Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Seb Bunney | The Hidden Cost of Money | Simply Bitcoin IRL
Transcript
- 0:00Yeah, welcome to another episode of Simply Bitcoin.
- 0:02I don't know. Today we have a very special
- 0:04guest on podcast. We have Seb Bunny.
- 0:07I recently crossed paths with him in in, I was going to say
- 0:10California in Canada and it was pretty awesome.
- 0:13Really enjoyed our conversations.
- 0:15I'm really excited to have this conversation with you guys or
- 0:18with him so you guys could watch it.
- 0:19Anyways, I do want to bring on stage man.
- 0:23Thank you so much for for joining me today bro, how you
- 0:25doing? Ah, honestly, Nico, it's, it's,
- 0:28it's truly my pleasure. Like I, I've always appreciated
- 0:31kind of the work you do and the content you put out.
- 0:33So I'm pumped to chat. It's been a long time in the
- 0:35making. Right.
- 0:36I mean, like I, I'm appreciate that.
- 0:39And I'm also a huge fan of your work.
- 0:42And I think we also cross paths in, in mile eight.
- 0:45I think that was the first time I met you in person.
- 0:48So, yeah, yeah, we met very, very briefly.
- 0:50And I think from that I think you had Daz on as well.
- 0:53So Daz came and joined you on the Simply Bitcoin as well.
- 0:55Yeah, yeah, but dude, like, it's so you wrote this book, right?
- 1:00The hidden cost of money did, did you?
- 1:01Did you think it was going to be as popular as as it was?
- 1:06No, not at all. You know what?
- 1:08I, when I ended up kind of I, I just stepped back for a second.
- 1:12I'd say a while back, 4-5 years ago, we founded DAZ, myself,
- 1:16Greg Foss and a couple others. We found it Looking Glass
- 1:19because we were just like, there's not enough material that
- 1:21speaks to the average person. We really need to remove the
- 1:24jargon. If you want to go down the
- 1:25philosophical route, you've got kind of Breedlove.
- 1:28If you want to go the corporate route, you've got Sailor.
- 1:30If you want to go the technical route, you've got Antonopoulos.
- 1:32But we need to remove the jargon and speak to the average person.
- 1:35And so we found it Looking Glass and we just started kind of
- 1:37putting content out there and it seemed to resonate.
- 1:40And I never expected to write a book and, and honestly, when I
- 1:43put it out there, I've been totally humbled by the response
- 1:45and super appreciative and just blown away by the Bitcoin
- 1:48community. But I think it what it shows is
- 1:50that the average person wants to understand why, why they're
- 1:53feeling what they're feeling. Why are we feeling that?
- 1:56I can't freaking survive these days.
- 1:58I can't afford a house and struggling to kind of feed my
- 2:00family. Why are we feeling these things?
- 2:01And I think that's what I tried to answer in the book.
- 2:04Yeah. And let's talk about that too,
- 2:05because this is like a, a very central theme that we kind of
- 2:09explore on the Daily News show because it like we, we hit
- 2:12trending topics and it just kind of circles around the fact that
- 2:16like one of the central themes of the show is that money's
- 2:19broken. Money plays a very important
- 2:22role in your life, whether you realize it or not, It's the
- 2:24reality and there's consequences to living on broken money.
- 2:30And there's also like on the more positive side aside,
- 2:33because we are, this is a Bitcoin podcast.
- 2:35So we have to provide a little bit of hope.
- 2:38There is a solution to this. And the solution is immediate.
- 2:42Like you don't even have to go and vote and hope for a
- 2:46politician to get in. This is something that you can
- 2:48do as an individual and it's not that you're going to start
- 2:52feeling the benefits immediately.
- 2:54In my opinion, takes about roughly 4 years to for you to
- 2:56realize that like you made a good decision and then, you
- 3:01know, two cycles and you're like, OK, that was a really good
- 3:04decision. That's my opinion.
- 3:07But yeah, so I don't know if you want to add to that or yeah.
- 3:12No, you know, what I'd say is that, like, I wholeheartedly
- 3:14agree and people sometimes struggle to tie money and
- 3:18psychology together. And that's one area that has
- 3:21really kind of opened my eyes to just how much money really
- 3:24changes society. And so there's kind of three
- 3:27areas that I kind of tend to discuss.
- 3:28The first one, it's just time preference and Bitcoiners tend
- 3:31to be aware of time preference, which is if you have a low time
- 3:35preference, you're thinking about the future, you're
- 3:36thinking about security and how do I build this future that kind
- 3:40of I can have prosperity in. And then you can have a high
- 3:42time preference, which is I'm more focused on my meeting my
- 3:45immediate needs. I don't really care about the
- 3:46future. I just want to meet my immediate
- 3:48needs so I can feel satisfaction right now.
- 3:50Now what's interesting is when we have a broken money, when we
- 3:53have money that's losing purchasing power, our purchasing
- 3:55power is greatest in the present moment.
- 3:57And so because of that, we're actually incentivized to
- 3:59consume. We're incentivized to spend.
- 4:01And so people are focused on their immediate needs.
- 4:03And you see it and you feel it amongst society where people are
- 4:05just, they're, they're servicing their immediate needs.
- 4:07They're not thinking about the future.
- 4:09And society feels like it's degrading, it's decaying.
- 4:12Whereas what's fascinating about Bitcoin and as you mentioned, as
- 4:15you go through the cycles, especially after you've kind of
- 4:17gone through a full cycle of four years, your time horizon
- 4:20starts to extend. You start thinking further out
- 4:23and you start thinking about what is possible and how you
- 4:25want to show up. So I noticed that is always
- 4:29trying to kind of degrade our ability to think long term.
- 4:33Whereas Bitcoin on the other hand, is lengthening our ability
- 4:36to think long term. It's incentivizing us to save.
- 4:38It's incentivizing us to think about the future of building
- 4:41security. That's kind of the first area.
- 4:42The second area I'll quickly touch on is just like
- 4:45meaninglessness. I find in today's society
- 4:48because money is losing value so quickly, people are fleeing the
- 4:51currency and they're going investing in assets.
- 4:52So asset prices are skyrocketing, cost of living is
- 4:55skyrocketing. And so people are finding
- 4:57meaninglessness because they don't actually, they don't know
- 5:00how they're going to get by. They don't know how they're
- 5:01going to feed their family. They don't know what their
- 5:03future entails. And so people just kind of
- 5:05giving up. Whereas what's so fascinating
- 5:07about Bitcoin is it's the inverse.
- 5:09As people start to see their purchasing power grow, they have
- 5:12greater capacity to show up in life.
- 5:14And as they have greater capacity to show up in life,
- 5:16they start to find meaning. They start to invest the time to
- 5:18think they're passionate about. And that's one thing when I've
- 5:20been around like Bitcoin events, and I'm sure you could probably
- 5:22agree, people are freaking pumped and people have interests
- 5:25and people are excited about what the future holds.
- 5:28And then the final one I'll quickly touch on is just
- 5:30compassion and altruism. I think in psychology, there's
- 5:33something called like Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
- 5:35And it's basically A5 tier pyramid.
- 5:37And from the base, you've got your basic needs.
- 5:39You need food and you need shelter.
- 5:41Then as you go up the pyramid, you start to get into like
- 5:44family and relationships, and then you get into a more
- 5:46spiritual beliefs and then you get into like self
- 5:48actualization, being the best person you can possibly be.
- 5:51And what is interesting is that when money degrades over time
- 5:55and a cost of living is rising, people get stuck on the bottom.
- 5:58They get stuck trying to service their basic needs and they can't
- 6:01think about compassion and altruism.
- 6:02They can't think about relationships, they can't think
- 6:04about spirituality. And when we have society built
- 6:08upon a sound money that allows them to save, so they have
- 6:11greater capacity to show up, they can start to give back to
- 6:14society or they can think more about that compassion and
- 6:16altruism. So I really do believe that
- 6:18money does shape how we show up as individuals.
- 6:21And Bitcoin very much has the potential and already is
- 6:24changing how people show up. It's it's, it's amazing. 100%
- 6:28agree. And dude, I'm so glad that you
- 6:30that you, you dug into these things, right?
- 6:32Because I think that as a Bitcoiner, time progresses and
- 6:36these are things that you start to and neatly feel, but it seems
- 6:39like you took a step above that Seb, like you not only felt
- 6:43these things, but you started to do research and you started to
- 6:47put thing, put concepts together.
- 6:48And I kind of want to explore that because I, I have seen that
- 6:51graphic what you're talking about the, the hierarchy of
- 6:53needs. And it's really interesting in
- 6:56regards to how today's world functions, which is the vast
- 6:59majority of people are just surviving, like they're just
- 7:04threading water. And that doesn't even give them
- 7:06the ability to think. And I think you're 100% right.
- 7:09And that this is probably why, you know, Bitcoiners say Bitcoin
- 7:13is hope, you know, low time preference, all that stuff.
- 7:17You know, you get to a certain point right where you're
- 7:20huddling. Like I said, I think it takes
- 7:21really four years in my opinion, depending on where you get in.
- 7:24But most people get in the run up of the bull market and then
- 7:27they get absolutely wrecked. And then you got to pay your
- 7:29dues for a couple years and then you're like, oh, that was a good
- 7:31idea. And then it just kind of goes up
- 7:33from there. But I think the point I'm trying
- 7:36to say is, like, the majority of the world is still treading
- 7:41water, and therefore they inherently feel very nihilistic
- 7:46about the future. And I think that we see this in
- 7:49all facets of society. We see this nihilism seep into
- 7:53people's psychology. And one of the things that I've
- 7:57noticed is that I think a lot of people would attribute this to
- 8:00like, you know, one of the like current political, political
- 8:07ideologies. I wouldn't even put it to that.
- 8:09I would say that we currently live in a system where people
- 8:12are incentivized to act out in a certain way.
- 8:15And I think Bitcoin will incentivize that, will
- 8:18incentivize them to act out in a different way, which is a lot
- 8:22more hopeful and it's a lot more aligned with everybody else's
- 8:24incentives. I fully agree.
- 8:27I fully agree. And it's it's interesting in
- 8:30psychology, there's this idea of our locus of control.
- 8:33And you can think of it as in like, do I have an external
- 8:36locus of control, which is, do I believe that the environment
- 8:39around me, the government, they ultimately control my
- 8:41trajectory, I don't have much control over it.
- 8:44Or do I have an internal locus of control, which is, I believe,
- 8:47you know, what, if I put my time and energy here, I can get there
- 8:50and I believe that I have control over my trajectory.
- 8:53And what's interesting is like one, this isn't you either have
- 8:56one or the other. It's the spectrum.
- 8:57And it's interesting because there's so many psychological
- 9:01studies that look at this locus of control and people that have
- 9:04more of an external locus of control that don't believe they
- 9:06have control over their future have much worse health outcomes.
- 9:10They have shorter life expectancy, high rates of
- 9:12depression, high rates of anxiety.
- 9:13And what are we seeing in society today?
- 9:15We're seeing all of those things, whereas people that
- 9:18believe they have control over their trajectory have much
- 9:20greater health outcomes, much longer life expectancy.
- 9:24Like it's immensely beneficial when people feel they have
- 9:28authority over their direction. That is huge.
- 9:31And I think that one of the areas that we don't talk about
- 9:34enough is the fact that the number one cause of stressor
- 9:37globally, the number one cause of stress globally is money.
- 9:40And so when people don't have monetary security, not
- 9:43necessarily even monetary security, but even just
- 9:45transparency about what is the future hold for me, then it's so
- 9:49easy for people to feel stressed.
- 9:50And that, stressed, impacts us negatively physically from a
- 9:54health, you name it. Absolutely.
- 9:56I, I, I 100% agreed. And you, you, you said something
- 10:00earlier on which I kind of want to double back to.
- 10:02And, and it relates to this theme, right, This topic that
- 10:05we're exploring, which is you mentioned the spiritual
- 10:08component. And I got to say like that to me
- 10:14was like the, the, the most interesting part because I've
- 10:19seen the story kind of time and time happen time and time again,
- 10:23which is they weren't, let's say they didn't really, I don't want
- 10:28to, I don't want to go down there, OK, I'm going to
- 10:30whatever. So, you know, they didn't really
- 10:33believe in God or they didn't really have a belief in a higher
- 10:37being or higher purpose, you know, to be inclusive as
- 10:41possible. And they found Bitcoin and just
- 10:45by holding it all of a sudden like that realm opens up that to
- 10:52me and I and I've heard that story happen with multiple
- 10:55people. So right now it's not like a
- 10:57single pattern. It like I've multiple different
- 11:00that data points. And I'm so glad that you brought
- 11:02it up, because it seems like you saw the same thing.
- 11:05Absolutely. You know what, throughout my
- 11:08experience in kind of the Bitcoin community and you start
- 11:11interacting with these incredibly influential
- 11:13individuals that have shaped how I see the world, when you start
- 11:16to get to that. And personally, sometimes what
- 11:17they don't talk about is how Bitcoin has almost kind of
- 11:21opened up this awakening in them.
- 11:22It's made them look at the world very, very differently.
- 11:25And even for me personally, I realize how when we're
- 11:29financially constrained and we're simply just trying to meet
- 11:31our basic needs, we have very limited capacity to think bigger
- 11:35than ourselves. Think about the spiritual
- 11:37questions, the religious questions, whatever that may
- 11:39mean to you. And I think that one of the
- 11:41downsides to society today is because people just don't have
- 11:44capacity. People are simply just trying to
- 11:46survive, is that we're kind of losing our way, whether that's
- 11:49from a spiritual or religious perspective.
- 11:51And I think that what's so fascinating about Bitcoin, and I
- 11:54think this is one of the coolest features of Bitcoin, is that
- 11:56ironically, it gets us to stop thinking about money.
- 11:59When we have greater the capacity to show up, we have
- 12:01greater capacity to dedicate our time to asking those questions
- 12:04such as like who, how am I like, how do I want to show up in
- 12:07life? Like what are my values?
- 12:08What are my morals? How do I want to raise my kids?
- 12:11Like what do I think about like the big questions of like, what
- 12:14is life? What is my meaning?
- 12:16What is my purpose? And I think that that's one of
- 12:17the challenges that the Fiat world is breaking down.
- 12:20It's just, it just doesn't give us time to think about these
- 12:22things. 100 percent, 100%. So you think that just by people
- 12:29getting like people having enough time, you think that that
- 12:33was always part of the human condition.
- 12:35You think that that was always part of something that humanity
- 12:38always had. But it's almost as if it was
- 12:40obfuscated by the fact like we were just in, we're in like
- 12:44survival mode. And because we're in survival
- 12:47mode, we didn't have a chance or an opportunity to further, like
- 12:51explore our consciousness. Is is that what you're like?
- 12:54I believe so. And it's interesting when you
- 12:56look back throughout history, if you look at say, hunter gatherer
- 13:00tribes, hunter gatherer tribes, on average, the, the individuals
- 13:04in the tribe will spend like something like 13 hours a week
- 13:06hunting in order to be able to sustain themselves.
- 13:09All of that other time they're then able to spend in community,
- 13:12they're then able to spend around the fire telling stories,
- 13:14then able to spend basically in connection with others that
- 13:17allow us to kind of communicate and understand ourselves.
- 13:20And the same thing, even if you take like the the like British
- 13:23feudal system, the tax rate on the British feudal system I
- 13:26think was 10%. That's far lower than our
- 13:28progressive tax system now. And because people were living
- 13:31off the land, they had so much deeper connection with the
- 13:34environment around them, the community, the people around
- 13:37them. And so I think that our current
- 13:38system really is breaking down our connection between one
- 13:43another, our connection to the land, our capacity to be able to
- 13:45think for ourselves. Because people these days are
- 13:48working 4050 sixty plus hours a week and they're still
- 13:50struggling to survive. Yeah, man, Fiat ruins
- 13:55everything, doesn't it? I found a very powerful quote
- 14:00and it kind of relates to what you're saying because I want to
- 14:02further explore that, which is right.
- 14:04During the American Revolution, it was like, like there was a
- 14:07revolution for a 3% tax rate. And now like the tax rate's like
- 14:1039% and people are like, you know, it's fine.
- 14:12Everything's, you know, everything's great.
- 14:15But I, I saw a Ron Paul tweet and it was like, it's not only
- 14:21the income tax, you're paying income tax.
- 14:24So the state is essentially like taking half of your salary, your
- 14:30work hostage, but also there's the tax of inflation.
- 14:35So you're getting hit on like both sides.
- 14:38And the thing that I find fascinating to Seb is like,
- 14:42people's like, they inherently know the system's wrong.
- 14:46They they go seek a political solution and then the, the
- 14:50political situation kind of starts to boil, right.
- 14:54And then bitcoiners are like we, we have the key.
- 14:57We know, we know this isn't a political.
- 15:00I mean, it is, it is, but not in the fiats, not in the voting
- 15:03sense. So I I find that fascinating.
- 15:09No, I, I wholeheartedly agree. And it's, you know, what's
- 15:12interesting is I went to AI was in Miami recording with
- 15:15Breedlove a couple months ago. And this kind of before the
- 15:17Breedlove blow up, but we ended up going to this kind of you, it
- 15:22was like a dinner at a little steakhouse, but you had to pay
- 15:26on this like meet up app beforehand.
- 15:28And I was thinking about it as just like, well, we just paid
- 15:30tax on the meet up. But not only that, I've had to
- 15:33pay tax on my income to be able to even afford this in the 1st
- 15:36place. And then you're paying tax from
- 15:39the restaurant. You're paying tax.
- 15:41Well, the restaurant also has to pay tax itself.
- 15:44The all of the food, the products you're purchasing,
- 15:46you're also paying tax on. You're paying tax from the
- 15:49employees earning the wage from the restaurant.
- 15:51So by the time like you actually think about what you're actually
- 15:53spending, like such a large proportion ends up finding it's
- 15:57kind of way into the coffers of the government and it's just so
- 15:59inefficient. And it's just, it makes me feel
- 16:02so frustrated when when you really look at what is our take
- 16:07home wage and what, what are we actually able to have value to
- 16:09society without that being siphoned off?
- 16:11Yeah, yeah. And what do you think like so
- 16:16obviously we we like, it's such a huge proportion as Bitcoiners
- 16:20like it's incredibly obvious. But what do you think is like
- 16:24the most efficient way of like really breaking the echo
- 16:29chamber, really waking people up?
- 16:31And we've definitely made progress, right?
- 16:33It was, it was, I remember it like when I started simply four
- 16:36years ago. It's like the infancy of Bitcoin
- 16:38only media and none of these things have happened yet.
- 16:41So like there was no public, there was no name Buchele like
- 16:44Michael Steeler would literally just started.
- 16:46So like none of these things were proven.
- 16:48The Bitcoin, the Nashville conference was historic, you
- 16:51know, with with RFK and Trump and all that stuff.
- 16:56So I definitely think that the echo chamber is breaking.
- 17:00We're definitely making progress.
- 17:01These ideas are seeping into mainstream consciousness.
- 17:05How do we accelerate that process 'cause I the reason, the
- 17:09reason I'm asking that, sorry to interrupt you, the reason I'm
- 17:11asking that is like, like, I feel like these people are so
- 17:14maniacal that they would push us into a war before, you know,
- 17:18losing the power of the money printer.
- 17:21I, you know what, I think one of the biggest things that Bitcoin
- 17:24struggles with is Bitcoin has a bit of a branding issue.
- 17:26And we have done as a community and, and the incredible giants
- 17:31that we stand upon kind of their shoulders have done such a
- 17:33phenomenal job of kind of getting Bitcoin to this point
- 17:35where Bitcoin is even being talked about as a strategic
- 17:39reserve for the US. Whether I agree with that or
- 17:41not, just this whole idea that Bitcoin is even being talked
- 17:43about on that level within 15 years is just mind blowing.
- 17:46But I think Bitcoin has a bit of a branding issue in that in
- 17:51society today because of it's just slamming it, people tend to
- 17:54see it as this kind of very, whether it's like capitalistic,
- 17:58like what's the word aneco capitalistic, kind of like
- 18:02technical kind of thing. And they don't quite understand
- 18:05what it is. And what I really do believe is
- 18:08that each of us in the community has our own voice.
- 18:10Whether you're a man and bike instructor such as myself,
- 18:13whether you're a dentist, whether you're a doctor, whether
- 18:15you're a mechanic, you all see Bitcoin from your own
- 18:18perspective. And so whenever I kind of go on
- 18:20these podcasts, whenever I'm kind of speaking in public, I
- 18:23always just urge people to talk about it from their perspective
- 18:26because you'll speak to a unique cohort of individuals.
- 18:28And the more we start speaking about Bitcoin from our own
- 18:31perspective, if you are a dentist and you start speaking
- 18:34to your clients about it from your perspective, you're going
- 18:35to resonate with a whole cohort of individuals that I might not
- 18:38resonate with or you may not resonate with.
- 18:40And I think that changing the perspective of Bitcoin so that
- 18:44it's not this capitalistic aneco technical thing and really just
- 18:49talking about it from the perspective that this is just
- 18:51money, all it is, is money that allows us to show up more
- 18:53authentically and everybody wants to show up more
- 18:55authentically. I think that's how we're going
- 18:57to really resonate with kind of the average individual.
- 19:00I love that. So it's like the individual
- 19:02Bitcoiners are bitcoiners marketing team.
- 19:05I'm going to ask you like talk, talk, walk me through your
- 19:08Bitcoin story. How do you find Bitcoin?
- 19:11It's you know what is interesting.
- 19:13I, I was on Princess podcast. This is probably about three
- 19:17years ago and we were kind of batting back and forth and we're
- 19:19just like, man, most of us have these kind of orange pill
- 19:22moments before Bitcoin was even around.
- 19:24It's kind of these pre orange pill moments and I kind of had
- 19:26like 3 moments that really opened my eyes to starting to
- 19:29question the system around me. The first one was when my
- 19:32parents separated when I was kind of five years old.
- 19:35I was raised by my, I was raised by my mom and I've got two
- 19:40brothers. There's three of us, my mom and
- 19:42my mom basically wasn't able to necessarily meet our emotional
- 19:44needs to the extent that she would like to be able to because
- 19:47she had to support a family. And so I started to see in
- 19:50hindsight how much like when parents separated, when parents
- 19:54aren't able to the life which they want to be able to afford,
- 19:58it impacts their kids emotionally.
- 19:59And that can lead to all of these other issues, whether it's
- 20:01ADHD, where the suppression anxiety.
- 20:03So it's like, huh, money really weaves its influence into our
- 20:06relationships. And then the next one was.
- 20:09When I was about nine years old, and I've spoken about this a few
- 20:11times, but I always find it just interesting.
- 20:13When I was about nine years old, there was a scooter that I
- 20:15really wanted. It was in a toy store and I
- 20:17remember just being like, that's the scooter I want, I'm going to
- 20:19save and I'm going to buy that scooter.
- 20:21So I saved up for like 3 months. We walk into this toy store and
- 20:24I walk in with my dad and my two brothers and my dad's like, I
- 20:28feel guilty that you're getting a scooter and your two brothers
- 20:30aren't, so I'm going to buy them a scooter, but you got to pay
- 20:33for yours out of your savings. And I just spent three months
- 20:35working for the scooter and I was freaking devastated.
- 20:37I was just like, this feels so unfair.
- 20:40I've just spent three months working and I see my brothers
- 20:42just get their scooters and I've had to work for mine.
- 20:45And what's interesting is in economics, you got the Cantillon
- 20:48effect, which is those closest to the monetary spigot benefit
- 20:52disproportionately. And on a micro scale, my two
- 20:54brothers were much closer to my dad than I was.
- 20:56And so he would always financially support them and
- 20:58help them. And what's interesting is that
- 21:00as they've kind of evolved, as they've become adults, they're
- 21:03much more left-leaning interventionistic socialist and
- 21:06a much more right leaning libertarian free market.
- 21:09And so you start to see how the way our parents interact with us
- 21:12starts to change how we shape our kind of political views or
- 21:16how we kind of want to sharpen this world.
- 21:17And then the final one that I'll kind of touch on is I was a man
- 21:21and bike instructor for over a decade.
- 21:22I, I taught man and biking. I absolutely loved teaching man
- 21:25and biking. But when I started teaching
- 21:27mountain biking in my teenage years, I started interacting
- 21:30with like the Tiger Woods of the mountain bike world that are
- 21:32kind of the, the, the elite athletes that are in kind of all
- 21:36the movies. But as I started interacting
- 21:37with them, I realized that most of them are up to the neck in
- 21:40debt. They're renting a unit.
- 21:42They're not, they can't afford to really live.
- 21:44And I was just like, man, like our current monetary environment
- 21:47doesn't really allow us to show up and pursue our passions.
- 21:49It's incredibly hard to get by. And so these kind of three
- 21:53events, these interactions with my parents, the saving and how
- 21:57whether we're financially supported to the extent my light
- 21:59interacts our political views and our ability to show up
- 22:02authentically and pursue the things we're interested in
- 22:04really started having me question how is our money
- 22:07influencing how we're showing up?
- 22:09And that ultimately ended up leading me down this rabbit hole
- 22:11of Bitcoin. Wow, OK, wow, it's so good,
- 22:17dude. OK, so much to impact there.
- 22:20All right, so I didn't know you're a mountain bike
- 22:22instructor. That's bad ass.
- 22:23I I, I, I used to go to Colorado during the summer and that was a
- 22:26big thing. I remember I had this one fall.
- 22:29I never forget it because I effed up my hand.
- 22:32But but dude, that that's did you do the the courses too where
- 22:36you do the jumps? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 22:39I used, I used to teach, teach everything from kind of the more
- 22:42the slopestyle, the tricks all the way through to the kind of
- 22:44the downhill stuff. And it's been, it's really cool
- 22:46actually to see when, because I'm now I'm 31 and I've been
- 22:49teaching since I was 16. And so I've seen some of the
- 22:51kids that are kind of like 7-8 when I was teaching them grow up
- 22:54to now be like world cloth athletes.
- 22:56And it's just awesome. Coolest, coolest thing.
- 22:59That's really cool, man. It sounds very like purposeful,
- 23:03like, you know, like I like, I really believe that human beings
- 23:06need a purpose and like, I feel like that is something that,
- 23:09yeah, that, that sounds awesome. OK.
- 23:11I couldn't agree more. And I was just going to say like
- 23:13one thing, it's interesting because teaching man and biking
- 23:16and Bitcoin, you're just like, man, these things couldn't be
- 23:18further from one another, But they actually to me, they're
- 23:22very, very similar in that man and biking is when I was
- 23:25teaching man and biking. It's like, how do I distill down
- 23:27these complex biomechanical movements into the simplest form
- 23:30so someone can understand, OK, I want to hit this jump.
- 23:33How do I do that? And for me, when it comes to
- 23:35Bitcoin, it's exactly the same. It's, we've got this complex
- 23:38thing that people don't quite understand, whether we're
- 23:40talking about Bitcoin, whether we're talking about
- 23:42macroeconomics, whether we're talking about psychology and
- 23:45money. How do we break this down so
- 23:47that people can just understand it?
- 23:48Because ultimately it's I, I think it's, it's a skill and
- 23:51it's a pleasure to listen to someone breaking something down
- 23:54so we can understand it as a lay person. 100% And one of the most
- 23:58difficult things to do also is explain like a complex,
- 24:04sophisticated thing in a simple fashion.
- 24:09And then of course, if you're able to do that, then your
- 24:12ability to explain it to a larger audience increases.
- 24:15Right now, my question for you is how did you go from being a
- 24:20mountain biker, a mountain biker and a mountain biker instructor
- 24:25to writing a book? Where do these how did that?
- 24:29How did that, How did those two come together?
- 24:33When I started teaching man and biking, I realized pretty early
- 24:35on, as I mentioned, that, man, I'm going to struggle to make it
- 24:39if unless I'm kind of a top, top, top tier athlete.
- 24:42And so given that I didn't really want to compete, I'm not
- 24:45that competitive, I started to invest in real estate.
- 24:47I started to save all of my money and just try and buy some
- 24:50small little rental properties. And so as I started to kind of
- 24:53accumulate a little bit of capital and then invest in real
- 24:55estate, I started to get curious about the financial markets.
- 24:58I loved real estate, but it just felt like, oh man, investing in
- 25:01a property that you're paying off over 30 years, like I'm
- 25:03freaking 20 years old, like I'm going to be 50 before I pay this
- 25:06thing off. So then I was like, I wonder if
- 25:07there's a way for me to kind of play around with something
- 25:11that's a little more instant and rewarding.
- 25:12So I started trading in the financial markets and for about
- 25:15a decade I traded in the financial markets.
- 25:17And although I really enjoyed it, I went into it with this
- 25:20idea that we are in a free market.
- 25:22And so when we go through tough times, companies that have been
- 25:25fiscally irresponsible be wiped clean.
- 25:27And as long as I find companies offer value to society and I buy
- 25:31these things at pennies on the dollar, then I should be able to
- 25:34crush it financially. So I started kind of that's How
- 25:36I Met Preston Pesch. I started listening to his
- 25:38podcasts and looking at the value approach, and I was
- 25:41completely blown away. But then I started to realize we
- 25:44go into these economic turmoil periods where I expect the
- 25:47market to collapse, but then the market goes up, It doesn't go
- 25:49down. And I'm just like, what is
- 25:50happening? And that's when I started
- 25:52digging into intervention and you start realizing we have
- 25:55nothing even close to a free market.
- 25:57We have intervention and interest rates.
- 25:59We have quantitative easing. We have money being ejected into
- 26:02the economy. We have helicopter money being
- 26:03handed to individuals. And this is completely
- 26:05distorting the free market. It's complete distorting how
- 26:08people think about saving and investing.
- 26:11And it pushes people into certain types of investments.
- 26:13And naturally, when you go down that route, you're just like,
- 26:16well, what's happening? Why is this happening?
- 26:18And it kind of leads you down the rabbit hole of money.
- 26:20And when the pandemic hit, this is when it really opened my eyes
- 26:25as to just how insane this intervention had gotten to the
- 26:28point where we should have been experiencing like a depression
- 26:30type event. And instead house prices have
- 26:33doubled and in many places even tripled since the pandemic.
- 26:36And so that made me question, OK, there's something broken in
- 26:38the money here, Let's dig in deeper.
- 26:41And I was passionate about Bitcoin, but at the time I was
- 26:43looking at Bitcoin more from just a speculative of asset.
- 26:46Can I just invest in this thing that goes up and then I can sell
- 26:48it for fear? And so as I started to dig
- 26:51deeper into Bitcoin, I realized, hey, I love teaching.
- 26:54I love helping people understand.
- 26:56I, you know what I think I want to try and help support people
- 26:59from the front of money. And so I wrote my first article,
- 27:01I think it was in like May of 2020 or May of 2021, I can't
- 27:05quite remember. And it talks about it's called
- 27:08When more isn't Better inflation in the 21st century and why
- 27:11inflation was creating wealth inequality.
- 27:13And at the time, I think I had like 7 followers on Twitter and
- 27:17Alex Gladstein and Greg Foch shared the article when I was
- 27:19just completely at war. So that, that's that's kind of
- 27:22how it transitioned. That's awesome.
- 27:24And man, I love, don't you love the Bitcoin community?
- 27:27It's, it's like, it's like judge, judge you not based on
- 27:31your credentials or whatever, just you judge based on your
- 27:34proof of work. And I've, I've seen, it's so
- 27:38many, I've heard this story so many times where it's like, I,
- 27:41you know, I was new to the community and I just did
- 27:43something freaking awesome. And then the community
- 27:47highlighted it and, you know, I started getting traction.
- 27:50So glad to, you know, hear that it's a very similar story again
- 27:53now. OK, so you wrote the article and
- 27:57then how many articles until you ended up writing the book?
- 28:00So there was probably. So for a period of time I was
- 28:03writing for kind of Bitcoin magazine and a couple others.
- 28:07Yeah, yeah. And I started writing, I'd say
- 28:10one article every kind of two to three months.
- 28:12And I tend to, I'm not really a kind of a social media dude.
- 28:15I don't tend to write like short form, catchy, punchy stuff.
- 28:18Like it's not really who I am. Like I really like to try and
- 28:21help people understand the intricacies of things and how
- 28:23things actually work from kind of a more holistic approach.
- 28:26So I started writing these long form articles and I would say
- 28:30there's probably 10 to 20 articles.
- 28:36I wanted to kind of really gain traction.
- 28:37And so then it was in 2021 that Greg Foss, myself, Daz, Max
- 28:44DeMarco and a cup on James Lavish and we kind of started
- 28:47Looking Glass and Looking Glass education.
- 28:49Our whole goal, as I mentioned at the very start was how do we
- 28:51just educate people and remove the jargon from finance and
- 28:54weave Bitcoin into this. And so from there it kind of
- 28:57started to grow. Daz and I ended up writing a
- 28:59book called Beers for Bitcoin. That was kind of the first book
- 29:01we wrote. We didn't actually even intend
- 29:03to write it as a book. We wrote it as a course
- 29:05initially and they were like, man, this seems like 30,000
- 29:07words. Let's just go through and
- 29:09command find and replace. And we found and replaced all
- 29:12the modules and converted it to chapters and then just put it
- 29:15out as a book. And then I'd say it was
- 29:17September of 2022. And I was just like, you know
- 29:21what? I feel like there is a book
- 29:22missing, and that book is a book that really just talks about how
- 29:26money weaves its influence into our relationships, into our
- 29:29environment, into our politics, into our business, and what
- 29:33would we have to do to be able to realign those incentives?
- 29:36Because I also recognize, and Jeff Booth took this approach in
- 29:39his book, The Price of Tomorrow, where if we bring Bitcoin out
- 29:43too early, when you're talking with someone new to thinking
- 29:45about money, if we bring it out too early, the walls go up and
- 29:49they just, they just walk away or they're just not really
- 29:52interested. They get defensive.
- 29:53And so how do we help someone see that Bitcoin is a potential
- 29:56solution? And the way that I think that I
- 29:59absolutely love that Jeff Booth did is that he really defined
- 30:02the problem before ever touching the solution.
- 30:05And so I took the same approach with the hidden cost of money.
- 30:08I went into, OK, this is what we're feeling and I really tried
- 30:11to hit on the main pain points that society is feeling right
- 30:14now that we're struggling to show up authentically, where our
- 30:17financial capacity is impacting our ability to relate with our
- 30:21kids, our ability to kind of afford housing and food is
- 30:24struggling. We're noticing a breakdown in
- 30:26politics. Like I really try to hit on
- 30:27these kind of core themes that people struggle with, define the
- 30:30problem and then backwards engineer Bitcoin.
- 30:32OK, well, if this is a problem, how would we have to recreate
- 30:37money in order to be able to realign those incentives?
- 30:40Well, we'd need a fixed supply so that we have increasing
- 30:42purchasing power over time. We would need to have a
- 30:44decentralized system so that someone we don't we're not
- 30:46relying on centralized entities. We would have to have a
- 30:49permissionless system. So we're not needing permission
- 30:51to be able to direct our capital where we see fit and vice versa.
- 30:54And so as you break it down and kind of reverse engineer
- 30:57Bitcoin, people can start to this is this is where Bitcoin
- 31:01fits in in society. And then ultimately you say, do
- 31:03we have any options like this? And you, you kind of like hand
- 31:06them on a platter Bitcoin. So that that was kind of my
- 31:08approach to kind of riding the hidden cost of money and
- 31:11interesting it, it seemed to resonate.
- 31:14Yeah, obviously, obviously it did that dude, that that's so
- 31:18fascinating and but I love those guys too.
- 31:21Foss, lavish, DeMarco, super talented.
- 31:25Yeah, man, that that's, that's really, it's really noble.
- 31:27It's it's really awesome. And I guess my question to you
- 31:30is like what, what things have you learned across like along
- 31:35the way? You mentioned one, which is like
- 31:37people shut down if you mentioned Bitcoin too soon or or
- 31:39they perhaps they categorize it and like, what does this have to
- 31:43do with anything? Like, you know, like, why are
- 31:47you bringing up crypto? Like you were talking about
- 31:50economics, Like what does what does one have to do with the
- 31:52other? But what are some other things
- 31:54that you learned along the way? And the reason I'm asking that
- 31:56is for is like roughly almost 600 people watching us live
- 31:59right now. What, what like, you know, and
- 32:02they have an aunt or they have a cousin or they have someone
- 32:06that's a holdout. And for whatever reason, they're
- 32:08still consuming CNN and they're still, you know, but they still
- 32:14believe in in Fiat and whatever. Like what advice would you give
- 32:19that person in order? Like, how would you orange that?
- 32:21How would? What advice would you would you
- 32:23give? So, and this may be a little bit
- 32:26more controversial in terms of the advice, but I think that
- 32:30currently the Bitcoin community sometimes tries to educate from
- 32:34the the perspective of like a freaking strict 60s parent.
- 32:37Like if someone isn't doing what we wanted to do, we get out the
- 32:39whip and we freaking hit them with the whip and we crack the
- 32:42belt over them. And we see that with the like I
- 32:45do not invest in other crypto. I'm 100% Bitcoin only and my
- 32:49dedication for as long as I can see is going to be with Bitcoin.
- 32:52But I recognize that people are always curious and people have
- 32:55to come to their own conclusions.
- 32:57And so sometimes when we get overly aggressive, when we kind
- 33:00of become this kind of as Bitcoin deems like the toxic
- 33:03maximalist, I think that sometimes we can do a
- 33:05disservice. And there are other Bitcoiners
- 33:07that disagree. And I and I and I support their
- 33:09views, but I tend to look at it from the perspective of if we
- 33:12want to support children from an education perspective, you have
- 33:15to allow them to be curious. And then you have to be there as
- 33:18a guiding pillar to be like, hey, whenever you're ready to
- 33:21talk about Bitcoin or whenever you're ready to look this
- 33:23direction, I'm more than happy to share whatever resources like
- 33:27you're interested in. And so I think that's kind of
- 33:30the first stage is that we shouldn't criticize.
- 33:32We can always put up a fair argument as to why Bitcoin over
- 33:36crypto, but the moment we start to criticize, the moment we
- 33:39start to slam, that actually ends up impacting people's
- 33:42perspective on us and our own reputation.
- 33:45And then secondly, I think when it comes to what was it, there's
- 33:49a point that I was just going to make when it comes to education.
- 33:55I've completely blanked on that point.
- 33:57Oh good. Yeah.
- 33:59But you know what, there was actually one other point which
- 34:00is going to make, which is coming up as as you were kind of
- 34:03asking that question, which is this is actually kind of not
- 34:06necessarily Bitcoin related, but this has helped me immensely as
- 34:10I've gone into Bitcoin. It's really reshaped how I think
- 34:13about the world. And there was this guy that once
- 34:16sat down with me and he said to me said, when it comes to goal
- 34:19setting, most of us are focused on what are called the three PS,
- 34:22which are prestige. We want to kind of look the
- 34:25part. We want to kind of be cool in
- 34:26society. We want to have that prestige
- 34:27around us. Possessions.
- 34:29We want to buy the Lambo. We want to focus on buying the
- 34:32nice house. We want to focus on like these
- 34:34things, these material goods and power, prestige, possessions and
- 34:38power. We want to have the job where we
- 34:39kind of have authority over others.
- 34:41But if we actually just ask ourselves the question, what is
- 34:43it that makes us happy in life? What are kind of the top two or
- 34:47three events that have happened throughout my life?
- 34:49And they don't tend to be prestige power possessions.
- 34:52Instead, they are contributions, challenges, and connections.
- 34:56So contributions, giving back to society, challenges challenging
- 34:59ourselves and doing things that we enjoy and that push our
- 35:02bounds, and connections, connecting with those that we
- 35:04love and connecting with the community and connecting with
- 35:07family. And what's interesting is that
- 35:10we, I truly believe that we've got an issue in society where
- 35:13we're too focused on prestige, power and possessions.
- 35:15And instead we should be focusing instead on connections,
- 35:17contributions and challenges. And what I love about Bitcoin
- 35:20is, is that we tend to be focused on those three.
- 35:22We, we're, we love community and the community is freaking
- 35:25phenomenal. And people are willing to
- 35:27challenge themselves and put themselves out there.
- 35:29And I really, that's one thing that I try to push this rather
- 35:32than talking just about like the technical aspects about Bitcoin,
- 35:35It's also about just the ethos and the community which Bitcoin
- 35:38resonates and emanates. And I I really support that.
- 35:41Yeah. And I want to kind of connect
- 35:44this with what we were talking about earlier versus Bitcoiners
- 35:47are operating on a on a different spectrum than a lot of
- 35:52people. So is it is it that the rest of
- 35:54the world isn't thinking about this?
- 35:57Or is that they they can't think about this because they're just
- 35:59too busy trying to survive? I think that it, again, it's
- 36:02what we talked about earlier, it's the incentives of the
- 36:05system incentivize consumerism. Given that our money is worth
- 36:08less over time and our purchasing power is greatest in
- 36:10this present moment, we're incentivized to consume.
- 36:13And so we have this society that seems to put a lot of value into
- 36:16material things. But as you see, it's not making
- 36:19people happier. I would say we've got an
- 36:20epidemic of unhappiness and depression and anxiety.
- 36:24On the flip side, when you look at the Bitcoin community, people
- 36:26are thinking about saving. And the moment we think about
- 36:28saving, if we're not actually spending our money to assume in
- 36:31this present moment, well, we think about happiness very
- 36:34differently. I'm not going to go purchase
- 36:35this thing. Instead, you know what, I want
- 36:37to go hang out with my friend. We're actually, you know what, I
- 36:39want to spend some time actually with myself, with my dog walking
- 36:42through the forest. So there's a lot more
- 36:43reflection. And happiness comes about from
- 36:45reflection and internal dialogue as opposed to external things.
- 36:49Whenever we're purchasing something, it's a fleeting
- 36:51moment. You may be happy for a few
- 36:52seconds, but happiness very much.
- 36:54If we want long standing happiness and joy in our life,
- 36:57we have to love ourselves and we have to understand ourselves and
- 37:00we have to have goals and ambitions and challenge
- 37:03ourselves and have community. Yeah, I I 100% agree, man.
- 37:09It's, it's, it's the the hidden cost of money.
- 37:19Oh, man. All right.
- 37:20So I do want to kind of double back to some of the themes that
- 37:25we were talking about earlier. Not themes, but essentially you
- 37:27broke down your your book into three different parts.
- 37:30This is psychology, the meaninglessness of the Fiat and
- 37:35then compassion towards the end. So I want to go back to the
- 37:40psychological aspect of that because it's something that
- 37:44really, really fascinates me and it's really, really interesting.
- 37:48And I think it explains a lot of the, and I'm, I'm positive that
- 37:57you're going to, you're going to be able to elaborate a little
- 37:59bit more on this. But it it what are things that
- 38:04are happening now in society that people perhaps may not
- 38:07attribute to broken money, but is attributed to broken money
- 38:12that makes you like just want to get on a rooftop and scream
- 38:15about it that people just don't see?
- 38:20That's a big question because there's so many different ways
- 38:22to answer that question. OK, so when it comes to I, I
- 38:28would actually argue that most of the challenges that we face
- 38:30in society stem from broken money and we can go through a
- 38:34few of these. So let's just talk about for a
- 38:36second the parent child bond. When our money is losing value
- 38:41over time, it becomes harder for parents to be able to show up.
- 38:45And what that first means is that OK, if parents have to work
- 38:49longer hours, then parents aren't able to spend that same
- 38:52amount of time with their kids and their kids spend more time
- 38:54with their peers. Well, if kids are spending more
- 38:55time with their peers, peer relationships when we're
- 38:57younger, when we're, when we're sub kind of 1213 years old, peer
- 39:01relationships are very superficial.
- 39:02So kids want to look the same. They want to sound the same.
- 39:04They want to have the same mannerisms.
- 39:05And so kids today have kind of an identity crisis.
- 39:09They have huge amounts of depression and anxiety because
- 39:11they don't really know who they are.
- 39:12They don't have that moral compass that that that North
- 39:15Star, which is their parent or their elders, because their
- 39:18parents and their elders are kind of off worth working.
- 39:21And so already you start to say, OK, if money is breaking down,
- 39:23parents can't spend as much time as their kids.
- 39:26Now, secondly, it not only impacts kids once they're
- 39:30actually born and kind of going out into the world, but as a
- 39:32woman, the number one stressor globally is money and stress.
- 39:37When we feel stress, if you're pregnant and you've got kind of
- 39:40a kid inside of you who's freaking ruminating and getting
- 39:43ready to kind of burst out of there.
- 39:44If you're feeling immense amounts of stress, that shows
- 39:48itself as cortisol, epinephrine, adrenaline throughout the body.
- 39:51And then that starts to impact the kid who is kind of at the
- 39:55moment kind of cooking and getting ready to kind of kind of
- 39:58come to life. And what's interesting is that
- 40:01if a kids nervous system is flooded with these stress
- 40:05hormones like cortisol, epinephrine and adrenaline, then
- 40:08when that kid is born, they have a hypersensitive nervous system.
- 40:11That hypersensitive nervous system.
- 40:12There are countless studies showing how.
- 40:16Kids with a high sensitive nervous system have much shorter
- 40:18life expectancy, much higher rates of autism, much higher
- 40:21rates of like depression, anxiety, again, much higher
- 40:23rates of drug use. And so you can start to feel
- 40:26just having monetary stress on the mom alone.
- 40:29If that stress is severe enough, which I would say it is given
- 40:31that it's the number one stressor globally that's
- 40:33impacting kids before they're even born.
- 40:35So that's from the relational side of things.
- 40:37Well, then you take a look at the environmental side of
- 40:39things. When our money, and Jeff Booth
- 40:41talks about this, when our money is breaking down over time,
- 40:45we're incentivized to consume. Now when we consume and we kind
- 40:48of purchase goods and services, those goods and services are
- 40:50made-up of resources. So we're decimating our
- 40:53waterways, we're decimating our forests, we're dissipating our
- 40:55minerals in order to basically just consume as much as we can
- 40:59throughout society and kind of feed this consumer driven
- 41:02society. Whereas I truly believe when
- 41:04you've got something like Bitcoin, it flips it on its head
- 41:07whereby if our purchasing power is increasing over time, we're
- 41:10incentivized to save. Now, that's not to say that
- 41:13we're not going to consume. We're probably still going to go
- 41:14and consume because people still want to live, they still want to
- 41:17enjoy life. But when we consume, we're going
- 41:20to be a lot more conscious about what we consume.
- 41:22And if we're consuming less, first, that means if you're a
- 41:24company that's really just offering kind of crappy
- 41:26products, you're probably going to wither away.
- 41:29And secondly, if you're a company that is actually
- 41:31offering products, given that there's less capital coming into
- 41:33the consumption market, you're going to force competition.
- 41:36If you're forcing competition, the quality of the product tends
- 41:39to increase. So they're going to look at
- 41:40other ways to be able to support their customer, whether that's
- 41:43the quality of the product, increase the quality of the the
- 41:46resources that make up that product.
- 41:48And so I think that money is shaping how we're interacting
- 41:50with our environment. Money is shaping how we're
- 41:53interacting with our relationships.
- 41:54And then the same thing is true for politics, that when the
- 41:57government has a money printer, it doesn't have to be fiscally
- 42:00responsible. If we are a small little mum and
- 42:03pup shop and we don't balance our books, then we're going to
- 42:06go out of business. So what that means is we're to
- 42:08be very conscious about where we spend our money to be able to
- 42:10ensure that our money is offering value to society and
- 42:14people value our products. When the government does not
- 42:17balance its books and it runs massive deficits, well, it's
- 42:21able to fund operations through debasement to the currency at
- 42:24the expense of the currency holders.
- 42:26And so the government has no incentive to actually offer
- 42:28value to society. So at the moment, the incentives
- 42:30are completely misaligned. And so those are just kind of
- 42:33like three main areas. Like we're talking about like
- 42:35government, we're talking about the environment, we're talking
- 42:37about relationships. And so I'll give one more
- 42:41actually kind of solid example that I always think is really
- 42:43fascinating. But during the pandemic in
- 42:45Canada, we had something called the Serb, the Canadian Emergency
- 42:48response benefit. And basically, if you earn less
- 42:51than 10% of your income, sorry, if you lost more than 10% of
- 42:54your income, you are entitled to the Serb, which is $2000 a
- 42:58month. That's $24,000 a year in
- 43:00stimulus and basically helicopter money.
- 43:02Now when you look at Canada's tax receipts, 30% of Canadians
- 43:07earn under $24,000 a year. So you've now given 30% of
- 43:11Canadians the option, do you want to work for $24,000 a year
- 43:15or do you want to just get handed $24,000 a year and not
- 43:18work? What option are they going to
- 43:19take? They're going to take the
- 43:20latter. So you end up having immense
- 43:22amounts of people basically give up their job and all of these
- 43:25small businesses, mom and pop shops, bicycle shops, cafes,
- 43:28restaurants, they couldn't find any staff and it completely
- 43:30destroyed the small business market in Canada.
- 43:32And So what you start to realize is that when the government
- 43:35controls the money printer, when you have a money that can be Co
- 43:38opted, it leads to all of these byproducts.
- 43:41What should have happened during the pandemic is that if you're a
- 43:43company, you've been fiscally responsible going into the
- 43:45pandemic and you did not balance your books, then you would go
- 43:48out of business, which means that the companies that are
- 43:50offering value would be able to rise up.
- 43:52There was no stimulus. There was nothing incentivizing
- 43:55people to stop working. And I think that it misaligns
- 43:58the incentives when we have a money that allows people to
- 44:01intervene. 100% And, and you can, you can even make the
- 44:04argument that, and, and I've come to this conclusion, maybe
- 44:08you, you come to another conclusion that the ability for
- 44:13the government to print money is freaking evil.
- 44:16It's, it's like it is evil. It gives politicians this false
- 44:21sense of illusion that they can play God in a way.
- 44:25And the consequences of that in the last century have been like
- 44:30catastrophic. Like, it's just like you could
- 44:35attribute millions of deaths to this unique.
- 44:38I mean, we say this all the time, right?
- 44:40You know, fix the money, fix the world and the endless wars,
- 44:42right? So I don't know if you see it
- 44:46differently. But no, I absolutely like fully,
- 44:49fully and I am on board. And it's interesting in the
- 44:52book, I kind of the way I kind of describe money is that money
- 44:56is just a medium of expression. And what do I mean by that?
- 45:00Like language, it's how we express to the world what it is
- 45:03that we value. And so if you go into a grocery
- 45:05store and you see someone buying grass fed beef and organic
- 45:08vegetables and then another person buying cigarettes and
- 45:10candy, you can see what it is that they value.
- 45:13So how they spend their money. Now, what's interesting is that
- 45:16as a society, if you look at a society as a kind of a holistic
- 45:19entity, you can see what they value based upon where money
- 45:23flows in society. So do they value grass fed
- 45:26organic farming? Do they value war?
- 45:28Do they value sports? Like you'll see where money
- 45:31flows based upon societal values and preferences.
- 45:34But what is interesting is that that's assuming we're in a free
- 45:37market. When you start to get censorship
- 45:40such as inflation, our purchasing power is being taken
- 45:42from us. The government is spending that
- 45:44purchasing power elsewhere in society.
- 45:46When you get capital controls which prevent us from spending
- 45:50our money where we see fit. When you look at say China,
- 45:52China because of their the current fiscal situation, they
- 45:56don't allow Chinese individuals to invest abroad.
- 45:58So it keeps money inside of the inside of the nation that allows
- 46:01them to debase their currency at the currency holders expense.
- 46:04So when you start seeing things like inflation and capital
- 46:07controls regulations, you start to see a misdirection or kind of
- 46:13you're altering the direction of capital flows in society.
- 46:16And so if you look at society today, I would say that there's
- 46:19a large portion of the population that do not believe
- 46:21in war. They're very anti war.
- 46:23I myself am anti war. I'm never going to direct my
- 46:26capital towards something that supports war.
- 46:28I don't want to express myself as an an individual that is
- 46:31supporting war. But unfortunately, given that
- 46:33the government has a money printer, they can print dollars,
- 46:36fund war at my expense. And when you look at the society
- 46:41on the whole, oh, look, there's a ton of money going towards
- 46:43war, that must mean society supports war.
- 46:45And so we have a completely distorted view on what we
- 46:48believe society values. And how does a free market
- 46:50function if we don't know what businesses should survive, what
- 46:53businesses shouldn't survive, what society values, what
- 46:56society doesn't value? Because ultimately for a free
- 46:58market to function, we need to be able to start a business and
- 47:01say, hey, this, this product is offering value because I see
- 47:04capital flowing towards me. Not artificial capital, not
- 47:06capital because of regulations, not capital as a result of money
- 47:09printing, but capital because people value my products.
- 47:12And that's something we don't have today.
- 47:13Of course, and then you know and you have all these zombie
- 47:16companies and then this is something that Safedeen talks
- 47:19about in his book, right, which is like the quality of the food
- 47:22start to decrease like all these on the what you were saying like
- 47:26these unintended consequences. Now my question to you is, and I
- 47:31think that we are slowly entering this kind of moment in
- 47:37history. I think what we've been seeing
- 47:38over the last five years is really something that I call the
- 47:42disintermediation of information with the rise of social media
- 47:45and mass scale peer-to-peer communications, right?
- 47:48And that has severely diminished the government's ability to
- 47:52control the narrative. And they they weren't prepared
- 47:55for it. Like they as soon as, you know,
- 47:58Bitcoiners are huge fans of Noster and I get it.
- 48:00But the reality is that the volume is on Twitter, it's on X.
- 48:04So as soon as Elon acquired the platform and freed the bird, so
- 48:08to speak, it had a massive change to society, right?
- 48:12And you, you see them, you see this with his recent lawsuit.
- 48:16And you see, and we, it's almost like we didn't, we weren't
- 48:19aware. And I saw this really powerful
- 48:22statement, which is, I forget who it was, but it was like the
- 48:25war in Iraq wouldn't have happened if social media existed
- 48:28back in the 2000. I was like, holy shit, like that
- 48:31is so true. So I think that's where society
- 48:34is kind of living through right now.
- 48:35But I think where we're heading into is the disintermediation of
- 48:39money. Like we're in the very early
- 48:41that we're in the infancy of that, but I, I, I don't think
- 48:46that the clash has happened. So what am I talking about?
- 48:48The clash? I'm talking about the
- 48:50politicians and the corporations that do benefit tremendously
- 48:54from the power of the money printer versus the people.
- 48:57Like, and I would say, and I would say the people as in
- 49:00Bitcoin, right? Because Bitcoin is the people's
- 49:02money. No espresso privileges here.
- 49:05So, like, what's your take on that?
- 49:08Like, what do you think that it's going to be?
- 49:10In my opinion, it's going to be like, you know, we've, we've
- 49:12gone through some of these points in human history, like
- 49:15the separation of church and state.
- 49:17It was so freaking bloody. I hope this one isn't as bloody.
- 49:20I don't think it will be, but it like human history was never the
- 49:24same after that. So what's your take?
- 49:27Like what how do you see this happening?
- 49:30Do you see this being peaceful as more and more people wake up
- 49:33to bitcoins incentives and then all of a sudden you have Larry
- 49:35Fink kind of changing team. Do you see it like, you know,
- 49:39the the administrative state, like just saying like, no, we
- 49:42need the money printer. What are you talking about?
- 49:45Like, you know, how have you seen that specific subject?
- 49:49You know, it's, it's really challenging because I think that
- 49:52we can look at it from the perspective of what I hope will
- 49:54happen. And then we can look at it from
- 49:55the perspective of what I think will happen.
- 49:57And what I hope will happen is that as Bitcoin slowly starts to
- 50:02grow, as Bitcoin's price starts to appreciate and kind of people
- 50:04start awakening us into like, why does this thing just keep
- 50:07going up? Why does this thing just keep
- 50:08going up and people start to dig into it and invest time and
- 50:12energy trying to understand it. We just leave this the capital
- 50:14move from traditional assets into Bitcoin and in doing so
- 50:19that removes lose power from those in positions of power
- 50:21currently. Because if you are a nation
- 50:23state and a large portion of your capital is in Bitcoin as in
- 50:28like your populace of storing their capital in Bitcoin, then
- 50:30all of a sudden you cannot take capital by force, which is what
- 50:34concurrently happened. We can seize capital easily.
- 50:37We can seize assets, we can freeze bank accounts, which as
- 50:40we've seen is happening in Canada.
- 50:42When it comes to Bitcoin, the only viable way to obtain
- 50:44Bitcoin is to offer someone value and have them voluntarily
- 50:47hand it back over to you or hand that Bitcoin over to you.
- 50:50So I think that in an ideal world, I would like to see this
- 50:52bridge being built whereby capital slowly starts
- 50:55accumulating in Bitcoin, nation states start to lose that power,
- 50:58and the only way for them to exist is actually to offer
- 51:00value. So it realigns the incentives.
- 51:01That's what I hope happens. But the problem that I see right
- 51:05now is that as we start to see the cost of living crisis
- 51:09because of inflation and because of the breakdown of a current
- 51:11monetary system, people have less capacity to think for
- 51:13themselves. And if people have less capacity
- 51:15to think for themselves, it's way easier for these mass
- 51:19formations, these kind of authoritarian, totalitarian
- 51:22environments to emerge. There's a book called The
- 51:24Psychology of Totalitarianism, but by the professor of Gentry
- 51:28University, and it's a fascinating book and it really
- 51:31open. It goes into like Mausi Dong, it
- 51:33goes into like Stalin. It goes into a whole bunch of
- 51:36these totalitarian environments and how they came to be.
- 51:39And the first stage is people have to feel a sense of
- 51:42loneliness. When people are working a ton
- 51:44and they're not able to kind of show up in their communities and
- 51:47interact as we've been talking about, they start to feel
- 51:49loneliness. The next stage is
- 51:51meaninglessness or the same thing.
- 51:53We're starting to see people feel that meaninglessness
- 51:55because they don't know what their life holds.
- 51:57They don't know if they can afford a house, they don't know
- 51:59if they can support their children.
- 52:01And so we see meaningless arising.
- 52:02And then the third stage is this kind of free floating anxiety.
- 52:06People just don't quite understand why am I feeling
- 52:09these things? Why does life feel so freaking
- 52:11hard right now? And so when you have lonely
- 52:13meaninglessness and free floating anxiety, people are way
- 52:16more susceptible to being told some form of narrative and
- 52:19there's some form of an enemy that we need to face.
- 52:22And then you get these mass formations, these kind of
- 52:24totalitarian environments where mobs kind of form and people,
- 52:28they're not thinking rationally. And this has happened throughout
- 52:30history countless times. And so the challenge that I see
- 52:33right now is that I see us trending towards a more of an
- 52:37authoritarian environment. And I'm hoping that through
- 52:40social media, we're able to get enough information out there
- 52:43that people start to awaken. And I do think that even the
- 52:46pandemic on the whole has kind of awakened decent chunk of
- 52:49people. Yeah, 100% I, I, I you're not
- 52:54going to believe a lot of the things you're I I guess you'd
- 52:57question them. Bitcoin is always new from the
- 52:59beginning. You're like, no, like, this is a
- 53:01scam, but a lot of people, you know, still trusted what the guy
- 53:07in the suit on TV had to say. And now the guy in the suit is
- 53:12naked figuratively. And you're just like, yeah, just
- 53:15I remember that. You know what?
- 53:17What's the saying? Like, fool me once, Shane wants
- 53:19the same on you, fool me twice, whatever.
- 53:22But yeah, I agree. Now, my question to you, and
- 53:24this is, I mean, actually like a topic that we're exploring
- 53:26today, me and Opti, which is, and I've put a lot of, I've put
- 53:30a lot of thought into it. I want to run it by you, which
- 53:32is IA lot certain political ideologies and philosophies.
- 53:38I I just don't think are compatible with Bitcoin.
- 53:40So what I mean by that? So of course we have socialism,
- 53:44communism, and which rely on effective wealth redistribution
- 53:50mechanisms via the central bank direct taxation, which I think
- 53:55is close to maxed out. And then the more sinister one,
- 53:58which is equally as necessary is wealth redistribution via
- 54:02currency debasement. I I think that if you don't have
- 54:05those two mechanisms, you can't like the politicians no longer
- 54:10can go and promise free things because they can't take it from
- 54:14other people, right? What do you what do you think
- 54:17about that? No, I wholeheartedly agree.
- 54:19And it what scares me right now in society is a lot of these
- 54:24whether we're talking about like the Labour Party, whether we're
- 54:26talking about the left, whether we're talking about the
- 54:27Democratic Party, these kind of left-leaning more kind of like
- 54:30socialist kind of groups, I would say very much are kind of
- 54:36sneaking in communism. They're sneaking in these very
- 54:41kind of authoritarian approaches to kind of politics into kind of
- 54:45the mainstream. And even if you listen to
- 54:47Camilla Harris, I saw a little talk by her the other day and
- 54:49she was talking about what we need to focus on is equity of
- 54:53outcomes. Everyone has the same outcome.
- 54:55And it's just like, how is that ever going to work where no
- 54:58matter how much energy you put into society, whether you're
- 55:00working harder or not, you're going to have the same outcome.
- 55:03That is communism. That is communism.
- 55:05And it's just, it blows my mind that people are listening to
- 55:08this and they're just like, that's what we need.
- 55:10And it's just if we look throughout all of like all of
- 55:13history, not only you like humanity, but all of history,
- 55:16it's just like species are capitalist inherently.
- 55:20What do I mean by that? Capitalism is basically just
- 55:23competition with those who are able to offer value surviving.
- 55:26That's what capitalism is when you go back throughout like
- 55:29natural evolution, species are able to offer value and are able
- 55:33to use their environment to and use it to productive use better
- 55:37than their opponent naturally survive.
- 55:39And so when we think about capitalism in society today, we
- 55:42don't have so anything close to that.
- 55:43We need to be able to allow for competition.
- 55:46We need to be able to allow value to rise up, because in the
- 55:49end, that's what's going to support humanity.
- 55:51If we're constantly intervening and we're trying to create
- 55:54equity of outcome, I think that it is breaking down society and
- 55:58it's redistributing wealth and it's disincentivizing people to
- 56:01add value to society. 100% it's, it's just and it's this mass
- 56:05misallocation of capital and that the, you know, the time and
- 56:09time again it it's had severe where it's, you know, they'll
- 56:13always say like it's never never been tried, but whatever.
- 56:17But you see just country after country, regardless of the
- 56:20content and the continent, the outcome is roughly the same
- 56:24right now. So I would say it's like, is
- 56:29this the end for that? Like is does Bitcoin solve that?
- 56:33Because like essentially, I think the reason that they've
- 56:36been able to redistribute or just basically take from someone
- 56:40else to give to someone else is because the they had the tools
- 56:44to do so effectively efficiency, unlike kind of like this mass
- 56:47scale. Does Bitcoin solve that problem?
- 56:51Because all of a sudden it's like you couldn't maybe perhaps
- 56:56get away with it via taxation. But again, you can only make tax
- 57:00so high before people start to rebel and say what the fuck,
- 57:04right? So does that solve the issue?
- 57:08Like is that, does that solve the issue of like, do you see in
- 57:12the future? Like we don't see any socialist
- 57:16governments because we've successfully separated money
- 57:19from state. And and one more, one last bit,
- 57:22which is actually in the Communist Manifesto, the 5th
- 57:25tenant is the necessity for the centralization of credit, the
- 57:29necessity for a central bank essentially.
- 57:31Absolutely. You know, one thing that kind of
- 57:34comes to mind when you're talking is that I think when we
- 57:35think about capitalism and socialism and and communism and
- 57:39these kind of various ideologies, what we don't think
- 57:42about is that you can have something like capitalism exist
- 57:47on a grand scale across like a nation state, but on a micro
- 57:50scale still have kind of more of a socialist belief, which is,
- 57:54hey, I want to contribute to society and want to give back.
- 57:56And that's where me as an individual, I believe that on a
- 57:59nation state level, we should have all of these various
- 58:01jurisdictions competing with one another because when you have
- 58:04competition, you're levelling up the value that that nation state
- 58:07is offering. But on a personal level, I want
- 58:10to like, I'm more than happy to support my partner.
- 58:13I'm more than happy to support when I have kids.
- 58:15I'm more than happy to give back to the society.
- 58:17I help with nonprofit organizations and get kids off
- 58:20the street. That's a very kind of more
- 58:22socialist agenda. But in the grand scheme of
- 58:24things, I think that society functions when you have these
- 58:28communities that are tight knit and they're willing to give back
- 58:30to one another, but you have competition on a grander.
- 58:33And so I don't think it's necessary black and white that
- 58:34you only have capitalism, you only have socialism, or you only
- 58:37have this and you only have that.
- 58:38I think that like Stephen back and going to the start of your
- 58:44quick, that Bitcoin breaks down our current interventionistic
- 58:48practices on a high level, on a nation state level and on a even
- 58:52on a municipal level, because it forces a free market.
- 58:56And I think that ultimately, when people have control over
- 58:58their money and that money cannot easily be seized and all
- 59:02of a sudden the only way to be able to obtain capital is to
- 59:05offer value. And so by forcing a free market,
- 59:08I think society thrives. And what's interesting, and this
- 59:11is something that's kind of really been playing in my mind,
- 59:13is that when we think about kind of the left and they're trying
- 59:16to really just support everyone and the handouts here, handouts
- 59:18there, what they're not thinking about is the long term.
- 59:22It's like security and health of humanity.
- 59:26Because if we're just constantly trying to support everyone at
- 59:28the expense of those offering value, you're degrading society
- 59:31so much so that you're actually impacting it's chance of
- 59:34survival. Whereas I think when you think
- 59:35about a free market environment, the inverse is true where if
- 59:39those are not able to offer value to society, and this is
- 59:43controversial and it's challenging.
- 59:44I'm not saying this is my belief, but I don't, I don't
- 59:46quite know how to formulate this yet is that those that are not
- 59:50able to offer value to society versus those that are, well,
- 59:53those that are able to offer value to society are able to
- 59:56accumulate wealth where they're able to create more products,
- 59:59innovate, increase efficiency. So much so that hopefully in
- 1:00:02time that trickles down and ends up impacting those that aren't
- 1:00:04offering as much value to society.
- 1:00:06But that's not wealth redistribution.
- 1:00:08That's instead it's realigning the incentives towards capital
- 1:00:10flowing towards value where value is being created.
- 1:00:12And I tend to be of the opinion that.
- 1:00:16We need to support humanity and think about humanity's longevity
- 1:00:19as opposed to just trying to support everyone right now
- 1:00:21because it's degrading society, it's degrading culture, it's
- 1:00:23degrading how we're showing up. 100% and I, I think that way of
- 1:00:27thinking isn't possible with Fiat.
- 1:00:30Like I, I think with Fiat it's been Co opted time and time
- 1:00:33again. And I think with Bitcoin, it's
- 1:00:36what you said it, it's like you're, you're forcing the free
- 1:00:40market onto it and then now you don't have a choice.
- 1:00:43It's like sink or swim essentially.
- 1:00:46And at the end of the day, like, you know, like when you have the
- 1:00:51incentive to produce and to make things like, you know, I, I, I'm
- 1:00:55really excited for that chapter in human history.
- 1:00:58Like I'm really looking forward to that because I think the
- 1:01:01innovation is going to be off to the entrepreneurship, the
- 1:01:04innovation, all that stuff is going to be off the charts.
- 1:01:06Yeah. It's you know what one thing
- 1:01:09which is made a kind of a, it's really made me think is when I
- 1:01:13came to kind of this idea, Well, it's not my idea.
- 1:01:15It's kind of I've heard it throughout the Bitcoin
- 1:01:16community. But when it really I started to
- 1:01:18think about this idea that Bitcoin is kind of the first non
- 1:01:21jurisdictional asset. And what I mean by that, every
- 1:01:24other asset in history has either been physical or it's
- 1:01:28been kind of intangible, but it's been held by a third party.
- 1:01:30So see, the physical nature is held by jurisdiction.
- 1:01:33We have real estate, we have gold, we have precious metals,
- 1:01:36we, you name it. These are physical nature, which
- 1:01:38means they're easily able to be seized by the government or
- 1:01:41they're intangible. We have cash in the bank, we
- 1:01:44have stocks, we have bonds, we have all of these derivatives,
- 1:01:47but they're held by third parties, which means if the
- 1:01:49government wants to clamp down on that third party and freeze
- 1:01:52your assets, they can do so. So up until now, all of our
- 1:01:55assets have been kind of jurisdictionally bound, which
- 1:01:58has meant that we're kind of under the thumb of the
- 1:01:59government. If the government doesn't want
- 1:02:01us to move some assets, we cannot move those assets.
- 1:02:03Whereas with Bitcoin you can, you've got this non
- 1:02:06jurisdictional asset, which is kind of ephemeral.
- 1:02:08It just so kind of exists and you can hold 12 words in your
- 1:02:12head and walk across a border, start naked and no one has any
- 1:02:15idea that you're holding all of your value in your head.
- 1:02:17So what that means is you're forcing a free market again,
- 1:02:19you're allowing capital to flow to the nations that are offering
- 1:02:22value. So if you start to see capital
- 1:02:24leaving Canada or leaving the US because they no longer offer a
- 1:02:29nice place to live that supports their populace, well then all of
- 1:02:32a sudden what ends up having to happen is that nation state can
- 1:02:35either continue down its path and see capital move away.
- 1:02:38And eventually they're going to kind of falter.
- 1:02:40They're going to break down and wither away.
- 1:02:41Or they can decide to pivot and say, OK, you know what, we're
- 1:02:44losing. We're losing people.
- 1:02:46We're losing like quality members of society that are
- 1:02:48offering value. What do we have to do to keep
- 1:02:50them? You know what, maybe we have to
- 1:02:51cut tax rates. Maybe we have to be conscious of
- 1:02:53spending. Maybe we have to make a more
- 1:02:55desirable place to live. And so ultimately, I think when
- 1:02:57you have capital, when you allow capital to flow freely
- 1:03:00throughout society and throughout our globe, you end up
- 1:03:03forcing that free market whereby value rises to the top and you
- 1:03:07force competition. 100% and, and now you have nation states
- 1:03:10competing for citizens essentially.
- 1:03:14And then in that type of environment, the individual
- 1:03:16wins, right? And that's like, and yeah, it's
- 1:03:19we're going full circle, sovereign individual.
- 1:03:21I love it. Anyways, we are getting to the
- 1:03:25top of the hour and I do want to be respectful of your of your
- 1:03:27time. Seb.
- 1:03:28I really enjoyed this conversation.
- 1:03:30Where can people find your book if they want to buy a copy?
- 1:03:33So you can just find it just on Amazon, if you're kind of use
- 1:03:35Amazon, you can also jump on, if you're a Bitcoiner, there is a
- 1:03:40new kind of website called Fusats and you can basically
- 1:03:44upload books, You can upload any digital documents and people can
- 1:03:47purchase the book in Bitcoin, which is freaking rad.
- 1:03:50And so the guy Geordie, who founded that just reached out to
- 1:03:52me and asked if I wanted to upload the book.
- 1:03:53So it's on Fusats. And then on top of that, you can
- 1:03:57also just check out booking glass education, which also has
- 1:03:59beers for Bitcoin are the book that I wrote of Daz and and the
- 1:04:03hidden cost of money. But yeah, I just Nico, I hugely
- 1:04:06appreciate you having me on. And it's I've always appreciated
- 1:04:08kind of your work and we briefly talked about it before we kind
- 1:04:11of jumped on, but you, Preston, Ben, Ben Sessions and myself
- 1:04:15kind of grabbed lunch and it was absolute highlight of this
- 1:04:18month. Yeah, it was, it was, it was
- 1:04:21great, man. And the just, you know, just the
- 1:04:24conversation, just, you know, Preston Ben yourself like it's,
- 1:04:28it's a good, it's a it's a good mix, man.
- 1:04:30It's a good mix to to make good conversations.
- 1:04:32So yeah, I really enjoyed that that lunch and hopefully we we
- 1:04:36cross paths and meet space again very soon.
- 1:04:40Anyways, guys, that was another episode of simply Bitcoin arrow.
- 1:04:43If you guys enjoyed the show, you need to do smash like
- 1:04:44button. Consider subscribing if you feel
- 1:04:46like we provided you value and I'll see you back tomorrow for
- 1:04:49the live show at 12:15 PM Eastern Standard Time.
- 1:04:52And yeah, this is my guest for today sub money.
- 1:04:55I'll see you guys on the next one.
- 1:04:57Peace out. Thanks.
- 1:04:59Episode was brought to you by bitcoinwell.com on a mission to
- 1:05:03enable independence.