Welcome back everyone. I am Caspian Sea and I'm joined
as usual by partner in crime. Mr. Bennett Tomlin.
How are you this morning? I'm doing well Cass.
How are you? I'm doing good.
We are joined by a very special guest today.
She goes by the moniker mooncat on YouTube.
Welcome, how are you Moon Cat? Hello.
I'm good. Thank you.
We're having you on today specifically because you I
decided to do a video that covers web 3, the metaverse and
FTS, whatever you want to call it and was incredibly critical.
It was a very long video, as well.
It's over an hour long. If anyone wants to check it out,
I highly recommend it. We're going to leave it in the
show notes, but we're talking you because I haven't seen as
entertaining a video. As that one was.
That could be that critical. So I want to talk about you're
not Mr. Process. Your but also like, why why did
you jump into this? Why are you fascinated by this
this? I don't know.
Space ecosystem. Whatever.
You want to call it. Yes.
I've been keeping an eye on the space for quite a long time.
And I've always been interested in like scams and so I got
started out on YouTube investigating mlms.
And then I sort of moved on to sort of get rich quick schemes
and And also motivational speakers in general, because I
feel like the whole thing is very connected, the same
psychology in cult mentality is used throughout the whole thing.
And I noticed crypto becoming very mainstream very popular and
I found all of the same sort of Mind Tricks being used, I
suppose. So I naturally found it really
interesting kept an eye on it for a long time.
And then yeah I decided to like really jump into it like at the
start of January this year and then it took Like yeah, I guess
nearly a whole three months to kind of investigate everything
and even then there was still so much more.
I didn't talk about in my video, like so many extra scams and
everything that I could have talked about and so many things
to do with, like how awful it would be, if Bitcoin became the
world currency, like, it's such a dystopian thing to think
about, and I didn't even like, fully go into that thought
experiment. But it's Yeah, there's is quite
a lot to take in and think about, but I had to sort of try
and decide. Okay, what's the most important
things I need to talk about here and it was still an hour and 40
minutes long after I after I got rid of a lot of things that I
could have talked about. Yeah yeah.
Well we never we never seem to run out of topics for discussion
because they're like you said there's just so many scams
everywhere but you brought up some really compelling
compelling arguments I think it helped me to recognize Once
again, I think I had not been as focused on the venture
capitalist side of it and how gross the Venture Capital side
is and how how it really does feel.
It does feel like it's like poisoning the well if there is
any decent water that is in this, in this system, it's being
poisoned as we speak. Yeah, I don't think the people
who are really excited about crypto really understand the
full extent of how much. These are involved in this and
how they're basically the same people that they think that
they're fighting against it's quite worrying, really, and how
powerful Peter teal really is and how scary he is.
I was that was the most shocking thing that I found when I looked
into it. Yeah.
Just his whole story and like how these these sort of
right-wing conspiratorial, but conspiratorially minded, people
are very they loved the idea, But the thing is that they're
also really, really scared of this whole One World Government
thing happening. But like, if that's going to
happen, it's going to be Peter teal.
It's not, you know, it's not some crazy conspiracy happening
on the government side, it's definitely, Peter teal who will
do it. If anybody does it, it will be
Peter teal. Yeah, yeah.
He had his horse. He said seasteading Venture that
he tried to do and that failed miserably.
But he also something That Bennett has been looking into
more than more so than myself is that he is very politically
active in. Yes.
Yes, he looks Donald Trump and yeah a lot of really awful
politicians. Don't let it stop there.
Yeah he's donated a lot to to Donald Trump and I find that
very interesting because like Donald Trump was also the
president, that, that sort of decreased, everybody's trust in
democracy overall. Which I think even though, like
Peter tells an intelligent guy and I don't think Donald Trump
is, but I think he was behind him as president because he
literally made, everybody think this democracy thing is, maybe
not, not quite so good and that's in his interest.
So, it's like really clever. If you think about it, I hate, I
hate giving that concept credit though.
A lot of people on cryptocurrency Twitter.
I think Ben it was talking to some of them yesterday where a
lot of them proposed the idea that if Because Ben, it was
basically suggesting that almost all of the politicians that
these cryptocurrency Bros vote for first of all, they're voting
for them because of one single issue which is their Pro
cryptocurrency. So, they're not thinking outside
of that issue at all, which is kind of terrifying because
almost every other issue is more important than whether or not
you like cryptocurrency. But some of the people,
essentially, like you said, they're like basically
dismantling democracy and then it was just like, well if the
ends don't justify Means like if the evil is worse, than the
single issue, the issue that you're voting for, how is this
acceptable? And people are just like, know,
will like he, they these cryptocurrency.
They don't want any government. So that's the, if it's helping
to dismantle it, they're all for it.
And I'm like, oh my God, this is just so cringe inducing because
it's not like they're even reflecting on in alternative,
right? They're not suggesting like, oh,
but this is the better form of government that we can have.
It's like, well, no government and everything will be fine,
yeah, yeah. That's the problem.
It's like people are seeing the issues, which is a good thing,
but they're trying to like fix the everybody wants a simple fix
for all of the issues in the world.
And it always works really well when somebody comes along with
a, with a half convincing answer to all of the issues in the
world and, you know, Eminem's came along and we're like, oh,
you can leave your job. And you can spend more time with
your family. And you don't even have to work
that much and you earn even more than what you are in your job.
And obviously this all is born out of the, you know, the
problems with capitalism as it is and society as it is, at the
moment. But obviously, mlms on the
answer and crypto isn't the answer, but they want this
really simple answer, but when in reality all cryptos doing is
just rolling the clock back like a hundred years on all the
progress we've made with, like financial institutions.
And it's like, obviously there's Are still problems there
obviously, we haven't reached a Utopia, will we never will reach
a Utopia but it's all about sort of battling for words.
Not rolling the clock back and a lot of people who watch my
video. Like why do you love big bank?
So much, like, I don't love big Banks, but I but I'm not, I
don't think allowing them to do whatever they want is the
answer. Yeah, I think we get, we get a
lot of that too. We get a lot of they think we
love the FED Banks. The treasury like just because
We criticize crypto cryptocurrency.
I think it's a bit. That's very funny Bennett.
Sorry. I want to, I want to take all
the know you're, okay. I was just really when I was
watching the video. It was really exciting because
you seem to really get the bigger picture of what's going
on with cryptocurrencies, a lot better than much of the critical
media I've seen on cryptocurrencies like you
accurately pointed to some of the political Medical issues in
the way they want to dismantle certain political systems you
were able to bring in like the future dystopian vision of
techno feudalism. That sits it like the heart of a
lot of cryptocurrency ideology and so I'm really curious how
you got to that point of understanding like what what
your process was to investigate cryptocurrencies and see them
structurally that way. Yeah, I actually started out by
reading a book that was Pro crypto because like Even though
my gut feeling was quite anti crypto, I did want to get the
other side of the story. So I started out with a book, by
George Gilder. I don't know if you know who he
is. Oh wait.
Yes, the libertarian guy. Yeah.
But when I read the book, I decided not to look him up after
I'd read the book because I didn't want my opinion of the
book to be, you know, be weighed on who he was and then I and
then I looked over after I was like oh a lot of things, really
make sense now. But yeah, I read his book anyway
and he basically Tries to make the argument that blockchain is
the answer to loads of problems, but he's like so vague.
He doesn't like, he doesn't explain how exactly, you know,
an append-only database is meant to solve all of the world's
problems, but for some reason, he thinks it is and it's a lot
of it's, like, based on how Google and Facebook aren't
aren't building, AI models, very well, and would be able to do
that a lot better on the blockchain, and that kind of got
me into the into into thinking about like what the real.
It's all behind this and how it's probably all about data.
So I kind of went down that route from reading that book,
really because yeah, it's all about sort of like they these
texts Silicon Valley people there looking like decades into
the future and they're thinking, where's the world going?
And they're thinking democracy isn't working because it because
in a way, it isn't the world's getting way too complicated for
people to vote based on on things that they know about.
It's the world's too complicated.
We don't we don't know. Who the best person is to vote
for. So they're thinking, well, the
future of the world is going to be based on algorithms, not on,
not on democracy. And so, that's the way they see
going forward. They need some way to collect as
much data as possible to be able to run their society on
algorithms basically is how I see it.
One thing you said there, that was interesting to me and it
reminded me of your GB news. Video is your comment about how
they're investing and potentially a very different
time. And they're even okay with many
of the ventures failing, as long as they nudge certain other
things in the direction they want exactly like people's mind
mindset. Yeah, exactly.
And so, like with cryptocurrency, I think that's
potentially a striking example of that because even if none of
the projects are successful, they've started seeding a lot of
young people with these very Austrian economics, libertarian
ideas and it started to shift those mindset.
So, they've gotten that benefit now.
Even if the projects are completely unsuccessful.
Yeah, that's exactly it as well. And even if the projects are
successful it's not like many of them are losing money anyway
because as long as they get people to buy into crypto,
whatever projects they do their successful doesn't matter if
they provide value or not, as long as the People by crypto.
I mean, yeah, it's a cloud. I mean, it's a classic.
It's also a classic as Bennett said, classic Overton.
It's like an Overton window thing.
Like if you just push everybody to think well, Austrian
economics makes sense. Like that part makes sense to me
that Then I can, then you can just push forward, a bunch of
other horrible ideas. So so I definitely see that as
being a huge part of it, but I do want to jump back into
something that you initially started with which is you
started your YouTube career, going after these MLM scams and
and people like Tony Robbins and Gary Vee and you seem to believe
that there's this overarching, thematic psychology between all
of these. These topics that you've
selected so far. I'm wondering how you feel like
web 3 falls into that psychology.
Like what is the psychology that you see kind of what's the
Insidious psychology of web 30? Hmm, it's like kind of a cult
mentality, really? It's what works really well is
providing people with a bit with like, a salvaged from the
really, like, complicated and gray world with new on.
Is and things. They can't control that they
don't understand. And somebody comes along with
them and saying, actually, the world isn't gray, the world is
black and white. And I've got the rules and
they're clearly written out. And if you just follow these
rules, then everything will be fine.
And I think that's, that's a really attractive thing these
days because a lot of people are getting messed around by
capitalism and all of that and they don't have a lot of money
and they see the world as it's really complicated thing that
they do. Have control over anymore.
And you know, there's a lot of the marketing around crypto is
Take Back Control. And I saw the exact same thing
with like the brexit campaign over here, like Take Back
Control of your country, a lot of the world like sovereignty
being thrown a thrown around a hell of a lot.
When it doesn't really mean that at all, you don't like, you
don't have control over your own data on the blockchain.
Like the people who have control over the data or the company,
that collects it, not you like sure, you sure you can choose to
have your data on the Block. But it's like we'll get to a
point that they will build this world where it's like literally
impossible for you to function without putting your data on the
blockchain. So it's like they still have
control. You don't have any control over
this till it's just a marketing campaign.
Basically, one interesting difference that I can hear
already ringing in my head between what you're talking
about. So if we talk about, like,
Rachel Hollis, or Tony Robbins, or whoever, you know, you've
done other videos on those kind of people or our bond, or these
other MLM kind of cult The things they always argue that
they are not a cult, they're not a religion.
They are a, the, they're a business, or their marketing
firm or they're helping people or whatever.
But I think now, that cryptocurrency has largely
embraced, the cult title, the religious cult.
Like, yeah, we are a cult join in its day.
Isn't that cool? And I'm wondering if that's
almost more. Div then those other kind of MLM
psychological scams. Yeah, I think that, well, it is
a corporate house like because it's got a monetary aspect to
it. It's very, very powerful and I
saw that with Eminem's like, as soon as somebody promises you
riches. It's, you know, people are so
much more likely to just go along with whatever whatever
they say, you know, it's kind of like a, it's a blurry line,
isn't it? Like when something crosses over
into To what is a call to what isn't.
But, but the whole like the way that they sort of dismiss any
criticism is like, they've even got word for it Fudd.
I mean, that's that's called T in itself.
As soon as the person starts saying like to ignore the people
who are like being - I think that's quite cool t as well
because they just call it like negativity.
It's not, you know, legitimate criticism.
It's just - a tea. Like, that's when it sort of
starts crossing over into a cult cult land, and, yeah, I saw the
same thing with like, Tony Robbins and Rachel Hollis.
I don't know if I Will they do a cult but it's definitely cold.
Like, yeah. When thing you discussed in your
video, which was particularly interesting to me, was the
intersection between cryptocurrencies and influencer
culture. Do you want to talk about a
little bit with that intersection of the Venn diagram
looks like? Yeah, it's it's just very
disappointing to see. So many influences, come out
with rug pulls basically, like, just It just learning that this
is, this is what they think of their fans.
This is what they think of the people who look up to them.
It's really, yeah, it's really disappointing to see so many
people like that, but even then, like, you see that their fans at
like these people will pull rope pulls on them, and then even
after they've done the rug pulled, they still love them.
They're like oh it's not their fault, they just lost confidence
in the project they worked really hard on it and it's like
it's it's really hard to get them to see the light when yeah
that brings up your I don't I still to this day, don't
understand this Gary Vee for anyone who's unfamiliar, you
know, bless your heart. And I hope you never have to
find out who he is. But very V is a, I don't know
what to call him, a venture capitalist Market or having a
primarily an angel investor. So he'll go up to companies you
know the very start and drop like Millions into it or however
much and yeah, he'll do that across like a load load of
different startups. Like even some terrible ones.
And then as soon as one does really well, he's like, see
look, I was right. I was right.
Then he basically uses that to like base his entire career off.
Well, I heard him. There's a video going around.
I don't know yesterday the day before something like that,
where it's Gary Vee on some podcast, and they're like, well,
you're not saying NF teaser the future, right?
And he's like, yeah, yeah, no, no, I'm not saying any of
teaser, the future. I'm not saying I've teaser the
future, I'm saying that, you know, I'm going to invest in
like a hundred different entities.
And and one of these, one of these is going to make it, one
of these is going to be huge and you're just like, oh first of
all sharp off second. It's such a angel investor VC
hedge fund State of Mind where it's like yeah poorest guys
pores. Listen up.
I just want to tell you how you how you're going to make it,
take your money, all your money. See this new hip trendy thing
dump all your money into, like, a hundred different things that
are within that thing. So if it's, if it's a, I just
100 different, AI companies. He's one of them.
It's going to make you a million dollars and that is the worst
fucking advice I've ever heard. He's got so much money, he can
afford the risk, whereas most of the people he's talking to can't
afford that risk. But he doesn't care care what
his his the poor people that he's talking to as we know
because he's had as you pointed out in your video.
He does like midnight phone calls with mr.
Beast and Logan, Paul and Rich famous people to tell them to
buy board. Oops, it's the most cringe
inducing thing I've seen, but he's still popular and he's
still like has resonance in not just the cryptocurrency space.
I think like I think like Silicon Valley likes this guy
still, I think the other hedge fund people seem to still think
he's somehow knowledgeable. I I just don't understand
exactly what's going on there but he's not the only one he's
like a common personality type in cryptocurrency, right?
These guys Are like drawn to this space or if knowing that
Gary was an angel investor in coinbase, and he's probably
making a hell of a lot of money out of that.
He's probably got a lot of Investments that, that really
hinge on him being able to make crypto a really successful
thing. He's got many vested interests
in making crypto. Yeah, really popular.
But yeah, in much the same way. I think Gary comes up to a lot
of people with a really simple answer to, of how to get rich,
which is just worked, really hard work all the time.
It's like on what Gary work on. But he's just, he won't say he's
extremely vague about everything, you should sell your
neighbors, the flowers, you pulled out of the road flower
bed, that's how you me and this world.
Yeah but I think that called Cass you're talking about is
like a really good example of a lot of the problems when
influencer culture hits and ft and crypto culture, right?
Because they're on this call. And you've got Jake Paul and all
these other dumbasses discussing, how, they think it's
important that people begin investing in these NF teas that
they got this call from Gary vaynerchuk.
And there's all these billionaires on the line and
they're being told that this is the next big thing.
And so if you want to get in on this next big thing, you need to
invest and they keep talking for a minute longer and you hear one
of them go. Oh yeah, one of them asks I
think it was mr. Bass.
So what's your rarest? Punk.
And he goes. Logan, Paul Logan.
Paul says what's your rarest ape?
Or whatever it is? He says, oh I already have been
so no idea. These characteristics were
people. Yeah, he's so yeah, mr.
B's like sold him straight away for all the friends.
He said, so like be friends, right?
Yeah. So obviously like Gary Vee had
another call with him and he was like, you know what, the next
best thing is after these Apes, it's my scribbles and yeah, this
is depressing, that it works so well.
Like, even on someone like mr. Beast, who is obviously like not
the most stupid person in the world.
Like, yeah. It's Crazy.
And it is, it's funny to me that in order for Gary Vee to have
friends, he had to meant them on the blockchain.
It's it's just like you said, really disappointing to see so
many people just in such an outright and public way.
Try to take advantage of their fans in the influence they've
developed and then one of the things that's interesting like
we keep mentioning Gary fee and it's because he's got a certain
enthusiasm that makes him hard to ignore.
And like so when he was coming out with his most recent book,
if you wanted to get on the wait list for the nft project that
was not coming after that book, you have to buy 12 physical
copies. Yeah.
And then you could buy the NFC I think in your video mooncat you.
Did you show someone who literally tweeted garyvee?
This book is fire and was burning a copy of the book.
He retweeted that tweet. Am I getting that right?
He liked it. Yeah, I know.
What is going on? It's this is just like it's just
like capitalism on crack I think just like you've come, you've
completely removed any value from what you're selling at this
point, you're telling people to buy 12 of your books.
Why why it is doesn't matter? You get a free jpg.
Like, that's that's the point we've got to and that even a
free jpeg, right? You get the right to buy the
cheap pigs, but follows, but he doesn't.
He doesn't pump those ones with low.
Paula mr. Beast.
Right. You're just the retail plea,
buying into it, it's theirs. Yeah, yeah.
This is so frustrating to me because not only are we talking
about like Gary Vee and these dumb nft things but like a lot
of this has been an issue always.
So if you go back far enough, like sometimes sending Bitcoin
can cost too much money for a poor person to be able to send a
Bitcoin. And so when you start talking
about, Like wanting this to be the future of Finance.
But then also, we want to bank the unbanked, but then also poor
people. Sorry.
Like you can't really use this protocol at all.
Like the whole thing is just a giant.
Yeah, but that's another thing. I did not actually mention is
the way that you can only get certain entities, if you can pay
enough gas fees to to buy them. Like you're not only bidding on
the nft, you're bidding on the gas phase to get the nft faster
than somebody else. It's like Whole thing is just
coded to to reward rich people and that's it.
And you even get into that which again I really appreciated in
this piece of media like how that even matters at the
consensus and protocol level. Like you talked about how in
proof of State coins. Your influence is in effect,
directly proportional to how much steak you control.
And this is true for a variety of so-called doubts and stuff
where you're voting is proportional to How many tokens
you can put up? And it is very common for
cryptocurrency to reinvent. This kind of plutocracy where
the richest and most powerful get all of this control.
Yeah. I mean they kind of sell proof
of stake. Is it being even less likely for
a 51% attack to happen? Because somebody needs to have
half of the currency on the blockchain to be able to do it.
But if you sort of extrapolate like, Think about how crucial
state would start and how because you get rewarded.
Like, you have to have 32 eith to even buy in to be a
validator. I'm proof of stake and then like
the more, the more blocks you validate, the more money you
make and that just extrapolates into the future of rewarding
richer people with more cryptocurrency and like if you
look into the future that that absolutely means that you know,
only a few people could end up with half of them, half of the
money on the Block. Chain.
This this is at, this is actually even exacerbated in
aetherium because of their monetary policy after EIP 1559
which started burning the transaction fees.
Once the merge goes live, proved a steak for etherium, it's
supposed to become deflationary. So if you're staking your
receiving, the benefits from the new coins, being issued, and
you're receiving the benefits, from all the transaction fees
being burned. So you've got two ways that your
proportional control is increasing.
Will anyone who actually uses the network is Being there,
proportional control diluted out, which isn't great for a
long-term economic system, but does benefit you if you're an
early investor? Yeah, I mean this we've had
deflationary currencies in the past and they have benefited,
the people who originally had the most money and, you know,
and the rich, you know, like a liter class in the past have
said, oh well, the poor people really poor because they're lazy
and I think like that would happen again.
Like, oh, it's your fault for not buying in.
Leo. It's your fault for not
building. Some kind of doubt like it's
already happening. I mean, that already happens.
It's such a common Trope that it's, it's not even annoying
anymore. It's just boring to me.
When people are, like, have fun staying porn, kind of dovetails
really nice with Gary V's Sigma grind, set mentality.
The best thing to do before tonight.
No privilege and work 20 hours a day until you make it like me
and can buy the Jets. This is the other point that I
actually Sorry that I forgot that I wanted to make, but it's
funny that all three of us are sitting here talking about how
difficult it is for people who perhaps lack the capital to
join. Join the club join the party.
Because recently, a lot of us know coiners have been told to
check our privilege because we don't get it.
We're the ones who don't get it that Bitcoin etherium these,
these smart contracts and these these new Financial protocol
Al's are actually benefiting the poor people, the most who need
it, the most and for me personally it's such a slight at
what we do because we're clearly not trying to rip people off,
you know? Yeah.
I mean like to be able to have the means to like, make content
like we do like you. Do you have to be privileged in
a way? Don't you like this?
They course, obviously, we're not, you know, on the red line
or whatever. But why does there always have
to be a monetary incentive to everything that you Do like,
obviously I want to be paid for making my video, like, this is
my job now. I don't have anything else that
I'm making money from, but like I get people saying to me, oh,
you're only doing this to make money like you do realize I
could have made way more money from Schilling crypto like I
have an audience, I could have used that to my advantage for
way, more money than for talking against crypto, but they seem
they're in this mindset of everybody does everything to
make money and that's a really bad mindset to have like Like
some people don't just want to make money and I think that's
where I'm that's where I'm coming from.
Is this idea of like, will check your privilege weirdo?
You're being, you're being a rich first.
First world creep, is what your being?
And I'm like, man, maybe the coiners who have been lucky and
made a lot of money from their early investment in a crapshoot,
should check their privilege before they start telling all
the no coiners how they should identify.
Anjali and telling all the poor people in places like throughout
Africa or let's say in El Salvador.
Yeah that they know what's best for them because I feel like
America or Britain or France or the Netherlands.
We've all had our chance to tell them exactly how to run their
countries and run their run, their continents, and how to,
how to do things and we fucked it up really bad.
So maybe we should step back and let them figure it out for
themselves. Selves.
Mmm. Yeah, it is sort of tie into
that whole Jack Dorsey thing with his very charitable
Endeavor of banking. The unbanked with an extremely
volatile, internet token, it's just doesn't make any sense at
all, does it? But I see that's a kind of
psychology and very rich people all the time.
They they really like to sort of justify their incredible amounts
of wealth by saying that they're being charitable when actually
the That they do is charitable but they're so far removed from
what people actually need that. It's just not.
But they like to say that because it makes them look good
and it makes them feel better as well.
I think so sure. And I also think that there's
tax be like, the tax benefits are so intense that I in my
mind. That's how rich people think
about charity is, they're like, yeah, when that much money, am I
saving? Yeah.
Like when they when they set up like foundations and then and
then all of a sudden like in there Wikipedia profile it says
philanthropists like yeah. Yes, so get me started because I
start go, I start going off. I start going up when I when I
think about Bill Gates donating to the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. I understand me do some good
stuff but you're just like, yeah, what?
When it's like a when it when the foundation has a bald on it.
That's just basically all of your friends who all think
right? Exact same way as you do.
It's basically another company isn't it?
That's all it is. None of these people are getting
any less rich either. I should point out that like all
the billionaires who are going to give away all their money
before they ever died, they Sure do seem to still be topping the
billionaire list and cast. It's funny.
You mention that check your financial privilege thing
because the the foundation that's that that book is
supporting the hrf is of course, another one of Peter thiel's
little projects because he's the he's the largest human rights
Foundation, Peter teal fat, like he helped me out is the largest
single donor behind a teacher, is Peter teal.
So just to connect that back. The beginning of the episode.
And now you can start to see why I was so excited when I was
watching a when cats video because you caught that and a
lot of people missed some like How Deeply Peter teal is
embedded himself and like Blake Masters, his former CEO of teal,
whatever is running for Senate. JD Vance is teal funded and like
these same guys are the ones getting all the crypto money and
support from the crypto packs because it's all United
ideological e around this idea of creating which I thought
Analogy. In case you came up with of like
this digital decentralized, see stead was really accurate, they
want this place where they can transact act and create free of
any regulatory supervision and so they're doing that by
weakening the places that still have regulatory supervision and
trying to come up with systems that are increasingly hard to
regulate, yeah. What?
Yeah, when I read about Peter, Tales plan to see status, just
like I'm have to do a whole video on seized.
Earning because it's like, cut like half scary and half
hilarious. At the same time.
Like, they haven't got very far with it yet in like the father
so that they've got is like this, what 5 meter Square plinth
in the middle of the sea somewhere.
Well, and there was also a group of bitcoiners who purchased a
cruise ship to start their own. See stead, but like the same
person. Wait, this is the same person
who got arrested in, or almost got arrested, and, and
essentially, executed in Thailand, but yeah, go on.
All right, they forgot to do things.
Like get insurance, make sure the ship was registered pay for
fuel and so we ended up like stranded off the coast of Mexico
or something. Without any fuel needed to get
like rescued back to the mainland because they're little,
seasteading Adventure had ended disastrously, then there was
like a whole big legal case because the group that bought
the boat had no money to deal with it and whoever it was
didn't want the boat a few miles off their Coast anymore.
Yeah. It always ends up.
Like I said, yeah, and soap a few miles of someone's coast and
then whoever's Coast. It is they just like I don't
want the all these rich old white men here just avoiding
taxes. This is not beneficial to me at
all. A lot of people in my comments.
So we're talking about the game Bioshock.
The saying how it's very similar to that.
I've never played like Bioshock before.
I had no idea existed but Bioshock is fun but Jacques.
Yeah. Apparently doesn't end well in
BioShock his way it's fun. Yeah, it's funny that you bring
up seasteading It's like, I think seasteading was a more
popular concept, maybe five years ago, where people really
believed this idea of like, okay, we'll just build our own
island of manmade materials. It'll be great.
And then, and then they started trying it.
And they're like, oh, wow. Not only is this way harder than
I thought it was going to be. It sucks.
This is not fun and nobody enjoys it.
So I think that's died back. But in its place, we've now got
like crypto islands and And and like places that Bennett and I
have gone to like in Reno where you have millionaires with egos
bigger than their millions of dollars that they have being
like, you know what we're gonna do.
We're just going to turn this desert into a blockchain Utopia.
And you're like one, how to why blockchain, what does that have
to do with changing everything here?
And there, like just trust me on this.
I got this. Yeah, if crypto and actually was
successful. That's quite scary to think
about the website, still open everything.
I know the sale of the island didn't go through but it seems
like the whole project hasn't been abandoned these things,
just go. They just they just Linger on
forever. I mean, you can you can go back
one of the ones I've been talking about a lot lately
because I think Max Keiser is a Russian propaganda tool and a
bad human being Max. Keiser famously.
Did a helped start a coin called Max coin?
That's still Oh exist, somehow, you know, you don't, you don't
understand how it's not like Max Keiser has spoken about Max coin
in 5 years or whatever, but it still is out there so people can
still buy it if they want to, I guess.
But then people will argue that. That's like that's the benefit
of the blockchain. It's immutable, it'll always
exist or whatever immutability is like one of my challenges And
discussing cryptocurrency with people who own cryptocurrency is
that like censorship? Resistance in immutability are
not without serious externalities, right?
Like there may be times when it is worthwhile or even good to be
able to send a transaction. A government wants to stop
right? Or to be able to store it piece
of data that people don't want to be stored.
But the flip side of this is that it enables all the times.
You would want to stop that transaction or you desperately
would want to remove that data. Those are off the table, right?
And so, you end up with several companies, I've tried to do
social media on the blockchain, right twitch bit clout whatever,
Dan Larimer is bullshit was and all of them ended up with this
problem where people started posting awful things, right?
The child exploitation on a Miss Lee as well, right?
Yeah, animus lie. Yeah, that's a bad thing.
You don't want to social media account or social media,
platform full of revenge porn in child exploitation.
Hmm. The only solution they've come
up with to solve that is to write like custom front ends
that don't show you part of the blockchain.
I just want to say that I think I would I would suspect that
cryptocurrency Bros would argue that all of that stuff exists in
our world as is so like Facebook.
There's a ton of child exploitation stuff on Facebook
and on Google Images that is hidden by just by putting In the
right, Search terms or whatever. And I mean there's there's truth
to that I think they also would argue that like all the
financial Financial - stuff that are like, let's say our
government or these rich people do, you could see it on the
blockchain, wouldn't that be so much better?
Isn't this? The transparent version of what
we're criticizing? So I'd be interested to hear.
Actually both of your thoughts on that.
I was a reason that append-only databases have never been used
in a link businesses before. It's that there is a Things are
deleted sometimes and you don't don't always see that as some
sort of conspiracy of somebody trying to hide something from
you and it ties in really well with the whole like q and on
Pizza gate thing. Like, people are convinced that
there's some sort of secret cabal who were trying to hide
everything from you, but I don't think the world works that well,
like, I don't think people are able to keep secrets.
Yeah, keep secrets that well, and even if they did, they
wouldn't hide like coded clues about it in the public for
everybody to see. So like a very practical
Viewpoint. I delete things sometimes.
Tweets I put out and then as soon as it actually posts, I
read it. And go, you know what?
I would rather no one else read what?
I just wrote and so I delete it right or back in college.
I wrote a book on intermittent fasting and then here to later
as I was reading more studies, I was seeing increasing evidence
that That intermittent fasting is a diet was leading to an
increased incidence of Eating Disorders, right?
And so at that point, I removed my book from the marketplace and
took down a lot of my posts and stuff like that.
And I was able to do that because I was able to go in and
delete the post and remove it from sale and do those things
because it wasn't immutable, right?
I thought it was potentially causing harm and so I was able
to stop it, mooncat to you see any Value whatsoever in any of
this stuff. Or do you think it's all just a
bottom-up top-down total trash? I did try really hard to find
some positives. I tried but like know if it was
if this was ever useful for anyone then it would only be
useful if we regulated it and if we regulated in any way then all
of a sudden it's just not decentralized at all.
Is its? I mean, it's not Sized.
Anyway, but it would be even less decentralized if we even
regulated it because there's got to be someone who looks over
these regulations and decides on them and if it was regulated, it
would be better. But I don't think we'd end up
with a better system than what we have now.
And the system we have now is imperfect and obviously benefits
the rich but it's it's a better system than the blockchain.
And I think we just need to try and push forward with the
policies that we've built over the past few centuries.
Trees and not roll them back his my general thoughts on it.
Are you at all concerned with, like people in cryptocurrency
are constantly concerned about government overreach?
They're constantly concerned about your privacy and your
rights. They're constantly concerned
about a lot of issues that aren't necessarily our primary
issues, but I wonder if you see truth to that and what what you
would hope if you do see any truth to that.
I mean, if you say no, then Cool.
But if you do see any truth to that what you would hope to see
as a solution to watch the to government, having some sort of
too much power? Yeah, sure.
Yeah. I do see that side of the
argument, like, you've got a fight against, you know,
totalitarianism in all of its forms.
But I think that in in government there's good actors
in those Bad actors. But like when you sort of
compare that with the three Market, you're literally seeing,
well people who are only motivated by money.
No better. What's forces All righty then
then what government does and I think, yeah, in government
there's good and bad people. And I think about a system is to
vote for the for who you think is the good people.
Because in that system, you know, at least no matter how
much money you have, you all have equal amount of say and you
know in this world that they're proposing is subsequently
opposite of. That feels quite futile.
The alternative that you're talking about that.
They present, I guess. Yeah, it's quite scary to think
about where it where it could get even though this system we
have is pretty terrible. Well, yeah, it's that.
That one is much worse. I know people.
Sometimes, look at me askance when I start to say crypto wants
to bring about a techno Neo feudalism and they say, no it
doesn't it once to unseat the man or whatever.
But when you actually listen to people who own cryptocurrency
discuss cryptocurrencies, they'll often basically admit
that that's what they want, right?
We'll talk about building their citadel's to keep people out or
say certain people aren't going to make it, which, of course,
leaves the question as to make it.
And if you ask them feel safe to the Citadel to Financial
Freedom, to being a member of this future class.
Like there is a tax of knowledge meant especially among Bitcoin
is, but among crypto is a whole that a probable end state is.
Feudalism is a bunch of people working for the moneyed few.
That's definitely where it would end up.
If? Yeah, if there were no
regulations put on it at all. That's, that's for sure.
Where it would end up. I don't know if that will
happen. How likely that is to happen.
But yeah, I'm trying to say is I don't want it to happen.
There's a lot of people under my video, like, ha look, look back
on this video. In five years, you'll see how
wrong you were and it's like, well, you're happy about that.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's at that. I definitely feel that.
And that again, we're coming full circle here and that it's
like these same people who are absolutely telling everybody
like, look, we're trying to help the poorest of the poor people.
We're trying to bank the unbanked, and we're trying to
just benefit society as a whole, and then you say, hey, zoom out,
like, you always tell us to do and, and look at what the future
holds for you and your Bitcoin, as a world Reserve currency and
they just don't want to do that. They don't want to see that.
They are bring bringing a thousand years of we roll in the
clock back, a thousand years on finance.
Basically, it is also very like hypocritical to like, if you're
Investing all of your money into Bitcoin or whatever crypto like
you're basically betting against your own country's currency,
aren't you? And I don't think like these
people call themselves Patriots and I don't think that they
realized it's so hypocritical to to bet against your own country
and then say that you love America it's like the Fiat
system when he system is basically they're saying it's
not backed up by anything and they're saying it's fake.
It's like do you realize that that The exact thing that's
holding your country together and making it stable.
It's you're saying it has no value and they everybody should
sell it. And let's do they not realize
white what that comes to like, you use it for sanctions to keep
your your country secure, but they don't seem to realize like
the sort of cognitive dissonance of all of that.
I had a 21 year old American tell me.
That Fiat is going to die and that I don't know what I'm
talking about and that get ready for it essentially.
And I was like, man, I'm so tired of Seeing this.
I've been seeing it for decades now.
I'm old enough that I can say. I've been seeing this for at
least 15-20 years now. Guess what the US dollar is
still around, the British pound is still around.
The euro is still around, so he's been a money-making scheme
to like make people scared of. Whatever big thing is happening
there, isn't it? Like it's make people scared
scared of a thing and said tell tell them that you've got the
solution it's always been the way that reminded me of one.
Last thing I want to touch on which was the you Up the
business plot from back when FDR was president in the United
States and some of the ideological similarities between
the group behind that and what's common in cryptocurrency could
you speak to that? Briefly basically we got rid of
the gold standard and the rich elite were not happy with that
and basically they love the gold standard so much because it
takes monetary power away from the government basically because
it's backed up by By a physical thing.
And there's also a lot of arguments that like, gold
doesn't even really have value in itself.
Anyway, it's just like, gold has value based on what we think of
it in the same way as feared Dragon.
Yeah. Like we don't really use it much
apart from like, you know, conductors or jewelry.
But anyway, they love it so much because it's like this rigid
thing that they can like base all all of the three Market on.
Yeah. And that's and then you know,
when Nazism had a rise in In the 1930s as well.
Like, you know, they found that they had the same ideologies
because this whole idea about Jewish people like being in
total control of the banks and the media.
And yeah and the whole thing about sort of inflation being
you're being told, inflation is good is actually propaganda
because it's just them controlling and getting rid of
your money because they want to keep it for themselves.
And it's the same ideologies that are now being repeated by
Bitcoin enthusiasts mostly Lee which is I don't think a lot of
them realize that and then obviously when like Jordan
Peterson was was announced to speak at a Bitcoin event they
were all really shocked when in reality like obviously he's got
like deep tight ties with Peter teal.
Like they're like really trying to control the thinking of
people to think that they're what the way they do and it's
really quite scary when you dig into How Deeply this is
connected, between these people what you're talking about doing
is what I think. People in crypto currency would
say, do your own research. And what you're actually doing
is the most important research which is following the money and
I think almost none of these cryptocurrency Bros bother doing
that, which is so funny because that's what the blockchain is
supposed to be all about as Financial transparency.
But most wouldn't know that there's a Peter teal, Jordan
Pederson connection or or for instance.
What Bennett said. Like I didn't even know Peter
teal and the human rights Foundation connection.
Like these things. Things exist.
They're actually right in front of our faces.
It's like how Banks he would put on like a, you know, a bright
best bright Jumper, whatever and go paint and then nobody would
ask a question because it looks like he's supposed to be there.
It's like a Peter teal just implants himself in the
cryptocurrency ecosystem. Then it's like nobody ever asked
why the fuck is Peter teal hanging out here and being a
kind of weird Neo-Nazi. So I think I think you're Doing
here doing a really great thing not just by entertaining people
and talking about it, but hopefully some people are
learning how to do your own research, which is like what
they always tell us to do. So I appreciate that.
That's what I that's all I wanted to say, yeah, thank you.
I'm yeah, it's always a problem. Telling people to do their own
research because because, like, we're all looking for stories,
aren't we? We are, we're all just looking
for things that back up, you know, our, our existing
worldviews. And I think we can only sort of
Get to whatever the truth is whether the truth even exists by
sort of talking about things having a discourse and watching
my videos. But also you know what what
should people that disagree with me?
Like, you know, it's all about sort of throwing information
around, isn't it? And we come to a conclusion
eventually, I always think of that experiment where put on if
you heard about this but they get like hundreds of people to
guess the amount of M&M's in a jar and out of all of the
people, who guess how many amendments are in the jar if you
take the average that it's like the correct amount.
So, That's what keeps me going, like, thinking that we're going
to get to the right answer eventually.
I mean, I think that's actually, I think people think about no
corners or critics and Skeptics like myself, and you, and
Bennett as people who were incredibly pessimistic and kind
of like vibe off hating the world cynical, you know, and,
and I just don't think that's true.
I am very pessimistic about new businesses.
I'm very pessimistic about people who tell me like, I'm
gonna fix the financial system. Bro, that I'm very pessimistic
about. But when it comes to like the
future of humanity, I actually think I'm far more optimistic
than most of these cryptocurrency people.
Yeah, technology is. Yeah, being innovated,
increasingly fast rate and I think so many good things could
come out of that. As long as we keep it in check,
you know, things like 3D printing and all of these, which
call it biotech firms. I don't really interesting stuff
but some of them are doing really scary stuff.
Oh shucks. I don't know if you've heard
about like, Peter teal and all these In Valley, people are
trying to like live forever. It's crazy in some blood.
Yeah, drinking the blood. Yeah, they're all good.
I mean, they're all getting ideas and Brian Armstrong doing
that to the, the CEO of coinbase.
I think, I'd say Good Luck Charlie.
It's a lot of these guys. But yeah, all of the
Billionaire's want to do that. And I think it says, a couple
things but one is, you know how people say, like money can't buy
you happiness. I like I almost wonder like,
mmmm, maybe it can because these people, sure.
Urdu seem to want to live a lot longer than I do.
Yeah. I mean yeah, a lot of them are
cryogenically frozen as well, aren't they?
Because they think that they'll be able to be unfrozen in the
future. I mean, there must be some good
Research into that if they're paying so much more, I don't
know. But like, yes, I think it's the
only I think it's the only option there even is so they're
just like, fuck it. Throw the dart at the board.
Let's hope it sticks II. They have, they don't people
have people loved and this is another great point.
Try not try to end this soon but your video helped me.
Remember how much like we love to idolize very, very wealthy
people and it's a very American thing.
I don't know if that's all over the world, but it is definitely
in America. Like just everyone wants to get
as rich as the richest rich people.
And once you see how rich the rich, people have gotten, you
assign them all this. It's like Gary Vee or other
people, but you assign, they must be smart.
They must know more about the world than I do.
They Must have more wisdom than I do.
And the reality is that like no, of course, they don't, they're
just people. They're just like you.
And so, when even we, when we go, like, oh, there must be
something to life extension. It's like now they're absolutely
isn't and they're just, they're just Nut Cases.
They just need something else to throw their money into isn't
don't they. So it's just another thing to
throw either space or life extension, basically another
million at that and it might work.
It's the same, it's the same thing as like throwing a million
into a start-up that's, you know.
Yeah. I think that they want to in a
way that they because they're in the tech World.
They kind of want to come back in 20, 30 40 or however many
years and see where it got to. I think that's what they
actually like want. And they want to see if their
ideas actually made it into the future and I just think it would
be quite funny. If like, Peter teal got frozen.
Then he came back in like 50 years and there was some sort of
like communist, socialist Utopia going on.
And it like, It turned out that that actually worked really
well. I would like it better.
If his like if his AI that he created woke him up and he was
like Terminator 2 Judgment Day and he was like, instantly.
The robot just says, like you made me and just rip them, you
know, just be much more apt as far as I'm gonna is a film.
That was filled in the making Rafael nikoli Hansie scheming
founder, of bitfenix is now super into life extension, makes
sense. Yeah, Ponzi schemers of course
would be like because then the Ponzi can actually go on
forever. Then the Ponzi one ever thought
this was fantastic. I'm so glad you could join us.
Is there anything you would want our listeners to kind of?
If and when they watch your video, what should the main
takeaway be? Oh, I don't know.
Just watch it and you'll come with your own, take away, I
suppose. But yeah, just be very mindful
about the Pull behind behind crypto in.
It's not, it's not this Grassroots movement, that many
people think it is. It's, it's all these very sort
of scary people that want to rule the world with algorithms.
So, yeah, I think Bennett and I often we fell into this Rabbit
Hole mostly because of the characters that were involved, I
think that more than more. So than like, wow Bitcoin or
tether or or aetherium. It was like man these executives
are Fucking weird man. So I think that's actually a
good point and compelling for people.
It's a great great Point. Yeah, thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having me. It's been great.
It's been lovely. Well, I hate to close out a
really wonderful episode like that.
In a sad fashion. But I'm getting word from
upstairs, president of crypto critics Corner.
Bennett Tomlin has, let me know that if you guys don't rate and
review the podcast, just crypto critics corner is going to get
canceled. He's going to cancel the show
and there's nothing I can really do to control him.
The man has rage and temper and his heart and I wish I could
stop him but I can't. So if you could rate and review
the podcast, you can save the show.
Good Luck. Godspeed everybody.