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If I could hope for but one thing for you, so you'd be curious in all that you do.

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Cause love like a flower just wants to grow.

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Oh, and knowledge like your heart just wants to be known.

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If you like, please subscribe. This is Bitcoin Study Sessions.

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Hey, welcome to another discussion. Lucas and I are back to continue our discussion of Balaji Srinivasan's The Network State.

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So we're moving on to chapter four today, decentralization, recentralization.

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We are deep into the book. This is the penultimate chapter.

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We've built up to this.

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This is a statement of really, I think, the reason why we need network societies, what

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role they will fulfill kind of in motivating more societal progress.

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So first, I'll do as we usually do, give a short summary to bring you up to date in case

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you haven't read.

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That's fine.

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And then Lucas and I will discuss today's chapter.

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So a very brief summary.

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What even is the network state?

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This is the book we're reading.

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The first chapter of this book gave the general idea.

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The idea of the network state generally, essentially, is that new startup societies based around a social or moral ideal can begin first online and then can acquire a real world land and work towards actual diplomatic recognition in order to become network states, a new type of state akin to the nation state.

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The more general idea is that biology foresees kind of a move away from nation states, we might say.

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So a nation state, you begin with land.

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You can picture the board game of risk with all of those colored in countries.

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And these land masses each pertain to some national actor.

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Each land mass, each colored square is assigned to a team or whatever.

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The network state, though, does not begin with land conceptually.

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Instead, the board game map for the network state consists of 8 billion different minds, all the people in the world, which are then colored in with membership to a different society.

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That's the idea of a state as a network, the network state.

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The network state, as I mentioned, begins as a network in the cloud and works to gain more minds and then finally moves toward physical territory in its final stage in diplomatic recognition.

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The next two chapters, chapters two and three, gave two kind of, you might say, constraints for a startup society founders to consider.

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So startup societies have founders.

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These are startups, but they're societal startups.

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There are two constraints when your startup is a societal startup, a startup society.

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The first is the two constraints are the constraints of the past and the constraint of the immediate present.

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So chapter two was history as trajectory, and it was about the constraint that the past presents for a startup society.

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A startup society, as I mentioned, begins with a moral innovation.

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And it's an innovation, a new thing, an improvement upon society,

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exactly because it posits itself as a critique of the past historical trajectory of a society.

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So a moral innovation is necessary for a startup society because a startup society is not just a startup company.

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If you don't have a moral purpose for your startup society, you just have a soulless nullity,

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a Starbucks lounge instead of a community.

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So a historical story must be crafted.

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Every story of history is just a story

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because you are always having to choose

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the bits and pieces of history that you find salient

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to tell the particular historical narrative

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you want to tell to motivate the moral critique

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that you're making of present-day society.

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A startup society needs to understand the past

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in order to craft this historical narrative

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that supports its moral claim

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as to why it is in fact a good innovation upon current society.

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The past then presents us with a field of options.

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We can pick and choose to tell our story,

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but it is a constraint because that field does constrain what is possible.

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And Lucas, if you could bring up that first image here.

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I could say, Jamie, bring up the image, right?

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I've always wanted to do that here.

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Okay, thank you.

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This is something that Bologi mentions as an analogy for his view of history.

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he says it synthesizes two views the great man view of history and the view that is

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opposite the great man but he calls it the tech the civilization tech tree view of history so

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history has a constraint this is from the computer game civilization if you played it back in the day

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like i did it's an incredibly fun game you basically create you start at the dawn of

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civilization and you take a nascent civilization up into the present day maybe even to the future

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I forget. And so the tech tree idea within the game of civilization, you can see that there's like this tree of technical advances that you can get in game. And so you advance your society technologically, but you can't just jump ahead to parts of historical advancement that are not sort of linearly adjacent to it.

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For example, in order to get to democracy, you can't just jump from monotheism straight to democracy.

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First, society has to develop theology, develop a printing press, and then develop democracy,

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these technologies that enable a broader field of possibilities within the game of civilization.

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So that's kind of the tech tree view of history, we might say,

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where history enables possible futures based upon things that have happened in the technologies we currently have.

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So it's a constraint, but it's also an enabling constraint that provides us with future possibilities.

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That's the constraint of the past. That's chapter two.

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Chapter three, then, is the constraint of the immediate present upon what a startup society can do.

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Balaji referred to that as the tripolar moment.

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So after World War II, you could say we entered into a bipolar moment, the U.S. versus the USSR.

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Then with the fall of the USSR, we were unipolar for a while, one might say.

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And now we are tripolar.

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So that is the New York Times is one poll upstream of the U.S. establishment.

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The CCP, another poll, the Chinese Communist Party, that is, upstream of China.

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And the third poll is BTC, Bitcoin, which is upstream of the rest of crypto and of the Internet.

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These three polls Balaji develops in Chapter 3 kind of mark a tripolar world. Balaji does qualify that as a worldview circa 2022. And in this tweet here that Lucas has zoomed in on, Balaji recently, I think just a couple days ago, February 28th, we were doing this on March 4th, so just like a week ago, Balaji says,

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So it isn't New York Times versus CCP versus BTC anymore. New York Times lost to MAGA, but MAGA is winding down American empire, even if that's not yet obvious. The U.S. feels scarcity, so it can no longer provide the world's money and military. The two successors to American empire are China and the Internet.

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So now that in this framework is CCP versus BTC because Bology says BTC is upstream of the Internet.

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And that's not to dunk on Bology.

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He qualifies.

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He says that this chapter, that chapter three of the network state is a moment in time 2022.

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And that tweet we could take as an update to it.

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This book is hyperlinked.

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It's a work in progress.

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It's a toolbox and not a manifesto, he also says.

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so chapter 4 which we're going to talk about today then moves from that was the constraint

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we have the constraints of the past the civilization tech tree model of a field of

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possibilities enabled by history the constraint of the immediately present which is of the immediate

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present which are the power structures the polarities of power that are currently in play

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in the world. Chapter four then moves from that tripolar world, or maybe bipolar, to this idea

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that maybe we can build a fourth pole, the re-centralized center. So chapter four is

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decentralization, re-centralization. And the key idea is going to be, what is the re-centralized

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center? A group of people who don't want extremes of anarchy or tyranny. So within the constraints,

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again of the past and the immediate present there was a range of possible futures biology

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acknowledges at the beginning of this chapter that it's hard to predict the future for at least three

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reasons that kind of present difficulties for people trying to predict the future one is that

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volatility is on the rise with people being connected to information networks like the

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internet social media information propagates very quickly you can have bank runs cryptocurrencies

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He's going to zero.

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Social media lynch mobs.

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Things happen very quickly.

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Volatility is on the rise in social media and in financial markets.

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So things happen very quickly and very jarringly.

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Another thing that inhibits prediction of the future is reflexivity.

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Humans are not atoms in a closed system such that you could kind of use scientific laws to predict what's going to happen just because we bounced into each other.

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and so we're bouncing around based upon laws of cause and effect,

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thermodynamics, whatever.

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Instead, humans are reflexive.

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We know this.

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We react to others' reactions who then react to our reactions

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infinitely in positive or negative feedback loops.

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Humans are reflexive.

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Another way to put it, investors don't base investments on reality,

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but rather on their own perception of reality

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because perception is what matters for us conscious beings

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who are able to model other conscious beings.

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so volatility reflexivity a third thing that inhibits prediction is biology kind of terms it

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competing curves it's just the idea that as we move towards the future we can picture a graph

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with a lot of different lines on it that are all the different players in the system jockeying for

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power we can identify the players the lines in the graph but we can't identify which one's going to

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go to zero, which one's going to win? It's tough just knowing the field to know the result at the

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end of the day. With these constraints in mind, Balaji then gives us what is one of the, I guess,

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the heart of this chapter, you might say, a sci-fi future that he believes is at least a plausible

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prediction of where we might go given where we're at. That is American anarchy, Chinese control,

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and an international intermediate so in this hypothesis this scenario america descends into

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anarchic civil war between two factions which you can characterize as dollar green and bitcoin orange

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dollar green is the u.s federal government the establishment the dollar he says the democratic

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party and wokeness he might change that thesis a bit updated a bit now but that's what he writes

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here in this chapter. The dollar green is the establishment. It is fighting for democracy

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against insurrectionists. Bitcoin orange within the United States is state governments. It's

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decentralized media. It's Bitcoin. And at least at the time, the Republican Party fighting for

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freedom against fiat tyranny. So we can kind of see the seeds of a civil war in those two factions

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and also in some trends that I think all of us sense to one degree or another. Things like

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increasing polarization in the United States, increasing class and economic envy, declining

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state capacity, declining kind of general prosperity.

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We see foreign defeats looming.

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We saw it in Afghanistan.

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We're kind of contemplating what's going to happen in the Ukraine.

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U.S. states pulling away from the feds now on immigration, maybe with sanctuary cities

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in the past with people defying immigration in the other direction.

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Texas not wanting to, not agreeing with the Biden administration's laissez-faire.

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idea of letting people in. The final trigger event in the American Civil War, then, biology

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thinks, could be something like Bitcoin seizure, because that kind of neatly encapsulates the

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difference between the two factions. Dollar Greens have no power if the dollar system

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goes down. If they go bankrupt, Bitcoin Orange has no money if they have no BTC. So the future

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Civil War could catalyze, come to a head. And this is, I mean, not, you know, it's no stretch

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to think that capital controls could be imposed in the future. We saw that with Lynn Alden talking

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about what happens at the end of a long-term debt cycle. And one iteration of a capital control as a

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sort of seizure. As gold was seized in the past, so too could Bitcoin be seized in the future if

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it did appreciate appreciably in value. So this civil war, American anarchy would look

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markedly different than the first American civil war, Balaji notes. When the North fought the South,

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the political lines were neatly geographic, and so the war could be fought by armies invading and taking territory.

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But dollar green and bitcoin orange adherents are spread out throughout the country, even the world.

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So it will be a net, the second American civil war would be a network to network war to control mines,

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to win mines, not state to state to control territory.

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A war for minds looks like what we saw in the past eight to ten years, cancellation, deplatforming, silencing, shunning, debanking, asset seizure, silencing in various forms.

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In this war, dollar greens would seek dollar supremacy and American nationalism.

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They're the establishment and maybe try to forcibly unite people under one voice.

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Bitcoin Orange then, to quote Bologi, would think something like, quote, it's okay with,

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but Bitcoin Orange would be okay with the uncertainty of crypto anarchy over the certainty

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of inflationary tyranny. And it is not looking to mend the federal government, but to end it,

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like the reformers Republicans, maximalism is going to win, according to the Bitcoin Orange.

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So in this war, it is unclear Bologi thinks who would win between the parties, but both parties

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would lose in the sense of suffering political violence, which Bologi says not a good thing.

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It's indiscriminate, arbitrary, unproportionate, and never pretty.

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Meanwhile, in response, so this again, this science fiction hypothesis is American anarchy, Chinese control, international intermediate.

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So now, Chinese control, what does that mean?

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China continues a trend of restricting movement, censoring, surveilling, and controlling through use of its techno-authoritarian stack of AI, surveillance technology, central bank digital currencies, things like that, making it harder for its own citizens to leave the country and, of course, harder for critiques of it to be made.

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the alternative to American anarchy and Chinese control would be the international intermediate

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this consists of people who don't want Chinese control or American anarchy

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Balaji kind of gives a hodgepodge of potential groups who pertain to this American centrists

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Chinese liberals global technologists and he notes two countries that might provide

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a large body of people that pertain to it, India and Israel, in that they are the number one and

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number two locations for immigrant tech founders to the United States, and technology could very

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much, very easily break towards an international intermediate away from anarchy or control.

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That is the re-centralized center. It is a middle path. Instead of anarchic decentralization

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or coercive centralization,

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it would be volitional, voluntary re-centralization.

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That's what a startup society is.

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It's not anarchy.

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It's not totally decentralized.

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It's a re-centralization around a moral purpose,

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a moral innovation.

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So startup societies now strike out on their own,

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telling a story based on the history

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that they've kind of analyzed and cultivated

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to tell their particular story,

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to make their particular moral critique,

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and kind of set themselves against the current moment,

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the tripolar or bipolar moment, in order to seek progress.

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So in conclusion, I'll just quote Bology.

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This process of constantly forking and innovating

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and having startup societies compete in the marketplace

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brings in new blood.

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And that's the concept of the re-centralized center.

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The way to demonstrate it's a step forward

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is via mass exodus of people

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from both American anarchy and Chinese control

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to the re-centralized center

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to high-trust startup societies and network states.

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That's the re-centralized center.

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So that brings us to our discussion.

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And Lucas, to kick it off,

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I was curious about what you thought about this last tweet.

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Do you think that we are out of a tripolar moment

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and into a bipolar moment with New York Times,

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the U.S. establishment, the old establishment, having lost to an insurgent populist MAGA contingent, or majority, I don't know.

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I think things are moving decidedly into a new direction.

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I mentioned this in an earlier talk that we had.

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My view on this is not so much the tripolar moment.

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My view on this is more of there are competing factions right now that are both dying.

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The American establishment and the Chinese control are both dying to the power of technology and the power of networks.

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And so I look at it less as a triangular pull and fight between the Internet and China and American establishment.

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And I look at it more as the Internet, Bitcoin, that libertarian bent as being the sort of love child, what's left over of those two.

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And so if I use that view of it, if I use what I think is a more accurate view of it, then what I see is I see the American establishment losing power.

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I see the Chinese establishment holding power.

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And I think that that's really revealing because I think right now, if you're holding power, I think you're losing.

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I think you're going backwards.

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And so I do see the Internet decentralization.

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It appears to be that they're gaining power.

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But throw all that aside, throw my opinion of it aside, and let's just look at it from Balji's tripolar.

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So what are we experiencing right now and what a topical time to be having this conversation.

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What we're experiencing right now, I don't think is the first time really that we're seeing an example of things coming to a head of the Internet and American establishment really starting to butt heads.

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I think what we're seeing is finally a shift that if this were one of those internet arm wrestling, you know, it's been pushing, pushing, pushing with the establishment, pushing the internet and pushing decentralization down.

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And now all of a sudden that wrist is switched and it's starting to come back.

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We're seeing this with Doge.

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So I think there is clearly factions that are fighting very hard to maintain whatever grip they have.

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We're seeing the release of the Epstein files or all of these things that turned out to be an absolute nothing burger.

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because it turns out that there's still a massive faction within the intelligence community

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that is actively withholding and subverting executive orders

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and trying to supposedly...

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We're hearing a lot of reports that evidence is being destroyed.

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So I think that's an example.

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I live with a bunch of Chinese nationals now

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and hearing their opinion

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and these are Chinese nationals

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who have left the mainland to pursue other opportunities

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because they don't feel that there are opportunities in China

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That's exactly the international intermediate that Balaji describes

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the Chinese liberals, right?

246
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Yeah, one of the founders of the network school

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So Balaji's Network State has a network school, and there is a co-founder to the network school, and his name is Donovan.

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He had been living in Beijing for a decade.

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and he was asked the other day,

250
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given the state of the United States educational system,

251
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would you rather have your children educated in China

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with the heavy focus on science and technology, STEM,

253
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or would you rather have them educated in the United States?

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And he didn't hesitate one second.

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He said, absolutely, America.

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It doesn't matter how much physics you teach somebody if you are constantly teaching them that there are walls that they cannot walk through, that there's a box that they live inside.

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I don't think that we've exited that moment.

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I think that that moment is continuing.

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If we're going to use Bology's tripolar, then I think that we're still stuck in there.

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I think that we are still stuck in there It just that within say the last month and a half two months three months maybe four since the election in the United States with Donald Trump that maybe we really started to see some tide turn and some tide shift

261
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But it's still the same war.

262
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And it does still seem to be the same dynamic, right?

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Do you think that we are closer or further away from some type of American civil war as a predicate to American anarchy?

264
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I would have to think that we're moving closer to something.

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Like, you know, obviously, so it's not going to be a civil war.

266
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It's not going to be brothers lining up in green lush fields against each other

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and marching towards each other and firing at each other

268
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because we are too dispersed.

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You can't bomb any city. If you're dollar green, you can't go bomb the Bitcoin orange city because there isn't one.

270
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Everything is everywhere. Everything is dispersed.

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Every ideology is now a diaspora that has been spread across geography.

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so yes what we are seeing is a war of minds and a war to control minds through media

273
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and through selective interpretation and misinterpretation of events yeah no it's

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interesting to think that we could already be in civil war if what you take civil war to be

275
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is a network war that we just have ideas about what wars should look like based on the way that

276
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the last war was fought i mean jason lowry made that point repeatedly in soft war but that's also

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then to say what are the ways in which we could already be fighting the next war and we're not

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aware of it and that war for hearts and minds that canceling depersoning all of that those types of

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things very violent metaphors de-platforming um de-banking all these things you know they are

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war-like that's one could say that and i mean i don't think that we're at the pitch when we call

281
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the civil war but yeah economic sanctions right right economic sanctions come with war yeah

282
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definitely you know it doesn't have to be kinetic and often and you know if you look at the history

283
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of wars they're oftentimes um not oftentimes um you can if you want to you can look at war through

284
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the lens of the winner is simply the one that is able to continue financing you know like we if you

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can continue raising money for a war, you can continue fighting a war. And this was much more

286
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true when people had control over their own money, when they self-custodied gold, when they self-custodied

287
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silver, etc. Because then their feudal lord or their ruling class had to actually come to them

288
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and ask for the tax to raise the army in order to fight the war. And when that was no longer an

289
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economically profitable enterprise, or when it was so painful economically that the alternative

290
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of surrendering and subjugating seemed like a better idea, then you ran out. And so if you can

291
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continue to finance the war, then you can continue to fight it. And the flip side of that, of course,

292
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then would be if you can't finance the war, if you run something like the Biden's administration

293
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active attack on the crypto industry, which was Operation Chokepoint 2.0,

294
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and you try to debank every crypto founder, every large-scale, vocal, outspoken

295
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detractor from the current administration by taking away their platform,

296
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which was interesting, by the way, because by the time we tried debanking,

297
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I think that it had already been proven that deplatforming does not work.

298
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So I think about the comedian Shane Gillis.

299
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I think about Louis C.K.

300
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I think about Joe Rogan.

301
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Like you think about Donald Trump, who was obviously very famously deplatformed.

302
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Jay Bhattacharya, who was a leading voice on vaccines, who was taken off of Twitter.

303
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What that succeeded in doing was fomenting desire to know what these people were actually saying.

304
00:28:15,336 --> 00:28:22,636
Yeah, and they escaped to more decentralized networks away from establishment venues onto Twitter and things that would platform them.

305
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Which grew their power and sucked power away from the centralized network.

306
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I think one thing that's kind of interesting is that I don't know, maybe you can better than I, but I can't identify a moment when this war began.

307
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I just got done going through a book called The Grey Lady Winked.

308
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And if you want to think about the American media as a network, and the New York Times is obviously a network.

309
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It has a centralized repository where it pushes out media, and then there's a network of offices and delivery stations around the world,

310
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and now it's all digital and people can get it however they like.

311
00:29:08,256 --> 00:29:26,256
But if you are to take the author, I think Ashley Rinsdale, if you're to take the author's take on this, then the New York Times has been actively fighting a propaganda war since the 30s.

312
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30s, like effectively 100 years, planting false stories in the minds of Americans in

313
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order to achieve political goals.

314
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So I personally wouldn't say that.

315
00:29:43,916 --> 00:29:49,576
I think Balaji makes the point maybe that the media really realized that it had a true

316
00:29:49,576 --> 00:29:55,496
weapon back in the 70s when they effectively unseated a sitting president.

317
00:29:56,256 --> 00:29:59,756
Um, maybe the moment was the Me Too moment.

318
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Maybe it was the, um, Black Lives Matter moment, you know, whatever.

319
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But, um, it has been ratcheting up and I do feel that right now it's starting to lose.

320
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Um, it's, it's starting to lose control.

321
00:30:15,396 --> 00:30:18,796
So, yeah, I don't think that that war has just started.

322
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I don't think that we're, we're like, oh, we're, we're in it.

323
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I think that we're just now taking stock of the change that has occurred because the other side now has a way to fight back.

324
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The other side has a little power.

325
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They're in the administration currently.

326
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They're kicking some of this propaganda out.

327
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They're shedding light on some of this.

328
00:30:44,696 --> 00:30:51,096
But even still, you see the USAID dismantling.

329
00:30:51,676 --> 00:30:58,736
And the reporting of the USAID dismantling is still insanely heavily.

330
00:31:00,156 --> 00:31:08,116
Elon Musk is killing babies in Africa because he's shutting down the billions of dollars of aid money that's going to it.

331
00:31:08,576 --> 00:31:14,236
You know, and in fact, the reality is that maybe a couple million dollars actually got to that.

332
00:31:14,236 --> 00:31:24,476
But the billions of dollars went to the non-governmental organizations whose staff is the people who appropriate the money.

333
00:31:25,176 --> 00:31:27,256
So it's this circular feeding mechanism.

334
00:31:27,496 --> 00:31:28,576
Yeah, for many of them.

335
00:31:28,776 --> 00:31:34,856
I think the one that people make good costs for is like the PEPFOR, whatever it is, the AIDS drug distribution.

336
00:31:35,376 --> 00:31:37,236
There's a Slate Star Codex.

337
00:31:37,436 --> 00:31:40,276
It's a good rationalist substack or webpage or whatever.

338
00:31:40,276 --> 00:31:43,896
Scott Alexander, the author there, he makes a pretty good case that

339
00:31:43,896 --> 00:31:48,096
that's been a very effective, as far as evaluating the effectiveness of

340
00:31:48,096 --> 00:31:51,956
aid efforts, like that one was kind of like gold standard-ish

341
00:31:51,956 --> 00:31:54,296
for, and I don't know what

342
00:31:54,296 --> 00:31:59,736
I kind of, what I heard was that they put that on hold maybe, that they were re-evaluating

343
00:31:59,736 --> 00:32:04,036
still going through with that, but I don't think you can carte blanche say all of the

344
00:32:04,036 --> 00:32:07,296
aid was bad or all was good, that it was cut. Well, you can't.

345
00:32:07,296 --> 00:32:16,536
Yeah. Yeah. You can't. And that I mean, that's what makes the grift work is that you can't you can't just unilaterally say this was all bad.

346
00:32:16,536 --> 00:32:23,516
Like there was a little bit of good in there. But that, you know, that's like saying genocide is great because it makes it easier to find a house.

347
00:32:24,236 --> 00:32:31,436
You know, like there there is, you know, or, you know, you don't have you don't have food scarcity in a genocide.

348
00:32:31,436 --> 00:32:37,136
you know if you wipe off the entire population you know traffic man traffic's way better now

349
00:32:37,136 --> 00:32:43,676
that everybody's dead right that is true it's a good point yeah yeah so the you know like that

350
00:32:43,676 --> 00:32:51,656
again like that's that's what makes the grift work is that there is an element a hint a a dust

351
00:32:51,656 --> 00:33:00,176
particle of good and truth yeah um within the steaming massive rotting decimating pile of utter

352
00:33:00,176 --> 00:33:08,796
shit yeah um within that that utter that pile that rotting fecal pile that you described i think one

353
00:33:08,796 --> 00:33:13,476
important step as people people listen to conversations like this people come in with

354
00:33:13,476 --> 00:33:17,756
either they are of the left or of the right because those are the polarities that people

355
00:33:17,756 --> 00:33:22,476
tend to come into a conversation with and part of what biology does with the tripolar moment

356
00:33:22,476 --> 00:33:28,756
is creating another pole and then in this chapter he talks about socio-political axes

357
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these new ways, new polarities, new dynamics with which people should view the current moment.

358
00:33:34,196 --> 00:33:36,096
Don't come in as a Republican or Democrat.

359
00:33:36,756 --> 00:33:43,736
Instead, I mean, you know, power is distributed differently and people don't have these easy affiliations they had in the past.

360
00:33:43,736 --> 00:33:52,456
For example, he mentions a couple of things that he thinks might disrupt along the socio-political axis people's views of the way that the world is.

361
00:33:52,456 --> 00:34:05,756
And one that he mentions is the rise of India, talking about the Indian network, the Indian network of individuals around the world and not India, the country, the nation state.

362
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And he cites them as the diaspora of Indians around the world, nodes on a global network.

363
00:34:10,596 --> 00:34:22,156
He cites India in this sense as part of the international intermediate, that third pole that's going to emerge in relation to American anarchy and Chinese control, hopefully.

364
00:34:22,456 --> 00:34:28,096
Um, the, the idea of India in this sense is that parts of the ascending, ascending world

365
00:34:28,096 --> 00:34:33,876
in India are now cleaner and more functional, better working than parts of the descending

366
00:34:33,876 --> 00:34:37,296
world, which we can, you know, in the popular consciousness, that's like San Francisco,

367
00:34:37,296 --> 00:34:41,236
where things seem to be deteriorating, um, from an outsider's point of view.

368
00:34:41,496 --> 00:34:47,496
And so the question I have related to that, that I was thinking about, you know, that's

369
00:34:47,496 --> 00:34:53,196
one dynamic polarity that might surprise people, get them out of their easy ways of analyzing

370
00:34:53,196 --> 00:35:02,596
things. What states, people's groups, etc., do you think are also part of this potential

371
00:35:02,596 --> 00:35:07,976
international intermediate, potential group of people outside of American anarchy, outside

372
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of Chinese control, outside of the neat and facile political dynamics we're used to? I

373
00:35:14,096 --> 00:35:17,056
mean, do you have any idea who could pertain to that, potentially?

374
00:35:17,496 --> 00:35:19,156
Groups, people, states, networks.

375
00:35:20,056 --> 00:35:24,976
Yeah, I think we've talked about a couple of these, not in particular,

376
00:35:25,136 --> 00:35:28,196
but I think we've mentioned some of these on previous podcasts

377
00:35:28,196 --> 00:35:32,856
just by the reading material that we've gone over, Africa.

378
00:35:32,856 --> 00:35:33,396
Yeah.

379
00:35:33,736 --> 00:35:37,956
I think that there are, when you think of Africa,

380
00:35:39,296 --> 00:35:46,996
hardcore political ideology is not ever anything you really think of, right?

381
00:35:46,996 --> 00:35:51,636
It's never, oh, you know, Senegal is extreme left.

382
00:35:51,876 --> 00:35:53,716
Nobody even knows that.

383
00:35:54,236 --> 00:36:00,916
It's just that there is this massive continent of, what, a billion people?

384
00:36:01,836 --> 00:36:11,896
Who the majority of live in such dire, utter poverty that ideology is not a concern.

385
00:36:11,896 --> 00:36:18,456
Like it's just having a life, having an opportunity.

386
00:36:19,356 --> 00:36:22,956
And so what are the means by which you can pursue that?

387
00:36:23,036 --> 00:36:33,096
And I think that's probably the reason why Bitcoin and especially layer two Bitcoin lightning adoption is happening at such a rapid pace in Africa.

388
00:36:33,096 --> 00:36:37,616
because they are kind of, you can help me on the proper term for this,

389
00:36:38,236 --> 00:36:42,116
politically non-affiliated.

390
00:36:44,856 --> 00:36:47,396
There was a word that was in my head that I couldn't really think of.

391
00:36:47,456 --> 00:36:49,176
I was really hoping it was going to come out of yours.

392
00:36:49,176 --> 00:36:51,476
I don't know if this is what you're getting at,

393
00:36:51,596 --> 00:36:56,276
but think about the old dynamic we had a few decades ago,

394
00:36:56,496 --> 00:36:57,676
U.S. versus USSR,

395
00:36:58,176 --> 00:37:02,016
and the rest of the states were kind of proxies

396
00:37:02,016 --> 00:37:06,876
or thought of as, you know, we could pull them towards one of those poles or another poles.

397
00:37:06,876 --> 00:37:15,176
And this third world was always like a world that was outside of the dominant combative dynamic of the era.

398
00:37:15,416 --> 00:37:21,516
Now it's like what Europe, U.S., West versus Russia and the rest of the countries just like kind of there.

399
00:37:21,756 --> 00:37:25,516
And maybe we can want to try to sway them one way or the other.

400
00:37:25,516 --> 00:37:39,616
But yeah, the idea of the third world as being kind of outside of the dominant dynamic in play makes them seem without ideology only because we have our dominant ideology that we interpret the entire world through.

401
00:37:40,136 --> 00:37:49,656
Yeah. Just to note, I would say it's not U.S. versus Russia now. It's U.S. versus China with Russia as the proxy.

402
00:37:49,656 --> 00:37:50,936
Yes. Yeah.

403
00:37:50,936 --> 00:37:58,316
And then to add, so two, I think there's two great additional examples.

404
00:37:58,556 --> 00:38:06,076
So we're talking about where are we going to see kind of rise of, you know, flourishing,

405
00:38:06,276 --> 00:38:14,776
rise of people adopting maybe the Internet intermediate that are outside of possibly India and Israel.

406
00:38:15,276 --> 00:38:17,476
And I gave first the example of Africa.

407
00:38:17,836 --> 00:38:19,476
I think the second would be South America.

408
00:38:19,476 --> 00:38:27,256
I think South America is just teetering on the edge of exploding in productivity.

409
00:38:27,256 --> 00:38:49,376
I think having been around, living in Colombia for a little bit and trying to learn about the area and not just hearing about, but feeling the very heavy American influence,

410
00:38:49,376 --> 00:38:57,416
the political control that was used through non-governmental organizations

411
00:38:57,416 --> 00:39:04,016
or three-letter organizations, CIA and such down there.

412
00:39:04,016 --> 00:39:09,696
I think as the American empire shrinks back and those waters recede

413
00:39:09,696 --> 00:39:16,716
and it's no longer tenable or economically feasible or politically desirable

414
00:39:16,716 --> 00:39:28,516
to continue weekly, monthly, every decade upsetting the apple cart in South America

415
00:39:28,516 --> 00:39:32,336
in order to achieve some sort of political end in the United States.

416
00:39:32,336 --> 00:39:35,456
I think as you see that American influence recede in there,

417
00:39:36,296 --> 00:39:40,296
personally I think that you see a big battle.

418
00:39:40,836 --> 00:39:45,316
And I think that the big battle in South America becomes internet intermediate

419
00:39:45,316 --> 00:40:01,696
versus Chinese control, because there is already a ton of Chinese control moving in that you see in terms of the technology that's moving into the area.

420
00:40:01,696 --> 00:40:12,936
I don't think so much the people yet, but a lot of the technology and a lot of the, well, you know, bricks, right?

421
00:40:13,196 --> 00:40:15,556
Part of Brazil, Russia, India, China.

422
00:40:15,816 --> 00:40:15,936
Yeah.

423
00:40:16,596 --> 00:40:18,396
Like Brazil, right?

424
00:40:18,516 --> 00:40:21,436
So there is a established foothold.

425
00:40:21,436 --> 00:40:30,456
By the way, Balaji, a couple days ago, tweeted a, he had a cool graphic, and I might see if I can pull it up here real quick.

426
00:40:30,456 --> 00:40:44,476
He had a cool graphic that showed the fall of the U.S. establishment versus the BRICS.

427
00:40:44,476 --> 00:40:57,056
And while you're looking for that, I'll just note as far as like South America pertaining to an international intermediate that is a third option away from Chinese control or American anarchy.

428
00:40:57,556 --> 00:41:08,936
You know, I think it's very ripe for the Venezuelan diaspora and also people in Argentina, places that have had failing currencies or hyper inflation.

429
00:41:08,936 --> 00:41:30,216
I think those are demographics that you would see tend to both towards Bitcoin, but also towards that international intermediate when they see how many of the negative, how many of the ills of society are immediate consequences of a failing money system, monetary system, and then not wanting to get into a CBDC because they see what governments do to money.

430
00:41:30,216 --> 00:41:40,316
Yeah. I got this pulled up here. You can see this is the G7 countries.

431
00:41:41,456 --> 00:41:57,256
So UK, United States, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and then the relative the GDP of those countries compared to the GDP of BRICS,

432
00:41:57,256 --> 00:42:01,316
which is China, Russia, India, Brazil, Iran.

433
00:42:01,456 --> 00:42:03,416
There's a whole bunch of countries in this, actually.

434
00:42:03,576 --> 00:42:05,696
Iran, UAV, Indonesia, etc.

435
00:42:05,956 --> 00:42:09,256
But we have seen that crossover moment,

436
00:42:09,436 --> 00:42:16,596
and it appears that happened while everybody had their eyes closed back in 2018,

437
00:42:16,936 --> 00:42:19,156
back when things were whatever.

438
00:42:20,016 --> 00:42:23,256
And not only has that shift occurred,

439
00:42:23,496 --> 00:42:26,836
it appears to be moving very rapidly in a direction.

440
00:42:26,836 --> 00:42:32,556
But what is the salience of BRICS, though, as a block in the tripolar order?

441
00:42:32,736 --> 00:42:37,896
Because India's, you know, biology thinks they're more tending towards part of the international intermediate.

442
00:42:38,616 --> 00:42:42,416
And I think Brazil, they have a left-wing leader now.

443
00:42:43,296 --> 00:42:46,756
So what is the relevance of BRICS, though, as far as...

444
00:42:46,756 --> 00:42:48,196
I would say, yeah.

445
00:42:48,536 --> 00:42:51,616
I mean, I would say that with the exception of India,

446
00:42:51,616 --> 00:42:57,596
that each of those countries is experiencing some sort of importation of the Chinese control,

447
00:42:58,336 --> 00:43:00,536
the exporting of autocracy,

448
00:43:01,356 --> 00:43:09,956
and adopting, moving more in the direction of what China is trying to push with the Belt and Road Initiative.

449
00:43:10,296 --> 00:43:10,456
Yeah.

450
00:43:11,056 --> 00:43:15,816
Maybe not, and you're right to bring that up, maybe not India.

451
00:43:15,816 --> 00:43:32,256
But I think what we've seen from India is that they seem to make pretty good decisions in terms of how can we continue moving forward but also stay out of other people's messes.

452
00:43:32,256 --> 00:43:54,636
So I can see India being one of the countries that is not just wise enough, but also strong enough to resist importing all of the Chinese autocracy weapons and ideas, but still taking many of them.

453
00:43:54,636 --> 00:43:55,076
Yeah.

454
00:43:55,376 --> 00:43:57,236
You know, still taking many of those ideas.

455
00:43:57,236 --> 00:44:06,076
English speaking, maybe still a lot of the norms that we associate with Anglophone liberalism are very prevalent in India, things like that.

456
00:44:06,736 --> 00:44:11,276
So another sociopolitical axis, just to make this conversation more personal in a sense.

457
00:44:11,636 --> 00:44:24,476
So we can also, to get outside of the normal ways that we tend to look at the world as left and right with our current kind of vulgar and inexact ways of analyzing the world.

458
00:44:24,476 --> 00:44:33,116
So Bology talks about the identity stack, that people are kind of layered, you know, layers of different identities.

459
00:44:33,676 --> 00:44:36,576
To quote Bology, everyone is patriotic about something.

460
00:44:36,776 --> 00:44:43,596
And those people, some people are patriotic about their city, others are patriotic about their countries, companies, or even their cryptocurrency.

461
00:44:44,516 --> 00:44:52,816
So there are things about people, various like layers of their identity, some parts of their identity having priority over other parts.

462
00:44:52,816 --> 00:45:01,276
and like determining what somebody's fealty or identity is is determining what part of a person's

463
00:45:01,276 --> 00:45:08,456
life is not merely a swappable piece for another life and i liked this way of looking at it because

464
00:45:08,456 --> 00:45:13,796
some of my past critiques of what i thought biology was getting at with the network society

465
00:45:13,796 --> 00:45:21,156
was this view that people are kind of like completely denatured,

466
00:45:21,156 --> 00:45:26,096
decultured, free agents that can just move at will between society to society.

467
00:45:26,316 --> 00:45:31,116
So they'll go wherever the conditions are the best economically or whatever for them.

468
00:45:31,556 --> 00:45:34,996
But Balaji does have a deep concern for identity

469
00:45:34,996 --> 00:45:38,276
and his highlighting of the identity stack,

470
00:45:38,436 --> 00:45:40,916
this idea that we do all have multiple loyalties,

471
00:45:41,136 --> 00:45:43,656
some of which have kind of primacy over others.

472
00:45:43,796 --> 00:45:48,156
I thought it was interesting and good for that Balaji acknowledges.

473
00:45:48,236 --> 00:45:52,196
And he's acknowledged this type of thinking other ways in other places throughout this book.

474
00:45:52,276 --> 00:45:57,436
But it does give me comfort that he has a really deep idea of the network society.

475
00:45:58,116 --> 00:45:59,916
And something with a moral purpose.

476
00:46:00,056 --> 00:46:02,956
And that's very central to his idea of the startup society.

477
00:46:02,956 --> 00:46:06,816
It's not just like a soulless nolity, not a Starbucks lounge.

478
00:46:06,816 --> 00:46:10,796
It's an actual community with people who have an identity, a fealty to it.

479
00:46:11,836 --> 00:46:12,276
Yeah.

480
00:46:12,276 --> 00:46:34,713
One thing I would point out about that is that that patriotism that identity that desire and longing for a connection to some greater thing I think that we might give a little too much credence to

481
00:46:34,713 --> 00:46:42,673
how strong that draw is based on the generation that we grew up in, based on the age that we are.

482
00:46:43,293 --> 00:46:49,153
If you go a generation above us, to our parents, you know, people in their 60s, 70s,

483
00:46:49,153 --> 00:46:51,233
it's incredibly strong.

484
00:46:51,753 --> 00:46:55,153
They can't see that they would ever give up.

485
00:46:55,393 --> 00:47:00,953
The idea of ever leaving Kansas or the United States

486
00:47:00,953 --> 00:47:05,893
or being Mexican or something like that,

487
00:47:06,533 --> 00:47:09,913
that's just a non-starter.

488
00:47:11,033 --> 00:47:14,513
But if you go down to, say, the 20-year-olds,

489
00:47:14,513 --> 00:47:23,753
if you are faced with no opportunity, no economic opportunity to have a life,

490
00:47:23,753 --> 00:47:31,193
if you're faced with daily persecution for what the things you believe,

491
00:47:32,053 --> 00:47:38,313
that if you stay in that area that you're going to face that for the foreseeable future for the rest of your life,

492
00:47:38,933 --> 00:47:41,393
then it's a lot easier.

493
00:47:41,393 --> 00:47:58,213
I see a lot of, you know, like now living with a lot of like mid-20s to mid-30s people that have all left their home country.

494
00:47:58,933 --> 00:48:06,793
And have, you know, like the common question when you meet someone here is, you know, what's your name and where are you from?

495
00:48:07,213 --> 00:48:10,513
And I've realized that the where are you from thing doesn't really matter.

496
00:48:10,513 --> 00:48:12,933
Do you want to describe where you're at? Where are you?

497
00:48:13,533 --> 00:48:25,093
Yeah, sorry. I'm at the network school. I'm at Balaji's country.

498
00:48:26,753 --> 00:48:30,573
Startup society. He's not there yet. You guys don't have dramatic recognition at this point.

499
00:48:30,573 --> 00:48:40,253
yeah yeah uh we are we're in uh we're in malaysia um in a on a on a little man-made island um

500
00:48:40,253 --> 00:48:46,453
in between singapore and and malaysia um but what would the question i interrupted you an

501
00:48:46,453 --> 00:48:50,332
interesting plot i'm interrupting you again but what were the questions that um people ask each

502
00:48:50,332 --> 00:48:54,913
other that was really interesting what's what's your name and where are you from and what's your

503
00:48:54,913 --> 00:48:59,733
name is what's your name is a useful question yeah but where are you from just really isn't

504
00:48:59,733 --> 00:49:07,573
useful because as i've i've learned it's like you know you'll you know you'll be you'll be talking

505
00:49:07,573 --> 00:49:15,233
to someone who is clearly chinese speaking with an australian accent and they're like you know

506
00:49:15,233 --> 00:49:19,933
where are you from and they're like oh sydney you know uh are you sure about that like yeah

507
00:49:19,933 --> 00:49:26,073
i mean that's how these people you know that's how you do that's how you identify um or uh

508
00:49:26,073 --> 00:49:29,593
there's a girl with clearly a Russian accent.

509
00:49:30,193 --> 00:49:30,793
Where are you from?

510
00:49:30,893 --> 00:49:31,293
Hawaii.

511
00:49:32,193 --> 00:49:34,573
And this is where these people identify.

512
00:49:34,973 --> 00:49:39,053
They identify with the place that gave them opportunity,

513
00:49:39,493 --> 00:49:41,393
not with the place that they were born,

514
00:49:41,553 --> 00:49:44,793
not with the place that their ancestors came from.

515
00:49:45,693 --> 00:49:48,832
When you ask them where they're from,

516
00:49:49,233 --> 00:49:51,113
they don't tell you where they were born.

517
00:49:51,213 --> 00:49:55,133
They tell you where they got the opportunity to become the person that they are.

518
00:49:56,073 --> 00:50:11,013
And so I think that we need to caveat the strength of patriotism with a bit of additional figuring towards age and opportunity.

519
00:50:11,013 --> 00:50:25,213
Because people that are young, people that want to have opportunity, they do not have a strong connection, I don't believe, towards the geography upon which they were birthed.

520
00:50:25,213 --> 00:50:25,373
Yeah.

521
00:50:26,073 --> 00:50:32,593
I think they have a much stronger connection towards whatever is going to give them opportunity to grow.

522
00:50:32,832 --> 00:50:34,453
Yeah, I think you're right.

523
00:50:35,133 --> 00:50:38,093
The idea of the network state is physical barriers are breaking down.

524
00:50:38,093 --> 00:50:46,073
I mean, with COVID, we had the initiation of remote work and life is becoming more in the cloud and value was created.

525
00:50:46,433 --> 00:50:48,133
Internet first becomes physical second.

526
00:50:48,293 --> 00:50:49,352
People can be anywhere.

527
00:50:49,533 --> 00:50:51,693
Physical location becomes much more contingent.

528
00:50:51,693 --> 00:50:57,213
And with that, I can see there being changing values about how people relate to the places they're at, for sure.

529
00:50:57,832 --> 00:50:57,953
Yeah.

530
00:51:00,073 --> 00:51:03,093
I mean, you've moved around a good bit, too.

531
00:51:03,553 --> 00:51:10,133
I know that you strongly, I feel like you strongly identify with the area that you came from, as do I.

532
00:51:12,033 --> 00:51:19,553
But I think when I look forward, then, yeah, I think more about where's the opportunity.

533
00:51:19,553 --> 00:51:21,793
yeah

534
00:51:21,793 --> 00:51:23,933
that's where I'm stuck

535
00:51:23,933 --> 00:51:24,993
no definitely

536
00:51:24,993 --> 00:51:26,573
I'm stuck at the

537
00:51:26,573 --> 00:51:27,733
we talked about this in the past

538
00:51:27,733 --> 00:51:30,273
but I'm stuck at the idea that

539
00:51:30,273 --> 00:51:33,073
human beings are

540
00:51:33,073 --> 00:51:34,773
not chosen

541
00:51:34,773 --> 00:51:37,493
they are given by their past

542
00:51:37,493 --> 00:51:39,852
you don't choose who you are

543
00:51:39,852 --> 00:51:41,993
you are a person by virtue of

544
00:51:41,993 --> 00:51:43,773
the set of obligations

545
00:51:43,773 --> 00:51:45,773
that are imposed upon you

546
00:51:45,773 --> 00:51:47,153
by your social context

547
00:51:47,153 --> 00:51:47,873
for example

548
00:51:47,873 --> 00:51:53,352
nobody chooses to be the son of a particular person nobody chooses to be the brother of another

549
00:51:53,352 --> 00:51:57,953
person once you choose your spouse but once you're married that's supposed to be a lifelong

550
00:51:57,953 --> 00:52:01,773
commitment where you don't choose it day to day whether you're married or not each of these

551
00:52:01,773 --> 00:52:07,993
commitments has you know you have moral commitments that arise from unchosen circumstances that you

552
00:52:07,993 --> 00:52:15,533
find yourself in and that's just maybe a moral view i have of what a human being is is something

553
00:52:15,533 --> 00:52:19,773
that is not created by the person,

554
00:52:19,973 --> 00:52:22,733
but is created by the social context that they're in,

555
00:52:22,873 --> 00:52:24,852
which imparts upon that person obligations,

556
00:52:25,753 --> 00:52:27,793
duties that they didn't choose.

557
00:52:27,973 --> 00:52:29,813
But we've talked about that in the past.

558
00:52:30,293 --> 00:52:33,753
One of the things I think that's relevant to this is,

559
00:52:34,633 --> 00:52:37,153
so Balaji talked about, as I mentioned,

560
00:52:37,153 --> 00:52:43,633
those sociopolitical axes that we can use

561
00:52:43,633 --> 00:52:47,013
to disrupt our common, normal, comfortable ways of viewing the world.

562
00:52:47,933 --> 00:52:51,293
He has technonomic, I don't know if it was technonomic or techno-economic,

563
00:52:51,553 --> 00:52:56,513
but a fusion of technology and economic axes that we can also use

564
00:52:56,513 --> 00:53:01,273
to help us see the world that we're entering or the world that we're in more accurately.

565
00:53:01,773 --> 00:53:04,273
And one of the interesting ones that he talked about was that

566
00:53:04,273 --> 00:53:08,233
there is this common pattern of a three-phase transition

567
00:53:08,233 --> 00:53:12,393
where things start as physical, then the next stage they're in

568
00:53:12,393 --> 00:53:17,113
it's kind of this physical digital hybrid and then they're fully digital that's where the world

569
00:53:17,113 --> 00:53:22,133
is digitizing and dematerializing and in that progress there's kind of three discrete stages

570
00:53:22,133 --> 00:53:27,213
an example being paper the paper started off as physical this thing you wrote down

571
00:53:27,213 --> 00:53:32,213
then we developed scanning technology we were in this kind of physical digital hybrid stage

572
00:53:32,213 --> 00:53:37,473
where you would have a piece of paper and you could scan it onto a computer to save it there

573
00:53:37,473 --> 00:53:42,113
now and then the final stage of that transition is fully digital where the paper

574
00:53:42,113 --> 00:53:47,473
there is no paper the the thing is paperless it's online it lives there it begins and dies there

575
00:53:47,473 --> 00:53:53,773
digital the final digital stage is where things are natively digital and only kind of printed out

576
00:53:53,773 --> 00:53:59,553
instantiated physically as needed and i think that's a really helpful way to view things is

577
00:53:59,553 --> 00:54:05,633
where are we in any specific process in any specific thing in our life where are we at in

578
00:54:05,633 --> 00:54:11,393
that continuum of physical physical digital hybrid and purely natively digital i mean that's the

579
00:54:11,393 --> 00:54:17,093
thesis of Bitcoin, right? That we need a natively digital currency. And that's maybe the idea behind

580
00:54:17,093 --> 00:54:22,713
the network state is that a digital society looks something like something that begins in the cloud

581
00:54:22,713 --> 00:54:28,153
and is printed out as needed around the world, instantiates physically as people come together.

582
00:54:29,433 --> 00:54:37,753
Yeah. So you have digital, you have native, digital native money now. We're seeing the rise

583
00:54:37,753 --> 00:54:43,553
of a digital native workforce, not in terms of people that work remote,

584
00:54:43,693 --> 00:54:54,253
but in terms of AI agents that do work in cyberspace that is instantiated in physical reality.

585
00:54:55,633 --> 00:55:02,433
And so we're moving into that direction very rapidly.

586
00:55:02,433 --> 00:55:09,973
the digital native government in terms of DAOs, decentralized autonomous organizations,

587
00:55:10,933 --> 00:55:21,993
digital native societies, where this is what gave rise to the idea of the network state, right,

588
00:55:21,993 --> 00:55:28,933
is the digital native societies that are societies that build first online.

589
00:55:28,933 --> 00:55:39,513
um facebook uh your your um your your your your magic the gathering online card trading group or

590
00:55:39,513 --> 00:55:48,453
whatever um yeah so all of those things coalescing as we rapidly move into that

591
00:55:48,453 --> 00:55:59,133
native everything digital native um and i think the final step of that is where we sever the

592
00:55:59,133 --> 00:56:05,832
connection between the digital native economy money and workforce

593
00:56:05,832 --> 00:56:17,973
instantiating physical world products and instead um creating digital products that are consumed

594
00:56:17,973 --> 00:56:26,453
digitally so this would be the you know diving even further and deeper into being a truly online

595
00:56:26,453 --> 00:56:34,193
society living in the matrix you know plugging in and leaving the physical world behind

596
00:56:34,193 --> 00:56:44,213
a scary terrifying thought for many people i think an absolute reality that that will

597
00:56:44,213 --> 00:56:55,373
come to fruition in some manner um yeah um what do you think about where we're at in that process

598
00:56:55,373 --> 00:57:05,193
uh in terms of like are we are we just now kind of breaking bread in that area or are we halfway

599
00:57:05,193 --> 00:57:11,193
through the main course yeah um are we are we coming up on dessert like where are we at here

600
00:57:11,193 --> 00:57:17,413
In any particular aspect of your life or object in your life, it's at a different place in the continuum.

601
00:57:17,633 --> 00:57:19,213
We're not at one neat point.

602
00:57:19,373 --> 00:57:21,813
Some things are still very physical about our lives.

603
00:57:21,973 --> 00:57:24,713
Some things are purely digital, natively digital.

604
00:57:24,913 --> 00:57:29,933
So there's different aspects of our life that are stuck in different phases of this transition.

605
00:57:30,453 --> 00:57:36,153
And I think that that's why this is a really useful framework is if you can look at your own life

606
00:57:36,153 --> 00:57:38,413
and look at the different aspects of your life

607
00:57:38,413 --> 00:57:39,913
and see how many, you know,

608
00:57:40,593 --> 00:57:42,533
how much of your life is purely physical,

609
00:57:42,693 --> 00:57:44,093
how much is natively digital,

610
00:57:44,093 --> 00:57:46,913
and then ask of those purely physical parts of your life,

611
00:57:47,313 --> 00:57:48,973
is this inevitably going to be digital?

612
00:57:48,973 --> 00:57:51,753
And what would it look like if it was natively digital,

613
00:57:51,873 --> 00:57:54,093
digital first, physical second?

614
00:57:54,313 --> 00:57:55,273
I mean, that could help somebody

615
00:57:55,273 --> 00:57:58,352
if you want to start a, found a startup or whatever,

616
00:57:58,793 --> 00:58:02,693
but also just maybe in your life to predict trends

617
00:58:02,693 --> 00:58:05,533
and to better integrate yourself into a future

618
00:58:05,533 --> 00:58:07,953
that in some sense might be inevitable.

619
00:58:08,473 --> 00:58:13,293
Like this techno-economic transition, state change,

620
00:58:13,713 --> 00:58:17,233
things evaporating physically into the cloud, becoming digital,

621
00:58:17,733 --> 00:58:22,613
seems to have an air of inevitability to a lot of the processes,

622
00:58:22,613 --> 00:58:30,173
kind of a replacement of horse and buggy with cars type odor to it to me

623
00:58:30,173 --> 00:58:33,352
because it seems like technology, software eats everything, right?

624
00:58:33,413 --> 00:58:35,073
Software eats the world and it's doing that.

625
00:58:35,533 --> 00:58:36,993
in more and more aspects of our life.

626
00:58:37,053 --> 00:58:40,273
So I couldn't give you a neat answer for where we are at in this continuum

627
00:58:40,273 --> 00:58:43,413
because we are at many places in different aspects of our life.

628
00:58:44,633 --> 00:58:44,793
Yeah.

629
00:58:45,653 --> 00:58:49,852
One of the questions that you had kind of put in the show notes

630
00:58:49,852 --> 00:58:53,813
that I wanted to make sure we got to, which I find really interesting,

631
00:58:53,813 --> 00:59:01,373
is do you see Bitcoin's seizure as a catalyst or a trigger

632
00:59:01,373 --> 00:59:05,573
for a second American civil war.

633
00:59:06,253 --> 00:59:07,373
What are your thoughts on that?

634
00:59:08,513 --> 00:59:10,733
You know, it sounds far-fetched.

635
00:59:10,813 --> 00:59:14,613
You have to both first posit and believe

636
00:59:14,613 --> 00:59:16,593
that we're going to hyper-Bitcoinize,

637
00:59:16,693 --> 00:59:18,993
that Bitcoin's value is going to appreciate dramatically,

638
00:59:19,273 --> 00:59:22,733
and then second, that the government,

639
00:59:23,013 --> 00:59:25,613
we live in a free, we think a free, liberal, open society,

640
00:59:25,613 --> 00:59:28,653
would outright steal things from people.

641
00:59:28,773 --> 00:59:30,033
I think both are plausible, though.

642
00:59:30,033 --> 00:59:58,773
And I think that we've read, as I mentioned in the summary in the intro, Lynn Alden in her book Broken Money, and I believe this has been mentioned in some of the articles we've read, capital controls historically are imposed at the end of a long-term debt cycle in order to trap people into the ledger that the government then is inflating in order to get rid of the debt.

643
00:59:58,773 --> 01:00:03,233
They want to hyperinflate it away, and they don't want people fleeing to different ledgers.

644
01:00:03,332 --> 01:00:09,233
They don't want people investing their money in hard resources in other countries, something like that.

645
01:00:09,332 --> 01:00:16,293
So capital controls are imposed to prevent capital from fleeing to other jurisdictions at the end of a long-term debt cycle.

646
01:00:16,733 --> 01:00:18,852
And that's how it kind of resolves itself politically.

647
01:00:19,413 --> 01:00:22,713
That's a form of financial repression, but it's happened historically.

648
01:00:23,073 --> 01:00:25,953
And we saw, of course, gold seizure in the United States.

649
01:00:26,033 --> 01:00:27,913
These things have historic precedents.

650
01:00:27,913 --> 01:00:43,933
And so I, you know, as much as like, it's always when you're sitting in your comfortable house, wherever you are at your life right now, it's difficult to imagine if you are at a point of relative freedom, that the future could be very different and more repressive.

651
01:00:43,933 --> 01:00:49,873
And the government could be coming after you to take something that you own, to take your wealth kind of directly like that.

652
01:00:49,873 --> 01:00:59,773
But I think it is very, very plausible, and it's the future people should prepare for with self-custody and whatever other measure that they want to take.

653
01:00:59,793 --> 01:01:02,893
It's just so historically, you know, precedented.

654
01:01:03,753 --> 01:01:05,993
Yeah. Yeah, you make a good point.

655
01:01:06,133 --> 01:01:14,993
I think it would be very naive to look at the past and assume that it won't be repeated in some way.

656
01:01:15,832 --> 01:01:19,193
And it's not the distant past.

657
01:01:19,193 --> 01:01:46,033
It's the immediate past. The United States has been seizing people's monetary accounts actively left, right and center, starting first with, you know, nation state actors that they disagree with and then moving towards nation state related actors that they disagree with.

658
01:01:46,033 --> 01:01:54,293
and then progressively moving closer and closer towards a larger portion of the population

659
01:01:54,293 --> 01:02:03,293
with companies who have ideological leanings that they disagree with,

660
01:02:04,273 --> 01:02:10,473
certain sectors, economies, crypto, that they have disagreements with.

661
01:02:10,473 --> 01:02:13,153
And so taking big bites out of that.

662
01:02:13,153 --> 01:02:40,313
Just to recap on what you're talking about with Lynn Alden's, because that's a really salient point to bring up, is that at the end of the long-term debt cycle, the money is rapidly losing value because in order to continue the game of musical chairs going, in order to keep the music playing,

663
01:02:40,313 --> 01:02:56,173
You have to continue to print money in order to pay off the debt that you took on before, which forces you to print more money, which forces you to take on more debt, which forces you to print more money.

664
01:02:56,433 --> 01:02:57,573
It just feeds itself.

665
01:02:58,613 --> 01:03:07,733
And the capital controls, effectively what that does is it disallows you from selling the currency.

666
01:03:07,733 --> 01:03:28,973
When you change your currency into something else, if you choose to buy a house, if you choose to trade it for Bitcoin, if you choose to buy a car, even if you buy a soda, everybody thinks that they're buying something.

667
01:03:28,973 --> 01:03:33,633
But when in fact it's just as accurate to say that you're selling the currency.

668
01:03:34,153 --> 01:03:42,433
So you're selling the currency in order to buy a product or buy a different currency.

669
01:03:43,793 --> 01:03:57,413
Interestingly enough, the place that I'm at, Forest City, is a futuristic megacity built by the largest real estate developer in China.

670
01:03:58,973 --> 01:04:03,193
The goal was for this to be the Dubai of Asia.

671
01:04:03,693 --> 01:04:13,033
This was to be this hub of economic activity, this place where Asia went to do business.

672
01:04:13,933 --> 01:04:21,973
They started building it about 20 years ago, and they built up enough capacity for about 800,000 people.

673
01:04:21,973 --> 01:04:27,133
So this is like a brand new city, brand new buildings, brand new streets, everything.

674
01:04:27,133 --> 01:04:34,832
and there's about 8,000 people in a city, you know, like for our listeners,

675
01:04:35,073 --> 01:04:44,893
like think about having the city of Kansas City or Tulsa or maybe St. Louis.

676
01:04:45,933 --> 01:04:47,953
Think about having a city that size,

677
01:04:47,953 --> 01:04:55,993
but then only having the amount of people that would half fill a basketball stadium,

678
01:04:55,993 --> 01:05:02,493
Like a subpar crowd for a college basketball game is how many people live here.

679
01:05:02,933 --> 01:05:12,393
And the reason is because Xi Jinping put capital controls on Chinese mainlanders

680
01:05:12,393 --> 01:05:18,433
and said that they can't buy a house outside of China that costs more than $50,000.

681
01:05:19,013 --> 01:05:27,373
That's a way to trap that currency inside China because China is arguably ahead of us in the debt cycle,

682
01:05:27,593 --> 01:05:30,573
depending on what you're looking at.

683
01:05:32,113 --> 01:05:35,073
And so, yeah, it's a real world thing where you're trapping a currency.

684
01:05:36,753 --> 01:05:42,373
Bitcoin seizure, I think, is a really interesting thing to talk about and think about

685
01:05:42,373 --> 01:05:45,173
because Bitcoin can't be seized.

686
01:05:45,993 --> 01:05:51,093
Now, exchanges that have Bitcoin on it, banks that have Bitcoin in them,

687
01:05:53,293 --> 01:05:57,793
those things can be seized, but Bitcoin itself cannot be seized.

688
01:05:58,513 --> 01:06:02,832
It can only be taken, or sorry, it can only be given.

689
01:06:03,352 --> 01:06:05,773
It can be given against your will.

690
01:06:06,693 --> 01:06:10,852
Somebody can beat it out of you, but as we've discussed on previous podcasts,

691
01:06:10,852 --> 01:06:19,313
physical violence in order to extract someone's Bitcoin is not a feasible long-term play.

692
01:06:19,313 --> 01:06:21,493
That approach does not scale.

693
01:06:23,873 --> 01:06:34,973
And so I think it's a really interesting divergence of history where I do believe we will see this attempt.

694
01:06:34,973 --> 01:06:52,873
I do believe that we will see in some form, and it may not be the United States government, maybe the United States government, maybe Cynthia Loomis gets enough support and they pass a law that says that the government can never seize your Bitcoin.

695
01:06:53,653 --> 01:06:55,313
And maybe that law sticks.

696
01:06:56,852 --> 01:06:57,373
Yeah.

697
01:06:57,573 --> 01:07:00,173
But I do think we'll see it in other countries.

698
01:07:00,173 --> 01:07:06,133
But I think we're seeing a big divergence because you finally have something that can't be seized.

699
01:07:06,573 --> 01:07:08,033
Not your keys, not your coins.

700
01:07:08,153 --> 01:07:12,313
You make a really good point that it can only be seized once it's centralized.

701
01:07:12,893 --> 01:07:17,233
And maybe if you could pull up that Jason Lowry tweet, because this talks about that specific risk.

702
01:07:17,473 --> 01:07:22,993
So Jason Lowry, the author of Softwar, a major in the U.S. Space Force.

703
01:07:22,993 --> 01:07:30,133
so somebody who has thought deeply about the strategic implications national strategic

704
01:07:30,133 --> 01:07:34,693
defense implications of bitcoin so he says i'm a subscriber to the belief that if bitcoin becomes

705
01:07:34,693 --> 01:07:39,373
a global unit of account its purchasing power will naturally increase as humanity grows more

706
01:07:39,373 --> 01:07:45,373
productive this makes the need to chase yield obsolete unnecessary even bitcoin itself is the

707
01:07:45,373 --> 01:07:50,153
yield now let's so he's responding to people who are kind of wanting to get yield on their bitcoin

708
01:07:50,153 --> 01:07:56,973
in some way. He says, let's put on our adversarial thinking caps for a moment. If I were a nefarious

709
01:07:56,973 --> 01:08:02,733
president or nation, I'd lure people into giving up self-custody of their BTC by dangling the

710
01:08:02,733 --> 01:08:07,433
promise of yield. I'd make them believe that holding their own Bitcoin is too risky and that

711
01:08:07,433 --> 01:08:11,073
they're missing out on greater financial opportunities. I convince them that companies

712
01:08:11,073 --> 01:08:16,393
like NIDIG, Coinbase, and MSTR are essential for securing their Bitcoin and generating yield.

713
01:08:16,792 --> 01:08:22,352
Then, with a simple executive order, I'd nationalize Knighted, Coinbase, and MSTR's Bitcoin.

714
01:08:22,873 --> 01:08:27,652
Or perhaps no grand announcement, no sudden shock, just a quiet, covert policy shift

715
01:08:27,652 --> 01:08:31,593
that the public wouldn't even recognize as confiscation until it was too late.

716
01:08:32,133 --> 01:08:37,753
This is why I don't own MSTR, MSTR's Bitcoin, and the future president's honeypot just waiting to be seized.

717
01:08:38,073 --> 01:08:43,553
And when the next executive order 6102 inevitably comes, which was the past order that seized gold,

718
01:08:43,873 --> 01:08:45,393
it will be widely supported.

719
01:08:45,393 --> 01:08:54,713
Why? Because the government will offer double its current market price value in USD, making those who forfeit their BTC through exchanges instantly twice as wealthy in fiat terms.

720
01:08:54,813 --> 01:08:58,133
Beyond that, most people won't own a meaningful amount of Bitcoin to care.

721
01:08:58,613 --> 01:09:05,213
If anything, they'll resent those who do, feeling class envy and making BTC confiscation politically popular.

722
01:09:05,773 --> 01:09:08,232
The warning signs are already here.

723
01:09:08,232 --> 01:09:22,333
So that's a pretty dire prediction or prognostication or statement from somebody, again, within the U.S. military establishment about the necessity of being very cautious about where you put your Bitcoin.

724
01:09:22,333 --> 01:09:28,313
Yeah, and I think it's very accurate, very spot on.

725
01:09:28,573 --> 01:09:37,192
I've yet to see really anything come out of Jason Lowry's Twitter feed that at first glance

726
01:09:37,192 --> 01:09:47,409
it may appear to be outside of what you would think But if you put some thought to it

727
01:09:48,249 --> 01:09:51,669
there's not a whole lot of people that own Bitcoin.

728
01:09:52,069 --> 01:09:53,729
There's 8 billion people in the world.

729
01:09:54,069 --> 01:09:57,629
I don't know, maybe a quarter of a million people own Bitcoin.

730
01:09:58,749 --> 01:10:02,849
So there's a whole lot more have-nots than there are haves.

731
01:10:02,849 --> 01:10:11,269
and if it does become realized that Bitcoin is the ultimate asset to own,

732
01:10:11,769 --> 01:10:15,109
that it is so much more valuable than all other assets,

733
01:10:15,369 --> 01:10:20,489
that owning it is more important than owning anything else,

734
01:10:22,089 --> 01:10:24,149
owning Bitcoin is the yield.

735
01:10:24,549 --> 01:10:29,269
That's the thing about everybody always wanted to get yield on their dollar.

736
01:10:29,489 --> 01:10:32,629
They wanted to get yield on their real estate, etc., etc.,

737
01:10:32,629 --> 01:10:36,189
because it wasn't that valuable.

738
01:10:36,749 --> 01:10:38,469
Like, you know, cash isn't that valuable.

739
01:10:38,649 --> 01:10:43,889
Cash loses its ability to buy things very rapidly.

740
01:10:44,189 --> 01:10:50,789
Real estate is slowly pecked away and chiseled down to nothing through taxes and maintenance

741
01:10:50,789 --> 01:10:55,829
and the fact that you can't move it, you can't take it,

742
01:10:55,929 --> 01:11:01,609
you can't chop it off into little pieces and buy a soda or a car or a college education with it.

743
01:11:01,609 --> 01:11:07,009
So it does appear to be that this would be accurate.

744
01:11:07,729 --> 01:11:21,589
There is precedent for government, especially the U.S. government, nationalizing and seizing sectors and seizing assets.

745
01:11:22,589 --> 01:11:28,169
It would be naive, I think, to think that they would go in a different direction this time.

746
01:11:28,169 --> 01:11:33,349
and I don't know what stops that

747
01:11:33,349 --> 01:11:36,709
other than the will of the people

748
01:11:36,709 --> 01:11:39,349
being very loudly expressed

749
01:11:39,349 --> 01:11:43,709
that does give me hope because we do have

750
01:11:43,709 --> 01:11:47,469
tools, digital megaphones

751
01:11:47,469 --> 01:11:51,389
podcasts, substack

752
01:11:51,389 --> 01:11:53,009
X

753
01:11:53,009 --> 01:11:57,609
that are showing that they have the power

754
01:11:57,609 --> 01:12:00,829
to fight back against the establishment and the authority

755
01:12:00,829 --> 01:12:09,569
and to make meaningful shifts in policy direction.

756
01:12:11,709 --> 01:12:14,229
So I think it's a very real concern.

757
01:12:14,229 --> 01:12:18,689
I think absolutely on some extent we will see this.

758
01:12:19,509 --> 01:12:21,229
To what extent, I'm not sure.

759
01:12:22,649 --> 01:12:24,429
No one can be sure.

760
01:12:24,429 --> 01:12:30,449
But yeah, I think it would be very naive to think that this is not going to be a reality.

761
01:12:30,449 --> 01:12:58,749
That seizure of Bitcoin nationalization of a company like MSTR, which already has a very meaningful Bitcoin strategic reserve, that would be, in terms of the amount of it, a significant move towards establishing global dominance in terms of securing capital.

762
01:12:58,749 --> 01:13:03,209
So, yeah, makes sense, I think, moving in that direction.

763
01:13:04,449 --> 01:13:08,289
I don't know, what dystopian reality do you see coming to fruition?

764
01:13:08,289 --> 01:13:11,269
So one dystopian potentiality I wanted to mention,

765
01:13:11,489 --> 01:13:15,169
because this is one that Balaji has a section called

766
01:13:15,169 --> 01:13:17,389
Victory Conditions and Surprise Endings,

767
01:13:17,809 --> 01:13:21,289
and he makes kind of an observation that's very interesting about Chinese control

768
01:13:21,289 --> 01:13:27,089
and about how a really coercive, centralized power in the future

769
01:13:27,089 --> 01:13:33,209
might obviate some of the problems that in the past have prevented such powers from having strong economies,

770
01:13:33,209 --> 01:13:45,489
like in a USSR kind of command economy, you know, certain built-in problems prevented those systems from ever competing with the free market.

771
01:13:45,929 --> 01:13:48,209
So we can start to illustrate this.

772
01:13:48,989 --> 01:13:50,909
Balaji gives the idea of making a pencil.

773
01:13:51,049 --> 01:13:55,689
This is a common kind of libertarian story that no one person makes a pencil.

774
01:13:55,689 --> 01:13:59,309
The pencil has the eraser, the graphite, the wood around it or whatever.

775
01:13:59,729 --> 01:14:12,529
All of these things require various mining, industrial transportation operations to get this very simple object, very quotidian object, the pencil, into our hands.

776
01:14:13,389 --> 01:14:16,449
How is that done then when all these operations are required?

777
01:14:16,449 --> 01:14:26,769
Well, obviously, in the market economy, the price signals coordinate all these diverse parties and bring this thing about almost magically without having to have one person dictating what's happening.

778
01:14:27,409 --> 01:14:39,349
So that has been that's kind of the story of the pencil is why the free market is able to create all of this value and why, in fact, you can't have somebody standing over trying to order everybody around.

779
01:14:39,349 --> 01:14:42,929
and they won't have the market signals.

780
01:14:43,029 --> 01:14:44,849
They will not be able to coordinate all these parties

781
01:14:44,849 --> 01:14:48,109
with the same facility that the free market can.

782
01:14:48,409 --> 01:14:49,709
But then the question becomes,

783
01:14:49,949 --> 01:14:54,609
imagine an authoritarian future, near future potentially,

784
01:14:54,609 --> 01:14:59,109
China solving this problem by integrating AI with the digital yuan,

785
01:14:59,209 --> 01:15:00,189
with the CBDC.

786
01:15:00,629 --> 01:15:03,509
If all transactions are on-chain in economy

787
01:15:03,509 --> 01:15:08,349
and AI then can assess them in real time,

788
01:15:08,349 --> 01:15:18,709
Can there be a centralized algorithmic coordination of supply chains without the necessity of the market price information coordinating all these different parties?

789
01:15:18,709 --> 01:15:23,649
Can you have Soviet-style central planning made feasible with AI and robotics?

790
01:15:23,949 --> 01:15:40,869
Because now you do have this, you know, in the form of AI, potentially something that can arrive at a market signal by capturing all the data from the CBDC interactions, monetary transfers on the network.

791
01:15:40,869 --> 01:15:50,369
So that's one potential dystopia that maybe China can make a pencil in the future through a pure command economy without worrying about market signals.

792
01:15:53,869 --> 01:15:56,969
First off, it's kind of a mind-blowing thing to think about.

793
01:15:59,209 --> 01:16:00,369
That's interesting.

794
01:16:00,369 --> 01:16:05,849
but does that not mean that we are

795
01:16:05,849 --> 01:16:10,769
does that not mean that we would just be using

796
01:16:10,769 --> 01:16:13,069
the most powerful technology ever invented

797
01:16:13,069 --> 01:16:17,729
in order to listen to a market

798
01:16:17,729 --> 01:16:19,409
a free market

799
01:16:19,409 --> 01:16:21,649
in order to emulate the market without its freedom

800
01:16:21,649 --> 01:16:23,549
that's exactly what China would want it for

801
01:16:23,549 --> 01:16:27,509
in order for them to control perfectly

802
01:16:27,509 --> 01:16:29,629
the operation of an industry

803
01:16:29,629 --> 01:16:34,629
without delegating that control in a decentralized way to people that they do not want to empower.

804
01:16:35,629 --> 01:16:36,629
They want the party to empower.

805
01:16:36,629 --> 01:16:52,409
Yeah, because you could use some sort of algorithm to determine allocation of capital in a command and control economy

806
01:16:52,409 --> 01:16:59,329
so that you don't need the big bureaucracy to do it

807
01:16:59,329 --> 01:17:02,249
and, of course, do it wrong and do it inefficiently

808
01:17:02,249 --> 01:17:07,169
and do it insidiously or just poorly.

809
01:17:09,049 --> 01:17:12,029
So there is a lot of potential there.

810
01:17:12,589 --> 01:17:16,829
I mean, like, the one thing that computers do,

811
01:17:17,389 --> 01:17:21,369
or not one thing, but one of the things that computers do better than humans

812
01:17:21,369 --> 01:17:23,889
is they do things better than humans.

813
01:17:24,029 --> 01:17:24,709
They're more efficient.

814
01:17:25,149 --> 01:17:29,649
So, you know, why did the USSR crumble?

815
01:17:31,069 --> 01:17:35,289
Why do we have misallocation of capital

816
01:17:35,289 --> 01:17:36,889
and command and control economies?

817
01:17:38,089 --> 01:17:41,689
It's because the bureaucracy is just not good at it.

818
01:17:41,689 --> 01:17:47,289
So maybe if you did have an algorithmic artificial intelligence

819
01:17:47,289 --> 01:17:50,509
dictating how to allocate capital

820
01:17:50,509 --> 01:17:55,289
based on some sort of

821
01:17:55,289 --> 01:18:00,009
of principles

822
01:18:00,009 --> 01:18:07,469
that you could theoretically have a command control economy

823
01:18:07,469 --> 01:18:13,149
but I don't see how

824
01:18:13,149 --> 01:18:21,589
that would be better than the algorithmic AI that makes those same decisions

825
01:18:21,589 --> 01:18:26,049
based on simply reacting to the market in terms of price signal.

826
01:18:30,069 --> 01:18:32,469
That's kind of a mind-blowing thing to consider.

827
01:18:33,269 --> 01:18:36,229
It would certainly narrow the gap.

828
01:18:36,229 --> 01:18:43,289
It would certainly make command control economies much better, much more efficient.

829
01:18:43,729 --> 01:18:45,429
It would move them closer.

830
01:18:46,449 --> 01:18:56,909
But the benefit, like the only reason we have command and control economies is that there's a group of people that grabbed power and realized how awesome it was and they don't want to let it go.

831
01:18:57,509 --> 01:19:00,269
And so are they going to give that power up?

832
01:19:00,269 --> 01:19:25,289
I guess if you figure into the algorithm, hey, keep this ruling power in class, make your asset allocations dependent upon keeping the woke in their position, keeping the Chinese party, the CCP, in power.

833
01:19:25,289 --> 01:19:31,409
it could just take it onto steroids and make it even worse.

834
01:19:32,149 --> 01:19:35,509
And, boy, that's a fascinating question to think about.

835
01:19:35,589 --> 01:19:36,669
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of assumptions.

836
01:19:36,669 --> 01:19:37,449
I don't know where I land.

837
01:19:38,249 --> 01:19:39,509
It's a very difficult question.

838
01:19:39,709 --> 01:19:44,329
Predicting the future, as biology notes, is obviously a very fraught enterprise on many fronts.

839
01:19:44,329 --> 01:19:50,789
And I found that an interesting resolution to the pencil-todd experiment.

840
01:19:51,569 --> 01:19:53,689
But I think we are very far from that.

841
01:19:53,689 --> 01:20:15,969
I think this is something I need to get back to my Hayek, but I think that there's something about the generation of information in the market economy that deals with subjective actors making decisions in the moment that you can't – that the information is generated in a way that is not – I mean it's not present before it's generated and so it has to be generated by the actors.

842
01:20:16,629 --> 01:20:20,149
It can't just be captured by a machine prior to that generation, something like that.

843
01:20:20,149 --> 01:20:21,609
but this is just me talking in circles.

844
01:20:21,809 --> 01:20:24,509
So it'd be fun to read some, like Hayek,

845
01:20:24,569 --> 01:20:27,469
he has this really good essay on the nature of information,

846
01:20:28,209 --> 01:20:29,269
I forget the title even,

847
01:20:29,389 --> 01:20:31,669
but we could read some of the foundational stuff in the future

848
01:20:31,669 --> 01:20:35,469
and see if we can puzzle out if AI is going to be dystopian or not

849
01:20:35,469 --> 01:20:36,429
on an economic front.

850
01:20:37,889 --> 01:20:42,549
Yeah, so one of the things I wanted to hit before we knock off here is,

851
01:20:43,369 --> 01:20:48,969
so Bologi, you know, he has dollar green, bitcoin orange

852
01:20:48,969 --> 01:20:51,289
as the two factions in an American civil war,

853
01:20:51,849 --> 01:20:55,229
Balaji puts himself outside of Bitcoin maximalism

854
01:20:55,229 --> 01:20:58,729
and posits himself and an international intermediate

855
01:20:58,729 --> 01:21:01,789
as not Bitcoin maxis, right?

856
01:21:02,249 --> 01:21:05,549
And here's a quote of him describing Bitcoin maximalism.

857
01:21:05,989 --> 01:21:06,909
So he says,

858
01:21:06,909 --> 01:21:09,809
Bitcoin maximalism is by far the most important ideology

859
01:21:09,809 --> 01:21:12,349
in the world that many people haven't heard of yet.

860
01:21:12,749 --> 01:21:14,749
There's philosophical depth to maximalism.

861
01:21:15,169 --> 01:21:17,809
It represents a root and branch rejection

862
01:21:17,809 --> 01:21:19,929
of the inflation that powers the U.S. government

863
01:21:19,929 --> 01:21:21,189
and thus pays for everything.

864
01:21:21,569 --> 01:21:24,189
It fuses the worldview of Mises, Rothbard, Hayek,

865
01:21:24,249 --> 01:21:25,469
and Ron Paul with Bitcoin.

866
01:21:25,969 --> 01:21:28,849
It naturally aligns with the loss of trust in institutions,

867
01:21:29,189 --> 01:21:32,869
with the suspicious individual who, understandably,

868
01:21:33,169 --> 01:21:34,809
no longer trusts the federal government

869
01:21:34,809 --> 01:21:36,649
or U.S. institutions on anything.

870
01:21:37,149 --> 01:21:39,329
It's not merely an edit to the state,

871
01:21:39,509 --> 01:21:41,069
it's the end of the state.

872
01:21:41,409 --> 01:21:43,649
And it's a push from an ideological direction

873
01:21:43,649 --> 01:21:45,829
the wokes are ill-prepared for

874
01:21:45,829 --> 01:21:51,549
because it's an aracial ultra-libertarianism rather than a white nationalism,

875
01:21:51,909 --> 01:21:53,429
which wokes think is the enemy.

876
01:21:54,029 --> 01:21:57,289
And Balaji then refers the readers to the Bitcoin standard

877
01:21:57,289 --> 01:21:59,709
as kind of a statement on Bitcoin maximalism.

878
01:21:59,849 --> 01:22:01,469
In notes, I thought this was interesting or funny,

879
01:22:01,869 --> 01:22:05,589
Maxis have, quote, developed verbal justifications for being toxic.

880
01:22:06,429 --> 01:22:08,009
And what did you think about that?

881
01:22:08,089 --> 01:22:10,269
I mean, I don't know if you consider yourself a Bitcoin Maxi.

882
01:22:10,649 --> 01:22:13,309
Balaji does not consider himself one, I think,

883
01:22:13,309 --> 01:22:17,209
because he reserves the possibility of a, I don't know what you call it,

884
01:22:17,209 --> 01:22:19,689
other coins having utility.

885
01:22:20,209 --> 01:22:23,389
And there's still the possibility that Bitcoin doesn't make it

886
01:22:23,389 --> 01:22:27,569
for reasons that we can ascribe very small percentage chances to,

887
01:22:27,689 --> 01:22:29,569
but that's still a possibility, right?

888
01:22:30,789 --> 01:22:33,209
Yeah, I wouldn't call myself a Bitcoin maxi.

889
01:22:33,289 --> 01:22:36,529
I would call myself like a probabilistic maxi.

890
01:22:36,529 --> 01:22:51,489
I think that Bitcoin probabilistically is the technology that will take over the monetary system.

891
01:22:52,269 --> 01:22:57,469
I think it will take over the cyber security system.

892
01:22:57,789 --> 01:22:59,589
I think it is the base layer of the Internet.

893
01:23:00,389 --> 01:23:05,569
It may be that that's not the case, but right now it appears to be that that is the case.

894
01:23:05,569 --> 01:23:13,869
And so until something better appears, Bitcoin is what I will choose to use.

895
01:23:14,009 --> 01:23:21,349
Just like until something better appears, I will drive a car in order to get places.

896
01:23:22,009 --> 01:23:31,329
You know, when I'm able to put on a jacket and zip the zipper and tap a button and dematerialize and rematerialize somewhere else,

897
01:23:31,329 --> 01:23:37,209
and it's safer than a car and faster and cheaper, then I'll probably do that.

898
01:23:37,209 --> 01:23:47,229
And so I think being agnostic to the ideology of any certain technology,

899
01:23:47,549 --> 01:23:55,089
but focusing on the benefits of that and how does it solve the problem,

900
01:23:55,549 --> 01:23:57,489
I don't think that that's maximalism.

901
01:23:57,489 --> 01:24:04,169
I will caveat that by saying I currently do not see a use for the other coins.

902
01:24:05,529 --> 01:24:07,749
I think that they're interesting.

903
01:24:08,549 --> 01:24:15,409
I think that they are proving that there are use cases for Bitcoin that have yet to be developed.

904
01:24:15,409 --> 01:24:27,649
and it's like you're sandboxing ideas on other chains, Ethereum, Solana particularly,

905
01:24:28,189 --> 01:24:33,269
that will eventually be replicated onto higher levels of Bitcoin.

906
01:24:34,709 --> 01:24:43,329
But right now that technology does not exist simply because Bitcoin prioritizes security over speed.

907
01:24:43,329 --> 01:24:53,129
And so you have to get around that, not around that first, you have to build upon that fortress and that wall.

908
01:25:03,649 --> 01:25:05,489
I think I kind of want to leave it right there.

909
01:25:05,489 --> 01:25:05,669
Yeah.

910
01:25:05,669 --> 01:25:26,929
Because that's just kind of what I believe, is that I think that if you take that approach, that you're agnostic to the ideology, but you instead align with the benefit to humanity,

911
01:25:26,929 --> 01:25:34,929
then I think that that eliminates the attack surface for a woke attack.

912
01:25:35,929 --> 01:25:41,269
Like the foundational power of woke comes from hate.

913
01:25:42,929 --> 01:25:53,929
It first started with, you know, we'll hate the rich, we'll hate the white, we'll hate the males, we'll hate the straights,

914
01:25:53,929 --> 01:26:05,129
We'll hate the conservatives. We'll hate the gun owners. We'll hate the meat eaters. We'll hate the guys. We'll hate the physically fit.

915
01:26:05,129 --> 01:26:17,349
you know it's just you you eventually run out of things to hate and as long as you are promoting

916
01:26:17,349 --> 01:26:27,549
this idea of bitcoin maximalism that comes with it a subset of other ideologies that comes with it

917
01:26:27,549 --> 01:26:35,129
all of these other things that are attack surfaces for woke to latch on to.

918
01:26:36,149 --> 01:26:39,669
I'm going to eat meat. I'm going to be fit. I'm going to work out. I'm going to get sunlight.

919
01:26:39,669 --> 01:26:44,349
I'm going to not care about the color of people's skins.

920
01:26:44,789 --> 01:26:47,069
I'm going to care more about the content of their character.

921
01:26:47,509 --> 01:26:51,649
I'm going to care less about the diversification of color in the room

922
01:26:51,649 --> 01:26:55,469
and more about the diversification of ideas in the room.

923
01:26:57,549 --> 01:27:00,069
Any of those things are attack vectors.

924
01:27:00,069 --> 01:27:11,889
And so I think that there's probably a big benefit to disassociating yourself with those ideologies to minimize the attack vectors.

925
01:27:12,309 --> 01:27:26,009
Because, yeah, the surface area for someone to attack you with the weapon that is currently being used is hate.

926
01:27:26,009 --> 01:27:29,669
And so you just don't give them something to hate.

927
01:27:29,929 --> 01:27:33,489
By the way, Balji's really, really good at this.

928
01:27:34,329 --> 01:27:40,469
When you hear Balji talk and when you read the network state,

929
01:27:41,589 --> 01:27:53,369
what you don't hear are the ravings and rantings of an ideologically bent, charismatic, cultish lunatic.

930
01:27:53,369 --> 01:28:02,309
What you do here are the very sober acknowledgements of each realm,

931
01:28:03,229 --> 01:28:10,509
and then an assessment of those really from kind of a scientific perspective

932
01:28:10,509 --> 01:28:15,929
to simply say one of these is better than the other.

933
01:28:16,749 --> 01:28:19,929
And not to say that the others are bad,

934
01:28:19,929 --> 01:28:24,989
but one of these is better than the other because more people benefit, fewer people die.

935
01:28:25,949 --> 01:28:27,869
Society rises as a whole.

936
01:28:28,569 --> 01:28:31,529
No, and he looks at, throughout this chapter in this book,

937
01:28:31,689 --> 01:28:34,089
he looks at startup societies as experiments too.

938
01:28:34,329 --> 01:28:37,369
So maybe they'll work, maybe they won't, but if they work,

939
01:28:37,469 --> 01:28:39,949
they maybe will lead to societal progress.

940
01:28:40,089 --> 01:28:43,049
Maybe that moral innovation will catch on even outside the startup society.

941
01:28:43,049 --> 01:28:46,049
So you're totally right that he's not doctrinaire or cultish

942
01:28:46,049 --> 01:28:49,429
in the sense of having the moral innovation that he thinks is correct.

943
01:28:49,429 --> 01:28:55,809
I mean, he wants a profusion of sort of societies to try improvements on multiple fronts, run your experiment, see if it works.

944
01:28:55,849 --> 01:28:56,909
If it doesn't, try again.

945
01:28:57,569 --> 01:29:01,189
I think, Lucas, that you're a love maxi, though, from hearing you opine about that.

946
01:29:01,589 --> 01:29:03,549
Yeah, that's your love maxi, man.

947
01:29:05,169 --> 01:29:06,109
I got it.

948
01:29:06,209 --> 01:29:13,209
Okay, so there was a discussion that I overheard yesterday that I inserted myself into very unceremoniously.

949
01:29:13,209 --> 01:29:22,149
there was this AI guy who was talking about how you need to delay decision making

950
01:29:22,149 --> 01:29:29,309
because you never know how much the environment that you're in affects the decision that you're

951
01:29:29,309 --> 01:29:35,229
having and kept on giving the description or kept on giving the example that well if you're drunk

952
01:29:35,229 --> 01:29:41,669
then you should wait until you're sober to make a decision valid and and I was like I

953
01:29:41,669 --> 01:29:46,369
the reason I inserted myself into this conversation was because I was like,

954
01:29:46,789 --> 01:29:49,629
do you believe that this is a revolution?

955
01:29:50,049 --> 01:29:51,089
It's like a revelation.

956
01:29:51,429 --> 01:29:51,589
Like,

957
01:29:51,729 --> 01:29:56,069
do you think you're the first guy that ever thought that you should sober up

958
01:29:56,069 --> 01:29:57,209
before you do something?

959
01:29:58,589 --> 01:29:59,309
What is,

960
01:30:00,789 --> 01:30:01,069
yeah,

961
01:30:01,149 --> 01:30:01,709
anyways.

962
01:30:03,629 --> 01:30:04,069
But,

963
01:30:04,509 --> 01:30:04,829
and,

964
01:30:04,829 --> 01:30:07,469
and so what I came back to him with was like,

965
01:30:07,549 --> 01:30:07,989
first off,

966
01:30:08,029 --> 01:30:09,609
that's a dumb ass thing to say.

967
01:30:09,609 --> 01:30:11,569
Like there's no rational person in the world.

968
01:30:11,669 --> 01:30:18,509
that thinks that you should make decisions drunk because that's the best way because it's now and not later.

969
01:30:18,969 --> 01:30:22,949
But the point that I made was that decision-making is a skill.

970
01:30:23,109 --> 01:30:23,569
It's a muscle.

971
01:30:23,849 --> 01:30:27,949
It's something that you do that you get better with over time.

972
01:30:27,949 --> 01:30:33,769
And the only way that you can make good decisions is to make enough decisions in order to differentiate

973
01:30:33,769 --> 01:30:39,269
and have a feedback loop that shows you what the difference is between a good decision and a bad decision.

974
01:30:39,269 --> 01:30:47,569
And so the reason I bring that up is to tag on to what you just said about Bology encouraging the proliferation of startup societies.

975
01:30:47,789 --> 01:30:48,809
We don't need one.

976
01:30:48,949 --> 01:30:49,969
We don't need three.

977
01:30:50,129 --> 01:30:51,309
We don't need 12.

978
01:30:51,549 --> 01:30:52,549
We need a lot.

979
01:30:52,669 --> 01:31:01,669
We need to have a lot of people attempting to move in this direction so that we can figure out what works and what does not.

980
01:31:01,669 --> 01:31:11,189
Because if it's just one or two, then they're going to become self-aggrandizing and they're going to fall apart and they're all going to turn into cults.

981
01:31:11,309 --> 01:31:14,629
You know, everything starts off with the best idea.

982
01:31:14,809 --> 01:31:21,869
Like we're going to go find an island and we're going to have beaches and we're going to eat fruit and we're going to play acoustic guitar and give each other back rubs and do yoga.

983
01:31:22,049 --> 01:31:25,509
And they all devolve into one charismatic white guy screwing everybody.

984
01:31:25,689 --> 01:31:27,729
The back rubs, the slippery slope in that scenario.

985
01:31:28,069 --> 01:31:28,789
Eliminate the back rubs.

986
01:31:28,789 --> 01:31:29,769
That's the way it goes, man.

987
01:31:29,769 --> 01:31:31,689
Yeah, maybe the conjunction of back rubs and a guitar.

988
01:31:31,789 --> 01:31:32,409
That's why I play.

989
01:31:34,169 --> 01:31:43,469
So, but yeah, you have to, you just have to have, you have to have a lot of bad, you can't get to a good decision until you know what a bad decision is.

990
01:31:43,629 --> 01:31:46,469
And so we do, you have to have a lot of experiments.

991
01:31:46,769 --> 01:31:48,429
Nobody gets anything right on the first time.

992
01:31:48,789 --> 01:31:50,649
No person is born a winner.

993
01:31:50,849 --> 01:31:51,969
We are all losers.

994
01:31:52,569 --> 01:31:56,929
There are only winners who are losers who kept trying after they failed.

995
01:31:57,569 --> 01:31:57,989
Well said.

996
01:31:58,209 --> 01:31:58,649
Yeah.

997
01:31:58,649 --> 01:32:02,269
Yeah, that's where I end, I suppose.

998
01:32:02,409 --> 01:32:03,249
Yeah, I got nothing.

999
01:32:04,789 --> 01:32:10,009
I'd like you repurposing my failure as potential success in the future,

1000
01:32:10,189 --> 01:32:15,389
as some sort of foundation I'm laying through the vast feedback that life has given me

1001
01:32:15,389 --> 01:32:17,389
in relation to various decisions.

1002
01:32:17,749 --> 01:32:19,189
But I'll take it, man.

1003
01:32:20,489 --> 01:32:27,129
Yeah, I mean, that's what makes chafing onto a wet pillow as I cry myself to sleep at night tolerable.

1004
01:32:27,129 --> 01:32:29,249
Yeah, well, you taped that pillow, man.

1005
01:32:31,169 --> 01:32:32,869
That's all I got, too. I got nothing more.

1006
01:32:33,869 --> 01:32:36,169
We're out. We'll be back soon. Have a good one. Bye.

1007
01:32:36,209 --> 01:32:36,449
Later.