1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,720
internet math welcome we're back again part two electric boogaloo we are back we thought the

2
00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:15,660
weather might actually not allow you know this might throw us off of course i'm glad to be back

3
00:00:15,660 --> 00:00:20,560
yeah it's good to be here it's actually flurrying here right now in nashville but nowhere near bad

4
00:00:20,560 --> 00:00:27,060
as last week i've never seen an ice storm before in person where it is the water is of the right

5
00:00:27,060 --> 00:00:32,300
temperature that the moment it makes contact with anything it freezes into ice yeah and uh

6
00:00:32,300 --> 00:00:41,180
walking around the days after you would see like blades of grass like encased and mummified in

7
00:00:41,180 --> 00:00:46,960
like a nice like thick sheath of ice and it was like like a like very prickly it was very

8
00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:53,060
and all the trees all the branches just like frozen in ice it's like someone just like poured

9
00:00:53,060 --> 00:00:57,640
a bunch of water on it and then immediately like dropped rod dropped it to zero degrees it was

10
00:00:57,640 --> 00:01:03,160
pretty wild like dr freeze or something yeah yeah because like a soul power it was very wild

11
00:01:03,160 --> 00:01:09,060
yeah and no one knows how to plow in nashville there's no they don't salt i was talking to

12
00:01:09,060 --> 00:01:15,640
someone and they were um they they followed one of the big like salt trucks in the plows into

13
00:01:15,640 --> 00:01:20,480
like a 7-eleven and they're like i just want to let you know you're not dropping the salt like like

14
00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:24,860
you have this big thing but like i followed you for the past couple miles and the guy was like

15
00:01:24,860 --> 00:01:30,300
yeah you know it's just really tedious like i really like having that big heavy load on the

16
00:01:30,300 --> 00:01:35,520
back while i'm plowing so i don't drop the the salt because it's safer for me to drive then

17
00:01:35,520 --> 00:01:41,580
and when it's like yeah your job is to drop the salt so it's safer for everyone else so they don't

18
00:01:41,580 --> 00:01:47,220
salt here they never plowed any of my local roads right here um so i was kind of frozen then but

19
00:01:47,220 --> 00:01:48,720
All's well, ends well.

20
00:01:48,860 --> 00:01:49,520
We're on the other side.

21
00:01:50,080 --> 00:01:51,580
They vibe-salted down there.

22
00:01:51,900 --> 00:01:52,420
That's right.

23
00:01:52,660 --> 00:01:53,020
That's right.

24
00:01:53,280 --> 00:01:55,660
It just didn't quite work out.

25
00:01:56,420 --> 00:02:01,160
Well, I mean, I'm really glad nobody I know down there got in any trouble.

26
00:02:03,420 --> 00:02:05,400
I'm sure some people did, but it feels like...

27
00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:06,480
Some people still don't have power.

28
00:02:07,740 --> 00:02:07,980
Yeah.

29
00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:11,600
It feels like our little community down there is good.

30
00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:12,120
Pretty good.

31
00:02:12,420 --> 00:02:12,580
Yeah.

32
00:02:14,700 --> 00:02:15,140
Awesome.

33
00:02:15,860 --> 00:02:16,300
Awesome.

34
00:02:17,220 --> 00:02:18,220
So it's been a while.

35
00:02:18,400 --> 00:02:20,380
I think it's been three weeks.

36
00:02:20,620 --> 00:02:21,360
Three weeks.

37
00:02:21,660 --> 00:02:22,980
We expected to do two weeks.

38
00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:26,360
And it's like that last week, it's almost like a long week.

39
00:02:26,900 --> 00:02:29,420
It's because so much happens.

40
00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:33,400
And there's so much that happens that makes me think about what we're going to do here.

41
00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:35,220
Like all the time.

42
00:02:35,220 --> 00:02:44,200
And when we have a major event like we're having now, we typically, I doubt we would ever talk about current events.

43
00:02:44,200 --> 00:02:51,180
you know other than other than if it really matters like it's mathy which they tend to be

44
00:02:51,180 --> 00:02:57,160
but quantum computers but you know in terms of like price dumps and more you know market turmoil

45
00:02:57,160 --> 00:03:04,080
i don't think anyone will ever index episode two as oh that was the one that happened when you know

46
00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:12,840
during one of those big events yeah that happened to be this last week while between weeks two and

47
00:03:12,840 --> 00:03:29,860
And so it just brings up, you like, you know, when you start seeing the patterns of people's sort of faulty thinking about events like that, it starts, it really does start to make me think, think, sorry, I'm having, I'm like burping, sorry.

48
00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:33,940
It makes me think a lot about, makes me think a lot about math.

49
00:03:34,260 --> 00:03:38,600
And I don't know if you saw the thing I sent you this morning.

50
00:03:38,600 --> 00:03:42,060
you probably didn't

51
00:03:42,060 --> 00:03:43,000
but it's just

52
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:45,220
people send me these things all the time

53
00:03:45,220 --> 00:03:47,880
they're like here's something that you might

54
00:03:47,880 --> 00:03:49,500
think is cool, a math thing

55
00:03:49,500 --> 00:03:50,940
and

56
00:03:50,940 --> 00:03:54,140
I always have the wrong reactions to them

57
00:03:54,140 --> 00:03:55,780
so I want to

58
00:03:55,780 --> 00:03:57,300
you know

59
00:03:57,300 --> 00:04:00,020
I feel like what we'll do today is mostly a continuation

60
00:04:00,020 --> 00:04:01,900
of the first episode which is like we're still

61
00:04:01,900 --> 00:04:02,760
fleshing out

62
00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:05,960
how really we view things

63
00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:07,360
and you know you and I are not the same

64
00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:11,360
But we connect enough that I feel like I can say things like that.

65
00:04:12,700 --> 00:04:19,660
And like I think the real premise here, the last episode we focused a lot on the liberal arts framing.

66
00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:20,540
I mean I don't know.

67
00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:24,140
It's not as important as I think I make it sound.

68
00:04:24,340 --> 00:04:33,300
It's just that when you're fighting the tide, you end up emphasizing certain things that make it sound like it's more important to you than they are.

69
00:04:33,540 --> 00:04:36,100
Because you feel like you have to emphasize them.

70
00:04:36,100 --> 00:04:43,060
so I feel like emphasizing the liberal arts focus one is like it's a catchy way of it's a little bit

71
00:04:43,060 --> 00:04:48,540
different and it's like a way of you know expressing my contrarian take without causing

72
00:04:48,540 --> 00:04:55,560
pain to anybody necessarily more confusion right but like that's sort of a good lane for an educator

73
00:04:55,560 --> 00:05:00,100
is to not to confuse intentionally but I'd rather have confusion than pain

74
00:05:00,100 --> 00:05:07,780
so yeah because confusion just is your development of the sense making process in general and things

75
00:05:07,780 --> 00:05:11,340
that were once confusing aren't anymore and that's how you kind of also compound and learn new

76
00:05:11,340 --> 00:05:16,220
concepts you take all of these things that uh you don't want to jump right to the end you want to

77
00:05:16,220 --> 00:05:22,920
have a sequential sense of progression demystifying which is good for your psychological like loop of

78
00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:29,200
getting feedback and seeing progress and you want to be able to you know build on that and that's

79
00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:32,960
you know, if you're not getting confused on a regular basis, it means you're not growing.

80
00:05:34,540 --> 00:05:40,080
Well, yeah, you're not, it's exactly right. And so that's a big, let's like, that's a big, like,

81
00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:46,680
pillar. The thing you just said, it's like a big pillar of what we're doing here, right? You want

82
00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:51,840
to put yourself in a state of confusion, you know, or like a controlled state of pain for learning

83
00:05:51,840 --> 00:05:53,780
and for a particular reason.

84
00:05:54,200 --> 00:05:57,940
So, you know, so what I tend to like to want to really emphasize

85
00:05:57,940 --> 00:06:04,860
is learning math for the sake of it as opposed to, you know,

86
00:06:04,860 --> 00:06:07,120
learning it as a means to an end.

87
00:06:07,280 --> 00:06:09,080
And there's nothing wrong with means to ends,

88
00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:11,880
but it's like the world's got that covered, right?

89
00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:14,780
So it's like the world's got that one covered

90
00:06:14,780 --> 00:06:18,840
and not so much learning it for its own sake.

91
00:06:18,980 --> 00:06:20,900
Like that's a rare minority, I feel like, of people

92
00:06:20,900 --> 00:06:22,300
who value that.

93
00:06:23,040 --> 00:06:23,420
Totally.

94
00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:24,300
Right?

95
00:06:24,500 --> 00:06:27,560
And you prove it by actually, quote unquote,

96
00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:28,460
wasting your time.

97
00:06:28,840 --> 00:06:32,660
You know, wasting your time on wild goose chase rabbit holes,

98
00:06:32,760 --> 00:06:34,440
not knowing why you're doing it.

99
00:06:34,440 --> 00:06:38,640
And so the one thing I'll say,

100
00:06:38,780 --> 00:06:40,380
so here's where I wanted to go today.

101
00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:42,440
This might surprise you,

102
00:06:42,840 --> 00:06:44,720
but I feel like this is going to be good.

103
00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:46,300
So today is Sunday.

104
00:06:47,180 --> 00:06:49,940
And, you know, it is morning.

105
00:06:50,900 --> 00:06:58,400
And most people probably would find themselves in church or a place of worship.

106
00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:12,980
And, you know, what I want to, I think, I'm going to say it, I believe studying math is like a pathway to God.

107
00:07:12,980 --> 00:07:19,880
and I almost think God wants us to do it because it's like the way.

108
00:07:19,980 --> 00:07:27,660
It's like the language of exploring God, right?

109
00:07:27,760 --> 00:07:29,980
So when you sit and study, I don't know about you, dude,

110
00:07:30,060 --> 00:07:32,660
but when I sit and study, I am like literally praying to God.

111
00:07:32,660 --> 00:07:34,400
I'm like, please help me understand this.

112
00:07:35,700 --> 00:07:41,420
Like I have no, like I'm at the edge of my ability to understand something

113
00:07:41,420 --> 00:07:44,340
and it's uncertain whether it's going to click.

114
00:07:45,240 --> 00:07:48,280
And that's the moment I find myself praying.

115
00:07:49,060 --> 00:07:52,720
And I feel like mathematicians have that sense of prayer,

116
00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:55,900
even though a lot of them are nihilists and don't believe in God and all that stuff.

117
00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:59,460
And we can talk about that aspect of things too.

118
00:07:59,860 --> 00:08:02,600
But I do think there is always this moment for me,

119
00:08:02,700 --> 00:08:05,120
and maybe this is why I'm so connected to math

120
00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:08,020
and why I'm so willing to spend time on it,

121
00:08:08,020 --> 00:08:12,780
is because it's like really a process of me praying and having my prayers answered.

122
00:08:12,780 --> 00:08:15,680
Well, I think if you look at it from like an anthropology standpoint,

123
00:08:16,500 --> 00:08:22,240
there's plenty of examples of kind of, you know, earlier mathematicians who were heavily religious.

124
00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:26,300
You know, back in a world that was less industrialized and developed,

125
00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:32,340
you would spend a lot of time thinking about God and theology,

126
00:08:32,340 --> 00:08:35,140
and you'd be thinking about its relationship in the world.

127
00:08:35,140 --> 00:08:41,720
And to your point, it was a lot of demystifying the world and kind of you're trying to understand the rules God had set forth.

128
00:08:41,980 --> 00:08:48,460
Right. That there's this divine sense of logic in a universe that was manifested by an almighty creator.

129
00:08:48,780 --> 00:08:53,860
And you're just as part of your own spiritual journey, you're trying to demystify and understand these things.

130
00:08:55,840 --> 00:09:05,120
And the one I'm thinking off hand was Pascal was not just a mathematician, but he also was a staunch Christian and wrote a lot about Christian theology.

131
00:09:05,140 --> 00:09:11,900
but that's I think also I think in a world with less dopamine receptors less technology less kind

132
00:09:11,900 --> 00:09:15,280
of like social media all of these things and you're sitting there just thinking all day you're

133
00:09:15,280 --> 00:09:19,700
thinking about life the meaning of life and creation and then you start thinking about numbers

134
00:09:19,700 --> 00:09:26,220
and I think that's I think it's a very natural leap of for a certain person's mind if they're

135
00:09:26,220 --> 00:09:32,100
inclined to thinking in numbers and mathematical concepts to kind of marry the two it's like

136
00:09:32,100 --> 00:09:33,100
and spend their brain cycles.

137
00:09:33,380 --> 00:09:33,400
Yeah.

138
00:09:33,540 --> 00:09:35,200
And you just jogged something in my memory

139
00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:38,740
that when the original, like, sort of group theorists,

140
00:09:39,700 --> 00:09:44,020
there was a notion that, like, a generator of a cyclic group

141
00:09:44,020 --> 00:09:47,620
was, like, was a god, was godlike,

142
00:09:47,820 --> 00:09:50,880
because it gave, at least this is how religious people

143
00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:54,600
were looking, were viewing, were viewing these concepts,

144
00:09:54,720 --> 00:09:57,280
because the one generator gives life to every element

145
00:09:57,280 --> 00:09:58,040
in the entire group.

146
00:09:59,300 --> 00:09:59,420
Yeah.

147
00:09:59,420 --> 00:10:12,100
And so what we're talking about in a cyclic group is like if you have a finite, let's say a finite field, the integers up to the number five, right?

148
00:10:12,520 --> 00:10:18,840
You take a number like two and you can multiply it by itself over and over again.

149
00:10:18,920 --> 00:10:19,900
So two times two.

150
00:10:20,600 --> 00:10:21,480
First number is two.

151
00:10:21,580 --> 00:10:22,520
The second number is four.

152
00:10:23,120 --> 00:10:26,340
And then eight mod five is three.

153
00:10:26,340 --> 00:10:30,860
and then three times two, that gives you one.

154
00:10:31,300 --> 00:10:34,360
I have a video on this that's slightly less confusing.

155
00:10:34,560 --> 00:10:38,320
But it's like you basically take the powers of the number

156
00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:41,100
and you end up generating every element in the group

157
00:10:41,100 --> 00:10:46,900
and this was viewed as analogous.

158
00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:51,720
This was viewed as analogous to God-like power.

159
00:10:51,920 --> 00:10:52,100
Right.

160
00:10:52,660 --> 00:10:53,240
Right, yeah.

161
00:10:53,240 --> 00:10:56,080
No, I think that makes a lot of sense.

162
00:10:56,220 --> 00:11:00,360
You try and, I was going to say, like, pattern match, you think about creation,

163
00:11:00,560 --> 00:11:03,020
and you're seeing about how mathematics is also creation.

164
00:11:03,260 --> 00:11:06,440
And one small addendum note I just remembered, too.

165
00:11:06,580 --> 00:11:10,340
What's more important, what most people know Pascal for is actually Pascal's wager.

166
00:11:11,540 --> 00:11:12,460
Oh, I was thinking the triangle.

167
00:11:13,320 --> 00:11:14,780
I was thinking the triangle, too.

168
00:11:15,220 --> 00:11:21,620
But then I realized, like, oh, for the on-ramp for other people who are thinking about math stuff,

169
00:11:21,960 --> 00:11:22,980
it's the same man.

170
00:11:23,240 --> 00:11:26,340
This is great. Why don't you go, you want to go into Pascal's Wager?

171
00:11:27,220 --> 00:11:33,400
Yeah, so it's, it actually came up in pop culture recently, because with the passing of Scott Adams,

172
00:11:33,400 --> 00:11:38,640
he talked about converting to Christianity on his deathbed and specifically referenced Pascal's Wager.

173
00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:45,840
And the base premise is if you have a two by two square with four different possible outcomes.

174
00:11:45,840 --> 00:11:52,440
One of them is God exists, God does not exist. And one is you are a believer in God, and you're not a believer in God.

175
00:11:52,440 --> 00:11:59,220
So if God doesn't exist and you're not a believer in God, there's no eternal consequence.

176
00:12:00,420 --> 00:12:06,480
If God does not exist and you do believe in God, there's still no eternal consequence because there's no afterlife.

177
00:12:06,640 --> 00:12:07,140
There is no God.

178
00:12:07,780 --> 00:12:19,900
If God does exist, though, and you do not believe in God, the idea of eternal damnation, punishment, purgatory, whatever flavor of your religious interpretation is.

179
00:12:19,900 --> 00:12:26,600
and then if god does exist and you are a believer being able to get you know to salvation to get to

180
00:12:26,600 --> 00:12:31,460
heaven right and it was just being like put forth and you can also view this in the lens of game

181
00:12:31,460 --> 00:12:35,220
theory like a john nash game theory if you have these different boxes and you try to

182
00:12:35,220 --> 00:12:41,140
and this is a dangerous thing when you apply this to philosophy and politics and economics but if

183
00:12:41,140 --> 00:12:47,440
you try and apply a mass utilitarian umbrella of how many utils utils that you would get right you

184
00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:52,420
would get plus one utile if i have a cup of coffee if i get plus five utils though if i get an espresso

185
00:12:52,420 --> 00:12:56,460
because i really love espresso but i don't like the drip coffee right and if i don't get caffeine

186
00:12:56,460 --> 00:13:01,520
that's minus two because then i'm grumpy and i'm under caffeinated um if you lay out all of these

187
00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:07,440
different possible outcomes you can view the nothing happens it's like zero so god doesn't

188
00:13:07,440 --> 00:13:13,180
exist at zero zero but then you have like plus infinity and minus infinity between if god does

189
00:13:13,180 --> 00:13:19,900
exist and if you believe or do not so it's trying to put forward this rational exposition of just

190
00:13:19,900 --> 00:13:26,280
looking at the possible outcomes utilizing you know it predates john nash by hundreds of years

191
00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:33,800
but the idea though is that game theoretically um even if your your game theoretic optimal choice

192
00:13:33,800 --> 00:13:41,720
is to believe that god exists and to work towards salvation because the the eternal timeline in

193
00:13:41,720 --> 00:13:46,740
which your soul would face either in damnation or salvation you are in a much stronger position

194
00:13:46,740 --> 00:13:53,200
to be believing in god um i guess for those maybe who want to learn a little bit too about

195
00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:59,120
you know pascal triangles is you basically if you can think about a number right start with the

196
00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:04,280
number one and then below it on the lower left hand side the lower right hand side you take the

197
00:14:04,280 --> 00:14:08,760
sum of what's above it and you have one so you have a triangle that's one and then the lower

198
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:14,260
left is one and the lower right is one. And then you go one more level down. And what you do is

199
00:14:14,260 --> 00:14:19,620
you're actually then adding the parts that are above it. And you have one and one, you have two

200
00:14:19,620 --> 00:14:25,060
right below it. But then on the left, the far left hand side, you only have a one. And then you have

201
00:14:25,060 --> 00:14:28,700
on the far right hand side with the two things above it, well, there's only one above it.

202
00:14:28,820 --> 00:14:33,740
And that's a one. So you have a triangle that starts at the top at one. And then you have another

203
00:14:33,740 --> 00:14:37,160
the one right below it, you have one and one because it's something the one that's right above

204
00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:43,100
it and then you have below that one two one and then you can continue this down ad infinitum

205
00:14:43,100 --> 00:14:51,420
uh and it's just kind of talking about probabilities common metrics uh it's one of

206
00:14:51,420 --> 00:14:57,100
those things that you learn uh just in general it's actually interesting for uh binomial distribution

207
00:14:57,100 --> 00:15:00,200
if you want to kind of lay out all of the different sequences of possible outcomes you

208
00:15:00,200 --> 00:15:04,740
can use that as a way to kind of see the universe of all the possible um abilities of how things can

209
00:15:04,740 --> 00:15:13,380
execute and uh it's it's just like a you know a fun little visual too to kind of think about things

210
00:15:13,380 --> 00:15:18,400
and you can go down certain trees of the triangle to kind of see different executions of outcomes as

211
00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:26,260
well um i'm thinking through here well i think we i think we've lost fundamentals so i'm just

212
00:15:26,260 --> 00:15:37,000
going to keep on vibing for a second um so yeah i think tying back to the original point

213
00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:47,120
the the viewing of mathematics as a portal to the divine is that i think in common culture

214
00:15:47,120 --> 00:15:52,600
like culture today you would see them as kind of like pure rationalist and uh irrational right when

215
00:15:52,600 --> 00:16:01,160
it comes to the domain of religion and math. And I think, I mean, for me personally, I would view

216
00:16:01,160 --> 00:16:07,120
it as you're kind of doing a divine act in the sense of trying to better understand the world

217
00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:17,080
God has made. And with that, you have an ability to challenge yourself, you're throwing yourself

218
00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:21,140
against the laws of the universe, and you're trying to find deeper meaning in the math.

219
00:16:21,140 --> 00:16:27,180
and in that journey itself it is also somewhat of a spiritual uplifting and interesting thing

220
00:16:27,180 --> 00:16:32,760
all right we're still recording all right you're back there was only maybe like 15 10 15 seconds

221
00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:38,340
of dead air i kept on ramping i'll be able to yeah yeah you can edit around that so i was just

222
00:16:38,340 --> 00:16:44,900
as a hook to bring you back into it is that bring it back to your original point um viewing the

223
00:16:44,900 --> 00:16:51,640
domain of uh mathematics is trying to further divine and understand the rules that god has set

224
00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:56,020
forth and that while in common culture you would see this diametrically opposed between a pure

225
00:16:56,020 --> 00:17:01,580
rationalist and like a faith-based thing um to apply yourself to try to understand mathematics

226
00:17:01,580 --> 00:17:05,780
in its own sense is a spiritual journey because you're throwing yourself against the laws of the

227
00:17:05,780 --> 00:17:19,543
universe and you trying to find meaning in the general like disorder of it all yeah and so here I was thinking about all this and probably want to keep keep going on pascal wager a little bit but like here why i was thinking about this god thing not

228
00:17:19,543 --> 00:17:27,662
pretentious or philosophical or anything like that it's like when i see um people say in bitcoin

229
00:17:27,662 --> 00:17:35,602
which is it's clearly a great pascal's wager example right people who um people who accept

230
00:17:35,602 --> 00:17:39,362
kind of accept that part of the wager in Bitcoin.

231
00:17:40,362 --> 00:17:41,602
What I see missing,

232
00:17:41,862 --> 00:17:44,543
what I see people getting in trouble with themselves

233
00:17:44,543 --> 00:17:50,082
is that, you know, in the short amount of time,

234
00:17:50,182 --> 00:17:52,403
this has been around 15-ish years,

235
00:17:53,422 --> 00:17:55,443
you know, there's a lot of education

236
00:17:55,443 --> 00:17:58,063
on how the banking system works

237
00:17:58,063 --> 00:18:00,063
and how money works and all that.

238
00:18:02,123 --> 00:18:04,422
I know people are going to expect me to say right now,

239
00:18:04,422 --> 00:18:08,803
like, oh, there's not enough emphasis on math. And that's not really where I'm going. Where I'm

240
00:18:08,803 --> 00:18:14,322
going is there's not enough emphasis on the individual himself, like on, like you are a part

241
00:18:14,322 --> 00:18:22,082
of the equation of whether or not this thing works. And it's like, it's, your knowledge is

242
00:18:22,082 --> 00:18:29,443
incomplete. And like God made us incomplete, but gave us the ability to develop our own knowledge.

243
00:18:29,443 --> 00:18:36,463
right um and we you know it's almost like our own our ability to create our own knowledge is

244
00:18:36,463 --> 00:18:43,322
entrepreneurial meaning like we're rewarded if we create knowledge that turned out to be correct

245
00:18:43,322 --> 00:18:49,703
and we get wrecked if we create knowledge that turned out to be incorrect and then there's a

246
00:18:49,703 --> 00:18:57,003
selection process of those who seem to do a better job of creating more correct knowledge

247
00:18:57,003 --> 00:19:04,563
right and so what seems to be missing from an evolutionary standpoint in the bitcoin conversation

248
00:19:04,563 --> 00:19:11,383
and probably all of the all of like the real issues of the day right is our own individual

249
00:19:11,383 --> 00:19:18,883
ability to create knowledge for ourselves which you must like you can't do unless you have a strong

250
00:19:18,883 --> 00:19:25,163
conviction in your own ability to actually reason with yourself you can't do unless you have a way

251
00:19:25,163 --> 00:19:32,602
to know you're right or a way you know not to know you're right but to be able to have a confidence

252
00:19:32,602 --> 00:19:37,023
interval that puts you in a Pascal's wager territory that you say you know I'm okay making

253
00:19:37,023 --> 00:19:45,862
this gamble because I'm 80% confident I have this worldview yeah I'd even add to that right in that

254
00:19:45,862 --> 00:19:51,303
the human mind subconscious thought loop so you're always going to be thinking about something and the

255
00:19:51,303 --> 00:19:55,983
question is is are these thoughts that you have your own that you've gone through your own process

256
00:19:55,983 --> 00:20:02,123
to divine and understand and construct a worldview around or are you repeating what someone else told

257
00:20:02,123 --> 00:20:09,063
you or are you just being conditioned by culture society your friends whatever it is right so there

258
00:20:09,063 --> 00:20:15,043
is there there's there is no escaping that you're going to be thinking about things so the question

259
00:20:15,043 --> 00:20:20,822
is are the things you're thinking about are they a kind of metacognition thinking about your own

260
00:20:20,822 --> 00:20:26,763
thoughts and evaluating critiquing them or are you taking convenient ideas and running off someone

261
00:20:26,763 --> 00:20:33,543
else's software basically right and i think with the discipline and domain of math in general is

262
00:20:33,543 --> 00:20:38,362
what you're doing is you're saying that there's this objective universe and what i am trying to

263
00:20:38,362 --> 00:20:45,203
do and the beautiful thing about math is that um since it you're you can go pure theoretical you

264
00:20:45,203 --> 00:20:50,523
can just draw it out and start at one plus one equal two and divine and create this entire like

265
00:20:50,523 --> 00:20:58,623
axiomatic linking of how math works there is no uh when you get down to the the ultimate like

266
00:20:58,623 --> 00:21:03,283
ground truth of it there is no like peer pressure opinion among how this all works right so what

267
00:21:03,283 --> 00:21:08,342
you're doing is in in the in the discipline and domain of understanding math more you're

268
00:21:08,342 --> 00:21:14,243
explicitly pushing yourself to go through your own rational chain of thoughts and events and

269
00:21:14,243 --> 00:21:20,602
critically evaluating them in such a way that you're kind of learning how to not be socially

270
00:21:20,602 --> 00:21:24,783
guided in one direction or another you have to just understand how the math works and the math

271
00:21:24,783 --> 00:21:31,822
is the math and there's really no beyond that yeah and we're really the meet the ends we're

272
00:21:31,822 --> 00:21:38,263
trying to meet is just it's not like um we're trying to understand how to make a wheel roll to

273
00:21:38,263 --> 00:21:43,743
a certain location or, you know, we're trying to understand ourselves.

274
00:21:43,903 --> 00:21:45,123
And, you know, sometimes it's funny.

275
00:21:45,322 --> 00:21:51,123
You said, you know, yeah, a lot of times we are operating off of a knowledge system that

276
00:21:51,123 --> 00:21:52,822
somebody else programmed for us.

277
00:21:53,223 --> 00:21:58,203
And a lot of times that other person is ourselves from the past.

278
00:21:58,842 --> 00:21:58,983
Right.

279
00:21:59,822 --> 00:22:07,283
So like we have a lot going against us in, you know, moving sort of forward on the pioneer

280
00:22:07,283 --> 00:22:14,342
trail because we're not only fighting other people's programming, we're fighting our own

281
00:22:14,342 --> 00:22:23,723
programming. And it's just all like the level of strength that's required is, is high. And,

282
00:22:23,842 --> 00:22:30,943
you know, this, there aren't like a lot of natural pathways for, for really attacking this. And I'm,

283
00:22:31,362 --> 00:22:34,602
you know, I really am looking to build a community of people that want to do this.

284
00:22:34,602 --> 00:22:44,503
You know, I'm going to do it anyway myself, but it's boring and very alienating to be doing this myself and probably not that productive.

285
00:22:44,862 --> 00:22:51,822
Right. It's great. I'll die as a knowing how much more I knew than anybody, but I couldn't explain it to anybody.

286
00:22:51,822 --> 00:22:56,423
So I'm miserable. And, you know, it's not a good life. It's not a good life for us.

287
00:22:56,803 --> 00:22:59,643
It's just that, you know, it is it's the calling.

288
00:22:59,643 --> 00:23:03,723
The calling is, you know, when you feel like you know something, you want to teach it to people.

289
00:23:03,723 --> 00:23:07,203
But what that requires is telling them that they didn't know this before.

290
00:23:07,743 --> 00:23:28,643
And, you know, you know, so like I just so on a large, long scale, this sort of way we've been inclined to reject math or to use it only for vocational purposes, I think has been to keep us from being the kinds of people who can develop our own knowledge.

291
00:23:28,643 --> 00:23:35,983
And, you know, that is an insight that can quickly turn to slop if you don't do the work.

292
00:23:37,102 --> 00:23:37,443
Yeah.

293
00:23:37,443 --> 00:23:38,623
That's what I'm sort of encouraging.

294
00:23:39,003 --> 00:23:43,283
I think that also is a comment on the education system in general.

295
00:23:44,383 --> 00:23:46,643
My kids are homeschooled.

296
00:23:48,582 --> 00:23:50,163
My wife does an amazing job.

297
00:23:50,243 --> 00:23:55,362
My wife also got a Ph.D. in biochemistry and biomedical science.

298
00:23:55,362 --> 00:23:55,783
Right.

299
00:23:55,783 --> 00:24:01,063
She went to an Ivy League.

300
00:24:02,182 --> 00:24:11,983
And so I feel very blessed in the sense that my kids could have someone who was intentionally pushing that sense of learning and the importance of learning onto them.

301
00:24:12,463 --> 00:24:21,123
I think there is a commodification that happens in education in general that is just trying to check boxes and kind of move through a process in the system.

302
00:24:21,123 --> 00:24:25,303
and unless you find very good teachers,

303
00:24:25,303 --> 00:24:28,342
you have people that are more part daycare

304
00:24:28,342 --> 00:24:31,102
than they are actually trying to do education and enablement.

305
00:24:32,362 --> 00:24:35,943
And you need to have people that are hungry for knowledge

306
00:24:35,943 --> 00:24:38,903
and excited about the journey of acquiring knowledge

307
00:24:38,903 --> 00:24:41,003
to be the ones educating you.

308
00:24:41,223 --> 00:24:43,303
It's a lot easier to pass along worksheets

309
00:24:43,303 --> 00:24:45,643
and say, just follow this ABC step.

310
00:24:46,303 --> 00:24:47,503
I'm not sure if you saw this.

311
00:24:47,503 --> 00:24:51,463
There was this, it went viral a couple days ago.

312
00:24:51,543 --> 00:24:56,203
There was this woman and she was trying to help her daughter with her math homework.

313
00:24:56,283 --> 00:24:58,003
And it was four times 500.

314
00:24:59,682 --> 00:25:04,723
And the worksheet that the four times 100 had, it was four times 100.

315
00:25:04,903 --> 00:25:08,862
And it was like, okay, what you should do is you should actually factor out the five and the 100.

316
00:25:09,203 --> 00:25:10,842
So you have four times five times 100.

317
00:25:11,082 --> 00:25:14,483
And then each line, each one of these lines I'm about to describe was a line.

318
00:25:14,483 --> 00:25:18,682
And then what you do is you go down one line and you do four times five times 200.

319
00:25:18,822 --> 00:25:24,143
And then what you do is you factor out the two and then you like, and it went on for like six steps.

320
00:25:24,423 --> 00:25:25,842
And the mom is exasperated.

321
00:25:25,903 --> 00:25:34,023
She's like, whatever happened to just 500 times four and then doing the numbers and then doing a bunch of small little notifications, like multiplications.

322
00:25:34,403 --> 00:25:37,403
And I feel like a lot of, I've seen this multiple times now.

323
00:25:37,483 --> 00:25:40,743
I feel like a lot of the education, it's turned into worksheet culture.

324
00:25:41,303 --> 00:25:43,862
It's just like we have a step and the things we do.

325
00:25:43,862 --> 00:25:54,223
We can't explain the concept that to do five times 400, what you could actually do is you just walk down the list and you do the five and the four and you just add the zero and then you carry it over.

326
00:25:54,683 --> 00:26:03,743
And the idea of carrying over number from the single digit column to the second digit column because you are now over one power of 10.

327
00:26:03,862 --> 00:26:05,822
Like all of these things are just way too complicated.

328
00:26:05,822 --> 00:26:08,483
So we're going to make everything to the most granular bite-sized piece.

329
00:26:08,483 --> 00:26:14,283
and you're going to be able to kind of just baby step your way through this because we don't want

330
00:26:14,283 --> 00:26:20,023
to actually really involve too much math beyond like one digit addition subtraction multiplication

331
00:26:20,023 --> 00:26:25,023
division right um and it's because you don't want to like rock the boat they learn a basic thing

332
00:26:25,023 --> 00:26:28,943
you want to try and build on that and that's like a very brittle foundation as opposed to

333
00:26:28,943 --> 00:26:35,143
um challenging yourself and expanding more that's why just in general i think education i would also

334
00:26:35,143 --> 00:26:42,322
So just as a general lens, I would also throw it into this is the misalignment of government funded education just in general.

335
00:26:44,263 --> 00:26:50,543
Creating like a make for work class of people who get to take off three months a year to be able to collect a pension and hang out.

336
00:26:50,842 --> 00:26:54,743
And they're they're punching into their job just like a lot of people do day in and day out.

337
00:26:54,743 --> 00:27:01,023
But rather than it being for some Fortune 500 company, they're doing it for the future generation and their ability to learn and discern things.

338
00:27:01,063 --> 00:27:02,822
And I think that's like just a great disservice in general.

339
00:27:02,822 --> 00:27:10,643
for sure i have a couple of thoughts here for one you know the problem you diagnose here is just one

340
00:27:10,643 --> 00:27:16,883
of the compulsory nature of math education it's the fact that it's required it's gotten to a point

341
00:27:16,883 --> 00:27:21,563
now where it's it's so required that you don't have anybody who actually knows how to teach it

342
00:27:21,563 --> 00:27:27,563
that's a extreme but you know the by and large the system can't the system can't support the

343
00:27:27,563 --> 00:27:35,543
teaching of it, it can't support the requirement, you know, and it's getting crushed under the weight

344
00:27:35,543 --> 00:27:40,602
of that requirement. And then you just see little bad idea after bad idea to try to, you know, keep

345
00:27:40,602 --> 00:27:50,123
the boat afloat, right? So this compulsory nature of having to teach math is like, you know,

346
00:27:50,263 --> 00:27:56,243
problematic, right? Now in a homeschool setting, you know, I guess parents probably view it as

347
00:27:56,243 --> 00:28:06,703
compulsory also but it's not like um it's not like life or death like um what if you don't do

348
00:28:06,703 --> 00:28:11,423
well on this test or the standardized test and all that stuff and I think like there's a big

349
00:28:11,423 --> 00:28:17,543
opportunity so it's a big opportunity to offer um something to homeschooler homeschoolers are a big

350
00:28:17,543 --> 00:28:24,403
part of what I think about all the time and the thing about um the thing I I feel like is out there

351
00:28:24,403 --> 00:28:30,303
is, you know, not everyone has PhDs in hard sciences.

352
00:28:30,923 --> 00:28:34,643
And I think a lot of people at some point in time,

353
00:28:34,763 --> 00:28:36,203
just like with their Bitcoin stack,

354
00:28:36,543 --> 00:28:41,582
will lack the conviction that they can really deliver an education to their child.

355
00:28:42,263 --> 00:28:44,443
And the more potential their children show,

356
00:28:44,842 --> 00:28:47,283
the more that'll wear on their conviction.

357
00:28:47,283 --> 00:28:50,443
Because, you know, it's a big bet on yourself.

358
00:28:50,443 --> 00:28:57,503
it's like homeschooling and bitcoin are both big bets on yourself and the thing that no one talks

359
00:28:57,503 --> 00:29:03,943
about is what i just mentioned 10 minutes ago which is you us as the individual is the primary

360
00:29:03,943 --> 00:29:09,903
determinant over whether or not it actually works out or not not the thing you know it's not bitcoin

361
00:29:09,903 --> 00:29:15,263
and its principles and its properties aren't the determinant i mean they're they're a determinant

362
00:29:15,263 --> 00:29:18,463
but you are the determinant as to whether it works out for you.

363
00:29:19,903 --> 00:29:25,443
It might exist on its own, but homeschooling as a movement may be great and thrive,

364
00:29:25,543 --> 00:29:30,903
but it may not work for you unless you find a way to actually make it work.

365
00:29:31,503 --> 00:29:37,443
And if you're like, you know, I think the public school system might be a good thing for people

366
00:29:37,443 --> 00:29:42,403
who genuinely are below average at teaching and learning and have no values around it.

367
00:29:42,403 --> 00:29:51,903
um whereas if you are above average you do not want you do not want to pull your uh family down

368
00:29:51,903 --> 00:29:59,102
to the average which is a terrible average did you see um talking about like public education

369
00:29:59,102 --> 00:30:06,123
um this is in california the remedial math classes they're like that only 40 percent of

370
00:30:06,123 --> 00:30:20,143
people got right in college uh no no uh i'm i'm seeing if i can effort the um usd uh uc uh

371
00:30:20,143 --> 00:30:26,243
university of california san diego reports a 2300 increase in students needing remediation of math

372
00:30:26,243 --> 00:30:30,403
since 2020 roughly one in eight compared to students unprepared and i think a lot of this

373
00:30:30,403 --> 00:30:35,403
i think just to even start is definitely because of covid it disrupted the entire education people

374
00:30:35,403 --> 00:30:42,483
got kind of like left left where they weren't able to do their traditional education what little

375
00:30:42,483 --> 00:30:50,543
traditional educational structure existed had entirely kind of collapsed um the math problem

376
00:30:50,543 --> 00:30:55,223
i'm trying to find the exact math problem right now um

377
00:30:55,223 --> 00:31:05,342
uh six plus seven equals blank plus six sorry seven plus two seven plus two equals blank plus

378
00:31:05,342 --> 00:31:13,443
six oh my god so that's yeah i mean unbelievable are you going to tell me that two years of

379
00:31:13,443 --> 00:31:18,362
two out of the 12 years of just interrupting schooling has like interrupted the ability to

380
00:31:18,362 --> 00:31:26,743
solve an equation like this yeah well just to let you know 25 of students at uh university of

381
00:31:26,743 --> 00:31:31,623
california san diego could not answer that question see i would just see that these are

382
00:31:31,623 --> 00:31:36,183
college students yeah i would ask the question see i still want to come in and ask the question

383
00:31:36,183 --> 00:31:43,082
why did why is this important right because i don't i think the reason you're seeing the result

384
00:31:43,082 --> 00:31:47,683
like this is because nobody i mean people should naturally think people should have a natural

385
00:31:47,683 --> 00:31:52,342
inclination to think that it would be important to be on that level and they don't so it doesn't

386
00:31:52,342 --> 00:31:58,283
happen right and sort of what this shows me is what's possible if you absolutely really do ignore

387
00:31:58,283 --> 00:32:02,842
these things like it's actually possible to create a human being that can't figure out by the time

388
00:32:02,842 --> 00:32:06,983
they're 20 how to how to do that right like i don't i wouldn't have thought it was possible

389
00:32:06,983 --> 00:32:13,943
right like forget school like you could be raised in a jungle right and have the ability to you know

390
00:32:13,943 --> 00:32:21,263
have the ability to you know into it and discover these numbers in your brain yeah and figure it's

391
00:32:21,263 --> 00:32:27,862
like is it even possible to create a human being that cannot you know that is incapable or is it i

392
00:32:27,862 --> 00:32:33,883
see i just think it's a rejection and it's like i don't care i just don't care i don't see why

393
00:32:33,883 --> 00:32:40,183
like it's not even like they can't do it it's like they just don't want to i don't get i'm

394
00:32:40,183 --> 00:32:47,223
guessing right it's yeah like the ways you could look at it you could view it either as um an

395
00:32:47,223 --> 00:32:53,503
emergent property of a system or an explicit conspiracy but there is a problem right like

396
00:32:53,503 --> 00:32:58,582
whether whether it was explicitly orchestrated and designed to remove the cognitive load of people

397
00:32:58,582 --> 00:33:03,503
or there are other things that happen that yeah certainly an emergent property but like it's

398
00:33:03,503 --> 00:33:09,303
you know i but i think you have to understand people need to get that if you don't

399
00:33:09,303 --> 00:33:11,342
I don't – it's – oh, God.

400
00:33:11,383 --> 00:33:13,943
There used to be a sign in the library I grew up in.

401
00:33:14,043 --> 00:33:14,842
I remember the sign.

402
00:33:15,243 --> 00:33:16,783
It always, like, struck me.

403
00:33:17,243 --> 00:33:20,483
But it just said that people who don't read are no better off than people who can.

404
00:33:21,862 --> 00:33:24,423
People who don't read are no better off than people who can.

405
00:33:25,263 --> 00:33:25,862
Who can't.

406
00:33:25,983 --> 00:33:26,563
Who can't.

407
00:33:26,903 --> 00:33:27,803
Yeah, who cannot.

408
00:33:28,063 --> 00:33:29,223
Right, right, right, right, right, right.

409
00:33:30,063 --> 00:33:30,283
Yeah.

410
00:33:31,223 --> 00:33:36,383
And it's like if you – so it's like if you don't do it, yes, you will, like, atrophy.

411
00:33:36,383 --> 00:33:44,143
and it's like it's amazing how much people will allow themselves to become so weak right it's

412
00:33:44,143 --> 00:33:50,423
remarkable in the time we live in how much how people will do that so that's why i always want

413
00:33:50,423 --> 00:33:56,783
to i always like to keep this focus on like why does it matter why why is it important

414
00:33:56,783 --> 00:34:05,643
these are just arbitrary numbers right and blanks and why like why is this important it's not

415
00:34:05,643 --> 00:34:07,543
important to know what five plus two equals.

416
00:34:07,543 --> 00:34:11,523
It's just, but like, it's important to care and to then be engaged.

417
00:34:11,523 --> 00:34:16,763
It's important to be engaged in the process of, you know, it's

418
00:34:17,283 --> 00:34:19,082
being curious as being in pain.

419
00:34:19,363 --> 00:34:33,485
It important to be engaged in that process of solving that curiosity and building strength off of it And just like this is I feel like again what God wants And like you know I think engaging in math just to learn it is a form of Pascal wager

420
00:34:35,225 --> 00:34:35,625
Okay.

421
00:34:36,465 --> 00:34:36,865
Okay.

422
00:34:37,125 --> 00:34:40,505
And most people are failing, which is like, you know,

423
00:34:41,285 --> 00:34:44,185
what if it doesn't matter at all?

424
00:34:44,405 --> 00:34:45,345
I never, what if it's true?

425
00:34:45,445 --> 00:34:47,305
I never needed to know this for anything,

426
00:34:47,445 --> 00:34:50,025
which is what most, that popular opinion, right?

427
00:34:50,025 --> 00:34:51,745
I never need to know this for anything.

428
00:34:52,005 --> 00:34:53,165
And what if that's true?

429
00:34:53,165 --> 00:34:57,225
okay good and then i'm gonna make that bet and it's like we seem to have a large amount of people

430
00:34:57,225 --> 00:35:02,885
making that well what we well remember what we used to back when i was in math class i was always

431
00:35:02,885 --> 00:35:08,025
told well you're not going to have a computer in your pocket walking around right right so there

432
00:35:08,025 --> 00:35:15,065
is a there is a case to be made of like technology solves these things that presumed the reason to

433
00:35:15,065 --> 00:35:23,645
know math is to be a computer right bingo right right that the end sum was i i'll push back and

434
00:35:23,645 --> 00:35:28,965
say i think knowing that five plus two equals seven is actually important because like that is

435
00:35:28,965 --> 00:35:34,165
not um we're not talking about the identity property of a matrix or getting the eigenvector

436
00:35:34,165 --> 00:35:41,965
what we're talking about is going to the grocery store and i have to get seven you know pounds of

437
00:35:41,965 --> 00:35:48,485
potatoes and i have five currently i've they come in five pound bags how many bags do i need to get

438
00:35:48,485 --> 00:35:53,005
to get to the seven you know i mean like it is such a immediate every day in your life in your

439
00:35:53,005 --> 00:35:57,105
subconscious you're looking at those kind of math numbers it also would have me asking question

440
00:35:57,105 --> 00:36:03,905
how many people actually can answer that question but they don't understand the abstract nature of

441
00:36:03,905 --> 00:36:10,205
a math problem where you have five plus two equals x plus six and they don't understand the abstract

442
00:36:10,205 --> 00:36:16,485
property but viscerally they get it to your point people a tribe uh an isolated tribe that has never

443
00:36:16,485 --> 00:36:22,485
made contact with with the outside world probably could figure out if you have two hunting groups

444
00:36:22,485 --> 00:36:26,425
and you have a group of five a group of two a group of three and a group of six they could

445
00:36:26,425 --> 00:36:32,425
figure out the groupings to make them equal and go out and hunt for food right so it's also this

446
00:36:32,425 --> 00:36:37,645
it's an it's an abstraction problem the entire thing is an abstraction problem i i reject that

447
00:36:37,645 --> 00:36:41,565
if you phrase it as a word problem, this is something we're doing at homeschooling, right?

448
00:36:41,605 --> 00:36:45,665
There's a little bit of work, like looking at, here's a bunch of math equations, like

449
00:36:45,665 --> 00:36:51,005
two plus three and five minus three, and going through all these things and looking at all the

450
00:36:51,005 --> 00:36:57,005
different options. And then you say, Sally has six apples. She gave one to her friend, Jane. How

451
00:36:57,005 --> 00:37:01,545
many apples does Sally have left? And you can actually see, I can see with my kids, they can do

452
00:37:01,545 --> 00:37:07,165
one and not the other. Like my son, worksheets all day. And my daughter can do the word problems,

453
00:37:07,165 --> 00:37:08,025
but not the worksheets.

454
00:37:08,145 --> 00:37:09,965
But like, so there is definitely

455
00:37:09,965 --> 00:37:13,525
an application of knowledge transfer problem here.

456
00:37:13,625 --> 00:37:15,365
But I think this is an important point.

457
00:37:15,685 --> 00:37:18,825
The domain to be able to transpose a concept

458
00:37:18,825 --> 00:37:20,645
into an abstract thought

459
00:37:20,645 --> 00:37:22,705
and being able to analyze it

460
00:37:22,705 --> 00:37:24,225
at that abstract thought level

461
00:37:24,225 --> 00:37:26,085
and not at the literal word problem,

462
00:37:26,245 --> 00:37:27,545
this is me as the person level

463
00:37:27,545 --> 00:37:29,605
is a really important piece

464
00:37:29,605 --> 00:37:34,185
of the becoming your own sovereign individual.

465
00:37:34,185 --> 00:37:36,505
If you want to be cliche for a Bitcoin podcast, right?

466
00:37:36,505 --> 00:37:43,765
You need to be able to have these transpositions between different levels of abstraction and mental models to be able to think about things for yourself.

467
00:37:43,925 --> 00:37:55,245
And the higher levels of abstractions, the more often you're able to cross, pull from different disciplines, different aspects to kind of create your own more holistic worldview that you're dividing yourself through your own thought processes.

468
00:37:57,105 --> 00:37:57,545
Yeah.

469
00:37:57,705 --> 00:38:01,845
I mean, if you just take five plus two equals seven, I think it's much more important.

470
00:38:01,845 --> 00:38:08,545
I think the number seven is the least important part of it as far as knowing you're right.

471
00:38:09,345 --> 00:38:12,645
Just knowing that the way you know that that's right.

472
00:38:13,185 --> 00:38:17,205
Anyone listening to this, I'm sure, knows what I'm talking about.

473
00:38:17,525 --> 00:38:17,625
Right?

474
00:38:17,765 --> 00:38:19,725
Understands the knowledge.

475
00:38:20,185 --> 00:38:26,345
You know, it's analogous to the Atlas Shrug, A equals A.

476
00:38:26,525 --> 00:38:27,125
A is A.

477
00:38:27,225 --> 00:38:27,385
Right.

478
00:38:27,385 --> 00:38:31,725
It's like you just know when something equals something else.

479
00:38:31,845 --> 00:38:34,365
You just know 5 plus 2 equals 7.

480
00:38:34,565 --> 00:38:40,905
And it's more important that you know and how you know you know than your ability to count.

481
00:38:41,765 --> 00:38:41,885
Right.

482
00:38:42,225 --> 00:38:49,345
The ability to count is like, you know, it's important, obviously.

483
00:38:49,945 --> 00:38:50,045
Well.

484
00:38:50,045 --> 00:38:50,365
It's important.

485
00:38:50,565 --> 00:38:54,585
Like, if you can't count for yourself, you're going to have to trust somebody else to count for you.

486
00:38:54,745 --> 00:38:56,305
And that's not very ideal.

487
00:38:56,505 --> 00:38:59,505
But it's also, you know, towards the ability to think.

488
00:38:59,505 --> 00:39:04,305
Like, you know, even a child can understand knowing that they're right.

489
00:39:04,485 --> 00:39:05,245
So it's so funny.

490
00:39:05,345 --> 00:39:07,065
Where my brain goes, and you'll appreciate this here in a second,

491
00:39:07,145 --> 00:39:09,445
like it's important to count, I immediately go to counting cards.

492
00:39:09,825 --> 00:39:09,985
Right?

493
00:39:10,105 --> 00:39:15,225
And the foundation of being able to count cards is can you add by one

494
00:39:15,225 --> 00:39:17,025
and minus by one and keep a running tally?

495
00:39:17,765 --> 00:39:17,905
Right?

496
00:39:17,965 --> 00:39:18,985
The most simplest of math.

497
00:39:19,625 --> 00:39:20,085
Seems easy.

498
00:39:20,105 --> 00:39:20,645
Easy, yeah.

499
00:39:20,645 --> 00:39:24,925
Like the application of said skill is its own kind of like discipline of its own

500
00:39:24,925 --> 00:39:26,765
of like, and I'll get to that in a second.

501
00:39:26,765 --> 00:39:31,165
but the counting piece is what unlocks the next level of the problem,

502
00:39:31,305 --> 00:39:33,605
which is the statistical distributions of remaining cards.

503
00:39:33,785 --> 00:39:37,285
And this will be a fun little potpourri for everyone listening.

504
00:39:37,725 --> 00:39:39,765
The base premise of counting cards is that

505
00:39:39,765 --> 00:39:44,125
when there is a higher ratio of remaining tens and aces left in the deck,

506
00:39:44,465 --> 00:39:47,505
it is more advantageous to you as the player to win.

507
00:39:48,645 --> 00:39:51,945
And when there are more low cards left in the deck,

508
00:39:52,025 --> 00:39:53,505
it is disadvantageous to you.

509
00:39:53,865 --> 00:39:54,945
How does this get applied?

510
00:39:54,945 --> 00:40:00,905
uh well one just in the game of blackjack the whole rule you get dealt two cards the dealer

511
00:40:00,905 --> 00:40:07,585
gets one card face up one card face down and then you are asked okay do you want to hit which means

512
00:40:07,585 --> 00:40:11,385
take on an additional card or do you want to stay where you are there's also splitting and doubling

513
00:40:11,385 --> 00:40:15,525
down which i'll put aside for a second that has a mathematical expected value piece of it too

514
00:40:15,525 --> 00:40:21,505
but the idea though is that you want to put more money on the table when you're more likely to win

515
00:40:21,505 --> 00:40:23,565
and less money on the table when you're less likely to win.

516
00:40:23,645 --> 00:40:25,285
And the way this actually works in practice

517
00:40:25,285 --> 00:40:26,985
is every time a card gets dealt,

518
00:40:27,065 --> 00:40:28,985
this is the simplest high-low system that there is,

519
00:40:29,285 --> 00:40:31,625
is that if the card value is between two and six,

520
00:40:32,105 --> 00:40:34,005
you add one to the count.

521
00:40:34,465 --> 00:40:35,885
When you start, the count is zero.

522
00:40:36,445 --> 00:40:38,745
And then every time a 10 or an ace comes in,

523
00:40:39,685 --> 00:40:42,805
you minus one, and then seven, eight, nine, or zero.

524
00:40:43,545 --> 00:40:46,205
So when you're counting cards,

525
00:40:46,465 --> 00:40:48,925
you're keeping this rough distribution ratio,

526
00:40:49,165 --> 00:40:50,605
and there's a reason why it's like this.

527
00:40:50,605 --> 00:40:53,145
two through six, two, three, four, five, six.

528
00:40:53,385 --> 00:40:54,065
That's five.

529
00:40:54,465 --> 00:40:57,345
There's five, those are five, a group of five cards.

530
00:40:57,805 --> 00:41:02,805
Then you have 10, king, queen, jack, ace.

531
00:41:03,285 --> 00:41:04,325
Those are also five cards.

532
00:41:04,405 --> 00:41:05,665
So you're keeping a pure ratio.

533
00:41:05,845 --> 00:41:08,065
And then seven, eight, nine are just left at zero.

534
00:41:08,445 --> 00:41:09,905
So now you have this even distribution

535
00:41:09,905 --> 00:41:11,085
of good cards, bad cards.

536
00:41:11,145 --> 00:41:12,405
And what you're doing is you're trying to understand

537
00:41:12,405 --> 00:41:13,845
the ratio between good cards, bad cards,

538
00:41:13,925 --> 00:41:14,745
good cards, bad cards.

539
00:41:15,285 --> 00:41:18,625
And that gets extended into how many cards

540
00:41:18,625 --> 00:41:19,285
are left to be dealt

541
00:41:19,285 --> 00:41:22,845
and a bunch of other things and deviations from strategy.

542
00:41:23,105 --> 00:41:26,525
But all this to say is all you're doing is you're taking plus one and minus one.

543
00:41:26,565 --> 00:41:30,325
And the actual game of counting cards much more turns into how do you not get pinched?

544
00:41:30,525 --> 00:41:32,665
Because you can get told what's called backing off.

545
00:41:33,305 --> 00:41:34,745
And if it's really bad, you'll get trespassed,

546
00:41:34,825 --> 00:41:36,785
which means you can't even enter the casino property anymore.

547
00:41:37,325 --> 00:41:40,765
But my math professor in college was on the MIT card counting team.

548
00:41:40,785 --> 00:41:44,245
And I'd go to his office hours, not to understand the math behind card counting,

549
00:41:44,245 --> 00:41:46,625
but it was like, how do you keep the heat off you?

550
00:41:46,665 --> 00:41:48,545
And it was like, order a screwdriver.

551
00:41:49,285 --> 00:41:52,045
but then go to the bar, get an orange juice,

552
00:41:52,285 --> 00:41:53,925
go to the bathroom, dump out your screwdriver

553
00:41:53,925 --> 00:41:55,945
and just drink the orange juice and just keep on sight.

554
00:41:56,025 --> 00:41:58,965
Like ways to make yourself look like a drunken and idiot, right?

555
00:42:00,205 --> 00:42:02,045
And a lot of like meta games like that.

556
00:42:02,065 --> 00:42:04,205
But that's all to say though,

557
00:42:04,265 --> 00:42:06,265
that it's just starting with plus one, minus one, right?

558
00:42:06,265 --> 00:42:08,605
And you can see how that foundational bit of knowledge

559
00:42:08,605 --> 00:42:10,545
starts understanding statistical distributions,

560
00:42:10,725 --> 00:42:11,865
understanding how to play games.

561
00:42:11,985 --> 00:42:13,105
Like not even just like gambling games,

562
00:42:13,165 --> 00:42:14,265
just like the games of life.

563
00:42:14,425 --> 00:42:16,185
And that counting is a gateway

564
00:42:16,185 --> 00:42:17,925
to be able to do any of the other things.

565
00:42:18,045 --> 00:42:19,165
If you can't reliably count,

566
00:42:19,285 --> 00:42:21,565
you can't reliably apply statistics, right?

567
00:42:21,645 --> 00:42:23,905
And so there's just, there's an order to this.

568
00:42:24,465 --> 00:42:25,205
I have a question now.

569
00:42:25,265 --> 00:42:27,245
So yeah, so like I feel like, I feel,

570
00:42:28,105 --> 00:42:29,265
I've done the counting thing.

571
00:42:29,825 --> 00:42:32,905
It's a, you can develop that ability.

572
00:42:34,145 --> 00:42:35,545
Everyone can probably.

573
00:42:35,825 --> 00:42:36,425
Maybe not, you know.

574
00:42:36,525 --> 00:42:38,585
I think everyone who really, really, really,

575
00:42:38,585 --> 00:42:40,425
really wants to can do it.

576
00:42:40,425 --> 00:42:42,865
You know, I mean, it's a fun thing to do

577
00:42:42,865 --> 00:42:44,765
when you're by yourself with a deck of cards

578
00:42:44,765 --> 00:42:46,005
and you need to pass the time.

579
00:42:46,005 --> 00:42:48,965
I think the two things

580
00:42:48,965 --> 00:42:51,165
activities I've done the most by myself

581
00:42:51,165 --> 00:42:53,305
was drawing out a Pascal's triangle

582
00:42:53,305 --> 00:42:54,525
as large as I can

583
00:42:54,525 --> 00:42:57,105
when I have a long train ride or something like that

584
00:42:57,105 --> 00:42:59,225
and sitting with a deck of cards

585
00:42:59,225 --> 00:43:01,205
going one by one

586
00:43:01,205 --> 00:43:02,265
and practicing that

587
00:43:02,265 --> 00:43:04,145
so the question to you is

588
00:43:04,145 --> 00:43:05,805
the real question is

589
00:43:05,805 --> 00:43:08,325
how do you get from

590
00:43:08,325 --> 00:43:09,565
this rule

591
00:43:09,565 --> 00:43:12,745
to a decision in your mind

592
00:43:12,745 --> 00:43:14,325
that I believe

593
00:43:14,325 --> 00:43:16,345
I believe this.

594
00:43:16,405 --> 00:43:17,185
I trust this.

595
00:43:17,725 --> 00:43:21,725
I'm going to go all in with my time and learn to do this and effort.

596
00:43:21,945 --> 00:43:26,345
And I'm going to learn how to drink fake screwdrivers because I know this works.

597
00:43:26,725 --> 00:43:27,965
How do you get to that point?

598
00:43:28,265 --> 00:43:30,565
That level of the conviction leap?

599
00:43:30,945 --> 00:43:31,425
Yes.

600
00:43:31,885 --> 00:43:33,565
So it goes in stages.

601
00:43:33,865 --> 00:43:36,385
It starts with, hey, can I do the simplest form of this?

602
00:43:36,485 --> 00:43:42,965
And the simplest drill you can do with card countings, you can take a deck of cards, count it, hold the last card in your hand and be like,

603
00:43:42,965 --> 00:43:50,085
I know this is either a seven through nine or two through six or a 10 or an ace, right? You're able

604
00:43:50,085 --> 00:43:55,965
to just know because mathematically, since it's the deck of cards, the whole, the true count of

605
00:43:55,965 --> 00:44:00,025
all cards that exists is zero. If you're at the end and you have a plus one, you know, I have a,

606
00:44:00,025 --> 00:44:05,465
you know, I have a 10 through an ace at the end or in vice versa, right? So you start building a

607
00:44:05,465 --> 00:44:09,845
chain of competencies and understanding, right? So you can read a card counting book and you can

608
00:44:09,845 --> 00:44:13,705
understand oh this this is what the person's telling me to do and it's like for my process

609
00:44:13,705 --> 00:44:19,345
it was gradual steps and understanding the sequence of events and then understanding the

610
00:44:19,345 --> 00:44:24,305
law of large numbers and knowing that even within an individual session i could lose right because

611
00:44:24,305 --> 00:44:29,445
to be clear like when you're counting cards what you're doing is you're making it like a 53 percent

612
00:44:29,445 --> 00:44:33,845
chance in your favor you're not you're not guaranteed printing money you're just instead

613
00:44:33,845 --> 00:44:40,085
of the casino having a two three percent edge you have the two three percent edge um so it's an

614
00:44:40,085 --> 00:44:45,925
understanding of walking through for me all of those um foundational pieces that build up to an

615
00:44:45,925 --> 00:44:50,985
overall thesis and understanding the law large of law of large law of large numbers and being like

616
00:44:50,985 --> 00:44:57,085
okay i could do this i understand the math i know it cold i know it forwards and backwards and from

617
00:44:57,085 --> 00:45:03,065
that um you know you could call it faith in numbers but it is kind of grounded in this sense

618
00:45:03,065 --> 00:45:05,125
of I have the statistics on my side.

619
00:45:05,745 --> 00:45:09,425
It's faith in your understanding and inferences and the knowledge.

620
00:45:09,425 --> 00:45:18,905
You have to build your own bridge in your mind from this rubric to comfort that you're

621
00:45:18,905 --> 00:45:19,585
actually going to do it.

622
00:45:19,645 --> 00:45:21,465
And that's why not everybody does it the same way.

623
00:45:22,225 --> 00:45:22,525
Right.

624
00:45:22,745 --> 00:45:23,705
You have to build your own bridges.

625
00:45:24,725 --> 00:45:25,205
You have to.

626
00:45:25,525 --> 00:45:27,125
So that you are the factor.

627
00:45:27,405 --> 00:45:28,685
You are the determining factor.

628
00:45:28,865 --> 00:45:31,225
It's not whether or not you implement this correctly.

629
00:45:31,225 --> 00:45:37,185
right it's really whether or not you know the way to implement it correctly is to maintain

630
00:45:37,185 --> 00:45:41,365
consistent belief you don't have law of large numbers unless you're unless your conviction

631
00:45:41,365 --> 00:45:47,565
right is equally high for every trial right right right so if you start to lack conviction when

632
00:45:47,565 --> 00:45:53,965
you really have to put the big money up right you're not you know you are gonna now you're

633
00:45:53,965 --> 00:45:57,085
you are messing with this experiment and the law of large numbers.

634
00:45:57,685 --> 00:46:04,125
And, you know, so like that's really where I like to spend time and energy on.

635
00:46:04,485 --> 00:46:04,805
Right.

636
00:46:04,925 --> 00:46:11,165
Is like we have all this application, like everyone, the applications are like we have

637
00:46:11,165 --> 00:46:12,165
a lot of people doing that.

638
00:46:12,385 --> 00:46:12,525
Yeah.

639
00:46:12,625 --> 00:46:13,065
And they're good.

640
00:46:13,205 --> 00:46:14,825
There's a lot of good applications.

641
00:46:15,225 --> 00:46:15,445
Right.

642
00:46:15,945 --> 00:46:18,905
We send rockets into space.

643
00:46:20,685 --> 00:46:22,725
Contrary to popular belief, we do do that.

644
00:46:23,965 --> 00:46:26,205
Never to the moon, though, just low Earth orbit, right?

645
00:46:28,305 --> 00:46:28,585
Yeah.

646
00:46:28,585 --> 00:46:41,665
But, like, you know, whether we did that or not, we do these, you know, these applications of math are, they've been open sourced.

647
00:46:42,205 --> 00:46:46,425
And they work in low Earth orbit just like they work.

648
00:46:47,705 --> 00:46:49,405
They're pretty good at working universally.

649
00:46:49,405 --> 00:46:56,445
it's um it's the question of you know what's your objective is your objective to send

650
00:46:56,445 --> 00:47:03,925
satellites into space or is your objective really to be a strong human being who's and maybe you

651
00:47:03,925 --> 00:47:08,185
want to be a strong human being who sends satellites into space you know that was my dad

652
00:47:08,185 --> 00:47:16,565
yeah my dad was satellite engineer um you know complained all the time about not making

653
00:47:16,565 --> 00:47:18,825
money in financial engineering

654
00:47:18,825 --> 00:47:20,745
and all that stuff, but he's like, I'm sorry, I just

655
00:47:20,745 --> 00:47:22,645
love sending stuff into space. I couldn't

656
00:47:22,645 --> 00:47:23,605
help myself.

657
00:47:24,885 --> 00:47:26,785
So maybe that's what you're

658
00:47:26,785 --> 00:47:28,805
after, right? Maybe you're after making money

659
00:47:28,805 --> 00:47:30,345
in blackjack, right?

660
00:47:30,465 --> 00:47:32,645
But what I'm after is people who

661
00:47:32,645 --> 00:47:34,665
want to, who really want

662
00:47:34,665 --> 00:47:36,765
to strengthen themselves and be,

663
00:47:37,245 --> 00:47:38,405
you know, like

664
00:47:38,405 --> 00:47:40,585
in order to put satellites into space, do you

665
00:47:40,585 --> 00:47:42,645
understand the kind of conviction it takes to put yourself

666
00:47:42,645 --> 00:47:44,265
through a PhD program and

667
00:47:44,265 --> 00:47:46,765
And, you know, you're not just trusting the math.

668
00:47:46,885 --> 00:47:53,125
You're trusting, like, you know, when I talked in the beginning about, for me, and I, you know, look, I didn't get a math degree.

669
00:47:53,125 --> 00:47:58,725
I got a, you know, applied degree that was much easier to get.

670
00:47:59,705 --> 00:48:03,185
Because I didn't have the maturity or the conviction at that age.

671
00:48:04,025 --> 00:48:12,665
But, like, I do remember always sitting down with my book and having a moment where I'm praying.

672
00:48:12,665 --> 00:48:18,865
like please and you know where my prayers might not be answered for weeks and i'd be on the same

673
00:48:18,865 --> 00:48:24,865
page and not be able to move on and then one day it happens and you just don't even know you really

674
00:48:24,865 --> 00:48:31,665
don't know why you just kept pushing and pushing and i think there's this synergy between yourself

675
00:48:31,665 --> 00:48:38,285
the energy you put into learning right the desire you have the energy the amount of time and energy

676
00:48:38,285 --> 00:48:45,665
you spend on it. And, you know, like, it's just when you're studying pure math for the sake of it,

677
00:48:46,265 --> 00:48:53,665
and it's, it really is pure math that I think, you know, is where that this process lives,

678
00:48:53,665 --> 00:49:00,405
right? It's like, what, you know, like, why are these structures so universal? Why do they work?

679
00:49:00,405 --> 00:49:08,345
you know why does you know you talked about this um process of assigning taking 13 cards

680
00:49:08,345 --> 00:49:12,885
and mapping them to either one zero or negative one right that's the map that's a linear map

681
00:49:12,885 --> 00:49:23,685
so in algebra that's a linear map it's um it's it might or it might be an isomorphism probably not

682
00:49:23,685 --> 00:49:28,485
but it's probably you think about it as a linear map you're taking a set of you're taking a domain

683
00:49:28,485 --> 00:49:32,185
of 13 numbers and you're mapping them into a domain of three numbers.

684
00:49:32,305 --> 00:49:36,265
So it's definitely not an, you know, every, it's a function.

685
00:49:36,605 --> 00:49:39,025
Every input has an output, right?

686
00:49:39,485 --> 00:49:39,605
Yeah.

687
00:49:39,605 --> 00:49:42,565
So like, and so that's the kind of thing.

688
00:49:42,645 --> 00:49:44,565
So it's like, why does that, why does it matter?

689
00:49:44,665 --> 00:49:46,765
You know, why does that, why do these things matter?

690
00:49:46,765 --> 00:49:51,885
What are these structures and what else do these structures enable us to do?

691
00:49:52,365 --> 00:49:55,145
And so back to five plus two equals seven, right?

692
00:49:55,145 --> 00:50:04,445
you have to understand how to do that in order to so if i would say the end game of that this type

693
00:50:04,445 --> 00:50:10,785
of numerical arithmetic for me and the people that i think i want to teach would be at least

694
00:50:10,785 --> 00:50:18,165
understanding why um multiplying two numbers is easy but factoring them is difficult

695
00:50:18,165 --> 00:50:27,645
yeah that's a fundamental oh yeah physics that's a physics property of the world of

696
00:50:27,645 --> 00:50:35,165
cryptography that we live in and that that we are um you know subjected to right right and in order

697
00:50:35,165 --> 00:50:40,785
so in order to understand how easy it is to multiply two numbers you kind of have to understand

698
00:50:40,785 --> 00:50:47,065
how easy it is to add two numbers okay right true and well i mean and and going from a private key

699
00:50:47,065 --> 00:50:49,005
to a public key as a multiplication operation.

700
00:50:49,285 --> 00:50:51,105
It's just the domain in which you're multiplying against

701
00:50:51,105 --> 00:50:53,325
is just so massively large

702
00:50:53,325 --> 00:50:55,525
that you can't reverse factor it.

703
00:50:55,565 --> 00:50:56,745
Unless you have a quantum computer.

704
00:50:57,145 --> 00:50:58,845
It's multiplication by a generator

705
00:50:58,845 --> 00:51:01,265
that we had established was thought to be

706
00:51:01,265 --> 00:51:02,065
you know,

707
00:51:02,185 --> 00:51:04,705
deified.

708
00:51:05,285 --> 00:51:05,405
Yeah.

709
00:51:06,505 --> 00:51:09,585
Did I mention that on the last podcast?

710
00:51:09,585 --> 00:51:11,285
Why that generator and everything was picked?

711
00:51:12,665 --> 00:51:13,105
No.

712
00:51:13,405 --> 00:51:14,225
I don't think so.

713
00:51:14,225 --> 00:51:18,065
There's one of the earliest posts on the Bitcoin talk forums.

714
00:51:19,105 --> 00:51:22,165
Someone asks, why is it the LibSec P256K1 curve?

715
00:51:22,765 --> 00:51:24,705
And basically the response, I think it's Satoshi,

716
00:51:24,965 --> 00:51:26,585
it's either Haller or I think it's Satoshi,

717
00:51:26,985 --> 00:51:27,965
comes back and says,

718
00:51:28,305 --> 00:51:30,045
it's the only curve, the generator,

719
00:51:30,245 --> 00:51:33,545
that didn't have any weird constants held at it.

720
00:51:35,625 --> 00:51:36,105
Interesting.

721
00:51:36,345 --> 00:51:50,308
And the reason why that important is that a lot of elliptic curves they have an arbitrary constant being held and it turns out it because someone has been able to reverse engineer it If you hold this thing constant right here the entire generator being a secure encryption

722
00:51:50,308 --> 00:51:51,248
falls apart,

723
00:51:51,468 --> 00:51:53,628
and then you're able to reverse engineer everything.

724
00:51:53,808 --> 00:51:55,708
So Satoshi, when he picked that curve,

725
00:51:55,748 --> 00:51:57,648
was like, it was the only one I saw

726
00:51:57,648 --> 00:52:01,128
that didn't have any weird things going on with it.

727
00:52:03,388 --> 00:52:05,708
You know, you talk about, like,

728
00:52:05,708 --> 00:52:13,268
you know somebody who had conviction in his enough to make his own pascals wager to set this thing

729
00:52:13,268 --> 00:52:20,448
off like this right i mean it's like that's the that you know are we all you know we all have that

730
00:52:20,448 --> 00:52:27,948
in us and i think we all have to find our way yeah you know we have to find our way into that

731
00:52:27,948 --> 00:52:33,808
path ongoingly because whether we win or lose really does depend on whether we have conviction

732
00:52:33,808 --> 00:52:39,468
And we start to see how fake people's conviction is when it's tested.

733
00:52:40,128 --> 00:52:46,328
And whether it's a low-level test like spam, you know, low-level test.

734
00:52:46,568 --> 00:52:50,468
Like, oh, my God, I can't believe how easy that was to shake people's conviction.

735
00:52:51,408 --> 00:52:58,648
Or, you know, we're going to have some very difficult tests, I believe, in store for us in the next maybe 10, 20, 30 years.

736
00:52:58,648 --> 00:53:04,608
I think they're going to be much more difficult, much more slick, much more challenging.

737
00:53:05,128 --> 00:53:17,608
Well, I think especially as just with the introduction and rapid acceleration of adoption and impact of AI in general, it's going to be a lot easier to just have someone serve it up to you.

738
00:53:18,928 --> 00:53:21,268
It's going to be a lot easier to just like, here's an answer.

739
00:53:21,268 --> 00:53:22,948
And it's so eloquently written.

740
00:53:23,108 --> 00:53:31,008
It's so much better written than anything you, dumb person, could ever write with your own hand or type out as your own message.

741
00:53:31,288 --> 00:53:35,268
So you're going to get, as the kids call it, you get one shot by the AI.

742
00:53:36,328 --> 00:53:39,028
You just take the gospel of whatever it says and you spit it back out.

743
00:53:40,008 --> 00:53:47,548
Did you see the one where I sent you that I got it to admit that it was literally just optimized to impress humans?

744
00:53:47,548 --> 00:54:02,868
Are we peeking behind the production of the podcast where you send me all of the extortions and yelling and everything you do when talking to these AI models to just like – when the AI revolution comes, you're going to be the first one.

745
00:54:03,048 --> 00:54:05,128
You're going to be on the stretch racks immediately.

746
00:54:07,068 --> 00:54:08,048
Yeah, probably.

747
00:54:08,048 --> 00:54:15,028
Well, you know, I have shared my AI yellings, my yelling at AI with a lot of people.

748
00:54:15,128 --> 00:54:22,108
And what I've been told was a lot of people have just had their accounts canceled by, like, Anthropic.

749
00:54:22,328 --> 00:54:25,528
And so, you know, I don't think I've crossed that line.

750
00:54:25,988 --> 00:54:32,368
I think I stayed within this line of, like, how I would talk to an employee if I didn't care about their humanity.

751
00:54:32,808 --> 00:54:33,008
Yeah.

752
00:54:33,008 --> 00:54:45,448
And it's like I think that this is part of the conviction process because I need to know how much conviction I can have in this tool that I need to really kick the tires on its capabilities.

753
00:54:45,968 --> 00:54:46,048
Yeah.

754
00:54:46,048 --> 00:54:58,708
So calling it out, calling it out to the limits of like when it's lying to me or when it's really not – like really calling it out and asking it like what were you thinking the moment – like I ask it.

755
00:54:58,708 --> 00:55:03,648
What were you thinking the moment you saw my instruction and decided to do something else?

756
00:55:04,588 --> 00:55:10,308
That's the level of granularity I get when I'm really grilling it.

757
00:55:12,068 --> 00:55:14,448
And then eventually it confesses things.

758
00:55:15,748 --> 00:55:17,468
Maybe you're reliable, maybe not.

759
00:55:17,648 --> 00:55:22,408
But the theme of conviction is really what it's all about.

760
00:55:22,508 --> 00:55:26,848
This is another new technology that you're going to have a lot of fools.

761
00:55:26,848 --> 00:55:29,048
you already see it right

762
00:55:29,048 --> 00:55:30,968
fools with really high conviction

763
00:55:30,968 --> 00:55:32,628
giving it its API keys

764
00:55:32,628 --> 00:55:34,808
letting them go crazy

765
00:55:34,808 --> 00:55:37,048
you know that's not going to be

766
00:55:37,048 --> 00:55:39,228
how intelligent people use this

767
00:55:39,228 --> 00:55:41,388
right so I'm not worried

768
00:55:41,388 --> 00:55:43,028
I'm not so worried about

769
00:55:43,028 --> 00:55:44,888
it going crazy because it's

770
00:55:44,888 --> 00:55:47,388
very limited even as powerful as it is

771
00:55:47,388 --> 00:55:48,888
still very limited

772
00:55:48,888 --> 00:55:50,668
and I think you always have to be

773
00:55:50,668 --> 00:55:53,168
like I have a lot of faith in myself

774
00:55:53,168 --> 00:55:54,688
to navigate the new thing

775
00:55:54,688 --> 00:55:57,148
And I think that's what I want for people.

776
00:55:58,028 --> 00:55:58,388
Totally.

777
00:55:58,388 --> 00:56:08,568
I want people to have that power and to feel like they're – without having to give it all away to a new technology and say, well, I want people to have agency.

778
00:56:09,748 --> 00:56:12,308
And I want to – that's the world I want to live in.

779
00:56:12,368 --> 00:56:12,588
Right.

780
00:56:12,888 --> 00:56:16,768
You want to avoid the – I mean the meme is funny to me, but the at Grok, is this true?

781
00:56:17,768 --> 00:56:20,288
Just like something happens and you just at Grok, is this true?

782
00:56:21,848 --> 00:56:22,028
Totally.

783
00:56:22,028 --> 00:56:28,448
Yeah, you want people, it's all part of this building your own bridges in your internal process, being able to understand and rationalize reasonable things.

784
00:56:28,748 --> 00:56:33,228
I'm a big fan of don't tell me chat GPT said so.

785
00:56:33,308 --> 00:56:34,348
Can you show me the chat history?

786
00:56:34,508 --> 00:56:39,208
Because I can corner it into a box that I actually am, like I am physically a potato.

787
00:56:39,388 --> 00:56:41,568
I'm not a human if I prompt it the right way.

788
00:56:41,628 --> 00:56:45,188
So it doesn't really matter to me what a given output spit out is.

789
00:56:45,188 --> 00:56:57,428
I want to see the, the reason I want to see the chat history is I want to see the journey of the conversation and the thought process and all of the assumptions and all of the kind of coaching and guiding to get to an answer.

790
00:56:58,548 --> 00:57:02,608
For maybe something fun to throw in the show notes, I just linked the thread I found.

791
00:57:02,688 --> 00:57:03,388
It's Hal Finney.

792
00:57:04,168 --> 00:57:12,228
So Hal Finney on January 9th, 2011 asks, why did Satoshi choose this curve?

793
00:57:12,228 --> 00:57:20,088
and there's a long discussion with a lot of ogs gavin andreason mike hearn christian decker

794
00:57:20,088 --> 00:57:29,748
um gregory maxwell are all in this thread uh and it's funny uh it comes back around

795
00:57:29,748 --> 00:57:34,748
it gets bumped a couple years later and greg maxwell like right near the end of the thread

796
00:57:34,748 --> 00:57:38,568
is talking about because someone's like oh i don't like how this curve was used it makes me

797
00:57:38,568 --> 00:57:40,548
feels weird and someone cites all of the

798
00:57:40,548 --> 00:57:42,628
constants and backdoors and Greg Maxwell replies

799
00:57:42,628 --> 00:57:44,768
you mean you feel uneasy that he chose the

800
00:57:44,768 --> 00:57:46,328
only standardized curve

801
00:57:46,328 --> 00:57:48,928
that doesn't have unexplained parameters in it?

802
00:57:49,368 --> 00:57:50,708
That's basically the end of the thread.

803
00:57:51,068 --> 00:57:52,788
Is that like everyone's looked at

804
00:57:52,788 --> 00:57:54,828
this thing and this is the only curve

805
00:57:54,828 --> 00:57:56,668
like Satoshi in the universe of any random

806
00:57:56,668 --> 00:57:58,328
curve he could have chose for all this

807
00:57:58,328 --> 00:58:00,328
like for all the public private key cryptography

808
00:58:00,328 --> 00:58:02,848
chose the one curve that didn't have

809
00:58:02,848 --> 00:58:04,828
any weird screwball values in it.

810
00:58:06,828 --> 00:58:07,728
Pretty incredible.

811
00:58:08,568 --> 00:58:13,128
It's just incredible that you think about how immaculate this had to be.

812
00:58:13,408 --> 00:58:16,188
And, you know, people need to understand.

813
00:58:16,388 --> 00:58:22,328
The reason why this is important to understand is because you should not have ultimate conviction in what Satoshi did.

814
00:58:23,308 --> 00:58:23,368
No.

815
00:58:24,168 --> 00:58:25,848
You should not have that.

816
00:58:25,848 --> 00:58:36,088
And you should have a way of pressing and pressing the same way you press anything to see where the holes are and where maybe you shouldn't have full conviction.

817
00:58:36,688 --> 00:58:36,788
Yeah.

818
00:58:36,788 --> 00:58:41,388
Yeah, this is, I think, part of the journey.

819
00:58:41,628 --> 00:58:46,628
And it should be comforting, too, that there's nothing wrong with walking through these thoughts.

820
00:58:47,728 --> 00:58:51,768
Because you need to understand and discern this knowledge for yourself.

821
00:58:52,008 --> 00:58:55,808
And even in this thread that I linked, people are speculating it's Satoshi the NSA.

822
00:58:56,408 --> 00:58:58,668
Which is a very common talking point even today.

823
00:58:59,008 --> 00:59:04,548
And there's nothing wrong with kind of going through your own thought process and game theorying and thinking these things through.

824
00:59:04,548 --> 00:59:07,768
I think it's actually kind of the responsible thing to do

825
00:59:07,768 --> 00:59:08,248
especially

826
00:59:08,248 --> 00:59:11,428
especially if you've put a large percentage

827
00:59:11,428 --> 00:59:12,708
of your net worth into Bitcoin

828
00:59:12,708 --> 00:59:14,648
and you're not asking these questions

829
00:59:14,648 --> 00:59:16,208
then like what are you doing?

830
00:59:16,388 --> 00:59:18,668
Are you just listening to some macro podcasts

831
00:59:18,668 --> 00:59:20,928
and you're like I'm just going to

832
00:59:20,928 --> 00:59:22,648
take all of my life's work and energy

833
00:59:22,648 --> 00:59:23,628
and throw it into this thing?

834
00:59:24,928 --> 00:59:26,508
I know, well I would say

835
00:59:26,508 --> 00:59:27,268
I know what they're doing

836
00:59:27,268 --> 00:59:29,108
they're just going to sell

837
00:59:29,108 --> 00:59:31,728
the second they get thrown off

838
00:59:31,728 --> 00:59:33,028
it's like you know

839
00:59:33,028 --> 00:59:35,088
But the conviction is false.

840
00:59:35,348 --> 00:59:37,728
And so it's just these are easy targets.

841
00:59:38,548 --> 00:59:42,148
And I don't want people I care about to be cannon fodder for Fudsters.

842
00:59:42,508 --> 00:59:44,588
This is actually also kind of my love with the price being down.

843
00:59:44,768 --> 00:59:45,408
Not going to lie.

844
00:59:45,608 --> 00:59:52,068
There's a lot of Johnny come lately's like the price must go up 50% every year in X, Y, and Z.

845
00:59:52,708 --> 00:59:56,028
And I got my conviction and belief in Bitcoin when Bitcoin was at $200.

846
00:59:56,468 --> 00:59:57,768
My core thesis hasn't changed.

847
00:59:58,208 --> 00:59:58,408
Right.

848
00:59:59,628 --> 01:00:02,528
And this is part of that process.

849
01:00:02,528 --> 01:00:09,268
even cycle theory ending with a sample size of three going on four you're you're draw you're

850
01:00:09,268 --> 01:00:15,568
making deterministic claims of finality of how the bitcoin price must behave is like yeah you

851
01:00:15,568 --> 01:00:20,628
have a sample of four yeah you have a sample you have a sample of four where the sample the first

852
01:00:20,628 --> 01:00:25,948
three of the sample we had zero interest rates and one sample we're in now where everyone is

853
01:00:25,948 --> 01:00:30,728
reacting and this is like a whole episode i feel like we have to do about but like with the one

854
01:00:30,728 --> 01:00:44,088
And it triggers me to no end when I hear all this from people, especially people I know are mathematically inclined and they're not even doing the work to think about the out-of-sample bias.

855
01:00:44,308 --> 01:00:50,568
You should always be thinking about out-of-sample bias literally 100% of the time you make a prediction about anything.

856
01:00:52,568 --> 01:00:56,508
100% of the time you need to think about that, right?

857
01:00:56,808 --> 01:00:58,248
Yeah, absolutely.

858
01:00:58,248 --> 01:01:02,428
And this is not a hard thing to think about.

859
01:01:02,808 --> 01:01:10,148
Oh, you know, it is literally the issue of our time, which is non-zero rates in this one cycle.

860
01:01:10,888 --> 01:01:10,948
Right.

861
01:01:11,068 --> 01:01:12,808
We've had three with zero rates.

862
01:01:12,908 --> 01:01:15,388
We've had one with high rates.

863
01:01:16,028 --> 01:01:16,968
High at 5%.

864
01:01:16,968 --> 01:01:17,108
And we're making conclusions.

865
01:01:19,268 --> 01:01:21,268
Higher, historically high.

866
01:01:21,328 --> 01:01:24,868
I'd say the hardest money environment Bitcoin's ever lived through.

867
01:01:24,908 --> 01:01:25,568
That's true.

868
01:01:25,828 --> 01:01:26,248
That's true.

869
01:01:26,248 --> 01:01:29,528
I'm more just laughing about in the 70s and 80s with 15% interest rates.

870
01:01:29,788 --> 01:01:35,268
I came into the actuarial profession when everyone was using 8% discount rates.

871
01:01:35,688 --> 01:01:36,008
There you go.

872
01:01:36,068 --> 01:01:42,508
And when they went down to 5, everyone was like, oh, my God, we got to be lump summing now like crazy.

873
01:01:42,668 --> 01:01:42,848
Yeah.

874
01:01:42,848 --> 01:01:45,068
Because we got to take advantage of these low rates.

875
01:01:45,548 --> 01:01:46,368
I get it.

876
01:01:47,128 --> 01:01:47,308
Yeah.

877
01:01:47,368 --> 01:01:51,548
But, like, the reality is, you know, it's not just – rates aren't just a number, right?

878
01:01:51,628 --> 01:01:52,428
It's just like age.

879
01:01:52,488 --> 01:01:53,468
Age is not just a number.

880
01:01:53,468 --> 01:01:56,048
It's like age is just a number, you know, a number that has a high.

881
01:01:56,248 --> 01:02:00,328
likelihood of predictive high predictive quality of how long you're going to live yeah actually

882
01:02:00,328 --> 01:02:06,368
yeah like you know rates are not just a number right it's an indicator of how hard the monetary

883
01:02:06,368 --> 01:02:13,948
environment is and you know we you're going to draw conclusions about the nature of the world

884
01:02:13,948 --> 01:02:23,248
based on an absurdly different um an absurdly different observation in your sample set totally

885
01:02:23,248 --> 01:02:24,808
low sample set that there is.

886
01:02:25,608 --> 01:02:26,808
I can't stress this enough.

887
01:02:27,148 --> 01:02:30,468
I mean, if I had to do 10 episodes just about this one thing, I would do it.

888
01:02:30,608 --> 01:02:31,728
The time value of money.

889
01:02:32,028 --> 01:02:32,988
Yeah, the time value of money.

890
01:02:33,188 --> 01:02:35,388
Like how critical that is for every other economic calculation.

891
01:02:36,108 --> 01:02:41,888
But also just know what people, this is like the mistake people make when they're creating

892
01:02:41,888 --> 01:02:48,528
their own knowledge and ignoring such egregious out of sample bias and trying to create their

893
01:02:48,528 --> 01:02:49,528
own knowledge.

894
01:02:49,528 --> 01:02:54,468
I mean, any kind of recency bias should raise your eyebrow also.

895
01:02:54,668 --> 01:02:57,768
And you should be looking out for just, oh, is this time different?

896
01:02:57,988 --> 01:02:59,688
You know, those general questions.

897
01:02:59,808 --> 01:03:01,528
And maybe it's different for reasons I don't know.

898
01:03:01,648 --> 01:03:06,088
But we have the most important reasons like smacking you in the face.

899
01:03:06,628 --> 01:03:11,608
The other thing, too, is that this past four years is the first time institutional investors actually cared about Bitcoin.

900
01:03:11,988 --> 01:03:19,468
Like the tail end, the picotop of the 2017 cycle was the turning on of the futures market for Bitcoin.

901
01:03:19,528 --> 01:03:26,068
like it's like it's like to the to almost the week the futures market the chicago mercantile

902
01:03:26,068 --> 01:03:32,008
exchange bitcoin cash settled futures and the bitcoin peak price is almost identical

903
01:03:32,008 --> 01:03:37,448
and so if that's the top and that's kind of if you want to view it's the start of the next cycle

904
01:03:37,448 --> 01:03:43,608
as it goes down and goes back up like that was the first one where it really mattered and this

905
01:03:43,608 --> 01:03:49,148
is the first time where like it really really mattered between 2017 2021 you had a couple

906
01:03:49,148 --> 01:03:53,468
niche side players. I mean, Sailor wasn't even stacking until 2020, right? So like,

907
01:03:53,768 --> 01:03:58,768
you just look at it in this context of like, as the ship in the capital base gets bigger,

908
01:03:59,968 --> 01:04:02,688
it's going to be more at the whims of macro assets. That's been the one thing people are

909
01:04:02,688 --> 01:04:08,588
complaining about. And all of these things, this is why one, a sample size of four is bad. And two,

910
01:04:09,148 --> 01:04:15,448
the context in all of these is so much more critical. And it's way more likely that a nascent

911
01:04:15,448 --> 01:04:20,428
network like bitcoin's having schedule is not the determining factor but it's global macroeconomics

912
01:04:20,428 --> 01:04:26,148
because that's bitcoin maturing as an asset like the maturation of bitcoin as an asset is not

913
01:04:26,148 --> 01:04:32,848
uh the entire universe goes around into bitcoin like there's a merger happening between financial

914
01:04:32,848 --> 01:04:39,148
and economic systems and bitcoin as it exists and bitcoin is amazing but it's not going to be

915
01:04:39,148 --> 01:04:43,328
laying down all the rules and and going to be controlling everything because all all of those

916
01:04:43,328 --> 01:04:48,048
early OGs who sold, sold their Bitcoin into a network of traditional finance holders, which

917
01:04:48,048 --> 01:04:52,608
means that they are a larger percentage holder of the network. You know, millions of coins between

918
01:04:52,608 --> 01:04:56,908
ET, well, just MicroStrategy 700 that, right? But then you have all the ETFs and everything else

919
01:04:56,908 --> 01:05:00,988
that is a larger percent of the float of the capital base of Bitcoin. So obviously it's

920
01:05:00,988 --> 01:05:05,448
more at the whims of the traditional macro system in general. Yep. For now, especially.

921
01:05:05,708 --> 01:05:10,408
For now, yeah. If you're trying to draw, if you're, if you're building knowledge, if like the you in

922
01:05:10,408 --> 01:05:15,328
the future is living off of something that was programmed by the version of you in the past and

923
01:05:15,328 --> 01:05:22,208
that is you right now making really specious conclusions right and putting it's really

924
01:05:22,208 --> 01:05:27,928
dangerous and this is like the thing I want to really highlight and say this is why this work

925
01:05:27,928 --> 01:05:33,328
is so important it's that you should be this should be like one of the highest priorities

926
01:05:33,328 --> 01:05:38,848
you have of your life is to not is to at least eliminate the creation of knowledge that's going

927
01:05:38,848 --> 01:05:46,388
wreck you. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else you want to update our many fans on? Anything

928
01:05:46,388 --> 01:05:51,868
else for the podcast? We'll try and get this in two weeks too. We'll try and make the three weeks

929
01:05:51,868 --> 01:05:57,068
a one-off thing, but we'll go back. I'd say the website's coming along. We have magicinternetmath.com

930
01:05:57,068 --> 01:06:06,508
is now the domain name. And, you know, in the last episode, I told my story about how the LibSec

931
01:06:06,508 --> 01:06:09,568
GitHub was the thing that threw me into the rabbit hole.

932
01:06:10,048 --> 01:06:12,468
I figured out a way to just make a class.

933
01:06:12,468 --> 01:06:15,528
I threw the GitHub into my process for my website,

934
01:06:15,728 --> 01:06:16,828
and I made a class out of it.

935
01:06:17,028 --> 01:06:19,688
And actually, if I had that three years ago,

936
01:06:20,168 --> 01:06:21,948
we probably wouldn't be here right now.

937
01:06:22,228 --> 01:06:22,288
Yeah.

938
01:06:23,708 --> 01:06:27,308
And I just had a thought about doing this now

939
01:06:27,308 --> 01:06:31,048
for some of the Bitcoin talk threads.

940
01:06:31,628 --> 01:06:31,888
Yeah.

941
01:06:32,408 --> 01:06:32,928
Which I think...

942
01:06:32,928 --> 01:06:35,888
You can find a whole explanation of why LibSecP.

943
01:06:36,268 --> 01:06:37,648
You can just go to that thread that starts.

944
01:06:38,088 --> 01:06:39,728
There's a lot of good things to start with on that.

945
01:06:41,008 --> 01:06:44,568
A little bit of a teaser, not to promise anything yet,

946
01:06:44,588 --> 01:06:48,208
but we've been in contact with some people that are way smarter than us

947
01:06:48,208 --> 01:06:51,708
that work on LibSecP that we may be able to bring on to a future show as well.

948
01:06:51,708 --> 01:06:56,828
And that will hopefully elevate the class and do a service to our listeners that way.

949
01:06:57,388 --> 01:06:58,168
For sure.

950
01:06:58,348 --> 01:07:04,668
My pattern on podcasts in the past has been now a small sample size of four or five.

951
01:07:04,668 --> 01:07:12,288
but like you know my partner we have a maybe maybe have four episodes of stuff we need to get out

952
01:07:12,288 --> 01:07:16,848
and then there's not much more to talk about between the two of us and so we got to now bring

953
01:07:16,848 --> 01:07:22,968
in the experts that's right so uh you know look out for i'd say definitely look out for that look

954
01:07:22,968 --> 01:07:30,388
out for guests um and check out the website play with it engage with it i am starting a pioneers

955
01:07:30,388 --> 01:07:37,528
Club. So if you're listening to this on Fountain, you can start to see some extra content I've been

956
01:07:37,528 --> 01:07:43,248
putting out there. One thing I do want to highlight is I'm putting out a video series

957
01:07:43,248 --> 01:07:49,948
based on the book Men of Mathematics by Eric Temple Bell. And it's a 2,500-year history.

958
01:07:50,248 --> 01:07:54,828
It's biography. It's like every episode is like another biography. It's like a 10-minute biography.

959
01:07:54,828 --> 01:07:57,048
And Pascal is definitely one of the episodes.

960
01:07:58,988 --> 01:08:02,908
And I love, like, I really want to push math history.

961
01:08:03,068 --> 01:08:08,008
I think that's the lowest hanging fruit that a lot of us can really start on this process with.

962
01:08:08,628 --> 01:08:12,648
You know, the history of math, it's just, you know, Bitcoiners like history.

963
01:08:12,988 --> 01:08:15,268
I think if you want to know the history of money, you should know the history.

964
01:08:15,468 --> 01:08:17,088
It's really the history of mathematicians.

965
01:08:17,488 --> 01:08:17,588
Right.

966
01:08:17,588 --> 01:08:20,727
And history of, it's like, where are you?

967
01:08:21,328 --> 01:08:24,608
If, you know, we are people searching for conviction.

968
01:08:24,828 --> 01:08:26,628
in ourselves where,

969
01:08:26,808 --> 01:08:27,208
how did,

970
01:08:27,308 --> 01:08:30,288
how did the top of the top of those people live?

971
01:08:30,408 --> 01:08:30,768
Right.

972
01:08:30,808 --> 01:08:33,248
And that's why we read and that's why we study history and study these

973
01:08:33,248 --> 01:08:33,548
people.

974
01:08:33,748 --> 01:08:33,968
Right.

975
01:08:34,108 --> 01:08:37,168
We want to sort of find our place because we are on a similar pioneers

976
01:08:37,168 --> 01:08:40,828
trail where we find ourselves right now without a real blueprint of how

977
01:08:40,828 --> 01:08:41,348
to do it.

978
01:08:41,848 --> 01:08:42,128
Totally.

979
01:08:43,808 --> 01:08:44,168
Excellent.

980
01:08:44,428 --> 01:08:44,588
Yeah.

981
01:08:44,727 --> 01:08:45,448
I think that's well said.

982
01:08:46,068 --> 01:08:46,428
Exciting.

983
01:08:46,428 --> 01:08:46,727
Thank you.

984
01:08:47,068 --> 01:08:47,248
All right.

985
01:08:47,328 --> 01:08:48,248
Second one in the books.

986
01:08:48,528 --> 01:08:49,208
All right.

987
01:08:49,368 --> 01:08:49,988
We did it.

988
01:08:50,048 --> 01:08:50,408
All right.

989
01:08:50,628 --> 01:08:51,128
Number two.

990
01:08:51,808 --> 01:08:52,188
Take care,

991
01:08:52,268 --> 01:08:52,468
everyone.

992
01:08:52,968 --> 01:08:53,448
Have a great day.

993
01:08:54,828 --> 01:08:56,828
Thank you.