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Wait a second. This is really scary that the U.S. government thinks it can reach all the way down to

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we need to KYCAMLU in order to perform effectively a Google search. Imagine if you could just have

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access to the internet turned off arbitrarily anywhere you are in the world. If we muddle

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through the next decade, it is very unclear what will remain of what we currently think of as

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modern society around the world. You may not take an interest in politics, but politics will

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certainly take an interest in you. We need to really relight the cypherpunk fire and remind

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people what this is really about. Bitcoin does not exist because of permission from the United

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States government, right? Bitcoin is an emergent phenomenon that comes from the people. This is a

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fight for human freedom, a fight for liberty and justice all around the world, for equal access to

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money.

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Kyle, welcome to the show.

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I've had you on my streams on Rocks a couple of times now.

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Glad we are finally doing it here on the Bitcoin podcast.

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Welcome.

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Thank you.

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Great to be here on the Bitcoin podcast.

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Got to be the, you know, I had to really make it tongue in cheek, right?

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Nobody had taken the name.

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So I was like, well, you know, this is shocking to me.

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I guess I'll just make it my own as much as anything with Bitcoin in the name can never be someone's own.

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But Kyle, stoked to have you here.

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A number of things I want to get into with you here today.

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I think we're going to start out on the clarity side of things.

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And just for people to know, maybe you can just kind of brief background on yourself.

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You work with BPI.

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You guys do incredible work, the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

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Is anything else people should know just relevant, you know, without doxing things too much,

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relevant to the conversation as far as who you are?

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Yeah, I mean, I guess just as a quick background, I'm a repeat entrepreneur,

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start-upper out here in Silicon Valley, been building companies for the last 15 plus years.

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Prior to that was, you know, a management consultant and actually got my start in Bitcoin

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as a bank regulator during the financial crisis,

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which is a very weird, unique background

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that led me down the rabbit hole, let's say.

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And then, yeah, of late, the last couple of years,

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as I felt the sort of policy winds shifting in Washington, D.C.,

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and kind of the need for articulate, well-informed

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sort of policy leadership in Washington, D.C.

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around things like Bitcoin and kind of other frontier technologies and freedom technologies,

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moved over into the policy space.

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And yeah, I co-founded Saber Wallets, you know, a year and a half ago after the Trump

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administration came in and it became clear we were going to get these market structure

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bills.

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And then, as you mentioned, I'm a senior advisor at Bitcoin Policy Institute.

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I'm really just trying to, you know, be a good citizen in the arena, fighting on behalf

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of freedom and liberty for those of us who are technologists and understand the direction

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that the world is heading.

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So I guess that would probably be my nutshell background.

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It's a perfect nutshell background.

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You kept it more concise than I would have.

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So let's start out here on the Clarity Act.

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This has obviously been a huge topic of conversation, I mean, especially this year, but even going

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back further. Most of this bill has nothing at all to do with Bitcoin. Like it's not, it's not

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a Bitcoin bill. Like there's literally like, there's literally nothing about Bitcoin in this

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bill, save for the BRCA, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, a portion that was added in there.

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The BRCA was going to be kind of a standalone thing. It was lumped in with Clarity Act. That

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specifically for those who aren't aware, it offers open source developer protections. You know,

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Think of the Tornado Cash, think of the Samurai Wallet developers.

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People have been federally prosecuted and persecuted in this case, both words very apt.

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And that was added in there.

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That's really the only thing.

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Everything else is stable coins.

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Hey, which jurisdiction do these various shit coins fall under, blah, blah, blah.

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But that part is the part that's concerning for Bitcoiners, concerning for you and I.

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Can you give us sort of the current lay of the land as far as where this is at?

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We're getting close to summer recess.

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There's also midterms coming up this year.

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It's kind of like a, you know, do or die type of moment, it seems.

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Where are we at right now?

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How are you feeling about it?

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Well, I'm glad you asked.

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This is a complex area of policy debate in Washington, and it has been for basically the entire time.

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that the Trump administration has been seated.

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So, you know, we are, I guess, maybe 15 months, 16 months into the Trump administration.

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And, you know, the Clarity Act, the, you know, global market structure rules for the crypto industry.

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Sorry to use the crypto industry, but it is for the crypto industry, you know, have been being debated.

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And as you mentioned, as Bitcoiners, about 95% of this bill is kind of meaningless to us.

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A lot of this is about how to normalize and harmonize the SEC, the CFTC, what qualifies as a decentralized project versus a centralized project, what qualifies as an unregistered securities offering versus, you know, something that you're allowed to do.

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There are a lot of, I'll say, consequential things that are in this larger bill, but they largely relate to the non-Bitcoin universe.

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As you mentioned, the BRCA, or what I'll refer to as the developer protections piece of the bill, is really what we care about as Bitcoiners.

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because, you know, as we've seen over the last two years with the prosecutions of the Samurai developers and the Tornado Cash developers,

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you know, we really needed to create this safe harbor for open source software developers in the United States

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to understand that they could safely exercise their free speech rights by writing software code,

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as has been held by the Supreme Court

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in U.S. versus Bernstein

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back to the original crypto wars.

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And as was understood as recently as 2019 by FinCEN,

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which is one of the financial regulators

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here in the United States,

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when they issued their guidance

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that said that if you never take possession

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of customer funds

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and you are not a controlling entity,

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that you do not need to be registered

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as a money transmitter or, you know, KYC, AML, the users of your software.

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And so, you know, the BRCA was originally a standalone bill

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that was folded into this larger market structure package.

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And for the majority of the legislative process with clarity, it was great.

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Nobody was really bothered by it.

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It passed, you know, overwhelmingly out of the House on a bipartisan basis.

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I think it was three to one was the vote in total, you know, that it passed through the House.

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And then it came to the Senate.

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But as we've seen over the last, you know, sort of nine months or so, as, you know, the legislative process just ground into, you know, the mud and effectively stopped moving, you know, the debates.

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around developer protections has now become more politically charged for some reason.

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And you see kind of the law and order, you know, surveillance interests in Washington,

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D.C. really going to the mat, pushing back and fighting against the idea that this full

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safe harbor for open source software developers would be able to exist in this bill and be

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something that they would tolerate. And so what we saw in the most recent fighting to get the bill

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from out of the finance committee onto the full floor of the Senate was the insertion of this

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clause, subsection D, in Title 604, or that's basically says here, I got the language for you,

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Any person that acts with a specific intent to transfer on behalf of another person funds that are known by the initial person to be either derived from a criminal offense or intended to be used to promote or support unlawful activity would fall outside of the safe harbor.

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and you know there's debate about inside the bitcoin community about whether this is actually

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you know good or bad language in the sense that you know the legal standard for proving intent

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is typically quite high but you know kind of the the broadness of the phrasing here right

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specific intent, how do you ascertain specific intent necessarily? How do you know whether

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you intended to be used to promote unlawful activity, right? Again, the sort of

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way that we came to have this clause inserted into the bill was that the state district attorneys

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And, you know, again, the more law and order members of the Senate felt that we couldn't, quote, lose the ability to charge the samurai developers and tornado cache developers that we just saw happen because the, you know, powers that be feel that those were constructive and useful prosecutions.

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and they don't want to lose that ability.

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And so, you know, I think where we are now

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with the language in the bill is that the whole industry

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or the trades in Washington, D.C.,

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all the trade organizations,

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all of the, you know, kind of crypto lobbyists

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have communicated that the BRCA is a red line.

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If they water down the BRCA or remove it

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to the point where, you know,

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U.S. developers need to be fearful

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that they will be prosecuted and thrown in jail

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the way that the samurai developers have been, that this industry will move offshore.

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And, you know, it's kind of set us up in this, what would seem to be an existential battle now,

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where, you know, at least Bitcoiners have walked all the way to the edge

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of what is tolerable and permissible for us in a broader market structure bill.

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And now it would seem that we're going to get pulled across the line

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and that they're going to further dilute this language

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in order to be able to get seven or eight Democratic votes on the floor,

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which are necessary to pass the overall market structure bill.

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Yeah, this language in there, which feels just kind of like a loophole, right?

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It feels like something that is, it's like, well, why does it need to be in there

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if it's not going to be used?

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And I know, like, Zach Shapiro from BPI has,

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and I don't know if his thinking has changed in this a little bit,

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from at least what I read initially, his reactions on this, he was saying, look, you know, from,

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and he's a lawyer, like, so he knows what he's talking about, right? He's a very good one. He's

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also a hardcore Bitcoiner, does great work with BPI as well. He was basically saying, look, I'm not

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too concerned about this. As you said, you know, burden of proof to be able to show that there was

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specific intent like that from a legal perspective, that's very high. That being said, and the fact

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of these states' attorneys general want this provision in there just makes like the red flag

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kind of go off and say, well, why have it in there if you're not going to use it? And we know

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specifically from, to take the Samurai case, we know that they were, one of the things in the DOJ's

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indictment was they were showing, you know, like just like tweets that Samurai had put out saying

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like, you know, like, oh, look, or not even oligarchs welcome.

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It was like, welcome to all the new Russian oligarchs after the, some of the

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sanctions and stuff, which is obviously like a joke.

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Like they don't, they have no idea if Russian oligarchs are using their service.

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They don't, they don't, okay, why I see their customers, they have no clue.

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But that was used as an example that was used as one of the key examples in there And there were a couple others that I forgetting all of which were incredibly loose like either were very obvious jokes or even if they weren jokes there was no way for them to know that anyone like what anyone is using their service for

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That's like the whole point of their service is preserving privacy, right?

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And not knowing your customer and not holding their funds, not, for instance, you know, like JPMorgan Chase actually custodying, you know, Jeffrey Epstein's funds to, you know.

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launder all that money.

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Then, you know, they paid fines in the Virgin Islands for that.

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But we don't need to talk about Jeffrey Epstein's banker right now.

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We'll save that for another day.

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But that's what's troubling to me is that, okay,

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if they're going to use under the existing statute,

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they're going to, again, go against what FinCEN,

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because FinCEN, as you pointed out, said, look, you know,

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the Samurai Wallet developers, they're not custodying the funds at any point.

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They don't meet our bar for what constitutes a money transmitter.

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Therefore, of course, they logically cannot be an unlicensed money transmitter because they're not a money transmitter.

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If you're going to use things like loose tweets to say, look, they knew Russian oligarchs were using their platform.

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That to me just seems like under this new provision, they would do the exact same thing.

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oh, look, you know, of course, you know, bad actors are going to use your platform

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because it allows people to, you know, launder money.

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Therefore, you know that people are laundering money.

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Therefore, you know that people have the specific intent to launder money.

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It just seems like this is just, like, this isn't going to protect developers at all, in my mind.

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And, again, the fact that Zach is less concerned about this makes me feel a little bit better

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because I respect him.

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You know, he is far more knowledgeable than I am on this.

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But as an outsider looking in without the legal expertise, I see what already happened.

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And then I see this provision.

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And I think this almost feels like it makes it easier to go after developers.

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Unless I'm just really missing something, which is very probable.

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But that's just my gut reaction to this is like, this does not smell good to me.

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Yeah, yeah, it's definitely smelly in here at the moment.

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I don't know if that's because DC is a swamp, but yeah, it is definitely, it raises questions, right, at the very least.

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And yeah, I mean, again, I think this is a place where, you know, serious people can disagree in about the interpretation to be charitable and to steal man.

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You know what I would say, you know, the lawyers, you know, broadly feel about this issue.

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It would be that anchoring this language into statutory law, which, you know, it doesn't currently exist in statutory law.

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this was just kind of an understanding that most of us had that, you know, this is a free country,

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code of speech, you know, I'm not actually taking anybody's funds. Like, presumably,

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I am not a money transmitter. And literally, Finzen even told me that I'm not a money transmitter. So,

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like, how did I end up in jail? You know, this is, you know, I think a logical conclusion that

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most of us would reach. But, you know, from the legal perspective, I think the lawyers are thinking

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this covers about 95 to 98% of the cases where, you know, you would remain protected and you would be fine, you know, to build most software that you would want to build touching a blockchain and you'd be okay.

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Right. But again, I think for those of us who are actual builders trying to push the frontier, right, and create new products and, you know, provide valuable, unexisting services to people in the economy and around the world.

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the point of the statute or the point of having this anchored in law and having the safe harbor

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wouldn't be for the 90 percent that is obviously not nefarious and not dangerous and you know all

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the other things that you would say about it it is for precisely the edge cases that are going to

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be gray and would allow for prosecutorial discretion to overreach and infringe on the

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civil liberties of the builders of those underlying technologies, right? It's very similar to the idea

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of, you know, the free speech debate, right? Well, what do you have to hide if you're not doing

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anything wrong? Or, you know, what do you need free speech for if you don't have anything to say,

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right? That's not what these protections are for, right? These protections are for loathsome speech,

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right? Like the reason that you have the right to free speech and that we must all defend free

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speech vociferously is not for, you know, the innocuous day-to-day conversation, you know,

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the banter at, you know, the water cooler in the office. It's so that, you know, when you want to

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speak truth to power or express a loathsome opinion to the majority of the world, you are protected

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from doing or for your ability to do that. And so, you know, again, here, I would say that

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as a product builder myself, in my own personal estimation, right, I'm not speaking on behalf of

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any organization or anything when I say this, this does not convince me that I would be safe

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to build a piece of privacy technology or, you know, freedom technology in the United States,

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you know, because we don't know what the interpretation would be by a subsequent

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administration or a subsequent prosecutor's office who might go rogue, right? I mean,

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this is literally what happened in the last administration under the Biden administration,

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right? Like nobody was expecting, you know, what we ended up getting in terms of adversarial

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hostility from, you know, the administration and, you know, kind of the charging authorities.

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And that's why we have open source software developers sitting in jail today.

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So, you know, whether we can take at face value what, you know, Todd Blanche and the current DOJ says that they will do by way of charging requirements, even with this safe harbor and kind of the addition of this carve out in the Clarity Act that we're discussing.

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that doesn't give me confidence that the next administration isn't going to just completely

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change their mind uh especially after seeing that uh you know you can literally go to the

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relevant regulator ask them for a formal opinion be told that you're okay and then have them renege

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on it after the fact so you know again i i don't want to um paint this more

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fatalistically than, you know, I need to or than it needs to be for most people. But,

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you know, I think that if we're going to the trouble of spending 18 months fighting tooth

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and nail to anchor in, you know, a safe harbor in U.S. federal law that would keep the objective

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purpose is to keep the crypto industry in the United States, this would seem to totally miss

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the mark, in my opinion. And I think that it'll have, if language any worse than what we currently

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have proposed, were to make it through, I think, frankly, you're going to see an exodus of people

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who are building, you know, freedom technologies and privacy-preserving technologies from the

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United States, which would be a real shame because this is the exact moment that we need these

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technologies more than ever, as AI becomes ubiquitous and surveillance in our society has

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become ubiquitous. You see the push to CDBCs and the tracking of every cent that gets spent in the

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economy. You know, we just saw, you know, the government, you know, completely revoke access to,

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you know, an AI model in the last couple weeks, which, you know, effectively is just banning

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free speech and statistics, you know, this is the exact moment that we really deserve as Americans,

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the safe harbors around building freedom technology and privacy preserving technology.

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And it gives me great concern to see what's going on right now in Washington. And I hope that,

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you know, calmer heads prevail. But at the moment, you know, I think we're on the ropes.

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and, you know, it's either going to require that we, you know, come out of the corner with

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a haymaker and really reestablish to, you know, our representatives in Washington that it is not

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acceptable to, you know, tread on our rights and liberties so flagrantly, or, you know, we're going

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to be in for, you know, a long hard slog, whether it's in, you know, keeping the industry in the

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United States or whether it's in the ability to freely build the technologies that we ought to be

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able to build and enjoy here as freedom-loving Americans. And I mean, there's a, I want to get

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into the AI side of that with you because you mentioned that as well. But just before we kind

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of move on to that I do you know you mentioned okay if anything worse than what in there right now ends up passing like we in for a that a not good situation Would you be happy with it if it passed as is like as it stands right now even with that loophole

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Or is that even a bridge too far for you?

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It's very, it's a very hard call, right?

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I mean, this is one of the, you know, truisms of politics is that, you know, they always say that, you know, you did your job when nobody's happy.

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Right. Because the compromise required that everybody give up something that they cared about.

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And you're just kind of grudgingly accepting that this, you know, ratchet has moved one click in the right direction.

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And I think from that perspective, I would say that it is a better universe for us to be in where 95 to 98% of the developer activity would be safe and not eligible to be charged compared to where we are today.

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because, again, you know, where we are today is the whims and fancies of whoever sits at the DOJ

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or, you know, the SDNY determines whether or not you have these rights.

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Not, you know, anything else, just, you know, kind of the whims and fancies of whoever happens to be sitting in the seat.

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So anchoring into U.S. federal law the idea that there is a safe harbor,

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that it exists that would cover 95 or more percent of permissible activity,

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that is inarguably a win, right?

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Like that is a win.

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And I think, again, that, you know,

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kind of the conservative bias of most lawyers,

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you know, leans in the direction of saying,

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this is an enormous win, right?

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Like this is a huge win for 95% of people.

305
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But again, as somebody who's lived my life

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mostly on the frontier

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and, you know, kind of in the gray zones

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of, you know, what is coming

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or, you know, what the future is going to look like,

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this concerns me greatly. And I think that it's going to have a pretty profound chilling effect.

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And, you know, it kind of borders on prior restraint, right, which is something that we

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try to avoid in, you know, US federal law for good reason. And so, yeah, like, I think that,

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you know, the short answer to your question is, if we could take the exact language as it exists

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today, I think we probably want to take that beachhead and then expand out from there, right?

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Continue doing the hard work to convince, you know, very old members of Congress who may not

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understand the technology, why it is important that we expand the envelope of possibility rather

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than contract it, you know, both in the United States generally, but in this moment in particular.

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but you know again that is not without cost because the other thing that this bill does

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is it pretty substantially expands the surveillance state and it basically obliges

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anyone who formally does business in the United States touching a blockchain

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to implement BSA surveillance on all of their users and customers and all of the money flows

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And so if you are, you know, a Bitcoiner who believes that, you know, your personal financial transactions in the broad economy ought to remain private and not be, you know, in clear text visible to, you know, an unofficial, you know, or an unnamed bureaucrat who might come in and use that against you, as, you know, we've seen in France with the wrench attacks on all of the, you know, kind of crypto founders and the increase in violence that's happened from the world.

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you know, creating that honeypot of centralized data, I think that, you know, we need to be

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concerned. And this is a moment, I would say, to double down our conviction on the need for

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preserving our privacy rights and making sure that we are not, you know, just thrust into

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a surveillance panopticon. On that, two things. I'll start out with,

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okay you'd be okay with it passing as is goes through okay what do you think the realistic

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chances of that are you know versus either more things are chopped and you know diced out of the

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brca more things are added in on the banks you see like where are you kind of putting the the

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probabilities there in terms of hey it ends as it is today ends up making it through gets passed or

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like no chance, you know, very slim chance that happens. There's going to be need to be serious

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other compromises or it probably won't make it through. Like clarity won't make it through at all.

333
00:30:58,896 --> 00:31:03,576
Yeah. This is hard because it's not just this issue that's complicating the Clarity Act,

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right? There are other issues like the Jamie Dimon, Brian Anderson spat over stable yields,

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which I would say in most normal circumstances, you would look at something like that and say,

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well, this bill's not going to pass, right? It's like the most, you know, sort of lofty banker on

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Wall Street and all of, you know, his resources are being allied against it. And then there's

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also the elements of the ethics concerns around this bill that, you know, it's very unclear whether

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the Republican Party or Donald Trump will accept strong ethics provisions that would prevent,

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you know, his continued or the family's continued involvement in, you know, their various crypto

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dealings. So as far as like, raw probabilities, you know, if I was a bookie in Vegas,

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at this point, my odds on this passing, I would probably peg below 30%. At this point,

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just because the legislative calendar has gotten so deep. I mean, we're like days away from,

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you know, being done with business until, you know, we come back on the far side of summer.

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and, you know, Labor Day, and that'll be full on campaign season at that point. And it's not

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obvious why anybody would, you know, want to disrupt the apple cart and, you know, hand the

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alternative party a victory, you know, at the 11th hour that might change the trajectory of the

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election that we're on. So yeah, my sense is that this is going to be an uphill fight no matter what

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to try to get even the current language through. And then if you take it face value,

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all of the trade associations in DC who have said that, you know, the BRCA is the red line.

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And that, you know, if they cross that red line, the industry will flip against the bill.

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You know, I don't know how you square the circle of, you know, watering it down or creating more

353
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carve outs from here, keeping the industry trade groups on page and, you know, convincing everybody

354
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that, you know, the give-get is worth it,

355
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in addition to those other issues around, you know,

356
00:33:13,156 --> 00:33:15,036
is Wall Street going to come along and play ball?

357
00:33:15,376 --> 00:33:18,156
You know, or is Jamie Dimon just going to, you know,

358
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go down with the ship fighting this one and go all in?

359
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And then the Donald Trump thing.

360
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So, you know, yeah, if I was a betting man,

361
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I would say that, you know, it's not looking good at the moment,

362
00:33:31,936 --> 00:33:34,156
which, you know, again, if you're a Bitcoin-er,

363
00:33:34,156 --> 00:33:59,576
Like we don't really, you know, Bitcoin does not exist because of permission from the United States government. Right. You know, Bitcoin is an emergent phenomenon that comes from the people and it utilizes, again, open source software, free speech, you know, and math and physics, you know, in order to have come to the state that it is currently in.

364
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none of those things will change.

365
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Regardless of the opinion of the U.S. government,

366
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what will change is the game theory

367
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of where the energy and the economic value

368
00:34:11,156 --> 00:34:13,536
gets created in Bitcoin.

369
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And, you know, that, you know,

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I would be very sad to see that move offshore

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and outside of the United States.

372
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It would seem to be a catastrophic policy error

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to end up in that universe.

374
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But, you know, if that's where we end up,

375
00:34:29,576 --> 00:34:34,616
um you know i don't know that uh you can change that outcome because bitcoin is going to keep

376
00:34:34,616 --> 00:34:40,296
being bitcoin it's going to keep doing what it's doing tick tock next block for now until you know

377
00:34:40,296 --> 00:34:46,776
infinity at least there's that you know at least at least there's that bitcoin uh still does not

378
00:34:46,776 --> 00:34:52,216
care but it's a you know ideally you would want to be in a jurisdiction that is more friendly to

379
00:34:52,216 --> 00:34:56,216
bitcoin you know so this to you know i've said this to zach before at bpi you know i'd rather

380
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have a government full of lummuses than warrens right like just you'd rather have a government

381
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that's not actively trying to screw you uh you know seven ways till sunday like that that would

382
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be ideal but even in absence of that bitcoin persists you know they still can't stop it still

383
00:35:14,816 --> 00:35:19,356
doesn't need permission but it's you know you would uh you would rather that your country

384
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especially as a freedom loving country that's supposed to respect individual liberties and

385
00:35:25,456 --> 00:35:31,056
property rights and crazy things like free speech you would want that to be reflected in the new

386
00:35:31,056 --> 00:35:35,596
laws that are written as well call it crazy like that's doesn't seem to be asking too much but

387
00:35:35,596 --> 00:35:43,756
apparently for some for some it is uh i don't know it's it's it's wild to me it's wild yeah it is and

388
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frankly they're on the wrong side of history right everybody who believes that is is both on the wrong

389
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side of history uh and i would say they're on the wrong side of uh i'm gonna use the term physics

390
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broadly here, but, you know, they're on the wrong side of internet physics, right? You can't fight

391
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against something when the universe tilts against you, you know, structurally, or at least not

392
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indefinitely. You can't. You can in the short term, right? But if, you know, you're fighting

393
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against gravity, it's a losing battle, right? And I think that that's kind of what, you know,

394
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we're going to see happening here across all of the policy debates in Washington as it relates to technology over the next, I'm thinking, two to five years,

395
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because you see the, you know, same sort of faulty logic that has led to wanting to, you know, try to clamp down on, you know, Bitcoin and, you know, over legislate, over regulate, you know,

396
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something that is kind of inherently unregulatable at a certain level.

397
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I mean, clearly you can create rules of the road and, you know,

398
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the businesses need to follow and basic things of this nature,

399
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but you can't change the actual existence of the product

400
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or its propagation through the universe.

401
00:37:01,956 --> 00:37:04,676
You know, we're seeing this now with AI, right?

402
00:37:04,756 --> 00:37:07,736
This is happening acutely in this moment.

403
00:37:08,156 --> 00:37:11,556
After, you know, two weeks ago, we saw, you know,

404
00:37:11,556 --> 00:37:17,016
anthropic release uh fable which is their you know latest mythos class model which is the you know

405
00:37:17,016 --> 00:37:21,076
kind of scary one that they needed to restrict from everybody because it was so powerful and

406
00:37:21,076 --> 00:37:29,996
uh you know it is legitimately a an immense uh you know powerful model but um the idea that you

407
00:37:29,996 --> 00:37:36,516
know you're going to be able to slap export controls uh on this technology and pull it back

408
00:37:36,516 --> 00:37:42,576
from the market and that this is somehow indefinitely going to keep other people from

409
00:37:42,576 --> 00:37:49,636
accessing the power or the capability in this model when, you know, open source labs all around

410
00:37:49,636 --> 00:37:57,436
the world, but primarily in China, are only 30 to 90 days behind the frontier labs and they're

411
00:37:57,436 --> 00:38:04,836
racing ahead. You're just you can't stop the propagation of information, right? You can't

412
00:38:04,836 --> 00:38:11,036
stop speech from moving around the world without implementing something like the Great Firewall

413
00:38:11,036 --> 00:38:19,296
in China, right? And so, you know, in a very weird twist of, you know, fate, the U.S. government here

414
00:38:19,296 --> 00:38:25,016
is basically trying to implement the Great Firewall on AI in the United States and then

415
00:38:25,016 --> 00:38:31,156
somehow thinking that that is either beneficial to, you know, U.S. geostrategic interests vis-a-vis

416
00:38:31,156 --> 00:38:40,576
China and our other competitors, or that this is somehow a durable move on the board, right? As

417
00:38:40,576 --> 00:38:45,616
though it won't just be, you know, weeks to months before somebody outside of your reach,

418
00:38:45,736 --> 00:38:51,716
outside of your control has access to this same model. If anything, frankly, I think that it just

419
00:38:51,716 --> 00:38:57,416
kind of had the reverse intent that they wanted, which is it created this massive Streisand effect,

420
00:38:57,416 --> 00:39:09,504
right and now everybody is searching every other model in the market trying to figure out if they can get the same jailbreak that you know they were able to get out of Fable from an open source model

421
00:39:09,504 --> 00:39:14,484
And so, frankly, they've actually drawn more attention to the problem than taking it away.

422
00:39:14,664 --> 00:39:28,644
So, again, I think that, like, we're really confronting some severe policy challenges, I think, in the United States right now because the average age of Congress is like 78 years old.

423
00:39:28,744 --> 00:39:39,584
And, you know, the people who are building this technology and the world that we're moving into is not a world that is, frankly, built for people that are 80 years old.

424
00:39:40,124 --> 00:39:44,424
And, you know, that's just kind of a reality of where we're at.

425
00:39:44,544 --> 00:39:52,764
I mean, I don't say that to be ageist, you know, but it is just a reality that the world continues to move and evolve and it's getting faster.

426
00:39:52,764 --> 00:39:59,124
and those of us who are you know digital native digitally native or crypto native like we're even

427
00:39:59,124 --> 00:40:04,544
struggling to keep up with the pace and speed at which the world is moving and trying to figure out

428
00:40:04,544 --> 00:40:12,944
how we navigate those challenges and and yeah I think we just need a complete change of perspective

429
00:40:12,944 --> 00:40:17,664
in Washington on on how we deal with these things and and dealing with them a little bit more

430
00:40:17,664 --> 00:40:24,604
rationally let's okay multiple things that go into there let's talk a little bit more about the

431
00:40:24,604 --> 00:40:29,164
anthropic thing because i think that that's it's really interesting and what you pointed out as

432
00:40:29,164 --> 00:40:34,204
well about just kind of funny that it's like the u.s is cracking down and china's dropping all the

433
00:40:34,204 --> 00:40:40,924
open source models presumably to shrink the the moat of these big u.s based players like that would

434
00:40:40,924 --> 00:40:46,724
be the you know seemingly the the geopolitical angle there right it's like hey let's let's push

435
00:40:46,724 --> 00:40:52,044
to let's push to just make it so that these guys have a vanishingly small moat. And yet, you know,

436
00:40:52,044 --> 00:40:54,824
so it's going to be harder for them to raise money. It's gonna be harder for them to justify

437
00:40:54,824 --> 00:41:00,864
those valuations. Because so much of this is open source, like they don't have the monopoly on this,

438
00:41:00,864 --> 00:41:05,124
or, you know, a small monopoly on this. So but can we can we can you talk a little bit more

439
00:41:05,124 --> 00:41:10,344
in depth about what kind of happened there? Basically, we're at this point where it seems

440
00:41:10,344 --> 00:41:15,644
the government was like, hey, shut off access to this to foreign nationals, right? But then it was

441
00:41:15,644 --> 00:41:21,264
just like but it's like well you know how do you determine who's a foreign national well it's the

442
00:41:21,264 --> 00:41:27,104
same with the uk's under 16 laws like how do you determine who's under 16 well you id everyone and

443
00:41:27,104 --> 00:41:31,484
so like we're what we're talking about now and obviously like anthropic already had a certain

444
00:41:31,484 --> 00:41:34,444
amount all these companies like if you pay for their services they have a certain amount of

445
00:41:34,444 --> 00:41:38,364
information on you right but we're talking about something different here it's like a requirement

446
00:41:38,364 --> 00:41:47,404
of entry to be doxxed at a national identification level versus just, hey, here's your credit card

447
00:41:47,404 --> 00:41:50,604
or however you don't want it to pay. All that stuff can be linked back, but still, it feels

448
00:41:50,604 --> 00:41:56,804
like this is something different. Can you explore that a little bit? Yeah. So I think you got most

449
00:41:56,804 --> 00:42:02,584
of it right. The sensible reason that the model was pulled back was that the administration said

450
00:42:02,584 --> 00:42:08,644
that they wanted to implement export controls and keep foreign nationals from having access to,

451
00:42:08,784 --> 00:42:13,704
you know, this powerful capability that might be used nefariously against the U.S. government.

452
00:42:14,144 --> 00:42:21,684
And obviously the challenge, as you just alluded to, is that how does one, you know,

453
00:42:21,684 --> 00:42:27,204
prevent the access to information on a nationalism basis, right?

454
00:42:27,284 --> 00:42:28,784
Like based on your citizenship.

455
00:42:28,784 --> 00:42:35,544
like again that's kind of like saying like here's the library um everyone can have access to this

456
00:42:35,544 --> 00:42:41,104
unless it's you know this person and this uh you know kind of nationality or something and then we

457
00:42:41,104 --> 00:42:45,084
need you to pull those books off the shelf but they can still access the library but they can't

458
00:42:45,084 --> 00:42:49,224
see those specific books it's like this is unworkable you can't have a library and operate

459
00:42:49,224 --> 00:42:56,384
it in this way if that's what you're going to try to do uh and so yeah i think that this is uh again

460
00:42:56,384 --> 00:43:03,564
And from a civil liberties and like a freedom tech or, you know, cyperpunk perspective, this is really scary.

461
00:43:03,884 --> 00:43:14,324
I mean, this is like really concerning that the U.S. government thinks it can reach all the way down to we need to KYCAML you in order to perform effectively a Google search.

462
00:43:15,184 --> 00:43:18,164
Right. Like to ask a question. Right.

463
00:43:18,164 --> 00:43:22,504
We need to know your identity to know, you know, why you're asking that question.

464
00:43:23,264 --> 00:43:25,224
Right. And that you can be tracked everywhere.

465
00:43:25,224 --> 00:43:34,824
And so, yeah, I think that, you know, this was an enormous wake up call for everybody in Silicon Valley over the last couple of weeks.

466
00:43:34,964 --> 00:43:37,224
I mean, it's really interesting.

467
00:43:37,364 --> 00:43:47,044
I've been kind of an outspoken, you know, sort of open source and cypherpunk believer, you know, for a long time out here.

468
00:43:47,044 --> 00:43:53,624
maybe obviously because I'm a Bitcoiner, but, you know, for a long time, I got almost no purchase

469
00:43:53,624 --> 00:43:58,244
on that argument in Silicon Valley. There was a really old generation of, you know, kind of the

470
00:43:58,244 --> 00:44:03,424
original dot-com guys who, you know, grew up and they were, you know, the Linux generation and,

471
00:44:03,644 --> 00:44:07,684
you know, the original cryptography wars, like those guys were hardcore. They got it. They

472
00:44:07,684 --> 00:44:14,624
understood the value of open source, but like kind of in the last 10 or so, maybe 15 years,

473
00:44:14,624 --> 00:44:23,784
Like a lot of the second or third wave of Silicon Valley were too young to understand where we came from and the importance of this fight and what was going on.

474
00:44:23,784 --> 00:44:38,024
And it really was like this last week where tons of, you know, open claw operators and, you know, kind of otherwise unopinionated software people woke up and were like, wait a second.

475
00:44:38,024 --> 00:44:46,064
like the government can just come in and take this away with you know no recourse no clear guidance

476
00:44:46,064 --> 00:44:53,244
and framework like and i might have been running my business on this model right like i like may

477
00:44:53,244 --> 00:44:58,584
literally rely upon access to this new tool in order to operate my business and get my income

478
00:44:58,584 --> 00:45:06,684
and pay my rent and feed my family and you know have a a life you know and so for the government

479
00:45:06,684 --> 00:45:11,864
to reach all the way down in and just turn that off, right,

480
00:45:11,904 --> 00:45:15,484
I think was an enormous wake-up call to people to say,

481
00:45:15,624 --> 00:45:19,084
oh, wow, like it finally touched them, right?

482
00:45:19,164 --> 00:45:22,564
The lack of open source options finally became real

483
00:45:22,564 --> 00:45:24,864
to people in a way that it hadn't before.

484
00:45:25,064 --> 00:45:27,984
And so, man, there was just a flurry of people

485
00:45:27,984 --> 00:45:29,244
trying to figure out, okay,

486
00:45:29,944 --> 00:45:32,224
how do I move on to open source models?

487
00:45:32,404 --> 00:45:35,104
I can't countenance a world where I can just be,

488
00:45:35,104 --> 00:45:42,644
You know, I mean, imagine if you could just have the internet, access to the internet turned off arbitrarily anywhere you are in the world, right?

489
00:45:42,704 --> 00:45:46,384
Like at a moment's notice and you just couldn't access the internet.

490
00:45:46,504 --> 00:45:52,644
Well, what if you're in the middle of a journey where you're relying on, you know, the map that requires internet access?

491
00:45:52,804 --> 00:45:58,804
What if you're, I mean, again, these are very like, you know, first world problems today, but people have learned to live in this way, right?

492
00:45:58,804 --> 00:46:01,764
Like what if you're relying on a live translation, right?

493
00:46:01,884 --> 00:46:04,684
A thing that is required and you're in a foreign country, you don't speak the language.

494
00:46:04,684 --> 00:46:06,344
and like, you know, now what, right?

495
00:46:06,384 --> 00:46:08,864
It's kind of equivalent to the idea that, you know,

496
00:46:08,884 --> 00:46:11,444
a kill switch in the car, you know, it's like,

497
00:46:11,504 --> 00:46:13,504
well, what happens if you're, you know,

498
00:46:13,884 --> 00:46:16,984
trying to get out of your farm and get away from,

499
00:46:16,984 --> 00:46:20,284
you know, a tornado that's ripping across, you know,

500
00:46:20,344 --> 00:46:22,764
and the kill switch just activates in your car.

501
00:46:22,864 --> 00:46:25,084
I mean, these are very profound,

502
00:46:25,384 --> 00:46:29,824
consequential changes in what it means

503
00:46:29,824 --> 00:46:32,644
to live in a free country, you know,

504
00:46:32,644 --> 00:46:35,364
that it really, I think, just came out of nowhere.

505
00:46:35,504 --> 00:46:38,244
It came out of left field and really like slammed into a bunch of people

506
00:46:38,244 --> 00:46:39,624
in Silicon Valley in the last week.

507
00:46:39,764 --> 00:46:44,284
So, yeah, I think the reality that people are coming to is like,

508
00:46:44,644 --> 00:46:47,824
there is a real imperative for open source,

509
00:46:48,384 --> 00:46:50,964
open source weights and models and, you know,

510
00:46:51,004 --> 00:46:54,684
kind of the sort of access to intelligence,

511
00:46:54,864 --> 00:46:56,304
universal access to intelligence.

512
00:46:57,064 --> 00:47:01,024
We are going to need to have an enormous debate about this in this country.

513
00:47:01,024 --> 00:47:08,584
And frankly, it's going to have to happen a lot faster than it's taken for the crypto or the Bitcoin debate to percolate in Washington.

514
00:47:08,944 --> 00:47:26,924
And if, you know, past history of, you know, waiting 15 years to get to the tortured, you know, kind of suboptimal conclusion that we seem to have arrived at in Bitcoin legislation or crypto legislation were to be mapped onto the AI debate.

515
00:47:26,924 --> 00:47:31,684
man, we are in for a lot of pain and trouble moving forward.

516
00:47:31,964 --> 00:47:38,464
And again, frankly, I would say the biggest concern there is that by doing so and doing so slowly and poorly,

517
00:47:38,784 --> 00:47:42,664
negotiating our way through the policy implications and what needs to happen,

518
00:47:43,224 --> 00:47:49,344
we're really kind of handing the game to China because China is not slowing down, right?

519
00:47:49,464 --> 00:47:54,324
They're not stopping and they've taken an open source approach to the market and the distribution.

520
00:47:54,324 --> 00:48:08,604
So at the exact moment that the U.S. government is pulling back, you know, access to the leading American frontier model from everyone, not just Americans, but literally everyone, China is charging full steam ahead.

521
00:48:08,784 --> 00:48:14,884
And they're going to push even harder and they're going to, you know, distribute their models and try to make them the standard.

522
00:48:14,884 --> 00:48:35,724
So I just don't see this as being effective for the U.S. geostrategic interests. And it's certainly not in the interests of, you know, individual free Americans who just want to access knowledge and technology and to do so, you know, in the way that we would expect to be able to as Americans.

523
00:48:35,724 --> 00:48:43,644
It's interesting to the analogy to to Bitcoin because you know Bitcoin is really ultimately

524
00:48:43,644 --> 00:48:50,024
so much more anti-fragile in this case right like it because there is it's not like there

525
00:48:50,024 --> 00:48:53,884
was I mean I guess you could make the argument there were some companies early on that did

526
00:48:53,884 --> 00:48:57,724
a lot of development around Bitcoin you know like through the like Blockstream as an example

527
00:48:57,724 --> 00:49:01,444
right but it wasn't like they were running a frontier model of Bitcoin it was like it

528
00:49:01,444 --> 00:49:08,564
no it's all bitcoin bitcoin's totally open source anyone can can you know view that code can use that

529
00:49:08,564 --> 00:49:13,884
however uh you know obviously the the uh you know the core maintenance is a different like a different

530
00:49:13,884 --> 00:49:19,804
thing but bitcoin is more anti-fragile i think in that sense you take that then and you contrast

531
00:49:19,804 --> 00:49:26,064
that with the ai side of things like bitcoin could handle all the you know shitty regulation

532
00:49:26,064 --> 00:49:31,084
and all that kind of stuff like it can handle it better because there's not like a kill switch for

533
00:49:31,084 --> 00:49:35,904
it. There's no kill switch for Bitcoin. There's a kill switch for these frontier models. Clearly,

534
00:49:35,904 --> 00:49:41,944
we just saw it get used. We know there's a kill switch. Like there are throats to choke when it

535
00:49:41,944 --> 00:49:47,164
comes to these frontier models. There's pressure that can be applied to specific CEOs, like all of

536
00:49:47,164 --> 00:49:54,064
whom also are trying to go public in the very near term. So there's a lot like, you know, you don't

537
00:49:54,064 --> 00:49:58,284
want to get on the wrong side of the government and leading up to your IPO, right? Like, I mean,

538
00:49:58,284 --> 00:50:04,884
pretty obviously. And so I think it's interesting because it's like, I wonder too, though, that like

539
00:50:04,884 --> 00:50:12,104
the beauty of open source is that it like it will make every like open source in any in any domain

540
00:50:12,104 --> 00:50:17,024
is going to make everything better, right? Because you don't just have people working in a silo in

541
00:50:17,024 --> 00:50:20,284
Silicon Valley. Now, if there's anything wrong with that, Silicon Valley has done great things,

542
00:50:20,284 --> 00:50:25,844
but you're also exposing it to the developer, you know, who's in the brilliant, you know,

543
00:50:25,844 --> 00:50:31,304
young Einstein in Kenya or in Eastern Europe somewhere or wherever it might be that would

544
00:50:31,304 --> 00:50:34,404
never have had access to this, but now has access to it and happens to have this really

545
00:50:34,404 --> 00:50:36,684
brilliant idea, which makes it that much better.

546
00:50:36,784 --> 00:50:37,564
And people build on that.

547
00:50:37,664 --> 00:50:39,304
Like, that's the beauty of open source, right?

548
00:50:39,344 --> 00:50:46,004
It's that wisdom of the crowd being able to work on a problem completely unfettered.

549
00:50:47,284 --> 00:50:55,584
I'm curious how quickly the moats for these big companies, the open AIs, the anthropics,

550
00:50:55,844 --> 00:50:58,204
how quickly they actually disappear.

551
00:50:58,724 --> 00:50:59,664
Because this is the other thing,

552
00:50:59,724 --> 00:51:01,024
you know that they actually,

553
00:51:01,704 --> 00:51:02,744
the Sam Altman's of the world,

554
00:51:02,824 --> 00:51:04,244
they want the regulation.

555
00:51:04,764 --> 00:51:05,684
They go and they beg for it.

556
00:51:05,944 --> 00:51:06,804
They're like the, you know,

557
00:51:06,844 --> 00:51:09,364
the analogy in the Bitcoin crypto space

558
00:51:09,364 --> 00:51:10,204
is the Brian Armstrong,

559
00:51:10,544 --> 00:51:11,224
or, you know, like that.

560
00:51:11,504 --> 00:51:12,644
Look, we want responsible,

561
00:51:12,824 --> 00:51:13,884
please like regulate us.

562
00:51:13,964 --> 00:51:15,564
Please just tell us the rules of the road.

563
00:51:15,604 --> 00:51:16,684
Like we want the regulation.

564
00:51:17,224 --> 00:51:17,644
Fear not.

565
00:51:17,704 --> 00:51:18,824
We've got compliance teams

566
00:51:18,824 --> 00:51:20,444
with super overpriced lawyers

567
00:51:20,444 --> 00:51:21,484
that'll make sure.

568
00:51:21,484 --> 00:51:23,304
And once the regulatory mode is large enough,

569
00:51:23,384 --> 00:51:24,704
we'll make sure that no upstart

570
00:51:24,704 --> 00:51:29,384
can ever possibly compete with us because you won't be able to afford the cost of compliance.

571
00:51:30,124 --> 00:51:38,224
But I feel like in this AI race, again, there's a, in the AI side, as much as Bitcoin is more

572
00:51:38,224 --> 00:51:45,344
anti-fragile on this area for AI, it's like, ah, it's going to be like the destruction of those

573
00:51:45,344 --> 00:51:50,344
moats seems like it could be achieved more quickly. Do you know what I'm getting at there?

574
00:51:50,344 --> 00:51:53,684
Like just because the nature and because of the competitive,

575
00:51:53,744 --> 00:51:56,344
naturally competitive nature of this.

576
00:51:56,684 --> 00:51:58,384
Am I on the right track there?

577
00:51:58,384 --> 00:52:00,484
Absolutely. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

578
00:52:00,484 --> 00:52:04,944
I mean, again, I think like the, the, you know, kind of, um, I

579
00:52:04,992 --> 00:52:14,652
Another way to frame the necessity of open source, right, is that it's actually pro-consumer, right, because it is maximally competitive, right?

580
00:52:14,652 --> 00:52:28,972
Like if something is open for anyone else to build on and create a new implementation, you're going to get that radical competition between everybody around the world competing to be the best implementation, right?

581
00:52:28,972 --> 00:52:34,972
And so at the moment, you know, there are so many issues with AI, actually, right?

582
00:52:35,072 --> 00:52:45,692
Because one, I mean, the thing that you alluded to around, you know, the frontier model company is like, they don't actually generate cash flow right now, right?

583
00:52:45,772 --> 00:52:47,552
I mean, they have cash flow, I should say.

584
00:52:47,612 --> 00:52:48,592
They don't generate profits.

585
00:52:49,032 --> 00:52:50,592
They're nowhere near generating profits.

586
00:52:50,752 --> 00:52:57,752
So as like a saleable business concern right now, no one has an answer for how these are long-term durable, right?

587
00:52:57,752 --> 00:53:02,472
At best, the idea is that the next model will pay off your last model.

588
00:53:02,812 --> 00:53:07,072
But that's kind of just a like doubling down game at the poker table.

589
00:53:07,072 --> 00:53:13,512
It's like, yeah, well, I'm not losing this poker game yet as long as I can keep going back to the ATM and doubling up every time, right?

590
00:53:13,692 --> 00:53:17,052
Like, so that's one problem, right?

591
00:53:17,052 --> 00:53:46,072
And I would say that, again, the approach of relying on these giant capital intensive frontier model companies and, you know, all the private credit placements that are required in order to finance the construction of the data centers and just kind of a leverage that's built into the system predicated on the idea that eventually we will come to a point where we can monetize the technology fully and, you know, kind of recoup the inbound expenses.

592
00:53:46,072 --> 00:53:48,652
like that's all a lot of question marks, really.

593
00:53:49,152 --> 00:53:51,752
Like, you know, there's a lot of hand waviness on that.

594
00:53:51,792 --> 00:53:53,992
And that's without even getting into the circular financing

595
00:53:53,992 --> 00:53:58,572
and like, you know, the true price of tokens, right?

596
00:53:58,572 --> 00:54:01,232
Rather than the highly subsidized price of tokens

597
00:54:01,232 --> 00:54:05,472
that most of us have experienced up until, you know, the last couple weeks.

598
00:54:05,472 --> 00:54:09,712
So there are many conflicting challenges

599
00:54:09,712 --> 00:54:15,252
that are intersecting on just the execution of the plan in a vacuum, right?

600
00:54:15,252 --> 00:54:27,152
Like if we were just going to like let the U.S. companies go crazy and, you know, this is the future, it still is kind of hard to squint and see how that all actually, you know, works out where the plane lands safely on the tarmac.

601
00:54:27,152 --> 00:54:36,052
um but yeah i think that you know in particular the uh you know sort of challenge of open sources

602
00:54:36,052 --> 00:54:40,632
like or or you know as it relates to the model companies here is like you know we want to have

603
00:54:40,632 --> 00:54:46,232
a world where um i mean ostensibly i would think we would want to have a world where american-made

604
00:54:46,232 --> 00:54:52,492
models are the baseline or the platform that everybody wants to build on right and that's

605
00:54:52,492 --> 00:54:59,912
just going to be not possible in a universe where you need to afford a 250 or a 2000 or a $10,000

606
00:54:59,912 --> 00:55:06,192
monthly subscription to a frontier company. Uh, right. Like, I just don't see how that works.

607
00:55:06,192 --> 00:55:11,492
Like to your point, uh, you know, the, you know, people in the global South, South America, Africa,

608
00:55:11,692 --> 00:55:17,732
wherever, South Asia, you know, these people need access to intelligence as well. Uh, and to pretend

609
00:55:17,732 --> 00:55:24,052
that they're going to, you know, just not access it in a universe where it's a requirement to,

610
00:55:24,172 --> 00:55:29,652
you know, kind of engage in civil society moving forward, like the Internet, is, I think, to just

611
00:55:29,652 --> 00:55:36,112
pretend that you're living in a different world than the one that really exists. So, yeah, I mean,

612
00:55:36,292 --> 00:55:42,992
at all levels of the AI debate, I would say that the policy is super challenging right now. And

613
00:55:42,992 --> 00:55:49,692
And we're really, as I said, struggling, I think even in Silicon Valley, to navigate like, what does this actually mean?

614
00:55:50,032 --> 00:55:50,212
Right?

615
00:55:50,292 --> 00:55:59,072
Like, what does it actually mean for us to reinvent our entire company around the idea that this tool exists and then to have the U.S. government revoke access to that tool?

616
00:55:59,392 --> 00:55:59,952
Right?

617
00:55:59,952 --> 00:56:14,112
What does it mean for us to say that like, okay, this technology is really powerful and meaningful, but maybe we shouldn't rely on just Anthropic or OpenAI when one person can turn that off.

618
00:56:14,112 --> 00:56:19,152
right and we don't understand the weights and models that they're or the weights i should say

619
00:56:19,152 --> 00:56:24,172
that they're using you know behind the scenes right like it's equally as large a problem for

620
00:56:24,172 --> 00:56:31,732
there to be one man or woman or you know private person uh company that controls and gates everyone's

621
00:56:31,732 --> 00:56:37,732
else's access to the underlying technology right and that was actually the case you know with uh

622
00:56:37,732 --> 00:56:43,032
mythos and fable for you know mythos for a couple months but fable for you know uh you know the first

623
00:56:43,032 --> 00:56:48,292
week or two too is like okay well you know there's a special class of people who get the best you know

624
00:56:48,292 --> 00:56:53,432
the good intelligence right like you know if you're if you're on the inside track you know like i i

625
00:56:53,432 --> 00:56:59,632
got it for you bro like i got the real good tokens in here right but if you're just a normal pleb on

626
00:56:59,632 --> 00:57:05,012
the street uh you know well you know this is a little dangerous kid uh we don't want you to have

627
00:57:05,012 --> 00:57:09,532
access to the good intelligence because you know we don't know how what you do with that uh you know

628
00:57:09,532 --> 00:57:23,432
So I think it's forcing us to ask some very challenging questions about, you know, the moment that we're in with both technology, civil society, you know, the state of our current politics in this country.

629
00:57:23,432 --> 00:57:42,632
I mean, again, I think that a lot of this, I would connect back to the idea that like, you know, our kind of social fabric has become very frayed at the edges and, you know, kind of the operating system, let's call it, that we've been operating on for the last 80 years or so in the post-war era.

630
00:57:43,832 --> 00:57:46,852
I mean, the wheels are getting real shaky on the cart now.

631
00:57:46,852 --> 00:57:53,312
yeah and and just kind of going off of that a little bit you mentioned this idea earlier of this

632
00:57:53,312 --> 00:57:58,612
this geriatric society right specifically as it relates to policymakers and i think that that's

633
00:57:59,352 --> 00:58:04,092
that's kind of really important like the you know just to lump it in like the boomers essentially

634
00:58:04,092 --> 00:58:10,132
have been have been in charge for a while right and like even you know the older boomers like

635
00:58:10,132 --> 00:58:16,392
people are starting to age out but still we have the average age of congress is very old

636
00:58:16,392 --> 00:58:23,452
very old and this idea that like we're talking about all of these really like revolutionary

637
00:58:23,452 --> 00:58:28,232
technological moves right whether whether it be whether it be bitcoin whether it be ai

638
00:58:28,232 --> 00:58:33,432
what you know what new frontiers of uh of encryption and new protocol i mean like whatever

639
00:58:33,432 --> 00:58:39,192
it is like they have no idea like they're relying on their aids for stuff right and their aids who

640
00:58:39,192 --> 00:58:43,912
are like fresh out of college nothing wrong with that again not being ageist uh but like fresh out

641
00:58:43,912 --> 00:58:49,212
they have no idea either doesn't like sure they're younger but they have not like nobody that's

642
00:58:49,212 --> 00:58:54,632
actually making policy really has any clue what they're talking about is what like and from my

643
00:58:54,632 --> 00:59:01,252
very limited time that i spent at uh on the on the hill uh in dc during the bitcoin policy summit

644
00:59:01,252 --> 00:59:06,772
that was like my biggest takeaway was and not that like i met some really well meaning people

645
00:59:06,772 --> 00:59:10,092
too and some people that were really curious and actually asked great questions things like that

646
00:59:10,092 --> 00:59:15,372
But then you just realize like, oh, there's like a, there's a huge disconnect.

647
00:59:15,812 --> 00:59:17,572
Like there is a massive disconnect.

648
00:59:17,572 --> 00:59:25,612
And I'm just curious, like, is this something that just will naturally right itself as people, you know, continue aging?

649
00:59:25,612 --> 00:59:27,732
And we know what happens when you age long enough, right?

650
00:59:27,792 --> 00:59:29,352
Like happens to all of us.

651
00:59:30,192 --> 00:59:37,372
But, or, or is this something that, that is, will we see sort of a turning over sooner?

652
00:59:37,372 --> 00:59:40,092
We are in like a fourth turning right now.

653
00:59:40,212 --> 00:59:42,152
Some would argue we're already in the first.

654
00:59:42,572 --> 00:59:43,772
I don't know about that yet.

655
00:59:43,812 --> 00:59:45,332
I think the first turning is here.

656
00:59:45,412 --> 00:59:47,272
It's just not evenly distributed yet, I think.

657
00:59:47,812 --> 00:59:50,652
I think El Salvador has already hit its first turning.

658
00:59:51,432 --> 00:59:54,372
They've already gone through the cycles there.

659
00:59:55,592 --> 00:59:57,892
But the rest of the world, like, I don't know.

660
00:59:58,032 --> 01:00:00,992
The U.K. feels really deep in the crisis period.

661
01:00:01,852 --> 01:00:03,592
U.S. feels like it's there too.

662
01:00:03,652 --> 01:00:05,012
Maybe it's starting to emerge on the other side.

663
01:00:05,072 --> 01:00:05,332
I don't know.

664
01:00:05,332 --> 01:00:10,472
But I guess my question is like, does this only resolve?

665
01:00:10,472 --> 01:00:16,312
Like, does this incongruity in terms of the people in charge being so disconnected from what's actually happening?

666
01:00:16,372 --> 01:00:18,492
Does that only resolve as they age out?

667
01:00:18,872 --> 01:00:24,812
Or do we start to see them being replaced more proactively by a younger generation that sort of had enough?

668
01:00:26,372 --> 01:00:30,412
Well, let's hope it's the latter just as a starting point.

669
01:00:30,892 --> 01:00:31,372
Right.

670
01:00:31,372 --> 01:00:36,232
I mean, I think this is, and there's so many things to say about this.

671
01:00:36,352 --> 01:00:43,052
So I think like for one, you know, to just to be a bit pithy, you may be aware or maybe

672
01:00:43,052 --> 01:00:49,392
new to your listeners, at least that there's a saying that in academics, progress is measured

673
01:00:49,392 --> 01:00:51,392
in gravestones, right?

674
01:00:51,592 --> 01:00:56,852
As the academy is notoriously conservative and slow to adapt and evolve.

675
01:00:57,012 --> 01:00:58,632
And there are natural reasons for this.

676
01:00:58,632 --> 01:01:08,392
people who have spent their entire career, their entire identity, creating an academic construct that then is proven to be false.

677
01:01:09,332 --> 01:01:14,492
You know, they're, you know, unwilling, let's say, to engage with the reality of the world.

678
01:01:14,492 --> 01:01:20,792
And it's only after they die that, you know, the next generation can come in and say, yeah, well, actually, the world works this way instead.

679
01:01:21,572 --> 01:01:41,526
Right And you know it would have been great if we could have done that 25 years ago But you know here we are now and that fine for most cases But again the kind of unique moment that we in historically not only from the technology perspective which like clearly we are in an era of radical acceleration in capabilities

680
01:01:41,526 --> 01:01:46,306
Right. But from the perspective of just like literally raw demographics.

681
01:01:46,886 --> 01:01:49,986
Right. This is an unparalleled moment in human history.

682
01:01:49,986 --> 01:02:17,246
We have never in human history had so many people over the age of 50, let alone people over the age of 70 living on this planet. Right. And as we know, like the just natural consequence of politics is that older people tend to be more engaged. They have more resources. They vote more. And so at the moment, my sort of assessment as a systems engineer of American politics is that we have become captured.

683
01:02:17,246 --> 01:02:40,966
Like, you know, at this stage of the game, like you have a lot of senior and retired people who are living better than any generation of people their age in human history who are, you know, continuing to, you know, enjoy the benefits of the system that has been constructed for their interests for the last 30 or 40 years.

684
01:02:40,966 --> 01:02:44,186
at the expense of the younger generations

685
01:02:44,186 --> 01:02:46,886
who are going to be tasked with living on this planet

686
01:02:46,886 --> 01:02:49,786
for the next 40 to 50 years, right?

687
01:02:49,926 --> 01:02:52,606
And you would think from first principles

688
01:02:52,606 --> 01:02:55,446
that we ought to be designing policy

689
01:02:55,446 --> 01:03:00,326
and the objectives that we're striving for as a society

690
01:03:00,326 --> 01:03:02,866
in the interest of those who are young and vigorous

691
01:03:02,866 --> 01:03:05,246
and will be, you know, the active participants

692
01:03:05,246 --> 01:03:09,606
in that society moving forward for, you know, the next few decades.

693
01:03:09,606 --> 01:03:24,226
But on issue after issue after issue, we see that, you know, the millennials and people, I'm just going to broadly say people under the age of about 40, you know, like this society does not work for us kind of at all.

694
01:03:24,226 --> 01:03:28,426
right? Like if you're under the age of 40, and you can afford a house and healthcare,

695
01:03:28,426 --> 01:03:33,526
and you have a stable job, and you have like a line of sight to any kind of retirement savings,

696
01:03:34,186 --> 01:03:39,466
you're kind of like in I don't know if I would say that like the 1%, but like you're certainly

697
01:03:39,466 --> 01:03:47,566
in like the top 5 to 10% of everyone, your age demographic and down. Right. And that's kind of,

698
01:03:47,566 --> 01:03:53,386
I mean, well, it is profoundly sad, but it's kind of scary to think that we've gotten that extreme.

699
01:03:54,226 --> 01:03:58,746
in society where, you know, we're kind of eating the young, right? It's like, you know, I often

700
01:03:58,746 --> 01:04:04,006
think of like the, you know, Saturn eating his son piece of art, if you're familiar with that,

701
01:04:04,106 --> 01:04:08,946
like that's kind of how it feels if you're under the age of 40 in the United States today.

702
01:04:09,726 --> 01:04:13,926
And, you know, so I think that, and the other thing that I'll say there is that like

703
01:04:13,926 --> 01:04:20,486
the contrast or the, you know, sort of discrepancy between that enforced reality

704
01:04:20,486 --> 01:04:24,166
that most of us who are younger are experiencing today

705
01:04:24,166 --> 01:04:29,246
versus the sort of objective assessment

706
01:04:29,246 --> 01:04:32,386
that there are really no limits anymore

707
01:04:32,386 --> 01:04:36,646
to what we could accomplish as a human society, right?

708
01:04:36,746 --> 01:04:39,606
I mean, we literally live in an era where,

709
01:04:40,146 --> 01:04:41,966
you know, and I'm gonna paint with a broad brush here.

710
01:04:42,026 --> 01:04:42,926
Clearly there are problems.

711
01:04:43,066 --> 01:04:44,026
Clearly we haven't solved everything.

712
01:04:44,026 --> 01:04:48,026
But like we can literally send rockets into space

713
01:04:48,026 --> 01:04:50,066
and land them on a floating barge

714
01:04:50,066 --> 01:04:56,546
in the middle of the ocean and radically collapse the cost of having a fully space-born economy,

715
01:04:56,546 --> 01:05:00,846
we're probably talking about at least going to the moon and having a colony, if not Mars,

716
01:05:00,986 --> 01:05:05,726
becoming, you know, multi-planetary. We've surmounted almost all of the biological

717
01:05:05,726 --> 01:05:10,566
challenges that had existed. I mean, clearly we need to like extend lifespans, you know,

718
01:05:10,606 --> 01:05:14,826
if we're going to be capable of doing that. But like, you know, you don't die from like trivial

719
01:05:14,826 --> 01:05:19,866
diseases in childhood anymore for the most part. And, you know, if you have a catastrophic

720
01:05:19,866 --> 01:05:26,026
healthcare situation that happens to befall you that would have certainly taken you out of the

721
01:05:26,026 --> 01:05:32,006
game in any other era of human history, you can miraculously survive and thrive on the far side

722
01:05:32,006 --> 01:05:37,826
of that today. So like, you know, it's not that we can't build housing in America. Like we know

723
01:05:37,826 --> 01:05:43,626
how to build houses, right? Like this, it literally is not rocket science. And by the way, we're doing

724
01:05:43,626 --> 01:05:49,466
the rocket science really well at this point. But like all of these compounding problems, right?

725
01:05:49,466 --> 01:05:57,006
they're all choices. They're willful choices that we have made about what we are willing to tolerate

726
01:05:57,006 --> 01:06:04,466
in our society. And I think that that is just, we're reaching the breaking point of where that

727
01:06:04,466 --> 01:06:09,066
system, like, as you said, I believe that we are deep in the fourth turning, right? Like, I think

728
01:06:09,066 --> 01:06:13,006
10 years from now, we're going to look back and it probably will be marked to the start of the

729
01:06:13,006 --> 01:06:19,306
Trump administration, the first Trump administration. And, you know, I hope that we're able to navigate

730
01:06:19,306 --> 01:06:26,466
this crisis successfully. But, you know, it is very clear that the system that we are operating

731
01:06:26,466 --> 01:06:33,186
in is no longer fit for purpose, and it is no longer achieving what it ought to or needs to

732
01:06:33,186 --> 01:06:40,486
achieve on behalf of the people for whom it is ostensibly operating. And so I think that, you

733
01:06:40,486 --> 01:06:47,326
know, again, whether it's on Bitcoin policy, you know, or whether it's on AI policy, or I mean,

734
01:06:47,326 --> 01:06:53,186
I can pull another one out. I used to work at Uber. I used to work on the self-driving unit at Uber.

735
01:06:53,406 --> 01:06:59,606
And like we've had the capability to have self-driving trucks on the road for 10 years, like literally 10 years.

736
01:06:59,706 --> 01:07:03,006
We could have done this in 2017 if we had wanted to.

737
01:07:03,486 --> 01:07:11,826
But there's just complete gridlock around the idea that we would do that because of the impact that it might have on the labor economy.

738
01:07:11,826 --> 01:07:18,066
right because truck driving is the biggest it's the number one job around the United States most

739
01:07:18,066 --> 01:07:21,906
people don't know that it's like the number one job in like 32 of the 50 states or something last

740
01:07:21,906 --> 01:07:25,946
time I checked there's literally millions of people who have these jobs and this isn't to

741
01:07:25,946 --> 01:07:31,226
minimize the impact that it would have to those people if we did automate most of those jobs with

742
01:07:31,226 --> 01:07:38,186
you know self-driving trucks but you know again you can't sort of like hold back the tide of

743
01:07:38,186 --> 01:07:44,666
history indefinitely, you know, for the sake of, you know, short term interests. You know, we need

744
01:07:44,666 --> 01:07:49,386
to like accept that new technologies come along, integrate them, incorporate them, make thoughtful

745
01:07:49,386 --> 01:07:55,146
and intelligent policy that allows us to multiply the output that we can achieve as society based on

746
01:07:55,146 --> 01:08:00,426
that and then harvest the deflationary gains that should come from that improvement in the quality

747
01:08:00,426 --> 01:08:07,306
of life and recycle it into finding newer and better and more wealth generating activities.

748
01:08:07,306 --> 01:08:11,086
right and there needs to be some social safety net and how you get from here to there but like

749
01:08:11,086 --> 01:08:16,426
all the things that i just described right for the last 10 years we've seen almost no progress on

750
01:08:16,426 --> 01:08:26,086
and it's because of the uh conservative bias of aged people who hold the levers of policy

751
01:08:26,086 --> 01:08:32,746
in our country at least that would be my contention uh and again unlike any other time in human history

752
01:08:32,746 --> 01:08:39,366
you have never seen a society that was operated by of and for people above the age of 65

753
01:08:39,366 --> 01:08:46,206
it just hasn't existed because we've never been faced with this scenario and so this is literally

754
01:08:46,206 --> 01:08:54,206
in pretty much every way a historic moment for humanity and an unparalleled moment of both

755
01:08:54,206 --> 01:09:01,186
opportunity and risk for the human species because it in the past may have been the case that we could

756
01:09:01,186 --> 01:09:05,886
muddle our way through and like, you know, the course of history was moving slow enough that

757
01:09:05,886 --> 01:09:12,106
like muddling for 20 or 30 years had no meaningful consequence. If we muddle through the next decade,

758
01:09:12,106 --> 01:09:20,626
it is very unclear what will remain of what we currently think of as modern society around the

759
01:09:20,626 --> 01:09:26,046
world, whether it's, you know, on climate change or becoming multi-planetary, resource depletion,

760
01:09:26,046 --> 01:09:31,866
AI, Bitcoin, like free money, surveillance, like all of these sorts of things. Like we are just in

761
01:09:31,866 --> 01:09:39,586
the meta crisis now. And I think we really need to both acknowledge that in order to start really

762
01:09:39,586 --> 01:09:46,526
addressing it and solving it. And then what we really need is a generation of young, vibrant,

763
01:09:47,206 --> 01:09:52,486
visionary leaders to step up and help chart the course from where we are to where we need to be.

764
01:09:52,486 --> 01:09:59,986
I think that's the moment that we're in. And I really think that, you know, the time is now, if not us, who, if not now, when?

765
01:10:01,086 --> 01:10:06,106
Do you in terms of that generation of young visionary leaders, do you foresee that?

766
01:10:06,246 --> 01:10:14,146
Are you describing engagement at the political level or also that that extends to, you know, the technological level as well?

767
01:10:14,146 --> 01:10:19,126
Because we're arguably seeing it a good amount of it at the technological level, right?

768
01:10:19,126 --> 01:10:29,706
Like that, you know, it's oftentimes younger people who are driving the technology yet are not as, you know, they're driving humanity forward, but then are handicapped because they're also not engaging politically in the same ways.

769
01:10:29,746 --> 01:10:30,866
Is that kind of what you're getting at?

770
01:10:30,906 --> 01:10:33,606
It's like we need more of the political engagement.

771
01:10:33,946 --> 01:10:36,826
And I'm not talking about like holding up signs and marching.

772
01:10:36,826 --> 01:10:39,786
Like we're talking about like actual things that move the needle, right?

773
01:10:40,506 --> 01:10:43,406
Yeah, I mean, I would say it's all of the above, right?

774
01:10:43,406 --> 01:10:55,080
I mean certainly in politics I think where we are most deficient is that there are no you know 40 in Washington who are really fighting for these things that we talking about right

775
01:10:55,180 --> 01:11:04,360
Like there aren't, you know, as you mentioned, there kind of is a weird barbell of like there's really old members of Congress and then there's really young staffers who are basically running the place.

776
01:11:04,360 --> 01:11:12,240
And there's kind of this giant gap in the middle because of both demographic reasons and then just kind of the way that the industry works.

777
01:11:12,240 --> 01:11:18,740
But yeah, in my mind, I would say that it's a multifold problem.

778
01:11:19,060 --> 01:11:29,880
We both need people in the private sector innovating without permission to push the boundary forward, which is why things like open source, developer protections, things of this nature are so important, right?

779
01:11:29,880 --> 01:11:42,1000
Like you wouldn't be able to move the world forward if you didn't have people who were doing crazy things that are socially unacceptable, air quotes, right, at the edges of society, pushing us forward, right?

780
01:11:43,020 --> 01:11:44,740
These people are always viewed as heretics.

781
01:11:45,480 --> 01:11:48,840
They are always viewed as threatening to established interests.

782
01:11:49,460 --> 01:11:51,700
Like that's never going to change, right?

783
01:11:51,700 --> 01:12:06,840
And for the last, you know, whatever, 40 years or so, the best way to influence the trajectory of the world in my assessment has been to build something in the private sector and then dare, you know, the political, you know, universe to come after you.

784
01:12:07,160 --> 01:12:07,360
Right.

785
01:12:07,500 --> 01:12:12,380
I mean, again, like without getting too deeply into it, like if it were up to regulators, Uber would not exist.

786
01:12:13,060 --> 01:12:13,440
Right.

787
01:12:13,500 --> 01:12:14,860
Like we wouldn't have Uber.

788
01:12:14,860 --> 01:12:21,160
And, you know, that was to me a very illustrative example of like the people wanted this product.

789
01:12:21,700 --> 01:12:25,500
Were there problems with how it came to market and the impact and dislocation?

790
01:12:25,640 --> 01:12:26,320
Yes, of course.

791
01:12:26,780 --> 01:12:31,220
You know, and we should have dealt with those issues in a more serious and deeper way than

792
01:12:31,220 --> 01:12:32,540
I think that we have.

793
01:12:32,540 --> 01:12:37,820
But like, nonetheless, very clearly and obviously people wanted Uber.

794
01:12:38,240 --> 01:12:40,460
And so Uber was going to continue to exist.

795
01:12:40,700 --> 01:12:46,020
And the sort of policy apparatus needed to adapt to that after the fact.

796
01:12:46,200 --> 01:12:47,340
So like, that's one track.

797
01:12:47,340 --> 01:12:54,460
But the other track is in actual politics, like the actual on the ground, doing the work politics.

798
01:12:54,720 --> 01:13:08,140
And I think there we need really an army of new generation, new blood to get in the game and help push this in the direction that we all know it needs to go.

799
01:13:08,620 --> 01:13:15,940
Right. I mean, again, the whole world can be different tomorrow if we all just got up and decided that it was going to be different tomorrow.

800
01:13:15,940 --> 01:13:23,020
right like if we wanted to get up and change anything about our society the physical constraints

801
01:13:23,020 --> 01:13:30,260
really no longer apply right we can create anything that we can imagine in software uh you know and

802
01:13:30,260 --> 01:13:36,240
there should be no barrier to what we can all accomplish it's all a consensus problem

803
01:13:36,240 --> 01:13:42,800
right uh which we should understand quite well as bitcoiners right if you can get everybody to agree

804
01:13:42,800 --> 01:13:45,500
on what the forward trajectory should look like,

805
01:13:45,1000 --> 01:13:47,420
everything can be different tomorrow.

806
01:13:48,100 --> 01:13:51,240
So I think to me, yeah, yeah,

807
01:13:51,260 --> 01:13:52,820
there's like this element of like,

808
01:13:52,940 --> 01:13:55,540
if you're a builder and that's where you're better served

809
01:13:55,540 --> 01:13:57,420
and your time and energy, you know,

810
01:13:57,440 --> 01:14:00,120
could be maximally, you know, beneficial

811
01:14:00,120 --> 01:14:02,820
in, you know, building something new and powerful

812
01:14:02,820 --> 01:14:06,220
and like world changing, you should do that, right?

813
01:14:06,280 --> 01:14:09,340
But don't forget that you need to also support the people

814
01:14:09,340 --> 01:14:12,520
who on the policy side are going to help you accomplish

815
01:14:12,520 --> 01:14:15,800
lasting and durable change, right?

816
01:14:15,920 --> 01:14:18,160
And then conversely, I think on the other side,

817
01:14:18,220 --> 01:14:20,340
we need people who are capable

818
01:14:20,340 --> 01:14:22,660
of clearly articulating the vision

819
01:14:22,660 --> 01:14:26,060
and the importance and the thoughtful articulation

820
01:14:26,060 --> 01:14:28,460
of how we lay out policy

821
01:14:28,460 --> 01:14:33,120
to unlock wealth and abundance in our society.

822
01:14:33,460 --> 01:14:37,020
But you can't just be myopic about the idea

823
01:14:37,020 --> 01:14:39,420
that it's all going to be coming

824
01:14:39,420 --> 01:14:42,460
from permissioned rails, right?

825
01:14:42,520 --> 01:14:46,020
And, you know, we're not fighting an uphill battle on that front.

826
01:14:46,140 --> 01:14:51,240
And you need to, if you're a policy person, engage with the industry and the technologies

827
01:14:51,240 --> 01:14:54,120
and, you know, the innovators who are at the bleeding edge.

828
01:14:54,800 --> 01:15:00,220
So, yeah, I think to me that this is an all of the above equation, right?

829
01:15:00,280 --> 01:15:06,620
Like we are, you know, kind of standing on the precipice of, you know, this truly unique

830
01:15:06,620 --> 01:15:07,640
moment in human history.

831
01:15:08,100 --> 01:15:11,420
And we have two options ahead of us, right?

832
01:15:11,420 --> 01:15:32,580
It's radical self-sovereignty and global emancipation of free peoples with untold capabilities that our ancestors would just, I mean, literally their eyes would fall out of their head if you showed any other generation of humans what we have access to now and what we could accomplish together if we wanted to do it.

833
01:15:32,580 --> 01:15:36,640
Again, Elon and the spacefaring stuff is just one of many examples.

834
01:15:37,440 --> 01:15:41,100
Or the other alternative would seem to be techno-feudalism.

835
01:15:41,420 --> 01:15:57,320
Right. It's we're all going to be serfs, you know, who, you know, get to access technology, intelligence, whatever, only at the permission of some centralized authority that grants us that authority.

836
01:15:57,980 --> 01:16:09,020
Right. And, you know, I know which world I want to live in. So, you know, I'm trying to do my best to live in both worlds and try to, you know, push the envelope on both sides of the equation.

837
01:16:09,020 --> 01:16:16,420
but um you know it is a little lonely out here uh and we could use you we could use more good

838
01:16:16,420 --> 01:16:23,900
soldiers yeah and so it's a great call to action honestly and i want to be conscious of time here

839
01:16:23,900 --> 01:16:29,280
because we're we're running a little bit up on it uh you you kind of hinted at this already maybe

840
01:16:29,280 --> 01:16:35,520
it's worth just saying a couple words on it but sort of this this need for this cypherpunk revival

841
01:16:35,520 --> 01:16:37,040
as you and I had discussed.

842
01:16:37,200 --> 01:16:38,440
I think that's kind of what you're getting at

843
01:16:38,440 --> 01:16:39,620
at the end here is that,

844
01:16:40,220 --> 01:16:41,440
yeah, like there's the,

845
01:16:41,780 --> 01:16:43,440
there is the political path, right?

846
01:16:43,500 --> 01:16:45,180
And that political path is very much needed.

847
01:16:45,660 --> 01:16:46,980
At the same time,

848
01:16:47,500 --> 01:16:50,180
like, yes, there should be engagement at that level.

849
01:16:50,280 --> 01:16:52,240
Yes, you should also just build things without permission.

850
01:16:52,740 --> 01:16:53,880
But also like, you know,

851
01:16:55,180 --> 01:16:57,040
changing our mindset, I think,

852
01:16:57,080 --> 01:16:58,560
is one of the hardest things.

853
01:16:58,640 --> 01:17:00,720
Like you mentioned that in Silicon Valley specifically,

854
01:17:00,820 --> 01:17:02,900
that sort of interim generations of,

855
01:17:03,400 --> 01:17:04,840
yeah, there were the hardcore cypherpunks

856
01:17:04,840 --> 01:17:08,260
were around, you know, in these early days in the dot-com era.

857
01:17:08,720 --> 01:17:11,180
And then there's kind of this, like, larger gap.

858
01:17:11,300 --> 01:17:15,220
And maybe we're seeing a resurgence of that cypherpunk ethos now

859
01:17:15,220 --> 01:17:19,140
because, you know, government overreaches a forcing function on it, right?

860
01:17:19,480 --> 01:17:22,840
Like, you're seeing people, I think, and you mentioned this earlier,

861
01:17:22,920 --> 01:17:26,500
but, you know, the U.K., Australia, Canada soon

862
01:17:26,500 --> 01:17:28,940
implementing these under-16 social media bans,

863
01:17:29,480 --> 01:17:31,060
which is just doxing everyone.

864
01:17:31,060 --> 01:17:34,560
So it's like, huh, boy, we kind of need some, like, you know,

865
01:17:34,560 --> 01:17:41,320
better anonymous uh you know or or pseudonymous uh access to public communication networks right

866
01:17:41,320 --> 01:17:45,580
like you need things like noster and different things but boy they're going to make encrypted

867
01:17:45,580 --> 01:17:49,620
chats decrypt they're going to give the governments are going to beg for back doors and if you

868
01:17:49,620 --> 01:17:54,800
companies that produce them don't give back doors you know there's again there's a throat to choke

869
01:17:54,800 --> 01:17:59,800
there they're going to become after and so it's like oh well maybe we need actually some like this

870
01:17:59,800 --> 01:18:04,300
all comes back to open source too right it all comes back to you need to be able to have open

871
01:18:04,300 --> 01:18:09,120
source and also interoperability between things, right? Building on protocols versus building on

872
01:18:09,120 --> 01:18:14,760
these proprietary stacks where they're, you know, building in the open field instead of the walled

873
01:18:14,760 --> 01:18:20,240
garden, I think is kind of where we're at right now. And people are starting to, I think more

874
01:18:20,240 --> 01:18:25,680
people, this is the optimist in me. I think more people are starting to wake up if they haven't

875
01:18:25,680 --> 01:18:30,340
already, simply because some of the things governments around the world are doing are so

876
01:18:30,340 --> 01:18:34,520
egregious, like are just so over the top where it's like, well, hang on a second. Like that's,

877
01:18:34,520 --> 01:18:38,920
that's just insane. Why, why on earth are you doing that? And maybe they, you know, they didn't

878
01:18:38,920 --> 01:18:42,940
wake up during, you know, COVID and a lot of times they didn't wait, you know, they haven't woken up

879
01:18:42,940 --> 01:18:47,220
until now, but Hey, at least they're waking up now. I don't know. A lot of people I think are

880
01:18:47,220 --> 01:18:50,840
going to stay asleep for a while, but maybe just some kind of final thought. We probably just need

881
01:18:50,840 --> 01:18:56,460
to do another whole rip specifically on this, but maybe just some final, some final thoughts on that

882
01:18:56,460 --> 01:19:02,560
in terms of like, are you optimistic about people's mentality around all of this changing?

883
01:19:04,280 --> 01:19:06,520
Yeah, I am, is the short story, right?

884
01:19:06,520 --> 01:19:15,080
I mean, I am optimistic because I am in the dirt doing the work on the front lines.

885
01:19:15,280 --> 01:19:19,380
And the other people who are out here doing that work are exceptional human beings.

886
01:19:19,600 --> 01:19:22,700
And we're all fighting for something that's bigger than us.

887
01:19:22,700 --> 01:19:26,580
it's more important than any individual, right?

888
01:19:26,880 --> 01:19:28,980
You know, I often say this about Bitcoin,

889
01:19:29,120 --> 01:19:31,320
but like Bitcoin is not a project that I,

890
01:19:31,620 --> 01:19:33,280
at least I think most of us,

891
01:19:33,280 --> 01:19:36,900
would expect to be accomplished in our lifetime, right?

892
01:19:36,980 --> 01:19:39,140
I mean, it is a multi-generational,

893
01:19:39,580 --> 01:19:42,900
historic, world historic project, right?

894
01:19:42,940 --> 01:19:44,720
It is bigger than any individual

895
01:19:44,720 --> 01:19:49,800
and it is going to outlive all of us, hopefully, right?

896
01:19:49,800 --> 01:20:01,160
And so, you know, to that end, we need something to believe in if you're going to be engaged in a lifelong struggle, you know, for righteousness, right?

897
01:20:01,200 --> 01:20:19,354
Or for you know principles that are bigger and larger than you know any one of us And so you know what I kind of always fall back to you and well again maybe aging me a little bit it hilarious the kids don know this uh these sorts of references anymore but uh simon

898
01:20:19,354 --> 01:20:26,074
sinek why how what right i'm sure you saw that video right people you know that's how you have to

899
01:20:26,074 --> 01:20:34,154
build the structure of motivation and the goal orientation for any group of people that you're

900
01:20:34,154 --> 01:20:39,114
you're working with in order to accomplish something together why how what you have to

901
01:20:39,114 --> 01:20:45,914
start with the why right and if people can't connect to the why they are not going to have

902
01:20:45,914 --> 01:20:53,034
the stamina the energy the durability the lasting conviction to fight through the how and the what

903
01:20:53,034 --> 01:21:00,934
right and so you know we talk about this a lot in the bitcoin community uh you know being invaded by

904
01:21:00,934 --> 01:21:06,694
suit coiners and you know oh it's you know just all you know wall streeters now and you know people

905
01:21:06,694 --> 01:21:12,994
who just care about number go up and like you know this is a real phenomenon right like in the early

906
01:21:12,994 --> 01:21:20,594
days of bitcoin everyone was a cyberpunk right like everyone was a radical heretic uh money autist

907
01:21:20,594 --> 01:21:27,974
right like everybody had this view that like the principles were why they were working on the

908
01:21:27,974 --> 01:21:32,694
project. And as we've added, and it's great that we've added all kinds of new people in,

909
01:21:32,754 --> 01:21:37,794
that we've had new adherents. We've got, you know, millions of converts now who have come to see the

910
01:21:37,794 --> 01:21:44,254
wisdom of what it is that we were doing here in, you know, over the last 15 years. But I would say

911
01:21:44,254 --> 01:21:51,094
that, you know, what worries me and is both the current composition and then even more so the

912
01:21:51,094 --> 01:21:57,354
future composition, next generations of Bitcoiners or people who are, you know, coming to this

913
01:21:57,354 --> 01:22:03,394
technology, not understanding the why. Like, why are we actually here, right? You need to give

914
01:22:03,394 --> 01:22:11,054
people something to believe in and only then can you tell them how and have them care, right? And

915
01:22:11,054 --> 01:22:19,054
so I would say, you know, both in the case of Bitcoin locally, where I think we need to really

916
01:22:19,054 --> 01:22:25,614
relight the cypherpunk fire and remind people what this is really about, right? Like it's

917
01:22:25,614 --> 01:22:31,094
chancellor on the brink. It's, you know, the Wall Street criminality. It's Satoshi and the

918
01:22:31,094 --> 01:22:36,494
Immaculate Conception. It's the block size wars. It's the Cyprus bail. And like everything that I

919
01:22:36,494 --> 01:22:44,014
just mentioned happened pre 2016. And overwhelmingly, all of the people that I meet these days in the

920
01:22:44,014 --> 01:22:49,914
industry, you know, they don't really know that history, right? They didn't live it. They weren't

921
01:22:49,914 --> 01:22:54,354
around for it. And so it's hard to connect with it. And I think that it's really incumbent upon us

922
01:22:54,354 --> 01:23:01,934
to communicate that oral history and center the why are we engaged in this fight.

923
01:23:01,934 --> 01:23:04,714
This is a fight for human freedom, right?

924
01:23:04,794 --> 01:23:10,194
This is a fight for liberty and justice all around the world,

925
01:23:10,314 --> 01:23:15,594
for equal access to money and the accumulation of capital, right?

926
01:23:15,654 --> 01:23:21,374
To free markets and all the other things that Bitcoin represents.

927
01:23:21,374 --> 01:23:25,634
And we need people to really connect with that first if we want it to be durable and lasting.

928
01:23:25,634 --> 01:23:30,974
And then I would say that we should take that same lesson and apply it to our modern politics in America.

929
01:23:31,294 --> 01:23:35,754
Right. Like what is the social contract supposed to be in this country?

930
01:23:35,934 --> 01:23:39,594
And what is it today? Right. Like what are we all fighting for?

931
01:23:39,734 --> 01:23:43,754
Do we have a shared mission, vision and objective in the United States today?

932
01:23:43,954 --> 01:23:47,474
You know, like I would argue no. Right.

933
01:23:47,474 --> 01:23:55,974
I would argue that we have, you know, kind of gotten so lost in the woods, you know, over however, you know, what period of time you want to market at.

934
01:23:55,974 --> 01:24:10,734
But, you know, certainly in recent decades, like we're deeply lost and there's no clear objective that we're driving toward as a people in this country that unites us as Americans at this point in kind of our history.

935
01:24:10,734 --> 01:24:20,794
And so, you know, I think on both counts, we really need to go back to the why and really start with, you know, what it is that's animating and motivating us.

936
01:24:20,874 --> 01:24:36,894
And that is how we're going to attract the, you know, the next hundred million people to come in and participate and really be active in enforcing, you know, society to move in the direction that, you know, hopefully we all collectively share a vision of.

937
01:24:36,894 --> 01:24:44,434
I mean, I think it probably would surprise people if you went out and sampled the general population, how much we actually agree on.

938
01:24:45,154 --> 01:24:50,754
The differences that we have among one another are very marginal in the grand scheme of things.

939
01:24:50,754 --> 01:25:12,254
And the idea that we would just drive our society into the ditch, you know, over trivial differences that, you know, we are incapable of working through, you know, when, you know, the amazing future that awaits us could be ours tomorrow.

940
01:25:13,014 --> 01:25:20,594
That is the thing that, you know, again, gets me out of bed in the morning and like, you know, makes me want to be engaged in this fight.

941
01:25:20,754 --> 01:25:26,274
So. It's a, it's a great note to end on. I think I kept you a little bit long,

942
01:25:26,434 --> 01:25:30,034
Kyle, so apologies there, but thank you so much for sharing your time.

943
01:25:30,574 --> 01:25:33,814
Love the chance to pick your brain and just get your insights on this.

944
01:25:33,874 --> 01:25:37,574
And I think there's a couple of really good call to actions there is to make

945
01:25:37,574 --> 01:25:39,594
people, make people think about these things a little bit,

946
01:25:39,794 --> 01:25:42,174
a little bit deeper and, you know, pay attention.

947
01:25:42,294 --> 01:25:46,434
There are not everybody is, is cut out for certain paths, right?

948
01:25:46,434 --> 01:25:49,794
But there's, if they're, Quinn's taught me one thing,

949
01:25:49,794 --> 01:25:51,494
that there's always something you can do.

950
01:25:52,034 --> 01:25:53,474
Maybe it's just start a podcast.

951
01:25:53,854 --> 01:25:54,434
You know, you never know.

952
01:25:54,774 --> 01:25:56,614
Maybe it's just another Bitcoin podcast.

953
01:25:56,954 --> 01:25:57,554
You never know.

954
01:25:57,994 --> 01:26:01,334
But, you know, if you feel compelled to do something, do it.

955
01:26:01,814 --> 01:26:02,894
You can just do things.

956
01:26:03,114 --> 01:26:04,034
That's the beauty of it.

957
01:26:05,054 --> 01:26:08,594
Where would you like to send people so they can find you?

958
01:26:08,774 --> 01:26:11,254
And then anything, you know, you're working on with BPI

959
01:26:11,254 --> 01:26:12,734
that you want to share or anything like that,

960
01:26:12,734 --> 01:26:15,054
feel free to lay it out there.

961
01:26:16,274 --> 01:26:18,774
Yeah, well, I'm just Kyle Olney.

962
01:26:18,774 --> 01:26:24,714
that's my name at on Twitter at Kyle only on Twitter if anybody wants to find me there I think

963
01:26:24,714 --> 01:26:29,514
you retweeted my my end pub on Noster earlier at the beginning of this I'll drop it in the

964
01:26:29,514 --> 01:26:34,914
show description as well great yeah that's that's another good place to find me it's very hard to

965
01:26:34,914 --> 01:26:42,594
get people to notice you on Noster but yeah those are probably two the two best places to follow me

966
01:26:42,594 --> 01:26:58,134
And then, yeah, I would just encourage everybody to get actively involved in pushing public policy in the direction that, you know, you think that it needs to go and that we collectively in the Bitcoin community really need.

967
01:26:58,554 --> 01:27:07,874
Right. You know, again, it's sometimes challenging to get Bitcoiners to believe that engaging with the government and politics is a worthwhile endeavor.

968
01:27:07,874 --> 01:27:14,874
But as we've said many times in the past, you may not take an interest in politics, but politics will certainly take an interest in you.

969
01:27:15,434 --> 01:27:22,114
So, you know, to heed the, you know, the caution of I think it was Socrates or Plato, right?

970
01:27:22,174 --> 01:27:28,534
It's like your refusal to participate in politics resigns you to being governed by your inferiors.

971
01:27:28,534 --> 01:27:36,254
right and I would hope that everybody listening to this would understand that we would rather not

972
01:27:36,254 --> 01:27:42,994
be governed by you know the people among us who know the least about the issues that we're

973
01:27:42,994 --> 01:27:48,414
confronting as a society but you know that we ought to be governed by you know the people who

974
01:27:48,414 --> 01:27:55,034
are actively engaged and thoughtful and visionary about how much better the world that could be

975
01:27:55,034 --> 01:27:57,774
and figure out how we get from here to there.

976
01:27:58,194 --> 01:28:01,534
So yeah, get off the couch, get engaged,

977
01:28:02,694 --> 01:28:04,574
meet your local Bitcoiners,

978
01:28:04,754 --> 01:28:07,974
find some real life thing that you can do

979
01:28:07,974 --> 01:28:09,214
to help push the ball forward.

980
01:28:09,994 --> 01:28:13,214
And I look forward to seeing you out on the field.

981
01:28:14,334 --> 01:28:14,934
Love it.

982
01:28:15,234 --> 01:28:16,014
Thanks so much, Kyle.

983
01:28:16,094 --> 01:28:16,954
Appreciate your time.

984
01:28:17,054 --> 01:28:19,034
Everybody go give Kyle a follow

985
01:28:19,034 --> 01:28:21,474
and thank you to everybody who tuned in on Noster.

986
01:28:21,994 --> 01:28:22,934
Kyle, cheers, man.

987
01:28:25,034 --> 01:28:36,934
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of The Bitcoin Podcast.

988
01:28:37,554 --> 01:28:41,534
Remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're watching or listening,

989
01:28:41,954 --> 01:28:45,854
and share it with your friends, family, and strangers on the internet.

990
01:28:45,854 --> 01:28:52,534
Find me on Noster at primal.net slash walker and this podcast at primal.net slash titcoin.

991
01:28:52,534 --> 01:29:00,954
On X, YouTube, and Rumble, just search at Walker America and find this podcast on X and Instagram at Titcoin Podcast.

992
01:29:01,674 --> 01:29:03,934
Head to the show notes to grab sponsor links.

993
01:29:04,054 --> 01:29:08,734
Head to substack.com slash at Walker America to get episodes emailed to you.

994
01:29:09,214 --> 01:29:12,534
And head to BitcoinPodcast.net for everything else.

995
01:29:13,094 --> 01:29:16,634
Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant.

996
01:29:16,634 --> 01:29:21,974
So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to The Bitcoin Podcast.

997
01:29:22,534 --> 01:29:25,314
Until next time, stay free.