1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,920 Hey, welcome back. Here we are. So Lucas and I are present with you, the world, for another episode, discussion, deep chat regarding Bitcoin, Bitcoin literature specifically. 2 00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:21,320 Today we're reading, we read a really interesting paper. It's a working paper by Salvador Ernesto Pineda de Paz, who goes by Sal Pineda. 3 00:00:21,500 --> 00:00:28,220 It is called Leveraging Bitcoin to Rebuild Economies and Strengthen Justice After Conflict. 4 00:00:28,220 --> 00:00:30,700 It's kind of a mouthful of a title. 5 00:00:31,180 --> 00:00:33,640 It gets everything in there, though, that you need to know. 6 00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:35,820 And it's academic, so it has to be that way. 7 00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:43,540 But I want to orient us to what is essential here and kind of set the tone for how deep 8 00:00:43,540 --> 00:00:44,640 we're going to go here. 9 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:49,200 I have some poetry here that's not part of the paper, but I think is going to get us 10 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:50,800 in the right framework and right mindset. 11 00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:52,360 So it's called The Dance. 12 00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:55,840 It's by an Armenian poet, Siamanto. 13 00:00:56,400 --> 00:00:57,740 I'm just going to read the first portion here. 14 00:00:57,740 --> 00:01:06,020 In the town of Bardez, where Armenians were still dying, a German woman, trying not to cry, told me the horror she witnessed. 15 00:01:06,220 --> 00:01:09,220 This thing I'm telling you about I saw with my own eyes. 16 00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:15,040 Behind my window of hell, I clenched my teeth and watched with my pitiless eyes. 17 00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:18,400 The town of Bardez turned into a heap of ashes. 18 00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:20,740 Corpses piled high as trees. 19 00:01:20,740 --> 00:01:28,920 From the waters, from the springs, from the streams and the road, the stubborn murmur of your blood still revenges my ear. 20 00:01:29,320 --> 00:01:35,900 Don't be afraid. I must tell you what I saw so people will understand the crimes men do to men. 21 00:01:36,860 --> 00:01:40,720 And so that's what we're going to talk about. That's poetry about the Armenian genocide. 22 00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:52,220 In this paper, roughly speaking, it's about transitional justice, which is a framework for redressing historical grievance after mass atrocity, essentially. 23 00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:56,540 So Sal's personal story, we'll start kind of talking in earnest about the essay now. 24 00:01:56,860 --> 00:02:05,380 He integrates his own story into the essay and the framework he's discussing because Sal, his personal story is he was born in 1988 during the El Salvador Civil War, 25 00:02:05,380 --> 00:02:10,620 also a time of mass atrocity and torture and horror, really, for a lot of the populace in El 26 00:02:10,620 --> 00:02:16,520 Salvador, actually assaulted his mother and him and kidnapped his father. They were able to flee 27 00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:26,280 in 2001 and seek political asylum in the United States. He's now, Sal, is a, let's see, his exact 28 00:02:26,280 --> 00:02:32,980 qualifications. He was, where is, I had it right here. He's got a master's in Latin American studies 29 00:02:32,980 --> 00:02:34,560 He's from the Georgetown. 30 00:02:35,420 --> 00:02:38,320 Yeah, from Georgetown and an MBA from Cornell. 31 00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:41,260 And he's doing his Ph.D. right now, right? 32 00:02:41,920 --> 00:02:45,980 And yeah, he's a former diplomat, too, according to his bio. 33 00:02:46,500 --> 00:02:49,640 And also he's on Twitter, Sal underscore Pineda one. 34 00:02:49,640 --> 00:02:55,140 So he's got after having the experience he did in El Salvador, he comes back. 35 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:55,980 He's a diplomat. 36 00:02:56,080 --> 00:03:02,640 He gets all this education related to political science, kind of the nature, he says, of violence. 37 00:03:02,980 --> 00:03:08,260 how to redress the roots of violence in society, that leads them into this field of transitional 38 00:03:08,260 --> 00:03:14,260 justice, which, again, is the substance of this paper is kind of talking about the framework of 39 00:03:14,260 --> 00:03:19,560 transitional justice and how to amend it to take account for an important theoretical insight that 40 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:26,320 Sal has. So again, transitional justice, how societies, it's about how societies can transition 41 00:03:26,320 --> 00:03:32,820 from an era of conflict, civil war, mass atrocity, genocide, into a new era of stable governance, 42 00:03:32,980 --> 00:03:38,020 and human rights. And this paper then also adds in how Bitcoin can play a role in that. 43 00:03:38,580 --> 00:03:43,400 So how can a society recover from something like the Armenian genocide, from something like the 44 00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:49,540 Holocaust, from something like what happened to Rwanda? How do you go from a deeply traumatized 45 00:03:49,540 --> 00:03:54,700 society and rehabilitate into a functioning democracy with functioning institutions, 46 00:03:55,040 --> 00:04:01,880 forward-looking, etc.? So this transitional period is very critical, and it's happened 47 00:04:01,880 --> 00:04:05,700 kind of around the world, you know, post-World War II. And then during the Cold War, we've had a lot 48 00:04:05,700 --> 00:04:09,900 of countries that have had to do this transition. And so there's a framework has arisen within, 49 00:04:10,100 --> 00:04:15,500 I think, political science is the correct domain to talk about how countries can do this in the 50 00:04:15,500 --> 00:04:20,900 best way possible. So this essay then, what Sal does here is first, the essay describes the 51 00:04:20,900 --> 00:04:27,580 traditional framework for transitioning from these dark periods. The traditional framework has four 52 00:04:27,580 --> 00:04:33,060 pillars. We'll go in the kind of depth discussing those, which are truth-telling, criminal prosecution, 53 00:04:33,340 --> 00:04:38,680 reparations, and institutional reform. That's the traditional framework for transitional justice, 54 00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:45,260 for helping these societies transition out of where they were into a better state. 55 00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:51,220 Sal, then, his theoretical insight, he's going to say, you're missing an important part. We need to 56 00:04:51,220 --> 00:04:57,220 talk about economics and infrastructure as a fifth and foundational pillar. And then in the third 57 00:04:57,220 --> 00:05:02,580 part of the paper, he then says, once we begin to recognize that, this thing called Bitcoin, 58 00:05:02,820 --> 00:05:07,080 and then he brings Bitcoin into this field, this already existing field of transitional justice, 59 00:05:07,480 --> 00:05:11,980 he begins to talk about how Bitcoin can benefit these nations that are transitioning out of these 60 00:05:11,980 --> 00:05:17,280 dark periods. So let's first, we'll look at those three parts of the paper, the traditional framework, 61 00:05:17,580 --> 00:05:21,560 the new pillar Sal wants to add, and then the role of Bitcoin within that new pillar. 62 00:05:21,880 --> 00:05:26,480 And then Lucas and I will talk about the different elements. So the first pillar is truth-telling. 63 00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:34,640 It's always great to start with the truth once you're coming out of mass atrocity genocide because you need to figure out what really happened. 64 00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:35,860 And this is actually hard to do. 65 00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:44,560 It's hard to get people to tell the truth in a transitional society because people will fear incriminating themselves in the atrocities that took place. 66 00:05:44,580 --> 00:05:51,760 And they're going to fear societal rejection for having participated in a previously authoritarian or murderous regime. 67 00:05:51,760 --> 00:06:11,400 There's also, as part of the problem with truth-telling, financial insecurity. People, you know, are going to lack the ability to collect and document all of the stories if they don't have the financial infrastructure to do so. Things as mundane as transportation and housing can be obstacles to collecting all this data. 68 00:06:11,400 --> 00:06:26,740 The second pillar, so you collect all the truth, you collect what happened. Pillar two is criminal prosecution. So following mass atrocity, there may be forms of like amnesty, but generally there's going to need to be some accountability to reinforce the rule of law and restore public trust. 69 00:06:26,740 --> 00:06:38,520 Just like getting to the truth, it's also difficult in a transitional society to have like impartial, neutral, due process filled prosecution. 70 00:06:38,780 --> 00:06:43,180 And the economic situation in transitional societies even worsens that. 71 00:06:43,280 --> 00:06:55,680 For criminal prosecution, you need to have properly funded court systems in order to ensure independence and neutrality, that prosecutors are not going to take bribes, that they're not going to be dependent on the purse strings of corrupt politicians. 72 00:06:55,680 --> 00:07:13,600 So that's the second pillar. The third pillar of the transitional justice framework is reparations. There's two aspects of justice. One is you give people what they deserve. Maybe the aggressors are owed punishment, but also the victims are owed some sort of recompense or compensation. 73 00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:32,920 Justice mandates that they deserve some sort of reparation. Reparations can run a wide gamut from financial compensation to even just symbolic acknowledgement or remembrance that what happened happened, telling the truth. Don't be afraid. I must tell you what I saw so people understand. Just acknowledging that something happened. 74 00:07:32,920 --> 00:07:37,980 And reparations, though, often falter as well due to budgetary or political constraints. 75 00:07:37,980 --> 00:07:43,320 You can imagine coming out of conflict, it's hard to make right, even symbolically, the 76 00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:44,320 harm that was done. 77 00:07:44,540 --> 00:07:48,200 And then economic instability is going to make that even more difficult. 78 00:07:48,620 --> 00:07:53,880 The last pillar of the traditional transitional justice framework is institutional reform. 79 00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:58,100 After conflict, institutions of a country are weak and in disarray. 80 00:07:58,100 --> 00:08:13,360 The court systems were involved in the old atrocities and, you know, everybody's compromised institutions. Nobody trusts institutions. Nobody trusts the police. Nobody trusts the garbage man. They're going to, you know, tell they're going to go through their garbage and reveal some secret about them to the authorities. Nobody trusts anybody. 81 00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:22,340 The challenge then is how to rebuild trust when you have political pressure, elite agendas, corruption, weak fiscal capacity in a transitional society. 82 00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:28,860 That weak fiscal capacity really exacerbates and makes difficult creating stable and trusting institutions. 83 00:08:28,860 --> 00:08:50,920 You will even have, as part of how things are done now, high debt burdens in transitional societies. Institutions like the IMF or World Bank giving loans with restrictive conditions that are compromising institutions, structural adjustment programs that are designed to promote fiscal discipline will actually sideline domestic priorities and make people trust their own institutions less. 84 00:08:50,920 --> 00:09:00,240 So institutional reform is a key part of transitional justice, but difficult to do because of the economic state of ex-authoritarian regimes. 85 00:09:00,460 --> 00:09:07,920 So you have these four traditional pillars of transitional justice, truth telling, criminal prosecution, reparations, institutional reform. 86 00:09:08,560 --> 00:09:15,320 Sal's insight then is to say, we need to acknowledge the key role of economic sovereignty and 87 00:09:15,320 --> 00:09:20,160 infrastructure, infrastructural stability as a fifth pillar, which is actually kind of 88 00:09:20,160 --> 00:09:22,260 foundational to all of the other pillars. 89 00:09:22,260 --> 00:09:27,640 Sal notes that, you know, economics and infrastructure are often conceptually brought into the fourth 90 00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:29,100 pillar, institutional reform. 91 00:09:29,500 --> 00:09:32,680 But given their importance, he thinks it should be separated out. 92 00:09:32,920 --> 00:09:37,260 That's the theoretical innovation for transitional justice, make economics and infrastructure 93 00:09:37,260 --> 00:09:40,780 a fifth foundational concern or transitional justice. 94 00:09:41,420 --> 00:09:46,680 So then with this theoretical insight, that gives Sal the space to move to the third part 95 00:09:46,680 --> 00:09:48,380 of the paper, which is Bitcoin. 96 00:09:48,380 --> 00:09:55,780 That is Bitcoin's potential role within this fifth pillar of economic sovereignty and infrastructure 97 00:09:55,780 --> 00:09:59,400 as foundational to the other pillars of transitional justice. 98 00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:05,920 Some of the overarching problems in truth-telling, prosecutions, reparations, judicial reform 99 00:10:05,920 --> 00:10:13,040 is funding and also preventing that funding from being lost due to corruption or diverted 100 00:10:13,040 --> 00:10:15,400 or manipulated by interested elites. 101 00:10:15,660 --> 00:10:19,740 The general problem in transitional societies is a lack of trust. 102 00:10:20,040 --> 00:10:23,080 Bitcoin is excellent in low trust situations. 103 00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:25,240 It's auditable and transparent. 104 00:10:25,720 --> 00:10:27,940 You can account for funds on the blockchain. 105 00:10:28,260 --> 00:10:32,920 You can see who has what money and what Bitcoin, what coins and where it's going. 106 00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:43,420 Bitcoin also has a stable and inherent monetary, a fixed monetary policy that everybody knows in advance and that no one can change. 107 00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:49,940 You can trust. You don't have to trust. You can verify that it's not going to inflate. It's going to issue money on its schedule. 108 00:10:50,860 --> 00:10:53,140 Quote Sal here in a beautiful passage. 109 00:10:53,140 --> 00:10:59,980 In post-conflict societies where truth and legacy systems has been shattered, Bitcoin offers something powerful. 110 00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:03,100 Mathematical certainty in an age of uncertainty. 111 00:11:03,500 --> 00:11:09,520 It provides a base layer of financial truth in places where political truths have long been contested. 112 00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:16,100 So Bitcoin's characteristics, its technological characteristics and social incentives help with each pillar. 113 00:11:16,100 --> 00:11:28,300 For the first, if the first step in transitional justice is truth telling, it's essential to have a money that tells the truth. And that's what Bitcoin is through its transparency, auditability and fixed nature of its issuance. 114 00:11:28,300 --> 00:11:56,280 The second step, prosecution, benefits from these aspects of Bitcoin as well. It helps provide independence and impartiality, which is key for prosecutions because a prosecutor's office partially funded by Bitcoin will be more insulated from exterior political control because Bitcoin is subject to the rules of the protocol, not to the kind of whims of the elite. It's hard to censor or block, and this imparts more independence. 115 00:11:56,280 --> 00:12:06,640 The third step, the third pillar, rather, reparations benefits from, of course, the financial qualities of Bitcoin, both as a number go up technology, but also more poetically. 116 00:12:06,820 --> 00:12:07,720 Here's Sal again. 117 00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:22,380 While Bitcoin cannot heal wounds or restore lives, it can help ensure that when reparations are promised, they are delivered not only in full, but in a currency and system that cannot be quietly eroded over time. 118 00:12:22,380 --> 00:12:37,160 And Sal also discusses how reparations can be maybe better conceived of in the form of economic rehabilitation than as a one-time grant of some money, like here, here's some money for what we did. 119 00:12:37,160 --> 00:12:51,340 Instead, Bitcoin can help through companies like Gridless, a company that uses Bitcoin miners powered by stranded and underutilized hydro or solar power, miners that buy excess power from stranded sources. 120 00:12:51,740 --> 00:13:05,200 These can lead to the build out of infrastructure in nations that have had their infrastructure reduced or destroyed exiting war atrocity, which is a way, a more stable way of doing reparations than, again, a one time gift. 121 00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:11,600 It's a new way of doing things. Decentralized energy plus Bitcoin mining equals a new economic model, according to Sal. 122 00:13:11,740 --> 00:13:16,460 It creates shared incentives for governments, energy companies, and local communities to all work together. 123 00:13:17,100 --> 00:13:22,120 The companies get the Bitcoin, the government gets tax revenue, and also building out of infrastructure. 124 00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:28,920 Sal notes again, this approach would effectively convert computational energy into tangible social repair, 125 00:13:29,440 --> 00:13:34,040 creating long-term value in areas once marked by extraction and abandonment. 126 00:13:34,040 --> 00:14:00,232 So all of the and then all of these noted qualities of Bitcoin its transparency its auditability its fixed issuance its number go up power and this way that Bitcoin has of creating a new economic model through its mining and incentives All of that of course helps helps with institutional reform which is often Sal notes derailed in developing societies for economic reasons which Bitcoin can help 127 00:14:00,232 --> 00:14:05,132 kind of address those. Sal concludes by addressing some of the common critiques of Bitcoin, 128 00:14:05,132 --> 00:14:09,992 that it uses too much energy, et cetera, et cetera. And then he also mentions Jason 129 00:14:09,992 --> 00:14:15,032 Lowry's software thesis, which is not something that I imagine happens too much in an academic 130 00:14:15,032 --> 00:14:17,892 paper within an academic institution. 131 00:14:18,272 --> 00:14:24,092 He also, in mentioning Lowry's thesis, he notes that Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining could 132 00:14:24,092 --> 00:14:28,712 help not just transition countries away from conflict and atrocity, but also help integrate 133 00:14:28,712 --> 00:14:34,712 them into a future of mutually assured preservation through the peaceful power protection by 134 00:14:34,712 --> 00:14:37,952 participating in the Bitcoin protocol with both friends and enemies. 135 00:14:38,432 --> 00:14:42,592 So I'll end this summary with a quote, which I think is in itself a good summary of Sal's 136 00:14:42,592 --> 00:14:42,912 article. 137 00:14:42,912 --> 00:14:45,032 This is something he says toward the end of his essay. 138 00:14:45,372 --> 00:14:49,552 As BlackRock and Fidelity have both noted, Bitcoin's provable scarcity and decentralized 139 00:14:49,552 --> 00:14:54,812 validation mechanism position it as a modern alternative to gold, one that operates 24 140 00:14:54,812 --> 00:14:59,312 seven without reliance on legacy banking systems or physical intermediaries. 141 00:14:59,732 --> 00:15:05,812 This makes it uniquely suited for a post-conflict context where institutions must be rebuilt 142 00:15:05,812 --> 00:15:11,492 from the ground up with openness, auditability and monetary integrity at their core. 143 00:15:11,492 --> 00:15:29,492 So that's Sal's essay, the traditional framework of transitional justice, his proposal that it should be amended with the recognition of the importance of economic sovereignty, and then his ideas that Bitcoin would be a good way to help power that economic sovereignty. 144 00:15:29,832 --> 00:15:35,772 So, Lucas, what were your thoughts on Sal's proposals here and his discussion of transitional justice? 145 00:15:35,772 --> 00:15:52,732 My main takeaway is that it's good to be rich. Societies that have prosperity are going to have less violence. They're going to have less, obviously, poverty. 146 00:15:52,732 --> 00:16:17,792 They'll have less of all of the things that come with having a fiat-type currency that can be debased. All of these issues plaguing countries that have debts spiraling out of control, drug problems, societal problems with marriages that are falling apart, these can all be linked in one way or another to prosperity. 147 00:16:17,792 --> 00:16:25,432 Some are fairly direct and some are a bit more on the periphery, but they all have a direct causal effect. 148 00:16:25,712 --> 00:16:30,972 And so that was my main takeaway is that it's good to be rich. 149 00:16:31,892 --> 00:16:35,192 And it's much better than the alternative. 150 00:16:35,492 --> 00:16:36,772 The alternative is to be poor. 151 00:16:36,852 --> 00:16:37,392 That sucks. 152 00:16:37,492 --> 00:16:38,172 We know that. 153 00:16:39,292 --> 00:16:44,012 But before we went on camera, we were talking about this very briefly. 154 00:16:44,012 --> 00:16:54,912 And you mentioned, you know, kind of the framing that the rich have in today's society, which is oftentimes quite negative. 155 00:16:54,912 --> 00:17:22,612 And it takes me to think of just the, you know, the revelation that the people that are calling for this that are, you know, they want to see Elon Musk destroyed and they want to see Mark Zuckerberg destroyed and they want to see Sam Altman, all these, you know, techno giants that it's done out of a place of not hating or not loving the poor, but hating the rich. 156 00:17:22,612 --> 00:17:23,092 Yeah. 157 00:17:23,092 --> 00:17:31,092 Yeah. Because these are, you know, the same people are the ones that curse the homelessness and curse this, you know, curse the homeless. 158 00:17:31,672 --> 00:17:35,952 Yeah. And so it is somewhat hypocritical in that regard. 159 00:17:35,952 --> 00:17:44,932 You almost wonder there's like a Christian bias that money is somehow sorted and taints us. 160 00:17:45,132 --> 00:18:03,552 And so a lot of what I don't want to say, not just progressives, but people who believe in human rights generally often have a focus on abstract notions that are very important, like liberty or truth telling or these types of things that, again, are very important ideas. 161 00:18:03,552 --> 00:18:12,692 But at the end of the day, if you don't have the economic infrastructure to allow these types of to allow the protection of human rights, they mean nothing. 162 00:18:13,292 --> 00:18:21,332 And so one really has to acknowledge that, OK, these are all very great ideas like due process and these different freedoms that you're envisioning. 163 00:18:21,332 --> 00:18:36,572 But if we don't have, you know, people don't have housing and clean water, if they don't have money in the bank and a means to get more of that money and assure us that that money is not going to be taken away, inflated away, something like that, you know, these other things are for naught. 164 00:18:36,572 --> 00:18:54,752 And so I think Sal's, you know, acknowledgement openly that, hey, economics needs to be acknowledged as the fifth pillar, economic sovereignty, which itself sounds like an abstraction, needs to be acknowledged as kind of undergirding in a very substantive way all of these other excellent notions of transitional justice. 165 00:18:55,312 --> 00:19:05,652 And I think that, I mean, that's acknowledging the central role that finance and economics and money play even within human rights is something that is very important. 166 00:19:05,652 --> 00:19:09,992 Yeah, you can go down his list and just so truth telling. 167 00:19:10,352 --> 00:19:13,872 It's so much easier to tell the truth when you when you're financially independent. 168 00:19:14,292 --> 00:19:17,752 You know, that's where the that's where the term fuck you money comes from. 169 00:19:17,872 --> 00:19:20,572 That's we need to give transitional societies fuck you money. 170 00:19:21,012 --> 00:19:21,372 Exactly. 171 00:19:22,232 --> 00:19:29,032 Because, you know, because otherwise, then you're you're always afraid to speak out for fear of losing. 172 00:19:29,352 --> 00:19:29,452 Sure. 173 00:19:29,932 --> 00:19:35,012 You know, because you're you're subsisting on the edge of survival anyways. 174 00:19:35,012 --> 00:20:04,032 Yeah. And criminal prosecutions. When I read that, I actually thought I wasn't thinking so much about like bribes and stuff, but I was thinking more about like just the kangaroo courts of, you know, after after the fall of, you know, when you have when you have a head of state replaced or fall of power like we experienced in the United States where for the last four years or arguably longer, but definitely the last four years. 175 00:20:04,032 --> 00:20:15,112 The judicial system became highly weaponized against certain people, you know, crypto people, people that were involved in January 6th. 176 00:20:15,112 --> 00:20:15,472 Yeah. 177 00:20:16,632 --> 00:20:25,632 Mostly pleasant visit to the Capitol with some with some people that did some things that were bad, who may or may not have been on government payroll. 178 00:20:27,792 --> 00:20:30,772 Those those kind of things like highly weaponized. 179 00:20:30,772 --> 00:20:52,992 And now I see I could very much be someone who is a liberal and a Biden supporter, and I could very much understand how they could look at the United States judicial system today and make that very same argument and say that that the Trump administration is weaponizing it against against their side or whatever. 180 00:20:52,992 --> 00:21:15,152 I personally would disagree with that. I would say that they are aggressively pursuing injustices that have been kept out of public light. But I can definitely see how someone who had different values than me would think that reparations, you know, it's something it's it's such a trope in the United States because it's brought up so often to talk about slavery. 181 00:21:15,152 --> 00:21:34,572 And it's become become a bit of a meme. You know, give me my reparations. My Dave Chappelle show had a show had one of the greatest, greatest sketches on this with everybody getting their reparations money and a guy driving by in a in a semi truck full of cigarettes that he just bought. 182 00:21:34,572 --> 00:21:39,512 or, you know, like everybody's getting all their cash and they're bought. But it does have to be 183 00:21:39,512 --> 00:21:44,772 done. And this, I do believe that this is going to happen. Like in the United States, I think 184 00:21:44,772 --> 00:21:52,372 we'll see this happen. This is such a timely topic to discuss. And Sal does a good job of 185 00:21:52,372 --> 00:21:58,732 highlighting it because there are not just a few, but dozens of countries around the world that are 186 00:21:58,732 --> 00:22:05,552 experiencing drastic alterations in their political makeup and going through that right now. 187 00:22:05,692 --> 00:22:09,272 And, you know, will there be reparations for COVID-19 victims? 188 00:22:09,472 --> 00:22:09,732 Yeah. 189 00:22:09,872 --> 00:22:10,092 Right. 190 00:22:10,512 --> 00:22:13,112 That would be something that would fall into this. 191 00:22:13,112 --> 00:22:19,072 And do you want to be paid in, if you do get a rep rate, do you want to be paid in a currency 192 00:22:19,072 --> 00:22:21,172 that they just printed in order to pay you? 193 00:22:21,652 --> 00:22:21,772 Right. 194 00:22:22,152 --> 00:22:24,072 Or do you want to be paid in something to keep? 195 00:22:24,072 --> 00:22:34,412 There was one thing he had in there I wanted to ask you about, which was like one of the components of reparations is symbolic gestures or something like that. 196 00:22:34,632 --> 00:22:35,352 Symbolic acknowledgement. 197 00:22:35,352 --> 00:22:36,552 Do you remember that part of it? 198 00:22:36,692 --> 00:22:36,892 Yeah. 199 00:22:37,312 --> 00:22:37,572 Yeah. 200 00:22:37,772 --> 00:22:39,252 It was down deep. 201 00:22:39,732 --> 00:22:41,812 It was down deep, down deep, down deep. 202 00:22:41,992 --> 00:22:43,292 That's 16. 203 00:22:43,932 --> 00:22:49,972 But yeah, it was just like, you know, because it was like, it's not just giving reparations. 204 00:22:50,092 --> 00:22:51,412 It's not just about giving money. 205 00:22:51,412 --> 00:22:57,912 It's about giving like infrastructure and it's about giving like access to education and communication and energy. 206 00:22:58,212 --> 00:23:04,832 And it's also about it was, yeah, it was like symbolic representative gestures or something like that, which I didn't really understand. 207 00:23:04,912 --> 00:23:06,772 And I wondered if you had any take on that. 208 00:23:07,032 --> 00:23:09,132 You were asking me about symbolic acknowledgement. 209 00:23:09,772 --> 00:23:13,092 And so, yeah, I mean, that's an important thing. 210 00:23:13,192 --> 00:23:14,032 Like I was reading. 211 00:23:14,292 --> 00:23:15,052 What is it though? 212 00:23:15,492 --> 00:23:16,512 Is it statues? 213 00:23:16,852 --> 00:23:17,812 Like what is it? 214 00:23:17,812 --> 00:23:19,992 You know, it could be. 215 00:23:20,032 --> 00:23:21,372 It could be many different things. 216 00:23:21,412 --> 00:23:27,172 One example I will give, I think, is simply acknowledging that events took place. 217 00:23:27,252 --> 00:23:35,952 So that's part of truth telling is you have people get the stories out and then maybe the country comes out and says, we acknowledge this happened and we apologize. 218 00:23:36,332 --> 00:23:41,732 So I read that poetry from the Armenian genocide that happened in 1915. 219 00:23:41,732 --> 00:23:58,332 Still, I believe, to this day, denied by Turkey, which is, I don't want to get into like the weeds of, you know, people disagree about what happened, I think, but that Turkey committed ethnic genocide against the Armenian population and the what the eastern part of Turkey or something like that. 220 00:23:58,332 --> 00:24:19,832 And so like just having Turkey and Turkish people maybe, you know, acknowledge that the genocide happened would be important symbolically for the horror that happened there. And so symbolic acknowledgement could be any of those sorts of things, just like, you know, a country formally acknowledging what happened, which I don't think that's a small thing either. 221 00:24:19,832 --> 00:24:44,032 You know, we think that, you know, start off saying that economics is the most important, but also there's a movie called Ararat. It came out in 2002 about recognition of the Armenian genocide. It was, you know, this happened in 1915, this genocide. And the director, Adam Ego-Yen, is making this movie in 2002 about how this wound is really still fresh for Armenian people because it's just not acknowledged. 222 00:24:44,032 --> 00:24:48,932 And they have like, you know, grandparents that died in their, you know, whole culture. 223 00:24:49,032 --> 00:24:52,372 They go back to Armenia to visit these places where this genocide happened. 224 00:24:52,452 --> 00:24:57,652 And it's just stripped of any acknowledgement that the people there once had a particular way of life. 225 00:24:57,832 --> 00:24:58,972 So, yeah, symbolic acknowledgement. 226 00:24:59,212 --> 00:25:00,212 I wanted to say something else. 227 00:25:00,472 --> 00:25:04,052 You also mentioned like reparations after COVID and something like that. 228 00:25:04,272 --> 00:25:10,592 And I think that is an interesting part of the transitional justice framework is in what other situations can you apply a similar thing? 229 00:25:10,592 --> 00:25:25,872 Like, you know, post-COVID, should there be truth-telling about why certain policies were adopted, you know, the containment or lockdown policies, why certain vaccination mandates, why these things were adopted based on the science? 230 00:25:26,272 --> 00:25:31,812 And then based on that, should there be criminal prosecution or reparations or something like that? 231 00:25:31,812 --> 00:25:42,052 And then this framework, you can see, applies itself in kind of, as you were pointing out, in a miniature fashion whenever a new administration, presidential administration takes power. 232 00:25:42,192 --> 00:25:46,972 They want to get the truth out from their point of view about what happened during the last administration. 233 00:25:47,332 --> 00:25:55,552 They want to maybe do a little bit of criminal prosecuting and then seek reparations in some way for what happened and then rebuild institutions in their favor. 234 00:25:55,552 --> 00:26:07,712 So even though we're talking about transitional justice as this thing that happens after like genocide and mass atrocity, it happens, I think, in miniature whenever you try to revitalize after any occurrence. 235 00:26:07,932 --> 00:26:14,572 And so it's interesting maybe to see how Bitcoin could be incorporated even into those miniature transitional justice cycles. 236 00:26:14,572 --> 00:26:31,532 Yeah, it would just make it so much more difficult for that type of thing to be perpetrated. You know, I mean, just like genocide in general, war in general, just like any type of any type of any type of offensive action like that. You know, the money's got to come from somewhere. 237 00:26:31,532 --> 00:26:36,912 and currently the money comes from the future without a vote by the people who are going to 238 00:26:36,912 --> 00:26:43,112 pay for it right you know like all of the money that funds wars is debt that is it's not the 239 00:26:43,112 --> 00:26:48,672 government's debt it's the people's debt because the government is it's just a it's ideally it 240 00:26:48,672 --> 00:26:54,332 should be a symbiotic organism that exists in alignment with the people and it makes their 241 00:26:54,332 --> 00:26:59,312 lives better but what always happens because they can control the money is that it becomes a parasite 242 00:26:59,312 --> 00:27:06,372 And it ends up attempting to kill the host and just sucking the lifeblood out of it to the point where it doesn't have anything left. 243 00:27:06,372 --> 00:27:17,592 And then that's where, you know, it either genocide occurs and you wipe out an entire people or revolt occurs and you end up going through this bit of transitional justice where you're putting a new system in place. 244 00:27:19,292 --> 00:27:20,512 Yeah, I think. 245 00:27:21,192 --> 00:27:22,572 Yeah, go ahead. 246 00:27:22,572 --> 00:27:26,812 Well, I was just going to say, like, I don't want to change the subject, but I'm going back to that. 247 00:27:26,932 --> 00:27:36,092 Like, I think the not just reparations, but like if I look at this list of the four pillars of transitional justice, truth telling, criminal persecution, prosecution. 248 00:27:37,772 --> 00:27:54,964 Reparations and institutional reform like this is exactly what I think people want to happen with regard to COVID I think they want to be told the truth Like the truth is definitely not that it came because a wombat ate a pangolin 249 00:27:54,964 --> 00:28:02,444 and then got chopped up in a wet market. And there certainly appears to be plenty of evidence 250 00:28:02,444 --> 00:28:09,744 for criminal prosecution. If there were injustices that were committed on American people and on 251 00:28:09,744 --> 00:28:14,384 people around the world, then reparations would probably be in line. And then the thing that 252 00:28:14,384 --> 00:28:21,744 enabled it all was the institution that had the power to do this. And so clearly institutional 253 00:28:21,744 --> 00:28:28,284 reform has to be on top of that list as well. And so, yeah, how does Bitcoin contribute to that 254 00:28:28,284 --> 00:28:35,624 is that it doesn't allow for the parasite to suck the lifeblood out of the host because 255 00:28:35,624 --> 00:28:39,884 that you can't take someone's Bitcoin without them giving it to you. 256 00:28:40,204 --> 00:28:41,724 You can't just take it away. 257 00:28:41,804 --> 00:28:44,724 You can't reach into the future and grab Bitcoin either. 258 00:28:45,604 --> 00:28:52,124 So, yeah, again, like this is a Bitcoin fixes this type of. 259 00:28:52,664 --> 00:28:52,904 Yeah. 260 00:28:53,124 --> 00:29:00,564 And if, you know, if Bitcoin is used to fund a body that is going to oversee prosecution 261 00:29:00,564 --> 00:29:07,124 or amnesty or reparations or institutional reform, that thing gives that body a sort of 262 00:29:07,124 --> 00:29:13,084 independence because the purse strings, you know, you can't block the money, you can't inflate the 263 00:29:13,084 --> 00:29:18,364 money, you can't reach in and take the money back, you know. So it does give the sort of neutrality 264 00:29:18,364 --> 00:29:22,984 and independence that, you know, because we're all so used to the dollar and the dollar is so stable 265 00:29:22,984 --> 00:29:29,704 and, you know, debanking doesn't happen too much in the United States, kind of, you know, have this 266 00:29:29,704 --> 00:29:36,504 monetary privilege, as Alex Gladstein says, that this type of independence, monetary independence 267 00:29:36,504 --> 00:29:42,464 of institutions is not needed. But step outside the United States and, of course, even increasingly 268 00:29:42,464 --> 00:29:49,364 within the United States. Yes, it is. And Bitcoin does or could play a role in fixing that type of 269 00:29:49,364 --> 00:29:53,244 lack of independence. A good phrase that Sal used that I wanted to mention in this context, 270 00:29:53,644 --> 00:29:59,384 we talk about Bitcoin as a store of value. And he says it could also be a store of integrity. 271 00:29:59,704 --> 00:30:03,504 a nation struggling to rebuild. I think that's, you know, a good mimetic phrase, maybe that, 272 00:30:03,644 --> 00:30:10,204 you know, the transparency, the auditability, the fixed issuance of Bitcoin make it a store 273 00:30:10,204 --> 00:30:16,184 of integrity too, because you have to, you know, act a certain way in relation to it, 274 00:30:16,264 --> 00:30:20,924 simply because you can't act a different way. It enforces a certain integrity in its participants 275 00:30:20,924 --> 00:30:26,644 that is not enforced when one can manipulate and change the money according to one's whims. 276 00:30:26,644 --> 00:30:47,984 Yeah. I want to change gears and talk about software. I love that he quoted Jason Lowery and brought up the logical conclusion, I think, of the world being on a Bitcoin standard, which is that it's mutually assured preservation, which is that it discourages competition and encourages collaboration. 277 00:30:47,984 --> 00:30:55,184 and it does certainly stabilize the grid to provide power where none existed before. 278 00:30:55,684 --> 00:30:59,124 But what I think is really interesting is when you think about the frame of, 279 00:30:59,304 --> 00:31:02,344 let's think about like a country that just went through a revolution 280 00:31:02,344 --> 00:31:05,704 and now they are starting effectively ground up. 281 00:31:05,804 --> 00:31:07,004 But it's never ground up. 282 00:31:07,104 --> 00:31:09,764 They're always at a certain starting point wherever they are. 283 00:31:09,764 --> 00:31:15,664 And it's typically, you know, leftover Russian weapons from 1980s. 284 00:31:15,664 --> 00:31:26,564 And then they go and they get some giant loans and maybe the giant loans allow them to buy some leftover equipment from the United States from the 1990s. 285 00:31:26,644 --> 00:31:30,264 And now they're a third world country with second world equipment. 286 00:31:30,264 --> 00:31:56,684 What Bitcoin allows you to do is that, you know, creating that hash, like mining Bitcoin as a country and taking advantage of your natural resources, taking advantage of your sunlight and your waterfalls and your rivers and using that power in order to mine Bitcoin and also provide power to your energy grid is when it's viewed through Jason Lowry's lens of being a power projection weapon. 287 00:31:56,684 --> 00:32:16,604 It allows a third world country to instantly catapult itself up to first world status in terms of terms of defense, in terms of cyber defense and the ability to defend their their capital and defend their own livelihood, I guess, in terms of the energy and time. 288 00:32:16,604 --> 00:32:37,944 And so that's actually kind of cool because, you know, you think about like if, you know, El Salvador goes through and Bukele becomes president and then all of a sudden they just instantly are able to have nukes and they're able to have a drone army that competes with China and they're able to have, you know, long range ballistic submarines and all that. 289 00:32:37,944 --> 00:32:42,784 Like that's the equivalent of being able to just turn on Bitcoin miners. 290 00:32:42,984 --> 00:32:43,464 Yeah. 291 00:32:43,564 --> 00:32:44,424 In your country. 292 00:32:44,424 --> 00:32:55,124 So, yeah, it catapults you into the first world immediately in terms of capital and currency and money, which is pretty invaluable. 293 00:32:55,124 --> 00:33:08,804 Yeah, no. And that's one of the, I think, cool parts about Sal's insight into the nature of transitional justice, really reasserting the importance of economics and infrastructure is it's not just rebuilding a country. 294 00:33:08,984 --> 00:33:19,644 It's positioning that country to be on equal, on parity with other countries so that it can, you know, not have happen again what happened in the past. 295 00:33:19,644 --> 00:33:34,724 You know, to begin immediately participating in mutually assured preservation on equal footing with other companies by harnessing one's natural resources to, you know, participate in this financial protocol that everybody's participating in, and much more than a financial protocol, if Lowry's correct. 296 00:33:34,724 --> 00:33:40,304 You know, that's not that's a sort of institutional reform. 297 00:33:40,444 --> 00:33:52,504 That's not just reform in kind of the neutral sense of getting back to where one should be, but really putting oneself in the best footing to be, again, on equal footing with other countries. 298 00:33:52,504 --> 00:34:05,324 You know, on that same note, Sal does discuss Bitcoin mining as in the same vein, you know, when we talked about Ben Kincaid's article, Bitcoin Africa and U.S. national interests. 299 00:34:05,584 --> 00:34:16,604 Ben Kincaid, also an ex-diplomat, emphasized Bitcoin, emphasized that Bitcoin mining in low income areas in Africa could be a way to utilize stranded energy to build out power grids and other infrastructure. 300 00:34:16,604 --> 00:34:42,484 It's interesting that these two ex-diplomies both see, you know, the potential for institutional reform, infrastructure buildup in countries that really need it and see Bitcoin mining as a new economic model, something that like software and, you know, consistent with the software thesis is really about making a country modern and self-defensible and all these things. 301 00:34:42,484 --> 00:34:48,904 Yeah, I think I really do believe that the institutions decay as a result of the money decaying. 302 00:34:49,084 --> 00:34:49,204 Yeah. 303 00:34:49,564 --> 00:34:56,224 I think that it's, I think that the institutions, Rome had very strong institutions for a very long time. 304 00:34:56,524 --> 00:34:58,864 They also had a very strong money for a very long time. 305 00:34:59,084 --> 00:35:10,684 I think that you can't look at those things and not the belief in the institution is partly due to, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's far less able to be corrupted. 306 00:35:10,684 --> 00:35:17,804 if the money is incorruptible. And so the knock on effect of that is that you have institutions 307 00:35:17,804 --> 00:35:23,804 that you can trust, that you can not trust, but you can verify. And you can, you know, 308 00:35:23,844 --> 00:35:29,784 you don't have to trust them. You shouldn't. And I think it's very hard to say that and understand 309 00:35:29,784 --> 00:35:34,804 what it actually means because we think of trust as being something very good. But what we're saying 310 00:35:34,804 --> 00:35:40,624 is that you shouldn't have to trust. You should be able to verify. Like it's better to know than 311 00:35:40,624 --> 00:35:45,704 to trust. If you know you have firsthand experience, if you trust, then you're going 312 00:35:45,704 --> 00:35:52,024 off of somebody else's word. And they're always going to optimize for their outcomes rather than 313 00:35:52,024 --> 00:35:55,904 yours. No, I was thinking about that as I was talking earlier, too, about the interrelationship 314 00:35:55,904 --> 00:36:01,724 between trust and verification. And they're like two different epistemic models for how you can 315 00:36:01,724 --> 00:36:06,284 orient towards the world, a kind of active and passive one. But I think, you know, you can't 316 00:36:06,284 --> 00:36:08,364 always be an active verification mode. 317 00:36:08,744 --> 00:36:10,944 You verify, you do the research, 318 00:36:11,224 --> 00:36:13,364 and then so you can trust. 319 00:36:13,624 --> 00:36:16,004 Like your trust is based on verification 320 00:36:16,004 --> 00:36:18,844 and the knowledge of possible verification of something. 321 00:36:19,084 --> 00:36:21,064 We don't have to constantly be verifying 322 00:36:21,064 --> 00:36:23,804 that the Bitcoin network is functioning as it should 323 00:36:23,804 --> 00:36:26,984 because we learn and educate ourselves 324 00:36:26,984 --> 00:36:28,284 about the social incentives, 325 00:36:28,844 --> 00:36:30,844 the technological backend, 326 00:36:31,284 --> 00:36:33,024 these things that make it function 327 00:36:33,024 --> 00:36:38,764 as the tick-tock next block, you know, inevitable clockwork that it is. 328 00:36:38,844 --> 00:36:43,484 And so our trust is based on our continual self-education 329 00:36:43,484 --> 00:36:47,124 and potential verification of the network. 330 00:36:47,724 --> 00:36:53,384 But yeah, trust is an interesting thing when one thinks about Bitcoin, what that means. 331 00:36:53,384 --> 00:36:59,084 Well, I think it's because we probably more commonly associate the opposite of trust with being lying. 332 00:36:59,084 --> 00:37:24,804 Like you think of trust and truth and truth and lies, as opposed to in this context, it's being used differently. It's the difference between having the information for yourself, having it verified, being able to look at it yourself and go, that is that, as opposed to reading the newspaper or taking what the institution puts out in a press release or testifies to Congress. 333 00:37:24,804 --> 00:37:49,284 Right. There's penalty for perjury must not be high enough. I just like it just because it happens all the time. Like you're a lawyer. I was briefly in law school and I just remember like the perjury thing. And I'm like, I don't know how anybody would not perjure themselves. Like they're just always going to lie. Like, of course, you're going to lie. 334 00:37:49,284 --> 00:38:02,524 Like you think about like, I mean, basically every single court case has one side lying and the other side telling the truth and just praying, praying that the jurors get it right. 335 00:38:02,864 --> 00:38:04,964 No, that's a cynical statement. 336 00:38:07,304 --> 00:38:07,744 Okay. 337 00:38:08,184 --> 00:38:10,624 But it's always, it's always, oh, these are different stories. 338 00:38:10,764 --> 00:38:11,324 I did this. 339 00:38:11,404 --> 00:38:14,244 One side says you did this and the other says, no, I didn't do this. 340 00:38:14,364 --> 00:38:14,764 Yeah. 341 00:38:15,084 --> 00:38:16,924 And then we come out and we say, oh, you did this. 342 00:38:16,924 --> 00:38:19,784 Like that person doesn't also get convicted of perjury. 343 00:38:19,784 --> 00:38:25,044 No, I mean, it's because people can be mistaken about what happened and interpretations differ in good faith. 344 00:38:25,504 --> 00:38:27,624 I mean, Kurosawa was I think it's ran or whatever. 345 00:38:27,744 --> 00:38:34,664 One of his movies is about like all these different people witnessed the same event and they all have different interpretations of what happened, essentially. 346 00:38:35,084 --> 00:38:37,504 And I mean, like reality is perspectival. 347 00:38:37,644 --> 00:38:40,244 We all have our own subjective perception of what's happening. 348 00:38:40,244 --> 00:38:53,884 And then it's, you know, we know that eyewitness accounts are not reliable for many reasons dealing with human psychology and the way that our brains, you know, preserve our memory and recall our memories, things like that. 349 00:38:54,164 --> 00:39:01,724 It's not, you know, that's why the truth telling pillar is so complex as the first step of transitional justice. 350 00:39:01,724 --> 00:39:05,364 I mean, not to sound ridiculous, but what is truth? 351 00:39:05,364 --> 00:39:07,504 Like you can get as deep as that. 352 00:39:07,624 --> 00:39:10,024 You have different people's experience of what happened. 353 00:39:10,024 --> 00:39:14,184 their own particular perspective of the event. 354 00:39:14,444 --> 00:39:22,144 But, you know, it's tough to unpack all of that as a series of purportedly objective facts. 355 00:39:22,624 --> 00:39:26,524 Truth commissions have a difficult task ahead of them. 356 00:39:26,604 --> 00:39:28,224 You can collect a bunch of narratives. 357 00:39:28,584 --> 00:39:32,504 The narratives are going to be colored by, you know, both. 358 00:39:32,904 --> 00:39:34,764 Sal mentions this in passing. 359 00:39:34,764 --> 00:39:45,244 You know, even different ethnicities have different, not ethnicities, different cultures have different ideas of truth, have different ideas about why things happen the way they do. 360 00:39:45,744 --> 00:39:51,104 You know, when you tell a story, you make certain background assumptions about the way their reality functions. 361 00:39:51,484 --> 00:39:57,864 If one culture has a different back-end truth about the way reality functions, their story is going to be different. 362 00:39:57,864 --> 00:40:15,804 And so, like, again, truth is a difficult thing. And I don't think it's ridiculous to say that. And also that truth is in some sense culturally bound because that colors our interpretations and our interpretations is what we collect and try to sort out. I don't know if it makes sense. 363 00:40:15,804 --> 00:40:42,984 I mean, I like it is. It is a huge it is a huge topic. I think that was the I think that is what Jordan Peterson and who's the guy that's got like horrific. He's got horrific. What do you call it? Donald Trump syndrome. He left Twitter. He's a philosopher. Sam Harris. I think I think I think I think one of their debates, Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, I think it stalled out and they had to quit because they couldn't agree on a definition of truth. 364 00:40:42,984 --> 00:40:55,384 So, yes, I agree with you. But what I'm saying is a guy is accused of murder. He says, I'm not guilty. They play a video. It shows him murdering the guy. They convict him of murder. Why aren't they convicting him of perjury, too? 365 00:40:55,384 --> 00:41:16,204 Because you have a constitutional right to not incriminate yourself. You don't you can your plea of not guilty is. And I mean, it's, you know, it's really saying you can't prove me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And so you get to have your trial. I mean, it's, you know, we have constitutional right. You can't self incriminate. And so that's it's protected. It's not perjury. You can't be forced to self. 366 00:41:16,204 --> 00:41:25,124 You can't self. Yeah, you can't self. Obviously, you can't you can't confess. Right. Yeah. If you want to, for sure. I mean, go ahead. 367 00:41:25,384 --> 00:41:45,255 I don know When I was doing criminal defense I would always just have the most wide open epistemic model possible and be like you know maybe this person is involved in some sort of Matrix dream scenario and they misremembering the facts And so we can take a broad base of skepticism and say anything could have 368 00:41:45,295 --> 00:41:46,755 We'd want that in our own case. 369 00:41:46,896 --> 00:41:50,956 You know, it is the case that like freak events occur. 370 00:41:51,235 --> 00:41:56,235 And so somebody that 99 people say is guilty could be like wrong place at the wrong time, buddy. 371 00:41:56,376 --> 00:41:57,835 I don't know. I didn't do it. 372 00:41:57,856 --> 00:42:01,095 But my fingerprints are on the gun. Can't explain why I'm innocent. 373 00:42:01,095 --> 00:42:05,075 And so it's beautiful we have a system where we could defend people like that, I guess. 374 00:42:05,235 --> 00:42:05,555 It is true. 375 00:42:05,716 --> 00:42:11,095 I used to watch those crime documentaries, and I was always like, no way did this guy do it. 376 00:42:11,155 --> 00:42:11,975 Like, totally not. 377 00:42:12,115 --> 00:42:13,835 And they're like, oh, yeah, he definitely did it. 378 00:42:14,015 --> 00:42:15,396 Like, here's the video. 379 00:42:15,775 --> 00:42:16,615 I mean, they should have. 380 00:42:17,055 --> 00:42:17,916 They definitely should have. 381 00:42:17,936 --> 00:42:19,456 We found the head in his freezer. 382 00:42:20,275 --> 00:42:22,235 The head in the freezer is always a tip off. 383 00:42:22,376 --> 00:42:23,456 They're like, god damn it. 384 00:42:23,835 --> 00:42:23,975 Yeah. 385 00:42:24,396 --> 00:42:26,035 Dude, that happened on Joe Rogan. 386 00:42:26,035 --> 00:42:31,795 And Joe Rogan had this guy on that had been in prison for, I don't know, like decades or something like that. 387 00:42:31,835 --> 00:42:36,196 And he was like let out for one of the I think it was the Innocence Project got him out. 388 00:42:36,196 --> 00:42:41,075 And he he gets out, you know, goes on Rogan, tells a story about all the injustice, blah, blah, blah. 389 00:42:41,135 --> 00:42:46,436 And then like a week later, murders his neighbor and just like dismembers the person, puts them in this freezer. 390 00:42:46,635 --> 00:42:50,335 It's like, yeah, that's not good at all. 391 00:42:50,956 --> 00:42:51,356 Yeah. 392 00:42:51,416 --> 00:42:52,555 About publicity, to say the least. 393 00:42:52,555 --> 00:42:59,575 Yeah, we should have a cathartic moment at the end of each trial where after they say not guilty, the defending gets to stand up and point at the jury and say guilty. 394 00:43:00,235 --> 00:43:03,956 And they'll walk out like, like, it would be fun. 395 00:43:05,015 --> 00:43:05,696 They should be able. 396 00:43:05,936 --> 00:43:09,575 It should be like, like when you're playing poker, like you have the choice. 397 00:43:09,575 --> 00:43:19,416 So like, like if you and I are the last two and you decide to fold and you give the pot to me and I win, I win the pot just because you backed out and you chose not to bet more. 398 00:43:19,595 --> 00:43:21,376 I do have the choice if I want to. 399 00:43:21,376 --> 00:43:22,456 I can show you my cards. 400 00:43:22,555 --> 00:43:28,255 and i can be like i got you you know like i got a two to seven i bluffed your ass right yeah that 401 00:43:28,255 --> 00:43:33,535 would be if you just gave people like like no double jeopardy like you could just be like i 402 00:43:33,535 --> 00:43:39,315 did it i did it you didn't get it i know because how sad was we made oj live out the rest of his 403 00:43:39,315 --> 00:43:46,275 days trying to find the true killer all these so to redirect he goes and writes the book he writes 404 00:43:46,275 --> 00:43:48,115 the book if I did it. 405 00:43:48,416 --> 00:43:49,175 So good, beautiful. 406 00:43:49,595 --> 00:43:54,675 So to redirect back a bit, there was a beautiful quote that Sal ends with I wanted to read 407 00:43:54,675 --> 00:44:00,335 here because this says something about what Sal, I think, is doing with some of the other 408 00:44:00,335 --> 00:44:01,335 projects he's working on. 409 00:44:01,376 --> 00:44:04,555 He has a sub stack that you should all we should all read. 410 00:44:04,675 --> 00:44:05,896 I'll read the quote here. 411 00:44:06,075 --> 00:44:12,416 As I step forward with this work as a voice, a partner and a bridge, I do so with deep conviction 412 00:44:12,416 --> 00:44:14,055 and genuine openness. 413 00:44:14,055 --> 00:44:32,995 The path toward justice is long and it cannot be walked alone. But with the right tools, the right frameworks and the right people, we can help rebuild not just economies, but hope, not just governance, but dignity, not just nations, but the future of our one world. 414 00:44:32,995 --> 00:44:47,456 And so I see in some of Sal's other projects, which I would inadequately summarize if I tried to summarize right here, but I'll inadequately do so and say he's kind of constructing, you know, a political economy of Bitcoin and tying together, connecting the dots. 415 00:44:47,456 --> 00:44:51,655 He says that his Twitter profile with all these different projects that are going on. 416 00:44:51,835 --> 00:45:06,356 He mentions creating a Bitcoin alignment index in his new sub stack, talking about how to rank different entities for their alignment with Bitcoin so that people can have a way like a consumer ranking with different groups. 417 00:45:06,456 --> 00:45:08,555 So, you know, you're dealing with a Bitcoin group, whatever. 418 00:45:08,555 --> 00:45:09,755 He has all these plans. 419 00:45:09,755 --> 00:45:15,376 But I think this quote is beautiful because, you know, we are we can all be a voice, a partner and a bridge. 420 00:45:16,075 --> 00:45:26,095 And every Bitcoin podcast, every Bitcoiner ranting in the street, you know, every Bitcoin technologist who is really participating substantively in the debates about the protocol. 421 00:45:26,095 --> 00:45:35,255 Well, everybody really can step forward together here and, you know, bring together reform, not just economies, but our world and not just governance, but dignity. 422 00:45:35,255 --> 00:45:42,575 If we really do have and keep on promoting the ideals of Bitcoin and, of course, the adoption of Bitcoin, too. 423 00:45:42,575 --> 00:45:51,396 Yeah, it just comes down to do you want your government to be able to control your money or do you want them to not be able to control your money? 424 00:45:51,396 --> 00:46:11,735 And if they can't control the money, then there's a whole lot of fairness that comes into play that didn't exist previously. And that will be good for everyone. It'll be good for the government. It'll be good for the people. It'll be good for the people that are in other countries that see that as a model and yearn to have that type of thing. 425 00:46:11,735 --> 00:46:33,995 I think, yeah, he, you know, he notes like what's happening in the, he notes what's happening in other places in Africa. I think maybe in Nigeria he talked about as well. It's very encouraging to be able to look at these places that for so long, there's been this story that's been painted in Western media about these third world countries as like, oh, they're just, this is how they are. 426 00:46:33,995 --> 00:46:52,436 Yeah, they're just it's just that those those people are like they're violent and they're they're lazy or they're not striving or they don't value education or they're they're locked left in the 19th century or something like that. 427 00:46:52,436 --> 00:46:57,575 they don't strive or anything. And I don't believe that is the case. I do believe that 428 00:46:57,575 --> 00:47:06,075 all of these countries are the victims of bad money and that it devolves into subjugation and 429 00:47:06,075 --> 00:47:15,155 into worse, into just atrocity. And I think we have a very bright future ahead of us being on 430 00:47:15,155 --> 00:47:22,416 the side of a decentralized money that everyone has access to that no one can take advantage of. 431 00:47:22,436 --> 00:47:29,635 Yeah. So what's the transitional justice framework for the end of the fiat autocracy? 432 00:47:30,095 --> 00:47:34,775 What is the truth telling that will be required of the central bankers and the financiers? 433 00:47:35,135 --> 00:47:41,696 What are the prosecutions that will be needed of people who manipulated the money or amnesty for feeling generous? 434 00:47:41,696 --> 00:47:48,715 What sort of reparations will be needed once we, you know, realize that Bitcoin's distribution wasn't perfectly equitable? 435 00:47:49,376 --> 00:47:51,255 What sort of thing, if the, you know, 436 00:47:51,356 --> 00:47:54,635 transitioning from a fiat into a Bitcoin model, 437 00:47:54,815 --> 00:47:57,916 maybe their reparations need to be done in some way. 438 00:47:57,976 --> 00:47:58,436 I don't know. 439 00:47:58,575 --> 00:48:00,356 And what new institutions are we going to build? 440 00:48:00,476 --> 00:48:02,635 So maybe the, you know, the TJ framework 441 00:48:02,635 --> 00:48:05,376 can also be applied kind of broadly, 442 00:48:05,376 --> 00:48:08,595 even as we exit the general fiat world 443 00:48:08,595 --> 00:48:09,755 we've been inhabiting. 444 00:48:09,755 --> 00:48:11,715 Yeah, I do believe it would be very chaotic 445 00:48:11,715 --> 00:48:14,976 because there are people that will hang on to the old 446 00:48:14,976 --> 00:48:16,715 and be left out in the cold. 447 00:48:16,715 --> 00:48:22,015 you say hang on to the old you left down the cold did you do that yeah that was good that was pretty 448 00:48:22,015 --> 00:48:27,856 good i like that i never heard that little turn of phrase uh but yeah i you know balji talked 449 00:48:27,856 --> 00:48:34,155 about this in his recent uh his recent keynote at uh bitcoin asia is that yeah i mean there will be 450 00:48:34,155 --> 00:48:39,436 just like there is now there will be gross inequality because there are people that 451 00:48:39,436 --> 00:48:44,295 recognized it and built wealth and there are people that will hang on to the old system and 452 00:48:44,295 --> 00:48:50,255 they will not build wealth. The difference is that the Bitcoiners are not backed by the government. 453 00:48:50,535 --> 00:48:58,615 They're not backed by the violence of this is another one of those tenants of decentralization 454 00:48:58,615 --> 00:49:04,416 is that nation to nation violence decreases, but interpersonal violence increases. And so 455 00:49:04,416 --> 00:49:12,095 you will probably see a continual proliferation of person to person crime. And so that's, you know, 456 00:49:12,095 --> 00:49:16,075 get a gun, learn jujitsu, don't hang out in places you're not supposed to be. 457 00:49:17,936 --> 00:49:26,215 Don't broadcast your location and stuff like that. Operational security is going to become 458 00:49:26,215 --> 00:49:32,976 something that I think is very part and parcel to every human. And it should be. If you're entering 459 00:49:32,976 --> 00:49:38,356 an era of self-responsibility, then that should be one of the logical consequences. 460 00:49:38,356 --> 00:49:56,456 Yeah. I lost everything. Bitcoin, house, car in a boating accident, location. It was all in the boat. It was a houseboat. It all went down together. Gosh, I shouldn't have. Don't put everything in a houseboat and go sailing on rough waters. That's bad. 461 00:49:56,456 --> 00:49:57,476 I didn't. 462 00:49:57,675 --> 00:49:59,215 The boat was in a bigger boat. 463 00:49:59,416 --> 00:50:00,595 That boat is gone. 464 00:50:01,456 --> 00:50:02,696 Everything, man. 465 00:50:02,976 --> 00:50:04,155 I'm telling you. 466 00:50:04,456 --> 00:50:10,655 So there could be a lot of submarine operators out there, like with submarines going around, like where are all these boats at? 467 00:50:10,695 --> 00:50:13,956 We're going to find these keys and we're going to get all the monies. 468 00:50:15,055 --> 00:50:21,795 I love those people so much, like to have the balls to just be like, no, no, it's gone. 469 00:50:22,075 --> 00:50:22,615 It's gone. 470 00:50:22,615 --> 00:50:23,035 Prove it. 471 00:50:23,035 --> 00:50:31,575 well there we're getting into truth territory and the you know so yeah i love it i love it so much 472 00:50:31,575 --> 00:50:37,215 i saw a stat the other day that says on average 14 bitcoin are lost per day yeah that's a lot 473 00:50:37,215 --> 00:50:41,496 i think there's like there's like 4 million that are considered to be completely lost 474 00:50:41,496 --> 00:50:48,515 i mean i i mean i i believe it ish in that i don't think there's a lot of there's more and 475 00:50:48,515 --> 00:50:52,195 more estate planning going on, but people also just like, 476 00:50:52,635 --> 00:50:55,235 it probably, you know, just like, you know, 477 00:50:55,275 --> 00:50:58,476 a lot of young people own Bitcoin and when a young person passes away, 478 00:50:58,555 --> 00:51:00,155 it's not fortuitous often. 479 00:51:00,535 --> 00:51:02,515 So the things that they had are just like, 480 00:51:03,035 --> 00:51:06,376 you can use a court to get a lot of things passed on and sorted out. 481 00:51:06,456 --> 00:51:08,555 But if the Bitcoin's lost, the Bitcoin's lost. 482 00:51:08,555 --> 00:51:12,155 Yeah. And yeah, it's not something you immediately think about. 483 00:51:12,376 --> 00:51:16,095 And it's, oh, well, yeah. 484 00:51:16,476 --> 00:51:18,496 150, what did I read the other day? 485 00:51:18,515 --> 00:51:46,175 150,000 Bitcoin have been bought by corporations so far this year and only 20,000 have been mined. So the supply shock that is about to come is just incredible. And I think like I do continue to hold the belief that I hope for the sake of society, I hope that it happens insanely fast so that people are forced to make a decision as opposed to slowly grinding and grinding and grinding. 486 00:51:46,175 --> 00:51:49,115 because then you can always like talk yourself out of it. 487 00:51:49,456 --> 00:51:51,416 But if it's like, oh, life or death now, 488 00:51:51,496 --> 00:51:52,735 I need to make this choice, 489 00:51:52,835 --> 00:51:54,535 then I think people will do the right thing 490 00:51:54,535 --> 00:51:55,376 and rip the Band-Aid. 491 00:51:55,916 --> 00:51:57,195 I know that's a bit of a tangent, 492 00:51:57,356 --> 00:51:59,275 but it was just something that was top of mind 493 00:51:59,275 --> 00:52:00,655 that I was thinking about. 494 00:52:01,695 --> 00:52:05,835 You know, it is becoming very apparent 495 00:52:05,835 --> 00:52:11,496 that the number of buyers exceeds the number of sellers, 496 00:52:12,035 --> 00:52:14,396 even though that's not certainly reflected 497 00:52:14,396 --> 00:52:19,015 in the price of the last two months or month and a half. 498 00:52:20,275 --> 00:52:24,535 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think somewhat of it. 499 00:52:24,595 --> 00:52:27,215 Well, I think we're going to mark the price of Bitcoin. 500 00:52:27,356 --> 00:52:29,535 This is the movie coming out, Killing Satoshi, right? 501 00:52:29,635 --> 00:52:32,155 You see that in 2026, there's a new Hollywood, 502 00:52:32,496 --> 00:52:36,416 there's a new Hollywood level flick called Killing Satoshi 503 00:52:36,416 --> 00:52:38,436 that's going to be popular in the theaters. 504 00:52:38,655 --> 00:52:42,075 To tie it back to transitional justice, reparations, 505 00:52:42,075 --> 00:52:44,976 You asked about symbolic recognition, acknowledgement. 506 00:52:45,396 --> 00:53:02,996 I think in reading a bit on the side about transitional justice, like art and poetry and theater, things like this are an essential part of an essential part, but often play a vital role in transitional justice and getting a society to come to terms with atrocity, genocide, things that happen. 507 00:53:02,996 --> 00:53:11,815 And I think that even within Bitcoin, too, like the role of art has heretofore not been as great as it could be. 508 00:53:11,815 --> 00:53:16,335 There's just like references to Bitcoin within a movie, within a song, stuff like that. 509 00:53:16,416 --> 00:53:20,175 But there hasn't been, there's been some Bitcoin sculptures that are nice. 510 00:53:20,376 --> 00:53:28,416 But like the role of Bitcoin, or the role of art rather, and, you know, all of the modalities of art, poetry, music, theater, movies, etc. 511 00:53:28,655 --> 00:53:33,275 I think are going to mark an important part of the continued adoption of Bitcoin. 512 00:53:33,755 --> 00:53:37,936 And, you know, I don't think it's going to be a Band-Aid come off moment of skyrocket. 513 00:53:37,936 --> 00:53:44,015 it's going to be like increasing infusion into the popular culture to where people hear more about it, 514 00:53:44,075 --> 00:53:47,856 not from some talking head on financial news about the price of Bitcoin. 515 00:53:48,135 --> 00:53:54,035 But they watch a movie, hopefully like Killing Satoshi, which hopefully is not terrible and hopefully doesn't have a bunch of misinformation in it. 516 00:53:54,155 --> 00:53:55,835 I think they need to hear it from the comedians. 517 00:53:55,835 --> 00:54:01,075 Those are like those comedians are the bellwether as they, you know, 518 00:54:01,075 --> 00:54:06,535 they've always meant to be the bellwether of absurdity in order to shine or, you know, 519 00:54:06,555 --> 00:54:10,155 show a mirror back at the ridiculousness in society. 520 00:54:10,155 --> 00:54:16,876 And they were very suppressed for a decade and canceled, you know, and forced out. 521 00:54:16,876 --> 00:54:22,195 I will say as a consumer of quite a bit of comedy, most of the comedians are still making 522 00:54:22,195 --> 00:54:22,856 fun of Bitcoin. 523 00:54:23,175 --> 00:54:26,215 Some are not, but most of them still don't understand it. 524 00:54:26,476 --> 00:54:26,515 Yeah. 525 00:54:27,115 --> 00:54:31,015 They, you know, it's the crypto bro thing that they talk about. 526 00:54:31,075 --> 00:54:37,976 which we had the discussion at breakfast the other day about the difference between the Bitcoiner and the Crypto Bro, which is a very big difference. 527 00:54:38,135 --> 00:54:40,695 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, for sure. 528 00:54:41,015 --> 00:54:48,815 The Bitcoiner, like that's also the next stage of Bitcoin's adoption is separating the Bitcoiner from all of those other affinity scammers, 529 00:54:49,535 --> 00:54:55,835 the Crypto Bros and the people that want to latch on and come in under the like, yeah, guise of. 530 00:54:55,835 --> 00:55:01,376 So, but, well, I think that's pretty much I've said all I had to say and much, much more. 531 00:55:01,735 --> 00:55:01,755 So. 532 00:55:02,896 --> 00:55:03,255 Same. 533 00:55:03,555 --> 00:55:04,075 It was a joy. 534 00:55:04,436 --> 00:55:04,996 All right, guys. 535 00:55:05,835 --> 00:55:06,635 Have a good one. 536 00:55:06,675 --> 00:55:08,135 Sal, thanks for your excellent. 537 00:55:08,215 --> 00:55:09,275 That was an excellent article. 538 00:55:09,376 --> 00:55:10,175 Yeah, I would have said that, too. 539 00:55:10,235 --> 00:55:10,655 I began. 540 00:55:10,815 --> 00:55:13,655 I began by saying this essay has a wordy title. 541 00:55:14,035 --> 00:55:14,575 I'm dimming the. 542 00:55:15,335 --> 00:55:17,376 As soon as I said it, I was like, oh, shit, man. 543 00:55:18,035 --> 00:55:18,916 It was an excellent. 544 00:55:19,015 --> 00:55:22,335 The title was good and well suited for the audience, which is academic. 545 00:55:22,956 --> 00:55:24,275 And the essay was good. 546 00:55:24,275 --> 00:55:26,515 I just want to be on record saying that I liked it. 547 00:55:26,996 --> 00:55:28,055 And he's read Softwares. 548 00:55:28,175 --> 00:55:29,055 God bless that man. 549 00:55:29,055 --> 00:55:29,356 Absolutely, man. 550 00:55:29,356 --> 00:55:29,755 Good work. 551 00:55:30,635 --> 00:55:30,856 All right. 552 00:55:31,535 --> 00:55:31,936 Konnichiwa.