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Deep down like the rabbit hole and not like I think most of the media is like a explicit designed thing to try to get cultural affects that.

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Like society wants for controlling people.

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What's really weird, too.

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Because we're talking about robot dicks and they will manifest.

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It seems like we're on a trajectory that will make them inevitable.

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Yeah.

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and definitely people are going to isolate from one another and be like why should i have a real

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human when i have my robot that i can beat and sexually abuse and do all the up stuff i want to

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so yeah well like the predictive programming i think of two movies particularly that really

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come top of mind quite frequently these days it's minority report and her okay it's i've i've

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actually had both of those come up in dialogue recently about it because yeah like with with

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where Palantir is going with pre-crime stuff definitely going to try to do minority report style

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pre-crime uh and her also like people are obviously falling in love with like different

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ai at this point in time and like that's going to be a trend that continues because

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uh particularly like i don't know i don't feel like people are actually healing from all of the

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trauma that they've sort of incurred by the society and so it's it's becoming easier and

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easier just to retreat inward and refuse to try to actually interact with other humans in a meaningful

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way yeah well minority report too it's not only the pre-crime it's the uh self-driving cars that

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like that like i'm looking around we're in san francisco it's like all the waymos you got robo

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taxis coming out and people are very excited for this like oh we're just gonna hop in like a number

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of the people that are at this event that we're currently um participating in have said how much

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they love the waymo it's like ah there's no driver it's quiet i get to do this and then the back of

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mind i'm like there were some movies that warned of this so you can get in that car one day and

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the computer can take you somewhere you don't want to go well it's funny when when because i rode in

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waymo for the first time last night uh and when me and the other gentleman were trying to get into

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the car like it wouldn't open the door for some reason and i had to like drive around the corner

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and then stop and do that but like the this whole fantasy that people have they don't see the darker

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side of it of that like so what happens when you have your ai girlfriend that you fall in love with

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and like chat gbt does the update that like fries its brain doesn't recognize you you know this

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happened three to four months ago exactly and like uh these technologies are really cool but if you're

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not actually self-sovereign with them they're very problematic and then if you are self-sovereign with

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them like we actually get something much more like snow crash which like i think is kind of interesting

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but like that is also problematic in a number of its own ways yeah well you said people haven't

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dealt with the trauma that's been built up how long do you think this trauma has been building up

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uh i mean i think 2000 like september 11th i think was like kind of the key moment that

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the juncture changed because like there there was like a pretty great opportunity

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after the soviet union collapse that like the united states could have made choices throughout

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the 1990s to really have kind of opened the world up to like true liberalism but in that like a

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number of mistakes were made and it became pretty clear that uh like neoliberalism wasn't like an

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advancement of liberalism but was like this fundamental and inherent lie that was actually

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about just like the corruption of culture on a whole for the profitability of a number of

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individuals um and after september 11th it became clear that like we were going to take a path where

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we were going to build a gigantic surveillance apparatus that would proceed to control everybody

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and that's sort of been the path that that's been advanced since then yeah it's not a great path

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I believe it was you that we were discussing, like the simulacrum.

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Yeah.

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And another concept that Bitcoin sign guy first introduced me to back in 2018 when he was on the show was the hyper real.

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Like this.

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Yeah.

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Concept that we live in this digital world with a digital facade.

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Nobody's really connected to reality at the end of the day.

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Yeah.

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And that digital facade is more representative of reality to people than reality itself.

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and then I think also with what COVID happened and sort of people eating those lies realizing

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how intense those lies were like that created a new and more intense kind of nihilism but I don't

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think we've exited from and so it's interesting being here in the Bay Area that like everybody

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who's involved with AI that I've talked with particularly like large AI companies like they're

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extremely nihilistic they're like humanity's dead within like a decade and then more interesting is

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even the subtext under that is like that's why we have to make the ai god to like save humanity

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and it's like oh shit yeah that contradiction that and again i haven't expressed this publicly but

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i almost feel uncomfortable because maybe i don't feel confident in

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my ability to appropriately recognize it but it seems to your point it seems like a lot of people

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on the cutting edge of ai are like hey this is very dangerous but they keep going full borehead

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and not only full bore head, but trying to accelerate as quickly as possible.

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Yeah. And like the, well, and this was kind of an interesting edge case is that like,

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actually I think like decentralized, private, homoformically encrypted AI systems that like

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interoperate and can kind of exchange data in ways where like you're just revealing subsets of it to

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like work together. I think like that's going to be an extremely powerful thing that has a lot of

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potential for humanity but the the current version of the proprietary frontier models like anthropic

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open ai grok uh to me like this is like this is the absolute apex of communism because like we're

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taking literally all of our thoughts dumping them into a single database combining them and then

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getting a linguistic regurgitation that's fundamentally designed to destroy our brains

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you know like it's it's robbing people of the ability to think at all in addition to like it's

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modifying their linguistic capacity so that like they they don't even have the lexicon to be able

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to speak in a particular way that's unique or interesting anymore yeah how do we change the

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tides of this uh one is is that like i think we need to like i don't think like you know regulations

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limits none of this shit works at all uh so like we need to radicalize different models and so like

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seeing all the different open source stuff come out is uh in my opinion like it's pretty awesome

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there's still problems with how a lot of these models

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have been built along with the underlying parameters.

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So like, but I think that this is all sort of

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a recursive thing of that in the very way

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that we got these open source models

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was off the back of the advancements

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from sort of these gigantic communist models.

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So like, I think as things advance,

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like we're going to get more and more powerful

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open source models and we'll be able to use these models

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to collaborate with each other to create totally new models

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that can truly be totally open source.

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will know the underlying parameters.

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There'll be ways to modify that.

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And people will be able to actually like in their garage,

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be able to build out their own full, totally custom AIs.

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And then furthermore, if we have the appropriate systems

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to actually like encrypt these and make them like private systems

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that people can own for themselves,

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then we got something that I think has like really strong potential.

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But again, this is only if we make these things totally private.

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No way for anybody else to surveil it.

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And that like this really becomes like a digital assistant second self or something that like you really own for yourself, totally alone.

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And nobody else knows or sort of understands how you work with it.

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And this is what you're working on.

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A bit. Yeah.

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This is kind of what Bora is.

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The big thing that we really want is to make sure like this is going to be like a personal home data server that you have that's totally encrypted, has great recoverability.

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but also like as you work with it over years to decades

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that like this becomes more and more customized

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towards who and how you are.

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You can feed it all your own personal information,

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talk to it about the most intimate things

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and really treat it in the same way

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that a lot of people are treating open AI right now.

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But again, very similar to the minority report thing

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is they don't get on the back end of that,

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that all of that information can be used against you.

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Like Sam Altman was very open about like,

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yeah, our information can be subpoenaed

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and used against you.

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Yeah.

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I've said it a couple times in the last six months.

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We live in a period that's equally unnerving and exhilarating.

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The potential for doom or not salvation, but.

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Yeah, there's definitely like not much gray area in between.

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And furthermore, stuff like if we didn't get Bitcoin when we did,

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like we'd definitely be in doom territory.

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but with Bitcoin uh it really modifies and changes how this can happen because like seeing

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the very way that you can use Nostra now to like go find an anonymous developer to like work on a

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project that you can pay is really powerful in the same way like to me Nostra is the first legitimate

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social network that's ever existed like every single social network that has came before

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it's pretty clear has had ties to different intelligence organizations and that's been

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again with part of that nihilism is like i think that this has been a societal level programming

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situation where dialogue has been manipulated across the board whereas on noster like you can

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fill it with misinformation but also because the lack of censorship capacity there now becomes way

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to actually find signal throughout the noise yeah and so like i think as uh we get clamps down onto

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social media across the board as sort of whatever the fuck's going on advances itself noster is

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going to become sort of a bastion of people that are saying that can go out there and actually speak

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truth to power where they would be banned everywhere else they can actually have those

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conversations there yeah it seems like it seems like the the narrative is being prepped particularly

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around ai and social media i mean you were just telling me that you had a conversation last night

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with a journalist who is pro social media censorship but on top of that i wrote about

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it earlier this week, Anthropic came out with a postmortem on some cyber espionage attack

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that Claude was used to wage on some critical services.

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And if you read the report, it seems like a classic problem-reaction solution set up

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where it's like, hey, these people are using AI to attack these critical systems.

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The cost to do this is lower than ever.

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The ease of waging these attacks is easier than it's ever been.

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And what I was reading between the lines of that postmortem is Anthropic saying, hey, we only stop this because we have full visibility into everything that's happening within our LLMs and our MCP framework.

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And wink, wink, we need the ability to do this.

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So we should probably get regulations that make it so you have to get a license to release these systems into the wild.

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That's what I was reading when I read that.

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Yeah, and I mean, like to me, Anthropik's entire business model is misaligned from the beginning because like they're playing this game of like safe AI, which means that like they want to prove how dangerous non-safe AI is from the get go.

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So like it makes sense that like this is sort of the game that they're going to play.

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And to me, like those are the same iterations of power that we've seen over and over again is like create crisis and problem, present the solution and clamp down.

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And it's just a ratcheting back and forth of tightening social controls around people.

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And like, it's really important to understand like this is very, very powerful technology.

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And also it's very powerful technology, just like cryptography.

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And so like we're essentially having the first of the crypto wars all over again, but with an AI slant.

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And so like, I think as this advances, they are going to try to clamp down with regulations.

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And that's why it's great that like, you know, somebody baked in through an inscription,

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like I think it was the Obama like open source model like onto Bitcoin's blockchain you can go

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find it and download it directly and I think keeping these things free and open source are

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important because I'm much more concerned about how do we manipulate and control people through

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like these very powerful systems that like you can already see the way it's really

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atrophied thoughts you know like I was talking to a couple for professors yesterday they were

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talking about how outraged they are at this point in time that like they're just getting AI slop

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repeatedly over and over and they can see that their systems that their students don't actually

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have the systematic thinking to engage in like true thought on their own like they're literally

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just turning to the ai and pinging it every time they have a question and like that creates a

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pretty dangerous predication for society yeah no it makes me feel very fortunate i went to the high

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school that i did as you go the freshman year orientation week they're essentially like all

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all right, you're going to be here for four years.

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Our job as your educator over the next four years

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is teach you how to think from first principles

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and then write.

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So you got to be able to read things

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and then write basically expressing

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that you understand what you just read

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in a coherent way, in a consistent flowing way.

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And I feel like that's being lost.

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And like to going back to like the simulacrum

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and the hyperreal, like it's already pretty bad.

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And to think of how much worse it can get

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if you have AI sort of dictating thought and people abdicating their critical thinking skills to these LLMs,

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it can get really bad really quick.

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It already is getting really bad.

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I mean, the whole meme of getting one shot is real for a reason.

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Yeah, and I think the, so like I think classic models are dead at this point in time.

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Like I think the way that you and I experience school,

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if you go in, you read something, essays are turned in, you get correction.

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like I think everything's gonna invert.

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Or like I think in the schools people are gonna go in nothing in hand And it gonna become all sort of oratory and about critical thinking And a teacher asking you a question you need to actually stand up respond meaningfully

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And they're now becoming a real dialogue between everybody sort of asking people to think.

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But the other major problem that's kind of occurring right now in that same process in society is that everybody's so hyper attuned to the opinions of others.

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And so it's like the mask wearing phenomenon is the best example is that a lot of people wear a mask under the suspicion of like, I'm doing this to protect you.

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They're not actually thinking about protecting themselves.

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And there becomes a sort of recursive process of where they're much more concerned about how they socially are perceived than actually doing the thing that is correct.

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And so like, I think that essentially just needs to be kind of beat out of people.

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and the only way to do that is to like progressively allow for people to stand up

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say embarrassing shit allow for that process to play out and be like you shouldn't be embarrassed

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thanks for actually expressing your thought let's let's understand why perhaps it might be dangerous

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to uh think in this way and really allowing for this process of students and teachers to work

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together but that requires a really different approach that's going to require some courage

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that I don't think the current public school system is really available to.

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So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

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Yeah, I don't have much faith in much of the public school system,

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but it does seem like in the broader public discourse,

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this Overton window is shifting where people are openly standing up

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and saying, hey, enough, enough.

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Enough is enough, whether it's Israel,

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the immigration situation here in the United States.

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It seems like the situation has gotten to such a point where people are like, okay, we need to stand up now or things are going to get super crazy.

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Yeah, and I think it's interesting because it feels like the pendulum swing has stopped swinging that way.

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And it's sort of a product of why people are standing up.

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But I do think that you're having just as much of the outraged responses from other people going like, no, everybody deserves dignity.

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Anybody should be able to come here and get free social services no matter what.

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and we should all be able to hold hands and sing kumbaya and make peace happen.

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And like, that's a really beautiful idea.

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I really think it's wonderful.

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And I really wish that's how the world works.

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And it's not.

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And I'm sorry.

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Like, that's a difficult reality to come to terms with.

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But like, it turns out, like, if we just have an open border policy, as we've seen,

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like, there can be a lot of nefarious people that come in here and take advantage of that.

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It also turns out like here in California, like, you know, I have to pay like $1,800 a month for health care for me and my family. But like, if you just walk into a hospital and say like, I'm an undocumented migrant, we'll go great, like free, free health care for you.

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that costs real money to actual taxpayers who like need to incur the burden of that which

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frankly like we can't actually accommodate that so i think now all these pressures are starting

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to add up and people are going huh like it turns out like the kumbaya version of the world is very

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very expensive and difficult to implement and furthermore we actually just teach people that

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like hey like you should go to america because all the stuff we have to pay for here you can get

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there for free. And again, like, I want to welcome people from all walks of life and cultures to come

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here and contribute to society. But the key word there is contribute. And I think this has been

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one of the things that we've seen repeatedly is that like, there are people that want to take

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advantage of these social safety nets, and that's incurred of a real cost to the American public.

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I was reading an article this morning about some of the Somalians in Minnesota, sort of weaponizing

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Medicaid, claiming autistic children to get Medicaid benefits and then cycling that money

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back to Somalia.

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Well, and it turns out that like there are real cultural differences of why America is

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a leading developed country in the world and Somalia is not.

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And I think like this is one of the great cultural neglects that a lot of people don't

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see is that like the melting pot of American culture is really about not just taking other

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cultures and just plopping them into america but really actually integrating that with greater

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american values that have come to define you know like i think you said earlier you had like an

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irish italian background you know like i have a a dramatic irish background i'm pure irish

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pure irish philly philly is split uh it's like irish irish uh catholic italian catholic polish

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catholic and obviously mixed in strong jewish community and uh now um that's that's what it

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was like when i was born now that's well and like these were like when our ancestors came here like

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they they were true immigrants as irish they were probably discriminated against quite heavily and

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not allowed to work in various capacities not uh not very well known the irish were a lot of the

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irish were slaves when they came to this country too yeah absolutely and they came to this country

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particularly on the back of like the irish potato famine where like one in four people in ireland

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died and so like there was there was very real consequences of why and how people got here

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and yet your identity today is one of being uh like american irish as opposed to just irish and

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like this to me is one of the the great problems today is like we don't seem to be getting cultural

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integration in addition to like there's a very negative dialogue about like what being american

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is sort of on a whole and that like we should be ashamed of being american or that that america

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doesn't have a particular culture on its own.

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And one, I just don't believe that's true.

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But also, like, I think that's a massive disservice to everybody because it says, well, you as

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being somebody who's, you know, lived here as an American for most of your life, you should

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be ashamed of that culture.

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And I think that I don't really understand it.

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Why should one be proud of being any other culture or nationality but not American?

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And like, I think it's very difficult to have dialogues with people about why we should

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really be proud to be American.

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And that doesn't mean that, like, I love my government and they're great.

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Like, fuck those people.

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They fucking suck.

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And they represent everything that I don't like.

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And that's why we explicitly have a constitution.

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That's like a document about limiting the government, not one empowering it.

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So, yeah, well, let's have a discussion.

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What is in your mind an American?

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What is America's culture?

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So I think one is that, like, it's a highly integrative culture.

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Like, we want people from all walks of life and different communities from around the world to be able to come here to this country.

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but then we're going to work on amerocratic and egalitarian culture where like if you work hard

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if you're smart if you apply yourself if you build community with other people like you should not

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only integrate and be able to find and create a life for yourself but like you should also be able

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to celebrate the various cultures that come in and are part of that but part of that is is truly

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respecting other people and also recognizing that like uh all of these sort of race plays or cultural

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plays are secondary to the fact of that like we all live here we all love the idea of limiting the

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power of our government of being able to live and let live that you should be able to have a business

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and make money from it you shouldn't be taxed out the wazoo and with that we should be able to build

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community and culture together yeah we've gotten far far far away from that now how do we get back

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i guess this highs in the bitcoin and bring it back to like the simulacrum and the hyperreal do

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think bitcoin helps tether us back to reality and gets us back to a sound foundation from which we

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can begin to affect these these values you just described yeah i mean i think uh first and foremost

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is that like we need to understand uh the deep and uh frankly like the core rottenness of our

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political culture at this point in time and the way that it's tried to pit us against one another

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as it being either red or blue,

293
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it doesn't make any real difference.

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And that's one of the reasons that as Bitcoiners,

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we've concluded that like the money is the real problem.

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Because when you actually look at the development of society

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and the way that fiat money printing

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has augmented the entirety of it,

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this is where a lot of that rot comes from.

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And furthermore, when you see this political culture

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that has gamified everything

302
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and made everything into a right-left issue,

303
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as opposed to going, hey, hang on,

304
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like we actually share a ton of values

305
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and we need to find a great middle ground to work together.

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Like I'm of the opinion the only way back at this point in time is,

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and I don't even want to call it a third party movement.

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Like we need a full cultural, I don't know,

309
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for very strong reasons that should be obvious.

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I don't like the word cultural revolution.

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Yeah, I can see it coming.

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I was like, hey.

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But like we need to have a strong movement to try to return to like this

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radical modernism, if you will.

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And I think part of a radical modernism is understanding that like,

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both the Democrats and the Republicans are the major problem today. And anybody who associates

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with either of those, like I actually think we should lineblast them and just make them an enemy

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class. And that whatever new political culture established itself is it's based on the very

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fact of anyone who's been involved with those two parties, like they're not allowed to be part of

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the new political culture. In addition to turning towards the future and saying, hey, like our

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children's future and making them better than ours matters, because I think our generation more

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than any other generation is sort of the first American generation to truly have it worse than

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our parents. And I think that the boomer class and the way that they have chosen to hollow out

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America for their own benefit is a very real problem that has to be dealt with. And we need

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to figure out how are we going to actually make things better for our children. And I think it's

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through a radical modernism that says, hey, we're going to get back to a middle ground.

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we're going to work together we're going to find policies that work best for americans who live

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here and who have contributed to our culture and also i've talked about this is like i think we

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need to do it through a state's rights movement to essentially radicalize states against the

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federal government strip the federal government of power and really push power back into the

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various states and allow for sort of the experiment of the 50 states and the different ways that they

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want to organize themselves become kind of the primary method of how we're going to figure that

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out. Yeah. And we had a glimpse of that during COVID. Some states asserting their autonomy and

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saying, hey, we're open for business. We're not doing this. And that was beautiful to see. But

335
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that momentum died pretty quickly. Yeah. And I think like that's part of a greater movement that

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sort of needs to encourage that. But there also needs to be essentially like, again, I don't know

337
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what you'd call it, but like a sort of political collective that's trying to get the states to

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work together and have dialogues about this. And I've talked about it before, is that like, I think

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trying to figure out how to use the ratification of the constitution through article five

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needs to become this primary tactic to start trying to bludgeon the federal government and

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really empower states in new and various ways yeah because to your point about the federal government

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and the mirage of red versus blue it's really just a uniparty i think there was an incredible

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example of this on the hill yesterday i saw a clip i believe it was the ceo of autopilot which

344
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if you're not aware is this um basically this finance app that allows you to follow the trades

345
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of individual senators and congressmen and so like the pelosi tracker yeah like you can put money in

346
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and trade with nancy pelosi and this guy was on the hill saying like hey we started this to highlight

347
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the overt corruption that exists in terms of insider training that's happening with our

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politicians and i thought it was a beautiful representation of the unit party because he

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called out republicans and democrats like they're basically leveraging the federal government to

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pillage the american people yeah and i think this has been going on for a long time uh like i i i

351
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truly believe this is treason it's treason to the highest degree um that's part of why you know like

352
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80 of military hardware in the united states has chinese components it's part of why we've developed

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these deep ties with the Chinese Communist Party. And it's why we have American politicians that are

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actually selling us out to that. And this is one of the reasons that I think we need to use Article

355
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5 to radicalize states against the federal government is because like, I very much believe

356
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that pretty much every single federal representative is corrupt in some way. And I would love to see

357
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an Article 5 amendment to the Constitution saying that every single member of the United States,

358
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senate and congress will be put on trial for treason we're going to open the books make it

359
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very clear to everybody and at the end you're found guilty of treason you will be punished as

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such because like the fact that nancy pelosi has been a career politician who now is worth what 180

361
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million dollars more than 200 yeah like that this is despicable deplorable and disgusting and the

362
00:26:42,342 --> 00:26:47,842
very fact that she is allowed to exist in our society not be called out by that daily and

363
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hounded, but she's actually put on a pedestal and celebrated as some champion of civil liberties.

364
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Like it's deplorable, disgusting, despicable, and just an insult to anybody's average of

365
00:26:59,102 --> 00:27:04,242
intelligence to be able to look at the situation and not go this. She's made money through explicit

366
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corruption that in any other field would be considered insider trading. And those people

367
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would go to jail for that crime. And so I think the only way to do this is because these people

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that are federal representatives, they believe they're above the law. Like I was reading this

369
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morning that there's a congressional representative out of Florida who she was caught laundering like

370
00:27:22,822 --> 00:27:28,262
more than five million dollars of COVID money to herself. She's like still a standing member of

371
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Congress right now. And it's like, well, until until found guilty, you know, which like there's

372
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something to be said for that. But like it just goes to show the endemic nature of the corruption

373
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at this point in time. And I think that like as American citizens, we should be outraged.

374
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It very clear this part of government is broken and we not going to be able to address this through the federal legislature So we need to go through states and use that as the most powerful mechanism to essentially stand against them

375
00:27:52,144 --> 00:27:57,984
Yeah. And we were talking about this with Danny in HODL the other week on what Bitcoin did.

376
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But I think people in the federal government should push for this because you should recognize, like, hey, game's up.

377
00:28:06,444 --> 00:28:13,384
we've pillaged enough like the the plebs if you will are getting angry because it seems pretty

378
00:28:13,384 --> 00:28:19,464
clear that there's two paths that are being framed for how to get through this to the masses it's

379
00:28:19,464 --> 00:28:27,664
find my franco bring him in or overt democratic socialism that leads to communism yeah and like i

380
00:28:27,664 --> 00:28:33,024
you had to you had to defend fascism you didn't want to but like it's just and it's funny like

381
00:28:33,024 --> 00:28:36,724
you say this and people get all pissed off and it's like hey if we're being objective in just

382
00:28:36,724 --> 00:28:42,244
observing the tea leaves of what the younger generations are saying right now this is what

383
00:28:42,244 --> 00:28:47,324
they're saying yeah and like i i and i really appreciate it in that podcast like hodl was the

384
00:28:47,324 --> 00:28:52,424
one that really pointed out that we need this sort of radical modernism and like again like i don't

385
00:28:52,424 --> 00:28:57,044
know how we do this i hope somebody takes up the flag and like makes it their thing like i'm old

386
00:28:57,044 --> 00:29:02,444
i'm tired like i don't i don't have the capacity to try to do something around this uh but like

387
00:29:02,444 --> 00:29:07,064
whoever chooses to take that up, like they have my, my full hearted support, but, uh,

388
00:29:08,264 --> 00:29:11,984
it's becoming sadder and sadder to realizing that like, we're in a pretty desperate situation.

389
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And like we, and then like, nobody's coming to save us. And I think that's the big problem is

390
00:29:16,424 --> 00:29:22,684
we keep having this expectation that like another election, some new person, some new way of doing

391
00:29:22,684 --> 00:29:27,664
things. And like, it's about the actual apparatus of government itself at this point in time. And

392
00:29:27,664 --> 00:29:32,164
that, that again is why, like, I think you need to have radical approaches, like, uh, article five

393
00:29:32,164 --> 00:29:37,144
ratification because like we need to change up the structure of the federal government and so it's

394
00:29:37,144 --> 00:29:42,224
like uh the very first amendment to the united states constitution that was passed but actually

395
00:29:42,224 --> 00:29:46,304
never ratified so like it's not an amendment to the u.s constitution it's still in a weird

396
00:29:46,304 --> 00:29:51,504
quasi state where it could be ratified it's called article the first so i think it's passed i think

397
00:29:51,504 --> 00:29:56,644
like 12 states or something like that so if you got like another 25 states to ratify it like it

398
00:29:56,644 --> 00:30:01,944
would actually become law of the land in the united states and this explicitly stipulates that uh like

399
00:30:01,944 --> 00:30:05,764
no congressional member will ever represent more than 50,000 people at one time.

400
00:30:06,344 --> 00:30:10,604
So that would mean that the House of Representatives would now become like 6,000 people or something

401
00:30:10,604 --> 00:30:11,064
like that.

402
00:30:11,104 --> 00:30:14,864
And that would absolutely fuck up the federal government in a pretty extreme way.

403
00:30:15,344 --> 00:30:17,004
And like, let's fucking go.

404
00:30:17,204 --> 00:30:20,044
Like, that's what I want to see is that like, this thing is broken.

405
00:30:20,044 --> 00:30:24,424
So like, let's either break it the rest of the way or figure out a new way to organize

406
00:30:24,424 --> 00:30:24,744
ourselves.

407
00:30:25,024 --> 00:30:25,144
Yeah.

408
00:30:25,284 --> 00:30:28,584
So 6,000 reps would just trade gridlock where you can't get anything passed.

409
00:30:28,584 --> 00:30:35,184
or like we we would get like a a very interesting like multi-party thing that's starting to happen

410
00:30:35,184 --> 00:30:40,064
because like i think in the uk like the the house of commons i think it's like 2200 people or

411
00:30:40,064 --> 00:30:44,144
something like that it's like i think and the other one is like we need to integrate technology

412
00:30:44,144 --> 00:30:48,024
into this you know like trying to get trying to organize 2200 people to have a dialogue

413
00:30:48,024 --> 00:30:53,304
uh like in person like it's not going to happen but like we know of plenty of forms where people

414
00:30:53,304 --> 00:30:58,164
can have dialogues like that and there there are different technological ways to address all this

415
00:30:58,164 --> 00:31:02,304
that like that's the other thing is i think if we create new forms of governance integrating

416
00:31:02,304 --> 00:31:06,944
technology in a powerful way that uses cryptographic proofs could do something really

417
00:31:06,944 --> 00:31:12,364
powerful and so like i would love to see some sort of platform that uses no stir and voting

418
00:31:12,364 --> 00:31:18,184
and cryptographic proofs and other things to actually really create some new mechanism of

419
00:31:18,184 --> 00:31:22,444
consensus to really try to figure out what do people want and need and how are we going to go

420
00:31:22,444 --> 00:31:28,304
about doing that. Yeah. How does Bitcoin play into this in your mind? Like we essentially,

421
00:31:28,704 --> 00:31:34,144
so if all the things went how I wanted to, we would essentially use Article 5 of the Constitution

422
00:31:34,144 --> 00:31:39,284
and the very first amendment that would get passed would be end the Fed. So the Federal Reserve would

423
00:31:39,284 --> 00:31:44,624
be unilaterally ended through an amendment to the US Constitution. We would just refuse to pay

424
00:31:44,624 --> 00:31:49,584
any US debt. We'd cause a dollar to go into hyperinflation and every single state would pivot

425
00:31:49,584 --> 00:31:52,424
to having Bitcoin not only as their treasury,

426
00:31:52,964 --> 00:31:54,144
some would use as their currencies

427
00:31:54,144 --> 00:31:55,524
and others would actually issue

428
00:31:55,524 --> 00:31:57,564
their own state-based currency based upon that.

429
00:31:57,884 --> 00:31:59,844
These things would float between the various states

430
00:31:59,844 --> 00:32:01,744
in order for them to kind of find stability

431
00:32:01,744 --> 00:32:02,424
between each other.

432
00:32:02,504 --> 00:32:04,764
But like, I think through having states

433
00:32:04,764 --> 00:32:05,864
issue their own currency

434
00:32:05,864 --> 00:32:08,584
and using Bitcoin to backstop those currencies,

435
00:32:08,584 --> 00:32:10,324
I think would be a really powerful approach.

436
00:32:10,904 --> 00:32:12,724
Because again, like unless we actually address

437
00:32:12,724 --> 00:32:15,104
how money is being issued

438
00:32:15,104 --> 00:32:16,604
and the corruption that's around that,

439
00:32:16,744 --> 00:32:18,064
we're never going to solve this problem.

440
00:32:18,364 --> 00:32:18,484
Yeah.

441
00:32:18,484 --> 00:32:22,604
that's what hal finney envisioned in uh december 2010

442
00:32:22,604 --> 00:32:29,384
build a free banking system on bitcoin one you know most people don't know the wildcat era of

443
00:32:29,384 --> 00:32:34,064
banking in the united states between when uh andrew jackson ended the first bank of the united

444
00:32:34,064 --> 00:32:39,404
states between i think it was uh 1862 and the second bank of the united states was created that

445
00:32:39,404 --> 00:32:44,044
like this was an era where there was like 7 000 different free floating currencies that were

446
00:32:44,044 --> 00:32:48,884
issued by private institutions and like that's also the area of the greatest growth that happened

447
00:32:48,884 --> 00:32:55,064
in uh like the american economy so like while this seems like a wacky idea to us today like

448
00:32:55,064 --> 00:32:59,464
this is actually how it operated throughout most of american history that's one of the big problems

449
00:32:59,464 --> 00:33:07,124
is um it's a bit overplayed and cliche but it is apt it's like we're fish and water like there

450
00:33:07,124 --> 00:33:13,004
any anybody living today has never experienced that environment and so it's hard for people to

451
00:33:13,004 --> 00:33:16,344
get comfortable with taking the risks,

452
00:33:16,444 --> 00:33:18,624
take that leap and experiment

453
00:33:18,624 --> 00:33:20,804
with that type of monetary network.

454
00:33:21,684 --> 00:33:22,424
Yeah, and I mean, like,

455
00:33:22,504 --> 00:33:23,784
the other thing is, like,

456
00:33:23,824 --> 00:33:25,584
there's a very different form of life

457
00:33:25,584 --> 00:33:26,964
that could be available to us.

458
00:33:27,164 --> 00:33:28,584
You know, like, most people don't realize

459
00:33:28,584 --> 00:33:30,624
that, like, we don't actually have to live lives

460
00:33:30,624 --> 00:33:32,724
where you work at jobs that you hate

461
00:33:32,724 --> 00:33:33,704
for 40 hours a week

462
00:33:33,704 --> 00:33:35,144
trying to make some tech company

463
00:33:35,144 --> 00:33:36,124
slightly more effective.

464
00:33:36,504 --> 00:33:39,144
And it's, like, I recently read

465
00:33:39,144 --> 00:33:41,564
Dave Graber's essay on bullshit jobs.

466
00:33:41,704 --> 00:33:42,504
And, like, it just...

467
00:33:43,004 --> 00:33:46,784
I think he wrote it maybe a decade ago, but it was just really resounding today of that, like,

468
00:33:47,644 --> 00:33:51,924
I've met so many people recently who have jobs that they really hate, and they don't see any

469
00:33:51,924 --> 00:33:56,204
other way outside of it other than committing their lives to working at some corporation that

470
00:33:56,204 --> 00:34:01,684
they don't like. And trying to give them the empowerment to feel like they could go start a

471
00:34:01,684 --> 00:34:07,284
small business and be successful, really is kind of impossible for most people because of how

472
00:34:07,284 --> 00:34:13,124
destructive the currency has been, how much inflation has affected people and how difficult

473
00:34:13,124 --> 00:34:16,924
it really is to start a business. And I think if we were actually on something like a Bitcoin

474
00:34:16,924 --> 00:34:22,424
standard, it'd be a very different way for people to choose to live. And I think we could go back

475
00:34:22,424 --> 00:34:27,724
to having a number of much smaller businesses and industries that could really allow for us to break

476
00:34:27,724 --> 00:34:32,924
up these large corporate oligopolies and actually create something new and different for the American

477
00:34:32,924 --> 00:34:39,944
in public yeah i was having this conversation yesterday a story of this podcast and this

478
00:34:39,944 --> 00:34:45,504
business my own personal journey like i feel incredibly lucky i've got a bug uh and the

479
00:34:45,504 --> 00:34:51,484
lights above us but i feel incredibly lucky that uh there's something that's deeply ingrained i

480
00:34:51,484 --> 00:34:56,864
don't know if it's my genes or my soul or my psyche where i'm talking about having good genes

481
00:34:56,864 --> 00:35:04,384
but uh i could not do the corporate life like i had a good hedge i was working at a good fund

482
00:35:04,384 --> 00:35:09,524
trajectory to make good money was in a good position and just literally physically could

483
00:35:09,524 --> 00:35:14,664
not stand being in the cube pulling data from bloomberg splicing it up like following markets

484
00:35:14,664 --> 00:35:18,884
well i think i think for a lot of people it's the fish and water thing like they've known that

485
00:35:18,884 --> 00:35:25,244
their entire life they've never had an opportunity to really just be free and allow for themselves

486
00:35:25,244 --> 00:35:30,064
that opportunity and i think if they did have that opportunity uh like i've known a number of

487
00:35:30,064 --> 00:35:33,484
people that have done their sabbatical thing to like go travel the world or whatever and like

488
00:35:33,484 --> 00:35:38,804
essentially when they come back they realize they can't ever do that again and like that's really a

489
00:35:38,804 --> 00:35:43,924
reality i want to provide to more people it's like how do we make this a more creative open and free

490
00:35:43,924 --> 00:35:48,204
culture for everybody because like at the end of the day like this is the one life that we have to

491
00:35:48,204 --> 00:35:53,844
live and the fact that like we're in this culture where uh you know the idea of having a family with

492
00:35:53,844 --> 00:36:00,304
eight kids seems absurd to most people because of how expensive it would be and like what what a

493
00:36:00,304 --> 00:36:06,424
crime against humanity to really have created a world where the idea of a child being too expensive

494
00:36:06,424 --> 00:36:14,984
is a reality that most people live in did you see the stat out of the uk no this is very morbid

495
00:36:14,984 --> 00:36:21,004
for every hundred births in the uk well i believe it was in 2024 there was 48 abortions

496
00:36:21,004 --> 00:36:28,824
this like yeah and like it's it's interesting because i think charlie kirk kind of pointed out

497
00:36:28,824 --> 00:36:33,744
this dialogue that that he really stood around powerfully and like i think it's really important

498
00:36:33,744 --> 00:36:39,504
like uh a woman's body a woman's choice like that that's something that i think as a truism that

499
00:36:39,504 --> 00:36:44,404
trying to overcome would be too difficult but like i do think the consequences of that really need to

500
00:36:44,404 --> 00:36:50,984
be understood and that uh also like we've created a society that that becomes a very real issue for

501
00:36:50,984 --> 00:36:54,564
somebody if they're going to be a single mom having to look at like well how the hell am I

502
00:36:54,564 --> 00:36:58,224
going to provide for this child in a meaningful way and that's something that reflects on our

503
00:36:58,224 --> 00:37:05,164
culture as well and like it's it's really important to understand that the change in how

504
00:37:05,164 --> 00:37:11,484
like this issue is being dealt with has very much had like a demographic shift like in culture on

505
00:37:11,484 --> 00:37:17,244
its entirety that we're now really seeing the consequence of and that like there's a lot fewer

506
00:37:17,244 --> 00:37:22,244
people, there's a lot more individuals that have been imported in order to replace those people.

507
00:37:22,624 --> 00:37:28,944
And also, like, it's a really difficult issue. And I, again, like, I really appreciated Charlie

508
00:37:28,944 --> 00:37:33,964
Kirk after he was assassinated. I watched a number of his videos and, like, he had a very logical

509
00:37:33,964 --> 00:37:42,804
approach. In addition to the fact of that, like, I personally, like, I think children are a beautiful

510
00:37:42,804 --> 00:37:48,224
and extraordinary blessing and uh like seeing these cat videos of women celebrating their

511
00:37:48,224 --> 00:37:53,484
individualism of getting to like sleep in as late as they want or go to brunch that like this

512
00:37:53,484 --> 00:37:58,024
like this is a fulfilling i launched that video this morning too well and it was just like this

513
00:37:58,024 --> 00:38:03,744
is a fulfilling life for you and like like people were out there making fun of her and it was just

514
00:38:03,744 --> 00:38:08,184
like i feel really sad for her like she she'll never know the beauty of what it is to be woke

515
00:38:08,184 --> 00:38:13,284
up in the middle of night by your child who you pick up and they will snuggle into you and fall

516
00:38:13,284 --> 00:38:19,344
back asleep into your arms like that's that's a beautiful thing and the fact that this has been

517
00:38:19,344 --> 00:38:24,844
contorted in such a way that this is supposed to be something that that you're afraid of that you

518
00:38:24,844 --> 00:38:31,044
don't want like that's really alarming to me and like i i don't know how we correct that and like

519
00:38:31,044 --> 00:38:37,644
i don't i don't think there's really easy answers here but i would really appreciate if we had a

520
00:38:37,644 --> 00:38:41,744
society and culture that would really support people if they were going to be single mothers

521
00:38:41,744 --> 00:38:46,164
or whatever, but also the entire conversation about where we're at and like how and why

522
00:38:46,164 --> 00:38:47,884
these things come about is really important.

523
00:38:48,784 --> 00:39:00,624
Well, I think it really, it does come back to the money because, excuse me, I, no, no,

524
00:39:00,624 --> 00:39:07,564
when I was in Chicago, I, I volunteered at a inner city lacrosse program opportunity.

525
00:39:07,644 --> 00:39:12,224
with lacrosse and schools or outreach with lacrosse and schools excuse me and uh so i would go to the

526
00:39:12,224 --> 00:39:18,944
west side and south side in chicago and got to see the sort of ramifications of the welfare state

527
00:39:18,944 --> 00:39:24,584
up close and personal and there's a bunch of kids being raised by their aunts and their grandmothers

528
00:39:24,584 --> 00:39:32,104
and um the father wasn't there and i mean thomas soul has explained this pretty pretty cogently

529
00:39:32,104 --> 00:39:36,984
in my mind like if you replace the family the nuclear family with the state like this is the

530
00:39:36,984 --> 00:39:42,864
ramifications of it. And I think that's happened not only in inner cities, lower economic wrongs,

531
00:39:42,884 --> 00:39:46,804
but now it's pumping up to your point, like the cat lady sitting there, like she was told to go

532
00:39:46,804 --> 00:39:52,824
be a girl boss. And the conditions of the economy are such that you have to be forced into the

533
00:39:52,824 --> 00:39:56,904
workplace because you have to, you have to make enough money to, to suscits because inflation

534
00:39:56,904 --> 00:40:05,764
and debasement is accelerating, um, year after year, decade after decade. And going back to my

535
00:40:05,764 --> 00:40:10,344
story about being able to quit that job. Part of what gave me the comfort of that is like,

536
00:40:10,364 --> 00:40:15,844
I knew I had some Bitcoin savings and I quit that job, got another job in New York. Similar

537
00:40:15,844 --> 00:40:20,204
thing happened. Worked there for two years and then hated it, quit. Thought I was going to get

538
00:40:20,204 --> 00:40:25,644
a job in two weeks. Went up being unemployed for 18 months before I started this newsletter and

539
00:40:25,644 --> 00:40:33,084
podcast. And I spent a lot of time that 18 months in Brooklyn, just like really thinking deeply

540
00:40:33,084 --> 00:40:36,244
about what I want to do, studying Bitcoin very intensely.

541
00:40:36,664 --> 00:40:41,364
I think it was in a monk-like fashion for like a year, year and a half.

542
00:40:41,704 --> 00:40:44,804
And going to all the Bitcoin meetups in New York and trying to get jobs,

543
00:40:44,924 --> 00:40:47,884
but I think subconsciously really knowing like this is what I want to do.

544
00:40:48,164 --> 00:40:52,844
And then the timing struck in June of 2017.

545
00:40:52,844 --> 00:40:54,704
I was like, okay, the price of Bitcoin is going up.

546
00:40:54,904 --> 00:41:01,664
My dad had a somewhat serendipitous conversation with me.

547
00:41:01,664 --> 00:41:07,304
I was down in my dumps, down on the rocks, probably rock bottom for my life.

548
00:41:07,884 --> 00:41:11,124
Though I did have the savings, I was like, okay, I just got married.

549
00:41:11,404 --> 00:41:12,964
I don't have a job. I feel like a loser.

550
00:41:13,104 --> 00:41:14,744
My dad was like, you should write about Bitcoin.

551
00:41:14,944 --> 00:41:15,964
You wrote at the fund.

552
00:41:16,424 --> 00:41:19,344
You know a lot about Bitcoin and started the newsletter.

553
00:41:19,684 --> 00:41:20,524
And here we are today.

554
00:41:21,164 --> 00:41:24,564
But I would not have been able to really do that, to go through that journey

555
00:41:24,564 --> 00:41:28,884
if I did not have this financial backstop that I could pull into

556
00:41:28,884 --> 00:41:45,866
to survive during that period and really have the time to think about what I wanted to do Yeah and like you this is your story of the Dark Night of the Soul of you like going into the dark night that is the nihilism of this society and going through your own true angst of like what

557
00:41:45,866 --> 00:41:51,786
is it that i actually want to do with my life is the time that i sell myself again and and go find

558
00:41:51,786 --> 00:41:57,066
some firm that i can prostitute myself to and have them rob me of 60 hours of my life that

559
00:41:57,066 --> 00:42:02,506
i can go in before the sun comes up and leave after the sun goes down and maybe get to see my

560
00:42:02,506 --> 00:42:07,506
wife for a half hour before I go to bed and do it all over again? Or is there something different?

561
00:42:08,006 --> 00:42:12,626
And I think for a lot of people, even being asked the question if there's something different,

562
00:42:13,206 --> 00:42:19,286
is an impossibility because even if they have money in the bank saved, like that money is

563
00:42:19,286 --> 00:42:26,966
dwindling quicker than ever. And that there's sort of a schizophrenic and paranoid worldview that

564
00:42:26,966 --> 00:42:31,686
happens under a fiat currency regime where all the money can evaporate, the bank can steal it,

565
00:42:31,686 --> 00:42:34,086
like any number of things that can happen.

566
00:42:34,446 --> 00:42:36,066
Whereas at least for me, very similar,

567
00:42:36,806 --> 00:42:40,246
having my Bitcoin savings as a vehicle that I know,

568
00:42:40,366 --> 00:42:42,086
hey, like this is safe and secure.

569
00:42:42,266 --> 00:42:43,726
Nobody can take it away from me.

570
00:42:44,246 --> 00:42:46,106
It should deflate over time

571
00:42:46,106 --> 00:42:48,526
if all of the things work correctly.

572
00:42:49,526 --> 00:42:51,086
That gave me the confidence too

573
00:42:51,086 --> 00:42:52,486
to actually chase my own dreams

574
00:42:52,486 --> 00:42:53,826
and actually say, you know,

575
00:42:53,866 --> 00:42:55,746
I want to do something different for myself.

576
00:42:55,886 --> 00:42:58,346
I don't want to continue to, you know,

577
00:42:58,366 --> 00:42:59,806
work at the bank that I'm working at.

578
00:42:59,866 --> 00:43:01,666
And I'd like to strike out and do something bigger.

579
00:43:01,686 --> 00:43:06,986
and so it's part of a dualism of that like having the confidence and conviction to know and understand

580
00:43:06,986 --> 00:43:12,186
what bitcoin is is one half of the coin but the other side is is then having the conviction and

581
00:43:12,186 --> 00:43:16,566
steam and yourself to say there's something better out there for me that i could actually make for

582
00:43:16,566 --> 00:43:21,306
myself that could be meaningful and i think like this is part of the mission that we're sort of on

583
00:43:21,306 --> 00:43:26,286
that we've been on for a while is trying to get people to understand bitcoin and so like i'm very

584
00:43:26,286 --> 00:43:31,006
big into a pedagogical approach of bitcoin is that like you have to be willing to understand

585
00:43:31,006 --> 00:43:36,826
that for yourself first and actually take a moment to look around and you know after the one fish

586
00:43:36,826 --> 00:43:41,086
swims by and says hey how's the water this morning boys to actually look at your friend and ask the

587
00:43:41,086 --> 00:43:47,466
question of like well what's what's water and actually understand that like we are in sort of

588
00:43:47,466 --> 00:43:52,646
a fictionalized reality that causes for people to go into this prattle and paranoia of that like you

589
00:43:52,646 --> 00:43:57,526
need to work a 40-hour job a week and save money in this way contribute your 401k when that's

590
00:43:57,526 --> 00:43:58,946
That's not actually true.

591
00:43:59,226 --> 00:44:01,106
You could do something different for yourself,

592
00:44:01,106 --> 00:44:03,526
but that requires the confidence and conviction

593
00:44:03,526 --> 00:44:06,006
for you to actually ask the most meaningful questions

594
00:44:06,006 --> 00:44:07,406
to yourself to engage in that.

595
00:44:07,766 --> 00:44:07,886
Yeah.

596
00:44:08,926 --> 00:44:10,826
And I mean, we've been talking a lot

597
00:44:10,826 --> 00:44:11,786
over the last couple of days,

598
00:44:11,846 --> 00:44:13,106
like the state of Bitcoin itself

599
00:44:13,106 --> 00:44:16,186
and people's understanding of Bitcoin.

600
00:44:16,306 --> 00:44:17,146
How would you describe it?

601
00:44:18,026 --> 00:44:19,866
I think it's atrophied over the last year.

602
00:44:19,966 --> 00:44:21,106
Like I think the Bitcoin treasury

603
00:44:21,106 --> 00:44:23,846
and number go up thing has been pretty detrimental

604
00:44:23,846 --> 00:44:25,746
to the dialogue of Bitcoin on a whole.

605
00:44:25,746 --> 00:44:30,326
And people have been treating it just as a banking apparatus to like make more money.

606
00:44:30,506 --> 00:44:31,866
And I think that's sort of dangerous.

607
00:44:31,966 --> 00:44:38,806
And particularly here at the conference that we're at, I've talked to a number of people that are like, no, it's as the Bitcoin white paper says it.

608
00:44:39,026 --> 00:44:40,646
Bitcoin is pure, pure cash.

609
00:44:40,646 --> 00:44:44,306
Like we need to make it a payment network for people all around the globe.

610
00:44:44,546 --> 00:44:50,826
And that there are people that live in the global south who like just being able to have a payments rail is the most meaningful thing.

611
00:44:50,826 --> 00:44:58,826
and again like i number go up's nice but like i i don't see it as being either number go up or we

612
00:44:58,826 --> 00:45:03,266
get a payments network like these things work synergistically together and i think we need to

613
00:45:03,266 --> 00:45:08,026
return to the dialogue of that like bitcoin is truly independent freedom money and people need

614
00:45:08,026 --> 00:45:12,986
to get on board with that and understand like particularly the zoomers that like you need to

615
00:45:12,986 --> 00:45:19,426
empower yourself against a system that has chosen to abuse you and enslave you and bitcoin is a real

616
00:45:19,426 --> 00:45:25,746
exit for you and furthermore like people do crazy shit like take out debt and renege on it because

617
00:45:25,746 --> 00:45:30,406
they can hold bitcoin and just walk away from all of it i'm not saying that's right or correct but

618
00:45:30,406 --> 00:45:36,126
like there are ways that you can empower yourself against a system that wants to abuse and fleece

619
00:45:36,126 --> 00:45:42,006
you sam hyde most famously i think have you ever seen that video no it's like sam hyde i think in

620
00:45:42,006 --> 00:45:47,106
like 2016 talking about like here's what i did i took out 30 grand in credit card debt bought

621
00:45:47,106 --> 00:45:49,106
Bitcoin. Negged on it.

622
00:45:49,146 --> 00:45:50,866
They call me and they're like, hey,

623
00:45:50,926 --> 00:45:52,746
you need to pay off this balance.

624
00:45:52,886 --> 00:45:55,106
And he's like, okay, I don't have enough money. Can I pay you

625
00:45:55,106 --> 00:45:56,566
like $2 a month? They're like, yeah.

626
00:45:57,126 --> 00:45:59,086
And he's speculative attack

627
00:45:59,086 --> 00:46:00,606
for the credit system, essentially.

628
00:46:01,086 --> 00:46:02,966
And look like, do what you want to

629
00:46:02,966 --> 00:46:04,726
for yourself and make the risk

630
00:46:04,726 --> 00:46:06,766
that you want to. Yeah, not financial advice.

631
00:46:06,946 --> 00:46:08,726
Yeah, not financial advice, but like

632
00:46:08,726 --> 00:46:10,486
it's important to understand like

633
00:46:10,486 --> 00:46:12,846
once you have that Bitcoin and if you

634
00:46:12,846 --> 00:46:14,926
secure it correctly, people can not take

635
00:46:14,926 --> 00:46:17,066
it from you. Like that's something really important

636
00:46:17,066 --> 00:46:23,146
and also like if people are like well it's so unethical to renege on it like i'm sorry but like

637
00:46:23,146 --> 00:46:29,686
fuck these people these are super abusive financial institutions who exist off of fleecing people and

638
00:46:29,686 --> 00:46:34,946
to be clear like the u.s government's in the same fucking position right now 88 of tax receipts are

639
00:46:34,946 --> 00:46:41,206
going to like paying this unpayable fucking debt so like at the end of the day like we're stuck in

640
00:46:41,206 --> 00:46:45,906
a debt-based fiat monetary system that is not going to work out for anyone at the end of the day

641
00:46:45,906 --> 00:46:53,286
and people really need to understand that like this system is going to go away at some point

642
00:46:53,286 --> 00:46:58,446
it's not about if it's about when and you should start setting yourself up and preparing for a

643
00:46:58,446 --> 00:47:04,906
different life you know and same thing like uh like urban cultures are really interesting and

644
00:47:04,906 --> 00:47:10,426
innovative but like they're all based around this particular sort of fantasy that like i think is

645
00:47:10,426 --> 00:47:15,546
pretty disconnected from reality on a whole at this point in time and i think if we're able to

646
00:47:15,546 --> 00:47:20,206
get more and more people onto a Bitcoin standard. Like there, there's a real way that culture can

647
00:47:20,206 --> 00:47:25,466
shift in a powerful and thoughtful way that isn't going to be a giant crash, but it's actually going

648
00:47:25,466 --> 00:47:30,766
to create for a solution that I don't think anybody can really predict. But this is only

649
00:47:30,766 --> 00:47:35,686
if people are really going to start thinking for themselves, like stop believing that all of these

650
00:47:35,686 --> 00:47:40,286
different authoritative figures out there, including us, like have the solutions for you.

651
00:47:40,506 --> 00:47:44,226
Like you need to sit down and reflect for yourself about what's the life that you want for yourself

652
00:47:44,226 --> 00:47:46,306
and what can empower you in that?

653
00:47:46,306 --> 00:47:56,546
Yeah, I know we were talking about it yesterday and my belief is that for the up return thing,

654
00:47:56,546 --> 00:48:03,506
it's like I'm just, it's a conversation like I don't feel there's a lot of value engaging in

655
00:48:03,506 --> 00:48:07,186
for myself particularly, but to your point, like don't believe in us. That's been one of the most

656
00:48:07,186 --> 00:48:13,906
disconcerting things about this debate within Bitcoin is the number of people that are literally

657
00:48:13,906 --> 00:48:19,186
tagging me and hopping in my comments on youtube and on x being like what do you think about this

658
00:48:19,186 --> 00:48:24,146
like what should we do it's like i you should not be asking me you have to decide for yourself like

659
00:48:24,146 --> 00:48:27,566
that's what bitcoin is all about well and also people are getting pissed at me because i'm not

660
00:48:27,566 --> 00:48:32,326
responding i'm like you're missing the point like you should not be asking me for this well and also

661
00:48:32,326 --> 00:48:38,506
on that point like people who are doing that tomorrow like fuck you but like like you're not

662
00:48:38,506 --> 00:48:45,446
entitled to a response from him and even in that his response doesn't fucking matter like go do the

663
00:48:45,446 --> 00:48:50,506
fucking work and figuring out for yourself and also like my first tweet when i got back onto twitter

664
00:48:50,506 --> 00:48:55,586
was about this op return debate and how much it fucking frustrated me because people aren't reading

665
00:48:55,586 --> 00:49:00,606
between the lines uh they're not understanding the greater technical debate uh and also like

666
00:49:00,606 --> 00:49:05,006
they're not understanding the ideology that's being injected into it and it just it makes me

667
00:49:05,006 --> 00:49:09,746
really fucking angry because like this is a difficult technical issue to understand and also

668
00:49:09,746 --> 00:49:16,966
it's not fucking cut and dry and people that are behaving as if it is like the the hubris really

669
00:49:16,966 --> 00:49:22,306
upsets me and like at some point can you fucking stop and actually self-reflect enough to go maybe

670
00:49:22,306 --> 00:49:27,086
there's something i'm not seeing here maybe i shouldn't be nearly as confident as i am about

671
00:49:27,086 --> 00:49:32,526
the approach here and so i'd really encourage you if you don't understand this great it means there's

672
00:49:32,526 --> 00:49:36,786
more for you to learn about Bitcoin. And just like, as long as you and I have been in it, I don't

673
00:49:36,786 --> 00:49:40,846
think either of us would be able to assert ourselves as being experts in Bitcoin in any way.

674
00:49:41,306 --> 00:49:46,206
I mean, I fucking became friends with him, sat next to a core developer here for several months.

675
00:49:46,206 --> 00:49:52,086
And even he was hesitant and saying, despite the fact that that he's involved deeply in change and

676
00:49:52,086 --> 00:49:56,966
like developing Bitcoin core, that he didn't feel confident about being an expert in it.

677
00:49:57,046 --> 00:50:02,146
And it's because Bitcoin is a huge project that involves a lot of moving pieces. And it requires

678
00:50:02,146 --> 00:50:09,166
There's decades of deep and intensive study that even people that would be considered experts by most don't feel that way themselves.

679
00:50:09,506 --> 00:50:14,986
So, like, humble yourself enough to say, maybe I'm wrong about this, including the Bitcoin project on a whole.

680
00:50:15,266 --> 00:50:16,066
That's super important.

681
00:50:16,066 --> 00:50:21,966
So you don't fall down the fucking Zcash rabbit hole and go, this is the new solution that Bitcoin couldn't do.

682
00:50:22,626 --> 00:50:24,806
You know, maybe that's true.

683
00:50:24,806 --> 00:50:27,626
But do all the fucking work to figure it out for yourself.

684
00:50:27,626 --> 00:50:35,146
And at the end, you'll probably have a conclusion that you don't need to go tag Marty on X to ask his opinion about this shit.

685
00:50:35,346 --> 00:50:35,466
Yeah.

686
00:50:36,286 --> 00:50:39,186
No, I think I am not an expert.

687
00:50:39,366 --> 00:50:45,086
And that's why I think I've learned enough being in Bitcoin for as long as I have to like know what I don't know.

688
00:50:45,806 --> 00:50:51,866
I'm not going to go out there and pontificate one way or the other in this particular debate because I know that I don't know everything.

689
00:50:52,306 --> 00:50:55,866
And I think that's I call it my Bitcoin Zen.

690
00:50:55,866 --> 00:50:59,206
It's like you just got to it's like surfing when you fall off a wave.

691
00:50:59,306 --> 00:51:00,706
You just got to go ragdoll and be like, OK.

692
00:51:01,306 --> 00:51:01,506
Yeah.

693
00:51:01,646 --> 00:51:01,846
Yeah.

694
00:51:01,906 --> 00:51:03,726
I tried to catch something too big for me.

695
00:51:04,126 --> 00:51:05,726
I got punished for it.

696
00:51:05,786 --> 00:51:06,306
And that's OK.

697
00:51:06,646 --> 00:51:06,846
Yeah.

698
00:51:07,166 --> 00:51:08,506
And like this thing plays out bigger, too.

699
00:51:08,566 --> 00:51:13,466
Same thing with anybody who's out there making the confident price calls about whatever it is.

700
00:51:13,526 --> 00:51:14,486
Like, I'm sorry.

701
00:51:14,546 --> 00:51:16,326
Like, you don't have a fucking crystal ball.

702
00:51:16,406 --> 00:51:16,986
You don't know.

703
00:51:17,366 --> 00:51:18,226
The price goes up.

704
00:51:18,306 --> 00:51:19,386
The price goes down.

705
00:51:19,846 --> 00:51:21,486
And like this is the game theory of Bitcoin.

706
00:51:21,626 --> 00:51:24,786
Now, like, at the end of the day, I know the number of units that exist.

707
00:51:24,786 --> 00:51:27,326
I know the amount of energy and hashing power that's going in.

708
00:51:27,426 --> 00:51:29,306
Those are true things that I can know.

709
00:51:29,986 --> 00:51:41,366
And based off of the rest of the economy, when I look at Bitcoin as a savings vehicle and how it operates as a payments rails, I feel way better about that than anything else out there that exists.

710
00:51:41,926 --> 00:51:46,666
And so as a value investor, Bitcoin is my chosen savings vehicle.

711
00:51:46,926 --> 00:51:48,006
And that's what I'm going to keep doing.

712
00:51:48,326 --> 00:51:53,266
It's funny to watch people really freak out about this price movement.

713
00:51:53,526 --> 00:51:54,206
What's happening?

714
00:51:54,206 --> 00:52:02,446
oh my god $90,000 bitcoin it's so horrible like bro like rewind the tape a little bit look at where

715
00:52:02,446 --> 00:52:08,666
we're at a few years ago like things are going to work out it's going to be great um but also like

716
00:52:08,666 --> 00:52:13,906
we can't just sit on our haunches and say number go up forever like it's important that there's an

717
00:52:13,906 --> 00:52:20,506
ongoing pedagogical conversation with people in your lives to actually get them to do their best

718
00:52:20,506 --> 00:52:25,326
to understand what Bitcoin is, why it's different from crypto on a whole, why these other currencies

719
00:52:25,326 --> 00:52:30,126
aren't a solution, why we can't rely on the government to try to correct these problems

720
00:52:30,126 --> 00:52:34,626
for ourselves and why we really need to have a neutral money that the globe can use for

721
00:52:34,626 --> 00:52:35,626
themselves.

722
00:52:35,626 --> 00:52:36,626
Yeah.

723
00:52:36,626 --> 00:52:41,946
And to your point about, obviously, I think it's objective last year, year and a half

724
00:52:41,946 --> 00:52:48,086
has been really focused on these treasury companies, number go up and the sort of free

725
00:52:48,086 --> 00:52:52,966
to money, peer to peer digital cash as a narrative has been sort of pushed to the wayside.

726
00:52:52,966 --> 00:52:57,006
But I think if you're paying attention to what's actually being built in terms of the

727
00:52:57,006 --> 00:53:03,346
infrastructure, whether it's second layer subsystem protocols, as Steve Lee was describing

728
00:53:03,346 --> 00:53:09,446
to me yesterday, or what something like Block just enabled for their Square point of sale

729
00:53:09,446 --> 00:53:14,786
systems, like if you squint and know where to look, there is very exciting, truly cypherpunk

730
00:53:14,786 --> 00:53:17,966
digital cash infrastructure being built out.

731
00:53:18,066 --> 00:53:21,066
And I think we just need to do a better job of highlighting

732
00:53:21,066 --> 00:53:23,686
and pushing that to the fore of the conversation.

733
00:53:24,466 --> 00:53:24,706
Absolutely.

734
00:53:25,006 --> 00:53:28,106
And like I, these are sort of the ironic cycles

735
00:53:28,106 --> 00:53:29,986
that Bitcoin continuously goes through

736
00:53:29,986 --> 00:53:32,386
that I really appreciate is that like,

737
00:53:32,886 --> 00:53:35,286
despite the fact that things feel kind of stagnant

738
00:53:35,286 --> 00:53:36,586
is like actually under the hood,

739
00:53:36,686 --> 00:53:37,926
there's been huge developments.

740
00:53:37,926 --> 00:53:39,986
And so seeing what's going on with eCash

741
00:53:39,986 --> 00:53:41,366
has been really exciting

742
00:53:41,366 --> 00:53:42,746
and all the different applications

743
00:53:42,746 --> 00:53:44,526
and ways that people are using that.

744
00:53:44,786 --> 00:54:02,446
And it's a really powerful mechanism and it has really great privacy protecting features that like, and I think this is going to continually happen is me and Jesse talked about this at length once of that, like, we think all of the cryptography that Bitcoin needs to become a massively successful project is already baked into pie.

745
00:54:02,446 --> 00:54:10,986
A lot of it's just undiscovered, very similar to like, or not even undiscovered, but we haven't just taken the various pieces and kind of applied them or utilized.

746
00:54:11,306 --> 00:54:13,186
Yeah. And so like e-cash is a great thing.

747
00:54:13,186 --> 00:54:19,306
This is a Chami, an idea from the 1980s that just got reapplied to Bitcoin in a new and innovative way.

748
00:54:19,906 --> 00:54:23,106
And so there are various puzzle pieces that people have and fit together.

749
00:54:23,326 --> 00:54:37,166
In addition to like, there's actually like a pretty small cohort of people that are working on these projects because very similar to like working on a jet engine or something.

750
00:54:37,306 --> 00:54:40,906
Very few people are willing to actually lift the hood and look at what's going on underneath it.

751
00:54:40,906 --> 00:54:48,486
But once you start tinkering with it and giving yourself permission to mess with it and try things with it, you can learn this stuff.

752
00:54:48,666 --> 00:54:59,646
And so I'd really encourage anybody who is really interested in Bitcoin, start playing with it under the hood and encouraging yourself to do developmental work or get involved in different ways.

753
00:54:59,846 --> 00:55:00,806
You can do it.

754
00:55:00,826 --> 00:55:02,546
And we need other people that are involved with it.

755
00:55:02,846 --> 00:55:07,406
And as these discoveries are made, there's going to be more and more opportunities.

756
00:55:07,406 --> 00:55:12,166
And so eCash is just one of many new things that are going to sort of change how Bitcoin

757
00:55:12,166 --> 00:55:15,206
operates on a number of levels.

758
00:55:15,206 --> 00:55:18,506
And so I ultimately think that like stuff's still exciting.

759
00:55:18,506 --> 00:55:19,806
The mission's still here.

760
00:55:19,806 --> 00:55:24,606
We're still going to win and just like chill out.

761
00:55:24,606 --> 00:55:25,606
Yeah.

762
00:55:25,606 --> 00:55:27,366
And like focus, like you mentioned Zcash earlier.

763
00:55:27,366 --> 00:55:32,766
It's a very frustrating narrative, especially if you've been around long enough to understand

764
00:55:32,808 --> 00:55:35,948
Dynamics, which brought Zcash to the market

765
00:55:35,948 --> 00:55:40,748
and the narrative that they're running with,

766
00:55:40,828 --> 00:55:42,008
oh, Bitcoin's not private enough.

767
00:55:42,068 --> 00:55:43,628
But it's like, you just mentioned eCash.

768
00:55:43,888 --> 00:55:46,868
You can push privacy to second layers,

769
00:55:46,988 --> 00:55:48,248
whether that's Lightning, eCash,

770
00:55:48,428 --> 00:55:49,908
Liquid with confidential transactions,

771
00:55:50,048 --> 00:55:50,788
whatever it may be.

772
00:55:51,268 --> 00:55:52,448
But then on-chain too,

773
00:55:52,588 --> 00:55:54,408
like to your point about underutilized,

774
00:55:54,988 --> 00:55:57,288
I guess there's cryptography involved

775
00:55:57,288 --> 00:55:57,928
to a certain extent,

776
00:55:58,008 --> 00:55:59,908
but like underutilized transaction batching

777
00:55:59,908 --> 00:56:00,688
with PayJoin.

778
00:56:00,688 --> 00:56:07,748
like yeah we can we can bitcoin it will be a transparent ledger and you will know that

779
00:56:07,748 --> 00:56:13,288
utxos are going from one address to another but you can construct transaction batching in a way

780
00:56:13,288 --> 00:56:18,688
where it's really hard to tell who owns what address and payjoin it's something i've been

781
00:56:18,688 --> 00:56:23,448
passionate about for years and i think with the work that dan gould and others working on the

782
00:56:23,448 --> 00:56:26,748
payjoin development kit have been doing over the last three years specifically has been incredible

783
00:56:26,748 --> 00:56:32,308
and now I think it's time to make the narrative push for the exchanges in the space,

784
00:56:32,368 --> 00:56:36,988
the large transaction batchers, the largest transaction batchers that exist within the

785
00:56:36,988 --> 00:56:41,848
industry to really implement this and just position it in a way like, hey, you're running

786
00:56:41,848 --> 00:56:46,868
a business, you want to cut costs and be as efficient as possible for your shareholders

787
00:56:46,868 --> 00:56:50,088
and not only your shareholders, but the Bitcoin network itself.

788
00:56:50,088 --> 00:56:54,708
Like, it's a superior way of batching transactions that you should implement.

789
00:56:54,708 --> 00:57:01,868
yeah and also like on that note like uh it's very clear that governments are against this kind of

790
00:57:01,868 --> 00:57:06,188
technology that they are going to try to spook people out of using them and seeing what happened

791
00:57:06,188 --> 00:57:13,328
to keen on it is really uh sad and we should all be outraged and horrified by it and uh we really

792
00:57:13,328 --> 00:57:17,248
need to try to stand behind the samurai devs in the same way that we stand stood behind ross like

793
00:57:17,248 --> 00:57:24,128
it's important to understand what what happened to him was horrific wrong uh and frankly should

794
00:57:24,128 --> 00:57:29,988
should be a bill yeah you know and like this is this is really unfair across the board and we need

795
00:57:29,988 --> 00:57:35,708
to figure out how and why is our government so against us having the freedom to transact and

796
00:57:35,708 --> 00:57:39,548
privacy within that because like this is what this is really about is a war against privacy

797
00:57:39,548 --> 00:57:46,368
and we should be able to as businesses say hey i care about my users privacy enough and about my

798
00:57:46,368 --> 00:57:51,028
shareholders making enough profit that i should be able to integrate pay join that that we're not

799
00:57:51,028 --> 00:57:55,808
violating anybody by doing this and we're protecting people by ensuring them to have

800
00:57:55,808 --> 00:58:02,348
privacy so like where and why is this conversation going wrong and again this goes back to like the

801
00:58:02,348 --> 00:58:07,348
political thing is that like we have this class of fucking dinosaurs who don't understand this

802
00:58:07,348 --> 00:58:12,308
technology in any meaningful way and they get keyed up on the exact same argument from the

803
00:58:12,308 --> 00:58:19,368
first crypto wars of that this is about preventing uh child pornography and terrorism and all the

804
00:58:19,368 --> 00:58:24,848
bad shit meanwhile like these motherfuckers won't actually release the goddamn epstein files because

805
00:58:24,848 --> 00:58:28,408
they're afraid of the way that it's going to implicate everyone in government who is actually

806
00:58:28,408 --> 00:58:34,428
doing these very real crimes and like this is sort of yeah i'm just i'm just really upset and

807
00:58:34,428 --> 00:58:39,228
disappointed at our government right now and i wish there was a real way to push back against

808
00:58:39,228 --> 00:58:43,808
these people and there isn't from a political standpoint and that's one of the reasons why i

809
00:58:43,808 --> 00:58:48,348
own bitcoin is because like this is one of the very few ways that we have to have personal political

810
00:58:48,348 --> 00:58:54,328
empowerment against a system that's highly abusive across the board so yeah and

811
00:58:54,328 --> 00:59:01,708
at what point does corporate civil disobedience need to become a thing like going back to the

812
00:59:01,708 --> 00:59:06,528
page one thing like in my mind it's like it is literally just a way of batching transactions that

813
00:59:06,528 --> 00:59:15,508
is enabled by the protocol and the software kits built on top of it like there's literally nothing

814
00:59:15,508 --> 00:59:17,508
stopping you from hitting the button that says,

815
00:59:17,628 --> 00:59:19,548
okay, here's how we're going to batch transactions now.

816
00:59:20,168 --> 00:59:22,308
And to answer that question,

817
00:59:22,388 --> 00:59:24,868
is that like, I think corporate civil disobedience

818
00:59:24,868 --> 00:59:27,428
is kind of the apex of what we need right now.

819
00:59:27,488 --> 00:59:29,168
It's like, we need courageous CEOs

820
00:59:29,168 --> 00:59:31,468
that are going to integrate these things.

821
00:59:31,788 --> 00:59:34,768
And to be clear, the feds are probably going to come after you.

822
00:59:34,908 --> 00:59:35,948
And when they do that, you go,

823
00:59:36,048 --> 00:59:38,028
I will destroy my fucking business

824
00:59:38,028 --> 00:59:40,748
and allow for myself to go to prison about this stuff

825
00:59:40,748 --> 00:59:42,028
and really stand against you guys,

826
00:59:42,028 --> 00:59:42,928
because this is wrong.

827
00:59:43,128 --> 00:59:44,488
And we need to have,

828
00:59:44,488 --> 00:59:50,188
like America is supposed to be a country that part of its founding principles is the pursuit

829
00:59:50,188 --> 00:59:56,068
of life, liberty and happiness. And being able to have a business and protect your users is

830
00:59:56,068 --> 01:00:01,988
meaningful. Like we shouldn't have to continually kowtow to governments over and over based off of

831
01:00:01,988 --> 01:00:07,548
their prattle and paranoia that is non-existent. And meanwhile, in the background, like they're

832
01:00:07,548 --> 01:00:13,068
the people that are doing these actual crimes and getting away with it. You know, like if we want to

833
01:00:13,068 --> 01:00:17,148
talk about currency laundering like let's go back to fucking pelosi and the kind of shit that she's

834
01:00:17,148 --> 01:00:22,588
doing like this this is really disgusting and upsetting and we need to start talking more about

835
01:00:22,588 --> 01:00:28,728
how to to actively resist these people and again like i don't know maybe we need to start organizing

836
01:00:28,728 --> 01:00:33,428
bitcoiners in a more meaningful and thoughtful fashion other than the sort of haphazard approach

837
01:00:33,428 --> 01:00:37,928
that we've taken so far again i don't know what that looks like but maybe we need to have something

838
01:00:37,928 --> 01:00:45,728
like that why would you describe it as haphazard uh like there isn't any sort of organizing principle

839
01:00:45,728 --> 01:00:50,308
that like has us you know outside of sort of all of our unofficial contacts that we have with each

840
01:00:50,308 --> 01:00:55,788
other there isn't like a larger umbrella organization that has has us all working

841
01:00:55,788 --> 01:01:00,048
collaboratively together and like i have really strong hopes that like somebody can develop some

842
01:01:00,048 --> 01:01:05,088
protocol on nostril that we can actually use to start figuring out like who are bitcoiners that

843
01:01:05,088 --> 01:01:08,108
are really part of this whole thing that we're participating in.

844
01:01:08,208 --> 01:01:14,088
And like, we've all sort of been refugees from, you know, first Bitcoin talk, then Reddit,

845
01:01:14,308 --> 01:01:15,688
then to X and now to Noster.

846
01:01:16,048 --> 01:01:19,528
And like, at what point do we say, like, this is really going to be our home base.

847
01:01:19,528 --> 01:01:23,848
This is really the way that we're going to operate and organize with each other and know

848
01:01:23,848 --> 01:01:28,488
who's who within the bunch of people and be able to actually start having real conversations

849
01:01:28,488 --> 01:01:33,348
about like, how do we create our political power together as a real entity, as opposed

850
01:01:33,348 --> 01:01:39,328
to again what i would call the haphazard approach yeah and maybe that's a fool's errand and maybe

851
01:01:39,328 --> 01:01:45,748
i'm totally mistaken but well i feel like the the root of the haphazard approach is probably

852
01:01:45,748 --> 01:01:50,528
seeped in this idea that bitcoin is this money for enemies and like it's this apolitical neutral

853
01:01:50,528 --> 01:01:56,928
thing that um we can all sort of anchor into and benefit from but at the end of the day

854
01:01:56,928 --> 01:02:10,706
it not any individual thing It not in the possession of any individual the network itself And I think there this embedded apprehension

855
01:02:10,706 --> 01:02:13,606
to trying to do something like you're describing

856
01:02:13,606 --> 01:02:14,266
because it's like,

857
01:02:14,306 --> 01:02:16,586
oh, it's against the ethos of the protocol itself.

858
01:02:17,206 --> 01:02:20,766
And I think the concern and danger of that is real,

859
01:02:20,926 --> 01:02:22,726
but also I've always been the one of that,

860
01:02:23,046 --> 01:02:26,286
I've always objected to the idea of the apoliticalness

861
01:02:26,286 --> 01:02:28,306
because there's an interesting turnabout of that.

862
01:02:28,306 --> 01:02:32,626
because Bitcoin is money for everybody, there is a way to see it as being apolitical.

863
01:02:33,246 --> 01:02:40,126
But the truth is, we live in a fiat world where the literal word fiat is by decree. That decree

864
01:02:40,126 --> 01:02:44,366
comes from governments that have organized us around national lines. And so the fact that we

865
01:02:44,366 --> 01:02:50,866
have a money that is not loyal to any single nation state is the most political of all things.

866
01:02:51,026 --> 01:02:56,126
And so being able to actually organize Bitcoiners from around the world around this idea first and

867
01:02:56,126 --> 01:03:02,046
foremost, because while we've been talking from a very American centric idea, like these things

868
01:03:02,046 --> 01:03:06,746
are going on in Europe just as much as they're going on in places like Africa and South America

869
01:03:06,746 --> 01:03:11,966
and Asia. And it's important to understand that like Bitcoin truly is a global movement that is

870
01:03:11,966 --> 01:03:16,886
based on top of the Internet. And we're sort of the first culture of people that understand that

871
01:03:16,886 --> 01:03:21,266
this apparatus is something that we can use to empower people all around the globe to be

872
01:03:21,266 --> 01:03:26,226
more free, more egalitarian, and have greater economic opportunity than ever before.

873
01:03:26,906 --> 01:03:30,946
And we can totally lose that if we're not willing to actually stand up and say, hey,

874
01:03:30,966 --> 01:03:35,246
this is an important and powerful political principle that people should rally behind.

875
01:03:35,486 --> 01:03:39,846
And it's important to also return to the fact of that, like, the American Revolution wasn't

876
01:03:39,846 --> 01:03:44,446
something that was isolated to America. And there was like good reason why Thomas Jefferson was also

877
01:03:44,446 --> 01:03:49,706
one of the primary authors of the rights of man is because like this was truly a cultural movement

878
01:03:49,706 --> 01:03:54,706
that was about advancing like the political capital T, capital P,

879
01:03:54,826 --> 01:03:56,206
as opposed to just politics.

880
01:03:56,466 --> 01:03:59,966
And so like, to me, Bitcoin's about a global political movement

881
01:03:59,966 --> 01:04:02,786
for the freedom of money of all people everywhere

882
01:04:02,786 --> 01:04:05,566
against their governments and the sort of endemic abuses

883
01:04:05,566 --> 01:04:07,646
that they've created through fiat money.

884
01:04:08,346 --> 01:04:10,906
Yeah. Yeah. How do we, I mean, ah.

885
01:04:13,006 --> 01:04:14,226
And this returns everything.

886
01:04:14,446 --> 01:04:16,866
How do you engender this fire?

887
01:04:16,866 --> 01:04:21,926
because talking to you like it's very obvious that you have this fire in your belly that really

888
01:04:21,926 --> 01:04:26,706
drives you to this and i feel like that fire doesn't exist in most people's bellies anymore

889
01:04:26,706 --> 01:04:31,846
i like i don't know how we engender it and maybe it's like we just need to start building but it's

890
01:04:31,846 --> 01:04:39,306
like to me that this is a true political principle of that like uh we need people to get that like

891
01:04:39,306 --> 01:04:45,246
bitcoin is a political thing it's not it's not just an innate uh like a political thing if you

892
01:04:45,246 --> 01:04:49,746
will, that like, it's truly the most political thing. And that's why I've always wanted to try

893
01:04:49,746 --> 01:04:55,186
to encourage this sort of political line of Bitcoin shining through. And that's why I'd love

894
01:04:55,186 --> 01:05:00,326
to see some kind of, and again, I don't want to call it a political party, but like this cultural

895
01:05:00,326 --> 01:05:05,866
movement that's designed around people understanding. And like, again, like being well-read

896
01:05:05,866 --> 01:05:10,526
in Marxism, I actually think that there's a lot of very powerful ideological approaches that we

897
01:05:10,526 --> 01:05:16,046
can pluck out of Marxism. And one of the ideas is the idea of class consciousness, like having

898
01:05:16,046 --> 01:05:21,286
people be able to develop a class consciousness around what Bitcoin is and what fiat money is and

899
01:05:21,286 --> 01:05:26,306
how we're in that is a system that empowers us against it is very much like the idea of class

900
01:05:26,306 --> 01:05:31,026
consciousness and Marxism and understanding how people were exploited through the labor theory of

901
01:05:31,026 --> 01:05:36,186
value. Well, I'm happy you brought this up because this is what we've intentionally been doing with

902
01:05:36,186 --> 01:05:42,666
AI generated videos. So I was very influenced by Michael Goldstein's 2019 BitBlock Boom talk on

903
01:05:42,666 --> 01:05:47,466
meme warfare and the art of rhetoric and the fact that you shouldn't view propaganda as a bad thing.

904
01:05:47,466 --> 01:05:54,186
You're being propagandized in both ways. So with these AI videos we're making, the last one we did

905
01:05:54,186 --> 01:05:59,866
specifically, it's Common Man. Yeah, I saw it. I really liked it. It was like the two farmers talking.

906
01:05:59,866 --> 01:06:04,906
Yeah, but like really like leaning into that Marxist idea, plucking that out. I mean, like,

907
01:06:04,906 --> 01:06:07,666
Like, all right, we're going to tell the story of deflation and how money.

908
01:06:07,886 --> 01:06:11,646
We have all this tech deflation, but we're not reaping the benefits of it because we're printing money.

909
01:06:11,646 --> 01:06:15,726
We should talk more about this because this very much is in line with my book, Crypto Sovereignty,

910
01:06:15,806 --> 01:06:20,626
and sort of the extension after it through Alexander Dugan's fourth political theory.

911
01:06:20,846 --> 01:06:26,466
And that, like, in the fourth political theory, he makes the argument that, like, fascism, Marxism, and liberalism

912
01:06:26,466 --> 01:06:29,806
are all sort of the political theories of the 20th century, and they're all dead.

913
01:06:30,286 --> 01:06:33,446
Like, they're all murdered by neoliberalism in a very particular way.

914
01:06:33,446 --> 01:06:40,486
That now means the whole world operates sort of under this principle of neoliberalism and that these three prior political theories are dead.

915
01:06:41,026 --> 01:06:52,686
However, there's a possibility of a fourth political theory where you can essentially cherry pick from all of the prior political theories and take those ideas and then apply them to sort of this new political theory.

916
01:06:52,686 --> 01:07:15,086
This is what I think Bitcoin actually is, but I think it's only once we imbue Bitcoin with principles that draw from fascism, that draw from liberalism and draw from communism to essentially educate people around the fact of that we have the Internet as a global apparatus that allows for anyone, anywhere, the freedom and empowerment to actually create and contribute to a global economy.

917
01:07:15,086 --> 01:07:23,746
We now have a money that anybody anywhere can use freely with one another to transact with each other to create this global economy.

918
01:07:23,886 --> 01:07:41,886
But it's only through the ideological advancement of understanding that fiat money, whether it is from the Japanese government, the Chinese government, the Americans or the South Africans, it is all designed around the explicit exploitation of the working class man against a political culture that is designed to steal from them.

919
01:07:41,886 --> 01:08:04,446
And it's only through the development of this class consciousness of getting more people on board to use Bitcoin in a peer-to-peer fashion that allows for them to exchange directly with one another in a private, preserving manner, allows for number go up that sort of creates this dual union between the first world and the third world to advance one another for the working class in each world.

920
01:08:04,446 --> 01:08:11,386
And then, you know, like I think Ben Ark and I, we've had a number of really great conversations together because he's very well read in Marxism, too, of that.

921
01:08:11,806 --> 01:08:15,706
I've been meaning to do a deep analysis of Bitcoin from a Marxist standpoint.

922
01:08:16,346 --> 01:08:22,186
And again, these words, Marxism, communism, fascism, they're almost useless at this point in time because of how much they've been abused.

923
01:08:22,186 --> 01:08:46,424
But there is a way to approach Bitcoin through a Marxist lens that allows for these very deep principled recoveries of an ideological approach that that is part of why Marxism was such a powerful movement at the beginning of the 20th century Like it wasn all just an insane idea of using the state to create a giant apparatus of exploitation And that also

924
01:08:46,424 --> 01:08:50,684
part of my line of thinking of being an anarchist. Like it's very important to understand that

925
01:08:50,684 --> 01:08:56,524
the socialist movement in the late 19th century, like communism and anarchism were a single thing

926
01:08:56,524 --> 01:08:59,224
up until Marx produced the Communist Manifesto.

927
01:08:59,604 --> 01:09:03,204
And that's when Bakun approached Marx and was like,

928
01:09:03,264 --> 01:09:06,124
hey, what's all this bullshit about the dictatorship of the proletariat

929
01:09:06,124 --> 01:09:07,824
and taking over the state for us?

930
01:09:08,424 --> 01:09:11,324
And Marx was like, yeah, yeah, that's how we can actualize communism.

931
01:09:12,004 --> 01:09:13,164
And Bakun was like, fuck you.

932
01:09:13,344 --> 01:09:14,704
The state's the problem.

933
01:09:14,884 --> 01:09:17,224
It's not the capitalist expropriation.

934
01:09:17,224 --> 01:09:20,124
It's the fact of that these things work in tandem with each other.

935
01:09:20,324 --> 01:09:24,184
So like, fuck you, anarchism is going to go become its own movement on its own.

936
01:09:24,184 --> 01:09:29,424
and because there was no organizing principle around anarchism it essentially died an early

937
01:09:29,424 --> 01:09:34,304
death during the 20th century which i think now there's an opportunity to recover with this fourth

938
01:09:34,304 --> 01:09:42,664
political theory wow and and it's funny like you're saying this and even myself just like

939
01:09:42,664 --> 01:09:48,644
people hear these words marxism communism and the idea of like let's pick good ideas and they'll

940
01:09:48,644 --> 01:09:54,164
have an like immediate aversion like immediately shut down uh intellectually like oh absolutely

941
01:09:54,164 --> 01:09:58,744
And that's part from a multi-generational campaign against both of them.

942
01:09:58,884 --> 01:10:08,864
One is that it's important to understand that Marxism and the way that it advanced into Leninist and Stalinism in the 20th century, it was fucking horrific.

943
01:10:09,504 --> 01:10:12,684
And then in its last iteration of Maoism was almost the worst.

944
01:10:12,684 --> 01:10:19,644
And these are particular maniacal forms that came out of the idea of Marxism.

945
01:10:19,644 --> 01:10:30,564
In the same way that like fascism died such an early death and it's been so heavily disparaged over time that most people have no idea what the word means other than that.

946
01:10:30,664 --> 01:10:31,724
It's it's bad.

947
01:10:31,864 --> 01:10:32,784
It's really bad.

948
01:10:32,844 --> 01:10:34,204
And we can't talk about it.

949
01:10:34,924 --> 01:10:36,504
And I think these things are really important to go.

950
01:10:36,604 --> 01:10:38,124
Well, why is it so bad?

951
01:10:38,224 --> 01:10:43,724
What was the things that made it so apprehensible and something that we shouldn't look at?

952
01:10:43,884 --> 01:10:48,304
Not only that, but like conversely, what were the things that made people really attracted to it?

953
01:10:48,304 --> 01:11:00,864
Yeah. And like, it's pretty interesting that most people think that like Germany just went insane, like during the 1930s and that there was no real reason that fascism actually became the select approach.

954
01:11:01,004 --> 01:11:08,324
And it's really important to understand the historic context of how and why fascism ultimately is what ran Germany in the 1930s.

955
01:11:08,344 --> 01:11:13,584
And the same reason is like, why did fascism become the select thing that worked in Italy at the time?

956
01:11:13,584 --> 01:11:36,124
And most people don't understand that fascism was explicitly developed as an anti-communist movement. And it's specifically because of the way that communism was becoming so powerful in places like Italy and Germany at this point in time. And so like, again, like, I also think that like, these answers from the past won't apply to the future. And that's why I like Dugan's fourth political theory so much.

957
01:11:36,124 --> 01:11:41,324
Yeah, well, I'm chuckling right now because we're watching it play out again.

958
01:11:41,544 --> 01:11:41,884
Absolutely.

959
01:11:42,444 --> 01:11:43,424
We were talking about it with Danny.

960
01:11:43,564 --> 01:11:48,264
Fascism is rising as this response to over communism, which is becoming popular.

961
01:11:48,484 --> 01:11:52,724
And we saw how that played out and we should all be very scared of it.

962
01:11:52,844 --> 01:12:03,984
And that's why we need to have a totally new political approach that has the Internet, Bitcoin, censorship resistant technology and privacy at the core of it.

963
01:12:03,984 --> 01:12:10,564
because there is a new and very powerful way that we could create a global movement that ensures.

964
01:12:11,424 --> 01:12:15,144
And it's very ironic because like part of what I think the fourth political theory is,

965
01:12:15,144 --> 01:12:19,844
is take picking and choosing a number of these things in order to create essentially like

966
01:12:19,844 --> 01:12:23,924
I don't know what you'd call it a la carte political theory.

967
01:12:24,224 --> 01:12:28,364
Well, and part of that is, is that like this political theory essentially is like the most

968
01:12:28,364 --> 01:12:33,284
radical form of anarchism through the most liberal approach that there is, because it

969
01:12:33,284 --> 01:12:38,444
truly makes the sovereign individual and it collectivizes sovereign individuals sort of

970
01:12:38,444 --> 01:12:45,044
under this, uh, like Marxist rubric. But because of the way that privacy is preserved, uh, that

971
01:12:45,044 --> 01:12:50,804
like the individual choices radicalized through the internet in this very particular way, it like

972
01:12:50,804 --> 01:12:56,724
actualizes the sovereign individual, like as sort of the preeminent political character of the 21st

973
01:12:56,724 --> 01:13:02,084
century. But again, we only get that if we create this sort of applied political ideology

974
01:13:02,084 --> 01:13:04,584
that like sort of the next iteration

975
01:13:04,584 --> 01:13:06,884
of my own political work around crypto sovereignty

976
01:13:06,884 --> 01:13:08,124
has been working on,

977
01:13:08,224 --> 01:13:11,404
but also like this is like such a monumental

978
01:13:11,404 --> 01:13:13,764
political and philosophical task.

979
01:13:13,764 --> 01:13:16,164
And also like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

980
01:13:16,384 --> 01:13:18,944
So it's like trying to figure out how to do that.

981
01:13:19,024 --> 01:13:21,164
Like I need somebody to deeply collaborate with me

982
01:13:21,164 --> 01:13:22,084
and work on something like this.

983
01:13:22,084 --> 01:13:24,384
Well, that was, you say that

984
01:13:24,384 --> 01:13:25,584
and my next question was going to be like,

985
01:13:25,644 --> 01:13:27,104
okay, we're talking high level,

986
01:13:27,204 --> 01:13:30,804
30,000 foot view of this fourth political theory

987
01:13:30,804 --> 01:13:34,344
that we should really attempt to go after.

988
01:13:34,664 --> 01:13:36,744
And my question, right before you said that,

989
01:13:36,824 --> 01:13:37,884
my mind was going to be, all right,

990
01:13:38,544 --> 01:13:39,984
let's get into the blocking and tackling.

991
01:13:40,104 --> 01:13:41,084
What is the first step?

992
01:13:41,664 --> 01:13:43,404
I think the first step is acknowledging

993
01:13:43,404 --> 01:13:45,284
that we need something like this

994
01:13:45,284 --> 01:13:46,844
and then sort of trying to figure out

995
01:13:46,844 --> 01:13:48,544
how does it organize itself.

996
01:13:48,664 --> 01:13:51,244
And I have a whole bunch of desperate threats and ideas

997
01:13:51,244 --> 01:13:53,364
that I've been juggling with over the past,

998
01:13:53,524 --> 01:13:55,364
I don't know, seven years or something.

999
01:13:56,224 --> 01:13:58,964
But having dialogues like this

1000
01:13:58,964 --> 01:14:00,724
encouraged me to look more deeply into it.

1001
01:14:00,724 --> 01:14:08,624
But essentially, like it looks something very similar to, yeah, essentially, I should go back through all of my notes from the fourth political theory and reread it.

1002
01:14:08,624 --> 01:14:19,564
Because after that, I felt like there's a way and like Bitcoin has a number of these things in it of that like Satoshi's choice of 21 million is like a total fascist thing.

1003
01:14:19,564 --> 01:14:27,324
But the fact that like one Bitcoin is one Bitcoin, whether it's mine or yours, and that's protected by cryptography is like this very Marxist idea.

1004
01:14:27,324 --> 01:14:44,444
And so like the, I think picking all of these things out and kind of trying to go through it in very deep detail to explain it, I think would be really valuable to people and as part of the advancement of that class consciousness to actually have people understand that like, no, you don't own the money in your bank account.

1005
01:14:44,444 --> 01:14:50,444
that's a debt instrument the bank owns like yes you are actually a very particular form of slave

1006
01:14:50,444 --> 01:14:56,324
that has been enslaved to fiat monetary system and something like Bitcoin is the real way that

1007
01:14:56,324 --> 01:15:01,124
you can empower yourself and Noster is the way that you can really and I think Noster is kind

1008
01:15:01,124 --> 01:15:13,782
of one of the components is that like I think that the thing that the political apparatus of however we like vote or have dialogues with each other or something there like a way to build that on top of no sir but like

1009
01:15:13,782 --> 01:15:19,202
it's not very clear to me at how that's done yet yeah and it hasn't really hit me well it has hit

1010
01:15:19,202 --> 01:15:25,582
me like I intentionally rebranded tftc to truth for the commoner to really play into that working

1011
01:15:25,582 --> 01:15:32,662
man thing because that's where like i grew up and both my grandfathers were union workers one was a

1012
01:15:32,662 --> 01:15:37,702
steam fitter one was an iron worker my parents had me very young and provided a great life for me but

1013
01:15:37,702 --> 01:15:43,262
we were never extremely well off and i think just my life experience is such that like i have a lot

1014
01:15:43,262 --> 01:15:49,222
of empathy for the working man because i grew up in a working man common man family and uh that's

1015
01:15:49,222 --> 01:15:54,122
who's getting crushed the most and that is who's also getting misled the most and they're getting

1016
01:15:54,122 --> 01:16:00,842
driven to these polar ideas to your point which have objectively failed and will fail again if you

1017
01:16:00,842 --> 01:16:06,922
if you try to implement them and the whole point of this show of the newsletter of

1018
01:16:06,922 --> 01:16:12,522
my work in bitcoin is to really get through to the common man like this is the way yeah and i think

1019
01:16:12,522 --> 01:16:17,302
like through uh like as you were talking about that that reminds me of like one of the ways that

1020
01:16:17,302 --> 01:16:21,582
anarchism tried to organize itself in the early 20th century was through an approach called

1021
01:16:21,582 --> 01:16:27,682
syndicalism. And syndicalism is essentially like this idea of creating industrial unions that are

1022
01:16:27,682 --> 01:16:32,582
interoperable together that are like based on those principles. And I think like, we essentially

1023
01:16:32,582 --> 01:16:36,642
as Bitcoiners need to start getting more aggressive with being like, hey, if you're a small business

1024
01:16:36,642 --> 01:16:42,322
owner, you need to be accepting Bitcoin. And like, you need to be marking up fiat by 10 or 20%

1025
01:16:42,322 --> 01:16:46,002
and being very explicit about that. Like if you're going to use Bitcoin with my business,

1026
01:16:46,122 --> 01:16:50,602
you're going to save money. And if you're not, I'm going to charge you more. And there's a reason why.

1027
01:16:50,602 --> 01:16:54,942
and then finding other people to create these collaborative relationships with where like maybe

1028
01:16:54,942 --> 01:17:00,202
they're uh people that that are inventory providers or maybe there are other people that you have

1029
01:17:00,202 --> 01:17:05,522
relationships with but it's really from a business front encouraging people to be like hey we need to

1030
01:17:05,522 --> 01:17:10,822
be using bitcoin for our businesses for these reasons and this is how it protects us and

1031
01:17:10,822 --> 01:17:15,822
furthermore by because we've collectivized ourselves in a particular way that like if the

1032
01:17:15,822 --> 01:17:21,282
government comes after you for, you know, like you get tax audited or something and that that's

1033
01:17:21,282 --> 01:17:25,202
taken away from you. Like we have this sort of support network that's going to help you out.

1034
01:17:25,202 --> 01:17:31,082
But again, all of this like goes back to, I don't know the exact methodology of how we need to

1035
01:17:31,082 --> 01:17:35,462
organize around this, but I am convinced that like organization is something that we need to

1036
01:17:35,462 --> 01:17:40,142
actually address in a meaningful way. And we also need to address this component of class

1037
01:17:40,142 --> 01:17:44,802
consciousness as well. Yeah. And it's never been easier with the tech that exists. Like we really

1038
01:17:44,802 --> 01:17:50,422
wanted to if we figured out like okay here's the sort of way in which we're going to organize the

1039
01:17:50,422 --> 01:17:55,302
ability to do so it's never been easier well and and getting into the mematic warfare like that's

1040
01:17:55,302 --> 01:18:00,862
such an important and powerful component because also like if we're doing it right as this stuff

1041
01:18:00,862 --> 01:18:04,562
gets promoted like they're going to start banning it and then we can start promoting it on no stir

1042
01:18:04,562 --> 01:18:09,002
and then we can start being really clear that like hey there's this whole other dialogue but

1043
01:18:09,002 --> 01:18:13,602
if i even try to have it with you here we both get banned and so like come find us on no stir like

1044
01:18:13,602 --> 01:18:17,782
this is our censorship resistant network where they can't stop us from talking about this and

1045
01:18:17,782 --> 01:18:23,522
spreading the signal because the truth is like you're being exploited in a way that like do you

1046
01:18:23,522 --> 01:18:28,622
really think that a hundred years ago your grandfather was able to own a farm and have

1047
01:18:28,622 --> 01:18:35,082
eight kids and that he was somehow like are you not working as hard as him like my grandfather

1048
01:18:35,082 --> 01:18:40,722
was an iron worker and had eight kids yeah like can you be an iron worker today and have eight

1049
01:18:40,722 --> 01:18:46,982
kids? No. Why is that? Is it that ironworking did not become more efficient? So like there's

1050
01:18:46,982 --> 01:18:52,022
clearly a fucking problem here. And why is it that it seems to be that we're working harder than ever

1051
01:18:52,022 --> 01:18:57,442
and we're getting by less than ever before? And it's because of these reasons. It turns out that

1052
01:18:57,442 --> 01:19:02,962
fiat money is a thing that's designed explicitly to exploit you and redirect money to this parasitic

1053
01:19:02,962 --> 01:19:09,182
political class. And really trying to figure out the way that we create the mematic warfare around

1054
01:19:09,182 --> 01:19:13,822
that, uh, collectivizing people to educate each other and giving each other the resources

1055
01:19:13,822 --> 01:19:18,902
and really finding the right ways to organize around that, I think is a very important principle

1056
01:19:18,902 --> 01:19:23,922
that I really hope that more people are going to get on board with figuring out how we do

1057
01:19:23,922 --> 01:19:24,422
this together.

1058
01:19:25,042 --> 01:19:29,182
You know, maybe, uh, we need to make like the founding father, like a dinner series

1059
01:19:29,182 --> 01:19:31,862
around the country, around the world, even we get a group of us together.

1060
01:19:32,102 --> 01:19:36,402
I mean, I think between like our mutual networks, along with some other people that we know,

1061
01:19:36,402 --> 01:19:42,502
like I do think that we should actually probably do something similar to this and like have a,

1062
01:19:43,162 --> 01:19:48,342
you know, like being here with the group that we're with is kind of a great starting point is

1063
01:19:48,342 --> 01:19:53,442
that figuring out how do we get us all together for a week just to hang out and really have a

1064
01:19:53,442 --> 01:19:57,362
dialogue with each other about if we're to build something like this, what does it look like? How

1065
01:19:57,362 --> 01:20:01,902
does it function? And how do we put it together? Very similar to what the founding fathers did.

1066
01:20:01,902 --> 01:20:12,982
Because like that was a decision that those men made for themselves to respond to the tyrannical abuses that their government was doing to them at that point in time.

1067
01:20:13,562 --> 01:20:18,302
Which like this seems to rhyme pretty well with what happened, you know, 250 years ago.

1068
01:20:18,722 --> 01:20:18,822
Yeah.

1069
01:20:19,682 --> 01:20:26,942
And it would be very fitting as we approach the 250th anniversary of this nation if we were able to successfully do something like this.

1070
01:20:27,402 --> 01:20:31,882
And it would be really fun to, you know, like, like, have you have you ever seen the document?

1071
01:20:31,902 --> 01:20:34,142
of like the bar tab

1072
01:20:34,142 --> 01:20:36,082
after they like got together

1073
01:20:36,082 --> 01:20:36,862
and actually created that.

1074
01:20:36,862 --> 01:20:37,602
And you see what they drink.

1075
01:20:38,002 --> 01:20:38,762
Yeah, yeah.

1076
01:20:38,862 --> 01:20:40,622
So we definitely need to do that part too.

1077
01:20:41,482 --> 01:20:42,022
All right.

1078
01:20:42,322 --> 01:20:42,982
Let's end it here.

1079
01:20:43,542 --> 01:20:43,782
All right.

1080
01:20:43,842 --> 01:20:44,582
Yeah, call to action

1081
01:20:44,582 --> 01:20:46,642
for the people who care about this

1082
01:20:46,642 --> 01:20:48,342
and recognize that

1083
01:20:48,342 --> 01:20:50,002
at least here in America

1084
01:20:50,002 --> 01:20:51,862
and I think even more broadly

1085
01:20:51,862 --> 01:20:52,902
in parts of the West,

1086
01:20:53,442 --> 01:20:56,762
the solutions that are being put in front of you

1087
01:20:56,762 --> 01:20:57,462
are not going to work.

1088
01:20:57,542 --> 01:20:58,242
They haven't worked.

1089
01:20:58,522 --> 01:21:01,422
And the nature of our reality

1090
01:21:01,422 --> 01:21:07,262
as it stands in 2025 and 21st century in the digital age is not conducive for the solutions

1091
01:21:07,262 --> 01:21:12,242
that are being put before you. Yeah. And we need to ask ourselves to stand up and be courageous

1092
01:21:12,242 --> 01:21:18,002
enough to realize that like, this is our time to really shine. And if we make the decision together

1093
01:21:18,002 --> 01:21:25,722
to stand up and create a new political dynasty that could change the future for the next 250 years,

1094
01:21:25,722 --> 01:21:31,542
maybe there's an opportunity that our children can actually live freer happier and flourish

1095
01:21:31,542 --> 01:21:36,542
better than we could have ever predicted i'm really happy we did this yeah me too all right

1096
01:21:36,542 --> 01:21:37,322
peace and love freaks