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Discovering Bitcoin with Jeff Swann · Discovering Bitcoin

0:00
If you're discovering Bitcoin in Australia, you don't need
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Words of the doors, the time to hesitate us through.
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Discovering. Jeff, what's going on, man?
1:15
Not a lot how you doing? Very good, Very, very good.
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You know, this is as close as this podcast will ever get to a
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repeat guest. Not to say that we've had you
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on, but we've certainly had your brother on episode 21.
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And yeah, as I said, this is about as close as we're going to
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get. So it's awesome to have you,
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man. That's good.
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It's good. It's good to be here.
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I hope. I hope my story we, I, I think I
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listen. I may have listened to that
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episode. I, I don't know.
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I, I've listened to him tell his story a number of times and I,
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I, I don't know if I, I can't remember.
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I can't, I can't figure out exactly which of us has some of
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the details right. I don't think it's like, I don't
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think they match perfectly in our stories because he, he, I
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don't know he, I, I just feel like one of us has got a couple
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things out of order and I'm not sure which it is, but you know,
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I don't know, people can listen to him, listen to me and see
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which sounds makes more sense. It's, it's some combination of
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the two. It's.
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Well, what we can do, because we have the technology now is we'll
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download the transcript of both episodes.
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We'll upload them to an LLM, an AI and we'll just get it to
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synthesize and say, give me the the top five like dot point
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summary of of this and what's the truth here?
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You know that that's kind of how the world is going, right?
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It's like, what is it like the is it Thomas Jefferson like made
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it hit wrote his own version of the Bible or something where he
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did something like that. He like took all of the, the
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gospel stories or whatever and like took the things out of them
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that all lined up and said it's we just have the, the Thomas
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Jefferson version of, of Guy and Jeff's.
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TJ not so as fired with just, you know, the the the word of
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the Lord. It's just no, I could do better.
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Yeah, fair enough. I mean, you know, like check
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your ego, but that's cool. How did you discover Bitcoin?
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So I, it's really like, so I majored in economics, right?
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And, and kind of focused on money and banking and, and was,
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you know, this was like happening.
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I was in school during the housing crisis.
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So I was really obsessed with like trying to understand, like,
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why is this happening? What's what's going on?
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And the education I was getting was pretty like, you know,
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pretty Keynesian. Yeah.
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And I mean, that's the, you know, and I'm paying a lot for
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it. But but I, I ended up like I
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graduated in December of O9 and I, I remember thinking, this is
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funny. Like I remember thinking like
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looking around and like, holy shit, all these morons that I
4:31
was just in class with are all economists now.
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I don't even like, what the hell does that even mean?
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Like, you know, it just, it just, I was like, oh, this is
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this whole thing just feels like some sort of weird scam.
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And then sometime after that, not not long after that, I,
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because I went from, I was basically some, some form of,
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you know, maybe conservative normie when I graduated and the
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middle of the summer in 2010, I was a full on anarchist.
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Like I, I fell down a economics and libertarian rabbit hole.
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And literally like the joke on the Internet, which actually, I
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don't know, I had not heard this joke until much later.
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But the joke on the Internet is, you know, you're, you're six
5:27
months away from being liberty and you know, everybody's like a
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six month rabbit hole away from being an anarchist or whatever.
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And, and it literally took about six months and I got into an
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argument somewhere along that in along that time with with a
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friend about the Fed. And this was a friend I'd gone
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to high school with and, and I did not let him think that he
6:00
won the argument. But in my mind, I'm like, I've
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got it. Like I was like clearly losing
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this argument and I was like saying, no, no, the feds, just
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the separation of power and whatever.
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Because I just, you know, I just taken all these banking classes
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and studied, you know, like the money in banking with classes.
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And this was like my favorite subject and how could I be so
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wrong on this? And so I spent like a whole week
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just examining this, that particular aspect of, you know,
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the Fed and that aspect of the topic and, and then sent him a
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message like a week or so later saying, dude, I want to thank
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you for arguing with me because you were right.
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And this shit's all corrupt. And he was like he was.
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Like I want my money back. He was like, whoa, that never
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happens. And we ended up hanging out and
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he actually became my roommate not long after that.
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So and me and at some point it was me and my brother and can't
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remember if Derek was there while we we had some different
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people cycle in and out of that, that house or that place, but
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there was usually three of us and it ended with me and my
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brother just just me and him. I don't know, I think Derek was
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only there for, I don't know, for part of the time that my
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brother wasn't there, but but he was actually, you know, like he
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was a kind of a, an important part of that is, is, you know,
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he was weird enough to have have, you know, unusual opinions
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about things and, and kind of pushed me in that direction.
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And then, and I just watched a ton of like Thomas Sowell and
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like Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman were great stepping
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stones. Like they were like really give
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you foundational economic concepts or they're so good with
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those things. And I still direct people toward
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like Thomas styles basic economics like that.
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If you want a book that just, you know, gives you a foundation
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that's that's really like ideal. And then and then that was that
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was not like they were not great on money.
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And so I sort of, you know, had all of this foundational stuff
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that was decent and and then, you know, my friend kind of
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pushed me in this like better direction with money and I found
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Tom Woods book meltdown, and that's a very short book.
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But if you lay that on top of, you know, say, I don't know,
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Thomas Styles book housing the housing boom and bust is also
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good. It just explains like how the
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government is like constantly doing things that are
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contradictory and kind of undercuts its own mission and or
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has, you know, that the Housing and Urban development,
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Department of Housing and Urban Development is doing these
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things that are really destructive.
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But The thing is, I think Sal is very much lost in the weeds and,
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you know, obviously not paying attention to the overarching,
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you know, monetary story that's driving everything And and
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Thomas, I mean, and Tom Woods really just like the short book
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called meltdown that just really covers, you know, how monetary
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policy is the driver and it's it's great.
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And so that was that was it like that pretty much that come
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combined with like AI think that was a do you remember that
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Stefan Molyneux video? Well, I don't know.
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I don't know if I'm the only one that like this was way back.
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So there was a Stefan Molyneux video, which I don't know, this
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may have been later. It was like you're the story of
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your freedom or the story of your slavery or something like
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that. And he just talks about like how
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governments are tax farms and and that framing was just, you
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know, like pretty mind blowing. I don't remember when the first
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version of that was ever post was posted, but yeah, that one,
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I remember that being kind of a a big deal too.
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So. But you're.
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You're actually. Like exposing yourself to all
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this new information, right? And having just come off the
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back of spending, I don't know, however long 234 years, you
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know, in college trying to become a professional economist
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and like, you know, understand this stuff.
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And then it's all just flipped on its head.
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Yeah, completely. And and and and the interesting
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thing here is like this is all pre Bitcoin.
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So you haven't even figured this thing.
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Like you haven't even seen this thing.
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You're just oh shit, something's up with the economy.
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Oh shit, the money's broken. Oh shit.
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You know, Yeah, but you're heading towards Goldberg
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territory where you're just going to be jaded for the next
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30-40 years. Right, right.
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Yeah. I mean, you know, gold, I, I
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don't know when I actually understood.
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I mean, it was definitely after Bitcoin that I understood the
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the problem with like the disc, like the reason that gold got us
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into this mess to begin with, right.
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But I, and I can't, you know, I was reading, I got started
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listening to, I started listening to a bunch of sort of
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like self help things. And I mean like Zig Ziglar and a
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bunch of like, you know, those sorts of things, like on the way
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to to and from class and like between classes and stuff.
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Like I had an iPod that was like loaded with this stuff.
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And, and sort of just got on this like, you know, like self
12:37
improvement kick toward the end of my like college.
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And, and so that like, sort of like, I just realized like, OK,
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I'm here, I'm paying for this. Like I need to make the most of
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it. And, and I would, I remember
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like asking questions in some of my classes, like I remember
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specifically the sociology class.
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And it's just like one of those required classes that, you know,
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like lots of people had to have. And, and like the professor, I
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can't remember what the question was.
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The professor asked some question and and I raised my
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hand and and like Nope, like nobody raised their hand.
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I was like, I raised my hand and answered the question and then
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he said OK, And then So what would be the argument that or
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whatever. And again, nobody raised their
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hand. And so I like I raised my hand
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and answered the question and and some guy I remember like
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some guy in the room was like, was he arguing with himself now?
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And I'm like, like, I just, I just remember thinking like
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Jesus Christ, like I don't know whether this person is not
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capable of this or like like, I just like, why are you here?
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Like I don't, you know, I just remember thinking like, what is
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this? Like it it through much of my
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college, I was very frustrated. And I mean, like, I'm not like,
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like I always was kind of the person, like I was not super
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dorky or nerdy or whatever. Like I would sit in the back of
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the classroom and, you know, like I didn't, I didn't like
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have this desire to be upfront, like, you know, kissing the
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teacher's ass or anything. But if I'm interested in
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something, I also like would go after class and talk to the
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teacher and you know, like I actually want to understand
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things. You're like a, a like a nerd
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that's going to answer every question, like Hermione Granger.
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But you're, you're you're curious and you'd like, like to
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have some answers to things. Yeah.
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I mean, school's a fucked up place when the most curious
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person gets a bad rap because they're asking are you, what are
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you wasting your time asking that question for?
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Or, you know, whatever. Yeah.
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And so, so like toward, toward the end of my schooling, I was
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taking it, you know, much more seriously in terms of just like,
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I'm there to figure this stuff out and, you know, whatever.
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And so I was actually reading Atlas Shrugged at one point.
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So I had I had found they did not teach us anything about
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Milton Friedman or Hayek or or any of, you know, Milton
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Friedman being the, the, you know, the Chicago School being
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the like store, more middle of the road person that they should
15:34
have taught us about. They didn't teach it right.
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They certainly didn't. They didn't teach us about him
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and they certainly didn't teach us about anybody that was, you
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know, better than Friedman. So, but I had already found him
15:45
a little bit toward the end, I think, because I was, I do
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remember that I was posting quotes from Milton Friedman.
15:55
I got just was really interested in, you know, he the people that
15:59
have good things to say. I was like collecting quotes
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like crazy at the time. And and I would post them on
16:04
Facebook And I had another friend say, yeah, if you mix the
16:08
Little Milton Friedman with a little Iran, you got, you know,
16:10
you got a pretty good, pretty serious mixture there.
16:13
And I was like, who the fuck is Iran?
16:15
And so I start, I read Atlas Shrugged and I was reading that
16:18
like between classes and then. And I think, but I think that
16:24
was like the last, I think it was like the year I graduated.
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And then and then like I said, very quickly after that, I kind
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of fell down. You know, I found Doug Casey,
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who is very, he's a very like weirdly negative, like kind of
16:41
person. But he's, I mean, I don't know,
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it's like it's not not completely unwarranted.
16:48
And he's, he's very right about a lot of things.
16:55
He there was, this is actually the, there's a video of Doug
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Casey and Tom Woods together. It was some sort of weird, It's
17:05
like my question some sort of weird, like very like 90s
17:10
graphics, like bad production value, you know, like interview
17:15
video. And it's Doug Casey and Tom
17:18
Woods and the guy that had them on thought that they were going
17:23
to like balance each other like that, that maybe Tom Woods would
17:27
be a little more like closer to normal and Doug Casey would be
17:34
in a little more extreme. And and they just ended up
17:37
amplifying each other. And Tom Woods said something
17:42
like this was this was literally this video was the thing that
17:46
like broke my brain like, and it and it, you know, this was after
17:49
lots of other things that I've watched.
17:52
But but Tom Woods in in one like little segment, Tom Woods says,
17:57
yeah, you know, sometimes when you talk about returning to the
18:00
Constitution, you just think, you know, maybe we're just
18:04
chasing a Unicorn. And, and Doug Casey said he's
18:08
like, look, every line on every map, it's just a group.
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It's just a line drawn by 1 criminal gang.
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It could no longer advance on another criminal gang.
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And I was like, I was like, Oh my gosh, what, what, what the
18:23
hell? That's that's probably correct.
18:26
And then just like, you know, like I was like, OK, So what am
18:29
I now? What is this?
18:31
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hardblock.com dot AU. Yeah.
19:27
And so, so that was sort of my journey to extreme libertarian
19:34
anarchism and, and then very well, I guess it was probably.
19:40
At this point. No.
19:43
So I actually I had, I think one of I had people suggest
19:50
Rothbard. I was consuming lots of video
19:52
content. Video content was very, very
19:54
easy, like it was YouTube was there and video content was very
19:59
easy for me to consume, which is why in Milton Friedman was so
20:02
such a good speaker that it was. And and audio content I had, you
20:07
know, like the the lectures and stuff I was listening to or the
20:10
the self help stuff I was listening to was was audio in
20:13
the car or something like that. But, but it was a lot of, it was
20:18
a lot of video stuff and, and so.
20:23
The fact that Milton Friedman was such a good speaker and can
20:26
just demolish these, you know, left wingers in a debate was
20:31
very entertaining. And so I was just very, you
20:35
know, obsessed with that and I did not.
20:40
I tried to watch somebody recommended some Rothbard or
20:43
something, or I saw somebody suggest Rothbard or something
20:46
online somewhere. And trying to listen to Rothbard
20:51
was very difficult because he's very nasally and, and it was
20:58
just a lot of his, his bigger writings are very dry.
21:05
And I ended up finding, I don't know when I first read Anatomy
21:10
of the State, but Anatomy of the State definitely was great.
21:13
Like that was a big piece of, you know, of everything.
21:19
Economics in one lesson by Haslett was was a pretty, you
21:23
know, big book for me. I mean, it's a it's not a long
21:27
book, but it was pretty big deal.
21:30
And and that was one that like, I just thought like I remember
21:37
thinking, like, man, if we could just get everybody to read this
21:40
book. And then I like read that book
21:41
with a friend that like like a a friend that was sort of I just
21:46
read him like a section of it or something that maybe the part on
21:49
prices and he had such a hard time with it.
21:52
I was like, damn it there. It is nothing like, I guess
21:57
because I've just been, you know, this, this happens a lot,
22:01
especially like for people is they try to explain something
22:05
and all terminology and everything that they know is
22:09
just like so far into the average, you know, normie
22:13
computer user that like it's their explanations are basically
22:18
useless. And and so I think that, you
22:23
know, there is, I mean, Hazlitt does pretty good job.
22:29
The problem is, I think a lot of the, a lot of the examples he
22:34
uses are kind of out of date and like there's, there's a lot of
22:40
stuff there that doesn't, doesn't really apply to today.
22:44
You need to, I mean, like the the concept to do.
22:47
But but he's talking about in, in some, some of the chapters
22:50
he's talking about things that are just not like they were
22:54
specific to the 70s or whenever he wrote.
22:56
I can't remember when he wrote it, but but like, but it was, it
22:59
was specific to, you know, things that happened quite a
23:02
long time ago. And so I think, you know that
23:10
that's a sort of book that you could probably edit out like you
23:15
could probably re edit and like, you know, make into something
23:19
that's much more relevant to today.
23:22
Invaluable. Byland's How to Think About the
23:26
Economy is a similar kind of length to Hazlett's Economics in
23:31
One Lesson. He published that a couple of
23:34
years ago. I would like to commend that to
23:37
everyone to read that fucking book.
23:39
Like it is so easy to read and again, similar to the hazard
23:44
thing, but it's updated concepts and it's just very plain spoken
23:48
and and straightforward. That's great.
23:51
That's great. You know, I, I, I almost, you
23:54
know, I don't remember if I, if I read it, I think I, I, I think
23:58
I bought it at Bitcoin conference.
24:03
He's not a bitcoiner, by the way.
24:05
Poor bastard. It was, but somebody was handing
24:08
it because it, it's I follow. I, I don't, I don't know, maybe
24:15
I don't know. I, I, I definitely have.
24:20
I mean, I followed him. He was on, he's on Twitter,
24:23
right? I can follow.
24:24
I'm not on Twitter anymore, but I, I, I followed him on Twitter
24:28
for a long time and, and was is funny.
24:32
Is it, I remember getting in arguments with people and he
24:35
would jump in and we would sort of be arguing the same thing and
24:39
somebody would be like, well, your friend or whatever.
24:41
Like he's like, he's like, I don't know this person.
24:43
Like, and like, yeah, we, we don't know each other, but there
24:48
were a couple of funny exchanges like that.
24:50
But yeah, no, he's really good. I, I, I cannot remember if I've
24:57
read that or not, but I, I definitely intended to.
25:03
So I need to see if I've got it. If I've it's probably in a box
25:07
somewhere, which is terrible. I have man going to Bitcoin
25:10
conferences or going to any like, I don't know, a, it may
25:12
have been a libertarian something that I went to, I
25:15
don't know. But you end up with so much
25:18
stuff from these things and you just like I just throw the throw
25:22
it all in a box and then forget about most of it's.
25:25
Terrible call options on the future, man.
25:28
And that's the thing about books and and that's why I suck going
25:31
into a bookstore because you just walk out with like a stack
25:34
of books and you know you're never going to read them in the
25:37
in the near term. Them all, but they don't get
25:41
they often don't get read. Yeah, I mean, at least they look
25:45
good on your bookshelf when you're like, what a well read,
25:48
rounded individual. I, well, I love.
25:52
That's why I love audio books. It's because I can, I can, I can
25:56
listen to those at. You know.
25:58
Two or three X and just like while I'm working out or while
26:01
I'm cooking or, you know, it doing all sorts of things.
26:05
And so if I'm and I, I tend to listen to a lot of podcasts and
26:11
things like that too. And, and when I when I run out
26:14
of those, I just I go to my audio book library.
26:17
So, so that that works for me, but I guess so back to the back
26:26
to my story here. We, I, I that that video with
26:33
Tom Woods and Doug Casey like broke my brain.
26:36
That was the middle of the that, that was literally the summer of
26:38
2010. And so my and my brother kind of
26:42
like I was talking to him every day.
26:45
They can run a very regular basis.
26:47
I'm not sure if we were living together at this time yet.
26:51
We might have been actually, we probably were because when I
26:55
graduated, he, so he actually graduated like a semester before
27:02
me because I had screwed up a semester or two working for a
27:07
professional race team. And, and so I ended up and, and
27:13
also didn't really know what I wanted to major in at when I was
27:18
kind of started school. So I, I had kind of drug things
27:24
out a little longer than I should have.
27:28
And, and so he graduated in O9 also.
27:33
And, but he graduated early in the year.
27:38
And then I think when he left school, he came to live with me.
27:46
And so we were living there for like he was living there with me
27:49
going to school for the last semester, which I think that
27:54
makes sense. And so, so we were talking
27:59
about, you know, like he was watching a lot of these videos
28:02
with me and, and kind of he went, he became libertarian or
28:08
libertarian anarchist or volunteers or whatever you want
28:11
to call it, anarcho capitalist at around the same time I did.
28:14
We kind of did this whole thing together.
28:17
And he was always, he majored in film studies, but he was always
28:20
very interested in economics too.
28:24
And so we, we were living together and then working for my
28:31
dad for the next year or so. And sometime between sometime
28:44
in, in, in less than a year from, because we found Bitcoin
28:49
early in the year on in 2011. So sometime less than a year
28:53
later, I was, I came back from something I don't know, I don't
29:00
know what I was doing. And somebody, some, I still
29:07
don't know who, some Facebook friend or something, or
29:10
something in my Facebook feed said, if Bitcoin goes to $8,
29:15
I'll be a millionaire or something.
29:18
And I was like, what, what, what is, what is Bitcoin?
29:22
And what the hell is this? And, or maybe it was 8.
29:25
I, I don't know if it was because it was, if it was early
29:27
in 2011, it was, it was on the run up toward 30.
29:31
I can't, I can't remember if it was $8 or I don't know.
29:36
Anyway, some, somebody said something, they were going to be
29:39
very rich if, if Bitcoin did something, I'm like, what the
29:42
hell is Bitcoin? And, and, and then I don't know
29:47
where my brother was at the time, but he came, he came in a
29:51
little bit later. And I was just like, dude, look
29:54
at this. And we just, we just literally
29:58
like we, we stayed up all night. Like we really just were
30:02
reading. And, and I mean, you know, we
30:04
thought that it was all going to happen like tomorrow, you know,
30:07
and that we were, we were, we were missing it like, you know,
30:11
we got to. And so it took us like, I don't
30:15
know how long days to get money into, you know, we, we went to,
30:21
we were also very broke at the time.
30:24
So this was all very irresponsible.
30:27
But we, we, we tried to get, we, we went to CVS and used a red
30:36
phone at CVS to like transfer money.
30:39
I don't know if it was like a MoneyGram phone or something,
30:42
you know, something like that to Douala.
30:46
And then Douala like it, it there was, there were ridiculous
30:50
fees, you know, both times they're like 2 hops.
30:54
And then Duala transferred the money into Mount Gox.
30:58
And, and so, you know, we, we finally made our purchase and in
31:05
that time Bitcoin had gone from whatever it was when we first
31:09
found it to like up close to 15/20/20 bucks something like
31:16
that. And then, and then in like
31:18
another day, it went to 30 and then crashed, you know, like it.
31:21
So, so everything we had just put in there, you know, fell to
31:26
like $2.00 and, you know, over a very short period of time and,
31:32
and it's everything we had just do what?
31:36
Just, you know, that line from it's, it's a Will Ferrell line
31:39
from, I can't remember, he says. Welcome to the fucking show,
31:44
yeah? Welcome.
31:46
It's that that's the thing. And it doesn't matter if it's at
31:49
what, 70 grand or 8 bucks, it's the same thing.
31:54
It's. Going to it's going to wreck you
31:56
the first the first time. It's always going to wreck you.
32:00
And and so, and my brother was, I don't know, he was much more
32:05
stressed out by this than I was. I was just like, well, whatever,
32:09
fucking whatever, you know, like, and it like he he was, he
32:14
was like, no, we got to figure out if, you know, we're dumb or
32:18
if we, it's like, well, it's not worth anything now, So we just
32:22
there's no reason to get rid of it.
32:23
I think this is, you know, like we, we were both he, he read
32:29
tons and, and I, I did a lot with him, but I was just, I was
32:35
like, I don't think, you know, I think this is just like, I just
32:41
felt like it, this was going to be something, and it may have
32:44
been completely delusion. I mean, like, you know, it
32:47
worked out, but like my, my feeling that it was going to be
32:50
something might have been, you know, indistinguishable from
32:56
delusion in any other, you know, circumstance.
32:58
But it just, it just seemed like it made, you know, it made too
33:02
much sense. Intuition.
33:04
You know it's. Yeah, well, it's gay, but you're
33:06
just listening to your heart like this is this is, you know.
33:12
Yeah, you know, like it's, it's the BitTorrent of, you know,
33:18
like, like the Internet, the cypherpunks, whatever.
33:21
The Internet has always been trying to solve this problem
33:24
and, and it's, it takes monetary policy, which is, you know, a
33:30
disaster and automates it and then turns it into a like a
33:34
BitTorrent like system that's decentralized, you know, like,
33:38
and so it just, it just seemed like, you know, Nah, this, this
33:43
makes a lot of sense. And, and I don't know, we, we
33:48
read lots more and, and just kind of stuck with it.
33:53
And then it's really my brother was the like, we were really not
34:02
like we were really struggling for money or you know, in this
34:07
time, like really couple of years around this time.
34:14
And I remember we even Steven a month where we like like missed
34:21
the the water bill or something and they came and turned off our
34:28
water. And I don't know, we even like
34:37
we went, we went like a day or so without water because they
34:40
like once they turn it off, it like takes time for them to come
34:43
back and send the way back to turn it back on.
34:46
And. Like a refund at a shop, like
34:48
it's easier to spend the money at a shop, but when you want
34:51
that refund back, it's going to take like, you know, 5 business
34:54
days. Yeah.
34:57
And, and I remember with the, with the, the one thing that
35:01
made me more like, it just pissed me off more than anything
35:07
is that the trash guys that we had like we were paying some for
35:10
some trash service, they come pick up your trash.
35:13
And the trash guys did not pick up our trash because we were
35:18
late on a bill and then tried to charge us a late fee.
35:22
And I was like, no, no, you either get to charge a late fee
35:28
because you pick up that you keep, you keep providing the
35:30
service or you don't provide the service and you resume the
35:36
service when somebody pays again.
35:37
Like you're like, that's you can't do both.
35:39
Like that's really, really fucked up, you know, and, and so
35:44
I just, we just left the trash can at the end of the driveway
35:49
and because it's their trash can and full of stuff and just for
35:54
like, Nah, we're not doing this anymore.
35:55
And so we started taking our treasures.
35:57
There was like a trash dump like few miles away.
36:01
It was not, it was not that far. The main problem was that we, we
36:07
were rarely able to, we were really available to take trash
36:12
when the dump was open. Like it closed early in the
36:15
afternoon. And but we figured out that they
36:19
didn't really close this one up the same way that the other,
36:23
some of the other dumps in the area do.
36:25
And they're just like a bar that we could climb over pretty
36:27
easily. And so we just threw our trash
36:30
away like late at night you go, oh, oh, we got to take this
36:33
trash off. So we go at like 9 O clock at
36:35
night and just point the point, the headlights and climb over
36:40
the, the fence to throw the trash in the, in the trash
36:44
compactor or whatever. And they've just compacted in
36:47
the morning. And so, so, you know, we were
36:51
illegally throwing our trash away.
36:54
But yeah, I mean, we, we really were pretty.
37:01
Money was tight and it was his, it was really his.
37:08
He was the main driver for the, the other purchases we made and,
37:16
and he, he was like, Nope, we're going to, we're going to buy
37:19
more. It went to $2.00 and, and most
37:24
of the Bitcoin that we have is because, because he pushed us to
37:29
buy more and he convinced well, together we convinced my dad to
37:35
buy some. And so, so we, and my dad was
37:40
like, I can't remember, he spent like $800 or something at, at I
37:46
think it was like higher. It was like 5 bucks or
37:49
something, you know, but like, but he's not like, he's not like
37:51
$800 And and then later he's like, it's the best $800 I ever
37:55
spent, you know, like, you know, it's just like, he just, yeah,
38:02
like it just, it just was really, really, really great.
38:06
I don't know, I don't know if those numbers are right, but
38:08
like it was, it was some, you know, something like that.
38:12
And so the, you know, we're, we're, it's not, we're, we're
38:20
all comfortable, you know, like, and it's it there, there is
38:24
nothing but but Bitcoin to thank for that, Like it's, you know,
38:29
and, and just, you know, understanding enough to not
38:33
destroy it all. And so, and you know, we've,
38:37
we've all, we've all spent some and you know, life has a way of
38:44
like Bitcoin, Bitcoin goes up, but but life has a way of
38:47
somehow draining your, draining your, your savings pretty fast
38:54
sometimes. So right now I'm in.
39:00
Do what? Life just like easy come easy
39:04
go. That is literally the way the
39:06
money it's it's it's actually insane.
39:09
I mean, it kind of drives me little nuts at the minute
39:12
without dating the pod. But I mean, talk about easy come
39:15
easy go. Like fuel is literally double
39:18
what it was about a week ago. And, you know, so like, you talk
39:22
about you might take a like have a windfall or something in that,
39:26
and then it just, it just always manages to find its way into
39:31
some bullshit thing, you know, like the car breaks down.
39:34
Or, you know, I mean, at least with the car breaking down,
39:37
that's not like, that's just kind of like a thing that
39:40
happens. Like, it sucks and it's
39:41
unfortunate. And you could probably trace it
39:45
back maybe. But with the fuel thing, it's
39:48
just like, no, no, this is actively your fucking everything
39:50
up. Please stop.
39:52
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, well, I'm, I'm
39:55
stuck right now. Like my I got married in in July
40:01
of 25. And and yeah, we're, we're very
40:07
happy with each other. We are very unhappy with
40:11
governments in general. So she is from Iran and and so,
40:17
so our, our governments are, you know, fighting each other.
40:20
And we're in Canada right now and.
40:27
We the amount of just insane bullshit that is required to
40:36
live somewhere not illegally is just I mean it's ridiculous.
40:44
Like I, I genuinely like it has changed my view of this.
40:50
Like the whole push to like ban immigration or whatever from the
40:56
US is like the the only answer. Like, I don't know, the way I
41:04
see it, it looks like I can't, I can't even buy a boat.
41:07
And like, like I could buy a boat that we could live on, but
41:11
I can't go anywhere. Like you can't, you can't go
41:15
into the territorial waters of any country without a visa.
41:19
And if you do, they can arrest you.
41:22
Like it's, it's, I mean, I don't know how hard that would be to
41:25
get away with, you know, like, like how likely it is that
41:28
they're going to come and check your boat.
41:31
It's always a possibility, right?
41:34
And so, so there's just, there's like no way to move anywhere.
41:39
Like you just can't travel. It's like they've turned every
41:43
country into a prison, like an open air prison.
41:48
And if you were born in the wrong country, you're just like
41:52
extremely, you know, like you're, you're just a special
41:55
slave. And if you're born in the right
41:57
country, then, you know, you get, you're a little more of a
41:59
free range slave. And people don't know it until
42:03
you, you know, until you bump into the, the walls, like until
42:07
you do something that, you know, causes you to, to realize, Oh
42:12
no, you're trapped. And so, you know, I, I, it makes
42:17
me think that this, you know, this whole political situation
42:20
in the US is really the only solution is to get rid of the
42:23
welfare state. Like you cannot, you cannot ask
42:28
the government to create like a whole nother.
42:32
I mean, this is the only thing there's political will to do
42:35
because the government wants to take more of your money and have
42:38
more control over you and, you know, be more violent and
42:42
vicious and whatever. But so, so creating this like
42:46
paramilitary force or whatever the ICE is and, and expanding
42:50
their control and influencing is easy to do because everybody's
42:56
always going to, every politicians always going to
42:59
support creating another, another gang that they can
43:03
control, you know, taking more money, spending more money.
43:08
But the real solution is to just get rid of, you know, the
43:11
welfare state and, and, and then basically allow people to travel
43:21
with very little barriers and, and allow them to come to any
43:25
country they, you know, basically go to any country they
43:27
want. But with no, you know, like they
43:31
have to support themselves and they can't commit crimes, you
43:34
know, like, so enforce the laws and, you know, don't subsidized
43:38
people, don't don't over burden them, whatever.
43:43
And that's the only solution to to the problems we have, but
43:48
it's like the least politically viable thing.
43:51
And so, you know, thank God for Bitcoin that it will essentially
43:55
in the long run kind of force all of this to happen, right?
43:59
Like there's just no, I mean, I, you know, could take
44:02
generations, but but I think that that's that's hopefully,
44:08
you know, where things are going to go.
44:10
Is that you just the economic gravity of Bitcoin pulls, pulls
44:15
everybody in and, and the, the outward results, you know, the,
44:22
the results of that are the, the world's going to change, you
44:24
know, very dramatically so. Yeah, well, you hopefully
44:27
mentioned earlier, like with that Hazlett book, you know, if
44:33
everyone just read this book, you know, on all doubt, the
44:36
world would be like, you know, just it would make more sense,
44:41
right. And, and The thing is, like, for
44:46
Someone Like You and I who are inherently curious and
44:52
interested and, and noticing, right, you know, we, we kind of
44:58
that, that makes intuitive sense.
45:00
Like, you know, but it's, most people don't give a shit.
45:05
Most people just like they want to catch the game last night,
45:08
quite literally. You know, I, I found a video
45:11
recently of some guy back in the day talking about Frederick
45:19
Bastiat. And there's a line in there
45:21
about the law and basically talking, talking about legalized
45:26
plunder, which is effectively what the welfare state is taking
45:31
from some to give to a few. I'm just trying to think exactly
45:38
what he says. But basically, yeah.
45:39
Like the role of governments is, is to protect the lives, liberty
45:42
and property of of its citizens and not to provide for them.
45:46
To protect and and not to provide.
45:50
Because if you're going to provide, well, then you have to
45:52
take from some and they give to others.
45:56
And it's like, well, who gets to decide what that looks like?
45:59
And, and then, you know, it just, it just, that's the
46:04
leviathan. That's where the Leviathan comes
46:06
from. And, and it's politically
46:08
expedient. And that's why we have 18 days
46:10
worth of fuel left and all these other things and a $58 billion
46:15
NEIS program against. I hate to date this, this, this
46:19
pod, but like, it's like if someone just read that, like
46:23
just, I mean, you don't even have to read the lore itself.
46:25
You could just read just that one exit.
46:29
And yeah, most people's brains get fried at that moment.
46:32
The cognitive dissonance is too strong.
46:35
They resist. They shut it down.
46:37
And, you know, it, it, it. Yeah.
46:41
I like, I like to think that Bitcoin can kind of help people
46:46
go beyond that if they're willing to lean in, but I don't
46:53
know, like it's not, it's not compulsive.
46:56
Bitcoin is not a compulsion. You have to have an impulse as
46:59
to because, to come from within. And so it could potentially
47:03
switch a light on, it could potentially flick a switch
47:05
within that person and, and get them to go down these rabbit
47:08
holes. I mean, I didn't know anything
47:11
about Austrian economics before Bitcoin, whereas you are the
47:14
opposite. And I can imagine having like,
47:21
stumbled upon this Bitcoin thing, it just would have
47:24
coalesced all of that theory that you've been tapping into
47:30
from the Austrian school and the libertarian school and made it
47:34
into an actionable, like, possible practical thing.
47:39
Yeah, it was wonderful. Yeah, I really.
47:41
And, And I can't remember, you know, there were all sorts of
47:45
Obama was bombing everything the same way, you know, Trump is
47:48
now. And and so so I like, I
47:53
specifically was like, I'm just not going to.
47:58
And I, I mean, I've said things to this effect on Facebook
48:00
regularly. So I'm just, I don't want my
48:04
money in a thing that be devalued to fund like murder,
48:12
mass murder, you know, like there's just, I, I want to hold
48:15
this thing, whether it work like I literally, you know, and me
48:19
and my brother talked about this a bunch for like, I literally
48:21
would rather be broke holding Bitcoin that can't be used in
48:28
the service of this just, you know, inexcusable, incredible
48:35
sorts of, you know, like on a mass scale, you know, evil.
48:38
Just it's hard to, to put into words.
48:43
And you know, everybody's funding that, like, like your
48:47
taxes are funding that, your savings, every, everything you
48:51
do is funding that. And so, so if there's an escape,
48:56
it just seems like even if you can't avoid paying taxes, there
49:02
is one tax you can avoid. You can, you can avoid the
49:05
inflation tax. And so, you know, I just seem
49:10
like this is what I'm going to do.
49:13
And and there is like, you know, there's like a very there's a
49:20
willful effort to avoid applying the basic like, like people will
49:29
agree that like, oh, OK, you know, yeah, OK.
49:34
Like Epstein is Epstein is, is had a bunch of influencers
49:41
connected to a bunch of powerful people.
49:42
But then but then they they will refuse to acknowledge what that
49:49
actually means about, you know, the people that are running our
49:54
government or, you know, that there's there's like this effort
49:58
to keep things disconnected in your mind or in their minds so
50:04
that they don't have to face the horror of the reality where they
50:08
were actually living in, You know, that they'll say, yeah,
50:10
OK, well, you know, they got the COVID thing wrong or, you know,
50:13
that was bad and whatever. But but then they won't actually
50:16
look like they won't put all of these things together.
50:19
Like you, you, the fact that the globalist desire to like, you
50:28
know, stop people from reproducing or stop me, like,
50:33
like there's all these things. You can, you can get people to
50:35
admit one thing at a time, Like you can show them the evidence
50:38
and get them to see, you know, each individual piece, but they
50:43
want to keep that as its own individual thing that's not
50:46
related to all the other things that have happened.
50:49
And and that's, and I kind of, I think it's probably like a form
50:54
of Stockholm syndrome or whatever.
50:56
You know, it's like, it's a very like as libertarians, we are, I
51:02
try to remind myself that we are like showing people reality as
51:08
the world as it really is around how how we view it is, is
51:13
actually making that person's life worse in the short term,
51:16
right? Like, like their, their
51:21
delusions are going to make they like it's going to end up biting
51:24
them at some point, right? And it'll bite them in little
51:27
ways over and over. So, so, you know, trying to
51:32
educate somebody is, you know, trying to help them.
51:35
But in the short term, this is going to feel like we are like
51:40
crushing their whole world, right?
51:42
Because if you believe that the biggest, strongest organization
51:46
in your life is on your side, then then OK, yeah, maybe it's
51:52
dumb, maybe it's incompetent. Maybe it, it does crappy things
51:56
once in a while. But you know, but it's this big,
52:00
violent, scary thing is he's in my corner.
52:02
He's I'm, you know, I'm on his side.
52:05
So it's not going to hurt me. And so, or if it does hurt me,
52:09
it's just an accident. And when you say no, no, no,
52:12
this thing is trying to enslave you and poison you and keep you,
52:18
you know, like when you show them that this is actually like
52:23
this giant monster that's trying to destroy the world.
52:26
Now life is everyday life becomes very scary.
52:30
You know, like you can't, you can't plan for the future or,
52:34
you know, like then now worrying about the game or whatever seems
52:39
silly. And I just want to, you know,
52:41
like have fun, you know, like so, so there's a it's, it's
52:47
understandable that people want these little escapes and to not
52:51
pay attention to these things and to try and not connect the
52:54
dots. I mean, you know, you can, you
53:00
can even argue that, you know, there's a lot of unhappy
53:03
libertarians, right? Like it's not, it's not like
53:06
Bitcoiners tend to be happier because, you know, there is a
53:10
future there, you know, like we, we're we tend to be, you know,
53:13
more hopeful. But but libertarians, you know,
53:18
there's a there's a mixed bag. If you go to like a just a
53:21
libertarian meet up that doesn't have anything, you know, to do
53:24
with Bitcoin, it's there's a lot of kind of sweaty, dirty,
53:29
depressed looking people, you know, like it's it's some of
53:32
them. There might be some, some more
53:37
well put together people, but there's some that are just kind
53:40
of, you know, they're kind of out there and and it's not, you
53:43
know, they're not, they're the sort of people that the guy
53:49
that's watching the game would be like, yeah, that's a weirdo,
53:51
you know, like it's not so. And I mean, you know, I, I'm,
53:56
I'm fall into that. Like I think I present myself
53:59
all right, but but I definitely fall into the weirdo camp as
54:01
soon as I open my mouth for most, you know, most normies.
54:04
So, you know, it is what it is. But but I, I I'm very
54:12
appreciative to Bitcoin for for connecting the libertarian world
54:17
to people that are that are much happier about the future and
54:20
have a much, you know, it gives once you tell people how bad
54:25
things are, you at least have something you can point them to.
54:31
They get that, you know, that brings back the hope, right.
54:36
And, you know, there's still a huge, I think there's still a
54:41
lot of battles that have to be fought.
54:44
Bitcoins not ready yet. Like I don't, I think I think
54:48
the idea that Bitcoin was going to be was going to solve all the
54:53
problems, you know, tomorrow. I mean, like the big blocker
54:56
idea in in particular was, was just way premature, right?
55:00
Like you're trying to do Internet streaming with, you
55:04
know, like early Internet, Like it's, it's the same mistake as
55:08
the the early Internet Protocol developers made, right?
55:12
Like was that we're building streaming and it's like, no, no,
55:16
no, you need to have robust packet delivery and then we can
55:20
build layers on top that do streaming, right?
55:24
And so, so it's we're still, I mean, we're getting closer, you
55:30
know, the fact that Square has lightning payments and stuff
55:34
built in is awesome. It's still not like I don't know
55:41
if you've listened to the round table at all, but but you know,
55:44
the Bitcoin audibles round table episodes.
55:47
We we have Steve and mechanic and me on there and and Steve
55:53
runs a bar and the ability to just add Bitcoin.
55:59
You know, people to get your waiters or waitresses to accept
56:04
Bitcoin as you know, like and to split tips and do all these
56:10
things is just like the tools are sort of exist.
56:14
You know, we have like the prisms on Noster and things like
56:17
that, but but the the implementations are just not
56:23
there. So there's so much left to be
56:25
done. Like Bitcoin has to mature in so
56:30
many different ways before it's really, you know, usable in
56:35
everyday life. And so, so it's just like a
56:39
kernel of, you know, like the future.
56:42
It's just like the it's a great hope, but it's still, you know,
56:47
it. We got to build stuff, Yeah.
56:50
We, we can't just like, well, we have Bitcoin now and what we'll
56:55
do is we'll just talk about it and and that's which like
57:00
hopefully convince people in that way.
57:03
I mean, you know, this podcast notwithstanding, it's, it's the
57:09
people out there that are building the actual things.
57:11
And I mean, that goes a long way.
57:12
That square functionality, just like a switch in the entire
57:16
world that any merchant that has, you know, square pods
57:21
terminal, you know, is, can automatically receive Bitcoin.
57:27
It's it's pretty magical. It is.
57:30
It's it's a great, great development.
57:33
You know. Yeah, my brother brother just
57:35
did a, a talk on, on the, you know, the user doesn't give a
57:40
shit about your mission. And so, and I, I like that that
57:46
is like, you know, that's something that it took him and,
57:51
and me a long time to like come to because we, you know, we also
57:55
thought we just got to tell everybody.
57:57
And, you know, then we got the social equivalent of head Pats,
58:01
you know, from people when we were trying to tell them about
58:05
it when, you know, 2012 or whenever.
58:09
And, and they said, Oh, you, you poor thing.
58:12
What have you gotten yourself into on the Internet?
58:16
You know, and, and so you know, it, it's, you can't just, you
58:22
can't just tell people. You got to, you got to have
58:25
things, they got to see it, they got to feel it.
58:27
You got to show and, and, and I mean, feeling it might actually
58:32
be, they might have to feel a lot of pain in like, which,
58:40
yeah, I don't know. Like it's like, I certainly
58:42
don't hope for things to be awful ever.
58:47
Like I think, I think people who want, they hope for a dollar
58:51
collapse or they hope for these things.
58:54
Like, I think there's a it's a very dangerous thing to do to
58:58
like want things, bad things to happen is just not a not a smart
59:04
thing to push for. But but the truth is, is that
59:09
it's very likely that bad things are going to happen.
59:12
You know, especially given, you know, the sort of conflicts that
59:18
are being started right now and you know, it, it, I think we are
59:26
we're definitely headed for some financial crises of one flavor
59:32
or another. And, and if, you know, enough
59:37
people have heard about Bitcoin and if we build the tools so
59:40
that they're ready, then, you know, then you get you get the
59:48
people get the sort of push that they need to investigate when
59:51
they when the pain comes, you know, and unfortunately for like
59:58
I know. Some of my wife's family are
1:00:04
using Bitcoin. They're Bitcoiners in Iran.
1:00:06
And you know, they're, it's, it's harder to get Bitcoin into
1:00:14
a place when the currency collapse collapses.
1:00:18
It's already collapsed, right? Because they can't, they can't
1:00:20
buy it. But, and unfortunately, that's
1:00:26
when you know, these places need it the most, but, but having the
1:00:33
awareness of it and, and, you know, having skills and things,
1:00:38
especially if you can, you have skills that you can sell to
1:00:42
people remotely. That's, that's very valuable.
1:00:46
And so there are a lot of people in, I'm sure it's the same in
1:00:51
Venezuela and some of these other places.
1:00:52
Is there a lot of people that are, you know, like selling
1:00:59
their time coding or something like that?
1:01:01
You know, for Bitcoin, there are there are exchanges like people
1:01:06
exchanging Bitcoin for the Iranian rial or two Mon or
1:01:15
whichever is is reals, but they like sort of measure things in
1:01:18
two Mons, which is like a make you drop a 0 or two zeros.
1:01:24
I can't remember. But you know, like your currency
1:01:27
is so bad that that you have to, you have a you talk about it in
1:01:30
another, another form because you know, you got to drop a
1:01:33
couple zeros. Model just to just to fucking
1:01:35
calculate this thing yeah quick break just to say if you're
1:01:39
enjoying the show and digging what you hear, please consider
1:01:42
supporting discovering Bitcoin by shooting boosting sending or
1:01:45
zapping the show some stats. If you're listening via
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podcasting 2 point O apps such as fountain pod verse or breeze,
1:01:53
it's easier done than said. All you got to do is tap the
1:01:56
boost button or set an amount of sats to stream per minute while
1:02:01
you're listening. Alternatively, if you want to
1:02:03
ZAP me direct via lightning address, please send snaps and
1:02:07
sats or zaps of sats in support of the show to discovering
1:02:12
Bitcoin at primal.net. Thank you for listening and
1:02:16
thank you for your support. Yeah, it's so messy.
1:02:23
It's so, so, so, so, so so messy.
1:02:25
And yet we have this thing that is just effectively pristine.
1:02:29
I mean, it's not perfect, but it is.
1:02:32
It is. It is as good as perfect as ever
1:02:34
going to be. And like the fact that you can
1:02:36
just verify transactions with that middleman and you can just
1:02:40
see it working and everyone can like see it and all you have to
1:02:43
do is participate. I have to do is opt in and say,
1:02:46
yeah, cool, I'm going to be part of that or don't, I don't
1:02:49
participate. But it will work either way.
1:02:52
It doesn't fucking matter. I gotta, I gotta ask the the one
1:02:59
question that everybody comes for.
1:03:02
How has discovering Bitcoin changed you?
1:03:07
You know, it's, it definitely, definitely, I think I, you know,
1:03:16
I think I've always been some like I've always considered
1:03:20
myself something of an optimist, even even though I do see the
1:03:29
world as being really fucked up in a lot of ways.
1:03:34
I generally think that, you know, things are going to get
1:03:36
better and studying economics, you know, sort of reinforces
1:03:41
that because, you know, you look at the economic history of the
1:03:44
world and, and there is a significantly greater amount of
1:03:52
prosperity in the world. I mean, like it's, it's
1:03:55
actually, it's actually wild. And people, people, a lot of
1:04:00
people don't, aren't aware. Like if you ask the average
1:04:02
person, I think the world's getting worse.
1:04:04
And but if you compare like 20, well, the 20 teens to the
1:04:12
1990's, the, the world as a whole is so much richer.
1:04:20
Like it, it's like the poverty, the amount of people in poverty
1:04:24
in the 90s globally was, and I mean, it's like poverty was like
1:04:28
measured it like they made less than a dollar a day or something
1:04:31
like that. And the amount was like just, I,
1:04:37
I can't remember, I can't remember what the numbers are,
1:04:39
but it was, it was massive, like 50 percent, 60%, it was just a
1:04:44
huge, huge number of people. And, and then by like 2015
1:04:50
twenty, you know, late teens, it was, it was like single digit
1:04:55
percentages. And so, you know, the, the
1:05:01
spread of the Internet and capitalist capitalism and
1:05:06
communication technologies and you know, like the, the sort of
1:05:09
liberalisation of, of many of these, you know, places that had
1:05:15
previously been much more authoritarian was, was like a
1:05:21
huge, I mean, and a lot of it's just technologically,
1:05:23
technologically driven, right? Like if you, if you're in a
1:05:26
third world country and you can suddenly you have access to a
1:05:29
cell phone that allow you to ask if the next town over has clean
1:05:33
water, then you don't waste a whole day trying to, you know,
1:05:39
or if the next town has got a market for, you know what, what
1:05:42
the market needs, you know, like this, are my, my beans needed
1:05:48
here or there? You know, like, like if you, you
1:05:50
don't have to waste the whole day walking somewhere to ask,
1:05:54
you know, for something, it, it changes your life dramatically,
1:05:58
right. And so, and then, you know, a
1:06:02
lot of the countries in Africa are using M Pesa, which is very,
1:06:07
you know, that that puts them on a trajectory that makes Bitcoin
1:06:11
very likely to be accessible, right.
1:06:14
And, and, you know, people have been working in that direction.
1:06:19
So I think it just sort of solidified my, my optimism in a
1:06:27
way is that, you know, the stupid Jurassic Park quotes that
1:06:32
life finds a way, you know, like the, the, IT will, you know.
1:06:37
Malcolm. Yeah, yeah, we'll figure out
1:06:40
some way to, you know, to, to get around all of this bull crap
1:06:45
and, and it, you know, the, the even now, like things are pretty
1:06:53
dark what's going on right now. But The thing is, is the
1:06:56
awareness of what's happening is so much better.
1:06:59
And, and so I think it, yeah, lots of noticing and, and I
1:07:05
think that is, is, I mean, that's, that's the best thing,
1:07:11
right? Like if, if you're, if people
1:07:13
are aware of what's going on, then even if something, even if
1:07:17
they successfully destroy a bunch of stuff, the people that
1:07:23
knew what's going on are not going to, they're going to,
1:07:25
they're going to have different aims.
1:07:27
When, when we are building back to, you know, building back
1:07:32
better, you know, when we're building, building, like
1:07:35
rebuilding and trying to solve these problems, we're not going
1:07:38
to have the same, you know, like we're not going to, we're less
1:07:44
likely to just fall into whatever trap they, you know,
1:07:47
try to build for us next. And so, you know, I, I don't
1:07:50
know, it's, it's unfortunate that there still seems to be an
1:07:55
inability to stop some of these wars and things.
1:07:59
But, but I think I think there is sort of a like I've kind of
1:08:04
felt like Bitcoin actually has pushed things.
1:08:10
It could be, it could just totally be my own, you know,
1:08:12
bias. But but I really do feel like
1:08:16
Bitcoin kind of accelerated the timeline in a way that like, you
1:08:22
know, they were talking about Bitcoin during the last, you
1:08:27
know, the elections, the COVID election, the you know, And so I
1:08:33
think if you were, if, if I was some sort of, you know,
1:08:39
Rothschild trying to pull all the strings of the world or
1:08:41
whatever, I certainly would be worried that, Oh no, the tools
1:08:47
to set all these people, all of these people I want enslaved
1:08:50
free are, are fast approaching, you know, like, like access to
1:08:55
these things is going to make this game that I'm playing very
1:08:59
difficult. And you know, again, like, like
1:09:04
I said at the beginning, before we were before we started
1:09:06
recording, I don't know, I go back and forth whether these
1:09:09
people are are actually, you know, like they're not gods,
1:09:16
right? But like whether these people
1:09:18
are just really stupid or, or like really, really intelligent.
1:09:27
And, and you know, like they play dumb to in order to just
1:09:32
facilitate whatever next thing they want to do is.
1:09:35
I mean, we know, we like, it's literally on video, you know,
1:09:37
like, like syntax destruction or whatever was like the Greenspan
1:09:42
like quote, like he, we engaged in syntax destruction or
1:09:47
something, which is like his, his, what's the word?
1:09:51
Like the his, his term for just feeding people bullshit.
1:10:00
Like they, when he was being grilled.
1:10:04
And and then you see like George Bush doing the same thing when
1:10:08
he's being grilled is like, you know, they're just or, or Bill
1:10:11
Clinton or whatever, you know, like just what is the meaning of
1:10:13
the word is, you know. And so like they're, they're,
1:10:19
they know, like there is some awareness that what they're
1:10:22
doing is wrong and they're just trying to escape being, you
1:10:26
know, being caught in some in different situations.
1:10:31
But Bill Gates is also like this old Batman.
1:10:36
And, and so, so like he, he might actually believe the dumb,
1:10:44
like not that he's going to eat bugs, but but he might actually
1:10:49
believe the dumb crap that he's trying to push is that it's
1:10:53
better for the world if everybody eats this flop that
1:10:56
he, you know, that he makes because he's not like he's not
1:11:01
some, you know, ideal figure of health, right?
1:11:07
And so he doesn't have all the answers.
1:11:10
And, and I, you know, I watched that there's a video of Marc
1:11:16
Andreessen talking about him not having not having introspection,
1:11:21
like not, not like he thinks introspection is, is for, you
1:11:25
know, that's just some, some made-up new thing that didn't
1:11:30
exist before the 20th century or.
1:11:32
Whatever. Like an internal monologue.
1:11:33
Like he doesn't have like a a conscience.
1:11:39
Yeah. No, it's, it's, well, I think
1:11:43
The thing is, I think, I think everybody has, you know,
1:11:45
generally has these things. The question is, are you trying
1:11:49
to listen to it or are you trying to escape it?
1:11:51
And, and I like, I, I truly think that that is the, that is,
1:11:56
you know, there's a lot of people that can't sit alone with
1:11:59
their thoughts. Like they get very uncomfortable
1:12:02
having to be alone. I mean, This is why, This is why
1:12:06
I like solitary confinement is like a, a form of torture,
1:12:09
right? Like, I mean, and yeah, sure, we
1:12:11
all want, we all need connection and, and to, you know, to share
1:12:17
things with people and, and that sort of thing.
1:12:19
But, but at the same time, there are some people who are much
1:12:23
more comfortable alone with their thoughts for long periods
1:12:27
of time. And there are other people that
1:12:29
it's like, you know, it's truly like a form of torture.
1:12:33
And, and I think a lot of there are a lot of people that are, it
1:12:40
doesn't, they're not all successful, but there are
1:12:42
successful people that are literally driven by the effort
1:12:45
to escape themselves. And, and so they just have to
1:12:50
always be doing something. And, you know, that's what he
1:12:54
said. Just do, just do stuff, just,
1:12:55
you know, just do it. It's a great man.
1:12:57
Just they just do things. And and so he's just not, he
1:13:01
doesn't want to face the consequences of, you know, of
1:13:07
anything that he's any of the choices he's made.
1:13:10
And it's like these are the same tech.
1:13:12
Bros in Silicon Valley that like invented all of these addictive,
1:13:16
toxic, literally like psychologically toxic algorithms
1:13:20
that keep you, you know, trapped.
1:13:23
And then in the same breath, they'll say, oh, we don't send
1:13:26
our kids to, you know, such and such a school because we don't
1:13:29
like the screens. We, we, we don't allow screens
1:13:32
in our house. And it's like the the, the, the
1:13:35
jawboning, the talking out of both sides of the mouth is just,
1:13:39
it's incomprehensible, to be quite honest.
1:13:43
Well, and that that is proof that that would be proof that
1:13:46
that of awareness of what they're doing, right.
1:13:49
Like if it, if they, if they're like I said, if, if Bill Gates
1:13:53
was like some paragon of health or whatever, like, and then he
1:13:57
was telling you to eat slop, it would be like, yeah, no, maybe
1:13:59
not, you know, but but like it's because, you know, if he's not
1:14:06
eating, what I'm saying is that if his lack of health is an
1:14:09
indication that he's not eating properly too, then then he's
1:14:14
like with you, right? Like he's retarded.
1:14:17
And that's just what it is. Like, not that I don't think he
1:14:20
has, you know, some evil intentions.
1:14:23
I think he's a eugenicist or whatever.
1:14:25
But but like, he clearly doesn't know everything.
1:14:30
But but when somebody is like, yeah, they're crafting some sort
1:14:33
of evil algorithm to keep you addicted and and, you know, to
1:14:37
poison you with these different ideas.
1:14:39
And then their kids don't have phones and don't go, you know,
1:14:43
like are living completely different lifestyle then.
1:14:46
Yeah, that's that's pretty bad. Yeah.
1:14:50
So, you know, I don't know, there's a lot of rambling, but
1:14:54
all of that is to say that like I, I don't know how much is, is
1:15:00
consciously crafted versus just just, you know, like this is how
1:15:07
things, this is just what it looks like when things break
1:15:09
down, you know, like people, people, you know.
1:15:13
Experiencing itself as in decline in decay, even though
1:15:18
the universe doesn't actually do that.
1:15:20
It's the yeah, I, I, I don't know it is.
1:15:24
It's it's just funny to be honest.
1:15:26
Like I I do swing from I'm tired boss dot GIF too.
1:15:31
It's also Tyson dot GIF. Like that's, that's my
1:15:35
day-to-day mood swing effectively, yeah, there's
1:15:40
there's joyful parts within it and it's usually away from
1:15:43
screens, touching grass somewhere.
1:15:47
For sure. I don't know, man.
1:15:51
Like it's all it's all sparring like it.
1:15:53
Well, it's not spiraling. It's a Gaia.
1:15:55
It's widening like a Gaia and and Bitcoin's the thing that
1:15:59
kind of can be the access from which we can all, you know,
1:16:03
rally around and, and those of us conscious enough and
1:16:08
cognizant enough and and curious enough and wilful enough to
1:16:16
dedicate our time and energy towards actually creating and
1:16:20
building things rather than destroying things or being a
1:16:23
victim. Like that's the economy.
1:16:28
Basically, you're, you're either a stud or a dud as far as I'm
1:16:31
concerned. And if you're out there creating
1:16:33
and building and contributing value, you're stud.
1:16:38
And if you're not doing those things, you're dead.
1:16:42
And yeah, that's kind of, I don't know, but I don't know.
1:16:47
Yeah, I'm. I'm on board with that.
1:16:51
That's that's definitely like building things that are, you
1:16:56
know, at the same time, you know, Marc Andreessen's building
1:17:01
stuff, I guess, but you know, we building things that actually
1:17:05
like solve people's problems is is pretty important and not like
1:17:09
are using more. Problems.
1:17:11
Not being used to, yeah, to just like enslave people and trap
1:17:15
them and cause all sorts of, you know, like, let's not feed the,
1:17:21
you know, the AI algorithms into weaponized robots to, you know,
1:17:26
enslave the whole world. Let's feed them into robots that
1:17:30
produce things and solve problems.
1:17:32
You know, So yeah, I don't know. I mean, like if it wasn't for
1:17:38
Bitcoin, I, I would not have would not have met my wife.
1:17:44
Would not, you know, like every, everything about my life right
1:17:48
now that is good is in some part thanks, thanks to Bitcoin And
1:17:56
the things that are bad are just, well, generally it's the
1:18:02
government that's at the root of those and, and Bitcoin kind of
1:18:06
helps me, you know, navigate that in a way that's that's
1:18:10
better than than it would be otherwise.
1:18:13
So I, I have a very little, I have, I have a, my, my
1:18:21
immigration situation right now is, is a disaster.
1:18:25
But, but I still feel very lucky because, you know, I get to,
1:18:30
it's a disaster that I get to go through because I met somebody
1:18:34
that I care a whole lot about. And you know, like, you know,
1:18:38
we're going to, we're going to still survive and reproduce.
1:18:41
So, you know, that's that's what really matters.
1:18:44
Mr. Tony Robbins, you know, as cheesy as it sounds, he says
1:18:47
life is, the problems aren't going to ever go away.
1:18:50
Life is about getting better problems.
1:18:52
And this is the thing, You just got a better problem.
1:18:55
Cool. Bully for you and solve it just
1:18:58
like you did all the other problems in the past.
1:19:00
You know, it's ain't nothing new under the sun.
1:19:03
You've been here before. You'll be here again.
1:19:05
Hopefully it'll be a better problem next time.
1:19:07
So what does Bitcoin mean to you?
1:19:14
What does it mean to me? It means I don't know.
1:19:24
It means freedom. I don't I mean like that's the
1:19:28
it's the money is it means freedom and coordination in and
1:19:40
it means things that, you know, maybe haven't completely
1:19:44
happened yet. Like I don't, I don't know what
1:19:46
the what does means mean but but like.
1:19:53
They have to send like Greenspan man.
1:19:55
Yeah, yeah, Clinton is what is the word is, is, but yeah, I
1:20:01
don't, I don't know. It's it's it's a it's a very
1:20:09
like money is half of every trade, right?
1:20:12
Like in a. In an advance, you know, economy
1:20:16
that's money touches everything. I I, I truly, I truly ascribe
1:20:23
like like subscribe to the the idea that if you you fix the
1:20:28
money, you fix the world. And so you know, and, and
1:20:32
there's a lot to unpack in that like that.
1:20:34
You know when people hear that said, they don't always
1:20:36
understand it. I hopefully a lot of your
1:20:39
listeners are the type of people who do understand, but but I, I,
1:20:44
I think that, you know, Bitcoin means that the future is going
1:20:49
to be better. It it's very, I don't know it,
1:20:55
it definitely gives me a lot of hope.
1:20:58
There you go, Jeff. Thanks man.
1:21:02
Thanks so much for being on the pod.
1:21:04
This has been a long time coming too for listeners.
1:21:07
They wouldn't probably understand like Jeff have gone
1:21:10
back and forth for like years, like at least at least a year,
1:21:15
maybe more just trying to coordinate live.
1:21:19
I really, I really appreciate you having me, my, my inability
1:21:24
to schedule things, you know, more than a month out is, is
1:21:28
very like you're much more organized than I am because the
1:21:33
first time you reached out to me, you're like, Hey, can we do
1:21:36
things, you know, like 2 months from now?
1:21:38
I'm like, I have no idea what I'm going to be doing in two
1:21:42
months from now. And then when the time came
1:21:44
around, I, I don't know how, like I, I got a message from you
1:21:49
that I think was like 6 O clock in the morning or something
1:21:51
here. And, and I had like, I mean,
1:21:54
because I was not awake, I was like, I had, I had completely
1:21:58
like lost the whole thing. And so I completely dropped the
1:22:01
ball one time before. And and then, you know, this
1:22:06
time it was this time worked out much better.
1:22:09
We you, you laid out the, the, the schedule for my dumb ass
1:22:14
and, and made it very clear that that when it was going to be so,
1:22:19
so we were good. But yeah, I apologise for the,
1:22:23
the previous troubles and, and I'm really glad we we got to do
1:22:28
it. I it was very fun.
1:22:29
No man, never apologise. It's been an absolute honour and
1:22:34
a pleasure having you spend some scarce time finding energy
1:22:36
telling us the tale of how you discovered Bitcoin.
1:22:38
Thanks man. Thank you.