Hey there, this is from Konstani.
You're listening to Bitcoin for Millennials.
Together with my guests on this podcast, I go on a journey to
discover how our current financial system works, why it's
flawed, and why Bitcoin is the most relevant technology that
you, my fellow millennials, should understand and adopt.
In this episode, I'm joined by Eric Kaysen.
I had a little snafu with the audio of this episode, at least
in the beginning, and I fixed that later.
So when you start listening now, my sound is a bit bad, but that
will change within a minute or two.
Three. So yeah, Eric Cason.
He's a prominent figure in the world of Bitcoin and a leading
voice in the cyberpunk movement known for his thought provoking
essays on the philosophical aspects of Bitcoin and digital
sovereignty. His book Crypto Sovereignty
captures his transformation from socialism to anarchism and
underscores his advocacy for an independent money system
emphasizing the transformative potential of cryptography in the
realm of Bitcoin. I absolutely love Eric's content
and better yet, his friends, So let's see if he has some rants
for for this episode. Super excited to talk with him
today, and yeah, I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Thanks for having me, Graham. I'm excited to be here.
We we already had a great conversation before we're
recording, so we'll just keep it rolling.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll keep it rolling.
I love that you mentioned, you know the the name of the this
podcast is Bitcoin for Millennials.
Why? Why do you think this new
technology is so important for modern animals?
Well, just going straight into it, the fundamental truth is, is
that like Fiat money in the current financial system, it
it's designed explicitly on the idea of enslaving the younger
population in order to be subservient to older population.
And I think the, the primary example that you can see with
this is in the United States. If you look at how the Social
Security system operates and pays out right now, every single
millennial who is working and paying taxes and paying into
that Social Security system, they will never see any of that
money. And I really want to start with
the basis of the ethical idea of how a moral, nihilistic,
disturbing and frankly exploitative that system like
that is. And that's that's fundamentally
how Fiat money is designed. That's the same reason why
millennials struggle to to be able to buy groceries because of
inflation. They struggle to be able to buy
affordable home because of the way that those price has been
jacked up. And that this is about an entire
system that is designed to enslave people to a form of life
that is about working a 60 hour workweek, being able to barely
get by. And at the end of it, you will
have literally nothing to show after 40 years of hard work.
And so This is why Bitcoin is so radically important, is that it
was not designed for the rent seeking class that currently
owns everything. This was designed to be a fair
monetary system for all people everywhere across time.
And that's the most important one, is that across time,
Bitcoin honors the fact that you can't just Willy nilly make up
new units of Bitcoin. And so by being able to actually
have a static fixed supply of money, that allows for money to
do what it naturally is supposed to do, which is be deflationary.
It's only in the last 100 years that we developed this freak
form of money that we call Fiat, that the word Fiat in Latin.
It specifically means by decree. And that's what it is.
It's fundamentally a lie that is designed to have value because
there's a government behind it saying if you don't accept this
money at the value that we say, we can punish you and all that
that is, is literally an authoritarian decree.
So what I saw with Bitcoin for myself was that this was
literally a new form of money that was designed to escape from
the enslavement of Fiat. And I think it's really
important, particularly at where we're at with both inflation and
with the coming central bank digital currencies that are
going to be deployed that people really understand that Bitcoin
was designed in order to free millennials from this system of
time exploitation. I I fully agree with what you
said. The only thing I find difficult
is also when I look at my own journey and like my
conversations with other millennials is although what you
say is true, a lot of millennials, especially in the
West, aren't really well, some people have problems obviously,
but we weren't. We didn't grow up with problems,
right? Like everything always worked
and the money just worked and we never really, really doubted
that, right. Do you think it's only when
people encounter problems that they can actually, you know,
perhaps find a threat that leads them to Bitcoin?
Like for me, my my situation, I don't know, I just ended up
there just because I actually was confronted with someone who
explained to me why money in the bank is not yours.
And that's kind of my my biggest threat to to go more into
Bitcoin. But like how?
How do you view that? Like how can people get into
Bitcoin? For me, one of the big things
that that really affected me was really coming to understand sort
of how the global monetary system works.
And I spent a fair amount of my youth traveling around the
world. I spent time in Southeast Asia
and other places, and I saw how endemic and horrific the amount
of Ogden going on in those places were.
And it really fascinated me because I was like, how is it
possible that these people can work so hard, be so
entrepreneurial, and yet they seem to barely be getting by?
And that's when I started, you know, researching how the money
system works or like what the World Bank was, was, how these
relationships work. And I actually got my degree in
international relations, sort of focusing both on history and
international economics. So this really sort of opened up
the whole territory for me, which had me really understand
how these systems function. And what's interesting is that
at this point in time, I'm still sort of this socialist of being
like we just like we just got to elect the right people in the
government and we just got to get the right people into the
right roles in order to change all this.
But as I sort of appealed back the layers more and more, I
started to realize that, like the the incentives are actually
so grossly misaligned in a way that like, it doesn't.
It doesn't matter who's in charge of these systems.
Like they're fundamentally designed to exploit people in a
way that that it's very sneaky in the way that we're sort of
taught that, like, if something feels really good, then, like,
it must be true. And that was sort of a line of
thinking that led through for me to be like, oh, like we just got
to elect the right people because, like, that feels good.
They're saying the right stuff. That's how it works.
But then when I really looked at the results of what was going
on, you know, like, like people venerate Obama as being this
really wonderful liberal president who implemented all
these great policies. But when I really looked harder
at it, I was like, well, if that's true, like, why is this
Democrat liberal president, the one that's actually responsible
for drone bombing, more innocent people than any president
before? And I started to realize like,
oh, like these whole ideas of Republican and Democrat, they're
not actually that different at all.
They actually seem to be very much committed to the same form.
And again, with peeling back the layers, moral.
It's like, well, what's this whole situation with war?
And like, why does America seem to be involved in these
continuous wars, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican?
And that's when I started to really realize, oh, it's about
how the incentives are for the government to print money for
that, to provide that to war profits, years, and for them to
then encourage wars from both sides.
And it was, frankly, it was really dark and intimidating and
scary to come to terms with. And I also found a lot of people
at that point, they're like, whoa, like turn on the Netflix.
I don't want to look at this. And while I respect why people
need to do that, I find it frankly irresponsible.
Like if we want the world to change in a meaningful way, we
have to ask ourselves to actually think about how many
systems function and whether or not they actually are changing
and providing for people in a good and meaningful way.
And I think frankly, if we look at the difference between
growing up and today, I think we'll see that things are
actually breaking down more than we would like to admit.
And So what were your initial views on on politics and
economics when you grew up? I I saw, well, you went from a
socialist to an anarchist. So were you always drawn to the
socialist idea or like, how? How did that grow?
Yeah. So I mean, like, you know, I'm
in sunny California right now. We're like a nice liberal Oasis
in the world where everybody sort of has the same forms of
thinking. And unlike, to be frank, like
it's all very nice, like everybody cares about everybody
else. We want to be inclusive.
We want to help each other. It's all based upon these ideas
of feeling, you know, and and the idea of that, like, hey,
like rich people should share their money with poor people
because those poor people deserve to have fair standards
of living as well. Like, that feels really good
that that sounds correct. But the problem is, is when you
actually start analyzing how that works economically, there
are, there are two fundamental problems.
One is, is that on an economic level, well, you know, these
rich people got rich not just because, well, there are two
different kinds of wealth. There's one that's created
through general entrepreneurialship and actually
providing goods and services in a way that helps the world.
And then there's another way that's much more parasitic and
exploitative. And the irony is, is that
socialists look at that parasitic, exploitative
relationship and they go, those are the bad people that take
advantage of others, and we need to get their wealth from them.
But what they fail to realize is that those people get their
money specifically through these regulatory frameworks and
through being as close as they can to the money spigot and they
don't actually create anything new or valuable.
And then there's this other class of entrepreneur who who
actually are really improving the lives of many people in very
powerful ways. But this abusiation between the
two has has you acquitiate them in a way that specifically this
other group, they get protection from government so that they
don't have to pay those taxes and stuff.
Meanwhile, you're small entrepreneur.
He gets squeezed out of existence because he can't
actually make a business because they are ludicrous ideas that
the government has them wanted to follow in order to be able to
have that business function. So I think for me, moving
through some of this stuff and doing all of the research to
really understand how economics works was really helpful.
But then for me, it was really during the Occupy Wall Street
movement that I realized that money was obviously a key
problem, but nobody had a solution to it.
And for me, that's when I really got Bitcoin.
And I was like, oh, like this Bitcoin thing is really
important. Another one for me is that,
like, the idea of anarchism, I didn't understand how it could
organizationally function in any sort of a meaningful way without
the state. So that's why I went to
socialism. But once I encountered Bitcoin,
it allowed for this new idea of sort of digital anarchism to
implement itself and me and I started really kind of digging
into that. And for me, that's when I
pivoted away. And I realized that in my
opinion, the way that the state functions, frankly, is just as a
violent apparatus in all forms. And that's why we need to do
away with it because now it's in a very extreme place where like
it, it has the surveillance capacities to institute that
violence against everybody in very discreet ways.
And so I I see a very real danger with the state today,
paired with the forms of technology that it uses.
And so it's bit, it was interesting when I was like
prepping for for our talk, Occupy Wall Street caught my
eye, you know, and I was like Oh yeah, we had that.
But there wasn't really any effect, right.
Like it's just it just went away or something.
It was like a media thing or like oh, these people are still
camping. And then it went away all.
Right. So I I actually think it had one
very powerful effect and that was allow for people to get out
and emotionally exude and express themselves fatigue and
exhaust themselves so that then it could fade away and collapse
and we could repeat the same nightmare that we did through
2008. Because it was a very powerful
movement that understood that the the problem that was going
on was with Wall Street and the way that Wall Street essentially
controls everything vis A vis money.
But within that there was no solution, there was no answer.
There was no methodology to actually address the issue.
It was just a lot of lamenting about the very real deep pain
that people were experiencing because we lived inside of a
broken money system. And the frank truth is, is that
there was no solution really at that point in time.
And even though Bitcoin had still started, it was still a
very nascent experiment. And one of the things I think is
really important to understand about Bitcoin is I'm of the
opinion that from 2009 up until about, I'd say anywhere between
2013 to 2015, it was still very much an experimental phase.
And it was figuring out if this was a possibility that it could
work. And then after that point, when
we saw the ICO boom and other things, there was this whole
idea of maybe we could have millions of currencies, we could
experiment with them, we could do all these other things.
Turned out that was a giant shit show and a grift.
And then I was finally sort of in the post 2017 boom that
people were like, oh, Bitcoin is a unique form of money that is
explicitly designed for everybody because nobody
controlled it. And that's when Bitcoin, in my
opinion, sort of achieved its political mission.
That's now sort of accelerating and reverberating more and more,
particularly as we're going in this world where governments
around the world want to make a global central bank, digital
currencies that are interoperable with each other.
Because, like, to be clear, like that is the most powerful
surveillance apparatus that has ever been developed, and that
governments around the world want to work in alliance with
each other in order to make sure that all people everywhere have
all financial and economic transactions surveilled at all
points in time for any means that they see necessary.
Like that should terrify anyone who has any remote idea of what
that actually means. Do you think that there are
enough people who woken up to this?
And if not, what would be the best way to reach the people
that do know that there's a problem?
I mean, like Occupy Wall Street was big.
It was also, in a sense, worldwide, like across social
media, right? Like people empathized with the
actual people on the ground etcetera.
Right. And but I do kind of feel that
like those people that were there, we're not like the
cypherpunk type people or the digital natives slash
millennials like young people now adopting Bitcoin as well.
It is feels more like they're progressives quote UN quote who
I I currently now think like if you identify as a progressive
person you should be all onto Bitcoin.
But that's another conversation. I think like for me it feels
like it's kind of like those types of people where the action
or the attention seems to shift from you know, subject to
subject, while at the same time as you mentioned like there
there's real efforts on the way to create a surveillance
mechanism slash state slash technology that will also not
bode well for these people. Like, what do you think about
that? Yeah.
So, so I heard two questions there.
The first one in regards to are there enough people that get it?
Yes, absolutely. And it's, it's really exciting
to see how many people get it. However, the big problem is, is
that we're not organized in a thoughtful way right now.
So like to me the next powerful iteration that we will see come
through Bitcoin is like the it's actual politicization in a in a
totalizing way. And when I say politicization
like I'm not talking about contemporary politics with
political parties or electing or voting on things like.
I'm talking about this very radical Capital T, Capital T,
the political like the apparatus throughout all of human history
that has caused for radical shifts and changes in the same
way that like the American Revolution was it the political
movement of the late 16th century that fundamentally
transformed all forms of politics moving forward from
that. So to me, like that's what
Bitcoin represents. And so far that, like the
Internet also is part of this Capital T, Capital T, the
political thing that now all people everywhere utilize, the
Internet. It facilitates our commerce.
It is our primary way of communicating and getting
information. And yet somehow that same
apparatus has nothing to do with contemporary politics in any
meaningful way. Like that must change.
And I think that changes by Bitcoiners essentially
radicalizing their own movement and creating a vanguard that has
the specific task of educating people around the world about
what Fiat money is, how it's designed to exploit and steal
from them and surveil them, and how and why Bitcoin resolves
that problem. And to the second part of your
question, I think, you know, both progressives and socialists
like, they're, I very much believe, like their hearts are
in the right place. Like they have the correct
desires to create a more fair and equitable world.
However, they've been terribly misled in the ways and methods
to do that. And one of the things that
drives me absolutely bonkers is how often I meet progressives or
people that are deeply passionate about the
environmental movement. They go, yeah, but but Bitcoin
wastes all of this energy. And I go, oh, is that so?
So, like, you're an expert in energy policy.
So like, please tell me, like, why do you think energy markets
frequently go to the negative valuations, You know, And they
go what I go, well, you know, like if you have a wind farm and
you're at full capacity, you have too much energy on hand.
So you either have to pay people to shut down your energy
capacity in windmill, which is an expense, or you can pay
people to take that energy off of your hands.
And I go what I go. So it turns out that, like,
Bitcoin miners are actually very efficient at being able to do
that because they can just switch on and off randomly
however much they want to, so they can take up as much load as
they need to. So it actually turns out that
the most powerful and positive thing in order to get closer to
a sustainable energy future that you desire is with Bitcoin.
And it's pretty funny because a lot of times they almost glitch
out on that and they're like, whoa, like, I got to step away
from this. And to me, like this is one of
the very interesting things. And one of the things that I
find the most concerning is that there's very little
understanding of how much people are being played by propaganda
and how powerful that is. And I frequently find,
particularly with boomer friends of mine how much of A struggle
it is for me to really try to present to them like hey like
the you know, I'm like this is sort of my own extreme anarchist
approach of that like hey like the government hates you and
like they they have no desire for you to have self sovereignty
or agency over your own life because of the way that like.
They're fundamentally and inherently alienated from you.
They have no way to, like, know you in a personal or meaningful
way. But because of the way that you
have spent an entire life being told that the government loves
you and cares about you and that you know they've made mistakes
in the past, but they've remedied that.
Like, that's all bullshit. And it's really amazing because
I think the Internet's really breaking that down.
And that's why millennials are so much more powerful in this,
in this space of being able to get it is that we can actually
go out and find rogue information that the state does
not want us to have and we can educate ourselves on, you know,
And so it's really interesting, like talk to boomers about,
like, hey, like MK Ultra was like a real thing that happened.
So same thing with the two CD syphilis experiments, Same
thing, you know, with all of the different procedures that
violated people's constitutional rights and were just grossly
unethical things to do. Like, those all were real and
happened. And so, like, you really need to
understand the history of the last 80 years in the West and
the significant and severe wholesale abuses that
governments have done to their citizens to really be able to
actually step back and go, OK, maybe this actually is a system
that's designed to exploit and take advantage of people in a
way that I, I didn't appreciate or understand at this point.
And to me, like that's sort of the key that progressives really
need to understand is getting that.
Like there hasn't actually been an incident in human history
where like the government was actually like leading the charge
on helping people in a good and powerful way.
And again, you'll get bullshit where people go, well, what
about, you know, they they ended slavery and and you know, black
people got equal rights in the 60s.
And I was like, you realize there was like massive fucking
struggles from the people directly in order to like get
those changes made. Like the government was just
like, Yep, we're going to, like end slavery.
And Yep, we're going to like give black people civil rights.
Like, no. Like, that was that was a
massive struggle that people had to carry out on their own.
Very similar to the massive struggle that we have to carry
out to free people from the insidiousness of Fiat money.
Yep. It's interesting that that when
your case that you make about the wind farm and the energy is
exactly what I also meant when I said progressives, right?
Like that whole energy angle must fascinate you.
Right. If if you deem yourself a
progressive, but I think it's kind of like then then you have
to figure out, OK, where do you get your information from or who
do you believe? And then they're actually more
like the boomers that you just illustrated, right?
Yeah, this certain institute or someone with a label, I don't
know, or somewhere up a hierarchy told me this is bad
and criminals use it and whatever.
So that is now my point, right? And that's what I'm going to
defend. But the real digital native
millennials, at least I hope there's, there's some of them
are also progressive and they still think like this.
But I agree with you, you know, like the fact that you can find
other information than what what you've been taught, that's
actually a very, very powerful thing, right?
Because if you have an open mind or if you want to think for
yourself, right? Or if you're discovering, like,
what do I actually think of certain things, then you know,
if that door in your mind is just open enough and you find
other information, you know, not from a random dude on Facebook,
but you know actually lots of credible people, for example, on
Twitter, right? Like, that's also I think, why a
lot of these progressives hate Twitter.
You know, serious people that have serious thoughts that are
serious in sharing that, right? And once you're open to
receiving that, then you can actually for some people, you
know for the first time in your life, actually think for
yourself. And that's I think just the
first step for a lot of people to actually find other
information, consume that information and then realize, oh
wow, like what do I actually think about this, right?
What's my opinion or what do I believe?
And I don't like the rest of the journey only starts starts
there. So I'm, I'm personally really
fascinated by, like the personal journey of a lot of people just
to switch your mentality from. I know that I don't know
everything. And so I need to gather
information if I want to, you know, form this opinion and not
just follow some random, you know, whatever person that says
like this, this is how you should should think.
So I love that about millennials too.
So I hope I see in my YouTube stats that I'm actually reaching
millennials. So for all the people listening,
start thinking for yourself. I wanted to ask you a question.
I I just want to comment on that and that like I, I what you
pointed out like I think it's really important that like all
of this only starts though when the possibility of what you've
been told has been incorrect, becomes an opening.
And that was one of the things about how COVID and sort of the
vaccine and all of that played out that I thought was really
powerful and important was that while as destructive as it was,
it opened the door for a lot of people to go, whoa, like, my my
government might actually have been lying to me about stuff.
And that opens them to the possibility of now looking at
history and all the different things that have happened.
But I also think that that that now allows for there to be the
space to actually go gather that information and synthesize it on
their own, you know? And it was funny because I
actually had an interaction a few months ago that frankly was
terrifying because like, we we had a very similar conversation
of like, yeah, like, stuff's real wacky.
There's like lots of different information out there that's
like totally off base. And and like, I sort of thought
me and the guy were moving in the same direction.
He was like, yeah, he's like it's really important that we,
like, address this like, misinformation issue.
And he was like, that's why, like, I think it's really great
to see that, like they they want to get like a misinformation
council. And I was like, whoa, I was
like, hang on. I was like you.
So you think that that's like, a good idea, that there becomes a
government agency that's in charge of telling us what's true
and what's not. And he was like, well, yeah,
like, how else is it possible for us to be able to tell the
difference between what's true and what's false?
And like, I literally got on my chair and started yelling.
I was like, wow, Because you can fucking sink, man.
Like, that's what it is, is that I can tell you if you hold a
lighter under your hand, it feels good, but you can try it
out. And if it doesn't fucking feel
good, you can stop and go, Gee, golly, that was wrong.
Like, that's the important thing.
We can, like, take information that's right and wrong and we
can compare them with each other and use it to figure out what is
right and what is wrong. And at this point he was like,
well, but there's just too much information out there.
We can't do that. And I was like, no, no, no, we
absolutely can. You don't want to because it's
too hard for you. And that's fine.
But don't include me in that. And I'm pretty sure at this
point I literally just, like, walked away from the
conversation. But it's really scary to me
because there there are, I'd say, probably a majority of
people that actually have a strong belief that like, you
know, this, like, misinformation counselor, whatever you want to
call them that, like these people are.
And it's funny, 'cause like, again, this is a place that I
sort of, I I have a soft spot in my heart for progressives of
that. Like this is part of their own
naive world view of that like, hey, like people out there like
good and like standing up to their morals and what they mean.
That's like, no, bro. Like these are nihilistic pieces
of shit that got in the position that they're in by not having
any ethical basis whatsoever. And this is the same reason why
these people can boldface lie to you about shit like that.
There's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that to be
clear, the United States then went and murdered more than a
fucking million Iraqi people under this lie.
Like, that's those are like real human beings that died because
the American public bought this kind of bullshit lie.
And so it's really important to understand, like, this idea of
getting to the truth. Like there's a very, very real
cost of it. And that's one of the reasons,
again, when we talk, when I I talk with liberals and they're
like, oh, I love Obama. He was such a great president
across the border. I'm like, yeah, it wasn't it
great that he fucking drone bombed more than 2200 innocent
brown children? Wasn't that a fucking great
thing that he did? And they're like, whoa, hang on,
man. Like you, you look slow down.
I'm like, yeah, the fact that he started all these
unconstitutional fucking wars, asshole.
Like, come on, think for yourselves, guys.
So sorry my my diatribe there, but it it makes me angry because
I think progressives, again, they have their heart in the
right place. They're just not fucking
thinking it through. It's like they're looking in the
wrong direction, but like now that you're talking, it's I kind
of characterized this as, isn't this like a Fiat symptom as
well, like a Fiat money symptom, right.
Because if you're if you're fully adopted, you know, in the
Fiat money system and you never think about it like lots of
people don't do, just like I didn't do before, You know,
there's all these responsibilities that you gave
to other people to decide for you, you know, that eventually
influence your life, right? Whether it's the worth of the
money itself, the taxes, you know, all that stuff.
And so when you get confronted with something that big, oh, you
love Obama. So you love killing children
with drones, right? That's just so earth shattering
in a sense, you know, that the instant reaction is no, no,
Like, I have to defer my responsibility, which means I'm
not going to think about this. So I'm not even going to discuss
with you, right. I feel that's like a symptom.
It's like a it's just how people operate.
And they only take responsibility in like, you
know, logically in like a family setting or children or whatever,
you know. But we are part of this of this
bigger thing, as you said, as you said, that there's real
humans dying because you in part also allow it to because you
don't think about the brokenness of the Fiat money, right.
So it's also like you're complicit in it in a sense, but
that's very big. Yeah, and I mean like the the
the truth is, is that that evokes a sort of existential
angst that's so big that most people flee from it.
Most people go, whoa, whoa, fuck, no, put on the Netflix.
We can't think about this. And and frankly, this is
actually like one of the largest and the most painful areas of my
own life that has actually caused for me to lose many
relationships and like it it it sucks in a lot of ways.
And with that being said, I also gained many relationships,
particularly my ones through Bitcoin with it.
But it's very hard because a lot of times you look at it and you
know, you go, what am I supposed to do?
How can I address this in any meaningful way?
You know, and it's very difficult.
And I think that again, that's why many of us have came to
Bitcoin because like, it's not, it's not like I put all this
together on my own without Bitcoin.
I mean, I have to continually return to Bitcoin because of
this. And with this.
And it's really important to understand the way that we can
connect all of these things in a greater and more holistic way.
Because the way that Bitcoin allows for us to lens and view
things through this sort of critique of Fiat is really
important. Because then that allows for us
to address all of the other systemic issues that are going
on. And to me, like one of the key
ones is food. Like, why is it that our food
systems are so dysfunctional? And well, if you look at it like
something like corn syrup, the number one additive in food
products today like that was only invented in 1982.
And the reason that it's so successful is because through
the Fiat monetary system, corn farmers were able to go to the
government and get huge subsidies, massive subsidies
that allow for them to grow corn below production cost that's
normalized for anybody else. So they can now produce corn at
a fraction of the cost that anybody could actually produce
it at. And now they can create all this
synthetic sludge that they can dump on the market that now
means, well, hey, I can go to the store and I could buy celery
and other healthy foods, but those are, you know, going to be
5 times more expensive than me buying, you know, the corn syrup
slop over here that's been price collapsed.
And it's not just here, but it's sort of across the board where
we've seen these sort of effects.
And it's very important to be able to pinpoint and criticized
the methods and ways that Fiat has done this to us.
And that's only possible once you actually have opened your
eyes to seeing how this system controls us.
And and frankly, a very frightening and terrifying way.
You know, and it's it's very similar to sort of having the
conversation with people about, you know, like Epstein didn't
kill himself. And it's like, ha, ha ha, we get
that. And it's like, well, like, have
you dug into, like, who he is and what he was doing?
And they're like, well, yeah, but, like, that's conspiracy
stuff. And it's like, it's a conspiracy
that the president of the United States at the point in time went
to this man's island where they were clearly raping children on
36 different occasions. Like, it's really important to
get like, I again, I get, like, this is insanely dark.
But we do have to actually consider for a moment that maybe
the president of the United States was raping children
facilitated by an Israeli USAD agent.
And again, I get it sounds fucking crazy on its face, but
let's actually look at the documentation.
And if this is true, we really should consider are these the
people that we want running our government?
Just a question, you know. Yeah.
Do you think that response I I don't know who I listened to
maybe it was Patrick Beth David. Like I listened to a podcast
where someone said that they that they kept their child from
using an iPad or watching like YouTube Kids stuff until his
daughter was five or something. And then he said, well, the
first time she watched something or she went through YouTube Kids
or just like, you know, or or Netflix, just she was watching
some cartoon show. And then there were children in
that show and one kid hit another kid and his child was
very upset that these two kids were were fighting.
That was her initial reaction. And then a week after or
something, she was watching something again and there was
again some sort of violence or like 11 character hitting
another character. And now she was laughing.
And so he told the story on this podcast and the other guys were
laughing. But then he asked like, hey, do
you like the John Wick movies? And then I thought to myself, I
think John Wick's pretty cool, like he shoots all the people,
etcetera, right? And then he said, but this is
the same thing. It's like the the violence gets,
I don't even know how to what word to use, but, you know, it
turns into entertainment and you laugh about it or you think it's
cool. But it's also a way to prep you
for like distancing yourself from that real world thing that
occurs in lots of places around the world, right?
It's to to create a cognitive dissonance like this is not
real. This is just you know this is a
movie type thing you know and what you just referenced you
know with the whole Epstein thing or or any you know story
that is really dark. People just instantly go to like
oh this is sounds like a movie plot can't be real right.
Or I saw this once in a movie or it can't be real stuff like
that. It's it's also your your
condition to to, you know instantly distance yourself from
that and to just not ask any other question or maybe even
spend an hour researching, you know online like I find that.
So it's fascinating because it also doesn't make sense that for
all these types of stories where people say, like, you know, you
should really look into this or this is not how you how you
thought it was, that that's all made-up.
Like there's just random people sitting somewhere making shit
up. And then there's like other
people that say, like, Oh yeah, it makes sense.
And then they're they're all just making stuff up like that.
That doesn't make sense to me, but it's I I understand it's
hard to go down that darker path than you would usually go down,
perhaps to just find information for yourself, right?
But. This is sort of the the meta
thing that happened specifically about like again it it's very
intimidating and existentially threatening to realize like how
deeply we're captured and programmed and augmented by
this. And I think one of the biggest
ones is, is that like part of me being an anarchist is that like
I am a militant anti war activist and the amount that
violence and war and militarism is honored I find absolutely
horrifying and ludicrous. I had recently like I was
listening to a podcast where like they you know it was about
this guy like he's Navy SEAL and you know all this great stuff
and you know he he's like venerated for all these reasons.
And as I was listening to like I had to turn it off because I was
like this dude like readily and openly admits that like he's
he's he's murdered hundreds of people for the state.
And like no it's like it's like just like a non issue for
people. And it just like blows my
fucking mind that like so here's a man who has actually killed
other human beings. He like he has taken the lives
of other people and because it was done at the behest of the
state and we were told these were bad guys, felt like that
just that just that relegates the issue away and like it's
fucking crazy. And again like in sort of the
irony and and the the the tragic fate that seems to be modernity.
But that's also why you get all these young men who are like,
yeah, I'll go fight the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and I'll be
some great hero. It'll be a lot of fun And they
come back and they're horrifically fucked up human
beings because they realized the very real moral crime that they
engaged in. You know and and I feel I feel
particularly fortunate because my grandfather he he was a
fighter pilot in World War 2 and he he was on Iwo Jima and there
was an interesting essentially their airfields got raided at
night by the Japanese and they had to engage in hand to hand
combat. And so my grandpa, he, he told
me a number of stories about how he he had to wait in a ditch
for, like, Japanese men to come find to kill him.
And he had to, like pop up behind them and stab them to
death. And he was saying, like in, you
know, after this had happened a number of times, there was a
night where the sun was setting and he was just like fucking
sobbing in his trench because he realized, like, he had to do
this again. And he imparted all of this on
his deathbed. And he pretty much was like,
look like, don't, don't ever fucking engage in killing
somebody. He was like, you don't
understand. He was like, I'm, I'm 60 years
past this, like I have lived my life going to church almost
every day after that. And I can't get the fucking
blood off my hands. I'm like, I'm about to go meet
my maker and I know that he is going to forbid me from entering
into the Kingdom of heaven because I performed this crime
that I didn't understand. And I was just like, you know, I
was like a 19 year old kid. I'm like, OK, like, thanks
grandpa. I appreciate it.
But that's really stuck with me. It's because, like, it's really
important to understand that like as much as we make up these
fantasies and these ideas about what violence is and and the way
that it controls our minds and conduct, that like, these are
real things that happen to people that like, we have to
take responsibility for. And it's really sad and scary in
my opinion, how much a lot of people don't think or consider
about, you know, and again this relates back to the Obama stuff
with like This is why I'm an anti war activist, is that like
even if your great liberal president says that we're, you
know, destroying the evil terrorists across the board,
Like is that actually true? And it turns out when you look
at the statistics, it's not. It actually turns out that 95%
of the time we're killing innocent people.
And like that requires a very special thought process to
really step back and do an analysis of, to realize that
like we kill innocent people based on lies that we're told by
our politicians. And is that something that we
want to participate in? For me, absolutely not.
And I know I can't vote my way out of it, but I can take my
economic power and put it into a form of money that they cannot
control and that they cannot use in order to make that form of
war. So to me, that was one of the
leading things for me. And why have my involvement with
Bitcoin is that I want an independent money system that
can't be used in order to finance infinite wars.
So you wrote about this before. How?
How can Bitcoin then contribute to a return to more truth and
accountability instead of, you know, not having values use or
just being nihilistic? Like how most of the world is
now. Like what's?
How, I mean, I think, I think the most powerful one is this
word, accountability in a dualistic sense.
One is the the very real mathematical accounting that
goes into the financing of war. If you look at currently how the
Department of Defense, the Pentagon and other agencies are
financed, it's not just through tax revenue.
It's through literally the fictionalizing up of new money
that then gets issued to these people that can then go spend on
Infinity War and furthermore through something like Bitcoin.
There is a very real accountability on a personal
sense to say, I hold this money, I can keep this money and I can
utilize to make sure that if governments were ever to
actually like use Bitcoin as their actual unit of accounting,
they can't just fictionalize it up anymore.
That we can actually return to a world where the power of the
purse has meaningful accountability towards the
people and the financing That it does and like.
This is another very long historical arc that if anybody
has curiosity about it, I very much encourage you to look into.
But the only way that World War One, World War 2, and all of the
successive wars were even a possibility was fundamentally
done through the creation of Fiat money.
It could not be done on a gold standard like these Wars were
too large, they were too robust, and they were too inclusive to
be able to sustain that amount of economic parasitism that was
involved with. Like it it couldn't happen on a
Goldstein. And so if we can get ourselves
to return to a world where we have the power of the purse
directly at the fingertips of the people everywhere, this can
actually stop global war in a way that we haven't seen in
centuries. Yeah, I love that.
It's basically forced. The transparency forces you to
play along, right? Like the the transparency of the
system of Bitcoin forces you to be ethical and just basically
right. Because the the foundational
layer of Bitcoin, it just represents a truth.
And if we commit to that truth and everything done upon that
layer has to commit to that right?
Like you cannot scam your way out of it and it says like you
cannot escape the responsibility that is that is connected with
using that system. Yeah.
And and making this connection between ourselves and our
economic power, I think is very important because again, this is
one of the things that fascinates me about the
contemporary world. Is that like money?
Unequivocally, like is the most important thing going on in all
of our lives. Not by virtue of it being, you
know, the highest principle or whatever, but like our actual
everyday day-to-day lives, things and interactions that we
have with people. Like money is what governs it,
and yet so few people actually even understand what that is in
any meaningful way. And so once you can really start
asking what is money? How is value created?
How is money supposed to function?
That you can start to uncover these layers and start to really
question it in a deeper and more meaningful way.
And the mean, the most important part of these ethical questions
is really asking well, who should control the money?
How should it be created? Is like, is it fair or
appropriate for money to get unilaterally created by the
government and then distributed to to other people?
You know, I'm like, I I find it absolutely horrifying to think
of the hundreds of billions of dollars that have specifically
been funneled to the Ukrainian war from the American
government. And look like whatever your
opinion about that war is. The question is, is should
American money be unilaterally distributed by politicians or
should there be some form of larger democratic accountability
in order to ensure that? And I think most people would
agree with the latter of those two because like it, it's just
what makes sense and is logical. And again, this is the stuff
that returns me to progressives of I want to go look like if you
actually believe in democracy or republicanism in any meaningful
way, why the fuck are there all of these different agencies and
apparatuses that get to unilaterally use our money
without us having any say whatsoever?
And how that gets used, you know, and a lot of times I find
that people don't necessarily want to think that much deeper.
And I think that's the biggest thing is, is that I would
encourage millennials that like I get a lot of these things are
pretty big and overwhelming. But it's really important that
you actually take the time and energy to understand it.
Because if you don't, the people that do understand it are going
to use your lack of understanding to control you in
a way that you can't escape from.
Yeah, well, I mean, that's clearly happening, of course,
right. Like you, you there, there's so
many of these videos on Twitter or Instagram where, you know,
you see these people sitting in their car saying like, oh, I
have $100,000 something something education, you know,
And I'm not even working in that profession because it pays like
shit that now I have three jobs and I'm rolling sushi.
But I really have no clue, actually, as to why, why that
is, you know, and I find that so fascinating that I hope that
just for lots of people that that should be like the wake up
call, right? Like you.
Well, I'm like you are. Literally being heard from but.
Be like be fucking angry like the like you did the you did
what you were told you like you went to school, you got good
grades. You like listen to your school
constantly. Yeah, like, yeah, like, go to
school. Take out those massive fucking
loans to like, get your education in in contemporary
dance theory. Like, like that's a great idea.
Like they fucking scammed you and now you have to work at
Starbucks 40 hours a week, barely scraping by, because they
encouraged you to take out massive unsecured loans to get a
degree that they told you was going to be a worthwhile thing.
And the truth is, is that was to lock you into this life that
scammed you and you should be fucking outraged about it.
In the same way that you should be outraged about the fact that
these baby boomers got to go in and buy up all the fucking
property in the 1970s before the money got absolutely fucked.
And now they Jack the prices through the roof and they turn
to you and go, Yeah, you should pay $3000 for your rent for your
one bedroom apartment when you barely even make that.
Like, this was a system that was explicitly designed to take
advantage of you and you should be very, very angry about that.
And I want to encourage you that the one thing that you can use
as a tool to fight back is Bitcoin, including like and
like. I specifically say this to
millennials that are like at the end of the rope that have a shit
load of debt that are barely scraping by, that don't see an
exit that can look like. Some people would definitely
disagree with me on this, but I'd say take as much unsecured
debt as you can, buy as much Bitcoin as you can with it, and
fucking default on that. These pieces of shit allowed for
the banks in 2008 to default on more money than has ever been
defaulted on in the history of the world.
And guess what? They got bailed the fuck out.
Meanwhile, you're just trying to feed yourself and they don't
they They want to say that you have an obligation to pay back
this debt to the largest financial institutes in the
world. Get fucked.
Buy as much Bitcoin as you can, default on that debt and move to
a country that doesn't fucking hate you and want to take
advantage of you, you know? And again, I get all of this is
very extreme, but I want to be clear, like this is also your
life and there isn't going to be an exit.
Inflation isn't going down, rents aren't going to decrease.
This is going to be a long and difficult Rd. and if you stop,
if you allow for yourself the permission to stop playing by
their rules for a little bit and to protect and defend yourself
first, then to meet the honor of your debt obligations to them, I
do think your life will improve. I'm not saying that there isn't
risk and I'm not saying that there isn't difficulty in it.
But what's really important is once you have Bitcoin off an
exchange that you hold in your own personal private wallet that
you control the keys to, they can't steal that from you.
And if you're already impoverished and don't have
anything, that's going to be much more meaningful for you
than any other amount of money. And I'll also tell you what,
$20,000 is going to get you a hell of a lot farther in a place
like Thailand or Bali, which are great places to be, than it is
going to get you in a place like New York or San Francisco.
So I only throw that out there because I think it's really
important to understand that there is a way for you to
actually walk away from this and have some money, but it does
require some real sacrifice. And I think it's really
important that people at least consider that as being a real
option. I agree on the like extreme
part. Like I I agree with you.
But I also understand this is a this would be a big thing for
people to do, right? But I think it starts with
realizing that the system that you're in is like a construct
made by people know better than you, no smarter than you, no
more special than you or whatever.
But you are the subject. You are the subject of this
system. You are not an actor in this
system, although you maybe sometimes feel like an actor,
right? When you do your education and
you get the loan or you, you know, whatever.
Like, like the the classic path, right.
But I think what you just mentioned as the application,
like if once you understand that you are a subject in the system
and the system is a construct and there's actually another
system that has been constructed, then you can just
move. You can just move.
You know, you don't have to wait.
I asked Jeff Booth like some thought about the future of
Bitcoin. And then he said like, it's now,
you can move now, you know. And I hear that in what you said
like you can abuse in a sense the system that wants to abuse
you and then you just leave. Like it's actually the action is
fairly simple. Once you understand and
integrate and accept that you are the subject of a system and
that you can become the actor in another system, that would
actually works for you, right. Because that that other system,
Bitcoin is a mutually beneficial system where everyone who
construct contributes in that system also reaps benefits from
that system, right? It's not this the 0 sum Fiat
game and yeah, those. Are just my thoughts like.
I think, I think it's really nice what you said, like it's
it's it's scary, but you can do it, you know, like it's totally
doable. Well Mike, and this is, this is
what I really want to encourage for a particular class of people
that I like. I was there too at one point in
time and it's really important to understand that like when I
got involved with Bitcoin and went all in like this wasn't
like a like this is a brilliant investment and I'm going to make
a bunch of money. No.
Like this was an act of true desperation where I was like,
I'm living at my parents house, I have no money, I have a bunch
of student debt. I'm broke as hell.
I hate my life. I don't want to go to my job
that I have to go to on Monday. I'm horrifically depressed and I
want to kill myself. And at this point a little voice
popped up in my head and was like, well, why don't you just
just just buy all the Bitcoin you can.
And I was like, what I was like that sounds fucking crazy.
That sounds like the dumbest fucking thing I could ever do.
And I was like, yeah, then don't you you have the real reason to
kill yourself then, huh? If you buy all the magic money
and it goes to zero, you really have the feeling.
I was like, yeah, that's a good point voice.
And I was like, but if it works, you have to help her pull the
Bitcoin mission. I was like, all right, all
right, this is like a fair deal. I made the deal and it turned
out that like, this actually worked out really well for me.
You know? And granted, like, I got in
early, I got in a lot earlier than other people.
But I really want to bring back the point of that this isn't
like other unsecured money obligations.
This isn't like a car that can get repossessed.
This isn't like a house you can get kicked out of if you get a
tranche of Bitcoin. And this.
And like the other one I really want to emphasize, is that,
like, you defaulting on your debt isn't like some ethical or
moral crime. And to be very clear, like this
is what banks do every 20 years and then the government comes
and goes, well, we'll just collectivize and steal a bunch
of money from the people and give it to you rich CE OS and
and other banking people like that happens repeatedly,
constantly. And so like it's very important
to understand like this isn't a system that is ethical or
thoughtful or kind to you and you don't have an obligation to
it. So if you are in a position of
very real desperation, of not understanding how you will
escape, this is like, this is an escape hatch.
And I get it's scary, but you can actually renege on this
debt, go to somewhere for a while, live out of life for
yourself. And the other one that's true is
that, like, it turns out that when you default on all this
debt and refuse to pay it and these guys have no way to get it
back from you. That actually gets you a place
at at the negotiation table where you can actually sit down
with these debt collectors and go, tell you what, I'll give you
$0.10 on the dollar and they go fuck you.
You go, no, no, no, fuck you. Now I'm not going to give you
anything. And they go, whoa, how about how
about $0.15 on the dollar? And now you can go, all right,
now we can have a conversation. But like, again, the current
design of the Fiat system is to exploit you and make sure that
you are powerless. Bitcoin is the opposite.
It is a system that wants to empower you.
And again, like as Bram and I were talking about before in the
conversations with each other and understanding what we're
building, like that's why I'm here and that's why I
participate in Bitcoin is because I want you to be
empowered and I want you to participate in our system
because it is mutually beneficial to each other.
The more people that get into Bitcoin and are involved with
it, the more it benefits me, but the more it benefits you as
well. And I want you to know I love
you and care about you enough that I think you should have a
money that I can't steal from. I think you should have a money
that I can't use to exploit you. Dude, I say this all the time
also to my friends, like, please buy Bitcoin because I love you.
You know, I really feel that it's an altruistic thing to
help, to educate people on Bitcoin.
But the initial reaction you get is, like, yeah, of course,
because you got in early and you want to get rich.
It's like, OK, you'll get there. You'll get there.
You know that. You understand that.
That's not the point. But it's fascinating to for me
to actually realize, like, six years ago, I would have never
thought that I would say this, you know, So it does take time
for, I almost want to say, like your personality to adapt to
that new belief that or well, belief that you created based on
the rational thing that you saw or discovered.
Right. And that now that we're talking
about it, this is not, this is not, you know, the Ponzi way of
talking about it, like Jamie Dimon probably say, but it's the
altruistic thing. Like, please do it.
Help yourself. Think for yourself.
Just do it. And this belief is not.
Yeah. This belief is about the
recovery from nihilism and that most people live in the
nihilism. And that's sort of the iron why
people respond in the first place in that way of that like,
well, like it has to be a ponzing scheme.
It can't be anything else because we live in a nihilistic
world where we all have to take advantage of each other and
there's no other possibility. And it turns out that actually
the belief in the truth, and that the truth is actually a
thing of meaning in this world that has a radical understanding
that we can come to logically with each other.
And that's why Bitcoin's so important, is, I'm not saying
just trust me on this. In fact, I'm saying the
opposite. I'm saying you should go verify
what I'm saying. You should go engage in the
proof of work to understand for yourself why Bitcoin has a fixed
supply, what that fixed supply means against a Fiat money
system that has infinite numbers, How and why if you
actually hold your own private keys?
Why I can't just randomly guess those 12 words?
And why the math behind it actually is dignified in such a
way that you can know. You can actually know by doing
the math yourself that I can't randomly guess those 12 words,
nor can any other power. Yeah, you don't have to believe
us as compared to every other thing in the world.
You can actually check if it's true.
And that's, that's the entire point.
That's maybe that's just the core of Bitcoin in a sense,
right? Like you can see that what you
see, Well, you can investigate that what you see is actually
true. Well, try to do that with any
other thing probably. Well, and this is also that,
that this is also the affect that starts to transform people
in a much more holistic way beyond Bitcoin is that for me
and this is what I've seen, is this radical encounter with the
truth. It fundamentally rescues us from
a nihilistic world view where we actually understand, oh, like
the truth actually is a radical thing that we can use to
transform the world. And when I take that same form
of thought and I go, well, is all this stuff that I've been
told about food and that fats are bad, is that actually true?
Holy shit, it's not. It is all this, you know, and
like, whatever it comes to, it's really important because you
start to transform how you think, where you start to lead.
Oh, maybe I shouldn't actually trust people that tell me to
trust them. And in fact, maybe that's
actually a signal that I shouldn't trust them.
And then I should take the extra time and energy to go check what
they're telling me is true. And it and frankly, like this is
another place that you start to run up against that place where
stuff can get dark enough that you can become intimidated, you
know? And and for me, like this is
where some of my philosophical work comes into is that like,
look like that. And it's hard for people to
understand this. Like what makes this system
evil? Isn't that There's like a bunch
of maniacal people out there being like, oh ha ha, we get to
take advantage of by doing this? No, actually, it's quite the
opposite. It's actually people who they've
never even thought about if this thing is evil.
And this is what Hanara Dent's whole point was with Eichmann
and Jerusalem. Was that Eichmann, the guy who
was in charge of shipping all of the Jews off to the camps to be
killed in the Holocaust? When he was approached with this
question, he couldn't even wrap his head around it.
He always maintained through the whole thing that he was a good
upstanding citizen that was obeying the law and that he had
to obey his superiors if they were going to be able to live in
a good and functional society. And our dance criticism was she
was like, look at this fucking pea brain moron.
We're approaching him with a very real ethical question about
his involvement in killing millions of people.
And he can't even fucking self reflect on it.
Like that's how far removed he is.
And so it's not that he's some maniacal evil asshole, it's that
he's not even capable of thinking that what he's involved
with is evil. And that's why there are so many
people out there who are involved in banking, financing
and everything across the board. When you approach them with
these issues, they can't think about it.
They just reject it and go whoa, whoa, whoa, you're getting too
meta on me, man. Like I look like I'm just a a
poor little club soldier and I just do what I'm told.
And so if they say I have to go to Iran or I have to go to Yemen
or wherever I go, that's just what I do.
You know? Like I it's not for me to think
about whether or not this is right or wrong.
And that's the exact thing that I'm insisting upon is that we
are actual ethical agents in this world and we do have the
power and capacity to self reflect for ourselves and ask,
is this form of money that we currently use called Fiat, is it
fair and equitable to the people of the world and utilized for
good purposes? Or is it something else?
And if it's something else, then we have to take the very real
responsibility for ourselves to say perhaps it is time for
something new to transform and change our world.
And it happens to me that Bitcoin is that very thing that
we can do that with. Do you see Bitcoin?
Would you define Bitcoin as a tool to enlightenment?
Enlightenment's. Such a big word.
I don't think I would use enlightenment.
What I would say is Bitcoin. I wanted to hear your
definition. Is Bitcoin a tool to?
Open people to the radical possibilities that they don't
believe are possible today? Absolutely.
Is Bitcoin the most powerful tool that we have today to
rescue ourselves from the endemic nihilism that has
consumed everything? Absolutely.
And is Bitcoin a way that together we can utilize to
transform the fundamental nature of reality as we understand it?
Yeah, I think so. And I understand that like and
again like what we were talking about before recording that like
when I get together with other bitcoiners and we kind of start
ping ponging back and forth and reflecting on this like and this
is what some of my work philosophically deals with is
that like I do actually think that this is unequivocally the
largest and the most important development in all of human
history. And the reason why I say and
like even more than the printing press and other things is
because of how radical this technology is.
And the fact that this is the only thing that can allow for us
to utilize the Internet in an economic form where there is no
single entity that controls it. And to me like that is the only
thing that can allow for us to transition from a state based
panoptic surveillance society into an open, free global
society. And and frankly I don't think
there's an in between. We either get totalitarian state
surveillance where all things are monitored by everybody at
all points in time for the approval or disapproval of
governments. Or we get radical free
entrepreneurial world where Bitcoin becomes the core money
that all people use and states have to submit themselves to
what it means that their people now have a free and independent
money. I don't think there's an in
between. I agree and so.
You you've also written a lot about or you often touch on like
theological aspects. How how do you see Bitcoin in
relation to to those? As I've said, you know, earlier
in this conversation, like I believe it is actually a deeply
rescuing thing from nihilism. And I think when you have this
radical encounter with the truth, like to me, like if you
call it the truth or God or whatever, like to me what that
truth represents is this higher form of power.
There is actually reason and goodness in the world, and that
there is an actual, real possibility that we can change
all of this fucked up nonsense that we've inherited from our
our fathers and grandfathers. And it turns out that by the
virtue of our ancestors and the deep philosophical thinking that
they told us to align yourself with truth, there becomes this
new, deep, personalized empowerment that I think is very
deep and meaningful that I feel is spiritual.
And for me, it helped put myself on a path of realizing that my
involvement with Bitcoin isn't about number go up.
And frankly, like I kind of find number go up a bit comical in
light of this other thing. To me, what it's really about is
participating in the creation of a new global fair economic
system where we can actually truly align ourselves with the
principles and the accountability that we want and
what it means to be responsible and to care for ourselves as
beings who who will pass this world on to the next generation.
And to me, it's very important to understand that Bitcoin
honors and venerates the future generations in so far that it
says no, we we are not going to be able to unilaterally create
money and steal from the future in order to be able to finance
things of today. And I think that that's a very,
very important thought and mode that we must connect with in
order to actually really change things in a meaningful way.
Yeah. And so I think, I think I know
what you will say, but if I would ask you why do all roads
lead to Bitcoin? What what is the answer there?
Well, I think when you. Kind of.
Look at the, you know, global economic system and how the
Internet has had a radical transforming effect over the
last 30 years. Bitcoin's only fair and equal
form of money that works everywhere for all people,
irregardless of government or citizen status or any other sort
of identifying form. And so I think once you actually
go through the logical permutations of trying to
understand what is the most ideal form of money that people
could be using in a globalized digital society as our own,
Bitcoin's the only answer, you know.
And if you want to go through your shit coin arc as well,
like, you'll have to look at why is anonymity so important and
powerful here? And it turns out that, like, if
one is not anonymous, that creates a very real physical
body that can be destroyed by governments that will be
threatened by a free and independent money system.
Because, frankly, it is an actual existential threat to the
existence of all states everywhere today.
Because there's not a single state in existence today that
isn't radically dependent on Fiat money and how it functions
and is issued. Yeah, I once.
I once talked to a guy who. Said like, I don't know if
Bitcoin can really replace Fiat money, I think it can, but
that's what he said. But he said, if it lives
alongside, if this new system is established alongside, you know,
the old system, then inevitably that old system will get like
checked more, right? It's kind of like the new system
of Bitcoin, wood forest, the old system to behave better or else,
you know, everyone will actually move, right?
So I found that an interesting thought, like it would be.
Great if we would really have like a Bitcoin.
Standard I I believe in that, but I think we will also get
somewhere already if it's like a parallel.
If it's like a parallel thing, especially I do, I do think
it'll also be. Yeah, advantageous and.
So far that. You know that that system
countered against Bitcoin will force it to behave better in
addition to like look like if states really want to, like, get
their shit together and behave in a meaningful and thoughtful
way, these two systems paired together will actually probably
work out pretty well together. So yeah, I I.
Feel. Pretty great about where we're
going, and actually I got to start wrapping up just because I
got to go catch a flight to go halfway around the world.
So awesome. Let's do that. 22 short
questions. To end, if there's a short
answer, I hope to this one How do I know if I'm an anarchist?
I think probably the best one is.
Is that you? Believe in the agency of
individuals to make decisions for themselves that are going to
be the best for themselves and for their community.
That you really think that people can utilize their own
agency and thought and morals to make decisions for themselves,
and that they don't need to relegate those decisions to an
authority outside and beyond their own control.
Love that feels like I'm an. Anarchist then, OK?
Last question. I ask everyone the same
question. What's a core belief you will
never let go? That truth is something of
meaning in this. World and then trying to
understand it and get closer to it will always be something
positive that will give in a way that is sort of an infinite
vehicle that there that the truth doesn't need anyone to
stand up for itself, it can stand on its own.
And that in and of itself makes it the most important thing that
we can encounter. Love that, man.
That's a that's a great ending. To this conversation, man,
Thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate your time
and absolutely hope to do this again somewhere in the future.
Fun, fun to jam, man. Thank you so much.
Absolutely thank you. I greatly appreciate your.
Time. And yeah, I hope some
millennials get get some good good content from that.
Cheers, man. Thanks.
Be well, I hope you enjoyed. This episode, if you did it.
Would be amazing if you could rate, review and subscribe on
the podcast platform of your choice.
It will help us educate more millennials on the importance of
Bitcoin. You can follow and connect with
me on Twitter. I'm Brom K That's at BR AM K and
if you are or know someone who has an interesting perspective
on Bitcoin that's worth sharing, hit me up.
I read and reply to every single message.
I appreciate your support and hope you'll be here for the next
episode. Thanks for listening.
Bye.