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Discovering Bitcoin with Erin Malone · Discovering Bitcoin

0:00
Most people don't remember the first time they heard of
0:03
Bitcoin, but they do remember discovering it in the moment
0:07
that it made sense. That quiet click hard block is
0:13
for that phase when you're done with the hype and you just want
0:17
a simple, honest way to stack SAT's with flat fees, no tricks.
0:23
Learn more at learn.hardblock.com dot AU.
0:28
I see the world through an entirely different lens.
0:33
It doesn't just give you confidence, but it gives you
0:35
hope. Take like we're squandering our
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energy, our life force. So Bitcoin is changing that.
0:43
For me, it's like it's healing. Energy.
0:47
It gives you a kind of of Zen feeling, right?
0:55
Deep and deep and deep. In the immortal works of the
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doors a time. To hesitate us through.
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Discovering. Aaron, what's going on?
1:30
DJ Nothing. What's going on with you?
1:32
Thanks for having me. It's it's it's been, but it's a
1:37
pleasure. Let's just start there and it's
1:40
been a long time coming. I've I've I'm pretty sure back
1:46
in the day, if I just go check 2024.
1:51
Wow, almost. Gosh, there you go.
1:54
Almost two years, well over 2 years now when I first reached
1:59
out. And yeah, I've been trying to
2:01
trying to pin you down, so to speak, to get you on the pod to
2:05
hear your story because you're pretty prolific and therefore
2:09
busy for a. While.
2:11
I haven't used the word harassing.
2:13
That sounds awful. I'm.
2:14
Just kidding, thank you for your persistence.
2:19
No, it's, it's my pleasure. I often will will scroll back
2:22
through my DMS and just be like, Oh yeah, oh, gosh, really?
2:29
I still. Yeah, OK.
2:31
And then I'll and then I'll reach out and just chance.
2:33
Mom, the the coolest thing about doing this pod is that the worst
2:38
anyone can ever say to you is no, I can't.
2:42
Like, all right, no worries. True, you know, and that's or,
2:45
or I can't right now, whatever, but yeah, I I have been hassling
2:51
you. So anyway, I'm I'm glad to get
2:54
you on the part and to have you spend some or we'll just use the
2:59
line now. Scarce time, finite energy,
3:01
telling us the tale of how you discovered Bitcoin.
3:04
Yeah, no, I'm excited. Yeah, my Bitcoin origin story.
3:10
How? Did you discover Bitcoin?
3:12
Wow, OK, so I first heard about Bitcoin end of 2017, never heard
3:18
about about Bitcoin before. And someone like an acquaintance
3:22
on Facebook posted something like, I wish I waited until
3:26
today to buy Bitcoin. And you know, there was a bunch
3:29
of comments on it and it kind of blew up and I was like, what is
3:31
Bitcoin? That sounds really cool.
3:33
Like I think the name Bitcoin sounds awesome.
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So I, you know, I looked it up. I spent maybe 1520 minutes
3:41
learning about it, you know, very surface level.
3:44
And I was like peer-to-peer money on the Internet that the
3:46
government can't control. Hell yeah.
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Like sign me up. So I went on Coinbase at the
3:51
time and you know, I bought a little bit and of course I
3:55
straight coins as well because it all seemed the same to me at
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the time. And you know, Coinbase was
3:59
peddling every altcoin there was.
4:02
So yeah, about a little bit. And then within three weeks, my
4:07
investment had tripled and I was like, what the hell, Like, what
4:11
is happening? And, you know, I read a little
4:13
bit more and I kept diving into it.
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And I don't know if you remember or not, but the education in
4:18
2017 was not great. It was really hard to find good
4:24
Bitcoin education and I didn't find it.
4:26
And yeah, so I, I bought a little bit more and as we all
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know, the price just crashed. You know, 2018 just went from
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20,000. So what back down to three
4:39
eventually. And I was like, oh, well, that
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sucks. And I, I think I bought, I
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bought a little bit more in 2018 and I did a little bit more
4:48
research, but not much. It was very surface level.
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And by 2019 I kind of forgot about it had a lot of other
4:57
things going on. And so I, I live in wine country
5:00
in California and I run a film production company and I shoot
5:04
wine videos for a living, like wine travel tourism videos and I
5:08
fly a drone and I edit video. And 2017 to 2020 were like the
5:14
worst wildfires of the state's history.
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Like it was insane. Like we were evacuated almost
5:20
every year. I had wine clients like, you
5:22
know, get completely destroyed. I had friends lose homes,
5:25
vineyards destroyed. I mean, people died.
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It was, it was a really hard time.
5:30
So like the coin wasn't even something I thought about.
5:33
I was just trying to survive and like, you know, keep my business
5:36
going and, you know, I was trying to like survive the day.
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I wasn't planning for, you know, retirement or anything else.
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So I wasn't really investing at all.
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Then I was just trying to pay bills.
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So then 2020 hit and I like business was good.
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Like I had, I had a full year booked out for shoots, like some
6:00
of the highest contracts I've ever gotten, like full year
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booked out from like March till December, just packed solid.
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I was super stoked. I was like, let's go like let's
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do this year. And then COVID hit and
6:13
everything was cancelled overnight.
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Like just in an instant, completely taken from me.
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And I was like, Jesus, OK, so that sucked.
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But you know, I saw, I saw the money printing, I saw the
6:28
bailout and I was like, this is 2008.
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Like something is seriously wrong.
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I recognize the patterns. I don't know what's wrong, but
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like everything's broken. Like what what is happening?
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And I, I graduated high school in 2008.
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I started College in 2008 and it was just like a really hard
6:47
time. Like I grew up very poor and I
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feel like it didn't, well, I feel like the like the 2008
6:54
stuff, it didn't necessarily affect us as much because we
6:57
were already really poor. So it was just like whatever,
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like what's one more thing with, you know, high gas prices were
7:02
already eating ramen every night, like it doesn't matter.
7:05
So, but I remember my first class in college, my like, you
7:10
know, first day of college it was econ one O 18 AM going to
7:14
class and the professor says, welcome to college.
7:18
The economy just collapsed. Good luck trying to ever find a
7:21
job. We're all like, wait, what?
7:23
What's going on? What happened?
7:24
Cool man, thanks. Yeah.
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And I don't, I feel like I didn't, I, I didn't know what
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happened in 2008 really until like the years after it.
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Once I heard other people's stories and losing their homes
7:34
and everything else and the banks getting bailed out.
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But I don't know, the 2027, it just, it felt very familiar.
7:42
And yeah. So that was March.
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And then by June, the world had kind of started to open back up.
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And I had booked out from July to December almost every project
7:54
I had for the second-half of the year, like they all came back.
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And I was like, hell yeah, like, it's coming back, let's do this.
8:00
And then July, the worst wildfire in California history,
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like the entire state was on fire.
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In July. There was this like, freak
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lightning storm. And I don't know if you heard
8:11
about it in Australia, but there were like 10s of thousands of
8:14
lightning strikes all over the state.
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And all of those lightning strikes for the most part,
8:19
started their own fires. So there were just hundreds and
8:23
hundreds of fires. Like we would go outside and
8:26
like the middle of the day and it was pitch black.
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Like you didn't see the sun. It was fully apocalyptic.
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Like we were evacuated and like it was just months of that.
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Just crazy. You couldn't breathe the air.
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And yeah, anyway, so all those jobs I had were cancelled again,
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like completely. Yeah.
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Because all the all the grapes were destroyed, all the smoke
8:48
Tain. Like everything was just.
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Yeah, so everything wiped out and I was just like.
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Because there's there's you would have probably been
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shooting like harvest videos, harvest contest.
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So this started in July. Yeah.
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Wow. And so if you ever try, if you
9:06
ever find a 2020 vintage from California, then don't drink it
9:09
because it's not good anyway. So the fall, like maybe
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September time, I would just, I was so defeated and I was just
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like, I want to give up. Like I, I it doesn't matter how
9:21
hard I work. It doesn't matter how good I am
9:23
at my job. There's all these outside forces
9:25
that I can't control that like, I, I don't know what to do
9:29
anymore, you know? And I debated moving.
9:33
I was like, I can't do another year of whatever this is.
9:36
So yeah, I think it was September and I had nothing but
9:41
time. I didn't have any work and I
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think that's a lot of people's Bitcoin origin stories is like
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they had time during the pandemic to learn about Bitcoin.
9:50
So I was like, you know what this Bitcoin thing, like I
9:53
remember being really interested in it.
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It was really cool. Like maybe I should learn a
9:56
little bit more about it. And I got on, I got back on
9:59
Twitter after years of ignoring it and I found some Bitcoin
10:03
people. But most importantly, I found
10:06
Michael Saylor. He had just done a big Bitcoin
10:08
buy. I think Cash App had bought
10:10
Bitcoin and I heard sailors speak and I was just like, like
10:15
he explained Bitcoin in a way that I had never heard it
10:18
explained. He explained the problem, he
10:20
explained how money worked. He explained how bitcoins the
10:24
solution and I was just like, holy shit, like what?
10:28
This changes everything. And after that first, you know,
10:32
podcast or whatever he was on, it just became obsessed.
10:37
Like I spent 12 to 16 hours a day just absorbing every book,
10:41
podcast article, like whatever I could find.
10:44
I, I, it was so, it was so hopeful and it was so like, oh,
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wait, there's a solution to all of this.
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And that's basically all I did the fall of 2020 and the winter
10:56
of 2020. And then, you know, I was buying
11:00
more Bitcoin at the time and I was also buying more shit coins
11:04
at the time. And then 2020 I heard Jack
11:07
Mahler's talk about the the lightning network and like all
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the layer twos and how they worked.
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And it was like lightning. Like if it makes every use case
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of every altcoin obsolete, like this fixes the speed problem
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like this fixes everything. So I sold all my shit coins at
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the time when all in on Bitcoin. And then January 21.
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I don't know if you were on for this, but the the Clubhouse,
11:35
Bitcoin Clubhouse, it was like an audio based app and you know
11:40
it was. It was only on a pandemic and I
11:42
just I, I, I just never joined because.
11:45
I it was it was like pre Twitter.
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I didn't have iOS. Yeah, yeah.
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But it was it was such a magical time.
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Like, you know, during the pandemic, everyone had time.
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So like the the best minds in Bitcoin were on Clubhouse and
11:59
talking about Bitcoin all day long and just helping clubs like
12:02
learn about self custody and best practices.
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And I would wake up listening to Bitcoin Clubhouse and go to
12:08
sleep listening to Bitcoin Clubhouse.
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It was like that magical. And it was just all, you know,
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everyone just donated their time and you know, the education was
12:17
amazing. So yeah, that was January and
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then I started running a node, a lightning node, a Bitcoin node
12:25
in March or April of 21. And kind of, you know, it was
12:31
right around the time everyone else kind of started getting
12:34
into it. And I was the founding member of
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Clubnet. We were like a lightning node
12:39
running community. We started with 12 of us the
12:42
first night and within six months there were 6000 of us and
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we were on Telegram, we were on Clubhouse.
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Just like experimenting together and learning how lightning
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worked, you know, building out the network and just getting
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people excited to run lightning nodes.
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It was really, really cool and yeah, so we're on a lightning
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note today. Later that year, I started
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mining for heat. I heat in my apartment.
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I got like a little S 9 minor later on without heat in my
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apartment and let's see, oh, 21 I started hosting a a Bitcoin
13:17
meet up. So I'm in like the San Francisco
13:19
Bay Area and we got together. We're a bunch of us that got
13:23
together in 21 like the summer and it was such a cool meet up.
13:27
It was, you know, post COVID. So we were excited to see humans
13:31
again and talk about Bitcoin. And there were actually like 7
13:34
different meetups that spawned from that one meet up.
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Like we all started one in our hometown.
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So and I still run that meet up once a month.
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It's been five years now. And yeah, so and then May 22, I
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met my now husband and our first date, we talked about Bitcoin.
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He got super excited. He had, he was in it before, but
13:54
got out and, you know, explained how everything worked and he
13:57
became as obsessed as I was and I was like, all right, this is
14:00
going to work. And then, yeah, he, you know, we
14:04
started, we I took my little blow up hot tub and we created a
14:09
like a Bitcoin miner heating system for the hot tub.
14:13
And we did a whole like video series and post about it and how
14:16
to heat your hot tub with a Bitcoin miner.
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And it was like our first project together.
14:20
And yeah, now he helps me host the meet up.
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And yeah, the rest is history. Oh, and then I wrote.
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I wrote two books as well after. That, but I was going to say
14:30
like, yeah, lest we forget the book.
14:33
So you basically, I mean, you know, 2017, you kind of dip your
14:40
toe slowly, world falls apart and then you go from like, I
14:45
don't know, that's it's not 0. It's it's maybe 5 to 100
14:50
basically in terms of output and trying to dive into this thing.
14:55
I mean, your, your prolificness with respect to the, the book.
15:01
And it's not just it's two books intro to Bitcoin, hope for a
15:04
better world, which is a great title.
15:07
And I think you published one last year, Future proof, the
15:11
intersection of Bitcoin and longevity.
15:13
And I was just watching the trailer just before we got on
15:16
air. But the meetups, the mining, the
15:21
running of the nodes, the lightning node, like running a
15:23
lightning node, like that's not, that's not for the faint of
15:26
heart, you know, or, or like it it you, I mean, it probably
15:33
would be fair to say that you you got reasonably obsessed
15:37
with, with this thing. 100%. Yeah.
15:40
I would just like to pivot back briefly and apologize.
15:45
Well, I'm not personally apologizing, but let's just say
15:49
on behalf of of Australia more generally, we like our
15:55
eucalyptus trees. And I know you guys don't
16:00
because because of those of those fires.
16:03
And they're just incendiary. They, they, they tend to make
16:07
things a heck of a lot worse. In 2020, actually, I remember
16:10
just before all of that COVID nonsense, the half the country
16:16
in Australia was on fire, the East Coast.
16:18
That's right. Yeah.
16:19
And I was in the one she ran the time as well.
16:22
And there weren't a lot of 2020 vintages made that year.
16:28
But I do have a couple of bottles for some brave souls
16:31
that that released some wine that year, some red wine too,
16:36
and that enjoy a. Little smoky flavour, but
16:38
they're wine. There's one called burnt.
16:40
It's like deliberately I could play on it and I can they they
16:44
bottled it called burnt and it's it's I've still I think I've
16:50
still got a bottle. But when I opened at the time,
16:52
it was actually it was interesting.
16:54
It wasn't pleasant, like it wasn't like ethereal, you know,
16:59
but it was yeah, it was, it was OK.
17:02
But yeah, sorry about those eucalyptus trees making their
17:06
way to California making everything horrific when the
17:10
state it's actually. Been pretty good since 2020.
17:13
They've really upped their firepower so we it hasn't been
17:16
bad since then really. Well, I mean, let go.
17:19
We'll go back briefly because, you know, you've, when you
17:22
discovered Bitcoin in 2017, you've, you said something about
17:27
like, Oh yeah, separating money from state.
17:29
Cool, let's go. So there's like, I'm keen to
17:33
know some of that back story, Like why would that click so
17:37
much? And, and this comes off the back
17:39
of the, one of the major reasons that those California bushfires
17:43
and even the ones that we had here in Australia was so bad is
17:46
because such poor forest management are leading up to it.
17:50
There's so much fuel on the ground and because they hadn't
17:53
backburned in like years and so there was so much litter.
17:57
And I can't speak for California, but I'm almost
17:59
certain that would be a, a major contributing factor.
18:03
So but basically government ineptitude and and then that
18:09
just compounds and makes the whole situation that much worse.
18:14
And then of course, people like yourself, like they've got a
18:16
whole year booked out. And then it's like, oh, no,
18:19
actually, you know, COVID, we're going to react this way fires.
18:23
We're going to read like we're not going to.
18:25
It's just like as an individual, you're just chasing your tail.
18:30
As you said, you got so despondent.
18:33
Yeah. And like, yeah, how is anyone,
18:35
honestly, even if they haven't discovered Bitcoin or has, how
18:39
are you supposed to like, do anything in the world with a
18:43
reasonably long time horizon? It's, it's that rat race, it's
18:47
that hamster wheel, like you just you can't get off like it
18:49
doesn't matter how hard you work, like you will never get
18:52
ahead. And I think that's our
18:55
generation too of just like we were dealt a really crappy hand
18:59
and you know, everything with inflation and housing prices and
19:03
like things are just not attainable.
19:07
So without opting out, without, you know, finding Bitcoin, I
19:11
don't know how people are doing it.
19:14
Yeah, I've got no idea. I I really don't like and I and
19:17
I see it day-to-day, you know, the black pill abounds,
19:21
particularly over on Twitter, which I try not to go on anymore
19:25
because it's just not great for your mental health.
19:29
But yeah, like, I, I have no idea how people managed to duck
19:34
and weave this thing. You know, it's, it's, it's not.
19:39
Bitcoin doesn't announce itself. It reveals itself not in the
19:42
moment you buy, but in the moment you stop thinking of it
19:45
as a trade, start sensing it as a discovery.
19:49
This episode is supported by Hard Block, an Australian
19:52
Bitcoin exchange built for people finding Bitcoin in their
19:55
own time, without pressure, without performance, without
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noise. Hard Block keeps the mechanics
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And if you're still listening more than buying, there's a
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quiet place to learn over at learn.hardblock.com dot AU.
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If you've been listening to this pod for a while, you already
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know Bitcoin is something you discover.
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Hard Block helps you do it honestly.
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Use code Discovering Bitcoin all one word for $10 worth of free
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hardblock.com dot AU. So that thing that resonated
20:35
though, the whole separating money from state peer-to-peer
20:38
electronic cash that had a resonance early on, why?
20:45
I think I've always, you know, wanted to live a little on the
20:50
outside of things like I've my life growing up, it's very
20:54
structured and there was a lot of rules and you can do this and
20:57
you can't do that. And you know, I'm, I, I grew up
21:00
in, in Appalachia, in Ohio, eastern Ohio.
21:03
And I don't know, it was very much like a world of fear.
21:08
It was a world of rules. And like, you know, you're going
21:12
to church multiple days a week and you know, you're supposed to
21:15
get married right after high school and have a bunch of
21:17
babies and never leave the town you grew up in.
21:19
And like, you know, the world is scary.
21:21
Stay here. And I just, I always wanted to
21:25
rebel against that. I was wanted out.
21:27
I was wanted to ask a bunch of questions that no one liked to
21:31
answer. I was asked why I.
21:33
Was that troublemaker? You're the curious one, Black.
21:36
Sheep. Yeah.
21:37
And I and I love learning. And I think that's what it comes
21:39
down to is I just. I wanted to learn.
21:42
I wanted to know more. I I thought there was more than
21:46
that. And yeah, I think that's what it
21:50
what it came down to. That's the thing I wanted out.
21:53
Yeah, that rebellious. It's not even rebellious though,
21:58
really, when you think about it. It's rebellious within the
22:00
context of of which from which you came from.
22:02
But ultimately it's just being curious.
22:05
And because it's not being addressed satiated back home,
22:10
you know you go find it elsewhere, particularly if
22:12
you're wilful and driven enough. I think also like being
22:17
adaptable and being able to unlearn things quickly that are
22:22
false, Like I, I have that ability.
22:25
I think Bitcoin made it even better.
22:26
But you know, as soon as I saw like, oh, there's this
22:30
peer-to-peer whole other system that exists outside of our, you
22:33
know, messed up system. Like let's do this.
22:36
Like it's instantly clicked for me of like the systems never
22:39
work for me and I I know that it's broken, but I don't know
22:43
why, but let's like explore this other alternative.
22:47
And I just, I love technology too, and I think that might have
22:50
been part of it, like the tech side of it.
22:52
So. There's a brilliant quote by
22:55
George Bernard Shaw which I used to post above my desk back when
23:00
I was at uni and it was the reasonable man adapts himself to
23:04
the world, The unreasonable 1 persists in trying to adapt the
23:07
world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends
23:10
on the unreasonable man and I. Love that, it's great.
23:15
Yeah, because it's the only way shit gets done.
23:19
You just have to get it be unreasonable.
23:20
Bitcoin is, is for all intents and purposes an unreasonable
23:24
technology for the like the wider context of of the Fiat
23:29
frame that we have grown up in. And yet it is the most
23:34
reasonable thing ever. And the world must start, must
23:39
start to adapt to it. And otherwise we'll just, we'll
23:43
degenerate. We'll have more, you know,
23:47
excuses get made. And you know, Oh yeah, we, you
23:50
know, we didn't get, we didn't, we cut the budgets for the, for
23:53
the guys that are supposed to go out and do the back burning and,
23:55
and, and sort that out. But so we haven't done that over
23:58
the last few years. Oops.
23:59
Now we have like, these giant wildfighters that are destroying
24:03
like, people's lives. Like quite literally.
24:06
We're not, we're not proactive. We're we, we react to
24:09
everything. And that's the same for our.
24:11
Political. System, our financial system,
24:12
our healthcare system, we're very reactive as humans.
24:16
Reactive and not accountable. Like the people that are making
24:22
those sorts of decisions, they're probably long gone.
24:25
You know, they're elected in, they're elected out, whatever.
24:28
And so there's no accountability, there's no
24:30
consequence. And, and, and it's, it's
24:33
completely nuts that once you realise that, like, you just
24:40
think what, what like you can just, you can just change the
24:43
rules. Like you guys can change rules.
24:45
I remember being at a, we have this thing called a Bush bash
24:48
here in Australia. And the, we had this guy who was
24:53
like a tax lawyer and there's all these plebs asking him
24:56
questions about what if we do this, what if we do that, blah,
24:59
blah, blah. And his ultimate answer was, you
25:01
know, well, yeah, ultimately what will happen is the tax
25:06
office will go back to the Treasury, and they'll have a
25:08
whinge, and they'll appeal to the Treasury to, like, rewrite
25:12
some laws or something, and then they'll just change it anyway.
25:15
So even if for the most part, you can do that thing, and I had
25:21
this thought yesterday, like it's hard to comprehend.
25:27
I suppose this is an Oster. Actually, I'll just read it.
25:29
It's hard to comprehend that the map.
25:30
I sound like Alex Pesky now. Jesus.
25:32
Sorry. It's no disrespect.
25:36
I've had it like, fun Episode 100.
25:38
You should listen to it. It's great.
25:40
It's hard to comprehend that the map you have been operating from
25:42
is drawn up by people with every incentive to redraw the terrain
25:46
beneath it over and over again to suit themselves.
25:50
Like that's the world we live in.
25:51
And, and yeah, you once you realize that like, oh, these,
25:57
these fuckers can just rewrite the map to their whim and we all
26:02
have to kind of readapt to that. We, we have to cut our plans
26:05
short. Like you've got 12 months worth
26:07
of bookings. They all go up in smoke,
26:10
literally. And you know, metaphorically
26:13
with the COVID stuff. And then what?
26:15
You have to just reorient your life again, like your entire
26:17
business is and you're talking about wine here as well.
26:22
These are these are vineyards which are minimum, you know,
26:26
30-40 year projects that that these people are kind of working
26:31
on, you know, and and and then some.
26:34
And that should be, you know, one of the more low time
26:38
preference assured businesses to kind of being obviously the
26:43
weather. You can't control that and all
26:45
the rest of it. But you know what I'm saying?
26:47
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's curious. So then Bitcoin kind of just
26:51
obviously it it, it snagged you and I incepted a a sense of hope
26:57
back into the hopelessness you were feeling.
27:00
Yeah, yeah, I think. I mean, I was always looking for
27:04
hope I guess too, and didn't find it until Bitcoin.
27:09
Like I, I wanted there to be a hopeful future.
27:11
I wanted, you know, our future to be better than our past.
27:15
And there was just nothing. It just, it seemed like life was
27:18
getting worse and worse as we got older.
27:20
You know, it started in 2008 basically.
27:23
And it just, I, you just you couldn't get ahead.
27:28
You couldn't build for anything. So yeah, I mean, Bitcoin was
27:32
hope. It was, it was the promise of a
27:36
more fair system and you know it, and for the world too, I
27:44
mean, the, the financial independence and the human
27:46
rights aspects of Bitcoin fascinate me.
27:49
I think, you know, there's so many people in the world that
27:53
don't have access to a bank account.
27:55
Even so I don't know, it just it, it was very hopeful.
27:59
It was very futuristic and it was a world that I wanted to
28:02
live in and be a part of. You know, it's like last war,
28:06
like Bitcoin incentivizes last war.
28:08
You can't print your way out of things.
28:12
Yeah, it was. It was.
28:13
Hope there is as easy as that sounds.
28:17
It, well, it comes a lot, it comes up a lot on the part.
28:20
And I am always cautious of using that word just because
28:25
maybe that my cynicism hasn't been completely eroded because
28:30
as you say, like, I mean, to be honest, growing up in the 90s
28:36
and then sort of peeking around the early 2000s, I had this joke
28:41
like the 2000 VMASMTVVMAS is one of like the peak, it's peak
28:47
civilization. Like all, all the people are
28:49
there. It's kind of got rugged recently
28:52
because of the whole Epstein thing.
28:54
And I'm just start to realize like, Oh yeah, my entire, my
28:56
entire youth was basically funded by the CIA, which is kind
29:00
of fucked up. But I try and put those dark
29:03
thoughts aside and just concentrate on the way the music
29:07
makes me feel. Let's just cope.
29:10
Cope. But yeah, like, yeah, you
29:14
growing up around then and then, OK, cool.
29:17
Now it's time to get out into the world and do the thing and,
29:21
and and pursue whatever. And as a, as a cinematographer
29:26
or, you know, as a film maker and as a, as an author,
29:30
obviously a person that is interested in these more
29:33
creative pursuits, the world kind of fucking hates creative
29:37
people. Let's be honest.
29:38
Like, yeah, you know, if, if you're good at digging holes or,
29:43
or in Australia's case, certainly digging holes or, or
29:48
selling houses, oh, you're golden, baby.
29:52
Like, you can, you can, you know, do all the things, but if
29:55
you, if you have sort of like a creative bone in your body, it's
30:00
going to be a little difficult for a minute there, you know?
30:04
Yeah, I don't know. I'm just whinging.
30:07
It's probably too early in the morning to have a whinge like
30:10
this. I'm sorry.
30:12
Yeah, it's 5:00 AM your time, right?
30:14
It's noon my time. So I'm talking to you from the
30:16
past right now. I love that you are, you are,
30:18
and I can tell you Bitcoin is performing quite well, but it's
30:21
not it's not over. It's it's not back up to all
30:25
time highs. So, you know, don't get your
30:28
hopes up too much. We're pumping on our call.
30:31
I love it. It's very good.
30:34
All right, I want to ask that question, but I'm going to park
30:38
it for a minute. I want to talk a little bit
30:39
about, well, actually, no, fuck it, my part, I'll just ask it.
30:45
How has discovering Bitcoin changed you?
30:50
Yes. And it's going to sound cliche,
30:53
but it has lowered my time preference.
30:55
I know everyone says that, and I wrote a book about that as well,
30:58
but I am, you know, when I first really understood Bitcoin, I
31:05
lived as cheaply as possible so that I could stack as much
31:09
Bitcoin as possible because I knew that the sacrifice would be
31:13
worth it. And it was, for sure.
31:15
But it changes. It changes what you need, you
31:22
know, all the extra, you know, fancy whatever stuff that was in
31:27
my life. I was like, I don't need that.
31:28
I don't need that. What do I need to survive?
31:29
Let's get my bills as low as possible.
31:31
Let's cut this. Let's stack as much Bitcoin as
31:34
we can. And the deeper I got into
31:36
Bitcoin, the the more aggressive that became.
31:40
But I I knew that by sacrificing my time and energy now, it would
31:47
give me my time and energy back and then some in the future.
31:51
And that was never something that I thought about before
31:55
because, you know, things cost more money as time goes on.
31:58
So if you save your money today, like that's going to buy less in
32:02
the future. So why not spend your money now?
32:05
Have fun now. Do the thing you want to do now
32:07
and then, you know, figure it out later on.
32:09
Work until you're 8090 years old.
32:12
So yeah, I mean, it just, it lowered my time preference.
32:14
It made me think about the future more.
32:18
It made me very optimistic. It made me able to kind of opt
32:25
out of the outrage of the day and kind of focus on the mission
32:30
of, you know, fixing the money, fixing the world.
32:33
I don't know, it just, it gave me more purpose.
32:37
It gave me a mission. It gave me something that I was
32:39
really excited about. So yeah.
32:44
It's crazy that it can do that really, when you think about it
32:48
like we are on a call right now because we happen to really
32:54
enjoy the same money. Yeah, it's insane.
32:59
You know what I mean? But it's it, it, it has driven a
33:02
lot of people to do like incredible things, You know,
33:08
whether it is, yeah, like, I don't know, start a podcast,
33:12
write a book, write 2 books, you know, all of these things, write
33:16
these incredible articles and give away this knowledge for
33:19
free. Like on your website, you've got
33:23
the Bitcoin knowledge section and you've got all these repos
33:26
from, you know, the bullish base case for Bitcoin.
33:30
And gradually then suddenly all these classic works that really
33:35
anyone sort of entering the space ought to, you know,
33:38
acquaint themselves with. And, and it's just no one's I,
33:44
I, I dare say no one has paid you to do this.
33:47
You've just taken it up yourself and been driven by by from some
33:54
reason, like it goes on too. You've got exchanges listed
33:57
there, hardware like it's bananas.
34:00
And I guess you just do it because you want to and you're
34:03
passionate. Yeah, and I want to help as many
34:07
people as possible. I know that not everyone
34:11
understands it out of, you know, a high level or and will never
34:14
understand it at a high level, but I want to be that person to
34:16
help them, to help guide them on their journey.
34:19
And I think that comes from hosting the meet up and stuff
34:22
too. I just I've seen every every
34:25
aspect of you know, as we know, people get into Bitcoin from
34:30
their own channels, whether it's human rights or mining or the
34:34
financial Bros or whatever. Like there's everyone has to
34:38
find their own Ave. into Bitcoin and what makes them interested
34:41
in it and navigating all of it can be confusing.
34:45
So I wanted to post, you know, a Bitcoin knowledge like page
34:51
where people can go and click on what's interests them and learn
34:54
more about, you know, self custody and best practices and
34:58
everything else. So can I can I tell the story of
35:01
how I wrote my first book? Please.
35:03
Because OK, so I'm, I'm not a writer and it was 2024 and I
35:09
was, it was the, the Bitcoin having and the Bitcoin having
35:14
like you never know when it's going to fall.
35:16
You kind of, you know, it's based on the block, right?
35:18
So you don't really know until maybe the day before.
35:22
So like, you know, watching the Bitcoin blocks roll in, it
35:26
looked like it was going to fall on 4/20 and it was 420 was a
35:31
Saturday. And I was like, this is too
35:33
perfect. Like I'm going to host a a bar
35:36
crawl, like a Bitcoin having bar crawl because the town I live
35:39
in, it's very walkable. You can just, you know, walk to
35:41
15 different bars if you want to.
35:44
So I was like, OK, 420, let's do this Bitcoin having bar crawl.
35:48
And I was like, OK, so on a bar crawl, I don't know how many
35:51
you've been on in your day, but when you go bar to bar you, you
35:54
tend to pick people up, right? Like they're like, oh, let me
35:57
join your group. Like where's the next bar?
35:59
Let's go. And I was like, OK, this is a
36:01
Bitcoin bar crawl. I want to have something to kind
36:03
of hand out to people. Like I want something short,
36:06
something simple that anyone can read that just says like what
36:10
Bitcoin is, what's great about it, What like all these
36:13
important aspects of Bitcoin. And I was like, I'm going to
36:16
find I'm going to find this book.
36:17
So I bought every Bitcoin book I could find, every introductory
36:22
book. And I just, I couldn't find
36:24
something that covered everything I thought was
36:27
important and something that worked for anyone.
36:31
Like all these books, you know, they didn't cover the Lightning
36:33
network, they didn't cover mining for heat or stranded
36:36
energy or human rights or financial independence OR like
36:39
just all these aspects of Bitcoin that I thought were
36:41
really cool. So I was like, screw it, I'm
36:43
just going to write 1. Like let's do this.
36:45
So I went from having the idea to hitting publish within 30
36:50
days like I did. I did nothing but write for
36:53
those, you know, 1st 25 days or whatever.
36:56
And I, I, it was 100 pages. It's basically like a huge
37:00
pamphlet. And I, I started each chapter
37:03
with FUD. So I addressed all the FUD I'd
37:06
heard over the years, like the main, you know, the government's
37:09
going to ban Bitcoin or Bitcoin uses too much energy, that kind
37:12
of stuff. And I just, yeah, I wrote it and
37:15
I, I actually missed the, the bar crawl by like a week.
37:17
Like the book on Amazon didn't come out.
37:19
But anyway, the the purpose of it was to just have something to
37:23
hand to people. And I wrote it in a way that
37:27
like my mom could understand, very simplistic, non tech.
37:31
And yeah, it's it's a great resource to hand to people.
37:34
I have definitely given away more than I've sold.
37:37
But yeah, it was just something that I thought there was a need
37:41
for and I needed to write. And then the second book was
37:44
more for fun. It was something I wanted to
37:46
write the next year. But yeah, that first one was
37:49
it's definitely orange. Told a lot of people, or so I've
37:52
been told. So.
37:53
You got the bug. It was.
37:55
It's a crazy process. Writing is insane, especially
37:58
the way I did it. I've just, you know, it's an all
38:02
consuming. It's an all consuming effort.
38:05
Yeah. But anyway, it was fun.
38:09
I don't know if I'll do it again.
38:10
I need to have something that I'm very passionate about to
38:13
write again. But yeah, I basically kiss my
38:16
life goodbye when I start writing because I don't stop.
38:21
Is the the drive to create something tangible wrapped up in
38:26
all of this? I think so, yeah.
38:29
You know, when you you do a shoot or something and you have
38:34
the footage there and you edit it all up and then it's finally
38:36
complete and you present it and like, there it is.
38:40
I can see it. I've created this thing.
38:43
I think so, yeah. Adding value to the world is is
38:47
a cool thing. I feel like a lot of people
38:49
don't get to do that in their jobs or don't feel like they get
38:52
to do that. Yeah, yeah.
38:57
There are very few avenues, particularly nowadays where you
39:01
can, you know, produce something tangible.
39:04
There's a lot of like working in rather than working on
39:07
something. Well, spreadsheets.
39:09
Oh my gosh, one of my favorite memes is like all this footage
39:15
of like wild mountains and valleys and streams and, you
39:20
know, all of this stuff. And, and then the the meme under
39:24
the caption underneath is like, you know, man, saw this and
39:27
decided to invent Microsoft Excel.
39:30
Oh. My God.
39:32
You know. Kill me now, yeah.
39:35
Yeah, it's it's bananas. But so this this drive to just
39:41
give away this knowledge, create this, I mean 30 days I still I'm
39:45
kind of my ghast is flabbered at that.
39:47
I don't recommend doing that. That wasn't an ideal.
39:51
It wasn't good it. Wasn't it wasn't good?
39:54
No, not recommended. I forgot.
39:56
To eat like my husband was like I made you food.
39:59
Like please take a 5 minute break and eat this food like he
40:02
kept me alive. No time, no time.
40:05
Yeah. Yeah, you're in a flow state.
40:07
That's good, yeah. He actually helped me with a
40:10
book. He helped do some of the the
40:11
charts and stuff, which was awesome.
40:13
So it was, yeah, it was a collaboration.
40:16
Nice team effort. The Bitcoin bark roll is a
40:20
cracking idea I've I've kind of not really thought of.
40:22
That it was hopping like people came from like hours away and it
40:26
was, it was very successful. People had a good time, so it
40:30
was fun. Bitcoin and bars it.
40:32
It it works, you know it works. Yeah, maybe the next having I'll
40:36
I'll do another one. We'll see.
40:40
Yeah, I mean, why not the the whole halving thing?
40:43
I remember that quite well back in 2024.
40:46
I I think it was a Saturday here in Australia, pretty sure, yeah.
40:52
Because it actually happened like that Friday night here.
40:55
Yeah, because there was the Bitcoin magazine guys was live
41:00
streaming and I had to convince my household to to put it on and
41:08
they didn't get it. That's like what my my well, my
41:13
kids too young to get it, you know, and my wife just didn't.
41:16
She was like, yeah, cool nerd things got it.
41:18
That's fine. You can you can do that.
41:20
That's that's cool. That's why it's important to go
41:23
to meet ups to find your people because it can be kind of
41:26
disheartening, you know, talking to normies all day and not, you
41:30
know, with like there's not people that get Bitcoin.
41:35
So yeah, going to meet ups there.
41:37
It's very helpful to find your people.
41:40
Yeah. Like what's that secret sauce
41:42
when you you, you're constantly trying to find the frame.
41:45
Like what? What is that thing that I can
41:47
say that will help frame this thing up?
41:50
Yeah. And you're constantly like, why
41:51
is no one talking about Bitcoin? Why is no one talking about
41:53
Bitcoin like and you're trying to think of ways to insert it
41:57
into conversations and you know, everything they're talking about
42:01
just seems pointless to you. And yeah, Bitcoin kind of ruins
42:04
you a little bit. It ruins you for.
42:06
It tends to be Charlie Day. It's absolutely true.
42:10
You become a mad person. And yeah, if you, if you're not
42:13
mindful enough, you can, you can actually piss off quite a lot of
42:17
people because they're like, Oh yeah, cool.
42:19
Comes the big kind person. Great, dude.
42:23
What about like so in in you're working quite closely with wine
42:27
growers there in wine country. Have you had much luck with
42:31
those guys? Because I've always thought, you
42:34
know, agriculture by definition is low time preference.
42:37
Wine growing in particular is like low time preference and you
42:44
know, you spend the best part of a year, 18 months even working
42:48
towards this one to two, three-week period depending on
42:54
obviously the varieties to to bring in all of your work and
42:58
get it across the line. And surprisingly, I don't know I
43:03
I used to not have very much luck I've.
43:07
Had zero luck, absolutely zero luck.
43:10
And I think, I mean, a big piece of that, I think here is that
43:14
the wine industry, the owners skew much older, like older
43:18
boomers. And, you know, they're just old
43:21
school. They're not trying to learn
43:23
something new. They don't care.
43:24
Those systems always work for them.
43:27
Yeah, I've had zero luck. That and they've got assets
43:33
already. Yes, yeah.
43:35
And so the incentive isn't young wine makers is It's interesting
43:39
though, because I used to hang out with a few younger wine
43:41
makers and, and they used to just wonder like, how the hell
43:45
am I going to like, you know, start up my own thing?
43:49
Yeah. You know, how am I going to
43:51
afford to buy a vineyard, let alone multiple holdings, A
43:55
salador and all of the other things that come come with that?
43:59
And, you know, the younger ones that came from the lineage that
44:03
was that was fine. You didn't really think about
44:05
that was those younger entrants that came maybe from outside.
44:10
Yeah, we used to. We used to have chats all the
44:12
time. And I, I used to say like, well,
44:14
it's pretty difficult, but you know, you could probably start
44:17
stacking some sats and might be in a slightly better position
44:21
than you are now in a few years time.
44:26
But yeah, it's it's a funny one, that whole low time preference.
44:29
You'd think that they would intuitively grok that, but yet
44:34
actually that's you know, that's not true.
44:35
I had one bit of luck with a person not even in Australia was
44:38
in Canada. I managed to orange builders guy
44:42
in Canada. Yeah, I think he sold that
44:46
vineyard now. But yeah, I remember he he
44:49
reached out to me and was like, I get it.
44:52
I get it now because I was I was visiting them at the end of 20.
44:55
What? Are they making like ice line up
44:57
there? That's not the not an ideal
44:59
climate up there. You.
45:01
You would be surprised. Yeah.
45:02
So cool. Oh man, it's skipping my brain
45:07
now. Okanogan in BC, yeah, like what?
45:13
Their whole wine system is so fucked up.
45:15
Like they, they find it, they can't even export to other
45:18
states or counties or whatever the hell they call them
45:21
provinces, let alone outside of the country itself.
45:26
It's incredibly communistic, actually, up there with respect
45:30
to the wine. But you know, they do grow table
45:34
wines, dry whites and Reds in Okanogan, and it's stunning up
45:41
there. I really like it.
45:42
I wanted to move up there at one point and then the whole world
45:45
turned to shit. Yeah.
45:48
Anyway, so that I. Think a lot of people like I
45:50
think unfortunately, people will have to have, they'll have to
45:54
hit their pain point before they become interested in Bitcoin or
45:58
learning about Bitcoin, right. Like I've, I've noticed that too
46:02
over the years is unless someone is, is in pain from something
46:06
that has happened, like they're not why, why learn something
46:10
new? The system works for you or you
46:12
think it works for you. So, and that's why people in
46:16
third world, third world countries tend to pick it up
46:18
very quickly. They're like, Oh yeah, like my
46:21
hyperinflation currency that, you know, I can't hold on to it
46:25
for more than a month before I, you know, can't buy bread with
46:27
it. Like, it's so, I don't know, we
46:30
just, we're so spoiled in this part of the world.
46:33
And I, you know, I think people are starting to wake up to it,
46:37
especially with our higher inflation costs.
46:39
But we haven't hit that pain point for a lot of people yet.
46:43
No, I didn't think so. I think that's, that's a long
46:45
ways off, but you're right. Like over in, in in countries
46:51
that don't have that Western optimism.
46:54
Yeah, it's, it's super simple. You download an app and then all
46:57
of a sudden you have money and you don't have to fill out any
47:00
forms paperwork, you have to go see someone, don't have to get
47:04
our ID driver's licenses, things like this.
47:06
You have to KYC yourself. Literally just download a
47:09
lightning wallet and bang. I mean, the coolest thing about
47:12
like something like Noster is that you can just download one
47:15
of the clients and people could just start literally zapping you
47:20
for just being there. You can say, Hey, I'm, I'm I
47:24
found noster. I'm here and everyone gets
47:26
excited and they're like, hey, have some SAT.
47:30
It's it's very pleasant. Yeah.
47:33
A very pleasant way to be. Have you made any films about
47:37
Bitcoin? Not really.
47:42
I did like this little AI video for an article that I wrote with
47:47
Bitcoin. But no, I haven't really not
47:50
really found like what to do yet for a Bitcoin film.
47:56
I think ideally I would like to go and, like, tell people's
47:58
stories or just, you know, find really cool projects across the
48:01
world and go and meet interesting people and tell
48:04
their story. But that requires, you know,
48:07
some funding and everything else.
48:09
So yeah, we'll see. Maybe one day.
48:12
One day that'll be cool. I was going to.
48:15
I had this question in mind while you were just talking to
48:17
Sen about Bitcoin films. And now it's completely lost on
48:23
me. I've always found Bitcoin films
48:25
actually to be a little. I mean, you have to kind of.
48:28
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
48:31
Yeah, even though every. Time I see one I'm like I need
48:33
to go make a better one. This is so painful but I never
48:36
have to happen yet so. It's kind of like Bitcoin music
48:41
when when you know people write, you know, like literal music
48:46
about Bitcoin and and sometimes it's done with Suno or something
48:50
like that. One of those AI generated
48:51
things, which is a lot slightly more admissible because you
48:55
know, but I just don't know who's going to be listening to
49:01
Bitcoin specific song and in the hopes that it's going to orange
49:05
pull someone. I could be wrong.
49:08
The world is full of like full of amazing human beings, 8
49:11
billion of us. And just because I don't like
49:14
something doesn't mean someone else does.
49:16
I get that quick break just to say if you're enjoying the show
49:22
and digging what you hear, please consider supporting
49:25
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49:28
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49:54
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49:58
thank you for your support. Yeah.
50:03
Has AI kind of wrecked everything for you or is it
50:07
enhanced you? I actually, I take the
50:11
optimistic approach to AII, think it's awesome.
50:14
I think creation is now unlimited.
50:18
You know, I've always been limited in what is possible to
50:21
make and now with AI, it's like, if I can think it, I can make it
50:25
for the most part. And I, I love that yes, I think
50:30
people are using it in really dumb ways and especially like
50:34
for, for wine marketing or travel marketing, like people
50:37
are just posting crap and flop and it's really painful to see.
50:41
But I think when used appropriately, it's amazing.
50:46
And I mean, I've, I've made a couple like AI, like for my book
50:48
trailer, like half of that is AI.
50:51
And you know, I've, I, I did it in a way where I like
50:53
incorporated my own images or my own footage and enhance them
50:57
with AI or change this with AI. And yeah, it's, it's awesome.
51:02
I love the the creationism aspect of it.
51:06
I was going to ask you about that, that future proof trailer.
51:10
It's some of it does look like AII guess, but then also not.
51:15
I guess that, yeah. It's like a combo, like I, I, I
51:18
molded things together to get what I wanted.
51:20
So a lot of it was my own footage, but a lot of it was
51:23
like, you know, like a photo brought to life or the scene
51:26
brought to life or I, I think in the, in my ex post, I talk about
51:32
like kind of how I made it. And I did a whole blog post
51:34
about it too. And yeah, there's like there's
51:37
some time lapses in there. And it's, it's, it's a very much
51:41
a multimedia project. So.
51:44
And I took, you know, all my video editing skills with that.
51:47
And, you know, I was in like 6 different programs creating that
51:50
thing. It was just pure creationism and
51:52
so fun. And, you know, I've always
51:54
wanted to do like, a movie trailer.
51:55
So I was like, I'm gonna make a book trailer, but unlike
51:59
anything else. Yeah, you kind of up, up the
52:02
ante there on the on the whole, like book launch thing.
52:07
Are those are those shots of the sort of incredible scenery of,
52:13
you know, the ice caps or the Aurora borealis.
52:16
That's all real. That's you.
52:18
Yeah, all for my travels. Yeah, I, I love the Arctic.
52:21
I travel there a lot to shoot the Northern Lights.
52:23
And I, I very much enjoy places where humans don't live.
52:28
I think humans tend to ruin things.
52:30
And I love the isolation. I love the extreme weather.
52:34
I think more the more extreme the weather and the climate, the
52:37
better the shots you can get, the better the light.
52:41
You know, the crazier the conditions.
52:42
It's, you know, the, the more you struggle, the more it's
52:46
worth it in the ends. And people don't go to those
52:48
places for a reason. And I, I love that.
52:51
And I will continue to, you know, go to the Arctic and
52:55
hopefully it stays that way. People stay away from it.
52:57
But yeah, I love you. Just you feel like an explorer,
53:01
you know, and you go to these places and you don't see humans
53:04
for days on end. Like, it's kind of magical.
53:07
The vastness. I like people, but not all the
53:09
time. Yeah, yeah.
53:11
Quiet time is underrated, this much is true, because you need
53:16
that time to think and process and, you know, brains on fire
53:21
half the time with all these different thoughts and ideas and
53:25
things you want to do, which, you know, is probably not great,
53:32
to be honest. But when you get to those quiet
53:36
places, it's much easier to still do your mind in that
53:40
trailer. Yeah, you've got inflation is
53:44
time theft, which you obviously I intuited that.
53:48
But when you when I read it, I was like, oh, that's a great
53:50
quote. Did you come up with it?
53:55
I feel like I didn't. I feel like I had heard it
53:57
somewhere before, but maybe, I don't know.
54:00
I'm sure I was not the first one to come up with that.
54:03
But I do talk about time a lot in my book.
54:06
That's the theme throughout Preserving one's time and
54:09
energy. And this is the the future proof
54:12
book. Yeah.
54:13
Future What compelled you to write that?
54:16
I, I kind of went down like the health and longevity rabbit hole
54:20
after Bitcoin. I had some, my own health issues
54:24
and I just, you know, the, the health and longevity rabbit hole
54:27
is not quite as steep as the Bitcoin rabbit hole.
54:29
Unfortunately. I, you know, kind of stopped
54:31
that last year. But I, I learned and like enough
54:35
and got deep into it enough that I was like, there are so many
54:38
crossovers between, you know, these life lessons I learned
54:41
from Bitcoin and how health works, like lowering your time
54:46
preference and going back down to basics.
54:49
And, you know, our healthcare system is so broken, very
54:56
similar to our economic, political, financial systems.
55:00
And, you know, we're reactive again, we're not proactive.
55:05
It's about, you know, flipping the switch and taking control of
55:08
your, of your life, your health, your wealth, you know, you, you
55:13
know, become sovereign. You take control of your money.
55:17
Like, why not take control of your body as well?
55:20
And, you know, say no to things. And hey, I'm not just following
55:24
the script because this is how things have always been done.
55:27
Let's question things like why, why are we putting up with us?
55:31
I guess that's why I wrote the book and it has an AI crossover.
55:35
I talk about AIA Ton in the book because I think AI is kind of
55:38
our way to start building something in parallel to our
55:44
current health system. So I explore a lot of those
55:47
ideas in the book as well. So it's not just a Bitcoin book,
55:49
but I generally talk about Bitcoin a lot throughout it,
55:52
whereas my first book was just Bitcoin.
55:56
With the AI thing do, can you expand a little bit on that?
56:00
Like, do you mean having a sort of like a personal physician?
56:05
Yeah, computer. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's
56:08
part of it. But a lot of it is like, you
56:10
know, I'm, I'm a big data person and we, we can, we can collect
56:15
so much data on ourselves between, you know, just wearing
56:18
like a, a wearable and, you know, going out and getting your
56:21
own like blood panel test and finding out your, all of your
56:25
biomarkers. And, you know, there's, there's
56:29
so much data that you can collect and you can put all that
56:32
data into AI and like figure your shit out that in, in a way
56:36
that a doctor would never even think about doing.
56:39
And you're for the first time, like smart enough with AI to be
56:42
able to question what that doctor, physician or the
56:46
healthcare system is telling you.
56:47
And to push back and be like, actually, there's, you know,
56:50
other ways to do things and probably better ways to do
56:53
things. Yeah, I think our healthcare
56:56
system is very much broken. And, you know, I, I hear this
57:02
all the time. Doctors, you know, oh, they
57:05
weren't taught that in school. They weren't taught that in
57:07
medical school. So, like, why would they know to
57:09
do that now? And it's like, why are we not
57:12
expecting more of doctors? Like, why aren't they?
57:14
Why aren't they required to continuously learn new things?
57:18
It's like if you weren't taught this in medical school 30 years
57:20
ago, I'm not even going to think about it.
57:22
So they, like you, should be required to keep learning.
57:25
Take qualifications for. That's what I have to.
57:27
Do and it doesn't happen, but I feel like with our data plus AI
57:31
like we can stay on top of things because our healthcare
57:34
system is not going to save us. It's a sick care system.
57:38
Yeah, it's, it's it's it's it's 100% that I get worried about
57:46
inputting my data into a. I feel that, yeah.
57:51
That like, if I did that, I would have to have a local LLM
57:54
running. Yeah, I just, I am not
57:57
interested in Mr. Altman or any of those other.
58:02
They're just weird dudes. Says there's an account on
58:04
Instagram. I hear you.
58:05
It's like I'm going to keep posting until I run out of weird
58:09
shit that AICAOCEOS stop saying. And he's just not running out of
58:15
content because they just say like the most random stuff that,
58:19
you know, is at worst, sorry, at best confusing and and at worst
58:24
kind of like evil. But yeah, I mean, you know,
58:29
it's, it's a great tool, no doubt.
58:33
But I wouldn't like, yeah, I, I would need everything to be open
58:37
sourced and run locally for, for me to put any of that type of
58:41
shit. So I'm putting myself as a
58:43
disadvantage, I guess. But it is what it is.
58:47
Yeah, I think, you know, for older people too, like, I mean,
58:50
I was helping a friend's mom. She was, you know, had all these
58:53
health issues and I was just like, and, you know, her doctors
58:57
were giving her all this conflicting information.
58:59
And I'm like, let me let me take all your stuff.
59:02
I mean, you know, I'm going to input you as a new patient into
59:05
this AI and just give it all the data and like just see what it
59:09
says. And it that helped her so much
59:11
like go back to her doctor and be like, what about this or why
59:14
aren't we trying this? Or do you think it could be
59:16
this? Like it just it gave her the
59:18
confidence and the knowledge to to go and prepared.
59:23
Like knowledge is power and we don't have that in health.
59:26
It flattens the the asymmetry because you're putting your
59:30
trust into this person who you presume is an expert in the
59:34
thing. And yeah, I mean, to be honest,
59:38
doctors, like they kind of shit the bed for me in 2020 pretty
59:42
hardcore. And like, I don't know, like any
59:47
of like I, I would need to get to know someone very, very well
59:52
before like I just, I just can't really trust them to be honest
59:57
with you. The vast majority of them really
59:59
fucked it up, and there's a lot. Of distrust out there.
1:00:03
Yeah, trying to trying to find that like even my, my family
1:00:08
doctor completely just wrecked like just like rug pulled, you
1:00:13
know, some 30 odd years of of, of work basically, you know,
1:00:20
with this one patient kind of thing down the drain.
1:00:24
Yeah, it's wild anyhow, yeah, it's definitely cool though.
1:00:28
Like that. It flattens everything out and
1:00:29
makes it a little bit more even. It's the same with Bitcoin.
1:00:31
The Bitcoin knowledge is out there.
1:00:34
If you want it, you can go find it and you don't even
1:00:39
necessarily have to have to pay for it other than your own time
1:00:44
and Ng. But like, yeah, there's no
1:00:46
excuse. And it's the same with this,
1:00:48
this other thing, this AI stuff. It just flattens that that
1:00:52
asymmetry out, which is which is fantastic.
1:00:55
Yeah, I mean, all it takes is a little bit of time and I think
1:00:58
people. So I wrote this tweet yesterday.
1:01:01
I'm going to pull what you did. I'm going.
1:01:02
To svetsky, you're going to do a Svetsky.
1:01:03
Nice, I'm. Going to do a svetsky.
1:01:05
I'm not alone, thank goodness. OK, so for as complex as Bitcoin
1:01:11
is, it really simplifies everything.
1:01:14
Doing a deep dive into Bitcoin means you start to understand
1:01:16
the root cause of so many issues in society.
1:01:19
Humans controlling the money of supply, the money printer
1:01:22
temptation no one in history has been able to resist.
1:01:25
We've built a world of systems. Systems of dysfunctional
1:01:29
complexity. Our financial system, our
1:01:31
healthcare system, our political system.
1:01:34
Too many moving parts, too many acronyms, too complex to
1:01:37
understand, too complex to question.
1:01:39
Bitcoin unlocks the complexity. It allows you to zoom out, to
1:01:43
opt out of the outrage of the day and focus on the mission.
1:01:46
100 hours can unlock everything. 100 hours can pull back the
1:01:50
curtain. And I think you know, like
1:01:53
Bitcoin seems so complicated to people and it's like it's, it's
1:01:56
really not. You just have to spend a little
1:01:59
bit of time and education is so easy now.
1:02:03
It's easy to find. There's amazing Bitcoin
1:02:05
educators out there. Like it just, it hurts me when
1:02:10
people won't take the time to just learn a little bit about
1:02:12
it. Totally because it the, the, the
1:02:15
lack, the will, it's it I think it's becomes from the fact that
1:02:19
you're inherently a curious person and you want to know
1:02:22
what's around that next bend, what's around that next corner.
1:02:26
And then when you meet up with people that aren't that and they
1:02:30
would just rather, you know, this is, I gotta admit, like
1:02:34
I'll speak for myself here. There is a certain twinge of
1:02:39
envy for people that are seemingly able to just be
1:02:44
comfortable being a passenger and, you know, have their entire
1:02:49
week dictated by the result of the sports ball on the weekend
1:02:55
and shuffle off to the office and do the thing and shuffle
1:02:59
home again and do the thing. And I don't know if that's
1:03:04
really true when it comes down to it, but there there's, yeah,
1:03:11
there is. It's kind of.
1:03:13
I don't understand that. I see it every day and I just
1:03:15
don't. I don't get it.
1:03:16
Yeah. Yeah, I, I can't, I, I can't
1:03:19
align to it and it and it and it's, you know, it has its own
1:03:22
toll. We had context on recently and
1:03:24
he was sort of describing a similar thing.
1:03:27
And you know, he's getting a little bummed out about about
1:03:30
that and how just having that creative or that kind of slight
1:03:36
disagreeableness and how it doesn't really align and cohere
1:03:41
with the expectations of a general workplace.
1:03:46
You know, it can make it difficult.
1:03:47
It can cause friction where the perhaps doesn't need to be.
1:03:52
But you know, I'm going to do a little otters thing here.
1:03:55
And I reckon Bitcoin is, is complex, but the framing is
1:04:03
complicated. Like people think it's
1:04:04
complicated and it's not as complex.
1:04:08
And I, I, I feel like there's an elegance to complexity rather
1:04:12
than like complicatedness is like a rude Goldberg machine,
1:04:15
the Rube Rube Goldberg machine where it's just like all these
1:04:19
different moving parts just to try and make a cup of tea or
1:04:21
whatever. I think that's a, that's a Tom
1:04:24
Woods quote, but he's referencing something else way
1:04:27
back when. Just, you know, well.
1:04:30
I think Bitcoin, yeah, it seems complicated because it's so new.
1:04:33
It's a whole different framing of your world view that it it
1:04:37
feels foreign to people, I think.
1:04:40
Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:04:41
And it. It questions the systems that
1:04:43
you have grown up trusting, and that's scary for people.
1:04:46
It definitely does that. And if you can't get over that
1:04:49
and come to come to that defragging and accept that,
1:04:55
yeah, you're going to, you're going to have a bad time.
1:04:58
It does require humility, effectively like a healthy dose
1:05:02
of curiosity and and humility. So to that end, what does What
1:05:08
do you wish more people knew about Bitcoin?
1:05:16
That's a good question. What?
1:05:20
So what immediately comes to mind is like at my meet up, I'll
1:05:24
have like a, a woman there and you know, it's, it's a mostly
1:05:27
male meet up. But if a woman comes and she
1:05:29
doesn't really understand Bitcoin, I explain the financial
1:05:34
independence aspect of Bitcoin and the human rights aspect of
1:05:37
Bitcoin and it clicks for her. I think, like I said before,
1:05:42
like finding that thing that clicks for that person in your
1:05:45
life is so important and there's so many different avenues that
1:05:49
you can approach it from. Yeah, I mean, I, there's so many
1:05:53
cool things about Bitcoin. I don't, I, I want people to
1:05:56
know everything about it, but I, I know that's not realistic.
1:06:00
So I think just finding what works for people in your life
1:06:03
and yeah, being patient. Patience, yeah, Underrated,
1:06:10
underrated. We kind of covered this a little
1:06:14
bit, but I do like to ask this as the last question.
1:06:18
What does Bitcoin mean to you? I mean, I feel like we covered
1:06:24
that, like hope, optimism, a better future, all the cliche
1:06:29
things. It means everything.
1:06:31
I mean, it's completely changed my life.
1:06:35
Again, We're talking about money on a podcast.
1:06:40
You woke up at 4:00 AM this morning to talk to me about, you
1:06:43
know, this magic Internet money, It connects us, binds us.
1:06:48
It's, I don't know, it's exciting.
1:06:52
It gets me out of bed every day. It gives me a purpose and a
1:06:54
mission. It's hope.
1:06:59
Beautiful. Yeah.
1:07:01
Aaron, thank you so much for spending some scarce time, fun
1:07:04
and energy telling us the tale of how you discovered Bitcoin.
1:07:07
Absolute pleasure having you on. Thanks for having me.