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Discovering Bitcoin with Red Tail Hawk · Discovering Bitcoin

0:01
Yeah, I see the world through an entirely different lens.
0:06
It doesn't just give you confidence, but it gives you
0:08
hope. Take like we're squandering our
0:12
energy, our life force. So Bitcoin is changing that.
0:16
For me, because it's like it's healing energy.
0:20
It gives you a kind of. Of a stand.
0:24
Feeling right? Grab a holder deep and deep and
0:29
deep in the immortal. Words of the doors.
0:32
A time to hesitate us through discovery.
0:58
Give me a little bit of level. Tell me about the weather.
1:03
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain there.
1:06
You go and that's. If it allows a Doolittle there
1:12
mate, Yeah, I like to do accents so you're you're going to be
1:16
good fodder for me. I'd like to hear your your
1:20
Australian. I think the last accent I did
1:22
was on once bit and it was yeah. Good on your maintenance.
1:28
I don't know that many Australian bits of lingo, but I
1:32
think that's not the the intonations and inflections
1:35
rather good. That's not too bad.
1:39
That's not too bad. It's not too bad.
1:43
Red Tail Hawk. What's happening, man?
1:46
Did you? Oh, just building my nest, you
1:51
know. Building the nest, getting the
1:54
getting the work done, doing the, doing the deep dives on the
1:57
research. You were telling me how fair
1:59
you're preparing, researching to write a book.
2:05
Is that right? Yes, Sir, The working title
2:09
right now is what's in a name? And it's, I guess playoff of
2:15
Shakespeare's line from Romeo and Juliet where Juliet is.
2:21
And like, why, why does your name have to be Romeo?
2:24
Like, why couldn't your name be there's no other Romeos other
2:28
than belong to the rival family. Like what?
2:31
Why? Why does it have to be that?
2:32
And then just like, wait, but I still love you though.
2:35
Like, so it's not your name that I love.
2:39
What's what's in a name, right? And the question is, what's in a
2:42
name? The reason that that's the
2:44
working title is because of my name, Red Tail Hawk and the
2:50
ongoing 33 month, 34 month research vendor that I've been
2:58
engaged in since receiving that name from a Native American
3:02
medicine man. The the work that I'm moving
3:07
towards right now is, you know, setting up a website, converting
3:12
our weekly study group sessions into podcast episodes, things
3:17
like that. So eventually it'll be a funnel
3:21
of the website will just be my little slice of Internet real
3:24
estate where I can funnel people to check out my research and,
3:29
you know, keep their ear to the ground as far as what's going on
3:33
in my world. Nice, nice.
3:36
I've read a little bit of your well of your research.
3:42
Well, your your your completed research really from I think
3:47
it's published at the Love is bitcoin.com website.
3:52
I was reading Revolution is Bitcoin last night and it's got
4:02
me, you know, it's got me thinking about time and cycles
4:05
and stuff. And then I see that you've got
4:06
another, another article called time is Bitcoin and I haven't
4:12
finished that yet, but it's all converging.
4:17
Man, it's, it's so wild to me that this neutral protocol for
4:21
transmitting value across space and time can elicit such
4:28
disparate notional conceptual, like inspiration for, for
4:38
thinking about what the fuck this thing is.
4:40
You know, it's wild. It's cool.
4:44
Yeah, and I I love that you have seen something that I invoked at
4:50
the end of that time is Bitcoin and not to be confused with
4:53
Gigi's Bitcoin is time. I I just playing off of the love
4:57
is bitcoin.com you know theme for all my titles of my
5:00
articles. But at the end of it, I, I
5:03
invoked Maslow's hierarchy of needs and a, a guest that you've
5:08
had on the show, John Vallas. He, he talks about the, the
5:12
Bitcoin metanoia or the Noya as he has it in his personal notes.
5:17
I didn't know that when I was talking about the Bitcoin
5:20
metanoia on X at one point, but I tagged him and he popped in as
5:24
like, I actually have it written down as bit Noya in my notes.
5:28
That's a weird synchronicity. So yeah, like there's this
5:33
phenomenon that everybody seems to notice that like after you,
5:38
after it clicks and that the laser eyes come on.
5:42
People seem to realize, OK, I need to get as much value as I
5:47
can into Bitcoin right now. That means making lots of
5:51
sacrifices. And I guess if I'm planning on
5:58
being a lot wealthier than I am now, it would be nice to tack on
6:03
a few years at the end of my life.
6:05
So it makes sense to maybe start paying closer attention to what
6:10
I put in my body, the, you know, exercise routines that I put my
6:16
body through, maybe cutting out the garbage, the, the, the noise
6:21
from the world and try to tune into the signal, like the
6:24
hashtag 40 hours per week of Bitcoin podcast listening that
6:28
people promote, right? Like, it's, there's this whole
6:32
thing that people go through it. It is a, a metanoia.
6:35
It's a, a total change of mind. It's this incredible thing.
6:38
And yeah, Bitcoin seems to be this wonderful catalyst for
6:44
development and growth in people in so many ways.
6:48
I'm very grateful to have found it.
6:52
I could sign all of that, man, It's wild.
6:55
How did you discover Bitcoin? I guess I found it, while it's
7:03
probably a trauma response from the Great Recession's impact on
7:09
me, but the short the short version is I was listening to a
7:14
podcast that is generally focused on like survivalism and
7:21
you know, but the host is also one to, you know, look at things
7:28
somewhat pragmatically and say, OK, well, survival isn't all
7:32
about bushcraft and learning how to rub 2 sticks together to make
7:36
fire. Survival is about accounting for
7:40
modern circumstances. And, you know, so you think
7:44
about the failures of gold, you know what Fiat money and the,
7:50
the fact that we are now in an increasingly global world.
7:55
I mean, we're talking from half the way the world around from
7:58
one another right now, just as we've done many times with many
8:01
plugs. So like the, the gold standard
8:05
is not going to work there. There's got to be a, a better
8:09
solution for this. So I think it was in like early
8:13
2017 when, you know, the, the we're starting to run up a
8:18
little bit when I finally was like, OK, I'm going to open up
8:23
a, you know, an exchange account and clear all of the, the
8:28
hurdles that, you know, would be there.
8:31
So that all I have to do is click the buy button if I'd
8:36
actually decide to, to move on this.
8:39
And I think I remember watching it go from like 1200 to 1800
8:44
U.S. dollars over the course of like a work week.
8:48
At which point I guess the best encapsulation of my thoughts is
8:54
that Futurama GIF of Fry saying shut up and take my money.
8:58
Like I definitely I came for the profits, but to be fair I was
9:02
already pretty geared up on the principles.
9:05
So like I mentioned a trauma response.
9:09
Well, I graduated in late 2020 O 7, so pretty much right in the
9:16
thick of the subprime financial bond meltdown in on Wall Street
9:23
and that had that goes all around the world for for years,
9:26
right, still a part of our lives now.
9:30
I mean, a lot of the inflation that has taken place as a result
9:35
of that, all the quantitative easing bouts that we went
9:38
through, that's, that never got reversed.
9:41
We're, we're the inflation that we had from the COVID printing
9:45
recently that, that was just standing on top of the shoulders
9:48
of the, the quantitative easing money printing.
9:52
So I, I didn't know any of that stuff though then and like it
9:58
that hit me hard because I couldn't find work.
10:01
I was working multiple part time jobs and, you know, all growing
10:07
up through school, I was always like this Golden Boy, oh, he's,
10:11
you know, reading at four years old and he's winning math
10:14
competitions in 7th grade and etcetera, etcetera.
10:18
It's like, OK, and then you graduate college and you trip
10:23
and fall on your face and you got to move in your parents
10:27
basement. And it's just kind of
10:32
humiliating when your trajectory was very different from what you
10:39
are experiencing on, you know, your first attempts to launch
10:45
adult professional career. So eventually I moved out and
10:51
got a place with a roommate who wound up bailing and I held down
10:59
the Fort and covered the rent for the remainder of the lease,
11:02
but eventually found myself out living in again, relatives
11:11
homes, sleeping on their couches, in their basements or
11:14
sometimes on a cot or whatever. I could work out at a certain
11:19
point that came to a head and I, the family that watched me grow
11:29
up as this Golden Boy with this, you know, perceived high
11:36
trajectory as an expectation to see me failing like that coming
11:41
out of college, it was it was hard.
11:45
And for them to see that they felt like I wasn't trying, that
11:51
somehow this was probably my fault, that I was apparently
11:56
some kind of a loser. And that hurt a lot
11:59
psychologically. I didn't think that I was
12:04
broken. But you know, hindsight's 2020
12:07
and I now realize I did lack a lot of knowledge.
12:11
I, I did lack a lot of awareness of economic things.
12:15
Like I, I took, I remember taking psychology in high
12:18
school, but not economics. I studied mechanical engineering
12:22
and mathematics in in college. I mean, we didn't really need to
12:27
do any economics there. And frankly, at this point, I'm
12:31
pretty sure that even if I had, it probably would have been
12:34
Keynesian anyways, so I probably wouldn't have even gotten what I
12:37
needed. So yeah, it, it kind of sucked.
12:42
I wound up homeless for a while, maybe, I don't know, a year ish,
12:49
depending on how one chooses to classify that.
12:53
I definitely slept in my car at times.
12:56
I set up my cot in a backroom, like a store room at one of my
13:03
jobs that was in kind of a, you know, 24/7 open to the public
13:08
building that really nobody was in at night.
13:11
So I could kind of shelter there and know that I was going to be
13:18
all right for the night. I'd always pack up my cot in the
13:21
morning. One of my jobs, yeah, one of my
13:26
jobs was a grocery store. I was able to score free food
13:32
there. Usually it was expired or it was
13:36
going to be thrown away. So I was able to salvage that
13:41
and you know, reduce my sort of input costs that way.
13:48
But yeah, it it sucked. Eventually I was able to land a
13:56
good job with benefits and what not.
13:59
Started off as like a paid summer internship that was
14:03
extended into kind of a year round paid internship.
14:07
I think at that point I was working at least 60 hours a week
14:12
between those two jobs plus any sort of side tutoring stuff.
14:18
So I don't think I stopped working 2 jobs until I'm going
14:25
to say 2014 or so. And I graduated in O 7.
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So it was kind of a long road, but once I found myself with an
14:39
offer full time and that good job, I imposed pretty harsh
14:45
austerity measures on myself. Like I never went out and ate
14:51
lunch with, you know, my coworkers because I mean, that's
14:56
1015 in bucks, 20 bucks a day. That's that's a lot of money.
15:02
And I can make a peanut butter and Jelly sandwich and throw a
15:06
couple carrots in a baggie and, you know, drink some water for a
15:10
lot cheaper than that. So that's pretty much what I did
15:13
for lunch 9 out of every 10 days for several years.
15:16
Early on, figured out how to budget accurately, got myself
15:23
out of some student loan debts, elevated my credit score, and
15:29
eventually I had enough capital to where I was starting to look
15:35
at forms of investing. You know, probably some safer
15:40
plays like I know stonks or stonks, but had mining.
15:44
Mining is kind of boring, right? Unintended.
15:47
So they said to keep your investment somewhat boring as
15:51
the traditional advice. So mining gold, mining silver,
15:55
silver and gold, precious metal investments, that was on my
15:59
radar. Certain mining stocks like
16:01
antimony or or uranium was on my radar.
16:06
So I was starting to look at those things, starting to do a
16:08
little bit of basic technical analysis and then 2017 rolls
16:15
around. So I was kind of already pretty
16:17
well primed, you know, being into looking at precious metals
16:22
as an investment. Also generally being in line
16:27
with like the Ron Paul and to some extent like the Alex Jones
16:34
extension of the Ron Paul movement of like and the Fed and
16:38
you know, just generally being libertarian and artistic, anti
16:42
establishment and what not. I'm not a fan of gatekeepers.
16:46
I feel like I'm a pretty capable person.
16:49
So gatekeepers tend to restrict the impact that I can have,
16:54
which only is a frustration. So think I was naturally
16:58
inclined to I guess adopt Bitcoin.
17:04
I just needed to find it and get over any hang ups that I had,
17:10
which were ultimately rooted in my personal ignorance.
17:14
I mean, I had stumbled across it I think a couple years prior to
17:19
actually choosing to buy it for the first time.
17:21
I think it was maybe in the four or 500 U.S. dollar range at that
17:25
time. And I remember arrogantly and
17:30
like, I guess falsely acting like I knew what I was saying,
17:37
that I, I somehow had a valid opinion.
17:40
Oh, OK. Yeah, I, I might get one of
17:42
those at some point. I almost quoted Satoshi.
17:45
Like, yeah, I might get one of those just just to have one
17:49
because that might be interesting.
17:50
It's just kind of a. Lottery.
17:51
Ticket or whatever. Yeah, right.
17:55
My, my ignorant dismissal back then was like almost quoting the
17:59
white paper. I didn't even know it.
18:00
It was crazy. So yeah, that that I, I bought
18:08
it in I think may of, I think it was actually three years to the
18:12
day before the 2020 having. So yeah, I actually didn't
18:20
figure out the having until late 2019.
18:25
I guess my all the research I had done had it probably
18:31
included that. But like there's a lot to cover
18:33
and it they say it takes 10,000 hours to gain mastery I'd I
18:38
would guess that I probably covered the 1st 5000 hours of
18:42
that in the first couple years. Did you get obsessed by it?
18:47
Did you get, you know, like I hear stories all the time on
18:51
this pod where the discovery takes place and then it slowly
18:57
but surely begins to take over their consciousness.
18:59
And it's just like, this is all I'm going to think about, read
19:03
about, listen to, watch. Whatever it is, whatever
19:07
resources are available. I need to just consume as much
19:12
information about this thing as possible.
19:14
Did you, did you experience that?
19:17
Yeah, for two main reasons. Number go up and number go down.
19:21
I think those first two years was like, all right, well, I
19:25
bought something good here. Numbers going up a lot.
19:27
This is great. Everybody's talking about it.
19:30
It's December. I feel like a genius and, you
19:34
know, I'm just going to hold on to this thing forever.
19:36
And then number starts going down.
19:40
It's like, why is number going down?
19:41
It it went down before, maybe it'll go back up.
19:44
Like we dropped from 3000 to 1800 and it recovered and went
19:48
higher. It dropped from 5000 to 3000 and
19:51
recovered and went higher. Maybe it'll, you know, recover
19:54
from the drop from 20 down to whatever it dropped to and it
19:58
didn't right. It it just kept dropping.
20:00
So I was like, all right, well. There's something here and I'm,
20:05
I don't understand it fully enough yet.
20:08
And this is interesting and I've already gone down this rabbit
20:10
hole somewhat far enough to to figure that out.
20:14
And I realized there's sort of a sunken cost fallacy, but I
20:19
didn't think that that was in play on this.
20:21
It seemed like there was something here and I think it
20:25
was in late 2019 when we were getting ready for the early
20:28
2020. Having that, I started to see
20:30
rumblings on, you know, the, the YouTube circuit of, of channels
20:36
that talk about various things, including like technical
20:40
analysis and whatnot. Started talking about the having
20:43
like, wait a minute, that's, that's interesting.
20:47
So I dove down that rabbit hole more and that I think was one of
20:52
the sort of nails in the coffin that cemented it.
20:55
Like, OK, now I'm just confident in this.
20:58
Admittedly, the COVID crash shook that confidence a little
21:01
bit because I wasn't even through my first whole cycle
21:03
yet. So I didn't necessarily have
21:06
that that safety pad that people have been through a cycle or two
21:11
are sitting on ideally at that point.
21:14
So there was some some nervousness there.
21:16
But I will admit that not only did I throw money in when we
21:23
were, you know, after we had crashed at least like 50% in the
21:30
COVID crash, I was able to scoop some of that up.
21:32
I'm, I'm proud about that. I had enough, you know,
21:35
conviction to do that, But also the, the free money that they
21:38
gave out that went right into to Bitcoin, whatever that tracker
21:42
is that's out there, the, the, the, the COVID bailout Bitcoin
21:46
tracker. Yep, I'm one of those.
21:48
So I'm, I'm, I'm in, I'm convicted at this point.
21:52
It's, it's been years. And yeah, I've been trying to
21:55
orange pill people and, and share the message.
21:58
And I'm sure I've pissed off a lot of people with my, you know,
22:05
unwillingness to let it go and, and stop talking about it.
22:09
But to be fair, the people who have listened have benefited a
22:14
lot. And that does my heart really,
22:18
really good. Like I, I, that makes me feel
22:22
really, really good. And at least they know that I
22:26
wasn't trying to pump my bags. I was legitimately trying to
22:30
serve them and help them. This is what a lot of people do
22:34
miss is that when you are talking about Bitcoin to someone
22:40
with someone, perhaps not to someone.
22:43
Maybe I should rephrase that, but point being it comes from a
22:48
place of compassion and generosity sharing, as you said,
22:53
service love. And that's really all it is.
22:57
And sometimes, you know, we can be overzealous and we can be
23:01
super enthusiastic to the point where we we come off a little
23:05
bit kooky maybe. And if those people aren't
23:08
receptive to that type of overt enthusiasm, you know, it can be
23:15
off putting. I get it.
23:16
You know, people talk to me about weird shit and I'm like,
23:19
yeah, I don't know if I'm in that brain space right now, man.
23:21
I've I've got to kind of switch. Quick break just to say, if
23:25
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23:28
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23:58
Bitcoin at primal.net. Thank you for listening and
24:03
thank you for your support. Yeah.
24:06
That's it's one of those things it's like if somebody asks you
24:10
about it, like go give them the you know, as much as they're
24:16
willing to take. But the unsolicited evangelism,
24:23
it just doesn't seem to go as well right?
24:27
It, it has to be demanded, which for us like that really tests
24:34
our patience, right? Like we, we, we understand it
24:39
and we want other people to benefit sooner rather than
24:42
later, but they're just not there.
24:45
It's it's really, really hard. It is, but at the end of the
24:50
day, it's a choice. It's, you know, it's, it's an
24:58
element of suffering, I suppose. I mean, you mentioned it before
25:02
this notion of suffering that Bitcoin is a kind of adept to
25:08
and I get going through the Bitcoin like lens or portal,
25:16
whatever. It elicits a little bit of
25:19
suffering on the other side because you've got to now
25:21
redirect time, attention, energy in in a beneficial way.
25:26
But maybe you don't understand that at the beginning in order
25:30
to, you know, sort of fully grok this thing or at least begin to
25:33
fully grok this thing. And when people aren't receptive
25:38
to your unsolicited evangelism, you suffer because you don't
25:44
recognise that, you know, they're not interested and like,
25:48
just just just take it easy. And you, you've got to try and
25:55
stop doing that. Because if you are, what's the
26:01
word? Like if, if, if you're trying to
26:06
get people to, you know, except I'm trying to think of Manly P
26:15
Hall. I'm trying to think of this
26:16
thing. He's got this awesome essay he
26:19
wrote. What's it called?
26:21
10 basic Rules for Better living.
26:23
I used to listen to it all the time.
26:26
Anyway, rule 2 is basically stop trying to, you know, dominate
26:31
your friends, possess them, you know, and, and, and just let
26:35
them run their own life basically, and that when they're
26:39
not receptive to you and your enthusiasm for whatever it is,
26:44
like, don't take it personally. It's, it's just, you know, save
26:51
that advice for people that actually seek it from us rather
26:54
than just standing there and receiving this unsolicited
27:00
enthusiasm about this weed Internet money.
27:03
You'll have a better life. And, you know, we, we want them
27:07
obviously to, to come on board and reduce some of their own
27:12
suffering. But you know, it's easier said
27:15
than done. And there is tact.
27:17
And I think you mentioned John Ballas before, but I, I remember
27:20
him saying on, on the episode that we recorded, is it just
27:25
live your life, man, and do it in a way that may or may not
27:30
catch someone's attention And, and if and for the better.
27:35
And then they can be like how, how, how's this seemingly
27:39
working out for you? And I'm not suggesting that it's
27:41
working out for me or working out for you.
27:43
But the point is that I think there's a real element of
27:48
balance that Bitcoiners tend to achieve over time in terms of
27:53
physiological, psychological balance that a lot of people
27:57
that are still stuck in the hamster wheel tend to have.
28:03
It almost seems like it's a forge.
28:06
I feel like the fact that Bitcoin is this grassroots, you
28:14
know, alternative thing that's becoming more and more
28:17
mainstream, it makes Bitcoiners the target of rocks and darts
28:25
and arrows from, you know, the ignorant outsiders.
28:29
And when we've done our due diligence, when we've put in our
28:34
10,000 hours of podcasts and articles and whatnot, we are
28:40
confident in our position. And so yeah, like
28:45
psychologically that to me is very consistent with the, I
28:51
don't know if you're familiar with the Wolfpack archetypes
28:53
like the alpha, the beta, etcetera, but the Sigma
28:56
personality type is just very, very well represented in the
29:02
Bitcoin space. And I think that Bitcoin is a
29:05
beacon for Sigma's and also a forge.
29:10
Like it turns people into stigmas because, you know, when
29:15
they adopt it, they might be some some normie yet, you know,
29:19
and then it might be sort of on the normie side.
29:21
But then once they put in the work and do the research and
29:26
learn about it and the laser eyes come on, they don't care
29:32
what the normies are saying about it anymore.
29:35
Like the flood, the fear, uncertainty and doubt, it just
29:38
drops away and you just you just don't care that that's Sigma
29:43
mindset. Sigma is the personality type
29:47
that is essentially comparable to Alphas in terms of
29:51
competence. But unlike the Alphas who are
29:55
interested in dominating society's games, whatever the
30:00
game is that society has chosen is is worth playing.
30:04
That's what Alphas are attracted to.
30:05
Go dominate, and they do credit to them for that.
30:08
Sigma's have no interest in that game, so they go do their own
30:12
thing. Now to be a solo, a lone wolf, a
30:16
Sigma solo, right? Alliterative.
30:19
To be a lone wolf, you have to be competent.
30:23
Black survival is easier than lone wolf survival.
30:28
That's why stigma types are so rare.
30:32
So, yeah, I, I think that that may be, you know, somewhat of an
30:37
explanation for sort of a psychological resilience that
30:43
you just highlighted in in the Bitcoin or contingent.
30:46
I think the physical resilience is maybe a result of what we
30:49
talked about before with the Bitcoin or Metanoia and, you
30:52
know, trying to extend our lives understanding that, hey, end of
30:56
life is probably going to be pretty sweet the way things are
30:59
looking, right? So might as well tack on a few
31:01
more years at the end and and get some extra enjoyment there
31:04
and be a little healthier. Yeah, it's almost like we're
31:07
initiates to I mean, probably not an original thought, but you
31:13
know, I mean you're very well versed, I'm pretty sure on the
31:17
esoteric myths and legends and and you know, I've I've listened
31:22
to your pods, couple of pods with Mr. Mr. Daniel, first of
31:30
his name from the once bitten. Yep.
31:33
Mr. Prince And like, it's almost like we as Bitcoins just sort of
31:40
voluntary initiates you, you step up to the up to the the
31:45
Bitcoin network or whatever it is, and you have to suffer some
31:49
sort of transformation, some sort of ego death in order to go
31:53
through. And I mean, not everyone does
31:57
this. Actually, to be honest, a lot of
31:59
the Bitcoin treasury company Bros probably probably don't,
32:04
and they're probably wealthier than me.
32:06
So, you know, I don't know, swings and roundabouts.
32:09
But the point is that my path anyway, and I'm sure many
32:16
others, is that there's this element of sort of, yeah,
32:19
becoming an initiate because it's sort of like what they
32:22
would do. I mean, the most obvious one is
32:25
the Elysian myth in ancient Greece, but there's, there's
32:30
plenty others in Egypt and that sort of thing.
32:32
But basically you just you, you, you go through the underworld
32:37
and you, you suffer and you basically lose a whole bunch of
32:41
who you thought you were. And then you come out the other
32:43
side and you're like, oh, fuck, this is cool.
32:45
This is like everything's gravy. This is cool.
32:48
OK, onwards. Let's go.
32:53
Yeah. Like an initiate is oftentimes I
32:58
feel like what one who has already been or is being
33:03
humiliated. And I don't mean that in a
33:04
negative sense. I mean one who is, you know,
33:08
understanding humility and, and what it is to be humble because,
33:11
you know, they realize that they that they're in the presence of
33:15
a, a, a master who isn't, who is the one who is initiating them
33:19
and teaching them about mysteries that they do not yet
33:21
know about. And to become a Bitcoiner is
33:26
like I said, you have to learn stuff.
33:28
And there are those random Gold Star Bitcoiners, like for
33:33
example, Trace Mayer or whatever, who was just
33:35
completely geared for Bitcoin right out of the gate or or Hal
33:40
or, you know, just that the early guys who just got it right
33:42
away and adopted it and and ran with it from then on.
33:46
But very few are Gold Star Bitcoiners.
33:48
There's typically some, you know, even Andreas Antonopoulos
33:53
is famously dismissed it initially as nerd money.
33:57
That's probably just for gambling, right?
33:58
Like most of us dismiss it initially and need to do some
34:02
learning about it before we wind up adopting it.
34:05
And the learning process is formative.
34:08
What you just talked about, like the the death and rebirth part
34:12
that goes along with certain initiations is a transformative
34:17
process. I mean, it's found in many, many
34:20
traditions like born again, the in Kabbalah, it's da in you have
34:27
the phoenix rising from its own ashes, etcetera, etcetera.
34:32
But yeah, the this this the like the the esoteric and like
34:36
initiation subject crossover with Bitcoin was where we first
34:40
linked up. I remember reading something you
34:43
did on on Noster talking about Rudolf Steiner and Steiner was
34:50
one of my favorite articulations of the Golden Rule and I don't
34:54
even think he meant to to offer an articulation of the Golden
34:58
Rule here. I've got the quote right here.
35:01
It was from What is Anthroposophy 3 Perspectives on
35:05
Self Knowledge by Rudolf Steiner.
35:07
He and he wrote quote. All one needs to do is to place
35:12
oneself into the other person's point of view, which pretty
35:17
perfectly echoes what we were saying earlier about the so like
35:21
the unsolicited evangelism and stuff.
35:24
Like if someone is so stretched thin from 10 different things
35:30
going on in their life right now, they don't need you to
35:33
bring them Bitcoin right now. They they need what they need.
35:37
Like if if somebody is hungry, they don't need you to pitch
35:41
them Bitcoin, they need you to pitch them some food.
35:44
Yeah, Yeah, that's, that's exactly right.
35:50
And that's probably the, the trouble that a lot of us get
35:53
ourselves into is, you know, particularly if you have
35:57
discovered it a little time ago when maybe there was a, I mean,
36:04
inflation was, was always pretty ropy.
36:06
But it's certainly gotten a lot ropier over the last five years.
36:11
And it's severely throttled a lot of people's capacity for,
36:16
you know, even even thinking or contemplating trying to, you
36:22
know, quote UN quote invest or save in anything, let alone some
36:27
weird Internet nerd money. And so that that I guess back to
36:35
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is kind of like those higher needs
36:39
aren't being met. Oh, sorry, those low needs
36:41
aren't being met. And so therefore, yeah, the
36:44
bandwidth narrows and they're just trying to figure out how
36:47
the fuck they're going to pay for some food this week or
36:49
whatever. Yeah, which is one of the
36:53
reasons why I'm super like optimistic about, you know, the
36:58
future of human flourishing that Bitcoin offers as a technology.
37:03
I mean, I, I know you've had Brandon quit him on recently.
37:06
He's one of my favorite sort of novel Bitcoin thinkers and the
37:10
whole Bitcoin is a pioneer species concept.
37:13
Like I I have background as an energy engineer.
37:16
So thinking through the domino effects of the way that Bitcoin
37:22
aligns incentives with respect to seeking out cheap or you
37:28
know, I guess abandoned or I guess remote energy sources like
37:36
it's, it has the potential to change the world in ways for the
37:42
better. I mean, one person can change
37:46
the world. And what if that one person
37:50
never gets the childhood education that would have
37:54
allowed them the necessary foundation to change the world?
38:01
What what if that person is some, you know, little African
38:07
girl whose entire job for her entire childhood is to walk 8
38:11
hours a day with an empty pot on her head, fill it up with water,
38:15
and then walk 8 hours back with a full pot of water so her
38:18
family can have water that day? Like pumps and pipes, guys.
38:23
But you need energy for that, right?
38:25
Well, I'm sure there are energy sources that are within range of
38:30
a lot of these types of places, but it's also cost prohibitive
38:34
to establish those power harvesting plants in those
38:39
locations. Often times due to the desperate
38:42
population nearby, you're not going to have a sufficient
38:47
market to, you know, make such a project feasible.
38:52
It's just not going to work. But with Bitcoin miners, you can
38:56
bring in demand on demand. You can fly in a helicopter into
38:59
a jungle with a cargo container filled with ASICS and and let
39:05
her RIP. Like you can do that as many
39:06
times as you need, get as much demand covered as you you can
39:09
produce and then you spin up circular economies.
39:13
You make jobs for the locals to help you build your power plant
39:16
and then and to build out power line infrastructure and then to
39:19
build farms and homes and stores.
39:21
And you just spin up a circular economy.
39:24
It almost to me seems like it would be like the gold rush,
39:28
except it would be an energy rush and you would have these
39:31
towns that would spring up around these, you know, places
39:35
that are rich in energy. So I think if you get a
39:41
situation like that now, there's more opportunities for more
39:46
human beings to benefit from energy and cheap energy access
39:53
is the number one thing that elevates quality of life.
39:58
Not I don't want to say that like just because somebody may
40:02
be living with a dirt floor. Or something that they are
40:06
unable to, you know, engage in esoteric pursuits or anything
40:11
like that. Not at all.
40:12
Many have proven that to be exactly the opposite.
40:15
Having said that, though, we still got to live and we still
40:19
got to contend with the modern world that, you know, we have
40:23
some momentum from sort of our, our past life, if you will, not
40:27
sort of going into the reincarnation subject.
40:29
They're just like the, you know, our past, it has momentum and we
40:34
we have to deal with that momentum and we have to live
40:36
within the economy. We can try and extricate
40:39
ourselves from that by becoming more independent and producing
40:43
our own food and stuff, but even that comes with a cost.
40:46
So no matter what, we've got to contend with things in some way.
40:51
And frankly, having a little more purchasing power does make
40:55
it easier to sort of feel insulated from a lot of the
41:02
noise and and the volatility that's going on in the world and
41:08
allow a person to focus on their craft.
41:14
Yeah, it's Julian Simon's ultimate resource.
41:17
You know, it's imagination, spirit basically sort of boils
41:22
down to the human mind and what it, it's, it's capacity for, you
41:28
know, problem solving and ingenuity, creativity, all of
41:32
these things. And as you say, the, the, if
41:36
you, if you can just, this is the thing I forget quite often
41:40
sometimes is this reverse engineering of civilization from
41:43
a Bitcoin mining perspective where you can just drop in a
41:48
bunch of Bitcoin miners next to a say, you know, a waterfall
41:53
and, and sort of reverse engineer the, the spot.
41:57
You can generate the energy to, you know, generate the capital
42:02
to then invest into the thing. And, and rather than just take a
42:06
punt like they did in the Old West and was like, oh, I think
42:10
this will be a good place. And, you know, sort of set up
42:13
the, the, the stores and the streets and all that sort of
42:15
stuff beforehand, hoping to prove it out later.
42:19
You can kind of do all, all of that in advance.
42:22
And you, you get a little bit frustrated because it's like
42:25
this. It's once you, once you grok
42:27
that you like, it's so patently obvious.
42:30
Why aren't more people doing this?
42:33
But yeah, patience is a virtue. Yeah, I think it's, it's fun to
42:40
watch things happen that you saw years ago that should happen,
42:50
right? But yeah, like this happened
42:53
with a a local utility, a steam utility downtown Saint Louis,
42:59
right on the the riverfront and the Mississippi riverfront are
43:02
down by the arch. They have a steam grid that
43:06
serves downtown Saint Louis. And you got to figure a steam
43:10
grid that's like high pressure, that's expensive infrastructure
43:14
to maintain and expand. So over the course of time, your
43:18
natural gas grid and your electric get grid have been out
43:23
competing this steam grid, you know, stealing buildings here
43:27
and there. So you look at this place and
43:31
it's like, well, this steam grid actually serves a lot of the
43:36
local municipal government buildings.
43:39
So and they're probably not doing so hot when it comes to
43:43
revenue. I'm guessing their market share
43:45
keeps going down. This place is ideal for Bitcoin
43:48
mining. I remember having this idea in
43:51
2021 on a conference call in like the summertime.
43:56
We were investigating a building that needed to, we were checking
44:00
to see if it would be beneficial to flip it from its present
44:03
heating energy source to the steam grid.
44:07
And so I'm learning about the steam grid, which I've, I've
44:10
never interacted with until that point in my career, which shows
44:13
you how little market share they had.
44:16
And I'm thinking to myself, you know, in the summertime steam is
44:20
not really used as much, right? It's a heating energy primarily.
44:24
So I bet you they have extra steam in the summertime and in
44:28
the winter time. They are you know it at their
44:31
peak in terms of demand. So that means that if I were to
44:35
set up a mining you know operation at their site.
44:44
I could actually use natural economizer like outdoor air
44:50
during the cold season to keep everything cool and in the
44:55
summertime. I, I could actually install
44:58
mechanical cooling like a rooftop and like, you know, air
45:02
conditioner or, or chiller or something, whatever would be
45:04
most appropriate and power that thing from the, the, the steam
45:13
grid, the excess steam capacity that they have, like they would
45:17
have extra capacity then to more than power that mechanical
45:23
cooling equipment. So it seemed like a natural fit.
45:27
I never approached them about this.
45:31
And then about 2-3 years later, I find out that they're
45:36
installing A-1000 ASIC mining farm on site.
45:42
So like it's real. Show me the incentives and I'll
45:46
predict how people will behave. We, we don't even need to worry
45:50
about it. Like people are out there and
45:52
they're going to find it. It's just a matter of time.
45:56
It's funny you mentioned the, the Elusenian Mysteries.
46:00
I know that was one of the topics that I covered recently
46:03
with Daniel, but I posted on Noster a quote from the author
46:07
of The Immortality Key, Brian Moreau Rescue on Noster just the
46:11
other day. It basically was him saying
46:14
sometimes the evidence just has to sit there for 20 years
46:17
waiting for someone to take notice.
46:21
Yeah, yeah. And it's frustrating for those
46:25
that are looking at it just going come on.
46:28
I mean, that's the cool thing about Bitcoin is, is that
46:32
eventually will become the capital allocators.
46:34
And you know, if you're, if you're into it and it's already
46:37
happening, it's already happening.
46:38
If you're into it, just cool. Put your money where your mouth
46:41
is and make it happen, you know, and force people to stare at the
46:48
evidence, or at least just do it in such a fantastic way that
46:52
they will have no choice but to notice.
46:57
Yeah, I, I got to figure that there are people out there who
47:01
are looking at using oil wealth flare off gas to mine Bitcoin.
47:08
We've got people, you know, setting up shop in very, you
47:14
know, cold climates to take advantage of the economizer
47:18
effects, you know, the outside air free cooling year round.
47:22
And people are definitely experimenting and, and looking
47:25
for this. They're, they're looking for
47:27
these opportunities. So I, I, I think even like the
47:31
utility companies are, you know, at this point, it's probably old
47:37
news to a lot of them. And I remember in I want to say
47:41
2019, seeing a utility company in New York State that was
47:49
working with Bitcoin to manage the problem of load matching.
47:55
Cause like the grid that you turn lights on, you turn lights
47:59
off, you turn your microwave on, you turn your microwave shuts
48:02
off, etcetera, etcetera. Like they can't predict when
48:05
Susie's going to turn the light switch off at home like that.
48:08
They have to play this guessing game where they're trying to
48:11
match the production of energy from their power plants live in
48:16
real time to the amount of energy that's being demanded
48:20
from the grid. And so like they have to try all
48:23
these different strategies or I guess managing that constant
48:30
game of patent mouse. I mean, I've heard that that
48:32
they've done things like pump water uphill before just because
48:37
you're at least imbuing the water with, you know, more
48:40
gravitational potential energy that you could then channel
48:42
downhill. It could turn a, you know, a
48:46
water wheel or something and regenerate some of that that
48:50
power that you lost. But then you're still paying for
48:52
power with the pump and you're getting evaporative losses.
48:56
So they don't have a great way to capture energy surpluses and
49:04
then redeploy them to the grid later.
49:07
So they love Bitcoin now for that reason.
49:10
Like it is the best load matching technology for power
49:16
companies out there. And they're figuring it out.
49:19
The the local utilities are figuring it out.
49:21
And I've seen them in other places figure it out too.
49:25
So I I think word is spreading more slowly than perhaps we
49:31
would like, but it is spreading and I think it is happening.
49:37
It is, and it's just a matter of time.
49:40
It's like, yeah, it's just playing out exactly as it as it
49:44
will. There's no, there's no point
49:46
forcing this thing. You just just yeah, it it as the
49:50
as the convicted criminal Christine Lagarde says it will
49:54
come in due course. It will come.
49:58
How has discovering Bitcoin changed you?
50:03
Oh boy. So I think that the sister
50:10
science to Austrian economics, praxeology, the study of human
50:15
action, you know, famously found in Ludwig von Mises book title
50:20
on human action is a it's one of those golden rule areas of
50:26
study. And I'd mentioned Rudolf Steiner
50:33
and his articulation of the Golden Rule before and we talked
50:37
about the initiations, you know, death and rebirth and born again
50:43
and the metanoia concept and all of those things.
50:50
From what I've found, basically every religious tradition, like
50:55
every major religious tradition on the planet has some version
51:01
of the Golden Rule. Hinduism, Zoroastrianism,
51:05
Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Jainism, Judaism, Christianity,
51:09
Islam, Sheikhism, and, and they all, all of their articulations.
51:15
I've got them all listed in front of me right here.
51:18
They're all slightly worded differently and so that offers
51:25
us the ability to sort of distill the common theme and
51:28
that's what one of the reasons I like Rudolf Steiner's
51:32
articulation it involves putting yourself into the perspective of
51:36
the other person and Bitcoin meets up with that in multiple
51:43
ways. It praxeology is one of those
51:46
ways, right? That's sort of the economist
51:49
secret weapon. It's not necessarily crunching
51:53
numbers. It's understanding how humans
51:55
think and understanding human nature and human psychology and
51:58
market psychology and, and certain concepts like like
52:03
scarcity and, and price and supply and demand and etcetera,
52:07
etcetera. So all of these things give us
52:10
the ability to understand our neighbors better than we would
52:16
be able to understand our neighbors without them.
52:19
So I think that a lot of Bitcoiners wind up engaged in
52:28
some sort of a metanoia where they begin seeking higher order
52:33
truths. One of the reasons for that may
52:37
be some type of a spiritual awakening in which, you know,
52:42
their perhaps unwitting adherence to the golden rule by
52:51
studying praxeology and trying to understand how other people
52:55
think and what not. Like perhaps that leads to some
53:00
sort of, you know, an opening of spiritual levels that they have
53:06
yet to fully open. And I can say that with, you
53:10
know, personal experience in mind, because I had a spiritual
53:15
awakening about a year and a half after I got into Bitcoin.
53:19
I'm not going to say that it was because of that.
53:21
I think there are plenty of other things that I can point
53:25
to, like, you know, my time working at Learning Center where
53:29
we neurologically profiled our students in order to teach them
53:34
math and critical thinking. So that neurological profiling,
53:38
that was another golden rule thing, psychology, that's a
53:41
golden rule. Learning about like archetypes
53:43
like the Wolfpack stuff that or, or the Myers Briggs or the the
53:49
Big 5, the ocean model, like all of these are good ways to learn
53:57
how people tick and give us perhaps tools that we can use to
54:04
gain more insights into how people think about things.
54:10
And frankly, I, I think that that's the most important thing
54:16
because every single religion is to telling us this.
54:21
So that that that fact right there alone tells us two things.
54:27
That's important. And as a collective whole,
54:33
humanity is failing miserably at at doing this.
54:36
Because if we weren't failing miserably at doing this, they
54:41
wouldn't all be trying to teach us this.
54:44
We wouldn't need to be taught this.
54:46
That would be redundant. So I think the golden rule from
54:51
like the praxeological lens is really mind changing its
54:58
perspective changing for anyone who goes down the Bitcoin rabbit
55:04
hole and you know, takes that sort of praxeological, I'm going
55:07
to I'm going to strengthen my economist muscles and you know,
55:13
my my logic and my understanding of economic causality muscles,
55:18
if you will think that is probably one of the biggest
55:22
things that happens to a lot of people, myself included, when
55:26
they get into Bitcoin. Yeah.
55:28
And it trips a lot of people up when they hear the word, you
55:34
know, I mean, whether it's praxeology or human action,
55:38
however you you frame it, particularly if they are deeply
55:41
embedded in some sort of Keynesian mindset that they may
55:45
not even be aware of, as you said, like went to uni or when
55:50
you were studying. And if you you sort of missed
55:53
the economics, but it would have probably been most likely
55:58
Keynesian in the 1st place anyway, and so it's not like you
56:02
would have gained a a decent understanding of economics.
56:07
And I've got a perfect example for you on that by the way, if
56:09
you want to like. So in, in February of 2018, one
56:15
of the big Wall Street firms, it's Merrill Lynch calls on the
56:20
company where I worked for our four O 1K program, our like
56:25
retirement savings fund program, like you contributions to A4O1K
56:31
are, are not taxable or whatever like that gets deducted from
56:35
your taxable income when you pay the department of making you sad
56:39
at the end of every year. And so this, this lady, she
56:44
comes in and, you know, she's raw, rawing US we're big boys
56:49
and big girls. Look at U.S. dollar cost
56:51
averaging, playing the markets. We're basically Warren Buffett.
56:54
I mean, just keep doing what you're doing, keep rowing webs
56:58
was is basically the the message.
57:00
And oh, by the way, if you want to have a 20 minute sit down
57:02
with me, you know what's set it up.
57:04
And then I can, you know, see the say you're, you know, desire
57:09
to retire earlier than you're on track to type of thing.
57:14
So it gets to near the end of of the afternoon session and
57:18
there's maybe there's probably not even a dozen people in
57:20
there. Most of the people were in the
57:21
morning session. But I'm a I'm a night owl, the
57:27
one project manager. Just, you know, when the lady
57:31
opens up the floor for questions, one project manager,
57:35
he turns and gives me a shit eating grin because he's about
57:38
to rock the boat and but he knows I've been in Bitcoin for a
57:42
few months at this point. And and he turns to her and
57:44
goes, does does Merrill Lynch have any Bitcoin options in the
57:48
401K? At which point she goes, ha ha
57:53
ha. No, we don't mess around with
57:55
Bitcon. At which point I'm like, Oh no,
57:58
you did not. Oh no, you did not.
58:00
Like, I'm not even fully in like seated in my own understanding
58:05
yet. But I I can already tell that
58:08
this is a deflection born of ignorance.
58:13
And so I'm like, all right, I'm your huckleberry.
58:15
Let's play. So I said, would you please
58:17
explain to everyone in the room how Bitcoin works at a big
58:20
picture football play X's and O's 10,000 foot high overview
58:25
kind of level. And if you can't, would you
58:28
please explain to everyone in the room why they should Give
58:30
your opinion on that subject anyway whatsoever?
58:35
It was crickets, brother. It was crickets.
58:37
I live rent free in her head. Still 2 today.
58:41
So and and I know that she she is a licensed financial advisor.
58:46
You know how we have to, you know, give the little
58:49
disclaimer. Oh, I'm not a registered.
58:51
Financial Advisor. Yeah, anyone who listened to her
58:56
has lost out on an roughly speaking an 11X since then.
59:03
That sounds like a pretty bad move.
59:05
So I, I asked her about her background in, in, you know,
59:11
finances and whatnot. And she said that she'd gone to
59:15
the University of Chicago. And I asked her, you know, like
59:18
if she ever studied Austrian economics there.
59:21
And maybe she's like. Yeah, she she was very familiar
59:26
with Keynes, though. I was like, oh, you ever studied
59:28
Keynes? Like, Oh yeah, we were at a lot
59:30
of Keynes. I bet you did familiar with the
59:32
pedophile man. What the fuck is that about?
59:37
University of Chicago, what can I say?
59:39
The Chicago is not, I mean, it's, it's a hotbed of
59:45
corruption. I mean as I as I laid out.
59:48
Sorry, didn't Greenspan come from the CSC?
59:51
And then I was, I think Friedman came out of there as well.
59:55
So they kind of like took elements of like Austrian
59:59
economics. But that was kind of this is
1:00:05
where it kind of gets a bad rap. This, this, this the Chicago
1:00:09
school, because Greenspan was the one that initiated
1:00:12
effectively, like quantitative was a quantitative reason in the
1:00:17
90s sort of covert. There was a huge surplus.
1:00:20
It's in. It's in a documentary by Adam
1:00:23
Curtis called or watched over by Machines of Loving Grace, where
1:00:26
they thought that basically they could just give up the economy
1:00:30
to the computers and let the computers figure this shit out.
1:00:34
Obviously they didn't have Bitcoin, but yeah.
1:00:37
Sounds like techno communism. Yeah, something like that.
1:00:40
It was, it was something, it was pretty bad.
1:00:42
But yeah, because there's crossover, right.
1:00:45
Like Friedman was like. I mean, he gets quoted quite
1:00:48
quite often instead of conservative economic circles.
1:00:53
Yeah, there's a spectrum, I guess.
1:00:55
So it would make sense that there would be people sort of in
1:00:58
the middle. That makes sense.
1:01:00
Dabbling in both. Yeah, but anyway, so I would
1:01:03
love for Merrill Lynch. She probably needs to get
1:01:08
lynched, maybe by the mob. Well, when, when the, the ETFs
1:01:17
got approval, Merrill Lynch tried to be like, no, we're
1:01:20
going to be a stick in the mud and we're going to anchor the,
1:01:23
the Wall Street old money. And we're, we're going to be,
1:01:27
you know, the ones who prevent this giant mistake from happen.
1:01:31
And what happened, everybody else ran, right?
1:01:35
I think them and Vanguard, Merrill Lynch and Vanguard were
1:01:38
the recipients of a lot of crap. They got so many contacts from
1:01:43
their clients, you know that I think they closed a lot of
1:01:46
accounts. I they did not have a good time
1:01:50
after the SEC finally got their hands slapped by that judge.
1:01:58
What do you wish more people knew about Bitcoin?
1:02:07
What do I wish more people knew about Bitcoin?
1:02:11
I think, I think it's the, I think it's what I described
1:02:19
earlier about the potential for human flourishing, the elevation
1:02:25
of the quality of human life around the world, and the
1:02:30
potential that Bitcoin offers us to perhaps get more on the same
1:02:37
page in a number of ways and eliminate distortions from the
1:02:44
market. I mean, if we're ever going to
1:02:48
try to approach anything resembling World Peace, we're
1:02:54
going to need to be on the same page in certain ways.
1:02:58
And that includes resource allocation as sort of a base
1:03:02
layer. I like what Lowry brings up
1:03:06
about how, you know, we might as well use these same components
1:03:10
that we're using to build drones that destroy stuff to instead
1:03:15
build basics and IT racks and rooftop units to cool them and
1:03:20
whatever else we need to mine Bitcoin.
1:03:25
I think that a lot of people have a lot of learning to do and
1:03:31
I think that the no coiners in the world, I just wish that they
1:03:42
would realize the truth about their opinions.
1:03:49
I wish everyone, not just no coiners, but like everyone
1:03:52
technically would realize the truth about their opinions and I
1:03:58
guess speak with greater honesty and qualify things as opinion
1:04:02
when it's opinion and you know, state fact when it's a fact.
1:04:08
But I, I feel like there's a lot of people out there who don't
1:04:15
care about any negative repercussions of the lies that
1:04:21
they put forth into the world as long as it benefits them.
1:04:25
So I, I guess really it's that it people are probably hesitant
1:04:32
to learn about Bitcoin because they harbor some type of
1:04:35
preconceived notion about it. And I wish that, you know, it's
1:04:40
like that Rumi, Rumi, the the famous Mystic, the poet,
1:04:44
prophet, whatever you want to call him, said something along
1:04:47
the lines of you don't have to find love.
1:04:50
Love is going to find us. We just need to seek and defeat
1:04:53
all the walls that are mistrust built up.
1:04:59
It's a paraphrasing, it's technically a lyric from one of
1:05:01
my favorite bands, Wookie Foot and who they're heavily into,
1:05:04
you know, mysticism and spirituality and philosophy and
1:05:08
whatnot. But they're they're definitely
1:05:10
paraphrasing roomie there. And I think people have a lot of
1:05:12
walls of mistrust that they've built up that they need to
1:05:18
acknowledge as existing and then do everything they can in their
1:05:23
power to overcome them. That makes sense.
1:05:27
That makes a lot of sense. I'm going to have to look up
1:05:29
Wookie Foot now. Are they anything like fish?
1:05:34
They are like a jam band, a festival band.
1:05:37
Yeah. Oh.
1:05:38
In fact, the term look is is sort of a somewhat derogatory
1:05:44
term for like a unbathed just kind of moocher like who never
1:05:50
has any of their own stuff. They're always borrowing your
1:05:54
stuff. And they're just kind of like
1:05:55
like a groupie or like a roadie that, you know, goes on tour
1:06:00
with the band as broke and it's kind of dirty and smelly.
1:06:04
And so Wookie Foot is, I think, something of an homage to that.
1:06:08
And if I had to guess, there may be a, you know, sort of washing
1:06:12
other people's feet terrible in that title.
1:06:17
Like you think about what would be the nastiest, grossest foot
1:06:20
you could wash today. If you were trying to sort of
1:06:23
mimic an example that was set around 2000 years ago, maybe a
1:06:28
Wook's Foot would be a pretty good example of something like
1:06:32
that. You know, it's an example of
1:06:34
perhaps unconditional love. They're they're a great band and
1:06:37
I would definitely recommend looking into them.
1:06:39
Their stuff is very genre fluid to sort of pivot a similar term
1:06:44
there. They've they've got like a
1:06:47
bagpipist and like a Jamaican rapper in the same band.
1:06:51
They're awesome people. I've talked with them all so.
1:06:54
I got to check these guys out they they look pretty gnarly.
1:06:58
I'm just checking out some photos online.
1:07:03
What does Bitcoin mean to you? I was asked that once by someone
1:07:08
and my knee jerk reaction was hope and I think I probably have
1:07:13
to stick with that. I I think that it's fitting that
1:07:21
Michael Saylor owned hope.com and pivoted that domain name to
1:07:25
be a Bitcoin website. I think he nailed it because
1:07:30
frankly I was pretty hopeless prior to Bitcoin.
1:07:35
It seemed like there were no answers.
1:07:39
I mean gold and silver felt like a don't get poor option, not a
1:07:44
let me dig myself out of this hole I found myself in as a
1:07:49
result of my economic and market ignorance from 2007.
1:07:54
So that rarely are there opportunities with extremely
1:08:01
asymmetric risk reward profiles. And Bitcoin is one of those rare
1:08:07
opportunities. And so I, I set some goals for
1:08:14
myself a long time ago. I, the, the goals were in order
1:08:20
to understand, to be understood and to have a positive impact on
1:08:24
the world. And frankly, without Bitcoin, I
1:08:30
don't, I, I wouldn't be anywhere near as far along as I presently
1:08:38
am in pursuit of those goals because I wouldn't have my name
1:08:44
without Bitcoin. And as I said in the beginning,
1:08:47
that's the title of the book because that's the bottleneck
1:08:51
through which my research, like I had to pass through that
1:08:55
bottleneck in order to begin this research vendor.
1:08:59
And I'm hoping that my research can help, you know, in the same
1:09:04
mission that Bitcoin is already working towards, which is
1:09:08
bringing people to a more unified state, closer together,
1:09:12
closer to World Peace, etcetera. So yeah, I wouldn't have my name
1:09:16
without Bitcoin. The reason for that is because I
1:09:18
was evangelizing Bitcoin to a bunch of libertarians online.
1:09:23
And while I was there, one of them was a Native American woman
1:09:27
who, you know, set up a remote encounter with her medicine man
1:09:33
who actually passed away a little over a month ago.
1:09:37
I actually never even got to meet him in person.
1:09:39
We never, you know, shared the same building as one another.
1:09:45
We I never heard his voice, yet he was able to deliver me my
1:09:51
name, which was one of the two most profound experiences of my
1:09:55
life. So without Bitcoin, none of
1:09:59
that's happening. So I did just as an example,
1:10:02
like a personal example. That right there is one of the
1:10:07
reasons that Bitcoin has given me hope.
1:10:11
I'm going to have to ask you to unpack that briefly.
1:10:15
How? How so you you the red tail
1:10:18
hawk? I'm I'm sure you've mentioned
1:10:19
this on on other podcasts, but you met you never met the is it
1:10:25
a shaman? No, the the interaction was
1:10:31
facilitated remotely and and frankly, the woman who
1:10:33
facilitated the reaction, she was, you know, scolded lightly
1:10:37
by medicine man. He, he wants, he wanted people
1:10:40
to be brought to him in person, in the flesh.
1:10:44
The idea of interacting remotely was not what he wanted to do,
1:10:49
but I think after words he probably understood why she felt
1:10:55
compelled to arrange it because I mean, he does he.
1:11:00
He didn't normally give out names like Raptor bird names and
1:11:07
Raptor birds. My research goes deep into the
1:11:14
cross traditional connections between Native American cultural
1:11:21
traditions, Egypt, Greece, China, down where you are and
1:11:27
Oceania. I mean, that's where a lot of
1:11:29
this stuff I think originally stems from.
1:11:32
And so like the the the Raptor bird symbolism etymologically,
1:11:38
when I break that down, you get raw and then the PT it's in
1:11:44
there. Both of those are important
1:11:45
words. Rise.
1:11:47
Essentially a source of light is the sun God in Egypt, right?
1:11:51
So you think, OK, source of light.
1:11:53
Well, that sounds like potentially an enlightened
1:11:57
individual. And then the PT that is, that
1:12:01
comes actually from Egypt itself.
1:12:03
The Egypt contains the PT. So does sculpt, sculptor,
1:12:08
etcetera. It means sculptor.
1:12:09
It also means opener and it comes from the an Egyptian sort
1:12:15
of creator God, Atah. So you think about creator and
1:12:20
you think about opener and sculptor.
1:12:23
It's like, well, the opening act of the formation or the creation
1:12:28
of a sculpture is it's at the beginning, right?
1:12:32
So there's sort of a beginning associated with PT.
1:12:37
That's why it's actually found in the word baptism is because
1:12:40
baptism is an initiation initial starting, right?
1:12:45
So that PT. I'm thinking that it means
1:12:49
opener or sculptor of and in the case of the Raptor, it's talking
1:12:54
about of the light. So essentially it's a reference
1:12:58
to enlightenment and that's why you have wings, feathers and
1:13:04
flight symbolism all around the world.
1:13:08
You have Dragons with their wings.
1:13:11
You have Capsule Quadal and Kukulcon, the the feathered
1:13:15
serpents from the Mayan area of the world.
1:13:19
You have the caduceus, right? The the two serpents weaving on
1:13:25
the staff with the wings at the top and the pine cone.
1:13:29
All of these things like that, the phoenix rising, that that's
1:13:32
a bird, right? Like all of these things are
1:13:37
indicating light because I mean, take for example the idea of
1:13:45
light as a feather. What does that even mean?
1:13:49
Light is like this visible set of electromagnetic frequencies
1:13:56
that compose a specific visible bandwidth that's interoperable
1:14:02
with our ocular sense organs, right?
1:14:05
It's not, it's not a how did that become associated with
1:14:09
weight? Well, density, right?
1:14:14
Birds are lighter than humans. They have hollow bones and they
1:14:18
can fly. So they are clearly are, are not
1:14:22
quite as as heavy as humans and a lot of these other animals and
1:14:26
things and stuff. So and then what's what's
1:14:29
lighter than than the birds? Well, that'd be the sun, right?
1:14:32
That's way up there a source of light.
1:14:35
So what birds are known for spiraling about riding thermals
1:14:40
is very efficiently getting very, very, very high overviews,
1:14:45
big picture overviews of things is the Raptor birds that the
1:14:49
ones with really excellent vision that like those high
1:14:52
perches right. That's that's where that's
1:14:54
coming from. The like I said, it's found all
1:15:01
over the world. And we talked about the
1:15:02
Elusinian mysteries before in in the Elusinian mysteries, there's
1:15:08
a, a, a bird that supposedly hatches from the Orphic egg.
1:15:16
I think it's the Orphic hymn is what this relates to, going from
1:15:21
sort of the Lucis to the Orphic culture.
1:15:23
Whatever the Orphic egg, in my opinion, that's the root chakra
1:15:29
from the Hindu system and it's got a serpent wrapped around it.
1:15:32
Yeah, and it cracks it open. Right.
1:15:36
And when that egg opens up, that's essentially the the PT in
1:15:41
baptism, that's the opening, right?
1:15:44
And the BA in that's the, the Holy Spirit, that's the
1:15:49
Kundalini serpent, that's the divine feminine, and the bird
1:15:56
that it sort of hatches from the Orphic egg, it's just all
1:16:00
associated with light and like gold and shining and glittering
1:16:05
and all of these things. So as, as best as I can tell,
1:16:13
all of these traditions, they have truth to them.
1:16:20
And it's like a game of of telephone or Daniel called it
1:16:24
Chinese whispers, where everybody lines up and then
1:16:27
somebody starts a secret and tells it to the first person in
1:16:31
line. Then that person turns around
1:16:33
and tells it to the second person line, etcetera, etcetera,
1:16:36
until you get to the end of the line, at which point that person
1:16:39
at the end shares with everyone else what they heard.
1:16:43
And often times what they heard is very, very different, often
1:16:47
humorously so, from what was initially shared.
1:16:50
And everybody gets a good laugh out of it and everybody giggles.
1:16:53
Well, I see that as how tradition has propagated through
1:16:59
history. That's how you know, things have
1:17:02
gone things that we lose the handle on things or, or we reuse
1:17:10
old stuff. I mean, for example, right now
1:17:13
we're we're talking over a mobile phone, but like, how
1:17:16
often do you even really use that as a phone?
1:17:19
And and when you use it, do you still dial A number?
1:17:24
Like I remember my grandparents had a dial phone, like a Rotary
1:17:28
dial phone where you had to actually spin a thing to dial
1:17:31
the number a bunch of times. That's dialing.
1:17:34
We we don't dial. We've we've been pressing
1:17:37
buttons for years and for. Generations right and.
1:17:45
When's the last time? When's the last time you turned
1:17:48
a knob to turn on your laptop? Right?
1:17:54
Like all these words, you know, there there was this show.
1:17:58
I'm a mathematician, right? So that showed numbers that were
1:18:00
the, the guy's brother was an FBI agent.
1:18:03
And so they would always consult with the genius mathematician to
1:18:06
help solve crimes. In the beginning of that show, I
1:18:09
talked about how numbers are like all about math is all about
1:18:13
formulas and, and equations and stuff.
1:18:16
And it's just about a lot more than that to me.
1:18:18
It's it it, it gets into other things just like this.
1:18:25
That's wild. That is, I mean, yeah.
1:18:28
Have you read Manly P Holes? The Sacred Teachings of All
1:18:31
Ages? I think it's called something
1:18:32
like that. Manly P Hall is represented in
1:18:37
my research library in a couple of places.
1:18:40
I don't know that that particular title has been able
1:18:43
to make it onto my shelf yet. In fairness, I think I've
1:18:46
collected over 200 research related books in the last couple
1:18:50
of years alone, so I haven't even had time to read through
1:18:55
everything. I've collected so.
1:18:56
Far they're they're all it's a string tied around my finger.
1:19:00
Each book, you know, it's like you while you were canvassing,
1:19:03
you decided that this this thinker, this ISM, this
1:19:08
philosophy, whatever there was signal there.
1:19:12
And and so a a subsequent deep dive is called for.
1:19:16
And so then I would buy the book and add it to the library as a,
1:19:19
you know, reminder you, you have a deep dive remaining to do on
1:19:22
this. Still, I do have a few things
1:19:25
represented in there. That's.
1:19:27
The most recent one I saw was one of Augustus Laplongione's
1:19:31
books who did a lot of research on the Egyptians.
1:19:36
And that book was, I guess, put into circulation by the
1:19:44
Philosophical Research Society, which Manly Pete Hall was the
1:19:48
president and founder of. Actually found a copy of the
1:19:51
letter that he sent out. It's got a signature on it from
1:19:56
whenever this book was released. But yeah, it looks like 1983 is
1:20:02
when there's a date on this letter thing.
1:20:04
I found like a little time capsule in that book from
1:20:06
whoever the previous owner was, which was kind of neat.
1:20:10
Yeah, man, it's, it's the the rabbit hole is deep and deep and
1:20:14
deep and yes, there's there's so much to uncover and ideally, if
1:20:24
we can direct as much time and attention.
1:20:26
This is, you know, the decentralized nature of
1:20:28
humanity. So you can go off and do that
1:20:31
stuff, condense it, write your book, do all the things I will
1:20:34
digest that con that, that that information.
1:20:38
And, you know, others will do the same.
1:20:40
It's it's. Yeah.
1:20:42
Because it's just not enough time to get across all of this
1:20:44
stuff. And it's just it really is
1:20:46
infinitely fascinating, as is Bitcoin, as is discovering
1:20:50
Bitcoin. And I've got to say, man, thank
1:20:52
you for spending some scarce time finding our energy, telling
1:20:56
us the tale of how you discovered Bitcoin.
1:21:00
Thank you for the opportunity. It's it's an honor of looking
1:21:03
through your guest lists. There's a lot of people I've had
1:21:06
conversations with and a number more who I would like to.
1:21:09
So this is a sweet spot for me. We're we're in the Goldilocks
1:21:13
zone.