons.
All of this stuff is good stuff.
Hardware wallets.
You should definitely take control of your own keys.
You should probably do multi-sig and have your keys in different countries and all of this stuff.
It's all good.
But still, and here's the but.
But everyone's trying to sell you FUD.
And I refuse to let fear dictate my actions.
If I walked around being afraid all the time, then I wouldn't do anything.
You just can't live like that.
And we need people to be courageous and stand up for what they believe and to show other people it's not dangerous to talk about this stuff.
Like there's that side of the coin too.
And I mean, at the end of the day, it's easier to steal other things than Bitcoin if the Bitcoins are stored properly.
Because I do this shtick all the time.
But if I point a gun at your head and say, Timmy, Timmy, give me all your Bitcoins.
You can give me any amount of Bitcoin, and I have no way of knowing if that was all you had or not.
You may have given me 0.1% of your Bitcoin.
I have no clue.
And that's true for every single human being on Earth right now.
There is no way of actually knowing how many Bitcoins they have.
Theoretically, everyone on Earth could control every single one of the keys,
and everyone could have all of the 21 million Bitcoin, right?
if you take this to the extreme.
So in the future,
when an attacker
wants to steal something
from you, regardless of
it's an attacker in the public or the private
sector,
they want to take your house, they want to take your money,
they want to kidnap your kids
and put them in school, whatever
it is,
it's going to be harder because
they can do all the
other stuff, but taking your Bitcoin
is not worth the attack.
It shifts the profitability calculation
that the attacker has to do
because it's way harder to take the Bitcoin
than to take anything else.
So it's more profitable for the attacker
to instead of attacking you,
providing something of value back
and trading with you.
And this is like the very basis of what this is.
the way I see it, and this is straight out of Misesian logic,
humans have two ways of resolving conflict.
One is communication and the other is violence.
I can either talk to you and resolve the conflict because conflict only arises
when there's a scarce good or a scarce service.
so the the hoppian argument and like the i think this is derived from the rothbardian argument is
that even in heaven uh where a theoretical heaven where you have an abundance of all goods
i uh two bodies cannot take up the same spot at the same time so if i want to stand over there
in heaven right next to saint pete or something quantum physics say the opposite to that
two things can be in the different places yeah but only very very small things
anyway not a human body so there's a potential conflict there but we only have conflict over
scarce resources and therefore all communication is really at the very deepest philosophical level
aimed at resolving conflict which and from that uh first principles thought you can derive that
well, science can't derive an ought from an is,
but I would say that we can derive an ought not.
And that ought not is don't steal.
Don't violate other people's property.
And what is property?
Like the first obvious property is your own body.
If I say that human beings control their own bodies,
therefore they own their own bodies,
you can argue against that.
But in doing so, you prove my point.
Because you have to control your body to be able to argue.
So where does the body end?
Well, that's where homesteading comes in.
If I take something in nature, from first principles, I am the rightful owner of that thing.
If all communication is aimed at resolving conflict, you have to talk to me and convince me that that stick that you picked up is not mine, but it's yours.
so if we if we want peaceful interactions you can you are not allowed to take the stick
like this is natural law law that is discovered rather than invented by human beings so this is
the difference between lawful and legal and i think if more and more people viewed their like
morals and their ethics from a lawful perspective and instead of following whatever law someone came
up with just followed natural law, respected property rights and said, this is rightfully
mine, this is rightfully yours, and called out bad actors for what they actually are,
everything would be better.
And Bitcoin sort of allows this because of this, the profitability of violence model.
In the long run, Bitcoin is peace.
It leads to fewer and fewer violent, less and less aggression.
This is the non-aggression principle.
Bitcoin is the manifestation of the non-aggression principle in real life.
So yeah, we're in a period where there's a lot of confusion,
and a lot of people think that they can kidnap someone and cut their middle finger off
and take all their Bitcoins.
But it's not a very profitable thing to do.
It's very risky, and you have no idea of knowing if you actually got the Bitcoin or not.
And in fact, Lena talked about an incident where someone was robbed of $6,000 worth.
And I think they were killed.
So I think that underestimates the vigor with which some people will try and steal from others.
No, no.
I'm not denying that there are bad people out there.
But if they kill you, no one gets the Bitcoin.
What happens then is that the remaining sats become even more scarce.
Therefore, every other Bitcoiner in the world now has more purchasing power, more political influence, more power in general.
So they can only make the system stronger by attacking us.
This is the perfect defense mechanism.
You just mentioned John Locke's ideas about property then, didn't you?
Lockean law.
Yeah, I think John Locke was onto this as well.
No, but you just said something.
I think I've written down.
No, Hopper.
I said Hans Hermann Hopper.
I thought you, but you said the same thing.
If you have, because when I think of homesteading, I think of John Locke and I think of the 160 acres that you're allowed.
If you add, that's kind of how it formed into a law in the States that you were allowed to claim 160 acres if you added your labor to the land and you blah, blah, blah, all this kind of stuff.
Do you think Lockean law, do you think that law, the idea that if you grab something natural, add your value to it or add your work to it, it becomes property?
Do you think that's a natural law?
Yes, I do.
So it's a real natural occurring law.
It's important here to remember that in a perfect world, everyone would have respected that from the beginning and we would have no wars and everything would be better for everyone forever.
But we're not living in that world.
We're living in a world where every single product is the product of both violent and nonviolent interactions.
So this water bottle, for instance, the free market and division of labor and price signals more than anything,
made it possible for people to print this piece of plastic to turn oil from the ground into a well-functioning bottle that doesn't weigh too much so it can be easily transported.
have you seen the lid though it doesn't yeah so there's also violent interactions one of them is
this fucking bullshit where the eu prevents us from removing the cork they don't prevent you mate
no no you can rip it off but but but the thing is they did force everyone involved to to change
their fucking factory to make this thing this way instead that one's got a bit of added technology
look it's got two layers on it look there's a bit the bit around the bottom it's kind of like
No, but the point here that I'm trying to make is that at the end of the day, that is an added cost to the manufacturer.
And it's so retarded I can't put it on again.
And who pays for that Everyone does Yes every day Everyone And there VAT added to it That is a violent interaction That is not consensual We forced to pay it
So like...
Well, you're not forced to buy it, I suppose, are you?
No, you're not forced to buy it.
And that's the thing.
The free market is such a strong force for good in the world
so that despite all the government bullshit
and despite the EU being completely retarded,
it still provides us with uh more and more of an abundance of stuff do you think they'll ever
backtrack on that thing just out of interest because it's so universally disliked isn't it
have you ever met anyone who thinks it's a good idea no but i don't mingle with eu bureaucrats like
yeah but do you think they'll listen to the public and go do you know what i mean i don't
i don't ever recall seeing lids all over the floor either beforehand did you we didn't have
a lid infestation did we no no it's so retarded but that meme is uh is absolutely true like america
innovates china replicates the eu regulates yes yeah and so lockheon law is naturally occurring
so that idea that property is derived from your the addition of your work to it is it would
would arise everywhere any if if we if you arrive on an island with nobody else on it and then i
wouldn't i'm too unfamiliar with john locke um for this like i i derived this from mises rothbard
and hopper like to me locke's biggest contribution to mankind is the separation church and state
like that's where he was really influential but like
I'm trying to separate the last religion
democracy
from people
separate the state from everything
so
yeah
so where was I
we're living in a world where everything is a mixture
and all the land
in the world is already claimed by someone
and it has been for
generations and it's been
traded like someone
bought a house or bought a piece of land. Manhattan was sold for what was this like
$10,000 300 years ago or something. But it has also been taken by force. So we live in
a mixture, everything's a mixture of violent and nonviolent interactions. So the only way
to decide now who owns what is if we want to go forward into the future peacefully.
And by we, I mean anyone who's willing to do this kind of thought experiment and actually live out what they believe to be true.
Then if I say this water bottle is mine, I have to argue for why it is.
And I'll say because you gave it to me, it's mine.
You could probably convince me to give it back.
It would probably be harder to convince me to give it back if I bought it myself.
But there we are.
If we want to peacefully resolve the conflict, we need to communicate.
We need language.
It's the only way.
And that's how I view this whole thing.
You can have the ball, by the way.
Bitcoin is nothing but communication.
It's an agreement on a fixed set of rules.
And the reason we agree on this specific set of rules is that it's more expensive to break the rules than to just follow them,
which allows us to have a monetary system with a fixed supply that we all store in our heads.
I believe all the Bitcoins are within the Bitcoiner because the Bitcoins are not the UTXO on the blockchain.
It's the private key or access to the private key.
It's the ability to move them that is actually giving you the superpower.
and that is always in someone's head it's always a secret kept from someone else
which means that we now have um a way to check ourselves check our privilege when it comes to
communication we we we can do absolute free market economy we just have to agree on this
set of rules and the more people that do the the better it becomes uh and number goes up that is
which is really just purchasing power go up and you can see how fooled you've been by the fiat
system. Gold did not have a fixed supply. Gold had a stock to flow ratio that was in line with
the progress of everything else. That's why prices were stable in gold. But stable prices is an
illusion. I love to ask the simplest questions. So the simplest question I know is like,
to describe all this is
when human beings practice doing something,
do they usually get better or worse
at the thing they're practicing doing?
So if I practice playing Beethoven's Fifth or something,
do I get better or worse at it?
I hope you get better.
Yeah.
Most people get better when they practice doing something.
The follow-up question is,
so why aren't all prices dropping forever?
Because that's what they would do
if we had honest money.
And if you're using Bitcoin as your denominator, you can see the world through that lens.
And you see how absolutely awesome that is.
Everything is getting cheaper forever.
It's fantastic.
And once you get above a certain hurdle or a threshold, you don't need to work another day in your life if you don't wish to.
I think a lot of people who aren't Bitcoiners would listen to what you said and would say,
that's all very well, but prices won't come down forever because you're going through a monetization phase and blah, blah, blah, and all that kind of stuff.
Okay, but then they should do this hypothetical thought experiment.
So let's say there is no more fiat.
Everything is running on Bitcoin.
Therefore, it stops going up.
Well, the pie can still grow larger.
There can still be more products, cheaper products.
People will still practice doing stuff, including designing water bottles with caps that you can screw off.
And it will get cheaper and better over time.
There's no reason that it would ever stop.
Maybe it will flatten out, but the flattening out is way off in the future.
The flattening out is after everything is on Bitcoin.
And we don't know how much it will flatten out.
I suspect that it will not flatten out at all because you add AI and robotics and all of this,
we get so much better at an increasing pace at doing absolutely everything.
like just remember coordinating uh where you're gonna meet somewhere else someone else before
mobile phones and like how did you navigate before google maps like nowadays i can i can get an uber
within two minutes in every single big city in the world it's it's amazing like why aren't people
appreciating these things like it's it's so good uh and if you denominate that in bitcoin it's even
more magic because everything is dropping in price forever something i thought about the following
the ai trend into the future is that it will do away with money altogether won't it because
the marginal cost of things will will all trend to zero and there'll be a point where the production
of new things won't cost anything anything and the production of anything new because there'll be
But the flaw there is that it will never actually reach zero.
And if it did, no one would produce anything.
But, I mean, AI would be doing it.
But why?
AI is...
So here's the thing.
Why I don't believe in general intelligence AI.
Humans do things because we feel uneasy.
So we're somewhat uneasy.
This is the praxeology.
This is the basics of praxeology.
So we envision a future in which we've used some means to reach a certain end.
For instance, right now, I'm foreseeing a future where I've used language to explain this concept to, well, not you, but our listeners, because you already know this stuff.
So I feel slightly uneasy that I haven't gotten to the end of the sentence yet.
So therefore, I keep on talking to reach that end.
An AI would never feel that uneasiness and could never make a decision on its own.
It's always a slave to someone.
It will never, it will never skynet.
Well, yeah, but what about, but this is a thought experiment then.
I'm thinking, what is that uneasiness, right?
In a human being, if you track back uneasiness as far as you can, it might be the fear of death.
No, it's a selfish gene.
at the end of the day it's just your genes
trying to survive
to survive? yeah
but AIs want to survive as well
I think there's been examples of them wanting to survive already
yeah yeah yeah
but
every organ
wants to survive.
That's like
the most basic property
of anything living is that
they want to reproduce and survive.
That's the basics
of evolution.
The things that have that property
are the things that will survive.
But the AI
where was I going
with this?
The thing
that separates human beings
from other creatures and other plants or animals or whatever,
is that we do things deliberately out of free will.
And we can get into the whole free will rabbit hole.
I love the Hitchens quote about it.
Of course, I have free will.
I have no choice but to have it.
And I think, objectively speaking, you cannot have free will
because the neuron firing off will have to precede any decision.
so what made the neuron fire off
it was not your consciousness
because that comes with a lag
so objectively we possibly can't have it
but the thing is that doesn't matter to praxeology
because subjectively
we have to have free will
we cannot argue that we don't
without running into a logical contradiction
if I say to you that
you don't have any free will
I do so by my own volition
so I have free will
I cannot do that without
showing you the opposite.
Everything's futile if we don't
argue from a perspective of we have
free will, then everything is
pointless.
We can't do anything about arguing
about it anyway because we would just
automatically... The paradox
is unsolvable.
Just don't go there. It's just going to drive you mad.
I believe
to a certain extent... And there are
theories that
in quantum physics,
particles can be entangled.
Right? And some people
misinterpret this because it's not like
this thing is influencing that.
It's more like if I
write on a piece of paper.
Is that your phone?
No.
My God, I just switched it off.
Sorry.
sorry about that i did i did switch it off right in the middle of a hey it's off
that's yeah that's weird my phone just rang and it was on there was no internet connection
joe rogan would have done exactly the same tim don't worry about it yeah yeah sorry
so entangled yeah so it's more like uh the the particles are entangled in the sense that if i
write the word spadoinkle on a piece of paper and I rip the paper apart and I have the sp part,
I put that in one envelope and I put the doinkle part in another envelope and I send,
randomly send one of the letters to Australia. Whenever someone opens that letter in Australia,
I immediately know what the other letter says without even opening it. So that's how
particles are entangled. It's more like if you have the information about this, you also
automatically have the information about that.
And particles have been shown,
I'm no expert in this by any stretch of the imagination,
but to be able to be entangled across time,
so backwards in time.
That could theoretically explain free will.
If the neuron can fire off and you can make the decision
and that can influence the decision,
Terminator style,
a couple of microseconds backwards in time,
then maybe there's a way to have objective free will.
But if time is what it seems like it is,
and it goes in one direction only,
then we cannot have free will.
One way I've always thought of it is that time exists
and your path through time is you have free will over.
But when you change between paths,
as in say say imagine this is your life and you're you've got all these options of things these are
intentions that you take and when you move one lane into this intention you inherit the history
of that or you know yeah that ties into the multiverse thing which is by the way the only
theory that actually works when it comes to quantum mechanics the particle really does take
all the paths between a and b and and when you measure it you reveal what timeline or what
part of the multiverse you happen to be in it's about your intent it's about your attention so
this is why the dichotomy between subjective and objective might be entirely false and this is to
is david hume that talked about this a lot i think uh but um that we all all we can do is
all our information is through our senses.
So we don't know to which extent the mind creates reality.
But we know that it does it to some extent.
The only thing you can actually prove is Descartes.
I think therefore I am.
Or rather, the updated version is even more correct.
I think therefore some thinking is going on somewhere.
You can't really prove anything but that.
That doesn't sound as good, though.
No, it's not really...
It's not memeable.
what's the word i'm looking for it's not the
desirable axiom for anything really so you have to pick your axioms and you have to to like how do
i know that what i know is actually true and i love the austrian um model for thinking like uh
you can actually deductively reason yourself to positions by simply acknowledging that some
statements run into logical contradictions and therefore they cannot be true. And it's
not simple semantics. It's actually true that you own your own body because you cannot argue
against it. Anyway, we need some kind of framework like that to be thinking about human beings
and our actions at all. We have to presuppose free will and we have to start from some axiom.
So, yeah, this is deep.
Yeah, I'm going to change it up a notch because I think this is quite fascinating.
And I want to go back to the beginning of our conversation where we were talking about Andreas and Bitcoin celebrities and stuff.
I see your name there.
That name is – well, that's only because that gives me a chance to plug one of my bonus episodes, but I'll do that later.
Yeah.
it is fascinating like i began saying i remember this world of bitcoiners before there were
celebrity bitcoin celebrities and i've i think you're we're not celebrities well you know what
i mean it's a bitcoin we're recognized within our own bubble yeah i know but but i can almost
remember the exact time it started happening and it was the conference in america after the pandemic
when when i when people started realizing holy shit the last couple of years people have been
locked away watching videos of me or you you know of some you know and suddenly they walk into a room
full of 10 000 people and everyone knows their name and i had that experience in miami that year
like uh i came to miami and people started recognizing me on the street at miami beach
is a completely surreal experience for a schmuck like me.
I know, but it is interesting.
And it's because when we were walking here from the venue,
you were talking about something that I find quite interesting,
which is that you've lost count of how many appearances you've had to do this.
Yeah, I reached my Dunbar's number of experiences.
Like, it's all a mess.
Like, I can't remember where I was and what I was doing.
Like, I do too many.
And what do you think about that?
What do you think about that?
like think about it think about cypherpunks and bitcoin and this and what do you think about the
fact that you know now you do book signings now you kind of got to go on stage like 200 times a
year and say something about bitcoin i know it's it's a really interesting phenomenon well luke and
i have a a thing we want to live by when we do our stuff together that my co-host for the show
and the co-author for Inverse of Clown World.
We do a lot of shit together, have our publishing house and whatnot.
Anyway, in anything we do, we have the saying,
feet on the ground, head in the clouds.
Because you need both.
You need to stay grounded.
You need to still...
I know of authors that think it's tedious and like,
oh, I'm going to have to sign books again.
It's so boring.
What they have forgotten is that the guy on the other side of the table buying the book and wanting your signature this is a true moment for them they looked forward to seeing you and you have one of
the most the best problems in the world to have it's it's you you think it's uh tedious and boring
to be appreciated by others like who gets to do that it's just so never lose your footing like i'm
I'm stoked every time still that someone wants my signature.
It's just bizarre to me.
Like, holy shit.
And I can pat myself on the back and say, like, you did something good here.
I think, like, this is working.
So I try to always remember where I came from and always remember it's the stay humble thing.
And I'm obviously the most humble bitcoiner ever.
In the history of Bitcoin.
I have the platinum status humbleness.
anyway uh but but also you need your head in the clouds because you you need to uh realize that
if you're not believing in yourself no one else is going to believe in you either
so you can actually do way more with your life than it seems at first glance do you think that
you wanted this like do you think because if you think about it you did absolutely i mean when i
grew up and in my teens and stuff i wanted to be a rock star and like fortune and fame like of
course that had a a role in it but going but the older i got it's more like i want my work to be
recognized not my person and it's very much like that now like it's the uh josh homie of queens of
the stone age uh expressed it nicely once he said that like when someone writes a good song they
tend to forget that it's the song that's beautiful not them and it's like the metaphor used was like
if a fisherman catches a beautiful fish it's the fish that is beautiful not the fisherman
so you're and so i try to approach work that way like i try to make the books the best i can
and the pod the best i can and try to be myself and like but
not take myself too seriously but also uh allowed myself to to be proud of what i do and you can't
be proud of it if you're not proud of it so like you better put your best effort into it has anyone
ever tried to slay you as in slay the heroes yeah i've been called a hypocrite on several occasions
for instance last time was because we have bitbox as a um a sponsor and bitbox is an old hardware
wallet and i made some tweet about i'm not gonna attend conferences or stuff where there are shit
coin apologists and i'm gonna be harsher against shit coinery and someone pointed out that well you
have a shit coiner sponsor but like that this is a hardware wallet that has been around since
forever and they're very much bitcoin focused they just still have those services i think it's
different with a company that has its legacy back in when bitcoin maximalism wasn't even a thing
and companies that turn shit coinery afterwards
or companies that are deliberately confusing people.
Like Coinbase, for instance.
Brian Armstrong never says Bitcoin.
He says crypto all the time.
And it's like because he makes money doing that.
But it's dishonest.
So, like, I mean, to a certain extent,
I think everyone's a hypocrite,
but you sort of have to pick your battles.
And unfortunately, everyone still needs fiat income to survive in the world we're living in.
And every time I use fiat, I am aware that I'm stealing from my children and I'm participating in a crime, basically, by using fiat.
I'm using money that someone has the ability to counterfeit at will and that I'm enabling that criminal every time I use it.
But I'm very aware of that.
And I try to be aware of when I'm being hypocritical and try to be as truthful as possible.
And I don't want to keep secrets from people.
What's your thoughts on that?
Do you agree with this?
Would you take a bag of shit coins?
Would it depend on the size of the bag?
No, I wouldn't.
But I think if you live by the sword, you die by the sword.
I don't go around saying, oh, you shouldn't shitcoin.
I'm more like you can do whatever you want.
And if you live by the fork, you die by the fork.
But, yeah, are you saying I'm overweight?
No, no, I'm thinking of hard forks.
But, for example, I would love more sponsors on this show.
And I had the option to have a sponsor.
But, and I can't even say who they were because it would, I just don't want to.
But it was something I decided not to go with because I thought it was not on brand and it's to do with crypto.
So in that sense, yes.
But I think probably if you analysed everything I do, like I have people on it, like a lot of the people in the Free Cities world has a spectrum of people in it.
And you do get, like I went to Zuzalu, which was a pop-up city in Montenegro.
Vitalik paid for the whole thing.
Vitalik was there. It was a weird experience seeing him in real life. He's a strange guy. He's not my kind of person at all. And I don't mind that. I tried to actually get him on the show, but he wouldn't come. And I wasn't going to gotcha him. I don't care. I really enjoy talking to people and getting to the bottom of everything.
but but um a lot of the people in the free cities movement especially the people in the longevity
space and people who are creating you know pop up this and new cities belagi you know there's a lot
of people on that side of the spectrum that don't have a problem with it they see it as a technology
that they're they're just working with and so i'm shit coining in that sense because i'm giving them
a platform but but i don't care i i i believe i really do believe in in people listening to
opinions and making their own money.
There is a
balance to be struck there.
Because platforming
dishonest people,
it's not something I want to do.
And sometimes
in hindsight realize that they were not
playing a straight game.
But for instance,
you have to weigh the potential
good against the
already detected bad.
For instance, I disagree with
Bitcoin Magazine about a lot of things.
And I think they're into some dodgy stuff.
Regardless of that, I'm good friends with one of the editors.
And he wanted to publish two chapters of my Praxeology book in Bacor magazine.
So I let him.
Because I get more eyes on it.
The ideas in there are sound.
And if that can help people, then that's good.
But this is a tricky thing.
The guilt by association thing seems like a very left-winger thing.
Yeah, I agree.
And I think people should, if they get burned, and of course no one should bail them out, they should take responsibility for their own actions.
But I really don't want to help scammers scam people.
I still want to call a scammer a scammer.
But there's a balance to be struck for sure.
um i'm about to plug a bonus episode now because it's it's interesting and relative to this i don't
know whether you know on fountain now they do i i host on fountain and fountain allow you to do
bonus episodes and stuff great i started doing them but i started yeah i started digging out
old episodes of things i've done with bitcoin is in the past that never actually in the past that
never got published because i was i was making a film once about proof of work years ago just
which the pandemic just annihilated and i'd done lots and lots of interviews with really
interesting bitcoiners yeah and one of them was with gg oh yeah never been never been heard before
really but except by me and him it's four hours of us talking so i started putting so i i chopped
it into two and i put one out a few weeks ago and the second one i i listened to it back the other
night it's actually the first time i've listened to it since we spoke it oh and it's hilarious
because do you know what was happening at that time is breed love had just done the um big cloud
thing yeah yeah and gg is hilarious he's he's the funniest motherfucker on the planet yeah yeah i
know and we were talking about it and it brought back all these kind of sweet memories i mean you
know i i i've always been a little bit skeptical of robert breed love for that reason nothing else
once again you know separate you can separate people into different categories like they can be
they can do this but they can also do that you know great painters can be ourselves you know
yeah but but it's very funny like oh yeah exactly but it's very funny listening to us talk about it
because i forgot about that whole world of of and this was the time when the the celebrity the cult
of celebrity.
Like you said,
we were all slaying.
I had gotten to know Breedlove pretty well by then and I was disappointed as fuck that he did that But then I think like and some people just cut him out completely and slayed him
I think he somewhat redeemed himself by just putting out great content for a while.
But it's like some people just, once in a while, they do this really dodgy thing
and everyone's like, oh my God, why the fuck did he do that?
and if they can just make up for it with enough good stuff then that's it's some somewhat
forgivable like i believe in second chances i don't believe in third chances so i'll say that
that's a that's a very common trust people once yeah and yeah yeah when people show you who they
really are we believe them and all of that but i do believe there's a power in forgiveness too
and that people can change.
And if you can and if you think it's appropriate,
you should give people a second chance,
but you should never give them a third chance.
The thing is, though, I doubt, in this case, Robert Breedlove needs any forgiveness.
I doubt he's looking for forgiveness.
If it was me and I did that, I wouldn't care if Knut thought he was going to forgive me.
No, no, no.
He probably doesn't.
he did uh he did make an apology of about it quite close to when it happened like it was really i
think that's what we were talking about it was pretty passive aggressive though it was it wasn't
really an apology it was sort of doubling down yeah so that was like yeah and then he disappeared
for a while and then he came back doing great content so like yeah i'm i'm willing to like
forget about that funny thing is i i haven't listened i don't think i've listened i should
go back to is he still doing the what is money show yeah he is and he's got eric stacks on now
like as he's uh they're doing stuff together and sometimes it's just eric and sometimes it's just
rob and i went to miami like a month ago and uh i was really going to naples and then to canada but
but i stopped by breedlove's house in in miami and and did a pod with eric uh the cannabis farmer
if you know about him.
The guy that always wears a hat.
Yeah.
Yeah, great guy.
Yeah, I don't know where he popped up at somewhere
in the last couple of years.
All right.
And how was that?
It was great.
I had been up for 20 hours at the time
because I'd been traveling.
Prague was just before that.
And I said goodbye to my family and traveled for 20 hours.
So, but talking about phases,
like the the the kind of the the bitcoin movement goes through and you've got that time when you had
all these celebrities appearing and then everyone got slayed and then the and what i feel like now
there's there's there's a couple of things happening which also kind of seem to be in
conflict with each other on the one hand you've got this absolute joy and excitement about the
price and about the amount of legitimizing things that are happening and this is incredible but then
on the other end of the spectrum the real world is getting really shitty and and you would imagine
that this is these two are obviously related it's like that scene in the big short like
just don't fucking dance so so but i feel like i'm currently feeling two emotions at the same time
literally like pure dread and i mean in the form of like you know say the latest one in the uk the
online safety bill it's horrible yeah all this stuff but also the fact that a lot of bitcoiners
are getting rich and now they're starting to realize right i'd like to do something with my
money and now they're going oh how do i spend it without doing xyz because i believe in this and i
don't believe that you know and that's that seems to be this kind of reality check happening that
that is like yeah it's you know it's real it's real like a lot of bitcoiners are trying to now
do things in real life it's gone beyond you know it used to be a movement it was a cypherpunk thing
then it was kind of like oh we're getting a bit rich and now it's like right it's not enough to
just be a bitcoiner i've got to do something yeah you know but i was going to use my stack but now
oh i'm going to get capital gains taxed or i'm going to get a kyc yeah but that only applies if
you actually receive fiat money in a bank account like if you exchange your bitcoin for cash somewhere
or if you buy something from someone with your sets no one's going to care like the the only
triggers for all this tax stuff is if you actually touch the banking system. So I would say that's a
problem with the banking system and not a problem with Bitcoin. And it's also a problem with people
not having the courage to not give a fuck about what these self-proclaimed leaders tell them is
correct. Like, yeah, you should take care so that you don't end up in trouble and some public
criminal takes 30% of your money. But then don't use their services. Like, don't use the banks.
So if we want this to be an actual opt-out option, we need to start using it.
And when you're doing all the conferencing, you see it happening because everyone's using Bitcoin and no one's giving a fuck.
And because it's way more convenient, it's way better in every single sense, and everyone's just using Bitcoin.
And we need to make that happen in the real world too.
And I'm using the word we too much.
I don't really believe in that word.
But I think it sort of implies a collectivist thing.
Who am I to say what other people should do?
That kind of thing.
I don't take it.
But anyway.
It's more warming than that.
Yeah.
I wish that people were more courageous and dared to bite the hand that obviously doesn't feed them and stop caring about stuff.
And to me, the things are happening in the UK, and I think there's something like 30 arrests for social media posts per day or something.
It's insane now.
Why isn't there the biggest uprising ever against that?
George Orwell was born in the UK, and this is worse than anything he ever imagined.
It's insane.
Do you know what?
That just reminded me.
I wrote down this quote this morning and I was going to bring it up with one of my former guests, but it's very it would fit right in now because it's it's George Orwell wrote this.
hayek's thesis is that socialism inevitably leads to despotism and that the nazis were able to
succeed because socialists had already done most of the work for them especially the intellectual
work of weakening the desire for liberty yeah and the the hardest pill to swallow
is that democracy is socialism.
Democracy leads to totalitarianism.
It's the most taboo thing to ever critique,
but it's based on majority rule
and based on that some people are allowed
to steal stuff from other people without their consent.
And I just think it's immoral through and through,
and I think it always leads to more and more theft,
more and more totalitarianism.
Once an institution is in place,
it's going to fight for its own survival,
like every other living being.
All governments need to extract more and more over time,
and you see this cycle playing out over and over again
until there's a revolution and a reset,
and then we go back to somewhat more respected property rights.
But all the horrors of the 20th century with the world wars, we haven't fixed the core problem yet, the money printing.
It's what financed both wars and what led to both wars.
In a way, the first world war is still ongoing and the bad guys won.
They're still stealing our stuff.
They're still doing whatever they want to us.
That's the thing we have to resist.
like uh i'm totally there by the way i'm radicalized fully 100 anarcho-capitalist
i think government is a net bad and we would be better off without it and i think you can
reason yourself to that position without needing any evidence it's an a priori deductible
knowledge that everyone could who just sat down and thunk could like reason themselves into
Does it ever solve itself though, other than cyclically?
It solves itself individually.
Like individuals do find ways to navigate around it.
And the more individuals that do that, the better off we are.
The more we can separate ourselves from the state on an individual level the better it gets But this is not something that can be solved democratically It cannot be solved from within the system you have to take matters in you to your own hands you have to follow your heart
and your balls and fuck off it's the only way democracy leads to totalitarianism i think i'm
gonna have to call the episode this that's a really bold i like the way you described it as
well as the ultimate red pill yeah there's the hopper book uh democracy the god that failed yes
But there's also a newer book, I don't remember its name, but it was released just a couple of years ago, that Andre from Free Madeira recommended about how democracy is flawed.
I mean…
All forms of democracy? What about direct democracy and all this kind of stuff?
you know pirate there are grades grades of of it of course uh and a a democracy in which only
property owners uh get to vote about their stuff is obviously better than a democracy where everyone
gets to vote uh but but still i think we would do better without it a popularity contest that's
not at all give anyone any other any more natural right to take my stuff or anyone else's for that
matter it's it's it's not natural and it's something we can and will do without at some
point i i believe bitcoin fixes this if we allow it to but it's all so you think in a bitcoin future
we won't trend towards this outcome because if you think about it on an individual level it's
easy for you to decide i'm not going to steal someone's stuff but as you get more and more
collective it becomes no but this is this is this is the flawed thinking like we have to stop using
the word we because it implies that we ought to do something together and it's much more important
that people do this individually if you don't take matters into your own hands and if you don't
reclaim the driver's seat of your life no one else is going to do it for you if you outsource that to
groupthink thing, then you end up in the same dilemma as you were in the first place.
That's the whole we thing.
That's the collectivist trap.
That's what leads to democracy, which then leads to totalitarianism.
Of course, different governmental models have their own flaws, like a monarchy is not flawless,
a dictatorship is absolutely not flawless.
But thinking that we solve all problems by just being democratic is just naive and ignorant.
We've been taught, like we've been spoon fed this propaganda from public service media outlets and 12 years of mandatory schooling.
Where we've been taught that a belief in democracy is just as vital and important and true as one plus one equals two.
Which is absolutely not.
It's an opinion that the people that hold the opinion are more often than not people who live off of others and just take stuff violently from them.
I think it's mind-blowing that the entire world is sort of brainwashed into this mode of thinking that this is the only way.
I absolutely don't think it is.
I think respecting property rights is the absolute most crucial thing for that is peace in my mind.
i i i'm a relative um newcomer to that idea though i've spent most of my life believing that
and so it's so did i i'm a big like 40 years deeply about as many things as i can yeah but
that just shows you you said you can't understand why it's such a prevalent idea and no it's
everywhere but but it is and we've both fallen for it in the past so so and i think i know why
I mean, on face value, it seems really fair, doesn't it?
Yeah, but only if you...
It's superficial to think it is, though.
Of course, yeah.
I know now that in reality, even, I mean, we've just gone through an election
where I think the guys who won got in on 20% of the total number of people
in the country's votes, which is...
So obviously that's broken.
but people looked at that and kind of went oh well uh not many people came out to vote
so be it like no one they don't get a shit wrong you know do you know how often they have elections
in china they never do they have them every morning sorry this is the kind of stuff that
gives you a bad reputation okay sorry about that but um but no i mean it's it's a very it is it is
the ultimate red pill in this day and age if you are a thinking person yeah i see people constantly
arguing over politics but never stopping to think that it's the politics that's the problem
no you know what i mean and never seeing the connection between the monetary system and
politics never seeing how the monetary monetary policy is what makes the cancer grow so fast and
so large like all the good stuff originated from a time where taxes were way lower
they're higher than they have ever been in all all of the western world at least and it's just
it's just growing larger and like my home country sweden that now supposedly has a right-wing
government they didn't cut any spending they just changed some stuff like the not there's not a
single party that wants to reduce the size of the state apparatus so which means to me means that
it's going to eat everything at some point what about mille what do you think of mille he seems
to be doing that right i think he's uh entertaining and i love that he exists and i love that he
quotes Rothbard all the time but I
urge any
self-respecting
anarcho-capitalist
to watch Hoppe talk about
Milley and how much of his
politics that are really not
that libertarian. Well Hoppe
has commented on it. Yeah.
And he views Milley as some
a bit of a clown
that he says one thing but does
another. I mean the state is
still very much present in Argentina
and he took out a big loan
to finance the central bank once again to strengthen the pesos.
The peso is a bit better than before,
but it's really not walking the walk the entire 21 miles.
But of course, I love that he exists.
I think he's enormously entertaining.
To me, politicians are –
I can say I like a politician more than another,
but I don't like any politicians.
And I think comparing Miele to any politician in the UK is like, yeah, sure, I'd rather have the flu than testicle cancer.
Like, so he's the lesser of two evils, absolutely.
And he's going to change the country for the better.
But he's still not an anarcho-capitalist, really, in my opinion.
think he i mean he he claims to be at least but do you think he's just that's as good as he can do
within the framework of the well there's some truth to that that these reforms are hard and
he has to play the game to a certain extent but yeah uh we are yet to see where where where the
melee experiment ends up and uh yeah i'm giving willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for
a while but and i think he's definitely better than any alternative so do we have any examples
in history that are particularly inspiring in in apart from revolutions bloody revolutions
what are the what are the good examples of of governments getting smaller for want of a better
word? Hong Kong? In what sense? Hong Kong was very free for 50 years when it belonged to the UK,
but was a free trade zone. And they had almost no taxes and was very laissez-faire. And it went from
a village in the countryside to skyscrapers everywhere. That's a good example.
I wasn't looking for that kind of example, but I mean like governments voting themselves smaller and solving the problem.
But no, but let's stick to Hong Kong because you've basically just described a free city.
Yeah, in a way it was a free city.
Of course not 100% free, but what is?
But I mean a place run by merchants with very small political moves.
All the Hansa cities, some of the most beautiful cities around Northern Europe, all the beautiful buildings and everything were built during a time where merchants,
gave very few fucks about what the kings thought about them.
And it's a testament to how good things can get
when you get that kind of trade going.
Venice also.
Venice, yeah.
The most successful city in the world.
Amsterdam.
Yeah.
But no, I agree with you.
I agree that the places –
I mean, Dubai is doing the same thing at the moment.
It's traders going there to trade,
not really to go there and vote on who does what.
Yeah, but good and bad. I mean, Dubai is still totalitarian in some senses.
But the reason Europeans are moving to Dubai more than Dubaians are moving to Europe is that when you actually watch people's actions, you can see that they enjoy property rights more than they enjoy free speech because they're moving in that direction.
so uh yeah you can't say anything you want about the sheik or whatever in in dubai
i've got a thought experiment for you um i want to hear what you would say if say you had um you
had a totalitarian this is something we discuss in the movement quite a lot you have a totalitarian
totalitarian government that wants to start a free city in their in their country because it's
freer inside the city like a version of um dubai when it was when it was before dubai was dubai
isn't that what prosper is sort of or um well i wouldn't call not at the time i wouldn't have
called um honduras a totalitarian place say say somewhere like um well no the here's an example
the example would be dubai had sharia law for example and it created a small pocket inside of
dubai which allowed common law and as a result western businesses could move in because they
the financial district that worked on common law now imagine it's a pretty totalitarian country
but the the the ruler wants some kind of reform so he creates a little oasis of more freedom than
totalitarianism so not not not complete freedom is that a good or a bad thing well it's with always
with a caveat though right because it's his personal experiment and he can rug you at any
time okay but still it's still is it still something you would pursue or not pursue how
well like say because in this movement we're like my my my opinion would be look is it better than
is is is life inside there better than life outside of there if it is probably do it do it
you know regardless of what you think is going to happen the whole vote with your feet thing
It's absolutely a thing, and it's going to drive out the freer countries, and the more Bitcoin-friendly countries are going to attract better brains.
It's a brain drain thing, and the more the government gives to passivity, the more it's going to attract passive.
I mean, you get what you pay for.
So that's definitely a thing.
but I think it's equally important
if you can't move with your feet
and if you don't want to
it's very important that you stay where you are
and take the fight
as soon as you think the situation
is hopeless
they've won
never lose hope
optimism to me
and this is in the revised version
of the Praxeology book
in a chapter called What About the Roads
if you look at the movie
The Shawshank Redemption
You know the famous prison movie, right?
Andy.
Love it.
Andy Dufresne is the protagonist and his best friend Red, played by Morgan Freeman.
And then you have a character called Brooks Shields, who's 90 years old and gets released from the prison when he's 90.
And he spends two weeks outside and then he hangs himself.
And he does so because he's being completely institutionalized.
institutionalized. In the prison, he knew the rules and he gets his three free meals per day.
He knows his bedtime. The outside world was terrifying to him because he had been
indoctrinated to think that hope was a dangerous thing. And this is what Red tells Andy in the
movie, that hope is dangerous because all it will bring you is misery because there is no hope.
this is really the gist of the movie
so what Andy does
he has this entire career
within the prison and does
favors for the prison warden who then
later rugs him and is really mean
to him and he's just stuck in there forever
it seems but every day
he's been doing the low time preference thing
and taking a spoon and digging
out a big tunnel in the wall
behind a poster in his cell
and he finally after 10 years
or something he escapes and he's a free
man and he moves to Mexico and enjoys life. And by his actions, he's showing Red that hope is never
futile. It is the rational choice. Because you could either die fighting to be a free man,
or you can die a prisoner. But the catch is that you're going to die anyway,
so you might as well live as if hope exists.
So by that logic, it is a first principle rational choice
to not allow the metaphorical Shawshank walls to be real.
So no matter what laws your government put up around you,
the rational choice is to have hope and not give a fuck about them.
Give them a middle finger, either if you're staying where you are
or if you're voting with your feet or if you become a fully-fledged Bitcoiner,
do something to emancipate yourself.
We can't do this collectively.
It's up to each and every one of us.
They can still extort the people who don't.
It's tragic, but there's no such thing as fairness
as long as people are allowed to use violence to get what they want.
So you might as well live as if the prison walls, metaphorical prison walls don't exist.
And I think that's the message I want to deliver to people.
Hope is a rational choice.
Hope is what – yeah.
Struggling to find the last sentence here, but like, yeah, Spanoinkel, end of rant.
Victor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning.
what was the hope component in that i'm just i did he unaware as in you know like man's search
for meaning uh as in you know not finding freedom in the most unfree situations you can like you know
he was in a he was in a concentration camp oh yeah yeah yeah completely how does hope come into that
equation there because it's it's interesting that freedom i was thinking about whether there was a
connection between freedom and hope yeah there is what is it i mean hope is a hope for more freedom
always like they could you could hope in your case but it might not be in someone else's case
well what would you hope for rather than freedom children i don't know uh getting married you know
what i mean or is it am i not going deep enough uh i mean we me currently yes in my life and in
the stage of my life, the number one topic that I think about is freedom in all its shapes
and forms.
That's kind of on my mind.
There's an Austrian definition of freedom, and it's the sphere in which, let me see if
I can remember this correctly, the sphere in which you are able to choose between different
modes of action.
and those what limits that sphere can be external things like governments or nature
or it can be internal that your psychology prevents you from taking certain paths and you need to like
grow up and think outside the box and change your life if you if you want more freedom you
have to be willing to give up some of your beliefs maybe or some of your like
i think i mean victor frankel well the conclusion i drew is that your true freedom is in your action
the way you relate to the thing that's happening to you so someone can lock you in a cell
and throw the key away but they can't choose the way you exactly appreciate they can't take your
thoughts yeah i mean but they might in the future who knows technologically i don't know thought
extractor in your ears no but then they're i mean i wouldn't be surprised if in our lifetime you
could point a little device at someone brain and get a sense of what they thinking and that and that just phase one of of the technology technological art we on i don know i i i have a more
pessimistic if you will like a view of technology like we we hear that ai is going to change
everything and we hear that virtual reality has supposedly been a thing that is just around the
corner now for 30 years and all of this stuff like i think um yeah there is technological
progress but it more often than not it's not what we think it is like most ai is being used to
generate internet slop nowadays and just fake tiktok videos and whatnot no one really asked
or no one really needs.
So in a way, I think the...
I don't really like thinking about potential things
like quantum resistance in Bitcoin, for instance.
There's a fear that quantum computers will break everything.
Worry about that when these things are actually here.
A lot of that is just things to put on the front cover
of a popular science magazine, and it's not actually a thing.
But aren't most people thinking,
especially in the case of AI or quantum computing,
when it happens, it's going to happen quite suddenly or not?
Well, who knows?
And you say when it happens, like it's a given, but it's not.
The thing is, in Bitcoin, first of all,
quantum computing can't break SHA256.
It can break some other algorithms involved in Bitcoin,
from what I know.
I'm not an expert here either.
It can't break SHA256?
No.
I thought it was just a guessing game, though.
That's about compute, right?
Yeah.
I wouldn't be able to go deeper into that
because I don't know the reasons.
This is like, from what I've heard,
someone who i respect and know and i've forgotten whom so don't fucking clip this and turn it into
quotes because i'm making another point really yeah don't don't verify trust
anyway my point is that if if quantum computing breaks uh a lot of security algorithms that the
banks are much more fucked than bitcoin is because we have at least 10 minutes to fix the problem
at least we have 10 minutes to fix the problem they don't so we have more problems than that
like nuka or launch codes and stuff um i let's talk a little bit i i i'm unfortunately i know
we can't go for four hours today because um oh no is coming quite soon but we've we've got a bit
of time left can i just take a leak before we go yeah sure sure and true rogan style
um we were this was a this was what i was going to say was continuing on from our discussion about
sort of personalities in bitcoin is you end up being able to monetize it and that's good
because you need to make a job you have a job and this that and the other and blah blah blah and
one of the biggest things that people struggle with myself included is trying to work and live
in this world when you come from a completely different world and i've still not i have kind
of nailed it i suppose i i mean i am in it full time now but it's still not a very super successful
business and things like that and i think a lot of people now bitcoiners you're the same
doing all kinds of stuff you've got uh education arm to your but a bow to your sorry arrow to your
quiver now right and things like that um what how what is it and how does it work and and what do you
know what what is you're just teaching are you teaching who you're teaching bitcoin to yeah so
so uh i've been luke and i have been doing the um uh bitcoin infinity show for a little over two
years oh we're running up on three years i think yeah we started did you start before me i'm i'm
What episode are you on?
What number?
Do you do weekly or more than weekly?
We do weekly.
We have in the past done like two per week at certain points.
Because I can always look at mine.
Because I put one episode out on a Friday.
I can look and I can see how long I've been going.
But I need to look.
I'm 142 weeks now.
Yeah.
We've promised ourselves to do at least 210 episodes.
I think we're around 160 and something.
So next spring we'll be at 210
and we'll revaluate the whole thing
if it's worth doing or not.
But right now I think it would be worth doing
even if I didn't have sponsors
because I just love talking to people
and getting to know people with interesting ideas.
Exactly.
But the new thing, the educational thing
is the Bitcoin Infinity Academy.
So there's a geyser fund for that.
This is where I do the shilling, I guess.
geyser.fund slash project slash infinity and you'll find a couple of different membership tiers
where you can join the discussions and stuff but the the show is called the bitcoin infinity academy
it's basically uh we're taking a chapter from each and every one of my books per week and
reading that and discussing the ideas in that specific chapter um is that online that's online
Yeah, so it's on YouTube and Fountain and all of these.
But I mean, when you discuss them, do you discuss them with the students or whatever?
Yeah, so if you join one of these courses, you can participate in the episode.
Like people participate by chatting with us as we record the episode.
So they're not actually on camera or anything like that, but they can be in a live chat while we record the episode.
Safe Dean did that during the pandemic.
That's how I met a lot of Bitcoins.
Oh, really?
first time yeah well i was in one of his courses like way back when yeah i did the first one yeah
and with prince he did it um pretty young from the three cities he did it there was a few people
and he started recording episodes of a podcast with us all there yeah so and you and a number
of times you know it was a really interesting it's the same thing yeah it's very similar uh
because there's only there are only so many ways you can do this but it has also led to a very
you mentioned Giacomo and
we now have a very good collaboration
with the Plan B network
and to me it's a dream come true
to work with Giacomo
I've known him for almost 10 years now
and he's like
one of those people where I'm very proud
to call myself his friend
like Gigi you mentioned before
and like
these are great
thinkers and great educators
and I just love being able to work with them
So the other thing I'm doing with Plan B is that I was a guest star lecturer for the Plan B Business School and gave a lecture about praxeology this spring.
And then I was there for a week in Logano in July here.
They take the top 21 students in the world from the online course, and they get to spend a week in Logano, lectures every day for six days, full days.
and then a big ceremony afterwards where they get an official paper.
And most of the students from previous years have all gotten jobs in Bitcoin
or have their own Bitcoin business afterwards.
I was going to ask that.
Anyone who went on to great things?
It's like kind of an incubator, is it?
Yeah, I wouldn't know any specific names, but it's definitely an incubator.
And I mean, I love the students that were there.
they were very alert and very eager to learn stuff.
And how do they find them?
Well, people join from all over the world.
They join this online course, and then there's some tests and stuff.
Giacomo can probably tell you more about the details later,
but the best ones get to do this summer school thing.
And what do you think of Locarno?
There's something going on there, isn't there?
I love it.
I mean, what they're doing with the Plan B network and the Plan B hub, so it's a four-story building in the middle of the city that is just gorgeous and very modern design of the thing.
And there's a lot of co-working spaces within the building.
There's a gym in the basement and there's a big hall where you can give lectures and there's a podcasting room and whatnot.
Bitcoin is moving there but is it the kind of place is it turning into a bit of a hub Somewhat I think But Lugano is very expensive It very Swiss for lack of a better word
It's like Italy, but it works.
So the cost of living is pretty high there.
But then again, Bitcoin fixes this too, as we know.
Have you got – I mean, so you're one of those people that has voted with your feet and you've moved somewhere.
You don't have to say where, but –
I moved to Spain.
Yes.
But the reason – the biggest reason for moving to Spain is that we already had a holiday home there.
So we just moved down to that.
now we bought another house and like sold the house in sweden and sold the house in
spain and bought bought a bigger one in spain but uh and it was not for political reasons or
anything like that have you is it something you think about going forward in the future you know
where it seems to be on a lot of people's minds spain was never i never viewed it as a final
destination it's like a first like getting my family on board with the idea that we might move
in the future.
Spain seems like it goes first step.
And I mean,
the bureaucracy in Spain
is just completely horrible.
And it's very socialistic
and very retarded.
But as a Bitcoiner,
you sort of can be under the radar
pretty easily there.
I mean, I have no Bitcoin business
in Spain whatsoever.
So that's all in an Estonian company.
uh,
Luke and I have together.
We started up a company in Estonia,
so where we can do all the legit Bitcoin things.
Uh,
but Spain,
other than that,
it's,
um,
other than the horrible bureaucracy is,
it's very relaxed and good place to live.
Do you have,
uh,
any insight into the good places around the world where the people are moving to as,
of late as in,
especially Bitcoiners?
Cause it's one of those things.
It's,
It's on everyone's mind.
And one of the great attributes of Bitcoin is that you can travel with your wealth, which makes voting with your feet easier.
So I know everyone talks about it and everyone has their favorite spots, Paraguay, Uruguay, I don't know, Mexico.
I visited El Salvador for the first time this spring.
And I was positively surprised by it because a lot of Bitcoiners have said like, oh, it's fake.
You can't pay with Bitcoin in very many places and stuff.
But I went into it thinking that that was the case and I could pay with Bitcoin almost everywhere.
So I was happy with it.
What's your view on the current politics that are politicking there?
I mean, I just saw recently that it turns out they weren't stacking sats.
They were just moving stuff around.
Yeah, Bukele is a double-sided coin for sure.
And he just changed the constitution so that he can stay for longer.
I don't necessarily view that as bad because he's very popular.
And as I explained before, democracy is not optimal.
A benevolent dictator is probably better than a democracy for a country like El Salvador.
So I don't particularly mind that.
But yeah, it's like with all politics.
It's grades of hell.
i i think people have pointed out as well that there have been plenty of terrible leaders who
began life very well liked especially in that part of the world as well yeah yeah so you know
i don't know do you think in a place like el salvador um bitcoin can win or bitcoin has won
if you're saying it's being used.
So as a result, it's won.
Because before, you can't stop the train,
and now people are using it,
and in the end, it defends the government, let's say.
Yeah, it does.
The snowball has just started to roll down the hill,
and it's infecting the neighboring countries.
Costa Rica has a giant Bitcoin scene now,
like the Satoshi Lake or whatever it's called over there.
Bitcoin Lake.
Yeah, or Bitcoin Jungle.
Oh, that's it.
Bitcoin Jungle is the name.
So these things are happening.
And it's not only El Sonte anymore.
There's another smaller town in El Salvador called Berlin, up in the mountains,
that is basically a Bitcoin circular economy.
Do you think that's how it happens, through circular economies?
I don't believe in circular economies because I think everything's interconnected.
Okay.
So I don't particularly like the term because we're all connected, all human beings, whether we'd like to or not.
It's like the Kevin Bacon numbers on IMDb, if you know about those.
There was an experiment in one of the American universities.
So they took a random actor that had been working with a lot of other actors, in this case Kevin Bacon.
and they wanted to see the degrees of separation between the furthest they could go and the
furthest they could go from Kevin Bacon.
Like if you're Kevin Bacon, you have Kevin Bacon number zero.
If you've been in a movie with Kevin Bacon, you have Kevin Bacon number one.
If you've been in a movie with someone that has been in a movie with Kevin Bacon, you
have Kevin Bacon number two and so on and so forth.
And the furthest away from two people they could find on the entire internet movie database
was seven people.
and that's some you know extra in a bollywood movie that no one saw
so and and i know what that is like like think about the connections you have if
you've talked to giacomo um he's talked to like almost everyone like you're talking to me now i
have talked to michael saylor several times uh he's talked to basically everyone that's
Like we're super connected.
Saylor has talked to Donald Trump.
Like he has talked to almost everyone.
So the same thing with economies is what I'm saying.
Like everyone's decision influences everyone else's decision, which is also, by the way, why I don't like the term economic node.
But we don't need to go down that rabbit hole.
Something I'm even more allergic to than circular economies is money in circulation.
Money is never in circulation.
It always belongs to a certain person, and then it changes hands.
It's not in circulation.
It's a very Keynesian thing to say that.
Talking of Trump and the US, what's your opinion on what's going on over there?
Never attribute to 4D chess, which can be explained by retardation.
That's my opinion.
Hopeful about what's happening there, though?
I know that's good and bad.
I think tariffs are horribly stupid and just makes life worse for everyone involved.
Like all taxes.
Nothing making tariffs any better than any other tax.
They happen really quickly, though, tariffs, don't they?
They just come like that, and all of a sudden, you can go out of business.
And all of a sudden, all the prices go up in the US because now they have to charge more.
And it's not going to make any American less fat or less lazy or less costly to employ.
That's not how it works.
Anyway.
What about the Bitcoin stuff?
The Bitcoin stuff, I mean, ask yourself, what's better for Bitcoin, a pro-Bitcoin politician or an anti-Bitcoin politician?
And that's a real dilemma because if we allow a politician to dictate what a node is and them saying you're allowed to run a node, then that's not freedom.
That's not Bitcoin.
So I think in countries where it's harder to use Bitcoin, people will do their homework more.
So that's the irony of it.
What I do know from insider information from a handful of Bitcoin companies that I'm advising, I know that they see the election of Trump as less risk.
So they've started to do more stuff and not asking for permission, which is great.
you can start a wallet service or whatever in the US
and not give it two shits about what the EU thinks about it
and just launch it everywhere
because you can now put it on Google or Apple Play Store
and if not that, then just put it somewhere else
and put a link somewhere
and at least the Trump administration is not going to give a shit about that and not try to put you put you in jail for for innovating right last question because uh we one hour 40 i got to go um quick overview geopolitical future ahead um because it something
you probably think about it i do what do you think what do you think the future looks like
from here you know europe versus south america versus america versus whatever you know like what
what do you think is happening here because bitcoin has been massively legitimized it's
unbelievable really the kind of news you hear and currently even four years ago would have blown your
mind it would have been the biggest thing that ever happened and now people don't really give a
shit at all so so so something big is happening in this world but legitimized like all right you
know what i mean i i not your keys not your coins still applies so like i see what sailor is doing
for instance with this treasury company uh and uh how he's constructed this machinery on top of a
Like there's this metaphor with a pond and there's a waterfall and the engineer observes the waterfall and then puts dynamos and uses, harnesses the energy.
It's gears, isn't it?
Someone showed me.
Yeah, gears.
Explained it as gears.
Yeah, exactly.
And that might actually be 4D chess and not Ritter Edition, by the way.
But still, from what I know, MicroStrategy has all their coins with Coinbase.
So it's like you're trusting someone to trust someone with your coins.
It's two stages of separation.
And at the end of the day, whoever controls the keys is the actual owner of the Bitcoin.
So this is going deeper again.
ownership is your legal relationship with a a thing so i think we've done this experiment before
here here's your cup uh i'm i am now in possession of it belongs to the airbnb yeah okay then
well this water i actually did buy this cup though yeah because i didn't like your glasses
okay so i am now in possession of your glasses you still own them so you can say can i have my
glasses back please and i can give them back or i can say fuck you tim i'm taking your glasses and
you can't see where where i went because you can't see anything without your glasses that's the
difference between ownership and possession you cannot own nor possess possess a bitcoin
all you all you're doing is keeping a secret from someone that's that's it we we can act as if we
own them but we don't actually own them it's just a fucking number can you own it's not on them
Can you own anything in existence?
Absolutely.
But you cannot own information.
This is about why copyright laws and patent laws are so insanely stupid because they don't – like if you write something on that piece of paper and I read it, we both have that information.
So I didn't steal anything from you by copying it from you.
the the only reason you create artificial scarcity by copyright laws and patent laws and saying that
you cannot have this information this is my recipe for a goulash or whatever can i just can i just
before you go on because i i've never had this one answered well before i come so so my my
former life i was a photographer for a living and copyright was quite important in in photography
and i'll tell you why because for and you can just probably say to me all right it was a crap
business model but the business model was that you would spend some money so i would i would
prove i would work to create an image which i would then sell the right to use yeah does that
work is that is that okay copyright no right and this is this is the reason like it creates
artificial scarcity where there shouldn't be any and that leads to resource misallocation at some
point so the way i see it the 20th century was the anomaly because before the 20th century
century there wasn't really mass production of anything so it's only during the 20th century
that you can mass produce stuff and sell copies of books movies music photographs whatever you
But they were digital.
Yeah, but still.
So all these copyright laws were written during a time where that made sense, sort of, for people who didn't think right.
It was a physical thing.
This is my CD or whatever.
And then you get into the internet era where all of a sudden it's shown to the world that all the information can and should be copied.
And what's mine is yours, really.
We can share everything that's in the informational realm and no one loses.
And then you sell a service on top of that.
So, for instance, a Spotify subscription is really just the service is cataloging for you so that you don't have to put files into a certain folder.
That's all they're doing.
It's like categorizing and making it easy for you to find the correct song at the correct point.
but but the the information itself is infinitely copyable so so bitcoin is the first thing that
doesn't have that property that is in the informational realm so all of a sudden you
have a thing that uh everything in it can be copied but the the thing that makes the thing
powerful cannot be copied and that is the secret you keep from someone else and if you if you're
good at keeping that secret you act as if you actually own the thing so in that sense it's the
only ownable thing but at the end of the day it's just some guy knowing something that other people
other people don't and leading back to the sailor thing because i want to i need to stress this point
who actually owns micro strategies bitcoin is not michael sailor it's not brian armstrong
it's some guy at coinbase or or or three out of five guys with coinbase or something and at any
point in time they can take all those bitcoins and fuck off and i am looking forward to that day so
much especially when it comes to government-owned bitcoins or all this institutional crap like
imagine the last scene of fight club where all the skyscrapers break down and they're the pixie
song comes on and it's just blown off his face and he finally gets the girl even though he's insane
that's what i'm looking forward to that's what i want bitcoin to do like
level the playing field for everyone a corporation it's just a bunch of people
it's not real a business it's just a bunch of people a business on a bitcoin standard can just
be a telegram chat it can be anything like and you you can do all your business without anyone
else being even able to extract, to expropriate value from it.
You can just do things like the joker, you know, you can just do things.
And it's so powerful when you admit that that is already the case and we're already living
in that world.
The future is already here, just not evenly dispersed.
Like, that's so true.
Like, that's one thing I want Bitcoiners to think about more.
it's just a fucking secret
it's just a number
you know a number
and you believe
it's improbable that anyone
else knows the number you know
and therefore you can act as if you
owned the number
I'm gonna
have to leave it there, I had a number of
questions but I
quite like leaving it with that vision
from the end of Fight Club
it's
and all the things
yeah right let's
let's leave it there
yeah that's a Cartman version
I love that
thanks mate it's been a pleasure again
thank you Timmy
enjoyed it again I feel
philosophized well and truly
right back at you
and yeah and see you at the next one
probably you'll be at all the conferences
I go to I would imagine
yeah
hopefully
maybe not all
but
trying to cut down
on conferences
but it's so hard
I love it too much
take it easy
thank you very much
thank you
cheers