Mags, welcome to the Freedom Footprint Show.
Thank you Glad to be here.
Great to have you here.
How are you enjoying the conference so
I love it.
Oh my God.
So,
It's just like everyone the same on all the podcasts.
It's like everyone the same at all the conferences in North America, which is
great because you make a lot of friends.
But here it's like there's people coming from Africa, right?
Which we don't normally get the chance to interact with.
And there's so many exciting mining projects that are opening up there
that are like, I think the most interesting things in mining is the
places that have no electricity.
Getting re electrified and like changing people's lives.
So being able to interact with those folks and the folks that really
need Bitcoin because they don't have access to bank accounts, right.
What's happening with a Feddy over there.
So being able to interact with those folks is what makes a
conference like this special.
Plus like Prague is beautiful.
So I'm a huge fan of the prodcom.
and you have roots over here, right?
Yes, and I get to visit my grandparents after.
So another bonus.
All right.
Can you give us the TLDR on Mags?
On mags, Yes.
Mikena.
Grov.
Whoa, very nice.
Professional.
know?
No, that
No, no,
it's fine.
I, I, I, self doxed, which, in retrospect, maybe it wasn't the best thing.
My partner's always like, great, people are going to come
to our house and murder us.
No, but you know what I mean?
It's
like, what have you brought on us?
Cause you love attention.
So, I, the age of five.
We escaped communism.
I did when I was a little kid, but I was, my parents escaped Poland.
Um, I mean, communism is never great, but I remember them telling me stories
about how, you know, you would line up for five hours, uh, to, like, two days on
Christmas to get, like, a Christmas ham.
So, you know, there's stuff like that.
And I remember growing up to, um, When I would later visit, uh, and like,
I would look up the money, right?
Cause we had a period of hyperinflation in Poland, right?
For a little kid, it didn't matter.
You're like, you see this like money and you're like, Oh, wow.
Look at all these zeros.
Or you're like, Ooh, this is great.
It's like, no, it's not great.
You don't understand why it's not great.
But, um, you know, there's a, there was a lot of really negative things.
But, you know, and I think that's why the reason why I start with
Poland is it's my story, right?
It's my Bitcoin story.
Um, I think everybody needs to find their story.
Like, yes, I started because number go up.
Yeah.
That's how,
how some of us get into it.
But then you you go down that rabbit hole, and you find those intersections
of why it really means something to you.
And why it means something for me is because my parents packed everything
they had into In their car, right?
And we had like a fiat car, as in
yeah.
Yeah.
The, it's in the car, Brad.
Those, those cars were tiny, so you can't take a lot of things.
And the government, the government messed up.
They gave everybody a passport.
Normally, they would give like one parent and a child, right?
They would never give the whole family unit.
But it was like winning the lottery.
They gave everybody a passport.
So we're like, we're going on
vacation, right?
So we arrive at the border.
They've got their, you know, big guns.
And my parents are like, going on, you know, like a trip.
And the lady looks at them and she like looks in the car and she's like,
you're not coming back, are you?
They're like, do we lie?
Like, no, no, we're not.
And she's like, just go, just go.
Right.
And they're still like worried.
Are they going to start shooting at us?
What?
So, you know, basically everything that you can, it's not the same as
like someone running away from a war, but it's still like, this is
our life and that's all we can take.
And maybe it might get taken at the border.
So what can you take across the border?
Right.
And so looking at that story,
it's like, that's, that's, that's Part of like understanding, you know,
assets that you can move with you.
And Another,
important touch point is my grandma, uh, from my dad's side, she had this beautiful
garden, beautiful house, like family legacy that, you know, typically goes
through generations, that gets passed on.
But after the war and the borders fell, uh, Poland's border shifted and,
you know, government strike of a pen.
Shifted, and she lost, like she had to leave the country because
it became, Tarnopol became Ukraine,
and they couldn't, like she couldn't keep her house, she just lost it,
right, and they kicked them out, and so she lost her childhood
home, There's no way to get back.
And also like that, like I said, generational wealth.
Like, I mean, we didn't have much, but at least there was house and land.
And
typically those are the types of assets that you can own, right?
So that, um, again, same thing.
Can it be confiscated by governments?
Your wealth?
Well, sometimes it can.
Um, traditional assets, right?
But not Bitcoin.
No, there were no 12 magic words back
There was no 12 magic words.
The words would have been, please, please, please, please, please,
please, please, like, yeah.
cash or something.
And then the last touch point is on my, um, my other grandparents side.
So my grandpa's grandpa, he was an artist and actually he's a well known artist
if you look at like Polish art history.
Um, you know, his paintings are sometimes sold in art galleries or at auctions.
And so my grandpa had some of his art in their house, but during
the war, there was bombings.
So sometimes you had to just leave the city because it was unsafe, so they
locked the house, left for several days or weeks, but when they came back,
you know, the door had been broken down, all the paintings were gone.
And then he would, you know, walk around the city, like, after that,
and in, in art galleries, like art stores, he would see the paintings.
And it's no different than, like, During the Holocaust, like, there was
a lot of stolen property taken from Jewish people that it's like, this
is mine, but I don't have it anymore.
And it's not like it's on the blockchain, right?
Like, blockchain is forever.
It's permanent transaction that you can see that it changes ownership.
Like, There is no proof that this was yours, uh, and you
can't, you can't get it back.
Even if you say like, yes, this was, it's like, who are you, right?
So it's really sad.
And sometimes I thought about it, I was like, oh man, I'd love to
buy him one, but they're not cheap.
No, I mean, theft is theft, regardless of who's, who the perpetrator is.
I mean, it's still theft.
Yeah.
So, you know, that's, that's what Bitcoin is to me.
Like those, those meaningful stories is why, uh, I, one of the reasons I
participate and, and I think too, you know, when, when you, when you try to
bring somebody else into Bitcoin, I think you have to try to understand them
a little bit and what's their History, because there might be these kind of
touch points that resonate with that particular person rather than like,
oh, yes, inflation sucks, doesn't it?
That might resonate with them too, but maybe not in the same way as someone
who had went through hyperinflation, for example, or someone who, you
know, whose family escaped somewhere.
And there's always something, and it's worth finding out
their story to do that, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
And this is so funny because I'm sorry your parents picked a country
that would eventually turn communist.
And like, but the, but the touch point here is that my dear friend
Luke here had to flee Canada for the same reason that you once fled
Well, I didn't have to.
Let's not over dramatize it, but
Yeah.
Maybe it's not.
Maybe I'm over exaggerating.
It's not actually super comparable, but there's a touch of truth in it.
Yeah.
damn it.
I'm, I'm, I am allowed to go back to Canada.
Yeah.
Allow.
But you don't want to.
gotta find a third country.
I better not be communist.
But I actually live in like the most communist part of Canada.
Like we don't even have a conservative party.
It's that far left
in
part will that be?
I should, I should know
It's basically like California, right?
All right.
Yeah,
I've got a bunch of family on Vancouver Island and, uh, you know, Vancouver
and everything and it's, yeah, yeah.
But I mean, I mean, BC is nice.
It's uh, it's a
I know, it's so hard to leave.
Like, I'm, I'm near the ocean.
There's beautiful
mountains, like,
No, it looks, it looks awesome.
at some point maybe it'll be.
So we, but we were talking about before, uh, you know, in the, in the, in the
car ride over here that, uh, yeah, you, you've got the dual passport, right?
Um, your
B.
exactly, exactly.
Well, then that's the whole point, right?
I mean, hopefully you don't need a third one eventually, but, uh, yeah,
But where?
well, exactly.
I mean, maybe El Salvador, right.
But, uh,
not ready yet.
I visited El Salvador.
I don't think, like, they're making amazing progress, but some of the things,
like, the, you know, the electricity grid isn't, like, fully reliable yet.
But like I said, you know, they're shoring it up.
They're using some of the investment from mining to do that.
But, like, right now, today, I don't think it's ready.
My partner works in tech and, you know, He, there's a lot of stuff that gets
shipped to our house, like through Amazon Prime, for example, or UPS.
Um, and I was talking to some of the folks there.
The logistics is not built up.
It can take weeks uh, to, to get goods.
It's, it's just not tenable for
But, but, uh, Argentinian passport seems like, uh, one of
the better options right now.
I was talking to Luke Mickich earlier today and uh, apparently
the, yeah exactly, the rule is you have to stay there for six
months for two years in a row.
uh, like straight two years.
no, I
Oh, oh,
Six months per year, two years in a row.
Is it six months per year?
what he said.
So, and then you get it without having to pay, like, a
million dollars to get it with.
Right.
Because it's a bit, is it three Bitcoin for, no,
That's uh, Antigua, I
Bitcoin in El Salvador?
something
number of bitcoin.
Yes.
and I think it's enough to
right.
You're right.
It's a million
in the country, yeah, something.
But the, uh, the payment for the super duper passport or whatever, Max Keiser
passport or whatever they call it, it's like a million dollars, I think.
We'll say is the meat in Argentina.
I visited Argentina for the first time actually this February.
Uh, oh my God, it is ruined meat.
Asado, like the barbecue.
It's just, I, everything is grass fed.
I was literally eating butter, like raw butter, like.
It's so good.
Grass fed is such a weird term to anyone but Americans.
Like because we don't feed cows anything else but grass.
What else would they eat?
And yeah, it's in the US, they feed them corn, like, yeah, but it's a cow.
Why the hell would you feed it corn?
But you know what?
So I talked to a number of Bitcoiners.
I went to a Bitcoin meetup.
They held an Asado in my honor.
It was so nice.
Um, but, so, but they were saying, what?
Why you laugh?
no, no, it's your laughter that's contagious.
So, um, I was talking to the Bitcoiners and they're saying like
it's becoming more challenging.
So I know everyone's very optimistic about Malay, right?
Like he's putting in these changes.
He's cutting government quite a lot, but it's it, the inflation even
like between November and February.
And it will be like, February when I went there, because he, he got rid
of all the subsidies, including like, for example, transportation, right?
It's a huge country.
It's like Canada, right?
So when you're transporting food, once he got rid of the subsidy, things like,
for example, rice, it went from 60 cents to 2 and 50 cents for a kilo of rice.
Like, Their people make 300 a month.
It's
Yeah, but what, what was he supposed to do?
Like, uh, he needed to, it was a band aid and it needed to be ripped off.
Like, like there's no, there's no smooth way of, of getting out of that.
Yeah.
I get what you're saying.
But so I worked a decade in government actually.
Um, we're just going to go all over.
So I worked,
This does not
I'm a reformed government worker before Bitcoin.
All right.
so, so I worked on, mostly I worked on low carbon economic transition.
And, uh, A lot of that is decarbonizing our energy system.
I also worked on electricity and electricity pricing.
But part of that file was energy affordability and energy poverty.
So, so there's like a certain level of assistance.
And I do think like, I know Bitcoiners talk about like,
Oh, we need to cut everything.
And I'm like, there are, you know, there will be people that
fall through the cracks, right?
Whether you're disabled or like, Sometimes you need a little bit of help.
I'm not talking about the folks that like just abuse the system, but I
don't, I do think as a society, we should take care of some people.
I think we go a little overboard, but you know, there is like someone who has
cancer who, you know, like, like we used to get letters to the minister, right?
And some of them like kind of stick with you.
They're like, my wife has cancer and electricity has prices have risen.
So I'm choosing between.
Food, and electricity pricing, right, to feed my wife, because I want to feed her
quality food so that she can, you know,
But still, I think the, uh, I, I, I don't think there's a libertarian
on earth that doesn't believe that society should take care of everyone.
It's just that, like, we're against the forcing people to do that.
Like, it should be voluntary.
But do you think there will be enough people that volunteer, is I guess
the question.
Yeah?
And absolutely, because I think the biggest misinterpretation is how much
the state takes, what it actually costs.
And people would be shit rich if it wasn't there.
Like if we didn't have inflation, and if we didn't have taxes, everyone
would be super duper rich pretty soon.
Like, like, look, look what happened to Germany just after World War
Two when they had this libertarian, uh, finance minister or whatever.
The title was, um, Unsung Hero, that, like, made that country make the,
like, the fastest comeback in history.
Or, or, uh, Estonia is a good example, too.
They, like, took Milton Friedman's playbook, and he's
not even a true libertarian.
Mises called him a socialist, but, like, uh, but still, like, if you
do sound economics, the country, like, turns on a dime, and I believe
that will happen to Argentina, too.
And having, you know, worked in government, there is a
lot of inefficiency, right?
It's all inefficiency.
some level, I think,
You might be understanding what you're getting into here.
yeah, there's a nuance, maybe there's like a nuance or something, or maybe I
don't fully, okay, okay, okay.
But what I will, what I will say is that if you, so, so yes,
I've seen an efficiency, right?
And also government is really bad at picking winners and losers,
and they should not, right?
No, who are they to
and, and also if they're like, oh, well, these people deserve money.
It's like, Yeah, but it's your cronies, right?
Like we're like, I've seen because the further up you move in government, the
more that you see, it's really about a buying votes and literally at the table.
One of the reasons like I left, it was because they were like,
which policy do we choose?
That's going to get us reelected.
Oh, bike lanes.
People love bikes.
Like it's just, it's such an inefficient spending.
So that's what disgusts me.
And I'm now, I wasn't a good fit
No, but that's, uh, that's the thing.
Like if it's, uh, if it's based on theft.
Like in the base layer, it cannot not be corrupt.
Like you, you cannot not have a corrupt system that is based on,
on violence and threats thereof.
Like, and that's because where do you draw the line and who's to say
what's good for another person or not?
Like from a, a strict autistic non aggression principle
perspective, it's all corrupt.
Like you're not entitled to tell me what I do with my stuff.
Like it's, it's that simple.
Yeah, so I helped put in cap and trade in Canada,
or sorry, In Ontario.
cap and trade,
carbon pricing, carbon pricing,
Oh, okay.
Cap'n, it sounded like,
tax.
It's much more of a market based
mechanism, which is more efficient than just a
Crunch, because whenever South Park makes fun of Canada, there's Cap'n Crunch
involved, and like, the cereal, you know.
And so that's like the, the stick, right, where they take the money.
But then I was, so initially I did that, but then I was like the
carrot, like, where do we reinvest?
Like, that makes the most sense in terms of like biggest DHT reductions, except
of course the politicians are like, but get us elected versus the highest GDP.
So anyways, so the point is like, you know, countries are like we need to,
you know, lower emissions X amount so that we can meet targets, but
those targets keep getting shifted.
And it's very frustrating because, you know, I spent a decade there
and before that, like there was the Kyoto Protocol and then the Montreal
Program and it just keeps going.
So now we're going between like, we're going to, you know, net zero for a 20.
2030, then it's 2040, 2050, now we're at like 2060, um, because the targets shift
because the politicians are too afraid to put in the kind of stringent reductions
that are needed because they're going to get voted out, so, so it's just kind
of like, being in that system hold on!
I am still talking.
yeah, absolutely.
I wasn't about
Oh, you look like you're jumping in, I'm like, no!
was, that was me holding back.
So,
made, and it's not going to come from the strict policies, right, and the
capital, there's trillions of dollars that need to be reinvested, for example,
to decarbonize, to, to switch towards renewable fuels, maybe build out
nuclear, like, less carbon emitting, so there's trillions of dollars.
Private sector hasn't delivered, the public sector hasn't delivered,
and their targets get moved.
Well, I, like, the really crazy cool intersection and why I love what I'm doing
now is I'm, I'm at Bitcoin mining, right?
It's not killing the planet.
It's actually filling that gap.
So instead of two pockets, right, ratepayers, which are the payer, the
users of the electricity system that pay into the system, or the taxpayers.
Usually that's how infrastructure gets built because for bigger projects like
nuclear where it's billions of dollars of investment in a giant nuclear plant.
So you have ratepayer and taxpayer dollars.
In that case, we have a third pocket, which is Bitcoin mining, right?
And that is just a Beautiful, elegant system of market economics that are
actually causing us to reinvest in new infrastructure because it's,
for example, in Africa, right?
It's a lot.
Uh, there's, there's, um, stranded power that's inexpensive and we're helping
build out the renewable infrastructure.
We're co locating sites in Texas that are transmission disconnected and it's
expensive to build up the infrastructure.
Uh, the transmission.
But they're all waiting for that day where they get connected.
But in the meantime, they're not earning because they don't have a big
load to connect to where you put a miner next to them and suddenly they're
getting paid, you know, all every day.
And it's a predictable revenue stream.
So perhaps for the next project, they know there's a miner coming.
They can maybe scale it up a little bit bigger as the population builds out.
So we are Funding it effectively from this third bitcoin pocket, right?
and.
so we're building out low carbon infrastructure.
And I think that is so beautiful that it's a market based mechanism and we're doing
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's doing the thing but doing it right which is in
a profitable way because otherwise it's just it's just fake It's just a
charade like and I I mean the goalposts are moved because they're impossible
Yeah.
Well, they're not.
It's just everyone would like, oh my God, the carbon
tax is so high.
They, maybe they're not impossible, very locally somewhere, but like, have,
have you seen Constantine Kissing's talk from uh, um, uh, the Oxford Union
where he talks about this and, and like, I mean, there are billions of
people in the world who don't have a refrigerator, that don't have a washing
machine, don't have a dishwasher, like all tons, like all sorts of stuff that,
that we have and they are not going to.
Like de prioritize, they are going to prioritize getting those
things above getting to net zero.
Like you're
yes, of course.
It's not fair for them
no, no,
yeah, they deserve that.
and I love the, the, the fact that Bitcoin is actually You know, functioning
as a suspension mechanism and eating up the stranded energy and stuff.
That's, that's beautiful.
But the real kicker is like the, the real environmental
thing is quality over quantity.
It's, it's, it's sound money.
It's, it's stopping The world from, from misallocating resources, which
is what governments do, by, by, by fucking with the price mechanism.
This is, like, communism didn't fall and didn't collapse because people
didn't have an incentive to work.
Everyone thinks it's about the incentives, but everyone had an incentive to work.
They have a gun through their head.
You're going to work, like,
The wrong kind of incentive.
That is an incentive, but it's the price mechanism.
If you fuck with the price mechanism, no one knows what to produce and
when and where and in which amount.
So, so, so that is, that is what is wasting resources.
If you print money, you incentivize everyone on earth to over consume.
And that is what, that is what actually kills the planet.
Like consumerism or bullshit consumerism.
More and more.
too, right?
Like I think as us, as Bitcoiners, like I, and also, you know, as I,
as I've gotten older, I appreciate buying a quality piece of furniture
or clothing that will last me, right?
Instead of this cheap fashion that just gets chucked, like, you know, doesn't
like start to fall apart within the year.
Generational furniture.
so, so that's why, you know, circling back, the coolest projects
that are happening in Africa are the ones that are electrifying.
Like previously, there's people that had no power, you know, they couldn't
charge their cell phones, they had to walk to, um, hours to get water, the,
you know, oh, oh, it's dark, I can't study, I'm just gonna go to sleep, right?
You're changing, and it's such a simple thing, but you're changing their lives,
like, now the clinic can stay open, like, at night, and do an emergency surgery,
not by candlelight, but by light, and I think, you know, it's so powerful how we
are helping humans become better, like, like, increase their standard of living,
so I think those are pretty cool, and then, um, and I also love how Mining is
integrating almost every facet of society.
I call it Darwin's finches, right?
Every miner, I do like, cause Darwin's finches optimize
for different niches, right?
You have the ones that eat nuts and
their beaks are very different.
from the ones that eat insects that eat fruits.
yeah.
And so I find that miners are doing that because there's those
miners that are going, you know, developing stranded parasites.
Then there's those miners that are taking, um, methane from landfills, right?
So they're, they're in effect getting free energy, the methane that a
landfill, uh, produces, capturing it, and burning it, combusting it.
And the byproduct is it's a positive externality from an environmental
perspective, because methane is, you know, 84 times more potent of a greenhouse
gas than CO2 when you burn it.
So there's a positive environmental aspect.
Um, I advise a company called PRTI and we take waste tires, which are
normally landfilled in North America.
Um, increasingly though, landfills are banning tires because they leach toxins
into the ground and also, uh, volatile organics and, and other, uh, pollutants,
uh,
They're tiresome.
go into the air.
And so we get paid for the tires.
Sorry, what was
They're tiresome.
Oh my God.
This is what you get when, when you deal with Canote.
Yeah.
You're a dad, right?
Dad jokes?
I am a dad.
Yeah.
Um, so, so we take the tire, we get paid for it.
We put it in a vertical refinery, sorry, vertical reactor.
It's kind of, I think of it kind of like a refinery where we tap off gas,
synthetic gas, which is, which is
There's an oil that we put in a diesel generator for power.
There's a black carbon type of product that has BTU content and 25
percent of a tire is steel because that gives the rigidity to a tire,
you know, when a car is, is riding.
And so, you know, Those are four products that could be sold, or we
can use the energy to mine Bitcoin.
And there's optionality, right?
Because during bear markets, maybe you don't want to do that.
Or the oil, you can further refine it into a more valuable byproduct, for example,
a cleaning agent, and sell that for 80 per gallon instead of, let's say, four.
Right?
And different markets, too.
Like, if you're on an island, Hawaii, you know, uh, waste is expensive, right?
Most of it gets, you have limited space.
Maybe you have to incinerate.
And then also energy is expensive because how do you get energy if you don't have
a natural supply, but maybe you're in El Salvador and we don't have a volcano.
And so in that case, maybe it makes sense just to use it for power.
Whereas other places, you know, where, where electricity is a
lot cheaper, maybe it makes sense for you to mine Bitcoin directly.
So I think it's a cool project and it's.
Um, everyone's really focusing on net zero.
There's other projects that have other environmental or social benefits
that I think too, we should pursue.
So that's like another, right?
Like, so here we are fitting in another niche.
And then of course there's like the giant miners, the gigawatt miners, but then
they're shoring up the electricity system, for example, in the U S where they're
participating in demand response programs.
I said, that's a different niche that they're filling.
Yeah.
'cause I, I wanted to get your, your take on the, the miners that, that are
still going off of, uh, non-renewable energy sources, coal and et cetera.
it's, we've really declined in the use.
Cause here's the thing.
Fossil fuels are expensive, um, like gas prices, right?
They fluctuate.
You need to have, um, and, and prices have been rising and it's a continue.
So if you, if you are an operator, right, you're continuously buying
a commodity that changes in price and yes, you can hedge it.
But if you have built out a renewable part of infrastructure, right, there's
no marginal cost of power, right?
So, um, and, and costs have fallen of renewables versus like coal.
Coal will always like be still kind of cheaper.
But I have seen like, recent, like in recent years, we're getting pretty close.
And also, like, I think miners have, I think we're over 50 percent now in
terms of, like, that are renewable or non carbon, so the places that are
still using things like coal, like, there's some elements of China, maybe
Kazakhstan, it's not, it's shifting away
anyways.
so that's the trend in Bitcoin, but like the overall trend is like coal is
still the fastest growing energy source.
And I mean, the crazy part is like, they shut down their nuclear plants.
I'm from Ontario, where 50 percent of baseload
originally was like, is,
here's my foot.
yeah.
exactly.
Exactly.
Jesus, bad policy, right?
Like, Like, they overdo it, right?
They're just like, oh my god, this happened.
And now suddenly, we don't have nuclear
No, no.
years.
I was actually a child when Chernobyl happened in
my communist Poland, it was very hard to get iodine.
So my parents, we were like, they wanted, because I was a little.
A very little child, and they needed to get iodine for me to make sure that I
didn't get the radiation, so I luckily had a nurse friend that was able to provide
it for me, but otherwise it was like.
Yeah, yeah, it's horrible.
So, so, so, so,
story.
Yeah.
I, uh, like I've, I've changed back and forth on nuclear for so many times
because, uh, to me, it's like absolutely crystal clear that from a physics,
physics perspective, nuclear is like vastly superior to everything else.
People, people don't know,
matter, if you look at the energy content per,
But like energy content, like a liter of
Yeah.
5, 000 barrels of oil or something in it.
It's absolutely insanely much better than everything.
But then we assign politicians to handle this.
And then like, oh, from a human human action perspective, this is bullshit.
Because
cared about carbon,
No, no, and it leads to, if not Chernobyl, it leads to, like, environmentalists
coming and screwing up the party and turning everything off, so, so, so that
it's just a big cost because it didn't have its lifespan, because it needs to
run for like 50 years because it's a big investment, like, so, so that's the, I say
go micro, micronuclear, and like, a flux capacitor in the basement of every nerd's
home, like, that's, that's the way to
Flux capacitor plus a Bitcoin miner.
Yeah, yeah, so you can, so you can, no, the flex capacitor is so you can go back
in time and mine on older blocks, like,
I, I use miner like a, like a, like a unit.
Like, uh, this is coffee, uh, you know, it's a, a minor is a, it can be used
for a singular or, or a plural That's.
uh, yes,
You should have miners in your basement, not minors.
Like, that's, that's It can be misinterpreted, like, I
need to explain that one.
Alright,
shoot, where was I going?
Oh, okay.
So, but, but no, you raised an important point because so like coal, right?
It's not just GHGs, it's also toxic air emissions that get released, right?
And so, uh, smog days.
happen and people die from smog, like the elderly that are more vulnerable.
So there's like multiple, uh, side effects, uh, right?
From, from coal.
We had acid rain, although actually the acid rain program was a cap and
trade program and that one worked.
Like, yes, I know.
They put it in, they capped it, and um, there used to be a lot of acid
rain in, especially kind of around like Michigan area, because there was
a lot of coal, uh, plants, and also like industry used a lot of coal.
So it actually worked, because they set the targets right, and it was lowered, so.
you give a quick explanation of how the cap and trade thing works?
Because first of all, Knut definitely doesn't
I don't live in the US, like, or
implemented cap and trade, except that their targets were not.
She's like, we're going
to go out of business.
here, too, but like, I'm not into Captain Crunch.
It was
so, basically
there is a cap on the amount of carbon that can be for, for like
Canada or a country or whatever unit, um, or for the world.
And so.
The amount of carbon is capped and everybody, you know, you take a baseline.
So I emit 10, maybe I'm emitting 5, you're emitting 100.
No, I understand the concept.
Like, what happened to that specific
ratcheting it down, right?
Like, because you're trying to lower.
Um, and so, Either you lower yourself so you implement some sort of technology
that reduces carbon, but maybe for you it costs 50, for you it's 1, 000 because it's
really hard, like, the technology's not there yet, you're, you're very limited,
and you can implement some very cheap System where you can very easily switch
to maybe biofuels or something, right?
So you can choose, I'm a business, do I, do I implement this technology,
because there's a capital cost usually associated with it, or do I just buy
this credit, like do you, because it's super expensive for you, so instead
of buying this thousand dollars per ton, and for you it's fifty, He's, he
sells you a credit and maybe he's only selling it to you for like a hundred.
So you're like, huh, thousand dollars or a hundred dollars, I'm going
to buy a credit from him, right?
And so, but that's just two participants.
And you keep adding participants and the carbon price like is set by a market.
So you decide, you're like, well, it's costing, like the market says it's A
thousand from me, no brainer, right?
Uh, maybe for me it's like, well, it's 60.
I could be buying, but you know what?
I don't want to keep spending every year, you know, the 60
or whatever as it ratchets up.
I'm going to do the capital investment, right?
Uh, and at some point it'll, it'll pay back.
So that's kind of like the cap and trade system, how it works.
So anyway, the work for For acid rain, but also we slowly
started decarbonizing, right?
And so, but, but where I was kind of going with that is like, no
technology
do you mean by it worked for Acid Rain?
So companies were given like targets and they had to reduce and they
would either like pay, you know,
Reduce the things that were causing
exactly the word cause.
So maybe they would put in scrubbers.
yeah, yeah, so Acid Rain Disappeared.
Like it used to be quite bad.
Uh, and it's, I don't know, maybe in some places it's like minor,
but it's not to the same extent
where, like, as it was in like the eighties and the nineties.
So that's all environmental policy that worked in the market
based mechanism that worked well.
Well, from a certain perspective, yes.
but for carbon, they like, for, there was a lot of like fraud too in the, in
the, in the European carbon markets.
Like there was fake credits being issued and also the targets
just weren't high enough because again, politicians are too scared.
So it did nothing.
So, so I guess, I guess the thing is, is something like that, uh, if it works for,
um, say acid rain or what, whatever it is, but it's, it's still a government coming
in and say, you have to do this, right?
So is, is there a scenario where the government doesn't come in and
do this, but companies will still,
only if they're like, Oh, I want to be distinguished myself and I think I will
gain more customers by saying I'm green.
Like there are, like there are companies, they're like, we are green.
And then you get people that are more affluent that are willing
to pay more money for that.
Like, right.
Because typically how that works, sorry, pollution is an externality, right?
Nobody, like it's, it's a flaw in the market because it hasn't been priced in.
So if I'm polluting, it's because there's no cost to me to pollute.
But if you attribute, so the reason why.
Usually there's some sort of environmental cost, whether it's fines or something,
it's to mitigate the behavior, um, or adjust the behavior of someone
like just polluting in a river.
Why, why doesn't, it's so cheap for me, I'm in a chemical plant, for me to throw
out these barrels, why don't I do that?
People do, sometimes, because they're like, There's no, no harm, like
in, in, especially in developing countries, there's no regulations,
there's maybe no fines or nor, nor, uh, no enforcement, right?
That's an externality, the pollution that's being dumped, but in,
typically in Canada or in the U.
S., there is quite a lot of,
like, high fines.
So,
let me, let
no, let me, because I got a very good point here, because like trying to do
this, solve, solve these problems by, by introducing like a carbon, um, tax or,
or like a carbon cap, it's sort of like putting a, uh, a bandaid on cancer because
the thing that makes it profitable to, you know, throw away all barrels and, and
do this all this destructive behavior.
What is fiat money?
Like if, if money is cheap, that's why we have over consumerism, like we
talked about before and wasted resources and all this overproduction of stuff.
So if we don't fix that problem, then everything else is just like trying to
force people into behaviors that when, when the, the, the, the bad behavior is
in the base layer, the bad behavior is, is what's financing the politicians to
solve the problems that is actually caused by the politicians by printing the money.
So it's like.
Like, fix the money, fix the world, as the expression goes.
I struggle to see how the, like, how sound money would stop people polluting though,
I do.
Because, if you know that you have money that will grow in value over
time, you're less likely to overconsume.
Okay, but that's just consumption, that doesn't, but,
no, but this is the thing.
My grandfather had a saying, that which you can do without your own.
Which means, if you can resist the urge to own something, you own that
thing, because you own the psychology, like you own your, your urge.
So, and I think in the long run, having absolutely sound money
leads more people to that insight.
So I think a, more and more people will become like Jack Mallers or Jack
Dorsey, who choose, who are billionaires, who choose to live very humble lives.
but I mean, Jack still takes, you know, he probably still drives a car,
he takes a private jet somewhere, um, and there's still, so you need
to produce, like, these things like jets and cars and fuel.
Like, he has a nice house.
Like, there's
still some level of consumption,
examples out of my
No, no, but I'm just saying, like, people will still consume, so you're
not gonna live on the beach nude, right?
Like, there's still gonna be some production somewhere, and the companies
are still gonna be incentivized.
Like, it's just so much cheaper for me to just chuck that over there.
Well, well, I don't think, I don't think people understand to which
extent fiat is causing these problems.
Like,
The Lemmy combination, devil's advocate, and address, I think,
the specific point you brought up.
It's in the wrong place.
This is where I actually think we've got a philosophical thing here, okay?
So, you're talking about the producers.
Usually the pollution is not at the consumer
not,
It's further upstream than
no, no, no, no, no.
But producers wouldn't produce stuff.
because there's less demand,
reason that producers produce stuff at all is because consumers want the stuff.
but wait, wait,
have to have food production,
Yes, but we're not always going to have.
aisles in the supermarket where, which have like 20 times the amount of food
that is actually necessary because you sell more food if you do like
that will not be the case on a Bitcoin standard or at least to a lower extent.
But those aren't necessarily the polluting industries.
Seriously, that, like, this is, this is, they're just, just, yeah.
So, so, is, is this part of the
Yeah, it's not, so, okay, so like, to build a house, right?
There's cement and steel that goes into that, right?
You need metals for, for car, all our electronics that make our lives, you
know, a little simpler, um, look at AI where it's growing, like there's mass
production of chips and, and units.
There, those, some of those industry, like, like if you look at rare earth
metals or, or when you're pulling out, you know, gold, gold mining is
quite environmentally destructive.
That's still going to be.
And I get it, maybe you're saying it'll be less, but there will always
be bad actors wherever you are.
And bad actors can include polluters.
And where I'm trying to get at is externality of pollution somehow
needs to be priced in and usually it's through regulation, right?
So I don't think there will, like, there will always be bad actors.
You need an incentive, some kind of incentive, and I don't know
what that incentive model is.
But government usually attaches a price to it because without
that price, they'll do it.
Well, okay.
Let me, let me take this argument because like here's If you look at the smartphone,
you have access to the internet.
You have access to all the world's media, all the world's books, all
the world's movies from your pocket.
Imagine now for instance, that, uh, this was, that everyone had the
same access to stuff 30 years ago.
That would require every single person to own all the DVDs or all
the VHS, and imagine the amount of resources that would go.
So, so the efficiency of the smartphone is insanely
Oh, we're getting better.
so.
But now you have like the 2 billion people that don't even have like power and stuff.
Now suddenly they're all
getting phones
do you know, this was a number I read in Seyfinin's Principles of Economics.
So do you know, if the earth was an Olympic sized swimming pool, do you know
how much of that swimming pool is quarries and mines where they extract metals?
Sorry.
I'm not, I'm confused though.
So, so if you have the entire earth and the, the part, it's
represented by an Olympic sized
are we talking about, like, the size of the mine relative
to the size of the earth, or?
the size of quarries and mines, total sum of quarries and mines on the entire globe.
I don't.
I'm sure it's small, but, but that's not where I'm getting.
I'm getting at like the pollution.
It's not by size.
It's still like the amount of metals that get released into.
Yeah, I get it.
that's just one
but, but it's like, it's three, three deciliters.
So in that pool, so, so, so we're not running out of resources in any, in
any, uh, like sensible sense of the word like they aren't rare or scarce like the
ones who sell them want you to believe that they're extremely scarce and finite
because that drives up the price it's like oh we're running out of oil and
It's just harder to get.
So there's a bigger cost,
right?
Like you get, you go for the cheapest
free market solves for that like the price goes up And, uh, and sure there
are extraction methods which are more damaging to nature than others.
Absolutely.
But the way to fix that is not by fixing, uh, it's not like the, the, the biggest
consumers of everything, every pollutant in the world are governments themselves.
Yes.
Look at the military industrial
the military industrial complex, that's the consensus mechanism of fiat.
It's the greatest polluter ever.
Nothing destroys the earth as world wars.
So that's them.
They're, they're the consumers.
They're the ones who are destroying the planet,
absolutely nothing productive
So if you, if you remove that, uh, then like Jack's, Jack whatever's private jet
is not really causing that much damage.
Even if, if, even if the manufacturer of the airplane is Boeing and it's
crappy at running the factory.
what I mean to say is like, there, you can't, I, maybe I'm cynical, but
I'm not going to rely on the goodness out of every producer's heart.
Like, they're not going to all just, oh, suddenly we're going to, Go to
the highest environmental standard.
Like if there's no regulation, they will, like, people want to optimize for doing
things like getting the most profit, whether that's in Bitcoin or in dollars.
So if there is no mechanism, like market signal, whether it's a cost, like whether
it's enforcement, cause I'm going to jail if I pollute, or it's a cost because I
have to like achieve a certain standard.
If you eliminate all these, I do think most people will just.
Chuck things because in the developing countries they do, right?
Yeah, but in the developing countries, they have even worse money than in the US.
Yeah,
to compare, but like,
we do.
That is the
to, but there is no utopia and I don't think we'll ever agree on this.
It's like flat earthers versus round earthers, because I
really don't think everyone will
Who's the
of the goodness, I think that's, you know, debatable, but I, I
don't think like, I really don't agree that people will not pollute.
It's
No, no.
Okay.
So, so
how do you manage it?
another angle then.
Okay.
You say it needs to be managed
Mm
because carbon is bad.
I'm not saying just carbon,
any pollution.
Any pollution is bad.
So who gets to decide what bad and good means?
government, well, hold on.
If it's killing other people because it's like toxic air emissions, then that's bad.
If it's leaching into water
and people are drinking it and animals are dying, like
absolutely.
That, that, I would agree that that's bad.
And most people would, so we don't have a disagreement there, but, but
I'm good, I'm good.
Here, I'm, I'm jumping in to, to, uh, calibrate you.
Uh, how would, how would you do it that, that, that, in, in, literally, our
anarcho capitalist libertarian paradise, that, that, that someone else has the
externality of, that, that, uh, yeah, okay, water, let's do water, easy one, how
do you stop company X from dumping stuff in the water that's gonna hurt the people
yeah,
Well, you, well, you need, there's clearly a crime there because
it's a property, property rights
mm hmm,
If I, if I pollute the water that, that you, uh, some other person
is utilizing, that, that's, that's a property rights violation.
Not a public good.
but, but most, that's the thing, like, okay, but hold on, so
you're saying you need some laws?
Absolutely.
Laws.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
But laws are, are not, uh, do not necessarily mean public laws.
Like they, they, they don't have to be enforced by the entity that has the
go shoot you because you killed my, because you killed my livestock?
No, I can only shoot you if you, if you shot a friend of mine,
No.
Okay.
But what I'm saying is, so you're polluting maybe his
private part of the river.
Like, so then like, how do you, like, you need something that
says, you know, Like usually it's government that says do not pollute,
there are countless pages of, uh, legal, uh, libertarian legal theory.
And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna like, uh, lay it all out here, but there are,
there are solutions to these problems.
And the first and foremost, I think that the conclusion that
the only way to do this is by.
Forced by forcing people to do this and that that is like, how are you so sure
that the way we're doing it now is more efficient than it would have been if
private property rights were the thing?
don't know, but like, I mean, so if you look at, so Trump came in, right?
And he relaxed a lot of regulation,
No, but he was a
regulists.
No, no, he's a
no, no, but
Stop interrupting.
what I'm saying is like, so there are parks that you couldn't, you know, do
resource extraction in, for example, and
maybe you disagree, but what I'm saying is as soon as you
relax things, they come in and, and they start to pollute on that land.
They start to extract the land.
Okay.
Argentina.
Right?
There used to be, like, 50 years ago, 70 percent of forests are now, like,
5%, and this is, like, public forest.
I don't think that's good.
We have lost, we are never gonna regrow the rainforest because it took,
like, thousands of years, hundreds of
years,
but everything you're describing is the result of crony
capitalism, not capitalism.
Because all of those things happen because, in the paradigm of
false money, money that could be counterfeited at will by the people
in power, all of these problems happen because of government intervention,
interventions, not despite them.
So, so, so, the government intervening on certain things that, oh, this wasn't
very good, that's just like, it's like letting the pedophile be the babysitter.
Like, it's like letting the arsonist be in charge of the fire brigade.
That's what it is.
pyros,
yeah,
we're all secret pyros, us firefighters, I
there's fire here.
maybe, yeah, maybe let's pull this off this topic because Knut
is just, he's literally just, he's going to argue this to
I know,
Yeah.
I'm never going to
isn't going to make for a good podcast if he keeps doing that.
So, um, so,
So let's bring it to, sorry, Luke, but let's bring it to, okay, let's
pretend that I think that reducing carbon is the, like a priority
that every person should have.
And I can, to some, to some degree agree to that, that I
have that personal opinion.
So, so let's just play pretend there for a while.
Yeah.
You had something?
oh, okay, well, no, I thought you were going to continue.
No, no, no, it's gonna like, oh, if we're gonna level this, so yeah,
I'm not, I'm not playing for, I have a tendency to always take the
devil's advocate position and stuff also, so like, that's part of it.
Sorry, Max.
That's okay.
Well, okay, so Knut segwayed us into this, uh, you know, the arsonist and
the firefighter and we were talking about it on the ride over here.
You're actually a firefighter
I'm a
Oh, yeah, yeah,
this is fun.
Yeah.
I live in a small town and one of the ways to like, it's really hard to
To make a friends or build community as an adult, I think, like, I don't
have kids maybe some day, but how do you meet people as an adult?
Most people already like have busy lives, right?
They have their kids they're taking care of.
So, and how do you build community?
And I think an, an easy way to do that is to join your local volunteer
fire department and also like learn some valuable life skills.
Like I'm, um, I'm licensed as a emergency management, sorry.
Yeah, like a first
First response,
It's below paramedics.
So, I mean, I think it's pretty valuable.
Like, I can, you know, like, you chop your arm off or something,
or you have a heart attack.
Like, I know how to respond to that.
That's, you know, your family, friends.
It's a, I think it's a, it's a good skill to have, or you get shot.
Like, you know, emergency wound packing.
So, that's one.
But also, like, first responders.
Fires are fucking cool.
You make it all sound so fun, like, oh, you got a gunshot wound!
Woohoo!
honestly, I get to play with big toys, like fire trucks.
I get to make cars into convertibles during training.
I get to break glass, like, so much fun breaking glass.
But like chopping cars, like, I don't know, I have this like destructive streak.
When you were a kid, didn't you like break sticks
or whatever?
Yeah, like, Yeah, so I get to do that.
Like a beautiful car.
Oh, sorry.
Chop, chop, chop, right?
It's fun.
I mean, obviously in the field, it's not always fun, but like, it's great
when like someone afterwards thanks you.
Like I had a really, you know, this is the worst day of my life.
Thank you very much.
Right.
Um, so some pretty cool stories, but like, Like, yeah, like going in a
burning building, like, especially during live fire training or even when
there's a fire, like you're watching like the fire just consume this.
It's just so cool.
So yes, there's, there's, it's, it's cool.
Speaking of wasting resources and being bad for the environment
funny because I'm like live.
So I had live fire training last year in Oliver, British Columbia.
And my favorite training ever was this, it's called a liquid fuel fire.
So they were mixing in a giant pan, that's probably like the size of
this room, jet fuel and diesel.
And the firefighters that were just pouring these barrels and are just like,
you, I had a picture of their faces.
They're like giddy.
They're like, and then they would light the sun fire six times an hour, like
a couple of times, you know, a day.
And.
The, the, the black smoke would go up 10 stories.
It's just funny because like, someone who came from Cardin, I'm
like, that's what we're doing.
But it is to like, it's training, right?
Like, sure, you can practice like a pretend liquid fuel fire, but to
see what you train in action, how it actually works, like the techniques
you use are like something else.
And also it's pretty freaking cool to see like this wall of fire.
There's nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning, or what's the quote?
there you go, there you go.
So yeah, no, I love it.
It's a way I've built like some of the closest relationships are
either like the wives of other firefighters or firefighters and
we've had each other's backs, right?
Like we're there, like on call, like literally.
And it's like, Oh, hey, can you help me move or whatever?
Yeah, we're there for you.
So, so it's, uh, and it's become part of my identity.
Yeah.
And actually it's neat too, because I, um, started, uh, I'm
part of a proof of workforce.
Uh, so Dom Bayes started that.
He's a firefighter in Santa Monica.
And what, well, what our mission is, is to, well, basically like bring
Bitcoin to pension funds, unions, um, especially, so we've have now, I
believe, four, For firefighter unions, that self custody, their own bitcoin.
And I think that's really important because as a firefighter, you actually
exposed to a lot of toxins, um, like carcinogens, even actually the fire, uh,
fighter gear that we wear because it's fire retardant, it's touching your skin.
You're actually getting a dose of carcinogenic, whatever, chemicals
every time you wear the suit.
So there is a high incidence of cancer among firefighters, uh, above average than
You guys, uh, as well as, you know, PTSD and suicide is pretty high, heart attacks.
So if I am a firefighter and I volunteer, either volunteering or getting paid
to do this as a job, I'm a volunteer, but some people get paid, right?
And we're putting ourselves in danger.
I want to make sure, especially if I'm getting paid, like this is my main
job, that if I put my life on the line, that my savings, That are supposed to
take me through the rest of my life, provide for my kids, aren't eroded a
way that I can retire because the worst thing is, is risking your life, hoping
that, you know, you're going to have something there and it just melted away.
So I think like bringing Bitcoin, whether it's to the union, who sometimes the
unions provide like health benefits or and whatnot to firefighters or for retirement.
Right?
They, that's going to be there when they expect it because they
undertook higher than average risks.
So I think like that, for me, that it's meaningful and why I helped participate
and some of the cool stuff, like we're, yes, it's bringing it to firefighters and
unions, but also like, it was really neat.
This, this, um, is it in March?
I think we actually met with the Schwarzenegger Institute,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, right?
Cause we started, we're just Orange pilling is staff, maybe down the road.
Arnold, imagine Arnold ever got into like Bitcoin, that'd be pretty
Stay humble.
Yeah, yeah, stocks, sats.
Sell all your chairs.
but I think like it's, it's neat, like the folks that you get to meet
and, and, uh, you know, in life and try to, uh, you know, align
sort of missions because Arnold is very, like, leaning towards Bitcoin.
Environmental protection.
So I think like there's, there's an alignment, but there's
always that misunderstanding that we always try to fight.
Did you meet him?
No, we didn't, but we met his staff, but I did go to his office and I
got to like, see all his props.
Um, you know, like it's pretty cool.
We got to hold his like sword, like Conan the Barbarian sword,
his guns from Terminator and stuff.
So all of us actually proof of work for us held some of the things.
We took a picture right in his office, like in his chair.
It was awesome.
It was pretty cool.
Oh,
No, sounds like, sounds like a great story.
And then, so, and I think we didn't actually cover how you got
into Bitcoin mining originally.
well, I think because I spent a decade working on low carbon economic
transition and electricity markets in government, it's a natural fit, right?
Because everyone's like, Oh, Bitcoin's killing the environment.
I'm like, actually not, it's helping fund.
Renewable infrastructure, it's lowering pollution through a
market based elegant mechanism.
So I think that's like, it's still, it very much connects with
Absolutely.
Yeah, exactly.
I think the common thread here be because I, I mean, yeah,
You're
you've, you've walked into Yeah, a pretty, a pretty on the narco
capitalist libertarian side.
This is, this is what
yeah, yeah, yeah,
kind of thing.
But, but I think, I think it's great to, you know, no, not everyone has
to be at that level on, on Bitcoin,
I know, I know.
I understand.
Like,
who will build the roads.
I can understand roads being built without government.
I just don't understand how you.
Okay, we're not, I'm
okay.
not going to get into that.
I just don't believe that people out of the goodness of their heart
are just going to not pull that one.
I have a harder time.
Like roads are needed,
No, no.
But yeah, and
But the, but the comment, the common thread here is that Bitcoin is
actually doing the thing through the, the market, the thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
yeah.
Absolutely.
And, uh, I totally agree there.
Like I, nothing is better for the environment than Bitcoin.
Like I, I, I made a video.
cleantech.
No, that's the title of, working title of my book.
And,
it is.
Oh, yeah.
and getting back, actually, so you had a comment about the industrial
military complex being one of the most environmentally destructive.
So
actually, one of the reasons, so, there's Bitcoin is cleantech from the
perspective of it's like, it's helping, like, clean the environment, you know,
go, uh, Lower carbon, but actually circling like further out, Bitcoin is
clean tech because what is clean tech?
Clean tech is you using resources more efficiently, lowering pollution, right?
Or in like social, improving social life.
And so when we use Bitcoin as um, There's, you know, store of
value or a medium of exchange,
right?
So what are we replacing?
Well, we're replacing the central system.
We're replacing the, the industrial military complex, right?
The whole war machine, Which is very environmentally destructive, um, to, with
a new system, uh, that's decentralized.
But also from the store of value perspective, traditionally we
have used gold and that is quite environmentally also, whether it's.
Practly, Simetra.
I don't make excuses, we're replacing that pollution and plutz, we're
replacing banking and payments.
They need the mangas now right?
So you're replacing the payment system.
So there's like multiple parts.
That now don't need to exist, that aren't polluting.
So that's why Bitcoin is clean tech, because it is a clean, just like,
you know, you're like coal versus biomass is considered clean tech.
It's like, no, Bitcoin itself as a technology is clean tech because
you eliminate a very polluting type of money and store of value.
Absolutely, and the biggest, the biggest factor is replacing
the consensus mechanism of fiat money, which is world wars.
Proof of bumps.
It's what it
I know it's pretty morbid.
it's, it's, it's absolutely horrible.
Like, there's no bigger crime than wars.
Yeah.
So, so, and I absolutely love that and I hear sometimes like, Oh, Bitcoin
is bad for the environment because it consumes as much energy as country X.
It doesn't know if you include the military complex.
Well, well, I would say that's a reason to shut down country X and not Bitcoin
Yeah.
Because
because that's the bigger, that's the, that's worse for the environment.
And the comparisons to the banking system as well.
No one ever makes the comparison that Bitcoin, uh, is, is, uh,
uses X, but the banking system, the entire banking system uses Y,
Yeah.
um, some people have done, there's been a few studies, I don't know if
they've ever been published yet in a peer reviewed article because that's
what seemingly like the public, like the New York Times or whatever cares about.
But if we do like, those are the types of studies that we actually need, right?
Yeah, and so, and so the book that you're going to be writing here is
going to take us through all of this,
Yeah.
So there's like the replacing of that and the impacts, but then also just going
through all the different case studies, like the Darwin Finchon's niches of
like, here's all the really cool projects and how they're bettering the world.
Yeah,
you're covering mining related, or
It's no, I want to focus.
I don't want to be like, there'll probably be a very short
description of like what mining is because there probably should be.
But that's not the point.
The point is to like, it's similar to when people say like,
oh, Bitcoin is useless, right?
And then you can talk about all the different things.
But like, um, all the different benefits that maybe Alex Gladstein,
like, whether it's the human rights or enabling access, like, he wrote some
pretty compelling books based on, like, conversations he's had around the world,
uh, with people that are like, you know, everything is fail money is failing.
And so, so, so like, no, it's not useless.
Here's all the things, right?
And he wrote some pretty cool books that I like to like, oh, Actually, there's this
book that I would like to direct you to.
I want the equivalent for mining, right?
Not the whole like what mining is and how it works.
It's like how it like Bitcoin is clean tech kind of thing.
what's it called, um, Check Your Financial Privilege?
I read that one, it's great.
It's based on like his articles, I guess, but it was great.
And he's written one after that, but about even more, the IMF and
yes.
Yeah.
That one is excellent.
So that's exactly like equivalent.
Like this is like, Oh, you know, Bitcoin is not useless.
Here's all the reasons why this is like, Bitcoin is not bad for the environment.
For those people that say it is, here's all the reasons why it's awesome.
We definitely need way more of this FUD debunking, basically, all the
arguments for why Bitcoin is bad,
But like, I find out like a blog, people maybe don't take it seriously,
but like a book, they might.
Yeah.
forward to this one, so,
What was the name of it again?
The working title is Bitcoin is clean tech.
Bitcoin is ClinTech.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a little bit controversial for some people, but
Well, when it's in the final form, you'll have to come
back and tell us all about it,
Bit.
Absolutely.
go.
is there anything else you wanted to bring up?
Anything else you're excited about or on your mind?
I mean, I think generally it's just the reason why some of us work in
Bitcoin is because we do see it like leading to a better world.
It sounds kind of cliche, but like, that's like, I get passionate
about it and my eyes light up.
Like I was working on custody for a
while too, but I just didn't, my eyes didn't light up in the same way as
when I talk about mining, because I actually, again, I worked in the
government and it wasn't working.
And then I actually see.
What miners are enabling, the types of things that we were
trying to enable in government.
And I'm like, yes, this is what I want to do.
And then like, you know, Atlanta did her, her, her movie, she released her movie.
And I, and I mean, I was in it, but I also watched, um, both that she did
stranded and then, uh, dirty coin.
Right.
And, and seeing, so I love when people video, uh, like have video
evidence of the good and like, here, here are kids that now have access
to electricity, like those stories.
Being told is incredible, right?
Or saving gorillas, like, I'm sorry, you don't want to save gorillas?
Because, like, the coolest story out of Africa, I think, is Virnga
National Park, which, um, would have probably, so, so they have gorillas
there, and they have rangers that protect them because there's poachers,
and it's not funded by government.
You're like, see, only 1 percent of their funding comes from government.
Most of it is tourism, but during COVID, like, Tourism died, right?
And now it's still, even though tourism could be back, it's a very unsafe
region because there's gangs there,
and they will literally shoot you and murder you like some of the mining workers
have been.
Mistake you for a gorilla.
No, no, they just like, we're going to try to steal whatever you have, right?
And so, The park director had the idea to use the local hydro to mine Bitcoin
and that is currently providing 150, 000 a month that is being used to pay park
rangers, right, to protect the gorillas.
I'm like, how beautiful is
that?
It's supporting like the build out of renewables plus gorillas and then
they're working on heat recovery for, um, they're making some chocolate, right?
They're drying cocoa beans, uh, in, in, in.
Like, on, on site from local farmers, I think it's just like, it's beautiful, like
heat recovery and, um, and yeah, that's, that's the stories that I think that we
need to tell to make normies understand.
Sorry, normies, that sounds weird, but you know what I mean?
Like, you don't tell them about, like, oh, yes, inflation sucks.
You're like, no, like, a powerful story is, like, us saving gorillas.
Yeah, norm, norm is not condescending.
It means normal person.
Yeah.
None of us are normal.
No, no,
have to be a freak
feel like you almost have to be like, I think in Bitcoin, because you need that
hyper focus to go down the rabbit hole.
laser eyes.
Laser eyes, yeah.
Max, fantastic to have you here.
Is there any way you want to direct our listeners?
Like some website?
I'm technically, not technically, I'm usually on Twitter,
crypto underscore mags.
I'm on Nostr too, but you can get there through Twitter, it's a lot easier.
Yeah, get on Nostr, people.
Like, subscribe and brush your teeth and get on Nostr.
Fantastic.
thank you
you so much for joining us.
This has been the Freedom Footprint Show.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you.