Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Robert Breedlove | Bitcoin is Time | Simply Bitcoin IRL
Transcript
- 0:05Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of
- 0:08Simply Bitcoin IRL. Today's very special guest been
- 0:11looking forward to this conversation for a while now
- 0:15Robert Breedlove. But before we jump in, I want to
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- 0:49All right? No more delay, mr.
- 0:52Breedlove. How you doing?
- 0:53These days? I'm good.
- 0:56Thank you for having me. I'm just finishing up, eating a
- 0:59little something here. It's all good.
- 1:00All rubbed up. Do do your thing.
- 1:04I understand my schedule has been pretty pretty crazy these
- 1:08days running to YouTube channels.
- 1:12Running the swan Channel and running the simply channels has
- 1:15been absolutely pretty, pretty crazy.
- 1:19I understand anyways, been thinking about the first
- 1:23question to ask you for a while now, and I think the most
- 1:26appropriate for you Robert is after the years that you've been
- 1:31doing this, you know, after the The famous sailor series that
- 1:36you know, people received extremely well, I'm going to ask
- 1:39you what is money. I'd be lying if I didn't say.
- 1:46I saw that question coming. I this is such a weird question
- 1:54actually and one of the Latest things that I've learned.
- 2:02And this is we release an episode of recently, that was
- 2:06titled the most important question in the world and what
- 2:09it was. Was essentially a composite of
- 2:13Prior guest on the what is money show?
- 2:16Answering the question, what is money?
- 2:19And my editor did a great job of slicing these together.
- 2:22And one of my takeaways from that particular episode We've
- 2:29done. We did.
- 2:30We release one of these. We release a second.
- 2:32One. I think we've got two or three
- 2:34more in in the backlog. So we have like four to five
- 2:39hours that we've accumulated of guests answering that question.
- 2:42What is money over are 300 some odd episodes that we've released
- 2:47now? So, it's been very interesting
- 2:50but my takeaway from that particular composite episode was
- 2:54that it seemed to be Asking the question, what is money?
- 2:59Seemed to be a kind of a psychological mirror, perhaps,
- 3:04and that the way that guest answer, the question is somewhat
- 3:10telling of their own character. Now, this is a hypothesis.
- 3:14I'm not saying this is a conclusive fact, it's just an
- 3:17observation I made. After we released it, listen to
- 3:20that episode. And for instance would be like,
- 3:24you know, if you listen to The Sailor series he'll describe
- 3:30money as the highest energy that humans can Channel.
- 3:35Or I think he also calls it something like an amalgam of all
- 3:39the powers that humans can possibly harness, right?
- 3:42So you can use money for instance, to acquire or Channel
- 3:49kinetic energy. Chemical energy, gravitational
- 3:52energy thermal energy, etc, etc. Money's like this meta.
- 3:57Structure, that lets you tap into really anything that humans
- 4:02are capable of harnessing. And so his answer to that
- 4:08question. It.
- 4:10Kind of tells you something about Sailors, perhaps tells you
- 4:14something about Sailors actual psychology and that.
- 4:16Well, he's a, he's a powerful guys and effective entrepreneur.
- 4:20He's a, he's a historian, right? He thought deeply about these
- 4:23topics for clearly many years. He's A widely read and he's, you
- 4:30know, focused a lot of his reading on like ancient Roman
- 4:33history and other very successful entrepreneurs, like
- 4:37Carnegie. And, you know, the oil tycoon
- 4:41still tycoons etc, etc. So it's like his perspective on
- 4:45money. Not only is, it is it telling
- 4:48about kind of the nature and structure, and ontology of money
- 4:52itself. But it's also revealing
- 4:55something about the actual individual answering the
- 4:58question too and then if you go forward one series to the booth
- 5:02series, you know, Jeff Booth will give you this very Academic
- 5:11description of how money works and how it flows between people.
- 5:15But then he also takes a step back and say something like to
- 5:18the effect of money doesn't really matter.
- 5:20You know, it's more about love and relationships and belonging
- 5:23and so that seems to be kind of telling about how how he
- 5:26individually chooses to lead his life.
- 5:30And I don't know, I'm not I'm not may be answering your
- 5:34question, what is money per se? But it's just the thing I've
- 5:36been thinking about recently is that it asking that particular
- 5:40question had this very unexpected result that just
- 5:45occurred to me. Like I said, when we release
- 5:47this thing a couple of weeks ago, that it seems to be serving
- 5:51as a psychological mirror of sorts.
- 5:55That that in which you see the subtle or perhaps deeper
- 6:01character of the individual answering the question
- 6:04reflected. And that's been, I don't know
- 6:09like it was just it just caught me off guard.
- 6:10So like every time I think I feel so fortunate to have
- 6:14launched this show and then now the whole world you know you got
- 6:18breed a Leo on national TV saying the defining question is
- 6:23what is money and then you've got you Musk making these big
- 6:26appearances saying, you know, what is money?
- 6:28It's like, it seems to be like it's quickly becoming the
- 6:32defining question of our era and maybe in 50 years time or
- 6:37something like that, we'll look back on it as such.
- 6:42So I feel very fortunate to have kind of struck Gold digital
- 6:47goals, perhaps or posed. A question.
- 6:51That's very concordant with the current zeitgeist.
- 6:55I already had that gratitude and appreciation in place but now
- 6:58again watching that composite episode.
- 7:00Like it blew my mind. Again, I was like, oh my
- 7:02goodness. Wow, you're actually seeing
- 7:03something else about, there's a conversation, beneath the
- 7:07conversation, right? There's a response beneath the
- 7:10response to the question and I found that to be fascinating and
- 7:17again, I call it a psychological mirror.
- 7:19I don't know. This is like a term that I've
- 7:21put to this thing that I'm trying to describe.
- 7:25But it's interesting to me again that it's most of the answers we
- 7:29have for money, tend to have this reflective property, you
- 7:33know it you know, money is not wealth, but it reflects wealth
- 7:42prices or is like a prices or a reflection on the consequences
- 7:48of Human Action and relation to Capital and You know, I think
- 7:53this speaks to the relationship between money and human
- 7:57rationality that human rationality is this this
- 8:00self-reflective faculty that we have and money somehow enables
- 8:07or extends that that we were actually able to extend human
- 8:10rationality into the material domain in a very real way.
- 8:15So yeah, it's just a very, very interesting question and I'm
- 8:21just grateful to have have have it as the namesake of the show
- 8:25and it keeps yielding more and more insights to me.
- 8:29So, yeah. And it's interesting because I
- 8:33did notice when Ilan answered that question about and what was
- 8:39striking to me, was his response, which was basically
- 8:44along the lines of their needs to be inflation, right?
- 8:47So you could tell that he hasn't fully taken the orange pill, you
- 8:51know? Then the ray dalio clip, very
- 8:56familiar with it as well, but I think, what was fascinating to
- 8:59me about what you just said about, is the way that you look
- 9:02at money is really a reflection on yourself and I think that
- 9:06people really underestimate how vital money is in a society,
- 9:11write it, you know, it's the Hottentot said it best, right?
- 9:13It's half of every transaction in the world, right?
- 9:18And if that base layers, fundamentally corrupted, or it's
- 9:21broken, right? I think there's so many
- 9:24Downstream effects so that so many so many consequences to
- 9:29that that people have no idea what the root cause of our.
- 9:33But I'm going to double back. I'm going to go back to the
- 9:35original question because I'm very curious.
- 9:37Robert, what is money to you specifically as an individual?
- 9:42Well, that's a great. Great question.
- 9:44And now that I've made that meta step talking about the
- 9:47psychological mirror, I'm extra cognizant of my answer.
- 9:51But I you know, when I originally this is before
- 9:57launching the podcast, I'd always thought about money as
- 10:00time, you know, and this is something that I I incorporated
- 10:04into Masters and slaves of money in particular that I was
- 10:10looking. I think the opening line and
- 10:11that piece is like, money is a tool for treating human time.
- 10:15So an ingredient to basically everything of value in the
- 10:20global economy is human time. You could also call it human
- 10:25effort or human energy, or human attention, perhaps.
- 10:29But the common denominator that I always focus on was just time
- 10:34itself. And I guess the reason I did
- 10:37that was because even in the term like the term economize,
- 10:42right? It means to to accomplish the
- 10:45same or greater. But with less effort the same or
- 10:49less effort, right? You're actually increasing
- 10:51output per unit of input. And so, what we're doing when we
- 10:57trade with one, another is allowing each of us to
- 11:03specialize in a very fine stage of a production process and then
- 11:09Interlink ourselves together through trade such that.
- 11:13The thing that we ultimately, make is something that none of
- 11:16us could ever make individually. We get these incredible
- 11:20Innovations and there's a great essay on this titled eye pencil.
- 11:26If you've never read it, it's beautifully poetic describing
- 11:31Essentially, how no one, no one, no one individual on Earth can
- 11:34construct a pencil that it is this emergent good from, you
- 11:40know, the wood is from this continent.
- 11:42The lettuce from that continent, the metals from here, and it
- 11:45takes all of these people engaged in a collaborative
- 11:49effort to create something as simple as a pencil.
- 11:54And so I am I still You know, sailor Blue.
- 11:59I'm on, we started talking about money as energy because it was
- 12:01just like it was like, oh, of course it's energy.
- 12:03I'd never thought about it that way, but my original view on it
- 12:08had always been that it's more time than energy But ultimately
- 12:15I guess the deeper I've gotten down this Rabbit Hole.
- 12:17The one thing I keep coming to is the insufficiency or
- 12:23inadequacy of language itself There is that?
- 12:31I had a Sky shirt, a quote, from Ray Kurzweil on the show who
- 12:37said that language is a very thin pipe through which to
- 12:42describe something as complex as consciousness.
- 12:47And I feel that really landed with me.
- 12:53We're all human beings were all living in this complex, fluid
- 13:01fully interconnected reality, right?
- 13:05It's a Continuum. Alright, the world, Continuum.
- 13:08Everything affects everything else.
- 13:09Everything touches everything else either directly or
- 13:11indirectly. It's all energy.
- 13:15It's all Liquid something like that and language with language,
- 13:21we're slicing it in, dicing it right into little discrete data
- 13:26packets such that we can talk about it.
- 13:29We can think about it, we can reflect upon it.
- 13:31And I think maybe that question. What is money is like, it's
- 13:39pointing at that, right? It's like we call money.
- 13:42That's we call Money the language of value.
- 13:44So clearly it's a very its linguistic sort of in its nature
- 13:48in that it allows us to communicate about, you know, the
- 13:52consequences of Human Action. One way I've thought of framing
- 13:59this that was useful. For me was if words are the
- 14:04media of exchange of human Conception.
- 14:12Then money is the media of exchange Of Human Action.
- 14:17Whereas like baby, even your five senses are the media of
- 14:20exchange of human perception, right?
- 14:22We're actually perceiving the world with our five senses, we
- 14:26then convert that and wrap it into these little discrete data,
- 14:29packets called words to develop conceptions from that and
- 14:34somewhere between their perception.
- 14:36And conception, we get this emergent socio-economic
- 14:40phenomenon called money, that's the medium of exchange Of Human
- 14:44Action, right? So it's actually it's a very
- 14:47high signal communication device, and somehow, Supersedes
- 14:55language or is very hard to describe obviously, which again,
- 15:00kind of explains why so many people have so many different
- 15:03answers. And perhaps also explains why it
- 15:08is It functions as a psychological mirror because if
- 15:12it is that complex it's like it can be answered in a lot of
- 15:15different ways and you attempt to answer it.
- 15:19It's kind of like in quantum physics.
- 15:21Right? Where the Observer participates
- 15:24with the observation. If you ever heard of the eyes of
- 15:26the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the act of
- 15:30observation actually changes. The thing that you're observing,
- 15:33so that you can never know, simultaneously, the exact
- 15:37position and trajectory of a particle.
- 15:39You can know one or the other but you can't know both with.
- 15:44It's like, it's a again. It's a Continuum right.
- 15:47The more, you know, the trajectory, the less, you know,
- 15:48the position and vice versa. So something about What is
- 15:53money? It's like, what is the word?
- 15:55What is language? And obviously, that's a very
- 15:58deep question to when you look at something like the biblical
- 16:02Corpus, right? The opening, and the beginning
- 16:05was the word and the Word was God, and the Word was with God,
- 16:08like, it's, there's something very essential about this
- 16:12intermediate disintermediation. It's intermediating function.
- 16:19I guess you would say that both language and money performs.
- 16:23And it is exceedingly difficult to describe, but also
- 16:27exceedingly important. So, I again not sure if I
- 16:32answered your question at all there, but each woman around you
- 16:35totally did and you said, put a tremendous amount of signal in
- 16:39there and the two concepts right to you specifically as an
- 16:44individual money is time I'm in that camp as well to sailor
- 16:51money's energy, right? And then the last bit that you
- 16:56said which I think is really interesting.
- 17:00Is the fact that I think you nailed this and perhaps you, you
- 17:06you said it on a subconscious level which is I think human
- 17:09beings. I think the necessity of having
- 17:13a type of using money is necessary to The Human
- 17:19Experience, I think. And if you look at history
- 17:21right, even if you go back to the very very you know,
- 17:25prehistoric era there was still bartering, they were still trade
- 17:29and they're the Were still a form of money, and I think that
- 17:32you couldn't get away from that. And I think, that really, since
- 17:35the Advent of the internet, really sends, you know, if you
- 17:39believe the theory from the sovereign individual, the rise
- 17:44of information, Technologies, you know, CPUs right?
- 17:48That made all the made Bitcoin itself possible.
- 17:52And now, we are moving into the next iteration of what money is
- 17:56and what it could be. But before I go down that rabbit
- 18:00hole, Whole what I want to ask you Robert because I know you've
- 18:02spent a tremendous amount of time focusing on this on your
- 18:05show is what happens when the money's broken.
- 18:10Right? And you know bitcoiners make a
- 18:12meme of it and they say time theft.
- 18:14Hmm what happens when the money is broken?
- 18:17What what are the consequences of broken money to a society?
- 18:25yeah, you know, another Frame. That's useful for.
- 18:32Comparing, such disparate things as an individual and an economy,
- 18:39right? That the individuals, much more
- 18:42concrete, right? Where we know, we have a lot of
- 18:45lived experience with the individual and economy is
- 18:48something much more abstract, right?
- 18:50We engage in it and we participate in it.
- 18:52But you don't see an economy right?
- 18:55In any concrete sense. But what they both are in a in a
- 19:01turn secular parlance is that they're both complex adaptive
- 19:05systems. So what are they doing there?
- 19:10You know, both the individual and the economy are trying to
- 19:14model the world. They're trying to adapt to it,
- 19:20right? So to overcome obstacles and
- 19:22problems and and whatnot and a key process to that end is
- 19:32Station right? Like for instance, if you are a
- 19:36human trying to adapt to your environment while it's pretty
- 19:39important that you have eyesight and good.
- 19:41Hearing, you know, if you're if you're in the middle of the
- 19:46savanna or the jungle and you're blind right?
- 19:49You know you're going to get Nature's natural selection is
- 19:52going to have its way with you. So your communication systems as
- 19:55an individual complex adaptive system, they're not functioning
- 19:59well, any of your five senses, but Obviously something like
- 20:03eyesight would be more important than maybe taste.
- 20:06That's going to, although tastes can also be important right?
- 20:09To taste. If something is poisonous or not
- 20:13that's going to inhibit you that's going to inhibit your
- 20:16survival ability. And so when we look at the
- 20:21complex adaptive system of an economy, when you start screwing
- 20:25with the money, right? That is the communicate.
- 20:28That is the nervous system of the economic.
- 20:32Organism that were all participating in that.
- 20:34We're all cellular participants in to use a biological analogy
- 20:42when you start screwing with that Communications Network.
- 20:46Well then that complex adaptive system loses its ability to
- 20:50perceive the world and model the world and adapt to the world.
- 20:54And so it just throws the whole thing into disarray and really
- 20:58jeopardizes. Its survivability just like the
- 21:01guy. I'm in the jungle that's blind
- 21:03right? Like his inability to to the
- 21:09media of exchange of human perception via his eyes if
- 21:12that's not working, then he's unlikely to live like his
- 21:16chances of survival plummet. Just like if we screw up the
- 21:20money, right? If we add noise to the
- 21:23communication network of money, that's intended to be That in an
- 21:27Ideal World and a Bitcoin world would just be pure signal,
- 21:30right? All price changes, would be
- 21:33reflections of shifts in supplies of capital were demand
- 21:38for for capital or Goods in this in a world where money is being
- 21:43debased and monopolize and corrupted etcetera, those price
- 21:47changes are full of noise. You don't know what it is,
- 21:50right? It's like it could be a new
- 21:52policy could be, you know, could be Currency counterfeiting could
- 21:58be. This could be that there's just
- 22:00it's a it's the destruction of the Adaptive mechanism the
- 22:07mechanism by which the global economy adapts to reality is
- 22:11broken. When we break the money, just
- 22:14like the mechanism by which the individual adapts to his
- 22:19environment is broken when when you blind him or take away one
- 22:23of his other key senses. So I guess you could maybe
- 22:29distill it down to just the throughput of mation is that
- 22:33when information is not flowing, And this is kind of a weird
- 22:38actually think information. What you use information as if
- 22:41it's a noun, right? Like is this thing that moves
- 22:43around but it's really just the pattern of one thing influencing
- 22:47the pattern of another thing. That's all I could think of it
- 22:50more as a verb that The movements of one thing put the
- 22:57other thing that it's connected to into a new formation.
- 23:01So it's again, we're back to this continuous fluid reality,
- 23:05where everything is connected to everything else.
- 23:08And information is just the, the sequential rearrangement of all
- 23:13these things interacting. When you inhibit that, then you
- 23:19start to accrue Miss Fitness, right?
- 23:22Like the Is not adapting to changes in reality.
- 23:26And so the system in reality or very close, when it's adapting,
- 23:30well, well they start to diverge right, if the money is broken or
- 23:33you're blind and and that Divergence is a representation
- 23:38of risk, essentially and it eventually that risk is realized
- 23:43and I think this kind of frames up things like the Austrian
- 23:47business cycle Theory or once you start debasing the currency,
- 23:51you get exacerbated, economic booms and bust until one of two
- 23:56things happens either the currency hyper inflates or they
- 24:00stop printing money. And you get this deflationary
- 24:03snap back to reality. And, of course, or Klee
- 24:07typically it culminates in hyperinflation because the
- 24:10central bank that's debasing, the currency has both the profit
- 24:14motive. motive and the precedent to do that, so it You undermined
- 24:24the Adaptive capacity of the species, when you screw with the
- 24:29money, just like you undermine the Adaptive capacity of an
- 24:33individual when you blind them. So I don't, it takes away the
- 24:40handful, it takes away the correction mechanism, right?
- 24:43Yeah, exactly. The feedback loops are broken,
- 24:46correct. And then you have these
- 24:47Frankenstein political ideologies.
- 24:51Businesses economic systems that normally would not be viable
- 24:58under a sound money standard that just pop up.
- 25:06And they start to become, I mean, and we're seeing this,
- 25:09we're living through a, some people call it the fourth
- 25:10turning. If you were, if you were to
- 25:12believe in that theory, but we're living through this era of
- 25:18what the consequence of broken money.
- 25:22What what the consequence of living under a broken money
- 25:25system for decades. And I think we're reaching the
- 25:27culmination of that. I think we're living through it
- 25:30right now. Some people call it the clown
- 25:31world. Yeah.
- 25:33But you know from from my Perspective.
- 25:37Robert, the these are these are scary times and you know we have
- 25:42a more geopolitically Focus show our daily live show but we're we
- 25:48see it now is really what I see the the battle to come.
- 25:53And the next 5-10 years is really it's going to be Bitcoin
- 25:59or Central Bank. Digital currencies, it's clear
- 26:01as day. That nation-states all around
- 26:04the world. This is there.
- 26:05This is their future. Through.
- 26:06This is what they believe. The future of money is writer
- 26:10Central Bank, digital currencies, and, and to kind of
- 26:13tied into what you were saying about removing that correction
- 26:16mechanism, I feel like Central Bank.
- 26:18Digital currencies is, just it's going to throw.
- 26:21It's going to, it's going to throw gasoline on that, right?
- 26:23It's going to make it a hundred times worse.
- 26:27So does that worry you at all? Does that.
- 26:28Does that what's your take on? On the Central Bank?
- 26:32Digital currency future that I'll speak.
- 26:36At least from a u.s. Centric view, the B
- 26:38Administration that's there, you know, it's been it's clear as
- 26:42day. If you look at the presidential
- 26:45a quarter of presidential quarterly economic report, they
- 26:48dedicated 20 pages. And the first, the first
- 26:52paragraph of those 20 Pages basically was making the case as
- 26:56to why central banks are necessary.
- 26:58Why you need a state for a currency?
- 27:02And why Central Bank? Digital currencies are a good
- 27:04thing. So, What is this fight?
- 27:07Look like to you. It is you know the theory of the
- 27:10sovereign individual going to come true where bitcoiners are
- 27:13just going to flee, they're just going to leave perhaps, leave
- 27:16the state's maybe go to countries like I'll Salvador.
- 27:19This is is this something that you think about as a Bitcoin?
- 27:22ER Yes. Think about it a lot and what
- 27:29many people call Clown world and what many people mistakenly call
- 27:36late-stage capitalism I think is in truth late-stage Central
- 27:42Banking, it's not surprising whatsoever that we have
- 27:48progressed from A country, again, u.s.
- 27:53Centric perspective here a country, which respected life,
- 27:59liberty, and property. And we had a tremendous amount
- 28:01of economic success. But once we had the
- 28:04implementation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the trajectory
- 28:09has started to change, right? We've become steadily less free
- 28:13over time. All right, this is the land of
- 28:17the free and the home of the brave is the national anthem
- 28:19says, but once you Put that institution that
- 28:24anti-capitalistic, anti-human freedom institution, at the
- 28:28heart of the US economy, it starts to regress.
- 28:33And, you know, if we look at Communism, communism, being the
- 28:39abolition of private property, right?
- 28:41That's what marks that was the whole idea from each, according
- 28:44to their ability to each, according to their need.
- 28:46There are no Property Owners, the state owns everything Doles,
- 28:50it out arbitrarily and, you know, in this In a way that is
- 28:57beneficial for people, right? According to their need, as he
- 29:00said, we've seen that, that fails catastrophically in every
- 29:06conceivable way. We also have socialism, which is
- 29:11the institutionalized policy of aggression against private
- 29:13property, so not the abolition, right?
- 29:16If communism is at this extreme end of no private property
- 29:19whatsoever, socialism is kind of the spectrum between where your
- 29:25your aggressing against. It more or less depending on
- 29:27how, how severely you're taxing the population or how rapidly
- 29:32your debasing, the currency both of which function as the theft
- 29:38of purchasing power you're stealing from you're violating
- 29:42the property of productive Market, actors or stealing from
- 29:45them. And then at the opposite end of
- 29:47the spectrum from communism is capitalism in a true sense which
- 29:52is the institutionalized policy of respect for private property.
- 29:56And in contractual agreement between property owners. it's
- 30:02not surprising to me at all that when you install a central bank,
- 30:07which derives all of its revenues from seigniorage or
- 30:13expansion of the money supply, it sells the new currency units
- 30:18at a market rate that they produce at a below market rate,
- 30:22that that Delta being there, their profit, That's theft,
- 30:30right? You're now violating the private
- 30:32property of Savers people that are depending on the currency as
- 30:37a mode of savings are now having their property rights violated
- 30:41by the central bank, and it's a very slippery slope.
- 30:45Right. Once you start printing the
- 30:47money, you've you now, increase the misallocation of capital
- 30:52such that the net. The next bust is even more
- 30:56painful. There's more liabilities in the
- 30:58sea Some the default. So the next round of monetary
- 31:02printing, according to the Keynesian philosophy is, you
- 31:05have to print money to cover all of that.
- 31:07So, it's exponentially more debasement of the currency and
- 31:12theft of purchasing power from productive Market actors, which
- 31:15is an exponential increase in the violation of private
- 31:19property. So you start moving along that
- 31:20Spectrum, right? You're moving away from
- 31:23capitalism further into socialism in that, private
- 31:26property is being aggressive. Against more rapidly, more
- 31:30aggressively, more assiduously, whatever you want to say, and
- 31:34the endgame, right? The endgame of that aggression
- 31:38against private property, is the abolition of private property.
- 31:41So we, it's no surprise to me whatsoever that the world is
- 31:45moving along the Spectrum away from capitalism and toward
- 31:49communism in lockstep with how rapidly we debase the currency.
- 31:56Or currency supplies around the world, I don't know, it's
- 32:02painfully obvious. If you study money and you study
- 32:05the history of states and where they end up but People just
- 32:10don't understand this, right? These isms are thrown around
- 32:15again back to the insufficiency of language.
- 32:16Like, there's not a consensus on what communism is what socialism
- 32:20is, where capitalism is and hiding beneath all of that.
- 32:25Ignorance, is this? This like sad degeneration of
- 32:31the world and it's very self-defeating, you know, even
- 32:35even the shareholders of central banks that benefit from this
- 32:38scheme, they're undermining the market process itself in the
- 32:42long run. So all of the wealth that they
- 32:44accumulate comes at the expense of restricting, the potential of
- 32:51wealth creation and the broader market, and the potential for
- 32:54Innovation the potential for human flourishing.
- 32:56So I'm Reminded here of the way rothbard put it and I basically
- 33:03paraphrase. He said that you know the state
- 33:06is a robber baron that will just plunder its victims until
- 33:11there's nothing left to plunder and then once once it's
- 33:16plundered everything, there was the plunder, it just dies,
- 33:18right? It's killed its own food source,
- 33:21it's like a parasite that kills the host.
- 33:24So yeah, it's he's kind of a An unfortunate State of Affairs.
- 33:33But you know, thank God for Bitcoin because I don't know
- 33:39what we would do in the face of this Rising tide of global
- 33:43communism. If it were not for Bitcoin,
- 33:48Yeah. And you know, I'm really glad
- 33:50that that, that you brought that up and it's something that I've
- 33:55spent a lot of time thinking about right, which is Unless you
- 34:01do something kinetic, like a kinetic, like, you know,
- 34:04revolutions bringing up, you know, Call to Arms.
- 34:09Bitcoin really defunds this completely.
- 34:12It really stops in his tracks and I would even go on to say
- 34:17that there are certain political ideologies that would not be
- 34:21possible under your put a Bitcoin standard if you remove
- 34:25the wealth redistribution mechanism, putting taxation
- 34:28aside but the wealth redistribution mechanism of
- 34:32inflation and if you take that away, Can't really buy your
- 34:39voters so to speak. Can't really be offering these
- 34:42things because the only way to offer these things is through
- 34:45raising taxes via direct taxation, direct taxation,
- 34:49meaning you become very pop unpopular with your
- 34:53constituents, right? But if you remove that element
- 34:56all together, right? And you go on a Bitcoin
- 34:59standard, then I would say that there's a lot of very popular
- 35:05political ideologies, Without getting into any specifics, that
- 35:09would not be economically. They wouldn't they wouldn't be
- 35:12viable, they would just disappear.
- 35:15And then what I just said leads me to the next thing is I
- 35:19suspect They're going to fight tooth, they're going to fight
- 35:24Bitcoin tooth and nail because it's a matter of survival.
- 35:28It's a matter of it's their system, right?
- 35:32Or it's Bitcoin, right? And I and Robert, I think we're
- 35:35already seeing this. We're already seeing this fight
- 35:38back, right? And and of course, it's under
- 35:41the guise of many things, right? You know, the moral virtues, you
- 35:45know, But does that worry you at all?
- 35:49Or are you from the? Are you coming from the camp of
- 35:53the better flag? Theory of you know Bitcoins just
- 35:56Bitcoins like water. It's just going to go flow to
- 35:58where its treated best and bitcoiners are going to follow
- 36:00suit. Or do or gets to a point where
- 36:05do we have to stand our ground right?
- 36:07Where it's like, look, you know, we at least have to fight, you
- 36:12know, we at least have to fight so that America doesn't go down
- 36:15that path because if America does go down that path and it
- 36:18sure does look like it is going down that path.
- 36:21It is going to make the the lives of bitcoiners.
- 36:24The people that individuals that are choosing to opt out of that
- 36:28said, system, it can make their lives a living hell or is this
- 36:32the inevitable collapse Lapse of an Empire like we've seen
- 36:35throughout history. Well, I guess the beautiful
- 36:41thing about Bitcoin, you can only use that metaphor.
- 36:44All right, stand our ground. It's a, it's a battle metaphor.
- 36:48All right. Someone's attacking you.
- 36:49And rather than retreating you stand your ground and fight.
- 36:54But what we're talking about with Bitcoin is Just a, it's a
- 36:59radically new incentive system. I or you have the option that
- 37:02you don't you don't need to stand your ground.
- 37:05Actually you can move and take all your wealth with you to
- 37:08whatever ground is most favorable to to you write
- 37:14whatever political conditions, geographic conditions Etc, are
- 37:18most favorable to you and all the point of I'd you know,
- 37:23political ideologies dwindling in the wake of a Bitcoin.
- 37:27Oin standard or Bitcoin monetizing.
- 37:30I think it's absolutely true because, you know, if you put
- 37:35all of these things under the rubric of statism, whether it's
- 37:39fascism communism. Even us capitalism, right?
- 37:42It's not true. It's not capitalism.
- 37:44Would be everyone keeps what they earn, right.
- 37:48There's no taxation, there's no inflation.
- 37:50There's no Central Bank that doesn't exist anywhere in the
- 37:53world, even an even and especially in the US.
- 37:57So all of these State isms, you just put them under the umbrella
- 38:03of statism. Well, the political ideologies
- 38:08that are pushed inside of States, as you said, typically
- 38:13with the carrot attached to them of free stuff.
- 38:16Well when we say free stuff, nothing is actually free.
- 38:19Alright nothing is actually produced in the world for free.
- 38:22Well we're actually saying is the state stole some of this
- 38:27stuff. Cough from productive people
- 38:29through taxation and inflation and is now giving them providing
- 38:33a rebate back to some of these citizens as an inducement to
- 38:38vote for or support their political candidate or ideology.
- 38:43So, in a world. So the thing is like, in a world
- 38:46where there is free money or free stuff that's, you know,
- 38:49quote, unquote free stuff. It necessitates and requires an
- 38:54unfree population, there have to be people that are being hemmed
- 38:58in and extracted from stolen from there, have to be people
- 39:03that are having their property rights violated for free stuff
- 39:06to exist. So, in a world in a Bitcoin
- 39:09world. And that is why this the best
- 39:12quote on this? Every public auction is an
- 39:15advanced. I'm sorry.
- 39:17Every public election is an advanced auction on stolen
- 39:21goods. So, all of these guys that we
- 39:24vote in support and think that, oh, you know, the Democrat, I'm
- 39:28a Democrat, I'm a republican. So, you're no matter which side
- 39:33you support, they both work as statist and they work for
- 39:39Central Bankers, right? So they're, they're they're
- 39:44advocating for supporting and administering systematic theft.
- 39:50and, you know, I just don't think that It's not something
- 39:56you need to stand and fight. I mean I don't know like when I
- 40:01say fight like there's not you don't need to stand and have a
- 40:04physical altercation with the state.
- 40:09What you can instead do is use the tools that are at your
- 40:14disposal to move into the places and circumstances where you are
- 40:18treated best. I think that's the best strategy
- 40:21because you're never going to win.
- 40:23You're never going to go toe-to-toe with the state and
- 40:25when right that's just not by definition, the state is the
- 40:28Monopoly of power and violence. Like no individual can go on a
- 40:34one-on-one battle with the state and win but what we can do, you
- 40:38know, as Hayek said, right? As introduce something, by some
- 40:41Sly, roundabout way that they cannot stop.
- 40:44And I think that thing is Bitcoin, so, and I want to be
- 40:48careful here with my thinking and my talking and that it's
- 40:50very easy. To say, oh, the state, like,
- 40:55it's out there, like, it's something external to us.
- 40:58But I really think it is a macrocosm of the individual ego,
- 41:05right? That, that little fiction.
- 41:07We all have that we are separate and we need to defend ourselves
- 41:13from others and take from others.
- 41:15Maybe we even justified in our actions to defend our own little
- 41:19egoic livelihood, but the truth Is like we said earlier, like
- 41:24everything's connected. Right?
- 41:25Everyone, everything, affects everything else.
- 41:27It's the world, Continuum. And just like the ego, is that
- 41:31little fictional story. We Tell ourselves that were
- 41:34separate from other things to justify certain actions.
- 41:36I think the state is just the macrocosm of that.
- 41:39That we pretend like the United States is somehow separate from
- 41:43China or Russia or India. When in reality they're just
- 41:47these these imaginary constructs that we use to justify coercion
- 41:52and In violence on human beings. And so there's not I don't know
- 41:57that you can even I don't know that even Bitcoin can fully
- 42:00eradicate statism but the key leverage Point seems to be
- 42:08making those activities less profitable just making it
- 42:12introducing systems or technologies that make coercion
- 42:16compulsion and violence, less profitable.
- 42:18You make crime, you know that old saying, crime doesn't pay
- 42:22well crime. Does pay as the existence of the
- 42:24Central Bank and the nation-state proves.
- 42:28But if you, you move as individuals naturally move
- 42:32towards a Bitcoin standard to protect themselves against the
- 42:35predations of central banks and nation states, that makes crime,
- 42:40pay less, and less, and less, right?
- 42:42The expect the cost to extract wealth from individuals, goes
- 42:46Higher and Higher and Higher. And with that the businesses
- 42:49that specialize in extracting, Walt from individuals, the Mine
- 42:53lower and lower and lower so I just want to be careful like
- 42:58it's very easy to say. What's the state going to do
- 43:01against us bitcoiners as if there's some like bright line
- 43:05dichotomy between the state and bitcoiners.
- 43:08When in reality it's just a mishmash of individuals and
- 43:12that, that amalgam, this this complex constellation of
- 43:17individuals acting, they're driven primarily by incentive
- 43:21structures, right? It's what is profitable.
- 43:24That's what people are doing, what is profitable.
- 43:27And so the big breakthrough, a Bitcoin is just making those
- 43:31activities less profitable making the violation of private
- 43:35property, said differently, making coercion compulsion and
- 43:39violence, less profitable, and therefore less prevalent in the
- 43:43sphere of human Affairs. I don't know of any better
- 43:47solution than that. I don't think you can, you know,
- 43:50quote-unquote fight or go toe-to-toe with the state.
- 43:53You may be sure there have been victories in the past.
- 43:57Right? Gandhi, had peaceful protest
- 43:59about collecting salt down by the shore, which was being taxed
- 44:03by Britain and, you know, he can, like motivate people to pay
- 44:07attention to certain aspects of state criminality and drive
- 44:13social movements and things like this.
- 44:14I'm not trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater and say
- 44:17none of that's valuable or useful, but I don't think we get
- 44:21out of the cycle. Goals of criminality Associates
- 44:24associated with statism until we rug pull ourselves on the
- 44:29incentives. Schema that were inhabiting and
- 44:33that's what Bitcoin is, right? This is money, that's our
- 44:36property more generally. That's really hard to steal or
- 44:38violate. So all the Specialists and and
- 44:42theft and violation of property, if they don't go out of
- 44:47business, they their businesses shrink To the extent that
- 44:52Bitcoin makes these things less profitable.
- 44:54So I hope that's not too abstract.
- 44:57I'm trying to bring it all down to Earth, but it is such a major
- 45:02change that. It's really hard to even
- 45:04conceptualize what the world looks like from here, it might.
- 45:09So, and I really enjoyed your response.
- 45:12It is this a phenomenon that's going to happen.
- 45:15Organically, is this something that just because of Bitcoins
- 45:18mere incentives? Alone, the ability for the
- 45:21Visual to, you know, store theoretically by memorizing, 12
- 45:25words millions, billions or even trillions of dollars that gets
- 45:30stored in their minds, right? That completely changes.
- 45:32The power dynamics makes it very ineffective for, you know, the
- 45:37state to seize wealth on a massive scale.
- 45:40The only reason that they were able to get away with the 610 to
- 45:42order is because most people, if they have a large amounts of
- 45:45gold, they make us eat it in Banks, right?
- 45:48But now, with the Advent of self, custody the Ability the
- 45:52ability that Bitcoin gives you to do this, if you take personal
- 45:55responsibility, it completely changes, those power dynamics.
- 45:59But I guess my question to you is, is this phenomenon going to
- 46:03happen organically is this going to be like the a slow
- 46:08realization of you know of I hate using this word of The
- 46:13Sovereign individuals, the bitcoiners that have taken into
- 46:16self custody, they going to start to, you know, start asking
- 46:19questions and then kind of The pros and cons and say look, is
- 46:23it really advantageous for me to stay in the United States?
- 46:27Even though I work remotes and I live in another country.
- 46:30Why am I still paying Uncle Uncle Sam taxes.
- 46:33What is the benefit of having a American citizenship?
- 46:38No, no. These are all theories that were
- 46:40laid out in the sovereign individual.
- 46:42So, is this an organic process or is this something that's
- 46:46going to require? You know, political willpower
- 46:51where people will have to, you know, basically wake up the
- 46:54population because the sad reality is Robert and this is
- 46:58something that never never fled my mind when Natalie Brunell and
- 47:02coin stories. Ask Michael sailor.
- 47:06What kept him up at night. And his response was most people
- 47:10don't care about sound money, right?
- 47:12And if that's the case, then it's going to be very easy for
- 47:15the state with their apparatus, to herd the cattle so to speak
- 47:23into Central Bank, digital currencies.
- 47:25And a lot of people are just going to go willingly because it
- 47:28is convenient for them to do so. So how do you think this plays
- 47:33out? What are your thoughts on that?
- 47:35Well you know what, I often say on the show, that pain is
- 47:41information. I pain as that primary
- 47:44motivational force that encourages people to move into
- 47:50new formations to reconfigure themselves to change their
- 47:56circumstances. And I don't just mean like
- 47:59physical pain of like your nerves hurting.
- 48:03This could be emotional pain, this could be Financial.
- 48:05Jane, this could be any any source of uneasiness, right?
- 48:10That's this is like the whole core of of Austrian economics.
- 48:15Is that humans act to alleviate felt uneasiness.
- 48:20And although it is much more cost-effective to study the
- 48:25world and study the history of people and how things have
- 48:33changed and how technology changes things, etc, etc.
- 48:37And you know, apply those lessons to your own life is much
- 48:39more cost effective to, to absorb information, through
- 48:45learning and education rather than it is learning the
- 48:48proverbial hard way, right? You actually have to go through
- 48:51the painful thing yourself. It does seem to me and again,
- 48:56I'm a person that's learned too many things.
- 48:58The hard way, I think people in general, the majority of people
- 49:05need to learn things the hard way.
- 49:07So yeah. We'll we'll States be able to
- 49:13Corral people into CB DC's. Perhaps especially if they do it
- 49:20correctly, right? If they don't induce the pain at
- 49:22first and they balance the incentives in the disincentives
- 49:27you know perhaps physical cash is steadily expiring over time
- 49:32and if you switch to the CBD see you get a little bit of Ubi that
- 49:36increases over time or some other type of yield product just
- 49:41encouraging people to transition from The Familiar, you know, US
- 49:45dollar bank account. It's or physical cash into this.
- 49:48CB DC product, they could have significant success and getting
- 49:54purchasing power to flow and depositors to flow from one
- 49:58system to the other. But I don't think I still think
- 50:05that system is going to be extremely fragile and ultimately
- 50:08collapse because then all you will have done, is concentrate
- 50:12more power into fewer hands and open up.
- 50:16More people to the exploitation of the few, right?
- 50:21Of the, the few people in that benefit as insiders right?
- 50:27Whether these are shareholders or administrators of central
- 50:29banks or nation-states, Etc. So you're not going to eliminate
- 50:34the infliction of pain and that is ultimately what will cause
- 50:39people to move? I have no idea what it's going
- 50:44to look like the actual. Position itself, you know, the
- 50:49question is like is it going to be organic or two people need to
- 50:51take more political action? I don't know, I don't even know
- 50:55exactly where to draw the line between those two terms, you
- 50:57could argue that this whole thing is organic, right?
- 51:00That humans organically like to scam one another.
- 51:05I they not like to they seek to increase in advance their own
- 51:12individual self-interest, even at the expense of others, if
- 51:16given the opportunity. Unity and to the extent that it
- 51:18is profitable to do so. But when other humans create new
- 51:24tools or situations or legal structures, that make that less,
- 51:30that make that more risky or more costly than humans are.
- 51:35Human action is channeled towards away from non-productive
- 51:40theft towards productive activities as a means of
- 51:43acquiring wealth. So Yeah, I guess is maybe like a
- 51:48long-winded way of saying all roads lead to bitcoin.
- 51:53I just don't know how long and painful those roads are and
- 52:02hopefully the educational effort we're all doing here in the
- 52:06Bitcoin. Universe is helpful and I hope
- 52:09we're delivering real orange pills to people that are taking
- 52:13these questions. Seriously.
- 52:15Evaluating Themselves as individuals on the stage of
- 52:22history, and how, how things are changing, and hopefully
- 52:26positioning themselves for success in this time of great
- 52:29change in turmoil, and hopefully learning that the real key to
- 52:35all this. It's an economic principle,
- 52:39right? That you need to make yourself
- 52:42expensive to tyrannize or difficult this up to be a hard
- 52:46target. State are this is the same thing
- 52:49in nature, right? What what, what animal does?
- 52:52The lion eat, right? Heats the week or the lame or
- 52:55the young, like the animal that cannot keep up with the rest of
- 52:59the pack. The lion or the Predators will
- 53:02pick off? Well, the state is the predator
- 53:06and this in the sphere of socio-economic.
- 53:08So if you can be one of those animals that's not lagging the
- 53:13pack, right? And you're, you're in the pack,
- 53:15or your head of the pack of your Your your your vigorous and your
- 53:19vital then you are more likely to survive.
- 53:23The the wealth redistribution schemes that are inevitably
- 53:28coming as the business of statism goes into its Twilight
- 53:32years. So Yeah, it's a weird thing,
- 53:39man. It's, there's going to be pain.
- 53:41People, learn through the pain. If you're really smart, you can
- 53:44learn through the pain of others, rather than having to
- 53:46learn through the pain yourself. But ultimately, I just don't see
- 53:55how so long as Bitcoin continues to exist.
- 53:58It's like people will just have to flow into it as a means of
- 54:03survival, it's a necessity. All right, maybe today is like
- 54:07an option or it's a speculation or whatever you want to call it.
- 54:11It depends on where you are in the world.
- 54:13If you're in the comfortable us especially if you're in the
- 54:15upper class, it's just this speculative investment if you're
- 54:20in the global South. Where you've been living under,
- 54:23you know, 20% plus inflation year-over-year fucking forever.
- 54:28It's a means of survival. Those conditions that Prevail in
- 54:32the global. South are coming everywhere,
- 54:34right? This is again, statism right,
- 54:37Trends away from capitalism through that spectrum of
- 54:40socialism more, and more aggression against private
- 54:42property. Because it's just a business
- 54:44trying to increase Its Top Line and grow like everything else,
- 54:47and it has to culminate in the abolition of private property.
- 54:51And when that happens like people are destroyed, if you
- 54:54can't all human rights are destroyed in that situation,
- 54:58right? Ian Rand said this property
- 55:00rights to the basis of all human rights.
- 55:02If a man cannot control the product of his labor, there is
- 55:05nothing else. There is no, it's all gone, it's
- 55:08all for naught. Like you can forget all human
- 55:10civil liberties, all Notions of goodness or Compassion or
- 55:14whatever, whatever Notions you have about the role of
- 55:17government in the Affairs of the individual.
- 55:20It's all based on. And when you abolish that, it's
- 55:23all gone. I completely agree.
- 55:27I also agree that we are witnessing the Twilight of the
- 55:31nation-state model that's been around.
- 55:32Since the Napoleonic are I completely agree with you.
- 55:35Robert obviously, you know, we're we're from an ideological
- 55:39perspective, you know, libertarian, right?
- 55:41Do not know libertarian. You know, obviously, we're
- 55:45capitalism Maxis but you know, the reality is that a big
- 55:50percentage of the world population and I would even
- 55:54double down and say they're not. Not completely aware of them
- 55:58even supporting this itself like if they were truly and it
- 56:02reminds me of this very famous video on on YouTube, by Uribe
- 56:07Esmond off, which was basically a rush, a Russian agent that
- 56:11escaped or Soviet Union that escaped.
- 56:14The Soviet Union came to America and he was talking about the
- 56:17process as demoralization and I think a large percentage of the
- 56:23population all around the world is Relies, they've been in
- 56:26septic with this idea that capitalism is the villain.
- 56:30You mentioned it earlier on, in the podcast, when people say
- 56:34we're in late-stage capitalism, it's like we haven't even had
- 56:37capitalism. I don't think capitalism is
- 56:39possible with the Central Bank, in the first place.
- 56:42So what about them? What about them, right?
- 56:45Because the reality is that. Yeah, I truly believe that as,
- 56:50you know, the nation-state crumbles and it in its, in its
- 56:54last death throes. I'm very sure that opportunistic
- 56:57politicians are going to use Bitcoin and bitcoiners as a
- 57:03scapegoat as a very successful, scapegoat say.
- 57:06So your problems is that these people and you hear it with the
- 57:09rhetoric. People aren't pairing paying
- 57:12their fair share. You know, you hear that rhetoric
- 57:15over and over and over again. And it's almost a distraction
- 57:20from what is the root cause what is the cause of all their
- 57:23economic woes, that will it cause of all the Economic woes
- 57:26is the fact the money that they're using, right?
- 57:29The base layer, the operating system of which they in which
- 57:33they in which they perceive the world is fundamentally
- 57:37corrupted, it's broken and it's been stealing from them and this
- 57:41is a large amount of people do you believe with?
- 57:45I'm sure you've read this piece by svet ski right.
- 57:48You know the masses don't matter.
- 57:50It's really The Remnant. Do you do believe with that
- 57:52theory? Is it really just As long as we
- 57:56have a, you know it's a couple you know, a handful of
- 57:59bitcoiners that believe in this. We're just going to go to where
- 58:03we're treated best. But the reality is though,
- 58:06Robert that we're still going to need the men with guns,
- 58:09protecting our property rights in a way perhaps not in
- 58:12cyberspace, but we all need a, we need a, we need a physical
- 58:15domain, right? We need a house, right?
- 58:21What's your take on this? Maybe, I've been around a little
- 58:24too much myself. I have a believer in the
- 58:29minority rule, which is something to lub wrote about
- 58:33that the, and many systems, the preferences of an, obstinate
- 58:39minority. Can impose themselves on a
- 58:42majority, he's given a number of examples about this, but I think
- 58:46that with Bitcoin, And typically, it's a very small
- 58:50numbers like three to four percent of a population.
- 58:53They have very rigid preferences and the rest of the population
- 58:57is somewhat flexible or more flexible than the obstinate
- 59:02minority that the majority will bend to the preferences of the
- 59:05minority in Bitcoin. I think this is, you have to
- 59:09look at it in terms of capital, all right?
- 59:11So, whatever Bitcoins total addressable Market is Somewhere
- 59:17between 100 and 400 trillion dollars perhaps in 2023 dollars
- 59:24maybe higher. I'm not sure if Bitcoins market
- 59:30cap gets to when Bitcoins market cap gets to four percent of that
- 59:34number. I think that's when things start
- 59:37to get really weird that the preferences of bitcoiners start
- 59:42to impose themselves on the world.
- 59:44And and again, if the state state is, you know, even if
- 59:48States coordinate their efforts in attack on bitcoin, How are
- 59:53they going to keep that up? Because again, it's like, okay,
- 59:56it all has to be funded through theft.
- 59:59So all that all they're pushing that pain and all their
- 1:00:02citizens, to fund the gulags, and the military, and the this,
- 1:00:06and the that and we'll what are you doing?
- 1:00:09When you do that is you're creating incentives for all
- 1:00:11those? People are being preyed upon to
- 1:00:14exit the system, right? And so it's it's like a natural
- 1:00:18selection process that I just don't think you can avoid It's
- 1:00:22like the harder, the state tries to fight back against Bitcoin,
- 1:00:26the more pain, they create in their citizenry, which means
- 1:00:30they're creating a greater incentive for their citizenry to
- 1:00:33defect from fiat currency into Bitcoin, which means they're
- 1:00:37growing the market capitalization of Bitcoin, which
- 1:00:40means they're reducing reservation.
- 1:00:42Demand for fiat currency, which means they have to print more
- 1:00:44currency, even more rapidly. And taxa populations even harder
- 1:00:48to continue the aggression against Bitcoin, which you get
- 1:00:51into this very Vicious feedback loop in which the state
- 1:00:54collapses and Bitcoin monetizes. I don't know how you prevent
- 1:00:58that like it just there's no if if the state had some productive
- 1:01:02Revenue source which it doesn't, it's all extractive, then maybe
- 1:01:06they could fund a war against Bitcoin in some meaningful way,
- 1:01:11but given that all the revenues are directs Tractive and nature.
- 1:01:16I think all of their efforts to to fight this idea are
- 1:01:20self-defeating in the end, and that's where I mean, that's the
- 1:01:24Deep. Like, that's where the depth of
- 1:01:27My conviction comes from it's like this weird game theoretic
- 1:01:31incentive structure realignment that no individual can ignore or
- 1:01:35turn off their for all the institutional realities.
- 1:01:38We have constructed a stork Ali are reconfigured as a result.
- 1:01:43Yeah. So yeah.
- 1:01:45They did make some Obsolete. And we say this, we say this all
- 1:01:49the time on simply as well, right?
- 1:01:51Which is Bitcoins incentives, are stronger than any coercion.
- 1:01:54Yeah. Right.
- 1:01:55And I think that over time, that will become more and more
- 1:01:58apparent. I want to end it with this
- 1:02:00Robert you're in the you know, you are in the media space.
- 1:02:03You're one of the most successful Bitcoin, you know,
- 1:02:06podcasters to date. One of the most popular.
- 1:02:12One of the things that what I'm seeing right in, Is V attempt of
- 1:02:17breaking through the Bitcoin Echo chamber because the reality
- 1:02:21is that, a lot of the content that we make, right, whether the
- 1:02:23top of the funnel mid funnel, you know, whatever, wherever
- 1:02:28which wherever you are in that funnel of Bitcoin content
- 1:02:31creator, wherever you fall, the realities of the vast majority
- 1:02:35of people that watch our content Robert are already bitcoiners,
- 1:02:39right? So how do we break that Echo
- 1:02:42chamber? Is that something that you've
- 1:02:44put? It into how do we get the ideas
- 1:02:48of Bitcoin, the ethos of Bitcoin into the mainstream
- 1:02:51Consciousness so that we can avoid this inevitable clash with
- 1:02:56the state that I think is coming the, the looming clouds are
- 1:03:01moving closer Ever. So slowly, is that something
- 1:03:04that you've put some thought into?
- 1:03:07Yeah, it is. I mean, even the origin story of
- 1:03:11the show, I didn't name it. I mean anything, you know that
- 1:03:16the show doesn't have Bitcoin in the title, it's just the, what
- 1:03:21is money show. So it was intended to be rather
- 1:03:25than being this assertive kind of approach where like, you
- 1:03:30know, Here's why you need to look at Bitcoin or, you know,
- 1:03:35it's like a, like, pushing it on someone, it was intended to be
- 1:03:37more of a pool. It's like, well, you know, let
- 1:03:40me invite you into this line of inquiry, right?
- 1:03:44Like, what is money? Have you thought about this?
- 1:03:46Well, let's start looking at all the different aspects of it and
- 1:03:49the things that it touches and how it influences history and
- 1:03:52Human Action. So, I intended to show, you
- 1:03:59know, I even early on, I mean, we if you've listened to the
- 1:04:03show at all, we are a Bitcoin podcast.
- 1:04:05Like there's no secret about that, but it was intended to be
- 1:04:11something that was more subtle than like this in your face,
- 1:04:15kind of Bitcoin podcast. Because I know, like, I remember
- 1:04:19what it was like to be outside of Bitcoin, right?
- 1:04:22To be a private Corner. If I saw a podcast that was
- 1:04:25like, You know, the Bitcoin podcast, or whatever it's
- 1:04:29called, I wouldn't be drawn to that, that wouldn't it would
- 1:04:32feel like someone was trying to sell me something again, if you
- 1:04:36put on your pre Bitcoin, her hat, right?
- 1:04:38When we all thought it was magic internet money, or Ponzi scheme,
- 1:04:42or whatever, whatever derisively perspective, you had on it that
- 1:04:46cause you not to look more deeply into it.
- 1:04:50I felt that those That positioning was less effective
- 1:04:54for someone like me, so I just tried to create a show that
- 1:04:58would be appealing to someone like me.
- 1:04:59And for me, it's like invite me in, right?
- 1:05:02Ask the question. Tell me, you know, let's look at
- 1:05:05different angles. Let's try to argue it.
- 1:05:07Let's think adversarially that that's just how I try to learn.
- 1:05:13And so, I guess that's one approach.
- 1:05:18And I hope it helped. You know I hope it's helping.
- 1:05:22Our numbers are really good and growing so I don't know.
- 1:05:25I don't know exactly who listens to the show, I know we've got a
- 1:05:28lot of bitcoiners that listen to the show, but I think there's a
- 1:05:31lot of people becoming bitcoiners because of the show.
- 1:05:35Like they come into the, they hear me on whatever thing they
- 1:05:39listen to one of the episodes we say in the pre-roll sequence,
- 1:05:42like if this is your first time listening to this show, I highly
- 1:05:45recommend you go back to episode 1 and start with the Taylor
- 1:05:48series and just go there and like as far as orange pilling
- 1:05:52podcast goes definitely weren't feeling on my podcast.
- 1:05:56There's no better resource like just go to episode one and
- 1:05:58listen to it straight through. You know, I hope that's
- 1:06:03contributing to bursting the Bitcoin, Echo chamber, to some
- 1:06:08extent and getting these, these newbies, a proper orange filling
- 1:06:12experience when they discover me or the podcast another Thing
- 1:06:19that comes to mind is. Just living the like really
- 1:06:24living the philosophy. It's not enough to espouse and
- 1:06:30articulate. And you know, with all look, I'm
- 1:06:34the guiltiest of us all. I love to talk about these
- 1:06:36topics and I find it very useful.
- 1:06:38While I'm talking to smart people about these.
- 1:06:41Big strange ideas and wrestling with them and getting wrapped up
- 1:06:45and authentic dialogue. It's great.
- 1:06:48It's like a sport and, you know, it's so much fun and fulfilling.
- 1:06:51And many ways but it's not enough.
- 1:06:54Write the words again, may be somewhat related to that
- 1:06:58inadequacy of language. I mentioned earlier, the words
- 1:07:01are not enough. I'm reminded, you know,
- 1:07:05something fuck. Was it Play-Doh?
- 1:07:08Or someone said like lettuce, suspect any man who does not
- 1:07:14take care of him. So, like suspect any philosopher
- 1:07:16that does not take care of himself, right?
- 1:07:17Like we have to live what we say.
- 1:07:20And so with Bitcoin it's like, you know, truth proof of work,
- 1:07:26responsibilities self sovereignty, Freedom Integrity,
- 1:07:31you know. All of these like themes.
- 1:07:34Are these attributes or principles that are encoded in
- 1:07:37Bitcoin? I think we have to really strive
- 1:07:41to incorporate those into our own lives and live by that
- 1:07:45example and not, not like you're trying to put on a show like,
- 1:07:50oh, look at me, I'm So Into proof of work and Truth.
- 1:07:52Like actually do it, like, actually call yourself on your
- 1:07:56own bullshit, you know, figure out a way to integrate Your
- 1:08:00Shadow. We all have these these dark
- 1:08:02sides. You can't.
- 1:08:04Get rid of them, you can only acknowledge them, befriend them
- 1:08:08and integrate them into yourself, becoming a more whole
- 1:08:11person in the process. And then just leading, by
- 1:08:15example, I think that's essential like if you want to
- 1:08:20really be a full-blooded bit corner, you have got to adhere
- 1:08:25to this philosophy in an embodied way, right?
- 1:08:28It's not enough to talk about it's not enough to study it.
- 1:08:32This is like What does Musashi see in the book of nine Rings.
- 1:08:36He'll tell you all these things he's like.
- 1:08:39But reading about it is not enough.
- 1:08:40You must practice. He concludes like every passage
- 1:08:43with that, like one of the one of my favorite phrases of his
- 1:08:46the way is in training the way which is like basically the god
- 1:08:51of Eastern philosophy, right Dow the way the path, the true
- 1:08:56course, the true way, something like that, the way of nature is
- 1:09:01in training. He says so it's like you have to
- 1:09:03actually Create these regimens for yourself.
- 1:09:08These patterns of, living, this lifestyle and, and adhere to it,
- 1:09:13and a dad and constantly adapt it, re-evaluate it.
- 1:09:16And so that's what I'm trying to do.
- 1:09:18You know, it's Bitcoin has changed me a lot but it's only
- 1:09:22increased. My aspirations for further
- 1:09:25change like I want to get better and better and better and you
- 1:09:31know, none of us are perfect and it's not He and it's a, it's an
- 1:09:35eternal struggle, but it just seems so important that if we're
- 1:09:39going to represent this movement adequately to the outside world
- 1:09:44that we need to be living breathing examples of the power
- 1:09:48of Bitcoin, the truthfulness of Bitcoin the the freedom of
- 1:09:52Bitcoin, you know, all of these things.
- 1:09:54So yeah. Lead, by example, 100% Robert
- 1:10:02man. It's truly been an honor to have
- 1:10:04you for the first time on simply Bitcoin IRL.
- 1:10:07Why don't you tell everybody where they can find you the
- 1:10:10interwebs and most importantly any events or any things that
- 1:10:14you know that you have coming up in the near future that you want
- 1:10:17to talk about that you're interested in, I know that
- 1:10:21you're speaking at the Bitcoin conference and I know that your
- 1:10:25you'll be also speaking at the thank God for Bitcoin as well.
- 1:10:29I'll see you there on both of those should be great.
- 1:10:33So yeah, why don't ya? So many events coming up before
- 1:10:38the Bitcoin conference. I'll be in Orlando for the
- 1:10:40microstrategy lightning event. That's the I think the week May
- 1:10:46second through fifth, something like that.
- 1:10:49Not speaking there. I was be participating in the
- 1:10:51event. I'll be in Miami will be there a
- 1:10:56week prior to the conference. Recording a bunch of episodes
- 1:11:00will be there for a few days. After recording, a bunch of
- 1:11:01episodes. Albeit, a lot of the events, the
- 1:11:04side events. Speaking at the conference, I
- 1:11:07think I'm also doing a fireside chat at the conference after
- 1:11:11that, I'll be in Bitcoin Prague, it's another big event in
- 1:11:14Europe. Speaking, they're doing some
- 1:11:16panels there. I'll be at the Oslo Freedom
- 1:11:19Forum with the human rights Foundation also interviewing
- 1:11:23some of their guests there. I'll be a bit block, boom.
- 1:11:27That's in August of this year. I'll be speaking there and yeah
- 1:11:34you know trying to just get out there and hopefully represent
- 1:11:42Bitcoin in the best light possible.
- 1:11:45You know, I just it's so important that more people that
- 1:11:49we recruit more hearts and Minds into the space.
- 1:11:51So I hope all of these meatspace events are useful for that.
- 1:11:58I know, I really look like every year I look forward to the Miami
- 1:12:01Conference because it's just a, it's just a Love Fest man.
- 1:12:04Like bitcoiners are down there, just vibing and enjoying each
- 1:12:07other's company. Sharing some stimulating
- 1:12:10conversation, you know, having some good foods and drinks.
- 1:12:13It's really a good time. So I am thrilled about that for
- 1:12:18the interwebs where you can find me on the interwebs, what is
- 1:12:21money? Podcast.com and then, my Twitter
- 1:12:23handle is at Breedlove 22. Awesome man.
- 1:12:28Will looking forward to seeing you in Miami will show.
- 1:12:31I'm sure we will cross paths. And like I said, man, it's
- 1:12:35really been an honor to have you on the show.
- 1:12:38I'm going to put you back stage for a bit while I wrap up.
- 1:12:41Thank you guys for listening to another episode of Simply
- 1:12:43Bitcoin IR L will be back with the live show tomorrow.
- 1:12:45Simply Bitcoin live at 12:15 p.m.
- 1:12:48Eastern Standard Time. Love you all.
- 1:12:50Thank you so much for tuning in and I will see you tomorrow.
- 1:12:53Peace out.