1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,120
Stefan, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

2
00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:04,860
Nice to have you here.

3
00:00:05,180 --> 00:00:05,840
Good to hear.

4
00:00:06,720 --> 00:00:08,480
Yeah, fantastic to have you here.

5
00:00:09,060 --> 00:00:11,420
I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time.

6
00:00:12,860 --> 00:00:25,000
So the first long format video I saw with you, I think it was the, you were on my friend Robert Breedlove's show doing a couple of episodes, right, on intellectual property and all of this.

7
00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:25,860
Correct.

8
00:00:25,860 --> 00:00:38,460
And yeah, I don't know how much you know about me and my background, but I fell into the whole Misesian rabbit hole somewhat at the same time as I fell into the Bitcoin rabbit hole.

9
00:00:38,820 --> 00:00:42,300
And I've been delving deeper and deeper ever since.

10
00:00:42,480 --> 00:00:46,040
I even wrote a beginner's book on praxeology here.

11
00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:46,780
I've seen that.

12
00:00:46,860 --> 00:00:47,880
Yeah, I did see that.

13
00:00:47,980 --> 00:00:49,800
Yeah, I was looking into that a few months ago.

14
00:00:49,800 --> 00:00:50,280
There we go.

15
00:00:50,280 --> 00:01:01,980
Yeah, so one of my goals with this book was to get to know some Mises Institute people, because I came to this completely from the Bitcoin angle.

16
00:01:01,980 --> 00:01:16,800
But I've been devouring Mises and Rothbard and Hoppe in particular, but not limited to and reading up on libertarian thought.

17
00:01:17,280 --> 00:01:19,080
And yeah, I just love it.

18
00:01:19,080 --> 00:01:33,100
Yeah, I find it interesting that there's a – I think most people get interested in Austrian economics because they're libertarians and people get into Bitcoin because they were libertarians and Austrians.

19
00:01:33,260 --> 00:01:36,340
But I think there's a subset of people that it's the other way around, right?

20
00:01:36,380 --> 00:01:43,520
Like they get interested in Bitcoin, so then they get interested in economics and then they become libertarians and Austrians and that kind of thing.

21
00:01:43,560 --> 00:01:44,520
I find that fascinating.

22
00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:48,740
Yeah, for me, I'd say it's a bit of both.

23
00:01:48,740 --> 00:02:04,280
I mean, I grew up in Sweden, and I was always freedom-oriented and, you know, understanding, having an intuition for how freedom is much more powerful than people think it is.

24
00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:26,320
But it wasn't right. And I'd heard of the Mises Institute and stuff, but I was unaware of the thought tradition and everything and didn't do the proper deep dive until basically Bitcoin and Seyfedin pushed me over the hump, so to speak.

25
00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:29,820
yeah so

26
00:02:29,820 --> 00:02:31,820
where would we start this

27
00:02:31,820 --> 00:02:33,880
like I see a lot of people

28
00:02:33,880 --> 00:02:35,480
online and a lot of people

29
00:02:35,480 --> 00:02:37,800
Bitcoiners too, specifically

30
00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:39,760
Bitcoiners who are unaware

31
00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:41,300
of how real

32
00:02:41,300 --> 00:02:42,960
Praxeology and

33
00:02:42,960 --> 00:02:45,880
the Austrian theory

34
00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:47,680
is, they think it's optional

35
00:02:47,680 --> 00:02:49,460
or they think that it's something

36
00:02:49,460 --> 00:02:51,800
you can have opinions about

37
00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:53,440
and I

38
00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:55,480
try my best to tell them like

39
00:02:55,480 --> 00:02:56,200
yeah but

40
00:02:56,320 --> 00:03:01,460
give me a good argument against first principles.

41
00:03:01,600 --> 00:03:05,580
Give me a good argument against one of the claims praxeology makes,

42
00:03:05,920 --> 00:03:07,660
and I never get a good answer out of them.

43
00:03:07,900 --> 00:03:09,440
So why do you think that is?

44
00:03:09,500 --> 00:03:13,080
Why do you think so many people have such a hard time

45
00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:18,080
grasping how real this branch of science really is?

46
00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:22,720
I think it's because it's been corrupted.

47
00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:35,220
I think in the last, say, 70 years or so, there was a sort of corruption of philosophy in the sense of and you hear about this now.

48
00:03:35,300 --> 00:03:41,300
People say that, oh, science proved with like Darwin and with relativity that we don't know anything.

49
00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:43,660
And then Kant, you know, we don't know anything for sure.

50
00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:45,060
We can't know anything real.

51
00:03:45,060 --> 00:03:58,020
And so your average person just sees this incomprehensible discipline of thinkers in philosophy. And it seems to be unscientific and all over the map, and you can't get anything from it.

52
00:03:58,020 --> 00:04:06,480
So there was a retreat to the hard sciences, the physics and chemistry because of all the successes in the early 20s science as the natural sciences.

53
00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:10,260
And they started dismissing the humanities and philosophy.

54
00:04:10,760 --> 00:04:23,700
And then economics was in this position where it was like a soft science of human action, trying to understand the implications of human action in the marketplace, right, in the human society sphere.

55
00:04:23,700 --> 00:04:44,760
And to jump onto this wave of pro-natural sciences in the 50s with Milton Friedman and positivism and things like that, it switched from the old type of soft science to pretend empirical science.

56
00:04:44,760 --> 00:04:58,700
So now it's dominated by people that the economic profession is dominated by people that do calculus and math and equations and plots and econometrics and trends and regression theorems.

57
00:04:58,700 --> 00:05:20,980
And I think that's basically pseudoscience. And also, I think the average person is bewildered by that, just like they were bewildered by philosophy before. And they just dismiss it because the so-called experts and most of the prominent economists are now prominent university professors or employed by the government, like the Fed of the chair or the Treasury secretary, people like that.

58
00:05:20,980 --> 00:05:25,120
And so they claim to know what they're doing, but then the economy is always in a shambles.

59
00:05:25,120 --> 00:05:26,800
So people just don't trust it. Right.

60
00:05:27,460 --> 00:05:37,560
Just like they're starting to not trust regular science with the with the way covid worked out and vaccines and the new skepticism of everything, everything institutional and authoritative.

61
00:05:37,820 --> 00:05:39,380
Everyone's questioning everything now.

62
00:05:40,060 --> 00:05:43,680
So I think that's the main reason is because they don't know who to trust and believe.

63
00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:48,960
And it's bewildering. And I think economics has been on the wrong track for 50 or 70 years.

64
00:05:48,960 --> 00:05:52,620
But economics is unavoidable

65
00:05:52,620 --> 00:05:58,760
The typical person needs to have an understanding of a lot of things in their life

66
00:05:58,760 --> 00:06:00,040
They need to understand facts

67
00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:03,440
They need to understand basic laws of cause and effect

68
00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:04,180
You know, gravity

69
00:06:04,180 --> 00:06:07,280
The fact that if you eat poison it will kill you

70
00:06:07,280 --> 00:06:09,620
You know, things like that

71
00:06:09,620 --> 00:06:13,740
You know, virtues like hard work leads to prosperity

72
00:06:13,740 --> 00:06:15,860
And laziness leads to the other things

73
00:06:15,860 --> 00:06:18,260
Honesty is a virtue because it helps you in society

74
00:06:18,260 --> 00:06:33,700
You know, common sense, things like that, and knowledge of math and language and reading and writing and grammar and history and the basic sciences is a useful thing, right, which is why the average educated person knows something about most of these things.

75
00:06:33,700 --> 00:06:38,360
And they know something about the market and transactions and finance.

76
00:06:38,360 --> 00:06:54,440
Okay, so that's why there's a need for economics as a way to understand the implications of that field of human life, which is market transactions, exchange and trade, because it's an important part of our lives.

77
00:06:54,440 --> 00:07:03,000
And so there's a need to understand it both on a common sense level and on a more systematic level as a theorist.

78
00:07:03,700 --> 00:07:08,900
So that's the need for economics, and I think that's the reason people need to understand praxeology.

79
00:07:09,060 --> 00:07:25,740
Now, I will confess that when I was a young, budding Austrian-interested person and libertarian, I was intrigued by all these concepts I read about, like epistemology and praxeology and ontology.

80
00:07:25,740 --> 00:07:36,380
But they all seem to me to be almost unnecessary made-up terms that are overcomplicating the issue that I didn't see any use in, any utility in.

81
00:07:37,660 --> 00:07:46,740
But over time, I started understanding why there's a field of philosophy about knowledge called epistemology and why it's not bullshit.

82
00:07:46,740 --> 00:08:02,300
And even ontology is like – it seems like a very nuanced thing, like we're splitting – it seems almost like armchair philosophy by grad students or something.

83
00:08:02,900 --> 00:08:11,000
But ontology and metaphysics and ethics and these are all branches of philosophy that study different parts of reality.

84
00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:15,140
And so ontology is the study of the basic types of things that exist.

85
00:08:15,140 --> 00:08:16,140
And even this is important.

86
00:08:16,140 --> 00:08:29,500
I don't think you need to know that on a day-to-day basis for the average person. But epistemology, you need to know something about how we can know what's good evidence, how we can know what's true, how can we reason to things, how can we trust our senses, that kind of thing.

87
00:08:29,500 --> 00:08:54,260
And praxeology, I used to think, was a throwaway term. Like, you could just describe all of economics without it. But – and I always – I also think that people, especially amateur theorists, and there's a lot of them now because there's people on Twitter with opinions that just – they're actually usually pseudonyms, so they don't even have a name.

88
00:08:54,260 --> 00:08:57,280
and they're not educated and they just had these theories.

89
00:08:57,940 --> 00:08:59,760
And then there's cranks, lots of cranks.

90
00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:02,280
And because of self-publishing, anyone can write a book now.

91
00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:07,900
So one thing I, one rule of thumb I've settled on in my life is that

92
00:09:07,900 --> 00:09:12,260
if someone comes up with a new term, they coin a new term,

93
00:09:13,340 --> 00:09:16,000
it's a red flag that they might be a crank.

94
00:09:17,340 --> 00:09:18,820
Now, there's exceptions.

95
00:09:19,160 --> 00:09:22,460
Like I would give Mises an exception because Mises coined,

96
00:09:22,460 --> 00:09:26,440
as far as I can recall, two terms. One is praxeology and the other is catalactics.

97
00:09:27,540 --> 00:09:30,700
And that's about all you can get away with if you're a super genius like Mises.

98
00:09:31,760 --> 00:09:36,040
But you understand why he came up with those terms. Now, there's others like Eric Vogelin

99
00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:41,500
and even Hayek. They come up with all these needlessly complicated terms like taxes and

100
00:09:41,500 --> 00:09:49,280
cosmos and things like this, which no one can remember or keep. So when you start coming up

101
00:09:49,280 --> 00:09:52,960
with your own vocabulary, it's a sign that you're a crank. Now, there are certain exceptions,

102
00:09:53,080 --> 00:10:00,100
right? Like Wittgenstein or world-class geniuses like Kant or Mises, give them a break. But anyone

103
00:10:00,100 --> 00:10:06,860
who comes up with too many terms, there might be a crank. All that said, I've come to appreciate

104
00:10:06,860 --> 00:10:14,760
praxeology. In fact, in my mind, I was really attracted to the, my favorite aspect of Austrian

105
00:10:14,760 --> 00:10:20,560
economics personally was always the epistemology and the methodology. My favorite book by Mises is

106
00:10:20,560 --> 00:10:25,040
his last one called The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science. It's very short. It's sort of

107
00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:31,720
like the culmination of his life's work on the understanding of what economics is, right?

108
00:10:33,020 --> 00:10:39,780
And it explains why the concept of praxeology is needed. So the word praxeology, for the average

109
00:10:39,780 --> 00:10:44,280
person, they can roll their eyes and just think that someone's talking gibberish. But really,

110
00:10:44,280 --> 00:10:58,900
It's just a word to describe one of these sciences, one of these systematic studies of a realm of phenomena in human life, just like biology is a field of systematic study of what biology covers.

111
00:10:58,900 --> 00:11:03,360
And in physics and chemistry are these fields, like mathematics is another field.

112
00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:04,760
History is another field.

113
00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:12,260
And praxeology studies the logic of human action, right?

114
00:11:12,260 --> 00:11:27,600
Which is just a formal way of saying, when we try to understand market phenomena, human cooperation, human production, things like this, the creation of wealth, market transactions, we're not looking at history.

115
00:11:27,860 --> 00:11:29,320
We're not looking at data.

116
00:11:29,520 --> 00:11:32,220
We're not looking at finance and entrepreneurship.

117
00:11:32,220 --> 00:11:41,820
We're looking at narrowly what are the implications of policies and human action in a world of scarcity because that's the world we all live in.

118
00:11:42,120 --> 00:11:49,460
That's the fundamental insight of economists and especially those like Mises and Hoppe is that we live in a world of scarcity.

119
00:11:49,460 --> 00:11:57,300
So the central insight of praxeology is that it's just simply to understand the nature of what it means to be a human and to act.

120
00:11:57,300 --> 00:12:06,600
Okay, this is something any person can understand, even if you just throw away the word praxeology, it's the inquiry into the nature of what it means to act.

121
00:12:06,600 --> 00:12:17,140
And what it means to act is to be purposive, to have a purpose, to have a goal in mind, to see the world around you, to understand that we live in the present.

122
00:12:17,620 --> 00:12:20,100
There was a recently past past.

123
00:12:20,540 --> 00:12:21,900
There's a future that's coming.

124
00:12:22,180 --> 00:12:22,980
We all know this.

125
00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:28,100
There's a world of facts around us and a world of materials around us, other people, other resources.

126
00:12:28,100 --> 00:12:34,140
there's things we know about the world causal laws laws of cause and effect recipes that we

127
00:12:34,140 --> 00:12:38,860
know we can use to make things happen how to make machines and how to catch a fish and how to cook

128
00:12:38,860 --> 00:12:45,000
we know all these things and so we're faced with the always we're faced with the choice what to do

129
00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:50,900
next that's what human action is is so we we see what's coming and we try to do something about it

130
00:12:50,900 --> 00:12:56,220
we try to interfere with the world interfering with the world means to act it means to use your

131
00:12:56,220 --> 00:13:01,060
body, which you can control, and to use that body to manipulate other things in the world that you

132
00:13:01,060 --> 00:13:06,760
can also control that can have an effect on changing the outcome of things, the course of

133
00:13:06,760 --> 00:13:12,420
history. And those things are called scarce means of action. These are scarce resources. So the world

134
00:13:12,420 --> 00:13:17,840
is full of scarce resources, which if you have knowledge, you can employ to make things happen.

135
00:13:18,440 --> 00:13:24,120
So the structure of human action is, which is what praxeology studies, is simply that we have,

136
00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:38,480
We are human actors that are imperfect. We live in a world of scarcity. We live in a world where the future is always coming, and we always have the necessity to make a decision about what to do next to increase our satisfaction in the world.

137
00:13:38,480 --> 00:14:02,514
And we do that by using our knowledge to manipulate our bodies to employ scarce resources that we think because of knowledge that we have about cause and effect that we think are causally efficacious at changing things So you can see that the key elements of human action are two things In addition to control and possession of your body right which is what it means to be a human actor or a human being with a body a corporeal body

138
00:14:02,973 --> 00:14:11,213
The two essential aspects of human action are you have a purpose in mind, but you have to achieve your purpose to act.

139
00:14:11,274 --> 00:14:12,774
You have to have knowledge.

140
00:14:13,553 --> 00:14:15,073
You have to know something about the world.

141
00:14:15,154 --> 00:14:15,913
You can't be a vegetable.

142
00:14:15,913 --> 00:14:23,854
You have to know what can achieve your ends, what ends are possible, what ends you want to achieve, what means can achieve those ends.

143
00:14:23,933 --> 00:14:29,333
You have to have knowledge, technical knowledge, and you have to have available means you can use to achieve your outcome.

144
00:14:29,473 --> 00:14:40,193
So it's a combination of these two things, knowledge and scarce resources that combine to result in an output, in action.

145
00:14:40,994 --> 00:14:44,333
And then it's either successful or it's not successful, right?

146
00:14:44,333 --> 00:14:49,014
Either you achieve what you want to achieve or you don't, or you might achieve it and then you're dissatisfied.

147
00:14:49,254 --> 00:14:51,854
But ahead of time, you thought it would achieve what you wanted to achieve.

148
00:14:51,994 --> 00:14:57,553
So that's called. So all these basic categories of economics are implied in that basic common sense story.

149
00:14:58,134 --> 00:15:10,453
Profit and loss, opportunity, cost, means, cost, success, failure, happiness, dissatisfaction.

150
00:15:10,553 --> 00:15:12,593
All these things are implied in what it means to act.

151
00:15:12,593 --> 00:15:21,593
So it's just the verbal and logical and reasonable unpacking of this that is what the core of economic analysis is.

152
00:15:22,053 --> 00:15:25,614
And any intelligent human can understand that, I believe.

153
00:15:26,173 --> 00:15:32,673
And then it's the more sophisticated unpacking of that and development of that, which is what Austrian economics is.

154
00:15:32,673 --> 00:15:47,994
And then modern economics took kind of that basic framework and they started changing it to an empirical discipline where instead of having that rational understanding of how humans act, they started trying to do what physicists do.

155
00:15:47,994 --> 00:16:02,654
And they say, let's just hypothesize a law and then come up with an experiment to test it and see if it's right or wrong. That's logical positivism. And I think that that's largely misguided. And that's – anyway, so that's sort of my –

156
00:16:02,673 --> 00:16:12,854
how I view economics and its relationship to human action, human life, and the other disciplines like philosophy, law, math, business, finance, etc.

157
00:16:13,634 --> 00:16:21,374
Yeah, if I look back on my school years, I remember like the harder the science, the more I like the subject,

158
00:16:21,634 --> 00:16:27,413
because basically because it meant I just had to understand stuff and I didn't have to do a lot of homework.

159
00:16:27,413 --> 00:16:31,173
It was all about understanding instead of memorizing shit.

160
00:16:31,173 --> 00:16:55,833
And the softer the sciences and the more I got into the social sciences, it was more about remembering stuff, memorizing stuff, and also about things that, you know, if you have an inquisitive mind, you're in this wait-but-why mode all the time, and they tell you why it's important to vote, but they don't really explain why, and so on and so forth.

161
00:16:55,833 --> 00:17:04,533
And once you stumble upon praxeology, you realize that there is a hard science for the social sciences.

162
00:17:04,694 --> 00:17:10,754
There is actually a way to do this, a methodology that works, that is as robust as mathematics.

163
00:17:11,494 --> 00:17:17,133
Like it is to the subjective what mathematics is to the objective in a sense.

164
00:17:17,133 --> 00:17:45,033
And that's a holy shit. That was a truly light bulb moment for me because it sort of proved that what I learned, I had to unlearn everything of the social sciences because I realized that it was truth. It was just opinion. It was just tailored to suit the people who paid for the whole thing to have me brainwashed in a way.

165
00:17:45,033 --> 00:17:48,133
I mean, this takes a long time to get to that conclusion.

166
00:17:48,434 --> 00:17:48,934
But yeah.

167
00:17:49,014 --> 00:17:49,154
Yeah.

168
00:17:49,273 --> 00:18:04,873
And what I've noticed is that a lot of very smart people or moderately smart people, they sense that there's this chaos and confusion and this pointlessness to philosophy and all the official opinions they hear.

169
00:18:05,053 --> 00:18:08,174
So they just throw it all away and they retreat to what you did.

170
00:18:08,214 --> 00:18:09,573
Like they retreat to the sciences.

171
00:18:09,573 --> 00:18:10,734
They say, OK, here's what I know.

172
00:18:10,813 --> 00:18:12,954
Technology works and physics works.

173
00:18:12,954 --> 00:18:25,813
But it leads to a sort of anti-intellectualism among some people, and it also leads to – because they're impatient, they also don't want to have no answers to the bigger questions that science just can't answer.

174
00:18:26,073 --> 00:18:32,553
Like, I don't know, is there a god and free will and what's the purpose of life and politics and the softer things?

175
00:18:32,873 --> 00:18:37,013
So they try to reduce it like the economists do.

176
00:18:37,113 --> 00:18:41,373
They try to reduce it to a scientific question, but of course that can't work.

177
00:18:41,373 --> 00:18:49,533
So you can't just say, well, let's just do an experimental. Let's just – let's look at – we saw this in COVID. Like, look, what does the data say? What is it? They always talk about the data.

178
00:18:49,654 --> 00:19:03,533
And they just fail to understand that just even the very scientific method itself, which is what people retreat to when they're logical positivists or empiricists, that itself is not a testable scientific theory.

179
00:19:03,533 --> 00:19:20,454
In other words, assuming that the only meaningful scientific statements are those that are falsifiable and subject to experimentation, that assumption, which underlies all of physics and the hard sciences, that assumption itself is sort of a pre-scientific assumption.

180
00:19:20,714 --> 00:19:22,454
It can never be proved or disproved.

181
00:19:22,833 --> 00:19:26,313
So you can see how philosophy is at the base of science.

182
00:19:26,434 --> 00:19:27,873
It's more fundamental than science.

183
00:19:27,873 --> 00:19:32,793
But people don't have the time for that, and they've thrown away philosophy, so they just ignore that problem.

184
00:19:32,793 --> 00:19:34,234
and they move on.

185
00:19:35,093 --> 00:19:42,593
I love that because that reminds me of a part of my favorite Austrian economics book,

186
00:19:42,593 --> 00:19:47,593
which is Economic Science and the Austrian Method by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

187
00:19:48,754 --> 00:19:51,133
It's so dense and so beautifully written.

188
00:19:51,613 --> 00:19:58,254
And there's a passage in that where he explains that the empiricist's claim is that we cannot

189
00:19:58,254 --> 00:20:00,573
know anything to 100% certainty.

190
00:20:00,573 --> 00:20:06,313
We can only like get closer to the truth, but never get to an absolute truth.

191
00:20:06,914 --> 00:20:13,573
But what the empiricist doesn't realize is that that statement is in itself an absolutist statement.

192
00:20:13,853 --> 00:20:14,133
Correct.

193
00:20:14,333 --> 00:20:16,013
So it's self-contradictory.

194
00:20:16,593 --> 00:20:19,513
And that was just such a mind-blowing.

195
00:20:19,894 --> 00:20:21,113
And Mises said this.

196
00:20:21,273 --> 00:20:22,154
So Mises and Hoppe.

197
00:20:22,234 --> 00:20:24,013
Hoppe says that in that small pamphlet.

198
00:20:24,273 --> 00:20:29,714
And Mises says that also in, I think, in Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science and probably elsewhere.

199
00:20:29,714 --> 00:20:31,394
So yet they both saw the same thing.

200
00:20:33,954 --> 00:20:34,513
Yeah.

201
00:20:34,773 --> 00:20:49,254
And Hoppe is just like sort of underlining how or highlighting how right Mises was and like how he, the action is the bridge between the subjective and the objective and all of these beautiful insights.

202
00:20:49,254 --> 00:21:11,414
I think that was one of Hoppe's biggest contributions was to sort of extend and bolster Mises because Mises has long been criticized by like the objectivists and Randians because the Randians had this understandable aversion to Kant.

203
00:21:11,414 --> 00:21:21,773
Okay. It's understandable for two reasons. Number one – well, the primary reason is Kant was a little bit murky of a writer and kind of inscrutable.

204
00:21:22,113 --> 00:21:30,273
And there has been a whole Kant industry after him. There's so many interpretations of him.

205
00:21:30,674 --> 00:21:37,994
But one of the interpretations is this sort of skeptical or relativist idea that we can't know anything for sure because we don't know the real world.

206
00:21:37,994 --> 00:21:55,813
And if you take that interpretation, which people like Hoppe have argued is not really the only or the best interpretation of Kant, that there's a more realist interpretation of Kant, which is compatible with the realist view of the world, which the objectivists are in favor of.

207
00:21:56,734 --> 00:22:00,573
But that was more of a continental or European interpretation of Kant.

208
00:22:00,573 --> 00:22:06,333
In the American side, there was a more skeptical interpretation of Kant.

209
00:22:06,333 --> 00:22:13,194
And I think if you take that interpretation of Kant, you can understand why the Randians rejected him.

210
00:22:13,373 --> 00:22:17,853
But it has led them to have this knee-jerk hostility towards even the Kantian language.

211
00:22:17,853 --> 00:22:28,593
So Mises adopted just a very tiny part of Kant, and that is his language and concepts and terminology, the categories, right?

212
00:22:28,654 --> 00:22:34,974
Like a priori and a posteriori, synthetic and analytic knowledge.

213
00:22:35,873 --> 00:22:50,333
But Mises was ultimately a realist, and by realist, I mean Mises did not deny – he did not employ Kant's concepts like some American philosophers may have to say that we can't know anything about the world.

214
00:22:50,333 --> 00:22:59,414
To the contrary, Mises was just trying to find a useful vocabulary to describe human action and praxeology.

215
00:22:59,414 --> 00:23:14,773
So he's talking about different types of knowledge, scientific knowledge, empirical knowledge, and knowledge of more fundamental things like a priori concepts, things you can't – things that you would basically contradict yourself if you deny.

216
00:23:14,773 --> 00:23:33,454
And ironically, Ayn Rand herself also believed in certain fundamental categories that are undeniably true. She called them axioms, a little bit eccentrically called them axioms, like the idea that there is existence, that there's consciousness.

217
00:23:33,454 --> 00:23:57,813
The basic things that you can't even deny without accepting them as true, which is also a method Hoppe used ethically in his argumentation ethics, like to say that you can't object to basically self-ownership and private property rights because they're presupposed by the normative presumptions of argumentation itself.

218
00:23:57,813 --> 00:24:11,133
So that's his argument there. And then Mises, of course, used something similar with his opriary categories. And Rothbard, of course, which I'm sure you've read, is an interesting hybrid example because he was influenced by Rand and he was a Thomist and an Aristotelian.

219
00:24:11,133 --> 00:24:19,613
But he didn't have this hangup with Mises using the Kantian concepts to describe economics and praxeology.

220
00:24:20,253 --> 00:24:28,493
But he did sort of give a more – he tried to show that there's – they can be understood in the Aristotelian terminology or framework.

221
00:24:28,493 --> 00:24:51,093
I do think that – anyway, what I was going to say was this criticism of Mises that he is contributing to relativism and Kantian skepticism because of his use of their terminology and also because of the Randians' eccentric use of the word value and subjective.

222
00:24:51,093 --> 00:25:06,753
They mean the word subjective to mean this Kantian idea, according to them, that we can't know anything for sure, that everything is just subjective to the person.

223
00:25:06,753 --> 00:25:09,753
Like the reality you're seeing is not the real reality.

224
00:25:09,853 --> 00:25:11,214
That kind of thing is subjective to you.

225
00:25:11,214 --> 00:25:21,993
So now Mises meant the concept of subjectivism to mean that value is an implication of teleology or human action.

226
00:25:21,993 --> 00:25:25,414
It just explains why you're acting.

227
00:25:25,714 --> 00:25:30,414
You chose this means to achieve that end because that's what you preferred.

228
00:25:30,734 --> 00:25:31,474
You valued it.

229
00:25:31,674 --> 00:25:35,253
That is not subjective in the skeptical sense at all.

230
00:25:35,454 --> 00:25:37,194
It's just a different use of the term.

231
00:25:37,194 --> 00:25:49,293
So the point is you have this sort of uncomfortableness with Mises by some libertarians because of this – his baggage with Kant.

232
00:25:49,293 --> 00:26:14,853
But Hoppe in that pamphlet, Economic Science and the Austrian Method, he points out that, look, if you actually deeply understand the implications of Mises and praxeology, he was showing that praxeology is the bridge, as you were just alluding to, I think, is the bridge between your personal experience of the world, which I mean Kant might call the nuomenal world or phenomenal.

233
00:26:14,853 --> 00:26:25,633
I always get them confused. And the outside world, like it's because to achieve an end, you have to employ a means that actually is causally efficacious, which is why I used that word earlier.

234
00:26:26,293 --> 00:26:34,573
A means has to be causally efficacious. In other words, it has to comply with the real world laws of cause and effect to achieve something.

235
00:26:34,573 --> 00:26:47,133
This is why like a rain dance is not really hardly a real action. Like if you do a rain dance to make it rain, you're not really using a means that is going to make it rain. So if you have knowledge.

236
00:26:47,133 --> 00:26:55,474
Well, you think you are. You think you are. You're just failing to reach your end because your means were insufficient.

237
00:26:55,474 --> 00:27:03,113
Yeah, and economics, I think a rigorous understanding of economics helps you understand what's going on there.

238
00:27:03,113 --> 00:27:07,873
Like why is this guy – now, you might have a guy doing a rain dance in a movie.

239
00:27:07,993 --> 00:27:10,273
He's an actor. He doesn't believe it or someone doing it for fun.

240
00:27:10,333 --> 00:27:16,914
But someone really who did that 300 years ago might have falsely believed that that was one way to make it rain.

241
00:27:17,353 --> 00:27:19,313
So that explains why he would do it.

242
00:27:19,313 --> 00:27:22,914
it also explains why he would have a loss, right?

243
00:27:22,974 --> 00:27:24,674
Why his effort would go to waste

244
00:27:24,674 --> 00:27:26,833
because he wouldn't achieve the outcome desired.

245
00:27:28,414 --> 00:27:31,293
So I'm getting an image in my head here.

246
00:27:31,394 --> 00:27:33,073
I haven't thought of it this way before,

247
00:27:33,174 --> 00:27:37,914
but could one say that the end is subjective

248
00:27:37,914 --> 00:27:39,113
because it's in your head?

249
00:27:39,674 --> 00:27:41,394
The means is objective

250
00:27:41,394 --> 00:27:54,907
because it something in the real world something physical And if the action is successful then you reach your end meaning that you successfully bridged the subjective and the objective

251
00:27:54,907 --> 00:28:03,427
But you only successfully bridged it if you didn't do the rain dance,

252
00:28:03,507 --> 00:28:06,747
you did whatever, geoengineering or something instead.

253
00:28:07,107 --> 00:28:08,927
That actually led to it raining.

254
00:28:08,927 --> 00:28:10,487
I mean, so.

255
00:28:11,307 --> 00:28:12,027
Well, let's think about that.

256
00:28:12,187 --> 00:28:13,107
Let's think about that.

257
00:28:13,187 --> 00:28:13,787
That's interesting.

258
00:28:14,007 --> 00:28:20,467
I think that the means and the end both have a hybrid aspect.

259
00:28:20,787 --> 00:28:23,047
They both have an objective and a subjective component.

260
00:28:23,187 --> 00:28:23,707
And here's why.

261
00:28:24,467 --> 00:28:26,927
So let's take the means, the rain dance, for example.

262
00:28:27,407 --> 00:28:35,007
So it's subjectively viewed as a means because you actually falsely believe that it will cause rain.

263
00:28:35,327 --> 00:28:35,567
Okay.

264
00:28:36,327 --> 00:28:38,047
So that's the subjective aspect.

265
00:28:38,047 --> 00:28:56,767
But the objective aspect is that it really won't. Right. So things work a certain way. So it really won't cause the rain to happen. So there's a there's a combination aspect to the nature of that means. Right. It's regarded as a means because of the subjective perspective of the actor.

266
00:28:56,767 --> 00:29:09,767
And by the way, Hoppe also has another related comment in – I think it's in A Theory of Socialism, Capitalism, and also maybe repeated in Economic –

267
00:29:09,767 --> 00:29:11,627
ESAM.

268
00:29:11,627 --> 00:29:32,387
No, the second book, EEPP, his second English language book, EEPP. I've got it on his website. But he's got a long passage where he talks about the character of goods as not being – there's no – just like there's no intrinsic value in things, which is another false belief of modern economics and of Marxism too.

269
00:29:32,387 --> 00:29:40,027
By the way, this idea that the value of a product is an objective characteristic based upon the labor put into it, that kind of stuff.

270
00:29:41,387 --> 00:29:46,807
But the characteristic of a good as being a good – and this, by the way, relates to Bitcoin, which maybe we can get to.

271
00:29:47,907 --> 00:29:49,827
Oh, and I wanted to say, I have your pin.

272
00:29:49,947 --> 00:29:55,247
I have your infinity over – what's it?

273
00:29:56,527 --> 00:29:57,347
21M.

274
00:29:57,647 --> 00:29:57,967
Yeah, yeah.

275
00:29:57,967 --> 00:30:00,327
I have that pin and a T-shirt too.

276
00:30:00,427 --> 00:30:01,887
I'm just aware of it for an interview, but I forgot.

277
00:30:01,887 --> 00:30:04,267
Yeah, I've got that.

278
00:30:04,527 --> 00:30:05,727
Yeah, I saw the T-shirt.

279
00:30:06,027 --> 00:30:07,727
You didn't buy my ones, though.

280
00:30:07,847 --> 00:30:12,487
You bought the – but I don't believe in intellectual property just like you.

281
00:30:12,487 --> 00:30:14,767
I bought the one.

282
00:30:14,967 --> 00:30:16,367
I could buy yours.

283
00:30:16,587 --> 00:30:20,047
The problem is I started to understand – I was asking, why did you use that?

284
00:30:20,987 --> 00:30:28,447
And you explained, well, it's sort of a signaling method to tell the people that you know that you get it with Bitcoin,

285
00:30:28,447 --> 00:30:32,187
but without telling the kidnappers to kidnap me.

286
00:30:32,787 --> 00:30:33,247
But I think –

287
00:30:33,247 --> 00:30:33,867
It's a good object.

288
00:30:34,287 --> 00:30:35,347
I don't even want to wear that.

289
00:30:35,427 --> 00:30:38,347
I'm afraid to wear it even that, to be honest, because I don't want to be kidnapped.

290
00:30:39,107 --> 00:30:41,287
I don't want people to think they should kidnap me.

291
00:30:41,347 --> 00:30:42,227
I don't have any Bitcoins.

292
00:30:42,527 --> 00:30:43,727
I'm just a theoretician.

293
00:30:44,407 --> 00:30:45,387
So, yeah, yeah.

294
00:30:45,567 --> 00:30:45,827
Go on.

295
00:30:45,867 --> 00:30:53,507
But I was going to say, so Hoppe, there's another comment he makes in his second book,

296
00:30:54,007 --> 00:30:58,047
is that there's no – it's about the public goods.

297
00:30:58,047 --> 00:31:00,707
It's like some people say there's public goods, and that's why we need the state.

298
00:31:00,807 --> 00:31:07,587
He's like, well, there's no such thing as a public good, just like there's no such thing as a capital good in the sense of its intrinsic characteristic.

299
00:31:08,647 --> 00:31:13,887
What a good is depends upon the way it's valued by a given actor, right?

300
00:31:14,067 --> 00:31:22,527
So it's characteristic as being public or private or being a consumer good or a capital good or being a bad.

301
00:31:22,527 --> 00:31:34,367
It could be a bad. Like, you know, if oil, if I have a big ranch and oil starts bubbling up, it might be a nuisance to me. It might be a bad, not be a good because I might not want to sell. I might not know I can use the oil.

302
00:31:35,427 --> 00:31:44,387
So nothing is intrinsic characteristic. It's the way they're valued. By the same token, when you have something you're aiming at in the future.

303
00:31:45,287 --> 00:31:47,027
So we'll get back to this hybrid concept.

304
00:31:47,707 --> 00:32:04,067
So when you aim at a future, when you act, you're actually trying to, I have a blog post on this where I characterize, I envision people as little gods because every time you act, you're trying to basically create, you're trying to change the future universe that would otherwise come.

305
00:32:04,147 --> 00:32:08,267
So you're trying to go from universe A to universe A prime or universe B.

306
00:32:08,267 --> 00:32:12,827
but of course that might be incompatible with what other people are doing which is why

307
00:32:12,827 --> 00:32:17,727
in competition only sometimes one person can win right i mean this is this is all fascinating stuff

308
00:32:17,727 --> 00:32:23,927
yeah it might be literally true if we're if the multiverse theory in quantum mechanics is true

309
00:32:23,927 --> 00:32:29,627
and we actually create a new uh an infinite amount and now you're now you're now you're

310
00:32:29,627 --> 00:32:33,947
giving support to all the people that think that modern philosophy is relativistic and we can't

311
00:32:33,947 --> 00:32:41,107
know anything uh yeah i'm necessarily i know i'm still doing it in one specific universe yeah i'm

312
00:32:41,107 --> 00:32:47,907
a big skeptic of quantum theory and uh all that stuff but uh uh even even of relativity uh special

313
00:32:47,907 --> 00:32:54,447
relativity i i'm i i personally i'm of the opinion that peter beckman was right that um

314
00:32:54,447 --> 00:33:01,147
that the speed of light is not is not independent of the observer but um anyway that's yeah i don't

315
00:33:01,147 --> 00:33:02,007
I don't know what's up.

316
00:33:02,167 --> 00:33:05,167
That's a good subject for another pod at another time.

317
00:33:05,307 --> 00:33:05,527
It is, yeah.

318
00:33:05,707 --> 00:33:12,487
But I think that the name of the book you're looking for is The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, I think.

319
00:33:12,867 --> 00:33:14,527
Yeah, EEPP, yeah, yeah, yeah.

320
00:33:15,527 --> 00:33:25,507
So, yeah, I want to try to steer this conversation into a specific direction because there's a thought behind the madness here.

321
00:33:25,507 --> 00:33:32,247
And yeah, so we've covered means and ends and property and subjective and objective.

322
00:33:32,707 --> 00:33:35,207
Real quick, real quick, let me interrupt just a second.

323
00:33:35,707 --> 00:33:38,707
And let me mention why I would mention something and then you can get back to this if you want to.

324
00:33:39,087 --> 00:33:49,307
The reason I mentioned Hoppe and his insight into the subjective analysis of what a good is, is I think it plays a role in this fungibility debate with Bitcoin.

325
00:33:49,447 --> 00:33:52,647
People say Bitcoins are fungible because they're different.

326
00:33:52,647 --> 00:34:04,227
In a sense, nothing in the world is fungible. Even if you have gold, every atom is unique. It's just that we subjectively decide to ignore those similarities.

327
00:34:04,227 --> 00:34:24,767
And so the very concept of a good that is something that has a homogenous supply, that very concept of something that is a good that has a homogenous supply presupposes that people that regard it as that subjectively ignore the – they ignore certain aspects of it and they treat other things.

328
00:34:24,767 --> 00:34:31,047
So for their purposes, gold is sufficiently homogenous and fungible.

329
00:34:31,387 --> 00:34:34,807
So fungibility is a subjective phenomenon.

330
00:34:34,967 --> 00:34:38,327
So when people say Bitcoin is not fungible, well, nothing is fungible.

331
00:34:38,967 --> 00:34:44,687
I mean, it's only a question about – it's sort of like could Bitcoin be money?

332
00:34:45,127 --> 00:34:50,927
Anything can be money if people regard it as a homogenous supply of divisible units.

333
00:34:51,487 --> 00:34:52,907
And what they can be – yeah.

334
00:34:52,907 --> 00:34:54,427
So anyway, let's go back.

335
00:34:54,767 --> 00:35:01,627
I love this because this is one of the reasons I wanted to have you on, because you can express this so clearly.

336
00:35:02,467 --> 00:35:04,967
And it's totally in line with my thinking.

337
00:35:05,207 --> 00:35:07,027
I have this in one of my books.

338
00:35:07,087 --> 00:35:11,767
I don't remember which one, but like pointing out how fungibility is in the eye of the beholder.

339
00:35:12,487 --> 00:35:16,147
And in the Praxeology book as well, of course, homogeneity.

340
00:35:16,687 --> 00:35:19,647
Like, well, who's to say what constitutes a homo?

341
00:35:19,847 --> 00:35:23,647
That's why there's apples and oranges on the cover here.

342
00:35:23,647 --> 00:35:27,907
So the orange is in Bitcoin orange, but that's the only.

343
00:35:28,107 --> 00:35:29,467
They're both fruits.

344
00:35:29,687 --> 00:35:30,607
I mean, they're both fruits.

345
00:35:31,287 --> 00:35:35,067
I mean, what's the class or the category, right?

346
00:35:35,187 --> 00:35:35,367
Yeah.

347
00:35:35,367 --> 00:36:05,087
So one of the latest interests of mine in praxeology is the difference between law and ethics and natural law and how natural law is actually true and how that, like the foundation of that, why the non-aggression principle, because I've seen people argue online that the non-aggression principle doesn't work because there are psychopaths and stuff.

348
00:36:05,087 --> 00:36:22,307
And I try to tell them that, no, the non-aggression principle does work because there are psychopaths. Like, if there's a psychopath, the non-aggression principle can tell you what an appropriate response to the crime is and how much retaliation that is ethically tolerated and stuff.

349
00:36:22,307 --> 00:36:38,307
But so what are the foundations of that? And yeah, Hoppe's argumentation ethics, we can go deeper into that too, like the layers below it.

350
00:36:40,447 --> 00:36:50,227
The argumentation ethics thing is, the conclusion is sort of that you own your own body, but you show that you do by controlling it.

351
00:36:50,227 --> 00:36:55,207
So is control really ownership or is ownership something?

352
00:36:55,467 --> 00:36:56,667
What's the difference here?

353
00:36:56,927 --> 00:36:58,867
Ownership, possession, control.

354
00:36:59,107 --> 00:37:01,107
What are the differences between the words?

355
00:37:01,427 --> 00:37:05,467
Yeah, I think to make progress in these fields, I found that.

356
00:37:06,107 --> 00:37:09,467
So the way I look at it, maybe a high level, high level view is.

357
00:37:11,687 --> 00:37:19,307
There's been progress in humanity over the centuries, the millennia, and it's because there's been a sort of social aspect to humans, right?

358
00:37:19,307 --> 00:37:40,027
We're social creatures. That's the way we developed. We evolved that way, which means that there's a certain natural dynamic. There's a reason people live together. Number one, that's how we procreate. We happen to live in that to each other. But given that we do, there are certain, you know, that's how the species propagates.

359
00:37:40,027 --> 00:37:52,907
But the way we developed, so we've – there's a logic to it. There's a reason. There's a rational reason that people want to be with each other in trade, division of labor, all that kind of stuff.

360
00:37:52,907 --> 00:38:08,807
But there's also just human empathy as part of our development. So people naturally – so it's natural that a species and each individual member of it has values and they act. They value their own life. You have to have self-preservation as your core value.

361
00:38:10,027 --> 00:38:13,027
But we're not all completely sociopaths.

362
00:38:13,167 --> 00:38:15,247
We happen to value other people.

363
00:38:15,347 --> 00:38:16,047
We love other people.

364
00:38:16,147 --> 00:38:17,767
We want to be around other people.

365
00:38:18,127 --> 00:38:19,547
We value the species itself.

366
00:38:19,647 --> 00:38:22,747
We value our life and the human race's life.

367
00:38:23,047 --> 00:38:26,007
So we have these values that are all related.

368
00:38:26,807 --> 00:38:30,407
So, you know, you don't live only for your own life, but you value.

369
00:38:30,587 --> 00:38:33,147
So when someone else is, you want other people to do well, too.

370
00:38:33,307 --> 00:38:37,267
You might not value them as highly as yourself, but you do value them to some degree, which

371
00:38:37,267 --> 00:38:42,587
is why I think there's a possibility of society and why we're not always fighting with each other.

372
00:38:42,807 --> 00:38:46,907
And then you have the virtues arise, like honesty, integrity, independence,

373
00:38:47,987 --> 00:38:54,407
character becomes important, and then law emerges. Now, because we live in a world of scarcity,

374
00:38:55,607 --> 00:39:00,427
there's always the possibility of conflict, right? So the benefit of living with other people is you

375
00:39:00,427 --> 00:39:05,467
get to live with other people, and also you get to trade, and you can benefit from the division

376
00:39:05,467 --> 00:39:06,887
and the specialization of labor.

377
00:39:07,327 --> 00:39:09,427
But then you have the possibility of conflict.

378
00:39:09,427 --> 00:39:12,207
That is a violent clash with someone over your bodies,

379
00:39:13,347 --> 00:39:14,487
like rape or murder,

380
00:39:15,167 --> 00:39:19,527
or over your own, your resources that you use in the world.

381
00:39:19,647 --> 00:39:21,787
So these resources that you need to employ,

382
00:39:21,787 --> 00:39:26,987
like land and food and animals and tools, things like that.

383
00:39:27,547 --> 00:39:30,227
So because of this possibility of violent conflict

384
00:39:30,227 --> 00:39:35,107
and because people happen to have certain commonly shared values

385
00:39:35,107 --> 00:39:44,727
For the most part, there are the occasional sociopaths out there, but most people have a normal predisposition and they value each other.

386
00:39:44,807 --> 00:39:50,487
They would value peace and cooperation over violence because it's less profitable and it's less fun.

387
00:39:50,727 --> 00:39:57,227
Right. And so because of this, over time in society, laws emerge and rights emerge.

388
00:39:57,227 --> 00:40:11,667
Now, when you have a deeper understanding of politics and law and the modern state and society and history and economics and all this stuff, then you start to have more careful distinctions.

389
00:40:11,667 --> 00:40:19,507
So the distinction that you need to draw is fundamentally between possession and ownership.

390
00:40:20,047 --> 00:40:22,687
Those concepts, those words are very important.

391
00:40:22,687 --> 00:40:37,107
And what were you saying earlier that some people say one of their objections to say to ethics and the non-aggression principle is that we have psychopaths.

392
00:40:37,107 --> 00:40:38,847
I'd say it simply doesn't work.

393
00:40:39,347 --> 00:40:42,167
We need a state to control the criminals.

394
00:40:42,167 --> 00:40:45,367
And I point out that, yeah, but they're –

395
00:40:45,367 --> 00:40:57,647
And their mistake there is, like, as you say, if the – sort of like maybe Thomas Jefferson or one of the U.S. founding fathers said, if the world were angels, we wouldn't need government, right?

396
00:40:57,647 --> 00:41:11,927
And what they mean is that if people voluntarily – if they just shunned all violent conflict and they respected each other's rights, then you wouldn't have any violent conflict and you wouldn't have any rights violations.

397
00:41:11,927 --> 00:41:16,647
You wouldn't even need law and order or the government or police or anything like that.

398
00:41:17,267 --> 00:41:49,260
But you do have that at least on occasion and that the purpose of having these laws and rules is because people that want to cooperate with each other which is the bulk of humanity even they don know what to do sometimes to avoid conflict unless they have a clear indication of who owns what which is why you have ownership rules which can tell you who owns what Now these ownership rules are what we so the mistake that people make when they say

399
00:41:49,260 --> 00:41:54,320
that they're psychopaths and the rules don't work for them is they're conflating the normative realm

400
00:41:54,320 --> 00:42:01,220
with the factual realm. The normative realm or the descriptive realm is a world of, say, facts.

401
00:42:01,220 --> 00:42:06,320
It's like what people do, and that is analogous to the concept of possession.

402
00:42:06,900 --> 00:42:09,200
So in economics, it's purely descriptive.

403
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:12,620
It's about the descriptive world when we describe what people do.

404
00:42:12,740 --> 00:42:21,340
And like I said earlier, that story I gave earlier of apraxeology is purely descriptive because it would apply even to Robinson Crusoe alone on an island.

405
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:26,660
Every minute of your life, every day, you have to face a choice of what to do.

406
00:42:26,660 --> 00:42:32,340
And to do that, you have a goal in mind and you employ certain means to achieve it.

407
00:42:33,020 --> 00:42:34,700
That's not an ethical thing at all.

408
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:37,460
It had nothing to do with conflict or violence or right and wrong.

409
00:42:37,540 --> 00:42:38,740
It's just what people do.

410
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:46,240
So to employ a resource means to use it, to have the ability to use it, to grasp it, to grapple with it, to control it.

411
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:48,280
And that's what possession means, right?

412
00:42:48,340 --> 00:42:50,120
So possession is just a factual thing.

413
00:42:50,120 --> 00:43:10,180
Now, sometimes a person might wonder, what should I do? What's the right thing to do? What's the right or the wrong thing to do? So then you have things like morals and ethics and philosophy and values and the virtues, study the virtues.

414
00:43:10,180 --> 00:43:14,600
What's the, you know, it's best to be honest and to have thrift and to not be lazy.

415
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:19,220
And also the values of I value other people.

416
00:43:19,340 --> 00:43:21,480
I value other people's well-being, too.

417
00:43:21,580 --> 00:43:25,060
So I prefer cooperation over violence.

418
00:43:25,860 --> 00:43:28,140
All these things inform a normative system.

419
00:43:28,240 --> 00:43:33,680
And a normative system is like so you can have one type of normative system is your personal moral code.

420
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:35,340
Like, what should I do in this situation?

421
00:43:35,740 --> 00:43:40,160
Even if you're alone on an island, like, should I be lazy or should I work hard?

422
00:43:40,180 --> 00:43:54,080
You know, should I be honest with myself about what's going to happen if I don't save up enough coconuts for the winter or whatever, you know, or in society, should I be honest or should I cheat and steal?

423
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:57,320
Should I, you know, should I abide by these rules or not?

424
00:43:57,380 --> 00:43:59,700
So there's a set of norms in society.

425
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:04,720
Some of them are minor, like we call them manners, like it's impolite to do certain things.

426
00:44:04,720 --> 00:44:20,840
But some of them go to a higher level, and there's such a level that breach of that moral rule – it's not just immoral. It's not just bad manners, but it's actually so extreme that people think that the use of force is justified in retaliation.

427
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:29,760
That's what law is basically. So if I'm rude to my grandmother, people will disapprove of me, and they might ostracize me, but that's about it.

428
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:39,240
But if I shoot my grandmother, now I've committed murder, and that's such a violation of her rights, and that can be met with force.

429
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:43,600
Someone could use force to punish me or to stop me, and that's what law is.

430
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:52,320
But anyway, the point is these are norms that guide conduct, but they guide the conduct of the people interested in their conduct being guided.

431
00:44:53,360 --> 00:44:56,820
It's basically a set of – it's not a recommendation for the criminal.

432
00:44:57,500 --> 00:45:00,960
It's not telling the criminal how to live his life because that's personal morals.

433
00:45:01,060 --> 00:45:16,760
The law is basically saying when are we as people that want to be moral or society in general, when are we justified in using force to sanction this activity, to punish this activity or to stop this activity?

434
00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:18,540
And that's what law does.

435
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:24,320
Law tells us when we're justified in using force to stop someone from doing something that we don't like.

436
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:45,620
So what it tells us, and from time immemorial, the core of private law ever since the Roman days and even before Roman law, English law, and even modern law is that people have the right, property right in their body.

437
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:53,580
And they have property rights in material resources that they need to use to survive in the world that were previously unowned.

438
00:45:53,580 --> 00:46:03,100
So that's why we have the rule of homesteading or original appropriation, and then the second rule, you can sell it by – you can sell it so then by contract.

439
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:13,220
So these three normative rules, which are legal rules as well, they mirror or emerge from the descriptive world.

440
00:46:13,500 --> 00:46:16,880
The descriptive world says you have a body. You can control it.

441
00:46:17,020 --> 00:46:22,160
There are resources that you need to employ their scarce means of action to get things done.

442
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:34,640
You can possess them. So possession, control, these are all descriptive things. They're not normative at all. Even the criminal and the psychopath has control of his body and needs to use resources.

443
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:40,940
But then a set of normative rules overlay on top of that and reinforce it.

444
00:46:41,100 --> 00:46:48,780
So the way I look at rights is rights are normative support for possession.

445
00:46:49,860 --> 00:46:56,020
So economics deals with the descriptive world and with possession and with the implications of human action.

446
00:46:56,860 --> 00:47:02,960
Ethics and law and norms deals with how we should.

447
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:09,900
And so the thing is that ethics and law are like a normative support on top of it.

448
00:47:10,020 --> 00:47:20,020
Now, what that means is that if I'm a criminal or a good guy, I just need to control myself and things I can control to get things done, to act.

449
00:47:20,820 --> 00:47:26,840
But if I'm actually a moral person and a good person, I want to avoid conflict, so I want to respect people's rights.

450
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:33,000
So if there's a legal system that's established, a normative system, it can tell me what to do to avoid conflict.

451
00:47:33,620 --> 00:47:39,080
It can also tell me what I'm justified in doing to stop someone who doesn't care about that.

452
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:53,100
So that's why it's irrelevant that you might have a criminal or a sociopath who doesn't care about rights because they're going to be dealt with, as Hoppe says, as a technical problem because they're not amenable to reason.

453
00:47:53,100 --> 00:48:00,880
Now, okay, on occasion, you might have a robber or a bad guy, and you could persuade them not to – it's like don't kill the baby.

454
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:03,720
Come on, guy. Don't kill the baby, and he might listen to you. He might not.

455
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:09,540
Hoppe tells this funny story about a friend he had who – I think it was a true story.

456
00:48:11,240 --> 00:48:20,960
And he's using this story to show that democracy is horrible because every democratic government is terrible because, as Hayek said, the bad rise to the top.

457
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:25,280
democracies are horrible. Whereas like in a monarchy, on occasion, you might have a good

458
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:29,680
monarch. You might have a stupid one, but you might have a good one on occasion. And just like

459
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:34,680
you might have a private criminal, like the story he told was his friend was like at an ATM, like at

460
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:40,560
night in Germany or somewhere, two in the morning, and some guy robbed him. He just took some money

461
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:47,760
out of the ATM and some guy robbed him. And he handed the $500 or euros over to the guy and he

462
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:52,600
He says, man, I was going to use that to go buy a couple of beers and to get my cab ride home.

463
00:48:53,020 --> 00:48:57,120
So the robber gave him like $50 back because he felt bad for him.

464
00:48:58,280 --> 00:48:59,680
Sounds like a government program.

465
00:49:00,420 --> 00:49:11,440
Well, but the government would never – if the government takes your money in taxes and you say that I don't have enough money to take my vacation, the government just says tough luck, too bad.

466
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:13,920
At least on occasion you might have a nice robber.

467
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:21,560
The point is sometimes you can persuade a robber or a bad guy with the force of moral suasion not to do something.

468
00:49:21,940 --> 00:49:24,640
But if you can't, then you have to resort to force.

469
00:49:24,720 --> 00:49:27,060
You have to treat him as what we call a technical obstacle.

470
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:30,540
Now, man in the world has to deal with many challenges, right?

471
00:49:33,240 --> 00:49:35,340
There's scarcity, lack of abundance.

472
00:49:35,500 --> 00:49:36,080
There's poverty.

473
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:37,160
There's pestilence.

474
00:49:37,380 --> 00:49:38,980
There's hurricanes.

475
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:39,860
There's tigers.

476
00:49:40,180 --> 00:49:40,840
There's lions.

477
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:51,220
And we don't regard a lion as an evil thing. It's just a fact of the world, and you have to take a precaution and treat the lion as a technical problem.

478
00:49:51,340 --> 00:49:58,980
How do you protect yourself from the possibility of lions attacking you? There's ways you can do that, and we have to regard criminals as the same way.

479
00:49:59,100 --> 00:50:04,640
It's just that the bulk of humans are moral, and they only want to do what they're justified in doing.

480
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:16,160
So when there's another man and they know they need to treat him as a means of action, right, which Kant talks about as being an immoral thing, treating someone as a means, sometimes you need to.

481
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:18,360
And the question is, when are you justified in doing that?

482
00:50:18,420 --> 00:50:30,900
And the non-aggression principle basically says you're justified in treating someone else as a means that is doing something they don't want you to do when they're doing something to you that you don't want them to do to you.

483
00:50:30,900 --> 00:50:42,340
In other words, when they're initiating force, when they're committing aggression, they're using your body or your resources that you legitimately acquired by homesteading or by contract without your permission.

484
00:50:42,900 --> 00:50:46,640
Then they breach the peace and they basically entered the world.

485
00:50:47,020 --> 00:50:52,100
They've admitted they've admitted in a sense by their conduct that they don't respect your rights.

486
00:50:52,220 --> 00:50:53,260
They don't believe in law.

487
00:50:53,420 --> 00:50:58,540
So they really have no complaint anymore if you use a similar type of force against them to stop them.

488
00:50:58,540 --> 00:51:07,200
That's why in the mind of the person wanting to be moral, he regards his use of force against that person as just.

489
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:09,520
And that's why there's law.

490
00:51:09,780 --> 00:51:12,380
That's why law emerges and why it has a certain characteristic.

491
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:15,780
That's why law across all societies has certain things in common.

492
00:51:16,180 --> 00:51:17,640
It always protects self-ownership.

493
00:51:17,700 --> 00:51:20,800
It always protects the right to acquire an unknown resource.

494
00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:25,900
And it protects the right to acquire or sell that resource by contract.

495
00:51:26,100 --> 00:51:28,100
That's the core elements of private law.

496
00:51:28,100 --> 00:51:58,080
And it has to be.

497
00:51:58,100 --> 00:52:07,640
The one that's what the criminal deserves or the largest punishment that the criminal can deserve.

498
00:52:08,180 --> 00:52:13,220
But anything above that is then you're a criminal yourself.

499
00:52:13,780 --> 00:52:16,120
And anything below that is, of course, OK.

500
00:52:16,220 --> 00:52:17,660
You may choose to forgive.

501
00:52:18,180 --> 00:52:22,100
And there's a great power in forgiveness sometimes.

502
00:52:22,100 --> 00:52:27,740
So usually the punishment wouldn't be two eyes for one eye, but something milder.

503
00:52:28,100 --> 00:52:33,440
And yeah, that book is very eye opening too, I think.

504
00:52:34,340 --> 00:52:35,640
I totally agree.

505
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:47,760
In my book, my book here, my book there, chapter five, I have my own unpacking of punishment theory and rights theory and this kind of stuff.

506
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:58,200
And now I think Rothbard's way of putting it is more of a – it's more of a shorthand.

507
00:52:58,380 --> 00:53:02,880
I think it's a way to – I don't think that there's any mathematical formula.

508
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:09,360
You can't say it's just double the punishment is acceptable because there's a subjective aspect to all this.

509
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:14,400
Yeah, but that's not what he says, though, to defend Rothbard there.

510
00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:24,820
He says that that would theoretically not be criminal, even though he points out that that would never be a real scenario.

511
00:53:24,820 --> 00:53:48,240
STEPHAN KINSELLA Correct. But – yeah, he got that from Walter Block as well. I'm just saying that I think that that's a useful way to understand the fact that the way that we justify rights is because what we're saying is our institutional or personal use of force against someone who doesn't want you to – like the criminal doesn't want you to use force against him.

512
00:53:48,240 --> 00:53:58,540
So he's not consenting to it. He's objecting. But the reason why it's okay to override his desires is because he's doing something similar to you.

513
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:04,960
But what that means is that there's a limit to how much of a similar thing he's doing to you, and there's a limit to how much you can do in response.

514
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:16,080
So I think what Rothbard is getting at, that's the reason why there's a proportionality requirement. There always was, and that is implied in the eye for an eye idea or in the two eyes for an eye idea.

515
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:18,720
It's not that it's a mechanical formula

516
00:54:18,720 --> 00:54:25,060
It's more that that gets at the heart of the reason why there's a limit

517
00:54:25,060 --> 00:54:28,760
Now, in reality, because values are subjective

518
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:34,740
And because there's a difficulty in administering any system of justice

519
00:54:34,740 --> 00:54:37,600
There are certain practical aspects to it

520
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:40,180
Which I believe, and I talk about in that chapter 5

521
00:54:40,180 --> 00:54:43,500
Lead to certain things that the law has settled on

522
00:54:43,500 --> 00:54:56,540
Things like burdens of proof and standards of proof. So, for example, I think that what you do is you always have a rule that says in a case of doubt, we favor the victim of aggression.

523
00:54:57,460 --> 00:55:10,720
So if you say, well, this guy did this to me, what exactly would be a proportional punishment? In some cases, it's not always clear, right?

524
00:55:10,720 --> 00:55:13,500
Like let's I mean, I don't let's say I have one arm.

525
00:55:13,500 --> 00:55:16,400
I'm a one arm guy and some gun chops off my right arm.

526
00:55:16,400 --> 00:55:18,260
So now I have no arms.

527
00:55:18,260 --> 00:55:22,900
I mean, is it is it the same punishment to chop off his arm?

528
00:55:23,100 --> 00:55:24,540
Because he still has one arm left.

529
00:55:24,540 --> 00:55:28,240
I mean, things like this are like you can see why you can't have a formula.

530
00:55:28,580 --> 00:55:33,040
But the point is, you would so you have to you have to you have

531
00:55:33,094 --> 00:55:50,334
I say we have to give the maximum flexibility to the victim to choose what he wants to do within a reasonable range of procedures as overseen perhaps by a judge or by a jury who looks at it and says, yeah, using our judgment, I think that's the best you can do, and then let's move on.

532
00:55:50,934 --> 00:56:02,154
So that's how any legal system has to work, and that frustrates some libertarians who fed up with the way the positive law and the legal system has dealt with things.

533
00:56:02,154 --> 00:56:08,214
they just want to throw it away and have like a Rothbard sit down and write a book and give you

534
00:56:08,214 --> 00:56:13,654
the answer to everything and say, okay, for my armchair, if there were two guys doing this,

535
00:56:13,814 --> 00:56:16,794
here's what the answer would be. And here's what the answer would be. And here's what they want

536
00:56:16,794 --> 00:56:21,014
answers to every question. And it frustrates them if you say, well, we don't really know.

537
00:56:21,134 --> 00:56:25,654
You have to just let a jury hear it and make a decision. They want to have a solid answer,

538
00:56:25,654 --> 00:56:30,594
but you can't always have an answer to things because the answer depends because life is complex

539
00:56:30,594 --> 00:56:37,074
and you can never predict all the factors that would be relevant to a given dispute.

540
00:56:37,074 --> 00:56:44,774
And that's why you have to have a trial and a jury and people that can take evidence and ask questions of witnesses

541
00:56:44,774 --> 00:56:52,654
and take into account custom and context and history and the way things are done.

542
00:56:52,654 --> 00:57:12,654
No, and crime and law in general are especially complex because you cannot see what didn't happen. Like if I steal from you, I might stop you from doing something else that may or may not lead to a third thing and so on and so forth.

543
00:57:12,654 --> 00:57:26,794
It goes into why taxes are so criminal in themselves, because if I steal from you every month, then I probably cause a lot more harm than if I steal a lot once.

544
00:57:27,374 --> 00:57:30,434
Like, this is super complex.

545
00:57:31,154 --> 00:57:31,514
But, yeah.

546
00:57:31,514 --> 00:57:48,654
By the way, I think Leisner Spooner has a comment about that where he compares the highwayman to the government because the highwayman doesn't rob you and then keep following you around for life and then reminding you about what a good thing he did for you all the time.

547
00:57:48,834 --> 00:57:55,794
Like the government always hounds you, they tax you, they never let you go, and they always keep acting like they're the good guy helping you out.

548
00:57:56,594 --> 00:58:00,234
Welcome to Knut's super awesome Bitcoin school.

549
00:58:00,634 --> 00:58:02,294
Should you use fiat money?

550
00:58:02,574 --> 00:58:03,254
Of course not.

551
00:58:03,774 --> 00:58:04,414
It's fake.

552
00:58:04,674 --> 00:58:06,914
It's counterfeited by the state.

553
00:58:07,194 --> 00:58:08,894
And you should buy Bitcoin instead.

554
00:58:09,234 --> 00:58:10,094
How do you buy Bitcoin?

555
00:58:10,534 --> 00:58:13,454
Well, you can buy them off a friend or you can go to an exchange.

556
00:58:13,454 --> 00:58:17,474
We recommend you go to bullbitcoin.com and buy them over there.

557
00:58:17,834 --> 00:58:22,334
They also got an awesome mobile wallet if you should ever want to use your Bitcoin.

558
00:58:22,514 --> 00:58:26,414
So go to bullbitcoin.com and use code infinity for a discount.

559
00:58:26,634 --> 00:58:29,954
If you don't want to sell your Bitcoin, but you want to keep them for a long time,

560
00:58:29,954 --> 00:58:32,334
you should put them in some kind of cold storage.

561
00:58:32,654 --> 00:58:34,594
For that, we recommend BitVault.

562
00:58:34,874 --> 00:58:38,394
BitVault is a wallet that protects you against physical attacks,

563
00:58:38,754 --> 00:58:42,254
and they put your Bitcoin in a multi-sig time lock clever solution.

564
00:58:42,614 --> 00:58:47,774
So you should check them out at bitvault.sv and use code infinity for a discount.

565
00:58:47,934 --> 00:58:51,054
To put your Bitcoin in cold storage, you also need a hardware wallet.

566
00:58:51,474 --> 00:58:53,134
We recommend the BitBox.

567
00:58:53,394 --> 00:58:56,754
BitBox is a great hardware wallet that has been around since forever.

568
00:58:56,754 --> 00:59:01,894
It's super easy to use, but also has advanced features and it's privacy focused.

569
00:59:02,074 --> 00:59:05,854
So go to bitbox.swiss and use code infinity for a discount.

570
00:59:06,294 --> 00:59:11,854
If you need further advice on how to do any of all of this, you should go to thebitcoinadvisor.com.

571
00:59:12,214 --> 00:59:14,814
There are friends from Australia and they're great.

572
00:59:14,994 --> 00:59:25,934
They have a multisig setup, a collaborative multisig, so that you can make sure that your descendants and your heirs inherit your Bitcoin when your time is due.

573
00:59:25,934 --> 00:59:30,434
So go to thebitcoinadvisor.com and use code infinity for a discount.

574
00:59:30,674 --> 00:59:32,814
So to recap, get rid of the fiat.

575
00:59:33,194 --> 00:59:40,034
And remember, bullbitcoin.com, bitvolt.sv, bitbox.swiss, and thebitcoinadvisor.com.

576
00:59:40,234 --> 00:59:41,594
Use code infinity everywhere.

577
00:59:42,054 --> 00:59:43,814
And don't forget to brush your teeth.

578
00:59:44,034 --> 00:59:44,594
Over and out.

579
00:59:45,054 --> 00:59:49,474
So let's try to get into the Bitcoin side of things.

580
00:59:49,474 --> 01:00:10,114
So a TLDR on my, like after 10 years in this and my sort of deepest insight, like the thing that intrigued me from the very get-go with Bitcoin was that here was this promise of a number that couldn't be copied or something in computers that couldn't be copied, which like blew my mind.

581
01:00:10,274 --> 01:00:15,614
Like this must be bullshit because that's the nature of information, right?

582
01:00:15,954 --> 01:00:16,174
Right.

583
01:00:16,434 --> 01:00:17,954
Information can be copied.

584
01:00:18,254 --> 01:00:18,734
Correct.

585
01:00:18,734 --> 01:00:26,974
Or data can be copied. Information is sort of data interpreted by human beings, I guess, but all data can be copied.

586
01:00:26,974 --> 01:00:29,914
So that's what sent me down the rabbit hole.

587
01:00:30,134 --> 01:00:36,874
And I quite soon understood why that would make perfect money or damn near perfect money

588
01:00:36,874 --> 01:00:40,914
and why there could only be one because any copy of it would like...

589
01:00:43,414 --> 01:00:49,574
It's pointless at best to make a copy of resistance to copyability.

590
01:00:50,014 --> 01:00:54,194
Like it's obviously counterproductive to try to copy that property.

591
01:00:54,194 --> 01:01:04,194
so so i got into all that but like uh it took me a long time to really put words on why uh why the

592
01:01:04,194 --> 01:01:11,574
satoshi is sacred compared to all other data and and why only that can be scarce and the conclusion

593
01:01:11,574 --> 01:01:18,454
i came to is that the reason you cannot copy them is because they're not really on the internet

594
01:01:18,454 --> 01:01:22,534
They're in people's heads or the ability to move them is in their heads.

595
01:01:22,794 --> 01:01:33,454
Like the private key, either the literal private key, the 12 magic words or the location of a hardware wallet or it's all about keeping a secret from everyone else.

596
01:01:34,614 --> 01:01:44,014
So owning a Bitcoin is or possessing a Bitcoin if you want or controlling it is something you do by keeping a secret from someone else.

597
01:01:44,014 --> 01:01:56,174
And you cannot really say that you own it because here we go into intellectual property, your favorite subject, and you cannot own data.

598
01:01:56,534 --> 01:01:57,974
It's impossible to own data.

599
01:01:58,534 --> 01:02:13,214
And it's impossible to prove that even if you have control of your own private key, you do not know if other people also know that same information, if they also have the private key or have access to it.

600
01:02:13,214 --> 01:02:23,454
meaning that the reason you can act as if you own the bitcoin is is because you you understand how

601
01:02:23,454 --> 01:02:29,814
improbable it is that someone else has access to the same key as you and you also understand how

602
01:02:29,814 --> 01:02:35,654
improbable it is that the system itself will change to such an extent that it will render

603
01:02:35,654 --> 01:02:41,414
your bitcoins worthless but but i've come to the conclusion that you cannot own them

604
01:02:41,414 --> 01:02:43,874
What you can do is act as if you did.

605
01:02:44,494 --> 01:02:45,854
Does that make sense to you?

606
01:02:46,634 --> 01:02:47,074
100%.

607
01:02:47,074 --> 01:02:51,614
And you have to remember, money is a practical thing, right?

608
01:02:52,014 --> 01:02:54,034
So it just has to be good enough.

609
01:02:54,194 --> 01:02:54,854
I mean, yeah.

610
01:02:55,614 --> 01:02:57,414
Bitcoin doesn't have to be around forever.

611
01:02:58,054 --> 01:03:04,214
Bitcoin might work for 50 years or 10 years, and then maybe something else would come around.

612
01:03:04,514 --> 01:03:06,994
And that's okay because money is not wealth.

613
01:03:07,594 --> 01:03:09,254
It's fine for money to transmute.

614
01:03:09,254 --> 01:03:20,914
The way I look at it is Bitcoin – gold is let's say 90% good as money in the old days, right?

615
01:03:21,474 --> 01:03:23,974
It had some drawbacks, but it was better than barter.

616
01:03:24,714 --> 01:03:26,014
So that's why it worked.

617
01:03:26,474 --> 01:03:30,294
But the problem with gold was it could be commandeered because it needs to be stored.

618
01:03:30,434 --> 01:03:32,134
It could be commandeered by the government eventually.

619
01:03:32,554 --> 01:03:33,474
So it failed.

620
01:03:33,474 --> 01:03:36,414
And the problem with fiat, of course, is it could be inflated.

621
01:03:36,594 --> 01:03:38,134
And if it can be inflated, it will be.

622
01:03:38,794 --> 01:03:38,814
Yes.

623
01:03:39,254 --> 01:03:44,214
And to me, Bitcoin is like 96% good money.

624
01:03:45,134 --> 01:03:45,174
Yeah.

625
01:03:45,774 --> 01:03:59,754
And if it becomes the world-dominant currency, it could be that Bitcoin, too, would be slightly better, but it's just not worth the cost to switch to it.

626
01:03:59,754 --> 01:04:02,454
But eventually, it could be.

627
01:04:03,114 --> 01:04:05,354
Maybe the block size is too small.

628
01:04:05,514 --> 01:04:07,674
Maybe in 50 years, we'll see the block size.

629
01:04:07,794 --> 01:04:08,154
I don't know.

630
01:04:08,454 --> 01:04:08,874
We don't know.

631
01:04:08,874 --> 01:04:10,914
The point is money is not wealth.

632
01:04:11,034 --> 01:04:13,494
And so it's fine if you transition from one money.

633
01:04:13,634 --> 01:04:16,274
I think it's really hard, but you can see that happening in the future.

634
01:04:16,594 --> 01:04:19,754
Well, I see it slightly differently.

635
01:04:20,114 --> 01:04:21,174
Here's why I disagree.

636
01:04:21,394 --> 01:04:29,394
I don't think there's a Bitcoin 2.0, but I can see a future where Bitcoin adapts and becomes Bitcoin 2.0 itself.

637
01:04:29,414 --> 01:04:29,674
Yeah, sure.

638
01:04:29,674 --> 01:04:31,114
But it wouldn't.

639
01:04:31,674 --> 01:04:32,434
Which is the same thing.

640
01:04:32,434 --> 01:04:39,854
Well, resetting the whole thing and forcing people to buy new stuff is not like that.

641
01:04:40,014 --> 01:04:45,034
It has to have the property that you have to, that if you do nothing, you will still have them.

642
01:04:45,754 --> 01:04:46,214
I agree.

643
01:04:46,534 --> 01:04:53,534
I'm just saying you could imagine, like, let's suppose the Bitcoin network somehow there's a flaw, no one's found and it breaks down.

644
01:04:54,334 --> 01:05:00,494
Or let's imagine and we colonize another planet and someone there starts out with their own currency because.

645
01:05:00,494 --> 01:05:01,314
They would have to.

646
01:05:01,314 --> 01:05:03,374
They would have to because the hatch horizon.

647
01:05:03,894 --> 01:05:05,994
Yeah, the time delay is too great.

648
01:05:06,054 --> 01:05:07,154
So they have their own currency.

649
01:05:07,274 --> 01:05:11,074
So let's suppose it's Mars and there's Bitcoin too there.

650
01:05:11,434 --> 01:05:15,414
And let's suppose eventually their society becomes to be the dominant one.

651
01:05:16,054 --> 01:05:17,794
Maybe then they would absorb the Earth.

652
01:05:17,894 --> 01:05:18,254
I don't know.

653
01:05:18,254 --> 01:05:19,674
You never know what the future is going to be.

654
01:05:19,674 --> 01:05:31,954
Well, the argument against Mars coin is that anyone bootstrapping that on Mars would have insider information about how insanely valuable it can get.

655
01:05:31,954 --> 01:05:41,374
And therefore, it wouldn't have the same, like Bitcoin is, the way I see it was totally dependent on how these things played out.

656
01:05:41,514 --> 01:05:50,474
And Satoshi disappearing and MT Gox and all of the events that happened led up to this point.

657
01:05:50,554 --> 01:05:53,754
I mean, we know that we live in a timeline where Bitcoin works.

658
01:05:53,834 --> 01:05:58,114
We don't know if it would have worked had the parameters been any different.

659
01:05:58,554 --> 01:06:01,254
It's sort of like the constants of the universe.

660
01:06:01,254 --> 01:06:04,054
We cannot know because we don't exist in that.

661
01:06:04,214 --> 01:06:06,574
We know it works here because we do exist.

662
01:06:06,814 --> 01:06:08,454
Yeah, the anthropic idea.

663
01:06:08,834 --> 01:06:15,734
Well, I mean, this is slightly tangential, but like my friend Jeff Tucker used to be a Bitcoin guy, but now he's joined with the Roger Veritypes and all this.

664
01:06:15,734 --> 01:06:21,574
And he's always he's saying that, oh, it was going to be a payment mechanism.

665
01:06:21,574 --> 01:06:33,114
But because the big blockers, I mean, the small blockers refused to adapt, then that allowed Venmo and Zelle and PayPal to rise to the fore.

666
01:06:33,234 --> 01:06:38,794
And I'm like, so you think that there was only like a three-year period where Bitcoin could have worked?

667
01:06:38,914 --> 01:06:43,014
It could have become the payment system that Venmo and Zelle and PayPal would have been.

668
01:06:43,014 --> 01:06:49,434
But because we delayed, that gave PayPal the chance to become dominant.

669
01:06:49,614 --> 01:06:51,434
And now it's too late for Bitcoin to ever work.

670
01:06:51,574 --> 01:06:57,314
I mean its promise never was that it was just a little payment system reducing the friction of payments a little bit.

671
01:06:57,954 --> 01:07:02,814
But – so let's go back to your point though about acting as if you own it.

672
01:07:03,534 --> 01:07:18,154
To me – so the more I thought about this, and it goes back to, number one, the point I made earlier that Hoppe's view about the character of a good being subjective and how that relates to the concept of fungibility.

673
01:07:18,154 --> 01:07:36,074
That also relates to the suitability of something that is a commodity, that is a divisible supply of something. And by the way, it doesn't have to be a physical thing. Some of the earlier Austrians had this regression theorem criticism of Bitcoin, which I think is completely wrong.

674
01:07:36,074 --> 01:07:40,334
Number one, I don't think the regression theorem is what they think it is.

675
01:07:40,414 --> 01:07:46,074
It's not a proof that money has to arise the way that Mises thought it would.

676
01:07:46,794 --> 01:07:49,974
And it's not a proof that it has to, you know, anyway.

677
01:07:50,654 --> 01:07:53,834
Can I interrupt and just counter-argue that?

678
01:07:54,034 --> 01:07:59,474
Because I think Bitcoin proves the regression theorem because we actually have the first transaction.

679
01:07:59,974 --> 01:08:03,834
Before that, it's a curiosity and a collectible.

680
01:08:03,834 --> 01:08:07,694
and then Laszlo buys two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoins.

681
01:08:07,874 --> 01:08:11,994
That is the moment where Bitcoin becomes a medium of exchange.

682
01:08:12,434 --> 01:08:13,414
Perhaps, perhaps.

683
01:08:13,594 --> 01:08:19,594
But the point is the Austrians of 2011 or whatever

684
01:08:19,594 --> 01:08:21,914
who were saying, oh, Bitcoin's impossible

685
01:08:21,914 --> 01:08:23,394
because it violates the regression theorem.

686
01:08:23,854 --> 01:08:24,654
I think they're just wrong

687
01:08:24,654 --> 01:08:28,134
because they were assuming that it has to be a physical commodity

688
01:08:28,134 --> 01:08:29,594
and it doesn't have to be physical.

689
01:08:29,774 --> 01:08:30,994
My point is it doesn't have to be.

690
01:08:30,994 --> 01:08:41,194
Well, Mesa said it had to have had some use value, right? But use value can be, I mean, a baseball card can have use value.

691
01:08:41,214 --> 01:08:44,234
That's a subjective thing. So it doesn't have to be a physical thing.

692
01:08:44,354 --> 01:08:45,134
Exactly, exactly.

693
01:08:45,134 --> 01:08:58,314
I mean, basically, Bitcoin is, so what are Bitcoins, number one? When you said you act as if you own a Bitcoin, you're right that you have, because of the password, you have the ability to control it.

694
01:08:58,314 --> 01:09:02,034
who you can transfer it.

695
01:09:02,354 --> 01:09:04,634
But when you say transfer it, what is it?

696
01:09:04,694 --> 01:09:08,214
It's basically one of the many units on the blockchain,

697
01:09:08,414 --> 01:09:09,414
on the spreadsheet,

698
01:09:10,014 --> 01:09:12,434
maintained in distributed computers around the world.

699
01:09:12,894 --> 01:09:16,774
It's just an abstract entry in a data system,

700
01:09:16,774 --> 01:09:20,714
which we regard subjectively as something that's interesting.

701
01:09:20,974 --> 01:09:34,727
Like if Satoshi had not a little bit dishonestly named it Bitcoin put the word coin in there in an attempt to bootstrap it if he had called it distributed spreadsheet it would be the same thing

702
01:09:34,727 --> 01:09:36,527
But people wouldn't think of it as money.

703
01:09:36,607 --> 01:09:42,927
They would just think of it as a useful, if very inefficient, distributed spreadsheet or ledger system, right?

704
01:09:43,587 --> 01:09:43,767
Yes.

705
01:09:44,007 --> 01:09:48,047
And I wonder what would have happened then if it would have worked even better.

706
01:09:48,047 --> 01:10:00,727
So I think it's a little bit dishonest to call it Bitcoin. It's also a little bit dishonest, I think, when people – well, the big blockers are dishonest when they keep going back to the title of the paper saying, oh, this is a cash network.

707
01:10:00,847 --> 01:10:03,467
That's why we need it to be cashed and all this kind of stuff.

708
01:10:03,467 --> 01:10:26,727
But back to this other point. If you go back to what I said earlier that property rights are normative and they're the normative support for possession, then you can see that the reason is you need normative support for possession is that people have free will and they can choose to violate rights.

709
01:10:26,727 --> 01:10:37,327
They can choose to use your resource without your permission. If I lived in a very peaceful community where no one ever committed robbery, I wouldn't pay money to put a lock on my front door of my home.

710
01:10:37,667 --> 01:10:47,107
But I do that because it might happen on occasion, and I can afford to put the lock on there even though it makes the house less convenient to use, and it adds cost.

711
01:10:47,107 --> 01:11:01,067
Right. Likewise, if people never commit violated rights or if it's impossible to violate rights, like if God was up there zapping people that tried to steal from you, then you wouldn't need a lock on your door.

712
01:11:01,187 --> 01:11:10,667
You wouldn't need to defend yourself from people. Right. But because that's not the case, we need laws which provide a disincentive for people to violate your rights.

713
01:11:10,667 --> 01:11:15,967
So the purpose of law is to provide normative support for property rights or for possession.

714
01:11:16,467 --> 01:11:19,667
But that's because it's possible to violate those properties.

715
01:11:19,747 --> 01:11:22,007
It's possible for there to be violent conflict.

716
01:11:22,947 --> 01:11:27,387
But Bitcoin designed a system where you have possession of the Bitcoin.

717
01:11:27,527 --> 01:11:28,647
You have the ability to control it.

718
01:11:28,787 --> 01:11:34,067
And because of its design, it's almost impossible for someone to violate.

719
01:11:34,447 --> 01:11:38,827
Semantics, you don't actually have possession of it.

720
01:11:38,827 --> 01:11:46,287
You have control over the private key, which means you know a secret, like, because possession implies that nobody else has possession over it.

721
01:11:46,787 --> 01:11:47,927
And you don't.

722
01:11:48,107 --> 01:11:51,707
So control is, I would say control rather than possession.

723
01:11:52,127 --> 01:11:52,587
That's fine.

724
01:11:53,127 --> 01:12:02,667
You have the ability to, but you have the, whatever this ability is, you get the ability to transfer it to someone else and no one else can do that unless they know your key.

725
01:12:02,927 --> 01:12:03,107
Correct?

726
01:12:03,307 --> 01:12:03,607
Exactly.

727
01:12:04,027 --> 01:12:04,167
Yeah.

728
01:12:04,167 --> 01:12:07,187
And you believe that no one does.

729
01:12:07,187 --> 01:12:10,467
But that's important because otherwise you wouldn't believe it was valuable.

730
01:12:10,467 --> 01:12:15,347
Correct. But your belief is that it's good enough. The likelihood is good enough.

731
01:12:15,587 --> 01:12:15,947
Exactly.

732
01:12:16,047 --> 01:12:20,967
It's low enough so that this can serve potentially as a medium of exchange.

733
01:12:21,147 --> 01:12:31,327
Okay. But the point is that your ability to control and to transfer is analogous to possession in the world,

734
01:12:31,927 --> 01:12:36,267
which could, in possession of a physical thing, someone could violate that.

735
01:12:36,267 --> 01:12:43,487
So you have to have rights and laws and ownership as a normative support layer on top of that to try to reduce the likelihood someone will do that.

736
01:12:44,047 --> 01:12:53,507
But with Bitcoin, it's almost like there was a law that gave you ownership, but it's perfectly enforced because no one can violate it.

737
01:12:53,607 --> 01:12:57,367
So it's even better than a law that prohibits murder or rape.

738
01:12:57,787 --> 01:13:05,927
So you can just act as if you own it, and you don't need ownership because your ability to control it is even better than ownership would be.

739
01:13:05,927 --> 01:13:15,147
So that's why it looks like ownership, but it's not. And that's why people use the term, I own my Bitcoins, because what they mean is they have control over it.

740
01:13:15,147 --> 01:13:44,307
Yeah. And I talk about this all the time. Like you say, you cannot take it. The scenario there is I can point a gun at your head and say, Stefan, give me all your Bitcoin and you can give me a fraction of what you own. And I have no way as the attacker of knowing how much you actually had. And that's already true for every single person on earth. I cannot. There is no way that I can know how many Bitcoins they control because it's a secret in their heads.

741
01:13:44,307 --> 01:13:50,027
so someone's grandma can have the private key to every Bitcoin.

742
01:13:50,247 --> 01:13:52,367
You simply cannot know that.

743
01:13:52,367 --> 01:13:56,167
You can make an educated guess, of course, and people do,

744
01:13:56,267 --> 01:13:59,247
and they kidnap big crypto exchange holders and stuff.

745
01:13:59,887 --> 01:14:02,987
But still, there's a fundamental shift here.

746
01:14:04,007 --> 01:14:13,187
And to me, what the thing did was, yeah, I'll need to paint this as a scenario in a way.

747
01:14:13,187 --> 01:14:15,947
So when you ask, what is a Bitcoin?

748
01:14:16,207 --> 01:14:18,407
You asked that hypothetical question before.

749
01:14:18,587 --> 01:14:21,027
Like, when I get the question, what is Bitcoin?

750
01:14:21,187 --> 01:14:24,287
My short answer is it's an agreement on a fixed set of rules.

751
01:14:24,547 --> 01:14:42,047
And the slightly longer answer is the reason we agree on this specific set of rules is that it's thus far the only rules known to man that are provably more expensive to try to cheat than to just follow.

752
01:14:42,047 --> 01:14:49,887
you follow me here so i follow you i follow you i don't know if i i don't disagree i just

753
01:14:49,887 --> 01:14:54,487
i'm a little uncomfortable with the terminology of agreement because agreement is illegal

754
01:14:54,487 --> 01:15:01,867
but i know what you're getting at yeah yeah so it's a physical or a means of communication in

755
01:15:01,867 --> 01:15:08,467
that sense and the wonderful thing it did to me is like point out that physical possessions are

756
01:15:08,467 --> 01:15:16,387
actually less ownable in this sense than this ability to interact with people and just acting

757
01:15:16,387 --> 01:15:26,627
as if you own a number. So it unlocked something that was true always, which is communication and

758
01:15:26,627 --> 01:15:36,807
free trade is better than violence, than aggression. It's a literal, you have somewhat,

759
01:15:36,807 --> 01:15:41,187
somehow Satoshi managed to boil that down into a beautiful equation.

760
01:15:41,567 --> 01:15:43,007
And it's so powerful.

761
01:15:43,327 --> 01:15:48,287
Like, it's just pointing out that all of these Austrian theories were right.

762
01:15:48,387 --> 01:15:54,267
We're all better off if we do this this way, if no one can counterfeit, if we can't take shit.

763
01:15:55,007 --> 01:16:00,867
What it leads to is more responsibility and, you know, number go up technology,

764
01:16:00,867 --> 01:16:03,787
which is really just putting on a lens

765
01:16:03,787 --> 01:16:06,607
that allows you to see the true deflationary nature

766
01:16:06,607 --> 01:16:07,367
of the free market.

767
01:16:07,847 --> 01:16:09,367
You can actually, if you measure in Bitcoin,

768
01:16:09,527 --> 01:16:11,487
you can see how prices are falling forever

769
01:16:11,487 --> 01:16:14,187
because people get better at doing stuff.

770
01:16:14,767 --> 01:16:17,007
Like, would you agree to that?

771
01:16:17,127 --> 01:16:18,747
Or is that too much hope?

772
01:16:19,167 --> 01:16:20,807
No, I agree with all that.

773
01:16:20,987 --> 01:16:22,427
And I, but I think it's so interesting.

774
01:16:22,647 --> 01:16:24,067
Well, I don't, but I don't agree

775
01:16:24,067 --> 01:16:25,187
that that's a good definition.

776
01:16:25,367 --> 01:16:27,307
It's more metaphorical.

777
01:16:27,367 --> 01:16:29,187
It sounds more like Michael Saylor talk,

778
01:16:29,187 --> 01:16:30,387
which is driving me nuts.

779
01:16:30,867 --> 01:16:31,107
Yeah.

780
01:16:31,287 --> 01:16:33,327
Although I'm with you on the inspiring.

781
01:16:33,547 --> 01:16:38,787
I just don't think it's a good definition of what if someone asks what a Bitcoin is and we should say we should really say what's it?

782
01:16:38,867 --> 01:16:40,247
What is what is a Satoshi?

783
01:16:41,027 --> 01:16:41,747
I don't think your answer.

784
01:16:41,747 --> 01:16:43,327
This is this is the definition.

785
01:16:43,567 --> 01:16:45,207
If someone asks, what is Bitcoin?

786
01:16:45,747 --> 01:16:48,187
Like, no, what is what is a Bitcoin?

787
01:16:48,787 --> 01:16:48,887
Yeah.

788
01:16:48,967 --> 01:16:50,367
What's what's a Bitcoin?

789
01:16:50,927 --> 01:16:51,127
Yeah.

790
01:16:51,187 --> 01:16:52,447
It's not much harder to answer.

791
01:16:52,867 --> 01:16:53,027
Yeah.

792
01:16:53,027 --> 01:16:55,767
The Bitcoin is an entry on a spread on a ledger.

793
01:16:56,587 --> 01:16:57,027
OK.

794
01:16:57,167 --> 01:16:59,027
That's stored distributed ledger.

795
01:16:59,027 --> 01:17:04,147
And that ledger, of course, is bolstered by this agreement that you're talking about, things like that.

796
01:17:04,207 --> 01:17:12,827
But I just think it's an entry – it's an abstract entry on an abstract spreadsheet that people regard as an abstract thing called a Bitcoin ledger.

797
01:17:13,047 --> 01:17:14,407
I mean that's what it is.

798
01:17:14,467 --> 01:17:25,207
It's one of the units on there, and it has such a nature that it can be transferred by someone to another person if they have the key.

799
01:17:25,387 --> 01:17:27,287
I mean that's the way – that's what it is, right?

800
01:17:27,287 --> 01:17:42,147
Well, I love this because there is so much philosophy in this type of discussion, because all the important aspects of it are not the ones and zeros.

801
01:17:42,147 --> 01:17:50,367
All the important aspects of what, because it's money and not just, you know, a database for something else for ordering stuff.

802
01:17:51,707 --> 01:18:01,427
That means that all the important aspects of Bitcoin are the human beings behind it.

803
01:18:01,507 --> 01:18:10,547
So the important part of a node is the person choosing what software to run, buying the hardware, installing the software and running it.

804
01:18:10,547 --> 01:18:14,487
it's not the software that's the interesting part.

805
01:18:14,567 --> 01:18:16,947
The interesting part is getting someone to run it.

806
01:18:17,347 --> 01:18:18,587
And the same with a miner.

807
01:18:18,967 --> 01:18:21,187
Like if I have a hangar full of ASICs,

808
01:18:21,307 --> 01:18:24,587
the hardware itself is just the,

809
01:18:25,067 --> 01:18:27,687
I call it a fancy abacus, right?

810
01:18:27,807 --> 01:18:30,907
It's just helping the real miner,

811
01:18:31,087 --> 01:18:32,727
which is the guy who bought the stuff,

812
01:18:33,307 --> 01:18:35,667
to do calculation really, really fast.

813
01:18:35,667 --> 01:18:36,907
But at the end of the day,

814
01:18:36,907 --> 01:18:43,567
It's like a person deciding by his own volition, like purposeful action, purposeful behavior.

815
01:18:44,107 --> 01:18:47,167
Human action is behind all of it.

816
01:18:47,587 --> 01:18:56,027
It's just that we found a way or Satoshi found a way for us to do this that makes it more expensive to cheat than to try.

817
01:18:56,107 --> 01:18:58,587
So it's an anti-lie machine in a way.

818
01:18:59,087 --> 01:19:00,307
Yeah, I agree with all that.

819
01:19:00,627 --> 01:19:02,387
I don't mind the metaphorical talk.

820
01:19:02,647 --> 01:19:05,287
Like, Sailor drives me nuts with his energy stuff.

821
01:19:05,367 --> 01:19:06,407
I think he's just wrong.

822
01:19:06,907 --> 01:19:10,767
Yeah, because it's not backed by energy. It's backed by human action.

823
01:19:10,767 --> 01:19:20,687
Yeah, he's too scientific about it. And the one question he never answers, okay, which I think people – I think there's an answer to it, and I'm curious what yours is.

824
01:19:23,267 --> 01:19:31,487
The question is – so when people say, oh, it's just information, it could be copied, and it is true that there are many Bitcoins.

825
01:19:31,487 --> 01:19:44,787
There's Bitcoin Cash. There's Bitcoin God. There's many cryptocurrencies. There's nothing stopping someone from duplicating Bitcoin itself. You can have an identical Bitcoin blockchain tomorrow if you wanted to.

826
01:19:44,787 --> 01:20:12,107
My way of thinking of it is that that's all true, but if you understand Austrian economics and the purpose and nature of money and why it emerges, it emerges as a response to the two problems of barter, which is the double coincidence of wants problem and also the inability to calculate among heterogeneous goods which are not commensurate in value.

827
01:20:12,107 --> 01:20:20,667
So barter solves these two problems. I mean money solves these two problems, but that means that you can expect there to be a tendency towards one money.

828
01:20:21,007 --> 01:20:32,367
And also if you understand that money is not wealth, that money is just a special sui generis good that trades between things of value.

829
01:20:32,727 --> 01:20:37,667
So that's what money is and why you can expect there to be one money, but it's not wealth.

830
01:20:37,667 --> 01:20:45,867
And so you only need – so when people – like my friend Tucker tells me, oh, this Hayekian idea of many types of money.

831
01:20:45,967 --> 01:20:54,167
Maybe you have one money among the merchants and one money for art and one money for secure transactions and for anonymity.

832
01:20:54,327 --> 01:20:55,687
And one – like, no, no, no.

833
01:20:55,707 --> 01:20:57,787
You're going to have a tendency towards one money.

834
01:20:57,787 --> 01:21:12,547
And now my view is that there's nothing special about Bitcoin itself as a blockchain except that a crypto money has advantages over gold or a commodity money.

835
01:21:13,247 --> 01:21:22,447
And Bitcoin is the first and therefore has the longest network – it has the longest blockchain in terms of time and the biggest network effect.

836
01:21:22,447 --> 01:21:28,067
And so it's the one that's likely to emerge as the one that will tend to dominate in the future.

837
01:21:28,567 --> 01:21:31,487
It's not guaranteed that it had to be Bitcoin.

838
01:21:31,607 --> 01:21:33,427
It could have been Bitcoin Cash or something.

839
01:21:33,587 --> 01:21:35,007
But I mean, would you agree?

840
01:21:35,107 --> 01:21:39,687
Is there anything special about Bitcoin compared to, say, Bitcoin SV or Bitcoin Cash?

841
01:21:40,027 --> 01:21:40,607
Yes, yes.

842
01:21:40,707 --> 01:21:41,887
I love this question.

843
01:21:42,107 --> 01:21:43,587
And I think I have an answer to it.

844
01:21:43,827 --> 01:21:50,567
Like, I tried to put words on this in my second book, and I called it the one-shot principle.

845
01:21:50,567 --> 01:22:03,947
That principle is absolute mathematical scarcity in a sufficiently decentralized distributed network was a discovery rather than an invention.

846
01:22:04,347 --> 01:22:13,287
It cannot be achieved again by people aware of this discovery, since the very thing discovered was resistance to replicability itself.

847
01:22:13,287 --> 01:22:21,247
alluding to that the very point is that since it's just numbers and since it's just a number

848
01:22:21,247 --> 01:22:28,807
trying to replicate the the resistance to replicability in this specific number 21 million

849
01:22:28,807 --> 01:22:40,787
is pointless at best and a most of the if not all of the other cryptocurrencies or shit coins

850
01:22:40,787 --> 01:22:45,727
are there to enrich their founders.

851
01:22:46,127 --> 01:22:48,227
And Bitcoin had a founder that disappeared

852
01:22:48,227 --> 01:22:51,347
and then it got distributed in a very specific way.

853
01:22:51,867 --> 01:22:55,027
So the best analogy I know for this and why,

854
01:22:55,507 --> 01:22:59,107
like Bitcoin, we can do the Bitcoin Cash example first

855
01:22:59,107 --> 01:23:03,027
because it's super easy why Bitcoin Cash could never be it.

856
01:23:03,027 --> 01:23:06,107
And that is because they wanted to increase the block size.

857
01:23:06,307 --> 01:23:07,627
Now, what does that imply?

858
01:23:07,627 --> 01:23:12,627
It implies that blocks are costlier to download.

859
01:23:13,247 --> 01:23:29,941
So in the long run running a node will be more costly on the Bitcoin cache network than the Bitcoin network if the blocks are full that is Meaning that it centralizes over time faster than Bitcoin centralizes over time

860
01:23:29,941 --> 01:23:35,921
You could claim that Bitcoin will also centralize over time because if you extrapolate into infinity,

861
01:23:35,921 --> 01:23:39,261
then the cost of running a node will be infinitely high.

862
01:23:39,261 --> 01:23:48,281
At least Bitcoin was resilient to that and understood that blocks needed to be smaller in order for the common man to run a node.

863
01:23:48,401 --> 01:23:53,041
Otherwise, miners are in charge of the network and then it's not the same thing anymore.

864
01:23:53,161 --> 01:23:54,601
Then it's not resilient to change.

865
01:23:55,041 --> 01:23:58,261
But the analogy I want to make is the game of chess.

866
01:23:58,841 --> 01:24:01,681
So let's say that Bitcoin is the game of money.

867
01:24:02,181 --> 01:24:03,321
Chess is the game of chess.

868
01:24:03,321 --> 01:24:07,281
the latest chess rule, the latest time

869
01:24:07,281 --> 01:24:10,421
the rules of chess were changed were like

870
01:24:10,421 --> 01:24:14,741
1100 years ago when there's a move called en passant

871
01:24:14,741 --> 01:24:18,141
when you can take it. You know about the move like the

872
01:24:18,141 --> 01:24:22,121
pawn moves two steps and you can take it on the square.

873
01:24:22,121 --> 01:24:26,081
So that and the reason

874
01:24:26,081 --> 01:24:30,021
that chess doesn't change is because of this wonderful

875
01:24:30,021 --> 01:24:32,641
network effect and it's the same in Bitcoin.

876
01:24:32,641 --> 01:24:40,181
It's so big that everyone plays this game and there are endless, infinite variations of chess.

877
01:24:40,461 --> 01:24:47,841
And you can learn to play chess cash or chess gold or chess theorem or chess whatever.

878
01:24:48,881 --> 01:24:54,801
Like it was another cryptocurrency, like chess theorem, for instance, the rules would change with every move.

879
01:24:55,041 --> 01:25:00,201
Chess cash would have a 64 times 64 squared board and no pieces on it.

880
01:25:00,201 --> 01:25:07,661
And like these are all, there's nothing stopping anyone from using Bitcoin Cash if they want to.

881
01:25:07,961 --> 01:25:18,021
It's just that you cannot play the best game of them all if you do, because this is the game that allows you to play with the most numbers of players.

882
01:25:18,661 --> 01:25:25,861
So it's almost like if you change it, you're setting the precedent that it can be changed and then it's not.

883
01:25:27,361 --> 01:25:27,701
Exactly.

884
01:25:27,701 --> 01:25:37,141
Yeah, but so your argument is what I said. It's the one that's going to be because it was the first, in a sense.

885
01:25:37,161 --> 01:25:44,761
No, I'd say because it was the last, because there were precursors to this and predecessors to Bitcoin.

886
01:25:45,001 --> 01:25:45,041
Right.

887
01:25:45,861 --> 01:25:55,001
But they all died. So this one is the only one that actually worked after and still works after 17 years. It's kind of amazing.

888
01:25:55,001 --> 01:25:59,581
It's the first one that solved the problems at the previous year.

889
01:26:00,221 --> 01:26:05,241
I mean, so basically your view is it's the first one and it was good enough because.

890
01:26:05,701 --> 01:26:08,561
Yeah, and it only ever needed to be good enough.

891
01:26:08,661 --> 01:26:11,101
It never needed to be perfect, just good enough to last forever.

892
01:26:11,621 --> 01:26:13,641
And the idea of a perfect money is nonsense.

893
01:26:13,781 --> 01:26:15,261
It's impossible to have a perfect money.

894
01:26:15,401 --> 01:26:15,901
Yeah, of course.

895
01:26:16,521 --> 01:26:22,301
But it can change, but it's hard enough to change it for it to only change for the better.

896
01:26:22,301 --> 01:26:23,601
Yeah, it's good enough.

897
01:26:23,601 --> 01:26:42,921
I mean, I'm curious what you think about, I think, who's the guy that has the, I have his, the guy that had the formula for predicting the scarcity of Bitcoin.

898
01:26:43,721 --> 01:26:44,361
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

899
01:26:45,281 --> 01:26:48,421
But if you know anything about Austrian economics, that's bullshit.

900
01:26:48,421 --> 01:26:50,681
I know, I'm curious what you think.

901
01:26:50,681 --> 01:26:55,141
It's the guy, you know, he's the Austrian, the Dutch guy.

902
01:26:56,361 --> 01:26:56,801
Yeah.

903
01:26:57,541 --> 01:26:58,201
Plan B.

904
01:26:58,281 --> 01:26:58,821
Plan B.

905
01:26:59,041 --> 01:27:00,101
Yeah, plan B, right.

906
01:27:00,361 --> 01:27:01,661
And he had this power law thing.

907
01:27:01,881 --> 01:27:02,721
Yeah, what do you think about that?

908
01:27:02,921 --> 01:27:08,541
I think it's bullshit because value is subjective and you can't, like, market predictions are all bullshit like that.

909
01:27:08,541 --> 01:27:14,301
It's a good guess, I guess, but it wasn't a good guess since it didn't play out that way.

910
01:27:14,521 --> 01:27:16,681
So, like, no, and you cannot know.

911
01:27:16,681 --> 01:27:24,801
So, I mean, who's to say that this, like, technologies follow this S-curve adoption thing.

912
01:27:24,801 --> 01:27:34,521
And if that is true for Bitcoin, that's true for the adoption of Bitcoin, but it's not true for price, because price goes absolutely bonkers if that happens.

913
01:27:35,181 --> 01:27:37,181
Because people have more money.

914
01:27:37,641 --> 01:27:43,381
Like, there's not like you, people can produce more goods and services during a lifetime.

915
01:27:43,381 --> 01:27:47,241
So that means number can go infinitely high.

916
01:27:47,321 --> 01:27:53,961
That's the everything divided by 21 million theory that's alluding to that this can go on forever and it doesn't have to end.

917
01:27:54,061 --> 01:27:55,401
It can just go up forever.

918
01:27:56,181 --> 01:28:03,281
Well, by the way, your comment earlier about in Bitcoin world, then prices are always falling, that kind of thing.

919
01:28:03,281 --> 01:28:18,321
And I think – so that dovetails with my understanding of intellectual property and praxeology because if you understand human action as – is based on two key ingredients.

920
01:28:18,621 --> 01:28:22,501
One is the availability of scarce resources in the world, and the other is knowledge.

921
01:28:22,881 --> 01:28:31,161
Okay, so the reason that we're richer today than the Romans is because – not because we're smarter than the Romans.

922
01:28:31,281 --> 01:28:32,821
We're probably stupider than the Romans.

923
01:28:33,281 --> 01:28:42,201
Right. It's because we have more knowledge at our disposal. So every generation, we keep getting more. And the world is not doesn't have more resources than they used to have.

924
01:28:42,201 --> 01:28:49,181
We might get to more of it, but basically we're actually using up resources. Right. So the world is like a ball of kind of a finite ball of resources.

925
01:28:49,181 --> 01:28:57,941
But we keep – what keeps changing every year and every generation is we learn more and more ways to do things more efficiently.

926
01:28:57,941 --> 01:29:10,821
Our knowledge increases, which is why I'm so against intellectual property because it restricts the one thing we have that makes us richer.

927
01:29:11,281 --> 01:29:17,981
We have a world of finite, scarce resources, and the way we're richer is we keep improving our knowledge.

928
01:29:18,241 --> 01:29:24,321
And to impede or restrict the ability to develop that knowledge is suicidal.

929
01:29:24,321 --> 01:29:36,361
But that goes along with the reason why in a world of scarcity and in a world of a fixed money supply money like Bitcoin, that's why prices keep going down.

930
01:29:36,461 --> 01:29:39,201
They keep going down because the human race keeps growing.

931
01:29:39,401 --> 01:29:42,901
I don't know if they grow in numbers, but if they grow in numbers, the GDP goes up.

932
01:29:43,341 --> 01:29:51,181
But also we go up and we increase in productivity because we keep accumulating technical knowledge, technological knowledge that makes us more efficient.

933
01:29:51,341 --> 01:29:53,101
And so that's why prices keep going down.

934
01:29:53,101 --> 01:30:04,781
Exactly. I mean, it's so simple. And once you see it, it's like kind of impossible to unsee and impossible to not be upset about because you realize how much they steal for you via inflation.

935
01:30:05,161 --> 01:30:16,661
Since most people think no inflation would mean stable prices, but that's total bullshit. It means falling prices and falling in increasing rates too.

936
01:30:16,661 --> 01:30:25,761
I don't know if you've seen – Seyf and Dean Amuse has been arguing this lately, and I'm trying to figure out whether I agree.

937
01:30:25,861 --> 01:30:26,941
It's about interest rates.

938
01:30:27,161 --> 01:30:28,221
And so –

939
01:30:28,221 --> 01:30:28,441
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

940
01:30:28,701 --> 01:30:34,461
And I actually – I met with him in Turkey earlier last year with Hoppe, and he was trying to persuade Hoppe of this.

941
01:30:34,541 --> 01:30:37,221
And Hoppe is not quite sure what he thinks about it.

942
01:30:37,221 --> 01:30:47,061
But Saifedean's argument, if I understand it, is that – now, I think he's trying to find a way to justify the Islamic –

943
01:30:47,061 --> 01:30:48,221
Yes, I've had the same thought.

944
01:30:48,641 --> 01:30:53,321
I think he's trying to find a way to justify the anti-usory view.

945
01:30:54,041 --> 01:30:58,181
Okay, I think I can do a pretty good TLDR of it.

946
01:30:58,181 --> 01:31:08,961
So the theory is that a money hoarder would at some point be the cost of owning the money.

947
01:31:09,461 --> 01:31:12,021
Wait, wait, hold on. What kind of money? You mean gold, right?

948
01:31:12,741 --> 01:31:14,341
Well, gold or Bitcoin or whatever.

949
01:31:14,601 --> 01:31:17,581
Let's talk about gold first because I think there's a difference, but go ahead.

950
01:31:18,101 --> 01:31:20,901
Yeah, I think Seyfrieden's theory is more general.

951
01:31:21,341 --> 01:31:24,881
This is from the Principles of Economics book that he wrote.

952
01:31:24,881 --> 01:31:35,441
a very good book by the way but uh uh it but um the the original idea in that book as is said by

953
01:31:35,441 --> 01:31:42,581
safety and i'm paraphrasing him here of course but is that at some point the the cost of holding money

954
01:31:42,581 --> 01:31:51,101
becomes so high that you're incentivized to uh lend it out uh at a negative interest rate even

955
01:31:51,101 --> 01:31:59,301
um so yeah but but this is paired with his insight that over time time preference uh

956
01:31:59,301 --> 01:32:04,621
goes down and over time the progress of societies that interest rates go down and down and down

957
01:32:04,621 --> 01:32:13,521
so you reach a point where where the interest you could charge is less than um you it's not enough

958
01:32:13,521 --> 01:32:19,261
to pay for your storage costs no no so so the the theory is that the the call if i understand it

959
01:32:19,261 --> 01:32:24,081
correctly, that the cost of the storage would be higher than to just lend the money out with a

960
01:32:24,081 --> 01:32:28,161
very low or even negative interest rate. Yeah. So basically you're, you're, you're getting,

961
01:32:28,401 --> 01:32:32,861
you're getting a storage cost paid for by lending to someone, even if you get no interest,

962
01:32:32,861 --> 01:32:36,861
because at least they're holding it for you. Yeah. But, but so he discussed that recently,

963
01:32:36,861 --> 01:32:42,221
I think it was in the, um, in the, um, in some podcasts, maybe with Adam Heyman or maybe Bob

964
01:32:42,221 --> 01:32:46,121
Murphy, but he was talking about his book, his new book, his novel, the gold standard.

965
01:32:46,121 --> 01:32:49,101
And that's set in a gold standard world.

966
01:32:49,241 --> 01:32:54,621
And my thinking is that he might be right for gold because there is a cost to holding gold.

967
01:32:54,761 --> 01:32:55,321
There's a risk.

968
01:32:55,881 --> 01:32:56,601
There's a cost.

969
01:32:57,381 --> 01:33:05,081
But it's hard to imagine that that same phenomena happens with Bitcoin because the cost of holding Bitcoin is basically zero.

970
01:33:05,541 --> 01:33:08,141
And there's no increasing cost with the amount.

971
01:33:08,521 --> 01:33:13,501
So the cost of holding one Satoshi is exactly the same as the cost of holding all 21 million Bitcoins.

972
01:33:13,501 --> 01:33:24,001
So it seems to me like that there would always be a positive interest rate that is above the cost of holding for Bitcoin, but I'm not sure about that.

973
01:33:24,001 --> 01:33:31,401
No, I mean, theoretically, like, let's unpack that.

974
01:33:32,161 --> 01:33:46,761
There is a cost to holding a Bitcoin, but how much that cost is, it's like, yeah, I mean, you could hold like trillions of dollars by memorizing 12 words.

975
01:33:47,061 --> 01:33:50,561
It's possible, not advisable, but it is possible.

976
01:33:50,561 --> 01:33:59,741
And the question becomes like – so, yeah, theoretically it may be true, but then again everything may be true theoretically.

977
01:33:59,741 --> 01:34:19,401
Well, put it this way. Let's put it this way. If I understand Seyfedine's point, so the question for me is – I think he's correct that the development of the human species over time could be viewed as one of reducing time preference, right?

978
01:34:19,401 --> 01:34:30,701
And so you could – and with increasing prosperity and reducing time preference and more long-term events, you could see the interest rate would go lower and lower.

979
01:34:30,981 --> 01:34:36,421
So the question is, does it tend towards zero or does it tend towards some finite amount?

980
01:34:36,581 --> 01:34:44,781
And if it tends towards – whichever way it is, you could see that it could get below the cost of holding gold in a gold world.

981
01:34:44,781 --> 01:34:45,421
Absolutely.

982
01:34:45,961 --> 01:34:54,801
So you could see that in a world where gold is the money, interest could go so low that you might be incentivized to loan it for no interest rate.

983
01:34:54,921 --> 01:34:56,141
Okay, I could understand that.

984
01:34:56,621 --> 01:34:57,261
I just don't know.

985
01:34:57,261 --> 01:35:05,401
Simple fact, it might be more valuable to have friends than to have a vault full of gold because that's what that means.

986
01:35:05,401 --> 01:35:05,741
Correct.

987
01:35:05,981 --> 01:35:06,261
Correct.

988
01:35:06,641 --> 01:35:09,941
Yeah, you make them have skin in the game in a sense.

989
01:35:10,081 --> 01:35:10,801
Yeah, exactly.

990
01:35:10,801 --> 01:35:25,661
But let's say Bitcoin is tending towards – I mean let's say interest rate for money is tending towards 1.2%. That's the tendency. It's not going to zero because maybe he's wrong that there will be no interest. Maybe there will be some interest.

991
01:35:25,661 --> 01:35:30,461
Now, I'm actually more amenable not to the idea that there'd be zero interest.

992
01:35:30,841 --> 01:35:43,101
I'm more amenable to the idea that in a Bitcoin world, the concept of loaning would almost like every like I'm more I'm more sympathetic towards that idea that the idea of credit would almost disappear.

993
01:35:43,481 --> 01:35:50,161
Well, I'd say say not disappear, but but these artificially low interest rates would disappear.

994
01:35:50,161 --> 01:35:50,721
Oh, certainly.

995
01:35:51,101 --> 01:35:56,021
Then we would have like a more proper interest rate, which might be like 20% or something.

996
01:35:56,021 --> 01:35:56,921
But not just that.

997
01:35:57,101 --> 01:36:00,181
The idea like that people's characters would change.

998
01:36:00,301 --> 01:36:07,081
Like, for example, when you get out of college, when you get out of school, you wouldn't borrow money to buy a house or to buy a car.

999
01:36:07,301 --> 01:36:08,301
You would save up and do it.

1000
01:36:08,301 --> 01:36:08,801
No, no, you'd save up.

1001
01:36:09,001 --> 01:36:09,141
Yeah.

1002
01:36:09,301 --> 01:36:12,821
So all those things, they would largely disappear.

1003
01:36:13,181 --> 01:36:17,681
So the question is, if you have a new business, would they borrow money or would they take investors?

1004
01:36:18,261 --> 01:36:19,001
So I don't know about that.

1005
01:36:19,001 --> 01:36:21,941
This is another brain tickler.

1006
01:36:22,481 --> 01:36:22,681
Yeah.

1007
01:36:22,981 --> 01:36:42,361
If we extrapolate to the year 2140, so all the Bitcoins have been mined, which means that not only is there a finite supply of them or a finite amount on the market, it's ever diminishing because people lose their Bitcoins.

1008
01:36:42,541 --> 01:36:44,041
People choose to huddle forever.

1009
01:36:44,481 --> 01:36:47,461
That will happen even when the last Bitcoin has been mined.

1010
01:36:47,461 --> 01:36:51,141
By the way, not only that

1011
01:36:51,141 --> 01:36:53,441
But let's suppose you die

1012
01:36:53,441 --> 01:36:54,101
And you're a billionaire

1013
01:36:54,101 --> 01:36:57,141
To donate the money to charity

1014
01:36:57,141 --> 01:36:58,681
You might just destroy your keys

1015
01:36:58,681 --> 01:37:01,001
Yeah, that's what Saylor says he will do

1016
01:37:01,001 --> 01:37:04,041
He's alluded to that

1017
01:37:04,041 --> 01:37:07,021
And because money is not wealth

1018
01:37:07,021 --> 01:37:20,514
That not destroying anything Yeah but just imagine this scenario Where you have this ever total supply of money then In that world very few people

1019
01:37:20,514 --> 01:37:22,154
would be able to actually have

1020
01:37:22,154 --> 01:37:23,934
black numbers on their balance sheets

1021
01:37:23,934 --> 01:37:25,874
in terms of Satoshis.

1022
01:37:26,414 --> 01:37:28,254
They would have what, Sagan?

1023
01:37:28,594 --> 01:37:30,034
Black numbers on their balance sheets.

1024
01:37:30,194 --> 01:37:31,374
So there will all be red numbers.

1025
01:37:31,574 --> 01:37:34,154
Like all stacks would be diminishing

1026
01:37:34,154 --> 01:37:36,494
because very few businesses

1027
01:37:36,494 --> 01:37:38,654
would be able to be profitable.

1028
01:37:40,534 --> 01:37:41,534
Don't get me wrong.

1029
01:37:41,654 --> 01:37:46,554
They would be very profitable in purchasing power terms,

1030
01:37:46,674 --> 01:37:48,994
but not in terms of the Satoshis themselves.

1031
01:37:49,534 --> 01:37:50,734
So it's the same thing with wages, right?

1032
01:37:50,754 --> 01:37:51,754
Your salary would go down.

1033
01:37:52,014 --> 01:37:52,314
Yeah, exactly.

1034
01:37:52,494 --> 01:37:53,314
It would go down every year.

1035
01:37:53,314 --> 01:37:54,534
In nominal terms.

1036
01:37:54,734 --> 01:37:56,974
So theoretically, you may start a business

1037
01:37:56,974 --> 01:38:00,654
not to actually make more Satoshis per year,

1038
01:38:00,774 --> 01:38:05,994
but to decrease the rate of decline of your stack of Bitcoin.

1039
01:38:05,994 --> 01:38:09,234
so that it diminished a little slower.

1040
01:38:09,234 --> 01:38:14,194
So you're looking at the angle of the curve rather than the curve itself.

1041
01:38:14,854 --> 01:38:18,634
It's such a mind-blowing world to even think about.

1042
01:38:18,934 --> 01:38:24,094
Do you think that the supply would go down of Bitcoins also because of friction?

1043
01:38:26,014 --> 01:38:26,994
How do you mean?

1044
01:38:28,694 --> 01:38:29,974
How do you mean friction?

1045
01:38:29,974 --> 01:38:32,294
well

1046
01:38:32,294 --> 01:38:34,634
every time

1047
01:38:34,634 --> 01:38:36,874
you make a transfer

1048
01:38:36,874 --> 01:38:37,894
I guess it's not for

1049
01:38:37,894 --> 01:38:38,674
I guess you don't lose

1050
01:38:38,674 --> 01:38:39,954
if I transfer Bitcoin

1051
01:38:39,954 --> 01:38:40,934
I guess nothing is lost

1052
01:38:40,934 --> 01:38:42,394
because someone gets the fee right

1053
01:38:42,394 --> 01:38:43,254
yeah yeah exactly

1054
01:38:43,254 --> 01:38:46,674
not a single Satoshi is lost per se

1055
01:38:46,674 --> 01:38:48,414
I guess for actually just from lost

1056
01:38:48,414 --> 01:38:51,014
but they are lost in the sense that

1057
01:38:51,014 --> 01:38:52,854
there's a minimum amount

1058
01:38:52,854 --> 01:38:54,154
so and also

1059
01:38:54,154 --> 01:38:55,534
at that point

1060
01:38:55,534 --> 01:38:56,574
it will probably cause

1061
01:38:56,574 --> 01:38:57,214
right now

1062
01:38:57,214 --> 01:38:58,434
right now

1063
01:38:58,434 --> 01:39:06,434
sometimes the mempool clears and and it costs literally one satoshi to send a bitcoin uh which

1064
01:39:06,434 --> 01:39:14,594
is or one satoshi per vbyte uh which is the lowest allowed but you could theoretically have like a

1065
01:39:14,594 --> 01:39:19,734
very low amount of bitcoin in one address and never be able to to spend it because the fees

1066
01:39:19,734 --> 01:39:25,314
would always exceed the amount that is in that address so all of those bitcoins would be like

1067
01:39:25,314 --> 01:39:28,374
just effectively lost.

1068
01:39:28,874 --> 01:39:29,274
That's my point.

1069
01:39:29,414 --> 01:39:31,774
Yeah, I guess that's part of what I mean by friction.

1070
01:39:31,934 --> 01:39:33,894
Well, let me ask you, what is your vision of,

1071
01:39:34,054 --> 01:39:36,094
let's say 50 years from now, I don't know,

1072
01:39:36,174 --> 01:39:39,054
let's say Bitcoin is worth, I don't know,

1073
01:39:39,454 --> 01:39:43,774
$50 million in current money

1074
01:39:43,774 --> 01:39:47,994
and every Satoshi is worth, I don't know, $17 or whatever.

1075
01:39:47,994 --> 01:39:50,954
I mean, do you envision side chains

1076
01:39:50,954 --> 01:39:54,494
or do you envision that the protocol gets modified

1077
01:39:54,494 --> 01:39:56,654
to expand the decimal points?

1078
01:39:56,734 --> 01:39:58,134
What do you think is going to happen?

1079
01:39:58,734 --> 01:39:59,834
Super glad you asked that

1080
01:39:59,834 --> 01:40:01,234
because I think I have

1081
01:40:01,234 --> 01:40:03,694
quite original ideas about this.

1082
01:40:04,374 --> 01:40:06,234
I think the real scaling

1083
01:40:06,234 --> 01:40:08,334
is that we'll just spend less.

1084
01:40:09,094 --> 01:40:10,434
I think, you know,

1085
01:40:10,534 --> 01:40:12,674
micropayments are a very fiat-y thing.

1086
01:40:12,894 --> 01:40:13,334
So whenever,

1087
01:40:13,854 --> 01:40:16,274
if I go to the central station

1088
01:40:16,274 --> 01:40:17,354
in Amsterdam

1089
01:40:17,354 --> 01:40:19,474
and I need to take a leak,

1090
01:40:19,554 --> 01:40:20,814
then I have to pay a euro

1091
01:40:20,814 --> 01:40:24,394
to open the door to the toilet, right?

1092
01:40:24,494 --> 01:40:27,934
and then I have to buy a train ticket

1093
01:40:27,934 --> 01:40:31,174
and there's like 130 different types of train tickets

1094
01:40:31,174 --> 01:40:33,114
and I...

1095
01:40:33,114 --> 01:40:34,434
All of this...

1096
01:40:34,434 --> 01:40:36,514
So using money is going to be too much of a hassle

1097
01:40:36,514 --> 01:40:37,614
for people to bother with?

1098
01:40:37,614 --> 01:40:42,514
No, but imagine if you have a Bitcoin business,

1099
01:40:43,194 --> 01:40:47,514
it may make sense to you to sell lifetime subscriptions

1100
01:40:47,514 --> 01:40:50,174
instead of selling individual products

1101
01:40:50,174 --> 01:40:52,394
because then you get the money earlier

1102
01:40:52,394 --> 01:40:54,754
and since the money goes up in value forever,

1103
01:40:55,374 --> 01:40:57,714
it's better for you to get the money now than later.

1104
01:40:58,354 --> 01:40:59,614
So it's like the opposite.

1105
01:40:59,794 --> 01:41:02,674
Everything is the inverse of the fiat monetary system.

1106
01:41:03,174 --> 01:41:07,554
So in fiat, they always say the first million is the hardest.

1107
01:41:07,774 --> 01:41:08,974
In Bitcoin, it's the other way around.

1108
01:41:09,334 --> 01:41:11,634
Like the first million is the easiest, of course,

1109
01:41:12,214 --> 01:41:16,814
because the increasing difficulty applies to everyone.

1110
01:41:17,454 --> 01:41:21,554
So I think also we'll trust each other more.

1111
01:41:21,554 --> 01:41:42,094
This is also the irony of it. The theory is this, and I'd love to pick your brain on this. If you have 10 poor people who buy food every day for 10 days, then there's 100 transactions because each of them goes and buys noodles for themselves and eat in their apartment.

1112
01:41:42,094 --> 01:41:55,374
If 10 wealthy people do the same thing and they're friends, they might go to a restaurant every night and one of them picks up the bill each night because they're nice and friendly people and they can afford to do that.

1113
01:41:55,854 --> 01:41:59,314
So at the end of the week, you have 10 transactions instead of 100.

1114
01:41:59,994 --> 01:42:03,854
My point is that it's very expensive to be poor in the fiat system.

1115
01:42:03,854 --> 01:42:06,094
and if everyone's on a Bitcoin system

1116
01:42:06,094 --> 01:42:09,114
and everyone benefits from everything in the economy

1117
01:42:09,114 --> 01:42:10,914
because it's not a zero-sum game,

1118
01:42:11,094 --> 01:42:13,154
all prices go down forever,

1119
01:42:13,874 --> 01:42:15,934
then fewer transactions are necessary

1120
01:42:15,934 --> 01:42:17,894
because you can bundle them.

1121
01:42:18,234 --> 01:42:20,354
And you're also incentivized to bundle them

1122
01:42:20,354 --> 01:42:22,814
since there's a fee to sending the transaction.

1123
01:42:23,014 --> 01:42:24,794
And you're incentivized to use

1124
01:42:24,794 --> 01:42:27,814
all other types of trust models between people.

1125
01:42:28,054 --> 01:42:29,874
At the end of the day, this is just communication.

1126
01:42:30,554 --> 01:42:32,954
So all of humanity will act more

1127
01:42:32,954 --> 01:42:34,694
like you do within a family.

1128
01:42:35,254 --> 01:42:37,254
You just give the other guy a meal

1129
01:42:37,254 --> 01:42:39,394
because you know you'll get it back at something.

1130
01:42:40,134 --> 01:42:42,154
I can see that changing,

1131
01:42:42,354 --> 01:42:43,294
but the question is,

1132
01:42:43,434 --> 01:42:45,314
but that kind of assumes there's only one,

1133
01:42:45,674 --> 01:42:47,134
everything's on chain.

1134
01:42:47,254 --> 01:42:49,674
I mean, it could be that side chains develop

1135
01:42:49,674 --> 01:42:51,114
to augment what you're talking about.

1136
01:42:51,134 --> 01:42:53,074
All I'm talking about here is off chain.

1137
01:42:53,514 --> 01:42:54,614
None of these transactions

1138
01:42:54,614 --> 01:42:56,594
actually have to happen on chain.

1139
01:42:56,594 --> 01:42:59,974
And also, you don't even need a side chain.

1140
01:43:00,014 --> 01:43:01,694
If you trust the person,

1141
01:43:01,694 --> 01:43:06,254
then you don't need any blockchain.

1142
01:43:06,594 --> 01:43:07,434
You don't need any...

1143
01:43:07,434 --> 01:43:10,354
No, no, no, but that's a type of sidechain conceptually.

1144
01:43:10,454 --> 01:43:11,334
It's a type of sidechain.

1145
01:43:11,494 --> 01:43:14,794
In other words, you're counting on getting paid back somehow.

1146
01:43:15,174 --> 01:43:20,214
Yeah, you and I, like I trust you already from just internet reputation

1147
01:43:20,214 --> 01:43:22,854
to if we ever had transactions together,

1148
01:43:23,254 --> 01:43:25,214
we could just keep a tab on one another.

1149
01:43:25,334 --> 01:43:26,134
I wouldn't mind that.

1150
01:43:26,374 --> 01:43:27,754
Like I wouldn't need a blockchain.

1151
01:43:28,014 --> 01:43:30,674
So I wouldn't need a banking system.

1152
01:43:30,674 --> 01:43:31,534
I wouldn't need anything.

1153
01:43:31,694 --> 01:43:34,574
I'd rather just keep a tab.

1154
01:43:35,314 --> 01:43:39,154
I don't know, but I think that's all fascinating and good and right,

1155
01:43:39,294 --> 01:43:42,714
but it still doesn't answer the question about what's actually going to happen.

1156
01:43:44,634 --> 01:43:48,734
50 years from now, when Bitcoin is a dollar per Satoshi,

1157
01:43:49,334 --> 01:43:53,214
do you think that the decimal points will be modified and there will be sidechains?

1158
01:43:53,394 --> 01:43:54,314
I mean, I'm curious.

1159
01:43:54,314 --> 01:43:56,934
No, why would they need to be modified?

1160
01:43:56,934 --> 01:44:05,574
I mean, over the Lightning Network, which is like how when Bitcoin is used for everyday

1161
01:44:05,574 --> 01:44:12,254
commerce, like in El Salvador, for instance, everything is over Lightning and you can do

1162
01:44:12,254 --> 01:44:16,434
sub-Satoshis on Lightning. It's trivial. So you can divide it into-

1163
01:44:16,434 --> 01:44:22,394
Okay. So you don't see the decimal points in the blockchain, in Bitcoin changing, but

1164
01:44:22,394 --> 01:44:26,294
you're imagining a sidechain though. You're imagining a sidechain.

1165
01:44:26,294 --> 01:44:29,954
I wouldn't call lightning a side chain necessarily

1166
01:44:29,954 --> 01:44:32,694
Why not? What would you call it?

1167
01:44:33,494 --> 01:44:34,954
Because it's

1168
01:44:34,954 --> 01:44:42,114
To be honest, because I've never heard it described as a side chain

1169
01:44:42,114 --> 01:44:43,794
I don't look for it as a side chain

1170
01:44:43,794 --> 01:44:45,774
What would you call it?

1171
01:44:45,774 --> 01:44:52,794
I think lightning is not a side chain because it's not a chain at all

1172
01:44:52,794 --> 01:44:54,254
There's no chain involved

1173
01:44:54,254 --> 01:44:56,194
Oh, I see, okay

1174
01:44:56,194 --> 01:45:08,714
Yeah, you're just staking, you're devoting X number of Bitcoins into a lightning channel, and then someone else does the same, and now you've opened a channel and you can interact on lightning.

1175
01:45:08,714 --> 01:45:13,154
But it's a channel that can be funded with and settled in Bitcoin, correct?

1176
01:45:13,874 --> 01:45:14,234
Only.

1177
01:45:14,654 --> 01:45:22,314
Yes, it cannot be. It is the Bitcoin because at some point it settles back on chain.

1178
01:45:22,314 --> 01:45:27,274
So it's like, it's like, it's conceptually a little bit like a debit card, right?

1179
01:45:28,954 --> 01:45:30,954
Yeah, except there's not a debit card.

1180
01:45:31,514 --> 01:45:42,374
But you load it with, yeah, I know there's no bank, but I mean, you load your channel with a certain number of Bitcoins by an on-chain transaction, correct?

1181
01:45:42,374 --> 01:45:52,034
Well, it's a distributed IOU system, I guess, except that it's totally accountable.

1182
01:45:57,194 --> 01:46:08,294
I mean, I wouldn't call it as robust as Bitcoin, but even if Lightning Channel closes too early, all that happens is that the balance goes back to its rightful owner.

1183
01:46:08,294 --> 01:46:12,114
So there's like no way of like gamifying and rigging the system.

1184
01:46:12,114 --> 01:46:14,254
It has the same.

1185
01:46:15,114 --> 01:46:18,874
Do you actually use Lightning yourself right now?

1186
01:46:19,194 --> 01:46:21,574
Yeah, yeah, I do for a lot of things.

1187
01:46:22,354 --> 01:46:26,054
And I try to use Bitcoin as much as I can.

1188
01:46:26,574 --> 01:46:27,494
Of course, it's hard.

1189
01:46:27,734 --> 01:46:41,114
I mean, I live in Europe and the governments here have decided to suspect me and treat me as a criminal because I'm using a means of communication that they cannot tax or they cannot inflate.

1190
01:46:42,114 --> 01:46:46,614
So I'm being criminalized for refusing to use something that they counterfeit.

1191
01:46:47,334 --> 01:46:50,894
So earlier you talked about Bitcoin as money.

1192
01:46:51,014 --> 01:46:52,594
Do you regard it as money now?

1193
01:46:52,674 --> 01:46:55,714
Or do you think it's got degrees of moneyness and it's on its way?

1194
01:46:55,914 --> 01:46:59,414
Where do you view Bitcoin at in money?

1195
01:46:59,414 --> 01:47:06,814
I mean, the definition of money is something like the most dominant form of medium of exchange, right?

1196
01:47:07,354 --> 01:47:07,474
Yeah.

1197
01:47:07,554 --> 01:47:09,974
So I think it's on its way there.

1198
01:47:09,974 --> 01:47:21,994
I view it and I think the terms medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account are somewhat confusing, especially store of value.

1199
01:47:22,154 --> 01:47:25,354
Since value is subjective, you can't really store value.

1200
01:47:25,594 --> 01:47:29,554
I prefer medium of exchange over space and time.

1201
01:47:30,214 --> 01:47:31,254
It's just medium of exchange.

1202
01:47:31,254 --> 01:47:33,294
and who's to say,

1203
01:47:34,134 --> 01:47:35,414
and all I get,

1204
01:47:35,594 --> 01:47:37,094
I get these questions so much,

1205
01:47:37,174 --> 01:47:38,494
like how will we transact

1206
01:47:38,494 --> 01:47:39,574
with one another

1207
01:47:39,574 --> 01:47:41,154
on a Bitcoin standard?

1208
01:47:41,414 --> 01:47:42,294
But the thing is,

1209
01:47:42,694 --> 01:47:43,774
transacting a lot

1210
01:47:43,774 --> 01:47:45,374
is a very Keynesian concept,

1211
01:47:45,654 --> 01:47:48,254
like transacting over time

1212
01:47:48,254 --> 01:47:48,934
with yourself.

1213
01:47:49,314 --> 01:47:51,014
Yeah, velocity of money is bullshit.

1214
01:47:51,734 --> 01:47:54,834
So I think we'll all get into more like,

1215
01:47:56,354 --> 01:47:58,114
what it leads me to

1216
01:47:58,114 --> 01:47:59,694
is less materialism

1217
01:47:59,694 --> 01:48:00,994
and less consumerism

1218
01:48:00,994 --> 01:48:04,394
and you only buy quality over quantity.

1219
01:48:04,714 --> 01:48:07,254
Like quality is really the opposite of equality.

1220
01:48:07,934 --> 01:48:10,474
Like you get into the mindset.

1221
01:48:10,474 --> 01:48:11,014
That's interesting.

1222
01:48:11,614 --> 01:48:12,374
Yeah, I agree with that,

1223
01:48:12,474 --> 01:48:14,734
especially as we get richer because of Bitcoin

1224
01:48:14,734 --> 01:48:18,974
and we have lower time preference

1225
01:48:18,974 --> 01:48:22,554
and money has a cost to use.

1226
01:48:23,394 --> 01:48:23,814
Yeah, yeah.

1227
01:48:24,194 --> 01:48:26,114
And you'd rather keep the Bitcoin

1228
01:48:26,114 --> 01:48:27,494
than buy the frivolous shit

1229
01:48:27,494 --> 01:48:29,274
that you otherwise would have bought.

1230
01:48:29,274 --> 01:48:35,334
so so like it's not about the fucking lambos like if you can do without the lambo you own the lambo

1231
01:48:35,334 --> 01:48:40,454
like so i've always i've always thought and maybe you disagree with me on this because of your

1232
01:48:40,454 --> 01:48:47,134
view about bitcoin's unique uh status as money i've always thought that uh yeah during the

1233
01:48:47,134 --> 01:48:54,234
monetization phase it makes sense to hold it um for speculation if nothing else but let's suppose

1234
01:48:54,234 --> 01:48:57,854
it sort of starts plateauing and becomes the world's dominant money.

1235
01:48:58,854 --> 01:49:05,874
It would go up in value because of productivity, but it wouldn't keep going up hyperbolically, right?

1236
01:49:06,374 --> 01:49:07,234
Or parabolically.

1237
01:49:07,394 --> 01:49:09,474
It would finally plateau at a certain point.

1238
01:49:10,194 --> 01:49:17,014
And at that point in time, it seems to me that you would only hold a fraction of your wealth in money

1239
01:49:17,014 --> 01:49:25,054
because of the risk of collapse or the risk that it might fail.

1240
01:49:25,374 --> 01:49:31,334
So let's suppose I'm worth, I don't know, $200 million in wealth in Bitcoin.

1241
01:49:32,234 --> 01:49:35,474
I would be stupid to hold that in cash.

1242
01:49:35,594 --> 01:49:38,634
I would hold maybe 10% of it in Bitcoin,

1243
01:49:38,834 --> 01:49:44,574
and the rest I would have to put in the stock market or buy real estate or something like that just to diversify.

1244
01:49:44,574 --> 01:49:45,934
What do you think about that?

1245
01:49:47,014 --> 01:50:04,194
Yeah, I think that's correct. I do think that after it sort of plateaus, I don't envision it like, because say that total goods and services and productivity in society increases by about 10% per year in today's economy.

1246
01:50:04,194 --> 01:50:04,714
Yeah.

1247
01:50:05,854 --> 01:50:15,854
I'll imagine. But what we leave out then is that a Bitcoin economy is a much more free market oriented, much more well-oiled machine.

1248
01:50:15,854 --> 01:50:22,294
So it might increase by 25% per year still after everyone's adopted it.

1249
01:50:22,494 --> 01:50:23,854
But we're not at 10% now.

1250
01:50:24,334 --> 01:50:25,954
Are you imagining we're at 10% now?

1251
01:50:27,594 --> 01:50:31,334
Like more goods and services per year globally?

1252
01:50:32,114 --> 01:50:32,674
Yeah.

1253
01:50:32,914 --> 01:50:33,334
Aren't we?

1254
01:50:33,434 --> 01:50:34,354
What do you imagine?

1255
01:50:34,494 --> 01:50:36,394
What would be a good number?

1256
01:50:37,094 --> 01:50:37,594
5%?

1257
01:50:38,074 --> 01:50:38,654
3%?

1258
01:50:39,134 --> 01:50:39,574
4%?

1259
01:50:39,574 --> 01:50:40,034
3%.

1260
01:50:40,034 --> 01:50:40,674
Yeah, yeah.

1261
01:50:40,894 --> 01:50:42,714
But thought experiment is the same.

1262
01:50:42,714 --> 01:50:45,494
Say it increases from 3% to 15%.

1263
01:50:45,494 --> 01:50:55,474
It's still super incentivized to hodl the Bitcoin and wait another year before you buy another lawnmower.

1264
01:50:55,854 --> 01:51:01,594
Like you're still incentivized to save rather than spend frivolous.

1265
01:51:01,674 --> 01:51:01,834
Yes.

1266
01:51:02,434 --> 01:51:04,274
So that's the gist of it.

1267
01:51:04,334 --> 01:51:05,074
That's the point.

1268
01:51:05,074 --> 01:51:06,154
And also that.

1269
01:51:06,188 --> 01:51:10,988
When everyone has it, the rate of which they're lost is much higher.

1270
01:51:11,108 --> 01:51:17,908
So you have the decreasing supply and the increasing demand like forever type of thing.

1271
01:51:17,908 --> 01:51:22,628
I have a hard time envisioning what that actually looks like, like everyone else.

1272
01:51:22,808 --> 01:51:26,248
But I try to think about it, but it's super strange.

1273
01:51:26,528 --> 01:51:34,528
Well, and with the simultaneous advent of robotics and AI, these things are all going to go together.

1274
01:51:34,528 --> 01:51:41,488
I mean, what is your personal prediction of the adoption of Bitcoin?

1275
01:51:42,268 --> 01:51:46,848
What do you think that the next, you know, when do you think it's going to hit X?

1276
01:51:47,008 --> 01:51:53,328
And do you think it'll be a soft transition or a worldwide disruption as the U.S. gets?

1277
01:51:55,048 --> 01:51:58,868
What do you see is happening with hyper-Bitconization or whatever?

1278
01:51:58,868 --> 01:52:04,368
I love how this turned into you being the interviewer and I being the interviewer.

1279
01:52:04,368 --> 01:52:04,608
Sorry.

1280
01:52:05,848 --> 01:52:07,608
You know more than me about Bitcoin, I think.

1281
01:52:07,608 --> 01:52:11,288
Yeah, but I love because I love this discussion.

1282
01:52:11,288 --> 01:52:16,448
So like every Bitcoin, I'm waiting for hyper-Bitcoinization like any day now.

1283
01:52:16,628 --> 01:52:19,268
It's going to go parabolic tomorrow and all this.

1284
01:52:20,448 --> 01:52:28,928
But I think it's more like, you know, I grew up and I first started traveling around Europe in the early 90s.

1285
01:52:28,948 --> 01:52:32,968
So like very close to the falling of the Berlin Wall and all of this.

1286
01:52:32,968 --> 01:52:34,748
And no one spoke English.

1287
01:52:34,888 --> 01:52:39,228
Like if you went to France or Spain or Germany, no one spoke English.

1288
01:52:39,828 --> 01:52:41,608
Like English wasn't around.

1289
01:52:42,688 --> 01:52:47,728
And today, everyone under 20 speaks perfect English in Europe today.

1290
01:52:48,248 --> 01:52:51,968
Like there's no, maybe not perfect everywhere, but it's...

1291
01:52:52,488 --> 01:52:55,748
It's become the default lingua franca.

1292
01:52:56,008 --> 01:52:56,768
Yeah, the second language.

1293
01:52:57,068 --> 01:53:00,408
My Swedish kids speak English to one another rather than Swedish.

1294
01:53:00,408 --> 01:53:01,428
And they don't have to.

1295
01:53:01,428 --> 01:53:03,908
With the other Swedish friends too, they speak English.

1296
01:53:04,088 --> 01:53:05,888
For some reason, they just do.

1297
01:53:07,388 --> 01:53:11,328
And I think that Bitcoin adoption happens in the same way.

1298
01:53:11,568 --> 01:53:14,228
Because I think the boomer generation will never get it.

1299
01:53:14,228 --> 01:53:18,548
The hurdles are too big.

1300
01:53:19,128 --> 01:53:28,648
The rewiring of the brain that is necessary to understand just a fraction of what this implies is just too much.

1301
01:53:28,648 --> 01:53:40,388
But I think the younger generations, if they actually grow up and they have a wallet on their phone and they start using it, then it becomes second language.

1302
01:53:41,188 --> 01:53:44,088
And sooner than you know it, everyone speaks Bitcoin.

1303
01:53:45,088 --> 01:53:53,808
And yeah, if you look at merchant adoption and stuff, we think it's super small and we still are super early, but it is like doubling every year.

1304
01:53:53,888 --> 01:53:56,748
It's just that we haven't seen the real effects of that yet.

1305
01:53:56,748 --> 01:54:00,588
We haven't seen the exponentials always start small, right?

1306
01:54:00,588 --> 01:54:06,748
And so when it happens, I mean, I think we're in for a ride.

1307
01:54:06,748 --> 01:54:11,268
I don't know when the last cycle is, but I think we're going to go in cycles

1308
01:54:11,268 --> 01:54:27,224
for a couple of more times like over one or two decades more And then there a point where it just goes up forever until fiat dies Like if it works like how could it not How could it not at some point go up forever in terms of dollars

1309
01:54:27,744 --> 01:54:29,104
Because all they can do is print them.

1310
01:54:29,104 --> 01:54:35,224
If it causes so much societal disruption that it triggers some kind of nuclear war

1311
01:54:35,224 --> 01:54:41,684
or some kind of societal meltdown, I think that could slow down adoption

1312
01:54:41,684 --> 01:54:45,104
if the human population has been decimated

1313
01:54:45,104 --> 01:54:48,364
and we're living in the stone age again, you know?

1314
01:54:48,784 --> 01:54:51,124
Yeah, but the more people we get on board,

1315
01:54:51,324 --> 01:54:53,184
the less likely that is.

1316
01:54:53,824 --> 01:54:56,284
Because wars are funded by fiat.

1317
01:54:56,604 --> 01:54:59,284
Like the more we go out to a Bitcoin standard,

1318
01:54:59,284 --> 01:55:02,684
the less we take away the resources

1319
01:55:02,684 --> 01:55:04,324
for these assholes to do these things

1320
01:55:04,324 --> 01:55:06,324
and the incentives at the same time.

1321
01:55:06,804 --> 01:55:08,184
So yeah, and this is utopian.

1322
01:55:08,384 --> 01:55:09,684
I know I'm a hopium salesman.

1323
01:55:09,684 --> 01:55:18,564
But I cannot get these thoughts out of my head because they're too beautiful and it's too hopeful.

1324
01:55:19,064 --> 01:55:21,544
And hope is, in my opinion, a rational choice.

1325
01:55:21,984 --> 01:55:26,124
You're going to die anyway, so you might as well live as a hopeful man and as a free man.

1326
01:55:27,244 --> 01:55:30,264
Most people wouldn't believe this, but that's basically my approach, too.

1327
01:55:30,324 --> 01:55:31,144
That's my view, too.

1328
01:55:31,904 --> 01:55:39,424
It's a long-term hope, and it's also a hope that doesn't have anything to do with activism.

1329
01:55:39,424 --> 01:55:44,124
Like either it's going to happen or it's not because the logic is there and it makes sense.

1330
01:55:44,604 --> 01:55:48,564
It's not because libertarians or even Bitcoin activists are out there promoting it.

1331
01:55:48,724 --> 01:55:53,744
Like if Bitcoin needs libertarians or Bitcoins to promote it, then it's not going to work.

1332
01:55:53,804 --> 01:55:56,424
It's got to have a logic of its own for it to work.

1333
01:55:57,104 --> 01:55:58,064
Yeah, absolutely.

1334
01:55:58,924 --> 01:56:01,764
Anyway, I'll stop interviewing you if you have any more with me.

1335
01:56:02,884 --> 01:56:05,604
Have you read The White Pill by Michael Malice?

1336
01:56:06,084 --> 01:56:07,404
I came to think about it here.

1337
01:56:07,404 --> 01:56:09,204
I have it. I've read most of it.

1338
01:56:09,204 --> 01:56:25,564
Yeah, yeah. The sort of core of that book is that totalitarianism and authoritarianism falls on its own weight at some point. There is always hope.

1339
01:56:25,564 --> 01:56:33,064
I mean, in a way, that's sort of a modern version of what Fukuyama said, which I know is crude and neoconish.

1340
01:56:33,224 --> 01:56:39,164
But I kind of see something to that idea of the end of history and but maybe not democracy.

1341
01:56:39,384 --> 01:56:44,064
But I do think that I've always thought the human race is in its infancy. Right.

1342
01:56:44,104 --> 01:56:47,224
And we're early. We think that we're advanced because we've been on the moon.

1343
01:56:47,224 --> 01:56:50,804
But and we have lasers, but we're really still primitive.

1344
01:56:50,804 --> 01:56:55,924
But I think the best is yet to come if we can survive the growing pains.

1345
01:56:56,324 --> 01:57:06,704
So I think the future is one of unimaginable, like it could be an unimaginable future, like the golden age of John C. Wright or something like that.

1346
01:57:06,824 --> 01:57:17,004
So, yeah, I mean, I'm half tempted to have cryogenic storage for myself someday and wake up in 500 years and see what the world looks like.

1347
01:57:17,444 --> 01:57:20,184
Like Hal Finney? Did you know that his head is cryo-frozen?

1348
01:57:20,184 --> 01:57:36,220
No I didn know that but maybe he Satoshi right Maybe Satoshi gonna wake up someday Listen to this Maybe he memorized the private key before he cryo froze his head and what if we resurrect him and move that bitcoin 400 years later well there there

1349
01:57:36,220 --> 01:57:40,500
actually a book i just read a book uh there's a science fiction book where there's some guy who

1350
01:57:40,500 --> 01:57:46,020
wakes up um it was a kind of a a pulp novel i'm trying to remember the name of it but uh it's

1351
01:57:46,020 --> 01:57:50,780
about a guy that wakes up in the future and he owns the entire earth because of some fluke

1352
01:57:50,780 --> 01:57:57,680
So he almost starts a war because people are fighting over control of him because he owns the entire planet Earth.

1353
01:57:58,040 --> 01:58:06,540
So you could imagine someone waking up and they revive 3 million Bitcoins that we thought were not part of the money supply anymore.

1354
01:58:07,400 --> 01:58:08,940
It's either that or idiocracy.

1355
01:58:12,220 --> 01:58:12,700
Yeah.

1356
01:58:13,060 --> 01:58:17,480
Anyway, Stefan, is there anything else you want to talk about before we wrap this up?

1357
01:58:17,600 --> 01:58:20,480
Is there anywhere you want to send our listeners or something?

1358
01:58:20,780 --> 01:58:34,760
So let's see. Now I'm – anyone interested in these ideas can read my intellectual property stuff or my libertarian book, which is here.

1359
01:58:36,960 --> 01:58:46,400
I'm working – so Murray Rothbard died – I was sorry. He was born 100 years ago, March 2nd, this coming March.

1360
01:58:46,400 --> 01:58:57,760
So I'm editing, putting together a book of essays on Rothbard, which we will release on March 2nd on his birthday.

1361
01:58:59,060 --> 01:59:00,480
It's about Rothbard at 100.

1362
01:59:00,640 --> 01:59:03,520
So working on that right now with Hans Hermann Hoppe and some other people.

1363
01:59:05,140 --> 01:59:06,580
Well, that sounds fantastic.

1364
01:59:06,940 --> 01:59:08,840
So that's one project I'm working on.

1365
01:59:08,840 --> 01:59:15,360
Well, we're going to release the essays on March 2nd and then the book in September for the Property and Freedom Society meeting.

1366
01:59:15,360 --> 01:59:16,960
So that's what I'm working on right now.

1367
01:59:17,640 --> 01:59:18,640
Well, I'm interested in that.

1368
01:59:18,940 --> 01:59:19,660
Where is that?

1369
01:59:19,720 --> 01:59:21,220
Is that in Bodrum in Turkey?

1370
01:59:21,420 --> 01:59:22,540
It's in Bodrum every September.

1371
01:59:22,760 --> 01:59:23,020
Yes.

1372
01:59:23,160 --> 01:59:24,960
And we just said we just released the announcement.

1373
01:59:25,120 --> 01:59:27,880
If you're interested in coming, email me later and we'll talk.

1374
01:59:28,360 --> 01:59:29,280
I'd love to.

1375
01:59:29,560 --> 01:59:30,500
And yeah, yeah.

1376
01:59:30,560 --> 01:59:32,620
We'll definitely talk more about that.

1377
01:59:33,760 --> 01:59:35,800
And September should be relatively free.

1378
01:59:36,180 --> 01:59:36,280
Yeah.

1379
01:59:36,420 --> 01:59:36,680
Yeah.

1380
01:59:37,400 --> 01:59:38,480
We'll talk offline.

1381
01:59:40,700 --> 01:59:41,880
I just finished.

1382
01:59:41,880 --> 01:59:47,860
I was in Prague twice this year, once for the Free Cities thing and once for the – and it was wonderful.

1383
01:59:47,960 --> 01:59:48,960
I hadn't been there in 30 years.

1384
01:59:49,120 --> 01:59:53,660
It's a wonderful city, and I went to the Liberland thing in December.

1385
01:59:54,880 --> 02:00:03,720
I just released last year a project I was working on with a guy named Freemax and Alessandro Fusillo and some others.

1386
02:00:04,060 --> 02:00:10,520
It's called The Universal Principles of Liberty, and it draws upon that book and my own writing and my property theory,

1387
02:00:10,520 --> 02:00:21,060
which is inspired by Hoppe and by Rothbard and Mises, but it was sort of like a concise, systematic statement of libertarian principles.

1388
02:00:21,060 --> 02:00:23,800
It's called the universal principles of liberty.

1389
02:00:24,320 --> 02:00:47,816
It not a constitution and it not a detailed legal code but it more like here the principles of property rights and self and justice that we agree to and that have to be agreed to in any free society And that on my website stefancasello So if anyone interested in these ideas take a look at my book my intellectual property ideas

1390
02:00:47,816 --> 02:00:51,295
and the universal principles of liberty

1391
02:00:51,295 --> 02:00:53,016
and the upcoming Rothbard book.

1392
02:00:54,495 --> 02:00:55,016
Fantastic.

1393
02:00:55,636 --> 02:00:57,956
Are you planning to go to any Bitcoin conferences

1394
02:00:57,956 --> 02:00:59,196
by any chance this year?

1395
02:00:59,756 --> 02:01:01,776
No, I went to a couple in Miami

1396
02:01:01,776 --> 02:01:03,735
about three, four or five years ago.

1397
02:01:03,735 --> 02:01:05,156
I haven't been lately.

1398
02:01:06,816 --> 02:01:08,696
That's unfortunate.

1399
02:01:09,036 --> 02:01:13,935
The Bitcoin magazine ones tend to be quite apologetic to shitcoiners, I'd say.

1400
02:01:14,935 --> 02:01:16,995
They take a lot of money from that.

1401
02:01:17,196 --> 02:01:21,115
I think I would only go to a Bitcoin-only conference at this point.

1402
02:01:21,256 --> 02:01:25,055
But is there any good ones coming up that might be worth going to?

1403
02:01:25,555 --> 02:01:30,136
Well, if you love Prague, there's the one in B2C Prague in Prague in June.

1404
02:01:30,716 --> 02:01:31,735
That's a very good one.

1405
02:01:31,795 --> 02:01:33,076
There's the biggest European one.

1406
02:01:34,435 --> 02:01:36,595
Yeah, I'm going to one in El Salvador here.

1407
02:01:36,816 --> 02:01:41,156
I mean, probably after this episode is,

1408
02:01:41,456 --> 02:01:43,295
I would have already been there

1409
02:01:43,295 --> 02:01:44,576
when this episode is released.

1410
02:01:44,576 --> 02:01:45,375
That's like two,

1411
02:01:45,816 --> 02:01:47,396
less than two weeks from now on now.

1412
02:01:47,875 --> 02:01:49,316
You know, I tried a few.

1413
02:01:49,555 --> 02:01:51,555
I just find, I go there and there's,

1414
02:01:51,696 --> 02:01:52,656
I'm just a hodler.

1415
02:01:53,355 --> 02:01:54,076
I'm just waiting.

1416
02:01:54,396 --> 02:01:55,375
So I'm not an activist.

1417
02:01:55,536 --> 02:01:56,256
I'm not a promoter.

1418
02:01:56,456 --> 02:01:57,516
I'm not into the business.

1419
02:01:57,795 --> 02:01:58,795
I don't really see what,

1420
02:01:59,216 --> 02:02:00,836
and most people are not that theoretical

1421
02:02:00,836 --> 02:02:01,756
or libertarian.

1422
02:02:01,896 --> 02:02:03,115
So there's nothing to really

1423
02:02:03,115 --> 02:02:05,756
interest me at the conferences.

1424
02:02:05,756 --> 02:02:06,156
Yeah.

1425
02:02:06,816 --> 02:02:11,456
There's one that I think you'd like that I'm co-organizing.

1426
02:02:11,615 --> 02:02:13,055
I'm biased here, of course.

1427
02:02:13,316 --> 02:02:17,776
It's called B2C Hell in Helsinki, Finland in October.

1428
02:02:17,975 --> 02:02:21,615
We've only done it once, but it's going to be done again.

1429
02:02:22,115 --> 02:02:27,696
It's around 1,500 people and a lot of good speakers.

1430
02:02:28,915 --> 02:02:32,896
We can definitely do some Austrian economics talks.

1431
02:02:32,896 --> 02:02:33,956
I think

1432
02:02:33,956 --> 02:02:36,956
I have a lot of friends that are coming

1433
02:02:36,956 --> 02:02:38,915
I could be persuaded

1434
02:02:38,915 --> 02:02:41,076
If anything, something like that comes along

1435
02:02:41,076 --> 02:02:42,656
I could be persuaded

1436
02:02:42,656 --> 02:02:44,256
I'm potentially interested

1437
02:02:44,256 --> 02:02:45,776
Yeah, great to hear

1438
02:02:45,776 --> 02:02:49,036
I think we're in talks with

1439
02:02:49,036 --> 02:02:50,095
Seyfedin this year

1440
02:02:50,095 --> 02:02:53,276
I'm going to talk to Rahim about it too

1441
02:02:53,276 --> 02:02:54,416
Rahim Tagisayed again

1442
02:02:54,416 --> 02:02:56,675
And we'll see

1443
02:02:56,675 --> 02:02:58,016
I'm going to push for

1444
02:02:58,016 --> 02:03:01,076
More Austrian economics content

1445
02:03:01,076 --> 02:03:02,396
Inside that

1446
02:03:02,396 --> 02:03:04,115
conference.

1447
02:03:05,776 --> 02:03:06,735
Yep, but that's it for me.

1448
02:03:06,855 --> 02:03:08,675
But I appreciate your work too

1449
02:03:08,675 --> 02:03:10,495
and I've learned from you too.

1450
02:03:10,636 --> 02:03:11,456
So I appreciate it.

1451
02:03:11,456 --> 02:03:11,816
Thank you.

1452
02:03:12,115 --> 02:03:13,256
Thank you very much.

1453
02:03:13,495 --> 02:03:14,016
It means a lot.

1454
02:03:15,375 --> 02:03:16,036
Yes, anyway,

1455
02:03:16,235 --> 02:03:18,355
I absolutely adored this conversation.

1456
02:03:18,555 --> 02:03:20,956
I hope we get to meet in real life soon.

1457
02:03:21,916 --> 02:03:23,675
We'll talk about details

1458
02:03:23,675 --> 02:03:25,095
about Bodrum after this.

1459
02:03:25,816 --> 02:03:27,595
And yeah, go follow Stefan

1460
02:03:27,595 --> 02:03:30,536
and read up on your praxeology people

1461
02:03:30,536 --> 02:03:31,536
and brush your teeth.

1462
02:03:31,536 --> 02:03:34,276
this has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show

1463
02:03:34,276 --> 02:03:35,555
thanks for listening

1464
02:03:35,555 --> 02:03:37,136
thanks Stefan for coming

1465
02:03:37,136 --> 02:03:37,875
thanks