1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,000 If I could hope for but one thing for you, so you'd be curious in all that you do. 2 00:00:12,920 --> 00:00:19,080 Cause love like a flower just wants to grow. 3 00:00:19,080 --> 00:00:26,580 Oh, and knowledge like your heart just wants to be known. 4 00:00:26,580 --> 00:00:30,540 If you like, please subscribe. 5 00:00:30,960 --> 00:00:32,960 This is Bitcoin Study Sessions. 6 00:00:37,380 --> 00:00:39,200 It does feel so good, Lucas. 7 00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:40,060 We are back. 8 00:00:40,220 --> 00:00:42,720 Today we are discussing retaking. 9 00:00:42,820 --> 00:00:48,300 It's been a while since we had our last discussion, but the wait was worth it. 10 00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:54,000 We're taking up a new book here, The Satoshi Papers, Reflections on Political Economy After Bitcoin. 11 00:00:54,000 --> 00:01:02,780 This was edited by Natalie Smolenski, published by the Bitcoin Policy Institute and copyrighted by the Texas Bitcoin Foundation. 12 00:01:03,780 --> 00:01:06,860 The book itself is incredibly ambitious. 13 00:01:07,380 --> 00:01:19,440 It wants to start a whole new conversation, not just about Bitcoin, but about this project that we find ourselves in that we call the United States of America. 14 00:01:19,620 --> 00:01:20,460 What does it mean? 15 00:01:20,460 --> 00:01:28,260 and today this is a an anthology it's a collection of essays what we're going to look at today is the 16 00:01:28,260 --> 00:01:33,380 introduction which is ambitious in and of itself when you have an anthology and you're introducing 17 00:01:33,380 --> 00:01:39,840 it you need to give kind of a coherent framework so that people can both see the essays as distinct 18 00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:46,780 but also pull them together with a common thread and this introduction does that very well it's by 19 00:01:46,780 --> 00:01:58,560 Natalie Smolinski, the editor, and David Hughes. Smolinski is an anthropologist, a senior fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, and founder and executive director of the Texas Bitcoin Foundation. 20 00:01:59,260 --> 00:02:14,800 Daniel Hughes is noted in here to be a technologist and philosopher. He doesn't appear to have a real Twitter footprint, but he was the founder of several software companies and a founding board member of the Texas Bitcoin Foundation. 21 00:02:14,800 --> 00:02:19,720 And judging from the caliber of the writing here, both of them excellent thinkers. 22 00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:27,720 So I'll give a little introduction, a summary rather, of this introduction, and then Lucas and I will delve into the discussion. 23 00:02:27,720 --> 00:02:45,640 The introduction begins by calling into question the idea of the nation state, which the authors describe as kind of the modern political form that has historically embodied the principle of rule by the people. 24 00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:59,000 If once we in the United States at our founding were a nation state, if we once were guided by a principle, guided by the will of the people, a lot of time has now passed since that founding. 25 00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:01,020 A lot of things have changed. 26 00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:05,300 Maybe we sense, maybe you sense something in the air. 27 00:03:05,300 --> 00:03:10,660 There's a divisiveness that we see about us and open questioning of the project we're a part of. 28 00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:14,300 And these authors, Smolenski and Hughes, pose questions. 29 00:03:14,300 --> 00:03:21,160 questions. What projects unite us now? If we began as a nation based on inalienable rights around 30 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:27,200 ideals of life, liberty, and happiness, what are those ideals now? And what should they be now? 31 00:03:27,540 --> 00:03:35,200 Do we need, the authors ask, a refounding, a new beginning based on new principles? And if so, 32 00:03:35,260 --> 00:03:40,640 what would that look like? So the answer to that question is this right here. The Satoshi Papers 33 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:45,480 is an attempt to kind of answer that question about what a refounding would look like or what 34 00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:51,600 it should look like. Or if not answer the questions, again, start the debate on that question. 35 00:03:52,600 --> 00:03:57,640 Look at the title, the Satoshi Papers. We know it's about Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, obviously. 36 00:03:58,940 --> 00:04:04,460 But the Satoshi Papers, the model is the Federalist Paper, the debate between the Federalist and the 37 00:04:04,460 --> 00:04:09,340 Anti-Federalist that occurred at America's founding regarding the nature and extent of 38 00:04:09,340 --> 00:04:14,840 state power. So in this dialogue that we're going to get here in these series of essays, 39 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:20,200 the authors of the introduction note here that all of them are kind of undergirded or begin 40 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:24,940 with some basic assumptions. So these are the assumptions shared by all of the essay writers 41 00:04:24,940 --> 00:04:30,640 in this anthology. They are, quote, that respect for the privacy, the freedom and the privacy of 42 00:04:30,640 --> 00:04:35,760 the individual is the bedrock of a just and prosperous society, that power should be rigorously 43 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:41,640 checked and limited, that human coordination happens first and foremost from the bottom up, 44 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:47,740 and that technology in the broadest sense is a critical engine for the progress of humanity. 45 00:04:48,460 --> 00:04:52,740 So those are the assumptions the authors start from in describing what this refounding is going 46 00:04:52,740 --> 00:04:59,160 to look like and giving it context, or what a refounding, again, to begin a dialogue on what 47 00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:04,840 that might involve. The introduction notes that the authors also share at least one other view. 48 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:14,700 That, quote, the advent of a global, politically neutral, non-state, peer-to-peer sound money is not a prescription for the replacement of all other forms of money. 49 00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:27,020 Rather, it transforms some of the background assumptions about the relationship between states, societies, and individuals that have suffered from an authoritarian consensus in recent decades. 50 00:05:27,020 --> 00:05:38,740 Of course, that's a reference to Bitcoin. And that authoritarian consensus is a reference to the milieu we find ourselves in now, this deviation from the founder's vision of unalienable rights. 51 00:05:39,860 --> 00:05:46,860 Given these assumptions and that point of view, why might a re-founding of the United States be in order? 52 00:05:46,860 --> 00:05:52,540 So this essay begins kind of with a history talking about that deviation from the founders' vision. 53 00:05:53,160 --> 00:06:04,940 We began as a nation of individuals that saw the state as a necessary evil and somehow have become a state that sees the individual as unnecessary and perhaps evil. 54 00:06:04,940 --> 00:06:20,540 If we have now an authoritarian consensus in the United States, the consensus during our founding during the U.S. Constitutional Convention was that the state had no power of its own, no money of its own, and no army of its own, the author's note. 55 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:22,200 How has that changed? 56 00:06:23,100 --> 00:06:24,100 How has that changed? 57 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:25,920 The author's note dramatically. 58 00:06:26,160 --> 00:06:28,800 Before, the state had no power of its own. 59 00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:30,500 Now we have bureaucratic rule. 60 00:06:30,500 --> 00:06:52,380 We have agencies so numerous and so ill-defined, we can't even count them. There's different definitions of what an agency might be. Agencies that unite rulemaking and rule enforcement into one entity outside of the checks and balances that the Constitution put into place. 61 00:06:52,380 --> 00:07:00,780 If before we had no money, if the state had no money of its own, now we have the 16th Amendment giving power to levy income tax. 62 00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:10,240 And the authors know just as a way to kind of give an indication of the paradigm shift, people think of tax as, quote, government revenue instead of the people's money. 63 00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:25,080 If before the state had no army of its own, no standing army, now we have constant war with most of them kind of undeclared formally, but a state of hostility around the world, secret wars. 64 00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:46,540 First against the American Indians, second against socialist and communist movements, third under the banner, the very vague banner of a war on terror, and now fourth, maybe you could describe what the authors do as a containment of adversary nations, proxy wars against Russia and China in a financial sense and things like that. 65 00:07:46,540 --> 00:08:01,300 So we've seen an inversion of the founding principles, the authors argue, but they know this is really kind of the visible manifestation of an invisible system that underlies all of these changes. 66 00:08:01,300 --> 00:08:14,560 They call that provocatively and kind of very memetically, propulsively, the banker revolution. I like that phrase, and I do think it has mean power. What is the banker revolution? 67 00:08:14,560 --> 00:08:19,120 What is this thing that undergirds this expansion of state power? 68 00:08:19,720 --> 00:08:39,760 In short, it is the union of those who control money, the bankers, with those who control the state, the bureaucracy, which is made possible by legislation permitting financial surveillance by banks on behalf of the government and states of exception where the government can engage in physical and financial war as it desires without check or balance. 69 00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:42,400 So let's unpack that as the authors do. 70 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:45,700 First, what even is the modern banking system? 71 00:08:45,880 --> 00:08:49,640 They know that central banks issue and manage unredeemable fiat money. 72 00:08:50,220 --> 00:08:55,180 Commercial banks then use that fiat as a reserve asset and make loans, multiplying the money. 73 00:08:55,740 --> 00:08:59,340 We have here an alliance between banking and police power. 74 00:08:59,460 --> 00:09:12,340 Banks share info with the military and police intelligence, and the state then supports the banks, bails them out, as they did in the 2008 financial crisis and also in the COVID-19 pandemic. 75 00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:17,700 bailouts. That's generally the banking system. So second, the authors then go, historically, 76 00:09:17,880 --> 00:09:23,440 how do we get here? What is this banker revolution? If our nation was founded giving precedence to 77 00:09:23,440 --> 00:09:28,140 the individual with the state having no power, no money, no army, how do we get where we are now? 78 00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:34,660 When does the banker revolution begin? So the intertwining of bank and state with attendant 79 00:09:34,660 --> 00:09:41,220 financial surveillance and financial repression begins in the 70s. The history in kind of short 80 00:09:41,220 --> 00:09:48,540 form is something like this. After World War II, we see the rise of a post-war military-industrial 81 00:09:48,540 --> 00:09:56,820 complex where we kind of normalize a wartime posture in a peaceful setting. GDP begins to 82 00:09:56,820 --> 00:10:02,940 depend in part on enhancing arms deals with other countries. Communism becomes a new threat, 83 00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:10,700 and we have to then prosecute wars, we feel, against countries that are flirting with communism. 84 00:10:11,220 --> 00:10:13,720 How do we then fund these new hostilities? 85 00:10:14,040 --> 00:10:24,780 After World War II, the U.S. entered into the Bretton Woods Agreement, where the U.S. dollar has made the world reserve currency, but it's made redeemable in gold. 86 00:10:24,900 --> 00:10:26,060 So it's tied to gold. 87 00:10:26,460 --> 00:10:27,940 This constrained U.S. spending. 88 00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:32,460 If we print dollars to spend more money, the dollar loses its value, and people are just going to redeem it for gold. 89 00:10:32,860 --> 00:10:37,740 Gold constrains spending in that way when it's tied in a fixed rate with the dollar. 90 00:10:37,740 --> 00:10:54,140 So then the U.S., it wants to fund these hostilities. It wants constant war. So the U.S. unilaterally suspends the Bretton Woods Agreement in 71, ending gold redeemability, allowing money printing to fund these sorts of hostilities. 91 00:10:54,140 --> 00:11:08,920 The banker revolution unfolds then through legislation allowing financial surveillance that's going to help prosecute these types of hostilities that the government wants to prosecute. 92 00:11:08,920 --> 00:11:24,320 We have in the 70s, the Bank Secrecy Act. The banks are then required to keep extensive transactions of anything that might possibly be relevant to some sort of investigation in the future. They have to report domestic transactions of over $10,000. 93 00:11:24,320 --> 00:11:39,620 This is then upheld by the Supreme Court in the United States v. Miller, where they then broadly state that under the Fourth Amendment, the third party exception where Americans have no reasonable expectation of privacy and records that are held by a third party. 94 00:11:39,620 --> 00:11:59,920 This kind of causes a fervor. Congress reacts, and they passed the Right to Financial Privacy Act kind of in reaction to Miller, in reaction to that Supreme Court case. But this actually makes the situation worse because the Right to Financial Privacy Act carves out specific exceptions, which is a recurring theme we'll see in this legislation. 95 00:11:59,920 --> 00:12:12,960 The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 also purports to restrict financial surveillance, but it establishes exceptions that allow secret courts to issue warrants. 96 00:12:12,960 --> 00:12:23,100 And then in the war on terror, we also get a militarized – later on, past the 70s, of course, we get a militarized homeland, state supervision increasing. 97 00:12:23,500 --> 00:12:32,060 And then we again see with things like the Patriot Act, legislative attempts to restrict or restrain or define end up actually permitting. 98 00:12:32,280 --> 00:12:41,240 The exception eats the rule in a lot of these legislative attempts to restrict something and actually ends up permitting the practice that one would think is trying to restrain. 99 00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:51,780 In addition then to this legislative financial surveillance, there is legislation that allows the U.S. banking system to become a part of the policing and military function of the state. 100 00:12:52,540 --> 00:13:06,620 Authors note the National Emergencies Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allowed presidents to declare states of emergency and impose financial sanctions. 101 00:13:06,620 --> 00:13:14,080 legislation this type of legislation is passed purportedly to kind of restrain these powers but 102 00:13:14,080 --> 00:13:21,120 again the exception ends up defining the rule and then sanctions issued through executive order 103 00:13:21,120 --> 00:13:25,480 become the norm the important point one of the important points the author's making this that's 104 00:13:25,480 --> 00:13:31,120 really good is this perversity of trying to legislate restraint that all this legislation that 105 00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:33,120 is trying to provide, 106 00:13:33,440 --> 00:13:35,720 is trying to like restrict financial surveillance 107 00:13:35,720 --> 00:13:38,500 and the use of like the state 108 00:13:38,500 --> 00:13:55,154 using these financially repressive powers to do things like unilateral sanctions or funding secret wars these things actually end up being permitted by legislation because there always exceptions embedded within them that secretly give immense power to the government 109 00:13:55,394 --> 00:13:59,614 The flaw, the authors note, is that the Constitution is already the limit. 110 00:13:59,714 --> 00:14:06,994 If you're passing this legislation to give the state some sort of state of exception style power, you're really overruling the Constitution. 111 00:14:06,994 --> 00:14:12,854 the result of the banker revolution and its utilization by the states that's the history 112 00:14:12,854 --> 00:14:17,654 of it then what is the result of this banker revolution this tying of bank power and state 113 00:14:17,654 --> 00:14:25,274 power according to the authors we then return to pre-revolution assumptions about state versus 114 00:14:25,274 --> 00:14:32,574 individual revolution is in pre like our founding pre the founding of the united states um there was 115 00:14:32,574 --> 00:14:37,754 an authoritarian consensus prior to the founding. We had our founding where we assert inalienable 116 00:14:37,754 --> 00:14:45,194 rights and have the Constitution with the Bill of Rights. And then we have the Bank of Revolution 117 00:14:45,194 --> 00:14:50,914 and its utilization by the state that returns us to that authoritarian consensus that preceded 118 00:14:50,914 --> 00:14:58,554 our founding. More surveillance, more war, more control through bureaucracy. What is needed is a 119 00:14:58,554 --> 00:15:04,154 return, the authors think, to these founding principles. We need sovereign citizens. Laws 120 00:15:04,154 --> 00:15:10,054 have not worked. They've perversely led to the result they tried to legislate against. 121 00:15:10,574 --> 00:15:15,794 We need to change that from the ground up and to be realistic about what is needed to actually 122 00:15:15,794 --> 00:15:21,194 accomplish change, which again, is not passing a new law. Bitcoin then enters the picture. 123 00:15:22,134 --> 00:15:27,354 One of the problems, of course, is that we have this invisible financial system created by the 124 00:15:27,354 --> 00:15:34,074 banker revolution. Bitcoin, the author's note, creates an alternative with really three important 125 00:15:34,074 --> 00:15:40,674 aspects that disrupts this kind of insidious development of the banker revolution, this 126 00:15:40,674 --> 00:15:47,294 insidious development. First, Bitcoin harnesses human psychology incentives and game theory to 127 00:15:47,294 --> 00:15:53,054 spur adoption of an alternative system. I'm going to quote the authors here because I like 128 00:15:53,054 --> 00:15:58,914 the way they phrase this, Satoshi, quote, called the banker revolution into question by building a 129 00:15:58,914 --> 00:16:04,754 counter infrastructure in the world and allowing the game theory behind its adoption to act as a 130 00:16:04,754 --> 00:16:10,434 social forcing function around matters of wage value, savings debasement, and the human right 131 00:16:10,434 --> 00:16:17,894 to transact. So Bitcoin set something in motion that only relies on human nature to keep it going. 132 00:16:18,594 --> 00:16:24,934 Second, Bitcoin makes the bank revolution visible and forces us to know. 133 00:16:25,434 --> 00:16:28,814 So the bank revolution kind of depended on operating in the background. 134 00:16:28,814 --> 00:16:33,254 But Bitcoin is an open source protocol. 135 00:16:33,714 --> 00:16:40,514 Anybody can go in, interact with it, look at its code, and visualize it through certain things like Block Explorer. 136 00:16:41,014 --> 00:16:45,394 The open nature of the Bitcoin protocol then is a new type of common knowledge. 137 00:16:45,394 --> 00:16:48,294 this visibility forces us to know. 138 00:16:48,474 --> 00:16:51,414 And as Bitcoin monetizes, it becomes more and more visible. 139 00:16:51,934 --> 00:16:54,354 To quote the authors again, because I liked the way they phrased this, 140 00:16:54,534 --> 00:16:54,754 quote, 141 00:16:54,874 --> 00:17:00,554 The removal of naivety around such things as the Cantillon effect, sovereign debt reserve assets, 142 00:17:00,974 --> 00:17:07,174 and the confidence gains and social consensus around fiat currencies and their debasement 143 00:17:07,174 --> 00:17:13,214 necessarily moves populations toward common knowledge regarding the civic and civil systems of control 144 00:17:13,214 --> 00:17:18,994 that have become devastatingly effective in curtailing, if not criminalizing, essential 145 00:17:18,994 --> 00:17:24,454 liberty. If we are to avoid the worst ramifications of the return to aristocracy that has been 146 00:17:24,454 --> 00:17:32,034 underway since the 70s, we must, and I love this right here, we must risk knowing these things and 147 00:17:32,034 --> 00:17:38,914 build what is next. That is what is at stake. And so the third then, so Bitcoin visibilizes the 148 00:17:38,914 --> 00:17:43,194 invisible makes us, forces us to know what is happening with the banker revolution and these 149 00:17:43,194 --> 00:17:48,354 changes, this developing authoritarian consensus and financial surveillance. Finally, Bitcoin 150 00:17:48,354 --> 00:17:54,874 increases our horizons about what is possible. I'll just quote the authors here. Quote, 151 00:17:54,954 --> 00:17:59,534 if politics is the art of the possible, as certain proponents of real politic have argued, 152 00:18:00,014 --> 00:18:06,494 then the domain in which the art is practiced has now been reformed. Bitcoin has shown us, 153 00:18:06,494 --> 00:18:11,934 Bitcoin has showed us that new things are possible that we did not think were possible before, 154 00:18:12,074 --> 00:18:16,334 such as a financial system rebuilt on an open source protocol. 155 00:18:17,394 --> 00:18:23,854 This anthology then contains essays that begin a dialogue about what an American refounding would look like 156 00:18:23,854 --> 00:18:29,714 once Bitcoin that has these characteristics as an open source protocol has forced knowledge upon us 157 00:18:29,714 --> 00:18:30,974 and shown us what is at stake. 158 00:18:31,594 --> 00:18:35,734 I'll end this summary with the final sentence of the introduction. 159 00:18:36,494 --> 00:18:46,354 The authors end this essay summarizing each of the essays in this volume. 160 00:18:46,794 --> 00:18:50,694 I won't read their summaries, the summaries of each of those individual essays. 161 00:18:50,894 --> 00:18:52,134 Hopefully we'll go through those. 162 00:18:52,134 --> 00:18:54,054 But what they say in the very last sentence, 163 00:18:54,054 --> 00:19:09,254 We hope these essays will serve as invitations to think further, to build a community of good faith interlocutors participating in the shared project of transforming science into new tradition, enabling a self-sovereign future for humanity at large. 164 00:19:09,294 --> 00:19:22,334 So I said the project was ambitious, starting this new dialogue about a founding, but also it's humble, as we see. This is just the start of a dialogue, and I really like the way that that's framed. There's a lot to talk about here. 165 00:19:22,334 --> 00:19:37,054 And Lucas, just to throw it back at you, we had this discussion once and we lost it, as we often do through our quite incredible technical talent that's sometimes frustrated by the underlying technology itself, I think. 166 00:19:37,054 --> 00:19:43,514 the question i have um there's assumptions the authors smolensky and hughes note that like 167 00:19:43,514 --> 00:19:51,634 all of the essays in this volume are kind of they share the same assumption that respect for the 168 00:19:51,634 --> 00:19:55,234 freedom of the privacy and individual is the bedrock of a just and prosperous society that 169 00:19:55,234 --> 00:19:59,554 power should be rigorously checked and limited that human coordination happens first and foremost 170 00:19:59,554 --> 00:20:03,534 from the bottom up and that technology in the broadest sense is a critical engine for the 171 00:20:03,534 --> 00:20:09,074 progress in humanity. So these are substantive assumptions. This excludes like Luddites and AI 172 00:20:09,074 --> 00:20:16,494 safety dystopians. It excludes socialists and communists and statists comprising much of the 173 00:20:16,494 --> 00:20:21,834 modern, I don't know if you call it new left, but a certain kind of progressive element of the left. 174 00:20:22,134 --> 00:20:27,814 Also excluding those on the right, like Curtis Yarvin, a theorist who tends to have views of 175 00:20:27,814 --> 00:20:33,274 robust state power and the need for almost an authoritarian corporate or monarchical 176 00:20:33,274 --> 00:20:38,634 structure to move things in the right direction. So do you think, I mean, what do you think about 177 00:20:38,634 --> 00:20:44,554 this? It seems to be a debate among libertarians and classical liberals. Do you think that, 178 00:20:45,014 --> 00:20:50,354 that what is the value in that, I guess, or do you see any issue with that from excluding or 179 00:20:50,354 --> 00:20:59,894 starting the debate in a certain point with certain assumptions? I don't hear you, man. I 180 00:20:59,894 --> 00:21:02,734 I don't know if you're muted or – there we go. 181 00:21:02,914 --> 00:21:03,014 Yeah. 182 00:21:03,574 --> 00:21:11,734 Yeah, I think the first thing we need to do is we need to take the other side of it, which would be China. 183 00:21:13,734 --> 00:21:21,354 And so the Chinese example very much respects technology and what it can do. 184 00:21:21,354 --> 00:21:28,554 as has been noted very loudly on some podcasts, 185 00:21:28,834 --> 00:21:31,134 and you see this chart floating around, 186 00:21:32,334 --> 00:21:37,834 China is currently adding the entire energy generation capability 187 00:21:37,834 --> 00:21:40,694 of the United States every 18 months. 188 00:21:40,694 --> 00:21:49,534 And so energy seems to be directly tied to prosperity 189 00:21:49,534 --> 00:21:59,714 and if that is the case, then China is rapidly leapfrogging everyone 190 00:21:59,714 --> 00:22:06,694 and doing so with top-down, not bottom-up, 191 00:22:07,254 --> 00:22:12,094 and also doing so with state-first, not individual. 192 00:22:13,374 --> 00:22:18,394 So of the three things you mentioned, two of them they don't have. 193 00:22:18,394 --> 00:22:47,674 The third one, which is the technology first aspect, they do have – I think that's really telling because I think what that tells us is just how powerful technology is in that you can have a reasonable facsimile of putting all three of those together by just having one of those, just having the technology aspect of it. 194 00:22:48,394 --> 00:22:52,894 You can get probably 90 to 95% of the way there. 195 00:22:52,894 --> 00:23:12,934 Now, the interesting part is that that last 5 to 10% seems to be where the robust experience of a joyful life is embodied. 196 00:23:12,934 --> 00:23:16,634 to unpack that a little bit. 197 00:23:16,834 --> 00:23:19,714 I'm around a lot of Chinese nationals 198 00:23:19,714 --> 00:23:24,034 who are very happy to not be in China 199 00:23:24,034 --> 00:23:27,734 regardless of the technological advances. 200 00:23:28,334 --> 00:23:31,514 And they show me videos all the time of 201 00:23:31,514 --> 00:23:33,994 this is how you order something in China. 202 00:23:33,994 --> 00:23:36,714 You tap on your phone, you're in your hotel room, 203 00:23:36,794 --> 00:23:41,994 it's delivered to your balcony in 120 seconds by a flying drone. 204 00:23:42,934 --> 00:23:48,774 something that would take 20 minutes in the United States and you'd have to go down to the lobby to get it. 205 00:23:50,754 --> 00:23:59,194 Even though that technology and that superiority in certain realms of technology exists there, 206 00:24:00,014 --> 00:24:04,614 they are happy to not be living that experience. 207 00:24:04,914 --> 00:24:11,554 And so I think there is something to be said for let's take those three things 208 00:24:11,554 --> 00:24:17,534 and let's realize that technology gets you almost to the finish line, 209 00:24:18,214 --> 00:24:23,094 but as is the case with almost anything that you do, 210 00:24:23,834 --> 00:24:27,254 almost there is halfway there. 211 00:24:28,034 --> 00:24:33,374 People who build projects around here talk about when you're 99% done, 212 00:24:33,474 --> 00:24:34,294 you're halfway done. 213 00:24:34,954 --> 00:24:35,254 Yeah. 214 00:24:35,254 --> 00:24:42,174 Because it is those fine details at the very end that make the project. 215 00:24:44,054 --> 00:25:01,714 The impression I get from hearing you talk about this and especially relate like those kind of four concurrent rulings in the 70s that truly did lead to the Bank of Revolution. 216 00:25:01,714 --> 00:25:05,674 The first one 217 00:25:05,674 --> 00:25:07,134 The Bank Privacy Act 218 00:25:07,134 --> 00:25:09,494 Bank Privacy Act, USV Miller 219 00:25:09,494 --> 00:25:10,994 Bank Secrecy Act rather 220 00:25:10,994 --> 00:25:17,254 Two things come to mind 221 00:25:17,254 --> 00:25:18,894 One is 222 00:25:18,894 --> 00:25:23,894 Just how hypocritical 223 00:25:23,894 --> 00:25:26,134 The names of these things are 224 00:25:26,134 --> 00:25:28,134 Because they don't 225 00:25:28,954 --> 00:25:30,514 Do what the title 226 00:25:30,514 --> 00:25:38,554 would purport that they do. They do, in fact, the exact opposite. We talked about this the 227 00:25:38,554 --> 00:25:49,074 first time. What they do is carve out exceptions to things that are already expressly prohibited 228 00:25:49,074 --> 00:25:57,934 by the Constitution. Or if not expressly, then as the Constitution states, the implicit 229 00:25:57,934 --> 00:26:02,934 granting of certain privileges, taking those back. 230 00:26:06,294 --> 00:26:10,594 It makes me think of growing up in a small town, 231 00:26:11,894 --> 00:26:16,654 it was very common to think about the preacher's daughter 232 00:26:16,654 --> 00:26:19,094 is always the craziest person to hang around with 233 00:26:19,094 --> 00:26:21,694 because they have the most restrictions on them. 234 00:26:21,694 --> 00:26:21,974 Yeah. 235 00:26:21,974 --> 00:26:44,734 And it's a forcing function of these concurrent rulings that continuously make it harder to transact as a private individual, discourage you from trusting other people. 236 00:26:44,734 --> 00:26:57,214 So, VUSV Miller, the third party exception, I have no right, I have no expectation of a right to privacy if my information is held by a third party. 237 00:26:57,214 --> 00:26:57,854 Yeah. 238 00:26:57,854 --> 00:27:06,514 And what that says to me as an individual is that I have no reason to trust someone else. 239 00:27:06,654 --> 00:27:09,394 I can only trust myself with my own information. 240 00:27:10,434 --> 00:27:37,068 And it discourages me from when the punishment for allowing someone else to control your information exceeds the benefit of having them do so that moves you in the direction of self in the direction of responsibility for oneself 241 00:27:38,408 --> 00:27:46,208 And this whole discussion is very difficult to have 242 00:27:46,208 --> 00:27:55,008 because there really is no jumping over and back on this fence. 243 00:27:55,008 --> 00:28:01,208 Once you go and you explore the side that realizes 244 00:28:01,208 --> 00:28:06,508 what type of power it gives to a nation state 245 00:28:06,508 --> 00:28:09,128 when they have control over the money, 246 00:28:09,128 --> 00:28:21,948 then there is no way out but through to a technologically superior form of money 247 00:28:21,948 --> 00:28:26,788 that disallows them from ever having that ability. 248 00:28:27,268 --> 00:28:30,048 And I'm at the network school. 249 00:28:30,048 --> 00:28:41,608 It is not pretty to see someone try to restart, hard restart society. 250 00:28:41,928 --> 00:28:43,648 It's not easy. 251 00:28:45,268 --> 00:28:50,848 And unfortunately, there's no going back. 252 00:28:50,848 --> 00:29:11,388 Once you do see just how damaging, how many millions of lives have been affected by this since 1913 when we entered World War I, we have effectively been in constant battles throughout. 253 00:29:11,388 --> 00:29:17,028 and the military machine continues to grow. 254 00:29:17,408 --> 00:29:20,448 It continues to eat more and more and more. 255 00:29:21,268 --> 00:29:27,568 And yes, I know that if you look at the budget of the United States, 256 00:29:28,248 --> 00:29:34,008 there are other programs that do eat a significant portion of that. 257 00:29:35,068 --> 00:29:40,268 The military is not just the only big piece of the pie, 258 00:29:40,268 --> 00:29:57,748 But as we're finding out with Doge and some more investigative releases, a lot of those things are actually part of that military complex. 259 00:29:57,968 --> 00:30:08,588 A lot of those NGOs are implicitly or explicitly tied to that military machine in one way or another. 260 00:30:08,588 --> 00:30:12,728 And so I think it is, it actually is much larger. 261 00:30:13,008 --> 00:30:15,288 That piece of the pie is much larger than it looks. 262 00:30:16,788 --> 00:30:26,308 So what is the cost of constant warfare and constant, constant adversarial context throughout the world? 263 00:30:26,308 --> 00:30:44,688 It is that we're entering this point where people are just tired and they're just giving up because they see how difficult it is to fight that machine. 264 00:30:45,548 --> 00:30:45,688 Yeah. 265 00:30:45,688 --> 00:30:48,908 And what is the alternative? 266 00:30:49,108 --> 00:30:57,068 The alternative is to learn something completely new that absolutely wipes out everything that you've ever known. 267 00:30:57,308 --> 00:30:58,268 It's uncomfortable. 268 00:30:59,948 --> 00:31:12,048 And, yeah, so we are diving into this thing that is necessarily difficult because hard things are worthwhile. 269 00:31:13,548 --> 00:31:13,808 Yeah. 270 00:31:13,808 --> 00:31:24,008 I think our generation was made like the veil was lifted a bit even before Bitcoin, I feel, with the Iraq war and then the war on terror. 271 00:31:24,248 --> 00:31:35,188 I mean, it was such a big grab, both by Bush and then Obama, of surveillance powers of the United States and the prosecution of a war based on false premises. 272 00:31:35,188 --> 00:31:42,508 that looking back, I mean, it's just like the tendency now is just to forget the Iraq war or the reason why we purportedly engaged in that war, 273 00:31:42,608 --> 00:31:46,568 which was the presence of weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to not be there. 274 00:31:48,008 --> 00:31:57,088 And in the aftermath of that, just the ramping up of surveillance was viscerally also made evident to anybody with eyes to see. 275 00:31:57,088 --> 00:32:12,368 When, of course, Snowden, when you have high-ranking administration or bureaucratic officials saying under oath that there is no mass surveillance of the U.S. domestic population, and then Snowden revealing that, sure, there actually is. 276 00:32:12,448 --> 00:32:13,948 Like, these people are lying through their teeth. 277 00:32:14,508 --> 00:32:25,428 But we begin to see these things, like the financial surveillance that our legislation has implicitly permitted, or explicitly, rather, through these exceptions, is actually occurring. 278 00:32:25,428 --> 00:32:30,868 And so the banker revolution maybe visibilizes a bit in the war on terror. 279 00:32:31,408 --> 00:32:35,088 And then as the authors know, with something like Bitcoin, 280 00:32:36,268 --> 00:32:40,648 meant now the masses, you and myself at least, I don't speak for you, 281 00:32:40,728 --> 00:32:44,968 but myself, I began learning a lot more about the financial system once Bitcoin, 282 00:32:45,688 --> 00:32:48,488 once you have an alternative to something, 283 00:32:48,908 --> 00:32:52,728 you then see that what you thought was as clear as air, 284 00:32:52,728 --> 00:32:57,868 that you, you know, the air that you breathe is actually a constructed thing and you need 285 00:32:57,868 --> 00:32:58,608 to learn about it. 286 00:32:58,668 --> 00:33:03,268 Like once you have an alternative, then the thing that it opposes takes form. 287 00:33:03,788 --> 00:33:09,648 And like Bitcoin gave us the form of the financial system, a mirror in which to see all that 288 00:33:09,648 --> 00:33:13,988 is wrong and for millions of people to learn about the Federal Reserve, to learn about the 289 00:33:13,988 --> 00:33:16,828 creation of broad money from base money, things like that. 290 00:33:17,828 --> 00:33:21,428 And so, I mean, so I agree with what you're saying. 291 00:33:21,428 --> 00:33:38,828 And as far as how problematic it is, and I just, the education is happening, unfortunately, as it usually does, through a series of catastrophes, the war on terror, the 2008 financial crisis, you know, but here we are and things maybe will improve. 292 00:33:38,828 --> 00:33:50,348 Yeah, there's so much. I think you can think about the world in maybe three sort of distinct categories. 293 00:33:50,348 --> 00:34:06,008 I know that there's technically more in terms of the generations that we talk about now, but you've got the people that are older than you and I, the boomers and beyond, the people that are younger than you and I, the Gen Z and below, and then us. 294 00:34:06,008 --> 00:34:17,408 And if you look at each one of those groups, there's a big disincentive to challenge. 295 00:34:17,928 --> 00:34:22,728 Like if you're part of the older group, then you just want to get to the finish line. 296 00:34:23,548 --> 00:34:27,708 There's no will to fight if you're 65 years old. 297 00:34:28,968 --> 00:34:30,488 You've lived your life. 298 00:34:30,488 --> 00:34:37,548 you are really just hoping to be taken care of a little bit here at the end. 299 00:34:38,128 --> 00:34:41,348 If you're in the Gen Z category and younger, 300 00:34:41,748 --> 00:34:47,448 then you've been raised in this illusion machine, 301 00:34:48,108 --> 00:34:52,508 so much so that it's nearly impossible to see the way out. 302 00:34:52,868 --> 00:34:56,988 There are, obviously, there are people who have sought their way out, 303 00:34:56,988 --> 00:35:02,208 And those, I think, are the ones that are truly going to change the world, the younger ones. 304 00:35:02,888 --> 00:35:02,968 Yeah. 305 00:35:03,068 --> 00:35:21,448 And then there's the people like you and I that I think it's easy for us to see that there is something behind that layer because we're also at this mid-stage point of our life where we're seeing the other side of a lot of things. 306 00:35:21,448 --> 00:35:25,648 We're seeing the other side of being a son or a daughter. 307 00:35:25,648 --> 00:35:40,268 As your parents age and they are no longer the infallible, infallible, always strong, always right, you start to see your parents as merely children in older bodies. 308 00:35:40,268 --> 00:36:07,568 You look at the difficulties of the economy as someone who participates in it and recognize that there is something wrong if a person who works full time, earns a purported good salary, can barely afford to live alone, much less raise children, own a home, 309 00:36:07,568 --> 00:36:14,728 and enjoy the fruits of their labor to the same extent that people 60 years ago could. 310 00:36:15,348 --> 00:36:15,448 Yeah. 311 00:36:16,348 --> 00:36:23,048 And so it is inherently difficult, I think, to have these conversations. 312 00:36:23,048 --> 00:36:29,048 And the scary thing is that the default position of people having these conversations, 313 00:36:30,028 --> 00:36:32,468 because I'm involved in these a lot, 314 00:36:32,468 --> 00:36:38,528 The default position is what laws do we need in order to ensure this doesn't happen again, right? 315 00:36:39,068 --> 00:36:39,228 Yeah. 316 00:36:40,088 --> 00:36:43,948 And that is a horrific place from which to start. 317 00:36:45,568 --> 00:36:47,948 Better laws do not make better people. 318 00:36:49,008 --> 00:36:54,008 Laws are kind of like a reaction function to the decay of morality. 319 00:36:54,008 --> 00:37:08,208 Right. And when the morality decays in a culture to a point that laws need to be instantiated to say this is bad, when clearly that is morally bad to begin with. 320 00:37:08,208 --> 00:37:16,548 And you have to keep ratcheting up the punishment in order to discourage people from doing the thing that they already know they shouldn't do. 321 00:37:16,908 --> 00:37:27,908 But it just has become morally accepted in society because the cultural Overton window keeps moving further and further away from the good. 322 00:37:27,908 --> 00:37:36,628 it's very hard to move that back because our starting point is this idea that there is a higher power 323 00:37:36,628 --> 00:37:50,328 not spiritually but temporally um or in the nation state realm like yeah we we naturally 324 00:37:50,328 --> 00:37:55,828 because we've grown up in this system we naturally want to turn to the state to the nation to the 325 00:37:55,828 --> 00:38:05,708 government, to the official, to the politician. And, uh, it, my dad, I say this a lot around here 326 00:38:05,708 --> 00:38:11,388 because there's plenty of opportunities to say it. Uh, my dad's always fond of saying that, uh, 327 00:38:11,388 --> 00:38:17,848 you can't solve the problem with the same sort of thinking that got you into it and 328 00:38:17,848 --> 00:38:22,588 something new is needed. 329 00:38:22,908 --> 00:38:24,328 And so this is that something, 330 00:38:24,628 --> 00:38:26,368 this is potentially that something new 331 00:38:26,368 --> 00:38:28,068 for those of us who have looked. 332 00:38:28,088 --> 00:38:29,168 This being, what's this? 333 00:38:29,648 --> 00:38:31,488 Bitcoin self-sovereignty, 334 00:38:31,968 --> 00:38:33,608 individual approach, 335 00:38:35,368 --> 00:38:39,708 the acknowledgement that 336 00:38:39,708 --> 00:38:41,788 responsibility for oneself 337 00:38:41,788 --> 00:38:44,208 is greater than, 338 00:38:44,208 --> 00:38:46,308 is the responsibility 339 00:38:46,308 --> 00:38:55,888 that needs to be primary, that you need to look out for your own health 340 00:38:55,888 --> 00:39:01,688 because those that are telling you what to eat and how to exercise 341 00:39:01,688 --> 00:39:07,628 and what pills to take, et cetera, have a financial incentive for you to do otherwise. 342 00:39:07,628 --> 00:39:14,808 You need to look out for your own money because those who are in positions 343 00:39:14,808 --> 00:39:19,508 to tell you what to do with your money are those who profit off of that. 344 00:39:19,508 --> 00:39:27,688 You need to look out for your own family because those who would want to, 345 00:39:29,168 --> 00:39:35,808 basically everybody has an incentive to discourage you from doing 346 00:39:35,808 --> 00:39:38,328 what you would otherwise naturally do. 347 00:39:38,328 --> 00:39:46,808 and so it is yeah we we've entered this age where there's so much information there's so many 348 00:39:46,808 --> 00:39:54,568 people that are experts that are giving us their take and we can draw and we can pull from that 349 00:39:54,568 --> 00:40:02,988 in a way that we never could have before and yet i don't know if you feel this but i was one of 350 00:40:02,988 --> 00:40:07,908 those guys that was like super hooked on all of these betterment podcasts, all of these like 351 00:40:07,908 --> 00:40:14,488 ways to improve yourself, et cetera, et cetera. And now I've to the point where I think yesterday 352 00:40:14,488 --> 00:40:20,068 I started listening to a podcast for the first time in like a month. And the reason being is that 353 00:40:20,068 --> 00:40:27,048 everything has now become quite obvious to me. Um, if you just peel that layer back, 354 00:40:27,048 --> 00:40:33,008 what do I need to do? I need to get up early. I need to go to bed early. I need to eat well. 355 00:40:33,008 --> 00:40:40,408 I need to exercise. I need to manage my finances. I need to sustain my relationships. I need to 356 00:40:40,408 --> 00:40:46,788 work on something that is rewarding, hard, and robust in that it returns. 357 00:40:47,428 --> 00:40:52,888 If you're sad, lift a heavy object or run faster than you think you can run. Sprints and lifting, 358 00:40:52,888 --> 00:40:53,888 man. 359 00:40:53,888 --> 00:40:54,888 Yeah. 360 00:40:54,888 --> 00:40:58,888 So it just, it boils down to a lot of simplicity, right? 361 00:40:58,888 --> 00:41:02,888 So yeah, that's, that's where I end up on it. 362 00:41:02,888 --> 00:41:23,762 I think you totally right that like people do like the proliferation of legislation is a sign as you say of a sort of moral or societal decay If you have to explicitly prohibit things it shows that people no longer hold that prohibition in their heart or think it natural or see that it forbidden by some sort of natural law or constraint 363 00:41:23,762 --> 00:41:42,022 And that's why Bitcoin is nice. It's not legislation. It presents, I mean, as Jason Lowery in his software thesis elaborates at length, kind of a new, it's real world in that it uses, these miners consume all this energy to secure the network. 364 00:41:42,022 --> 00:42:12,002 It's not just code. It's also the consumption of real world energy to provide robust security to the system. And so you provide like constraints on doing something of double spending within Bitcoin of stealing, you know, essentially through not just code, even not through written law, but through real world natural constraint, which is the incentives that are harnessed by requiring the use of real world power. 365 00:42:12,022 --> 00:42:14,622 to process and validate transactions. 366 00:42:15,782 --> 00:42:19,002 So something more than legislation is needed. 367 00:42:19,162 --> 00:42:24,002 We're not going to legislate ourselves into a better future out of the mess we're in. 368 00:42:24,082 --> 00:42:24,622 I think you're right. 369 00:42:24,702 --> 00:42:26,822 I mean, it's not going to be just Bitcoin or something like that. 370 00:42:26,862 --> 00:42:30,722 It's also going to be the cultivation and development of personal virtues, 371 00:42:31,182 --> 00:42:33,762 something that's getting harder and harder to do, 372 00:42:34,402 --> 00:42:39,722 maybe for the younger generations who find themselves born after the catastrophe, 373 00:42:39,722 --> 00:42:45,222 the catastrophe being 2007 with the invention of the iPhone, right? 374 00:42:45,382 --> 00:42:48,602 When the unleashing of the digital swarm, 375 00:42:48,742 --> 00:42:51,522 I'm borrowing from James Polis here in his book, Human Forever. 376 00:42:52,362 --> 00:42:55,362 These things that like the biggest threat is not even AI. 377 00:42:55,902 --> 00:42:58,242 It's not even all the devices we have. 378 00:42:58,362 --> 00:42:59,522 These things are visible. 379 00:42:59,862 --> 00:43:03,442 The bigger threat is the invisible is the algorithms. 380 00:43:03,442 --> 00:43:09,702 We were talking about this before that present us a world innocently as if 381 00:43:09,702 --> 00:43:15,581 it is the world, but it's a world that's been cultivated for us by people trying to sell us 382 00:43:15,581 --> 00:43:21,682 something. We've had advertising forever, but we've not had the addictive form of the personalized 383 00:43:21,682 --> 00:43:29,142 algorithm. And, you know, lifting the veil on the banker revolution is one thing, but lifting the 384 00:43:29,142 --> 00:43:36,242 successive layers of veils that are personalized on top of every person through their social media 385 00:43:36,242 --> 00:43:43,122 feed, their Twitter feed, Facebook, Instagram, all these things, that requires a personalized 386 00:43:43,122 --> 00:43:50,442 effort and really ancient virtues, something like that, an exercise of character for sure. 387 00:43:51,002 --> 00:44:03,122 Yeah. Having been a banker, thinking about how people would come in and we had our standards, 388 00:44:03,122 --> 00:44:10,862 60% of your balance sheet needed to be owned. 389 00:44:11,581 --> 00:44:15,081 So no more than 40% leverage. 390 00:44:16,662 --> 00:44:23,702 So let's say you have $600,000 in assets, $400,000 in liabilities. 391 00:44:23,702 --> 00:44:25,402 We would consider that healthy. 392 00:44:25,402 --> 00:44:37,242 and I remember sitting across the table from a young kid he was in his 20s he had already amassed 393 00:44:37,242 --> 00:44:49,282 a net worth of over two million dollars and his gross balance sheet I think was approaching five 394 00:44:49,282 --> 00:45:08,142 So he was running that ragged edge. He was below our standards. He was over leveraged is what we would have said. And I was trying to counsel him on that. Like, look, you need to understand that having liquidity is your freedom to act. 395 00:45:08,142 --> 00:45:12,302 when you don't have liquidity, that's when we get to tell you what to do. 396 00:45:13,322 --> 00:45:19,182 And he was sitting across the way telling me that what he learned from the old farmers 397 00:45:19,182 --> 00:45:27,081 was that ideally you want to have 100% of everything borrowed because it's all upside. 398 00:45:27,782 --> 00:45:33,922 If it's borrowed, even if you lose it, you never owned it in the first place. 399 00:45:34,922 --> 00:45:35,482 Yeah. 400 00:45:35,722 --> 00:45:36,022 Right? 401 00:45:36,022 --> 00:45:42,002 And if you don't lose it, then everything is upside. 402 00:45:43,002 --> 00:46:05,042 And I remember just like sitting there kind of stunned and knowing that that was absolutely correct, but also entirely the opposite of what we purported to tell people, what we're supposed to be promoting. 403 00:46:05,042 --> 00:46:10,342 And it was like at that point I realized like everything here is wrong. 404 00:46:11,302 --> 00:46:19,482 Everything here is, it's not shady in the sense that everyone working in the system is shady. 405 00:46:19,662 --> 00:46:31,342 Just like I'm sure that Austin Powers' henchmen are good guys that go home and watch The Simpsons and eat cereal and don't beat their wife or kick their dog. 406 00:46:31,982 --> 00:46:33,102 But it's at the top. 407 00:46:33,422 --> 00:46:33,902 Yeah. 408 00:46:33,902 --> 00:46:38,102 Sorry, I should say gold member because Austin Powers is the good guy. 409 00:46:38,522 --> 00:46:42,102 But gold members, bad guys, henchmen. 410 00:46:43,262 --> 00:46:53,662 The people who work in the system are reluctant to admit that they are part of the problem because they don't see themselves as part of the problem. 411 00:46:53,662 --> 00:47:00,222 if I were still in that business, if I were still encouraging people to maintain a 60% ownership, 412 00:47:01,062 --> 00:47:04,702 I would still think that I was doing a service to the world. 413 00:47:05,042 --> 00:47:07,382 And you would be doing a service. It's incentives, right? 414 00:47:07,462 --> 00:47:11,882 You're just like advising people how the system works as it's designed. 415 00:47:12,142 --> 00:47:14,362 I mean, that's the system we live under, right? 416 00:47:14,362 --> 00:47:21,742 Right. It's the idea that it works until it doesn't. 417 00:47:21,742 --> 00:47:40,782 And when it doesn't, that's when you have the 1980s when all of the farmers went broke, when everything was reclaimed by the government, when the credit crisis hit and everyone realized that they weren't at the ledge. 418 00:47:41,222 --> 00:47:49,502 They were in that Wile E. Coyote moment where they were 30 feet off the ledge and their legs were spinning and they just hadn't looked down. 419 00:47:49,502 --> 00:47:53,022 and the only thing left to come was the crash. 420 00:47:53,342 --> 00:47:56,542 The fall had begun and it was inevitable. 421 00:47:57,542 --> 00:47:59,042 And we're back at that point. 422 00:47:59,502 --> 00:48:02,962 I mean, we are clearly at that point. 423 00:48:03,302 --> 00:48:06,462 We have bond auctions that are getting no bids. 424 00:48:06,462 --> 00:48:10,242 The United States credit has been downgraded. 425 00:48:11,182 --> 00:48:19,042 There is no appetite politically to bite the bullet. 426 00:48:19,042 --> 00:48:23,182 and move into an austere type of stance. 427 00:48:23,982 --> 00:48:30,902 And the spiral is continuing and worsening and accelerating. 428 00:48:31,442 --> 00:48:36,602 And I think the biggest part of this conversation 429 00:48:36,602 --> 00:48:39,102 is getting people to recognize that 430 00:48:39,102 --> 00:48:43,622 much like gravity does not have an opinion, 431 00:48:44,222 --> 00:48:47,022 this scenario does not have an opinion. 432 00:48:47,022 --> 00:48:48,142 This is happening. 433 00:48:48,142 --> 00:48:53,081 you don't get a choice whether or not to believe in it 434 00:48:53,081 --> 00:48:54,682 it believes in you 435 00:48:54,682 --> 00:49:01,081 and it will be imparting its physical reality 436 00:49:01,081 --> 00:49:03,242 upon you very quickly 437 00:49:03,242 --> 00:49:06,742 and I do fear 438 00:49:06,742 --> 00:49:08,722 I continue to go back to this 439 00:49:08,722 --> 00:49:10,722 because I keep everyone's smile 440 00:49:10,722 --> 00:49:11,922 I pull up the table 441 00:49:11,922 --> 00:49:14,642 for anyone who's listening 442 00:49:14,642 --> 00:49:17,562 search Hanky Krauss hyperinflation 443 00:49:17,562 --> 00:49:21,262 H-A-N-K-E-K-R-A-U-S-S 444 00:49:21,262 --> 00:49:23,902 I keep every once in a while 445 00:49:23,902 --> 00:49:25,202 pulling that table up 446 00:49:25,202 --> 00:49:27,202 and it shows how long it takes 447 00:49:27,202 --> 00:49:28,702 currencies to hyperinflate 448 00:49:28,702 --> 00:49:30,642 being defined as 449 00:49:30,642 --> 00:49:32,202 moving to 450 00:49:32,202 --> 00:49:34,102 a point where 451 00:49:34,102 --> 00:49:35,822 prices have doubled 452 00:49:35,822 --> 00:49:39,581 and every instance on that table 453 00:49:39,581 --> 00:49:41,382 I think except one or two 454 00:49:41,382 --> 00:49:43,462 occurred pre-Bitcoin 455 00:49:43,462 --> 00:49:44,902 and 456 00:49:44,902 --> 00:49:46,922 these are major economies 457 00:49:46,922 --> 00:49:54,022 that experienced hyperinflation, a doubling of prices within, in the craziest instance, 458 00:49:54,302 --> 00:49:55,581 it's less than a day. 459 00:49:56,182 --> 00:49:59,322 But most of them are like a month or two or three. 460 00:50:00,042 --> 00:50:07,642 And I keep coming back to the idea that none of those instances had the availability of 461 00:50:07,642 --> 00:50:08,682 an alternative. 462 00:50:08,682 --> 00:50:26,782 If you were in Nigeria, if you were in Argentina, if you were in Brazil, if you were in Turkey, there wasn't this option to just on a weekend dump all your money and grab Bitcoin. 463 00:50:27,542 --> 00:50:32,542 And how much faster would that have occurred if there had been that option? 464 00:50:33,462 --> 00:50:36,882 So that option exists. 465 00:50:36,882 --> 00:50:40,262 I think the danger is very apparent. 466 00:50:40,742 --> 00:50:50,942 So having these conversations has to be paramount because so many people are already in that Wile E. Coyote stage. 467 00:50:51,162 --> 00:50:55,382 They're already clear out on the cliff and off the cliff and legs are spinning. 468 00:50:56,122 --> 00:50:58,202 But there is time to get back. 469 00:50:58,422 --> 00:51:03,482 There is time to move, to claw your way back to something where there's solid ground underneath. 470 00:51:04,222 --> 00:51:05,542 Yeah, no, that's an excellent point. 471 00:51:05,542 --> 00:51:21,502 And I mean, that's, I think, part of this introduction is noting the importance of opening the debate, being educated about these issues, the way that Bitcoin forces this dialogue on people, this realization. 472 00:51:21,502 --> 00:51:26,942 I mean if the system just was the way it was and there was no alternative, what's the point of debating it, right? 473 00:51:27,022 --> 00:51:33,061 But if there is this alternative and then there's – like you said, people can buy out of the system. 474 00:51:33,561 --> 00:51:36,022 Maybe the hyperinflation will occur more rapidly. 475 00:51:36,322 --> 00:51:38,962 But if you're prepared, then you're prepared, right? 476 00:51:39,382 --> 00:51:42,242 So this is an excellent conversation we're having. 477 00:51:42,342 --> 00:51:42,802 We've started. 478 00:51:43,022 --> 00:51:43,982 I'm going to have to cut it short. 479 00:51:44,061 --> 00:51:45,002 I don't want my phone to die. 480 00:51:45,042 --> 00:51:49,142 I'm having to record this on my phone and then we would lose this conversation. 481 00:51:49,242 --> 00:51:50,222 I don't want that to happen. 482 00:51:50,222 --> 00:51:55,942 And we're going to continue on, though, I hope, through the Satoshi papers here. 483 00:51:56,462 --> 00:51:58,242 This is an anthology, as I mentioned. 484 00:51:58,242 --> 00:52:10,302 I just wanted to quickly know what is ahead because it is an incredible lineup of names that you will have heard of if you kind of are on Bitcoin Twitter. 485 00:52:11,081 --> 00:52:18,822 And even if names you've not heard of, once we start talking about these individuals and their backgrounds, people are very well-informed, academic credentials, industry credentials. 486 00:52:18,822 --> 00:52:22,642 Not that that's necessary, but the quality of these essays is very high. 487 00:52:23,142 --> 00:52:26,442 We have Andrew Bailey and Craig Warmke, the author of Resistance Money. 488 00:52:26,561 --> 00:52:27,262 They have an essay. 489 00:52:27,742 --> 00:52:32,962 Smolenski contributes an essay toward an anthropological theory of money that I'm very excited for. 490 00:52:33,382 --> 00:52:42,482 We have essays on the one titled Easy Money, Easy Wars, The Evolution of War, Finance, Forever Wars, and the Prospects of a Bitcoin Peace. 491 00:52:42,482 --> 00:52:44,942 one other one, The Treasury Standard 492 00:52:44,942 --> 00:52:46,842 Causes and Consequences, Bitcoin 493 00:52:46,842 --> 00:52:48,942 and Credit, Argentina Against Central 494 00:52:48,942 --> 00:52:50,882 Banking, an 495 00:52:50,882 --> 00:52:53,061 article by Aaron Daniel, who's an attorney 496 00:52:53,061 --> 00:52:54,862 Dispute Resolution Without 497 00:52:54,862 --> 00:52:56,782 the State, I'm excited for that one 498 00:52:56,782 --> 00:52:58,982 Then They Fight You, the last essay 499 00:52:58,982 --> 00:52:59,822 by Avic Roy 500 00:52:59,822 --> 00:53:02,862 I've kind of leafed through a lot of these 501 00:53:02,862 --> 00:53:04,982 read a bit, this is an excellent collection of essays 502 00:53:04,982 --> 00:53:06,922 a debate is started with 503 00:53:06,922 --> 00:53:09,081 the Satoshi Papers, I hope 504 00:53:09,081 --> 00:53:10,802 that if you listen to this you'll 505 00:53:10,802 --> 00:53:12,242 contribute to the debate 506 00:53:12,242 --> 00:53:17,302 The debate is open to everyone who's a part of this project in the United States. 507 00:53:17,502 --> 00:53:20,682 What does a refounding look like even out of the United States? 508 00:53:20,902 --> 00:53:26,942 What does it mean for the world to refound on principles that are consistent with the nature of Bitcoin? 509 00:53:27,982 --> 00:53:30,542 Lucas, did you want to add anything here as we close up? 510 00:53:31,581 --> 00:53:36,542 The only thing I'd add is having already read that first essay. 511 00:53:36,542 --> 00:53:45,882 I'm super excited about this because it uncovers a layer of understanding that is previously unexplored for me. 512 00:53:46,822 --> 00:54:00,242 And it's made me excited to have these conversations where at times maybe I ran out of steam just because of the lack of novelty. 513 00:54:00,242 --> 00:54:06,502 There's some novelty in here that is very refreshing. 514 00:54:06,542 --> 00:54:11,061 and I'm super encouraged to be having these conversations. 515 00:54:11,262 --> 00:54:16,502 I think it's a very important collection of essays, very well done, incredible writing. 516 00:54:17,002 --> 00:54:22,962 But the writing is merely a reflection of the work that's been done on the back end for the research. 517 00:54:22,962 --> 00:54:24,442 So it's fantastic. 518 00:54:24,642 --> 00:54:30,442 As always, great pick by you, killer pick, and I'm very excited to do it. 519 00:54:31,122 --> 00:54:32,561 Awesome, man. Yeah, thanks for the combo. 520 00:54:33,422 --> 00:54:34,762 You bet. We'll see you guys later. 521 00:54:36,542 --> 00:54:53,542 Hey, thanks for watching. If you like what you listen to, that's my brother, that's Christopher, please subscribe. It gets me one step closer to owning a cave, and that way I'll never have to mow a lawn or replace roof shingles ever again, which would be wonderful. Thanks.