Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Bill Ottman | Decentralized Social Media | Simply Bitcoin TTO

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Bill Ottman | Decentralized Social Media | Simply Bitcoin TTO · Simply Bitcoin

0:18
What's up everybody? We are back.
0:20
It's your boy Opti. We got another TTL and I think
0:23
you guys are going to thoroughly enjoy today's episode.
0:26
This one is going to be wide-ranging, but obviously it
0:31
will always come back to Bitcoin.
0:32
And without further ado, let me just bring in our special guest,
0:36
Bill Ottman, CEO, cofounder of Mines.
0:39
I guess for the people out there that aren't familiar with you,
0:42
Bill, what do you do? Who are you?
0:44
Why should people care? I know why we I know why I care.
0:47
But why should people care? Who are you for?
0:49
You know the people in the back that aren't familiar with your
0:51
work yet. Yeah, Thanks, man.
0:53
Yeah, my name is Bill. I build.
0:56
Technology and right. And I'm very interested in
1:00
Freedom of Information, free speech, Bitcoin, decentralized
1:05
social media. That's what I'm focused on.
1:06
I started a company called Minds to help with that.
1:10
Love it, absolutely love it. So I guess at first
1:14
decentralized social media, how exactly is Minds?
1:18
You know, what's the back end on Minds?
1:20
I know you're using Gnoster. For the people out there that
1:23
maybe aren't familiar with Minds, what is the difference
1:27
between, you know, a platform and a protocol here?
1:30
Yeah, for sure. We are a platform that
1:33
integrates with different protocols.
1:35
So the back end, our back end is kind of a hybrid structure where
1:39
we have like a Gnoster. Infrastructure, we have like a
1:43
web, two infrastructure sitting on like Cassandra and Red and
1:49
the test and then we also are rolling out activity pub very
1:53
soon like within the next month. So there's kind of the the
1:56
federation stuff and then there's also, you know, the, you
2:01
know, key signing, I mean signed events is where everything's
2:04
going. But the the it's interesting.
2:07
But when you compare activity pub versus like Noster.
2:11
Media, rich media actually flows through activity probably nicely
2:14
like videos and images. One of the issues with Nas right
2:16
now is that we haven't really solved rich media.
2:20
So, you know, there's there's trade-offs between all these
2:23
different protocols which happy to talk about, Yeah, by all
2:28
means. I mean like why why choose
2:31
Noster? I was actually surprised to find
2:33
out how long Mines has been around.
2:36
I didn't realize it's been around for this long.
2:38
When did you make the jump to Noster?
2:40
Yeah, man, I'm old now. You've been around like more
2:42
than 10 years. We, I mean, look, we as soon as
2:46
we see novel projects in this space, we.
2:50
Like to play around and see what we can come up with and Noster
2:53
is very simple you know sovereign keys and signed events
2:57
and these relays and the the whole architecture is really was
3:01
really easy to work with really easy you know it was great
3:03
working with Fiat job. We actually contributed a Nip
3:05
Nip 26 which is the delegated event signing Nip marker.
3:10
Our CTO wrote that and people are using it for some really
3:14
cool things. And in Noster now and.
3:16
So you know, we just cuz we don't know what the ultimate
3:20
decentralized protocol is going to be, and it's still even up in
3:23
the air. If there's gonna be one that
3:25
really wins out, or if there's gonna be multiple that coexist,
3:28
I personally lean towards that. There will be multiple that can
3:32
coexist in different ways, but. You know, we even have some
3:35
internal, some some good internal debate on on that as a
3:39
team like you know who knows Blue Skies doing interesting
3:42
stuff. They haven't open sourced their
3:44
federation yet, so it's not decentralized yet, the app
3:47
protocol. So, yeah, I mean I'm curious
3:49
your thoughts what you've noticed so far.
3:51
Yeah, I mean I've just used Noster really and it is very
3:55
interesting. Well first and foremost we are
3:57
free market Maxi. So we love competition and we
4:01
know go by the party line that competition makes the makes
4:05
everything better for the consumer out there.
4:07
So we love to see competing platforms and of course you know
4:10
Fiat Joff the legend in our space creating Noster,
4:13
absolutely awesome to see. I've really just lately been
4:16
jumping on Noster a little more than usual.
4:18
I have an account, but I use Domus and like, you know, I'm
4:23
I'm an iOS maxi like Apple Maxi, you know they're throwing
4:26
tomatoes at. Me.
4:27
Don't even say those words together.
4:29
I know, I know, I know. But hey, the the, the, the
4:32
products work for me. So This is why I'm on Domus.
4:35
I I do get all my friends to give me crap all the time.
4:38
They're like, dude, get on Android.
4:40
Like, get on graphene, like, what are you doing?
4:42
I'm like, dude, it just works. Sorry bro.
4:44
I'm. It does just work.
4:47
Here's what you do. Run.
4:49
Just buy an Android. Buy a Pixel or whatever phone
4:51
you want to load graphene on and just have it.
4:54
Just have one. Just OK, you have one.
4:56
Yeah, I have one. It's just I have like a very
4:59
shitty Samsung. I need to get like a Google
5:01
Pixel. But I I just have, like, you
5:04
know, this is a totally other tangent.
5:06
We'll get into some of the conversation.
5:07
It's like, all right, who do I trust more, Apple or Google
5:10
like? I feel like it's it's like pick
5:12
your poison. I I don't know, you know.
5:14
I feel like it's pretty clear. I mean, you don't first of all
5:17
neither. However, like you know, it's
5:22
Google clearly contributes way more to open source than this is
5:25
true. So it's like that just is what
5:28
it is. Yeah, 100%.
5:30
Well, let's let's jump into that last point because I think
5:33
there's an interesting thread there.
5:35
First and foremost, you know more of a philosophical
5:38
question. Do you think that the world is
5:41
trending towards more decentralization?
5:43
Have we, do you think we've seen peak centralization?
5:46
Because my biggest concern is just people's apathy.
5:49
Like I I feel like the average person is just apathetic to all
5:52
this stuff and they really don't care.
5:54
Like, I know we're this, this is like what we're involved in,
5:57
this is what we love. And I see the world moving
6:00
towards a more decentralized future.
6:03
But I don't know if we've seen Pete Clownwood yet and and have
6:07
we seen peak centralization or is this just part of that
6:10
transition? I I think we maybe have seen
6:17
peak peak centralization. I've never been asked that
6:22
before and it's weird to think about.
6:23
I'm not saying it couldn't. There couldn't be some some kind
6:27
of tech that brings everyone in in a hyper centralized way and
6:31
is super dev. Stating like that's also that's
6:34
happening at the same time that decentralization is happening.
6:37
So it's kind of both are true, but I would probably bet on the
6:42
the you know, longer term trend to be, you know,
6:45
decentralization over time. Yeah, I I, I mean, I see the
6:50
same thing, but I always feel like I need to check my bias.
6:54
And obviously as a Bitcoiner, we endorse open source protocols,
6:58
open source software, and you know, I look out into the world
7:03
and the average person just doesn't really care.
7:05
They're just like whatever. Like I like I said, you know,
7:08
I'm trolling myself by saying I use Apple products knowing that
7:11
we are an open source angled audience market, but it really
7:17
just makes me wonder whether the average person even cares.
7:21
Like I always think of the WhatsApp model, like you know,
7:25
give people encryption without them even thinking about it.
7:28
And so I'm hoping that that is the trend that software goes
7:31
towards. And again on that topic is like,
7:34
do you think that open sourcing all software is feasible?
7:38
Like, do you think the average person can care or is it just
7:41
about giving them that product so they don't even have to think
7:44
about the back end? Oh yeah, I mean, ultimately we
7:48
need to make it so that no one has to think about it and it's
7:52
just happening by default, but for bit, for developers, you
7:55
know? 100% more people should open
7:58
source, and they're like unnecessarily paranoid about
8:04
releasing their code. Actually, you know, in the
8:09
there's a bunch of Bitcoin products that I've like reached
8:14
out and there's a lot of proprietary Bitcoin projects,
8:17
which is kind of frustrating to me even like Coinbase.
8:21
I mean like Coinbase strike a lot of like.
8:24
Really cool tech but like why aren't you why why aren't you
8:28
open? What are you afraid of.
8:29
It's actually flattering and you can do different types of
8:32
protective open source licenses when people help build on on
8:36
what you do. So I I I think that there's I
8:39
remember before we open sourced our whole back end and like that
8:43
moment of fear and then you just do it and it's to be honest 99%
8:50
of companies are being. WET you know, they're
8:54
overestimating how much people care about their code.
8:57
You should be flattered if people want to fork you and
9:00
build on you, and that's going to help the product long term.
9:02
And just look at Bitcoin itself that that's why it's working.
9:05
So yeah, I I think more people, I think the open source Pilling
9:11
has to get supercharged. I think more people.
9:12
I'd like to see more people talking about that.
9:15
Interesting. All right.
9:16
Yeah. I mean most people I think are
9:18
you know as much as they claim their free market Maxis they
9:21
they get scared of competition and that's like you said you
9:25
know you you get terrified and and it might be more of like a
9:28
hyper focus we're we're all so selfish and self interested that
9:32
were like my code so awesome someone's gonna steal it and
9:35
most people when you release up to like yeah cool bro don't even
9:38
care. Exactly.
9:41
But I mean on this trend, like, how come?
9:44
How come you are so obsessed with decentralized information,
9:47
decentralized social media? Like why is this your life
9:50
choosing? I mean, I I want to make sure to
9:52
not polarize the situation wherein it's like this whole
9:56
idea that centralization equals evil, decentralization equals
10:00
good is not quite reality. I mean it's I think as a
10:05
general. Philosophy.
10:08
It's like, yes, lean towards decentralization, but like
10:12
servers are fun and useful. You know, centralized servers
10:15
and there's cool things you can do on them.
10:18
There's in fact more that you can do on them than in
10:22
decentralized peer-to-peer systems.
10:24
Which does. It doesn't make centralized
10:26
better. It definitely doesn't, But.
10:29
The bigger issue with Google and Apple's centralization is the
10:34
whole framework that it exists in with this you know, hyper
10:39
secrecy, surveillance, censorship, complex.
10:43
You know within these companies it's more of like it's it's it's
10:45
largely a policy problem with the companies.
10:49
It's OK to have centralized tech like, but do it in a transparent
10:53
way and also in a way that's like respecting your customers,
10:57
so. Yeah.
10:59
I just feel like sometimes things get too kind of diluted
11:05
with this whole kind of centralization versus
11:06
decentralization thing. Now yeah, I love that framing as
11:10
well because you know like a lot of people will lean in
11:13
especially in the Bitcoin space that like just cuz it's Foss
11:17
it's better and it might be you know a less superior products.
11:21
But like there is a spectrum to decentralization and
11:24
centralization that may or may not be good.
11:27
And minds, if I'm not mistaken, it's kind of like a hybrid,
11:30
right. It's using Noster as the
11:32
decentralized protocol. But of course you guys are a
11:35
company and there is some centralization there if you
11:38
like. You guys control the platform.
11:40
For sure. And we just want to give people
11:42
that portability and, you know, kind of ownership of the the
11:47
social graph content and identity.
11:51
And you know this problem is not solved even in Nostra yet.
11:55
Like you know, just the idea that your your key, your private
11:59
key is your identity. Like there's not a good solution
12:02
for like lost keys in Nostra right now.
12:04
And like that's kind of why that's what some people are
12:06
using the delegation system that that we brought in.
12:09
But it's still not like I think, you know, and a lot of nostril
12:13
people, for good reason, get frustrated with the whole DID
12:15
world with decentralized identity and kind of the web
12:18
standards. Because the bureaucracy is just
12:23
painful and like the beauty of nosters that people are just
12:26
doing it and, you know, not worrying about that and the code
12:30
is kind of just speaking for itself, which to be honest just
12:33
is, is refreshing and feels good.
12:34
But the same time, like when you talk about Okay, well, what is a
12:38
a sovereign identity system going to be that could
12:41
interoperate between all of these protocols?
12:44
Like could you know that? Because that's ultimately kind
12:47
of what we need so that you can. Participate in all these
12:51
protocols, cuz it's like there's a whole community in network
12:54
over in activity, pub, federverse world.
12:56
There's one, in Nostra there's and there's others.
13:00
So it'll be interesting to see like where that ends up.
13:04
To be honest, it's very undefined right now.
13:06
Yeah, it's still. I mean, I know the internet's
13:09
been around for a while, but with these new protocols like
13:11
Nostra and even like Bitcoin in general, it feels like it's the
13:15
wild, Wild West of computing right now.
13:17
And we're still kind of like everyone's still figuring out
13:20
how to move forward, what's the best way to do this stuff?
13:23
And, you know, the tinkers like yourself and others are creating
13:25
the products that we like. Me, you know, Luddites can use.
13:29
So, you know, first and foremost, kudos to you.
13:32
But I want to jump on a topic that you you touched on and it's
13:36
you. You mention it in regards to
13:37
Google about how they, for lack of better terms, disrespect the
13:41
customers out there. And you know we are on YouTube
13:45
and we get a lot of crap because we are slaves to the algorithms.
13:48
And as much as we say the crazy thing, there is a certain amount
13:54
of, I wouldn't say self censoring, but just being
13:57
mindful of the things you say because we don't want a nuclear
14:00
channel. And I know that you understand
14:04
how dangerous this is and where this is going and what it's done
14:07
to society. So what's your thoughts on self
14:09
centering? And you know that maybe the
14:12
dangers of the algorithms? I mean, as long as you have a
14:16
outlet where you actually can say what you really think and
14:20
publish that somewhere else. You know, then speaking to your
14:24
audience, whether it's YouTube or Facebook or whoever, like
14:27
that's I I don't, I don't see any issue with that.
14:29
It's like you're using the tools that you have to get the word
14:32
out but don't rely on it. And I think what a lot of people
14:34
do is they don't supplement what they're doing with sort of a
14:40
free speech network where they actually can blast like the real
14:44
version. But yeah, I mean, ultimately I
14:48
think people should be doing both, because otherwise you are
14:50
like selfcensoring and you're not.
14:52
Doing yourself the favor of creating, you know, the content
14:56
that is sort of the real version, the unfiltered version.
15:00
Interesting. So say the crazy stuff on master
15:04
and keep the PC stuff or PG stuff on YouTube.
15:07
Got it. You know, there's it doesn't
15:10
mean that it's crazy. It's just a matter of like
15:14
speaking naturally. Like it's just annoying when you
15:17
have to sell sensor for just certain words which you may be
15:20
using in some way. That's not even how the the
15:23
policy can't. Their a I is not their speech
15:26
recognition is not sophisticated enough to detect like sarcasm
15:29
and you know where you're coming from.
15:32
So people are just getting flag for no reason and like the
15:34
quality of the conversations diluted when people can't just
15:37
like drop enough bomb if they want to or any other word.
15:39
It's not just, it's not that it's just it's a weird thing in
15:43
the room that is not ideal. Yeah, we've definitely
15:48
experienced that on simply Bitcoin here on YouTube because
15:52
it is our bread and butter and and we don't want a new car
15:54
channel. But we also understand like we
15:57
need to find ways we are on rumble and stuff as well.
16:00
But like we need to find ways to be able to host our podcast,
16:05
host our message without the fear of actually getting the
16:08
platform. And I think we're still trying
16:09
to figure it out. And and you know even like Mines
16:12
and Blue Sky or the other Noster implementations and the likes is
16:17
like people trying to figure out a way to be able to communicate
16:21
freely. Because I say it all the time
16:23
like we're in an information war right now and the control of
16:26
information is how, you know, whatever nomenclature you want.
16:31
The the, I like to call them the parasite class but that might be
16:35
a little harsh. You know the the the elites
16:38
control information. So I did see a few tweets from
16:42
Minds that I thought are very interesting, and one of them was
16:46
just how mainstream media is failing at its job of
16:48
journalism. So do you want to touch on this?
16:50
Do you think this can be solved by platforms like Minds or
16:55
decentralized social media platforms?
16:57
Or is this just bad incentives by corporate press?
17:01
Yeah, I mean, social media itself has enabled independent
17:04
creators to explode and that's who people listen to now as
17:08
opposed to mainstream media. So it's not that there's no
17:13
value or in in mainstream media. I think that you can find it if
17:18
you look hard, but also just understanding, like how they're
17:22
trying to, you know, just watching it for the purpose of
17:24
understanding how they're manipulating people because it's
17:26
so obvious most of the time. And you're you're also starting
17:30
to see like I don't know if you heard of this News Nation
17:34
network that's popping up in like Cuomo is hosting it,
17:37
hosting on it. Ross Coolhart did this whole UFO
17:39
whistleblower piece with it. They're going heavy in the UFO
17:42
issue, heavy on the truth kind of balanced nonpartisan angle.
17:46
And it seems to be really working.
17:47
I think, I think typically any network, any you know podcast or
17:51
channel that is you know looking at things not from kind of that
17:55
tribal perspective is going to. Is going to be getting a lot
17:58
more attention. It's just it's it's really old
18:03
how how people are, how how these networks think that.
18:06
I mean, a lot of people are stupid.
18:07
So they do, they do follow it. But yeah, no, that it makes me
18:14
think of, I don't know if you saw and I keep mentioning this
18:18
Balaji on Marty Bent and he was talking about just like the
18:22
divide between the left and the right.
18:24
And I wonder, and I'm, I'm going to ask you, do you think that
18:28
the divide between the left and the right is is too big for
18:30
reconciliation? Or do you think people will kind
18:34
of come back and come back to these public squares and
18:37
actually have these conversations so we can get to
18:40
the bottom of, you know, the truth, which I think most of us
18:43
are trying to get to the bottom of the truth.
18:45
It's not so much about, like slinging dirt at each other.
18:47
It's like, hey, why can't we have these conversations without
18:50
being canceled? Like, what's going on here?
18:52
What is the truth? We just want to know the truth.
18:55
I mean when it comes to Bitcoin and crypto, I think we're going
19:00
to see in the politicians in the US, you know reach some sort of
19:05
a bipartisan consensus on it, I would hope.
19:08
I mean we really need that to happen and this is so I think
19:11
it's a relatively bipartisan issue.
19:13
And then the other one which is really interesting and yeah, so
19:16
the answer I do think that the like hopefully we can shrink the
19:20
divide and bring people to more of the independent.
19:25
Perspective but like look at the UFO hearing.
19:27
I mean you had you had a OC and Matt Gatz and Republican like me
19:34
like major Republicans and Democrats that are all totally
19:38
aligned on getting transparency. So that's really interesting,
19:43
like the anyone who hasn't watched that hearing, it is it's
19:46
it's wild and it's it's it's very like there's no politics in
19:50
the room. Which is just so rare and
19:53
refreshing. Amazing.
19:56
Yeah. I haven't fully delved down the
19:58
UFO hearing stuff. I just kind of instantly tuned
20:01
it out. I'm like, OK, always believed,
20:03
always believed in Ufo's. And now that the government's
20:06
telling me I'm like, yeah, I don't know, this seems like a.
20:08
Sign up. See.
20:09
This is. Yeah.
20:10
And it's it's so interesting that that's happening.
20:12
And that's a totally understandable reaction that I,
20:14
I even have to a degree. But I I don't actually think
20:19
that's what's going on even though you really should have
20:23
that as a possibility until we fully have it confirmed.
20:28
But if you look at the people who organized the hearing it's
20:31
like the pilots like the commander favor and and Ryan
20:35
Graves and and gross like with he's whistleblower like he's
20:38
he's been getting rich retribution against him.
20:41
They just leaked his medical records like yesterday and that
20:43
that just came out and it's like so it would have to be some
20:49
higher level intelligence bureaucrat who was kind of
20:52
behind the hearing for me to feel like that's what was going
20:55
on. But they're they're actually
20:56
fighting. You have, you have Grush Graver
20:59
Craver and and grave sort of questioning Arrow, which is the
21:04
official Pentagon UAPUFO unit. And you have them like that
21:09
they're sort of fighting with each other because they're
21:11
they're sort of both saying different things.
21:13
Arrow saying that there's no evidence of this phenomenon.
21:16
And then Russia saying, well, I just interviewed 40 people, you
21:19
know, gave all the data names of people and corporations to the
21:23
Inspector General. The Inspector General has it on
21:25
his desk and so it dude, I I'm, I'm obviously I get excited
21:32
about this kind of stuff. I don't know.
21:33
I don't tune it out. No, I.
21:35
Love it. It's just, it's one of like my
21:37
underlying thesises right now. It's like we, especially as
21:41
bitcoiners, we understand the importance of freedom of speech,
21:43
the Freedom of Information. And as I said, it's very
21:48
interesting that we find ourselves in like, this
21:50
information warfare right now. One of my buddies, Joe Rogers,
21:53
he always calls it the mimetic warfare that we find ourselves
21:55
in. And I and I figured out like one
21:58
of the main mechanisms and the main tools that is used is just
22:01
like bombard the individual with so much noise that they don't
22:05
know what up from down is, they don't know what the signal is.
22:08
And so personally, like I think one of my defense mechanisms
22:12
when I just get bombarded with information, it's just like I'm
22:15
going to tune out and focus on what I know to be not only like
22:18
truthful but like what can benefit my life right now.
22:21
So on that note, do you? Also consider or believe in the
22:25
idea that we are in an information war right now.
22:28
Oh for sure. Oh yeah.
22:29
We're we're we're living in a in a layered system I've I've
22:35
talked about it's like an information cast system and
22:39
there's and and and it relates what whatever any classified
22:42
information there's people with need to know people with
22:46
clearances and you know there's also corporations that that have
22:50
their kind of information access And yeah so there's a war going
22:56
on in both the you know governmental and corporate world
23:01
with intelligence and you know 11.
23:05
Funny thing to think about in in relation to Bitcoin and the
23:09
whole UFO thing is that is just the idea of like energy energy
23:13
propulsion and energy systems. And if the the the implications
23:20
for Bitcoin if energy becomes like near limitless, it's like
23:25
super cheap energy from you know, if if these craft exists
23:30
in some you know hilarious scenario the the energy argument
23:35
for Bitcoin completely goes out the window.
23:38
And not that it's even a problem I I I don't even think that's
23:41
it's you know a big enough issue as it is.
23:45
But like that would completely change that conversation which
23:48
is which is pretty cool to think about.
23:52
Interesting. So do you think there will be a
23:56
post money future, is that kind of where you're going down or
24:00
just like a non scarcity of energy type future, right, Yeah,
24:06
non scarcity of energy type future there's yes, we're still
24:09
with money. So like Dyson Sears like you
24:12
know getting getting the sun's energy directly, I mean that'd
24:17
be nice. It seems it seems possible
24:20
within you know the next couple decades.
24:22
Like I I honestly think it's it's not out of the question.
24:26
Well, it's the it's the Star Trek feature that was stolen
24:28
from us, from the Fiat system. Now now we can build on it with
24:31
Bitcoin. Absolutely love it.
24:33
OK, kind of on the same bag, but we will kind of pivot a little
24:37
bit. What's your ideas on X or
24:38
Twitter? Do you think Elon, or rather the
24:41
Twitter platform, actually believes in freedom of speech?
24:43
Or is this lip service because? On the one hand, it seems like
24:46
he does. On the other hand, we've heard
24:48
Elon Musk say like he wants to create the WeChat of the West.
24:51
And personally, I'm just like okay, this is, this is going
24:56
down the wrong path. So do you think Twitter actually
24:59
wants freedom of speech or is this kind of just some good
25:02
marketing or? Or do you even care because
25:04
you're building minds? Oh yeah, I mean, I definitely
25:07
care. Minds uses Twitter and I I what
25:13
I like about Ian Elon is that he's I think he mostly posts
25:17
what he thinks and he's been pretty vocal about all of this
25:21
stuff and kind of going back and forth you know he's acts is
25:28
without a doubt better than Twitter was before Elon came in
25:33
like not even in questions like the product is improving the
25:37
policies are improving the monetization is improving.
25:41
Everything about the company is improving.
25:44
But you know he it's not full free speech.
25:47
It's not all open source, which is what he said would happen.
25:54
And I think that there's obviously tension with you know
25:57
the CEO I'm sure and the advertising world and I think
26:00
that they're walking that line, you know, very deliberately and
26:03
I'm sure that Elon is trying to pull it as much towards free
26:06
speech as possible. Even in the case of like when
26:08
the what is a woman documentary got censored by Twitter.
26:11
Elon was meanwhile, you know when they they broke out of the
26:14
deal and and refused to feature it.
26:17
Elon goes and like retweets it and blows it up and creates the
26:20
as the Streisand effect again against his own company's
26:23
decisions. So so it's like you know it's
26:27
hilarious. I I mean it's it's it's great to
26:30
watch and so I think it's not positive it's great to have a
26:33
big tech company that is sort of moving into free speech and more
26:39
training they open source and start them but it's not the they
26:41
didn't actually open source the full algorithm.
26:43
They open source like a small piece of it which is isn't
26:46
production but like the community notes stuff is
26:49
awesome. Like I dude I'm I'm I'm very
26:52
supportive of of Elon and his companies compared to the other
26:55
big tech it's ridiculous. But like he's that he we need to
26:58
hold him accountable and keep pushing him because it'll be
27:02
very easy to get comfortable. And you know he's also shown
27:05
hostility towards Noster he that he you know he almost threatened
27:09
to ban Noster and posting to Instagram and other alternative
27:13
social media sites. So there's this sort of like
27:14
ruthless capitalist part of him which is like you know I'm not
27:21
going to you know let these other companies latch on to us
27:25
and like you know abuse us or whatever he's justifying that
27:29
they're doing even though it's the point of social media is to
27:31
share your links to like other stuff.
27:34
So this whole like punishing of links is is super problematic.
27:37
The links are absolutely punished in the Twitter
27:39
algorithm, and that practice itself is just is kind of
27:44
frustrating. Yeah, 100%.
27:46
But do you think that maybe again we can kind of connect
27:51
this and go different routes like at first we kind of talked
27:54
about Foss and people being afraid of competitors stealing
27:58
their code or? Could you kind of angle this in
28:02
Elon, maybe moving the Overton window towards a more freedom of
28:05
speech platform, like or maybe even the popular consciousness
28:10
to a more freedom of speech society?
28:12
And like obviously you can't move completely to the other
28:17
side or else you get everyone mad.
28:19
So you kind of inch your way towards that direction.
28:21
Yeah, I mean that's that's what's happening.
28:23
I think that it's a myth that, I mean they've they've come pretty
28:28
far. They're all it.
28:29
It it seems like they're just making these weird exceptions
28:33
for people like Kanye or you know, Alex Jones for some like
28:38
sort of seemingly arbitrary reason.
28:39
They're not letting those like they ban those people.
28:42
And like there's nothing illegal about what they've done.
28:47
And you know, he was saying that the law, you know, First
28:51
Amendment is where it should be based.
28:53
And I think it can be based and they can still have, you know,
28:56
advertiser control over where their stuff's getting served.
28:59
And I I they are inching people more towards us.
29:01
I I would imagine he wants to get it there, but is just
29:05
feverishly trying to get the company cash for positive.
29:08
And so I I I do sense that he wants true free speech long
29:12
term. Yeah, I I would definitely love
29:15
to see that. Yeah, I'm still holding my
29:17
breath just because I'm, I don't know, staunchly averse to big
29:21
tech. And I even though I use Apple,
29:22
but I'm like, I don't know, man, I don't know what's going on in
29:25
these boardrooms. But as someone that does work in
29:28
social media, like, what do you see?
29:31
Moving forward, like, what do you think is the future of
29:33
social media? Are you hopeful?
29:35
Are you pessimistic? Do you think we're going to a
29:38
dystopian, authoritarian route? Or do you think that like the
29:41
Internet has disintermediated truth and people are trying to
29:44
compensate about what is actually happening in the world?
29:49
I want to add one thing and it's related to what you just said
29:53
about X. Is that his hostility to
29:59
decentralized protocols actually is a big problem.
30:01
And I think that it just shows that people really need to not
30:06
rely on Twitter only. Like, yes, use Twitter, but like
30:09
be building your own system that is, you know, on a decentralized
30:15
protocol because he he wants to capture that value and he thinks
30:21
that that, you know, I think there are other arguments that
30:23
decentralized social networks can have it even, you know,
30:25
greater network effects than just keeping everything
30:28
centralized. But he has his reasons.
30:30
And so I just, yeah, I think that in the relief texts of
30:34
Dorsey and Elon talking about open source decentralization.
30:39
And so he's well aware, like he knows that there are these
30:43
options that exist and he's sort of active actively ignoring
30:47
them. Meanwhile oddly Threads is
30:49
talking about activity pub integration.
30:51
Tumblr's talking about activity pub integration and you know I I
30:56
I hope that somebody people at at X can educate him more over
31:04
time because it it we really want him to figure this out and
31:11
and get involved because you know it's the same with Bitcoin.
31:13
Like I think obviously Elon's companies hold Bitcoin mines
31:17
holds a lot of Bitcoin. We're you know we're holding
31:21
strong and those types of things can have can have such impact.
31:25
So it's not totally clear to me how much he realizes he's in,
31:31
you know, this position to kind of influence where things go and
31:34
to a significant degree. But like, you know, I think a
31:38
lot of people care about this. Like I've we've 10X in attention
31:41
to decentralized social media in the last, you know, year easily.
31:46
So it's going to keep, I think it's going to keep growing
31:48
orders of magnitude like over the next few years.
31:51
Yeah, I love to see it. You did the last, as I heard was
31:56
you were on Joe Rogan and you said you had around like what, 5
31:59
million people on mind. Has that grown?
32:02
Has that 10X like what? What is your numbers right
32:04
around now? No, no, it's it's it's healthy,
32:08
slow, healthy growth, not much higher than that.
32:11
But it's, you know, that's part of the problem of the whole
32:14
Twitter thing as well is like, it makes people apathetic
32:18
because he's sort of, I, I, I I've called it like, it's like
32:21
the Obama effect. It's like you get this sort of
32:24
big figurehead that a lot of people were excited about
32:26
elected. But then the meanwhile, there's
32:28
kind of all this sketchy stuff going on that people just don't
32:30
want to deal with because he's like, he's like a funny,
32:33
charismatic guy and he's like a good leader.
32:35
And it just makes people be like, you know, I'll just, I'll
32:39
just stay here on Twitter. You want to pain us now?
32:41
You know, forget it. He cares about free speech
32:44
enough. And so it does create this
32:46
apathy, which I I think it's really important people not cave
32:51
to. Yeah.
32:53
That's one of my biggest concerns as well.
32:55
Like we always, we always do our best to push people towards what
32:58
we call, you know, freedom, technology and.
33:01
I don't know. A lot of people, even even
33:03
including myself at times, are just like apathetic and give me
33:06
convenience and just make it work for me.
33:08
And, you know, you want minimal friction in technology.
33:12
And sometimes the ideologies just get lost on even all of us.
33:16
It's like, man, there's so much friction to use this stuff and
33:20
it's clunky. Like, how do we get to the point
33:22
where it's as seamless as Twitter?
33:25
We're moving that. No, it will be.
33:27
It is. It's close.
33:28
I mean there's so many alternatives that are open
33:34
source and you know a quality SAS products and quality apps
33:37
now like it's it's you know maybe not still quite there but
33:43
like very close and some are there.
33:46
So you know, yeah, I I I think that open source even in in
33:52
enterprises completely exploding.
33:55
So it's it's just better developer because the developers
34:00
like it more. You need developers to want to
34:04
contribute to your product in order for you to have the best
34:06
product in the world. I think that it's it's it's it's
34:09
like a physics thing with with devs they just, you know only
34:13
want to work on that kind of stuff.
34:15
Like, yeah, they will. Like if you pay me a lot of
34:17
money, I'll work on some proprietary stuff, but you know,
34:20
it makes you feel dirty. Love it and I don't know who's
34:25
running your mind's Twitter account, but there's a lot of
34:27
good tweets that come out of it and one of them was true freedom
34:29
tech. True freedom tech takes effort
34:33
and I feel that you can connect that with Nostra, you can
34:37
connect that with Bitcoin and. At a certain point, it's just
34:41
like a mental leap that you need to do.
34:42
It's like a lot of the friction is mental and not so much the
34:46
actual protocols or the apps. It's just like you gotta wrap
34:50
your head around the idea of what it is.
34:52
It's like e-mail used to be hard.
34:53
Now it's like everyone and their mother has e-mail.
34:57
Totally. It's more of a routine thing, to
34:59
be honest. Like using the Yeah, okay,
35:01
they're not. Maybe, you know, maybe there's
35:05
another 10% to go to get to kind of parody.
35:08
Maybe, you know, some apps have further go than others.
35:12
But it's a routine thing. I mean, it's just like training
35:15
yourself when you're, you know, setting up your home screen of
35:19
your phone so that it like has the apps, like some people are
35:23
just like want to support this but they're so late or just not
35:26
thinking about it. It's really, it's laziness.
35:29
Still using like Safari? Like do you use Safari on your
35:32
iPhone? No, no.
35:34
I use DuckDuckGo. I use DuckDuckGo.
35:38
What's your browser of choice? Brave or Chromium?
35:42
Like, yeah, but also Firefox is just annoying.
35:48
Yeah, I used to like Firefox more.
35:50
And but yeah, mostly Brave is good.
35:53
I think they're doing things, apparently.
35:58
So I mean it really, it really is that like friction, just how
36:01
do we minimize this friction. Yes, there's still some work to
36:04
be done. But I think again what we say
36:07
all the time the the freedom entrepreneurs, the freedom tech
36:10
is being built as we speak and maybe it's kind of about
36:14
lowering your time preference and and not getting too
36:17
impatient about what's going on in the world.
36:19
But we got a little jump in. Yeah, I just wanted to say, have
36:22
you ever heard of awesome and? Awesome.
36:25
And now it's like an open source maps.
36:30
OK, you know, because Maps is like a very important app to not
36:36
use the surveillance. Like Google Maps, right?
36:39
You were talking. I mean, think it's like,
36:40
literally, it's where you are all the time.
36:46
Like, and we're just like, oh, you know, Google, Apple.
36:50
But it's OSMAND awesome. And I think it's called kind of
36:53
a weird name, but like it works. But the The funny thing is you
36:57
have to download certain maps to like upload to the app.
37:02
So there's like that tiny little bit of friction.
37:04
But it's totally easy and doable if you're going on along, you
37:08
know, yeah, people should check it out.
37:10
It's like it's it's all those little things that are, you
37:13
know, it's just going to take time, but I honestly do think
37:16
it's going to get there. Well, it really makes me think,
37:19
and maybe it's a question here's like the cynic in me, I, you
37:22
know, I try to stay as optimistic as possible, but.
37:25
Is all this friction maybe, like, we're kind of touching on
37:29
it, that maybe it's just because it's early tech, but does all
37:33
this friction lead us to more apathetic consumers and and
37:36
basically get us to like, this dystopian slavery future that
37:40
we're so afraid of actually happening?
37:46
Yeah, I mean we we have to stop the friction.
37:50
Yeah. Like it's it has to happen.
37:52
So you know but there's less friction now than there was.
37:55
So like just gotta that's always how it's going to be.
37:59
Like the establishment, you know, institutions are you know
38:02
they have the head start and that's just what it is.
38:05
So it's going to take time, but the progress has been insane.
38:10
So it's hard to think about it like that, especially in a time
38:13
like now where it's very, very, you know, unknown.
38:16
But like, you know, it's exciting what's going on with
38:18
all with with the ETF applications, the Bitcoin ETF
38:22
applications, it seems like and with like what do you make of
38:25
the Larry Fink's statements? Well, of course I start off from
38:30
the cynical route. It's like I would never.
38:34
Endorse BlackRock Bitcoin ETF because personally I do not like
38:38
paper Bitcoin. But I do find it interesting
38:41
just how quickly the narrative has shifted once Larry Fink
38:46
endorsed Bitcoin. First I was always joking like
38:49
oh bitcoins ESG friendly. Now Larry Fink endorses Bitcoin
38:52
like let's go, it's eco friendly, it's got Larry Fink's
38:55
approval. But of course, on the flip side,
38:58
it's. Going to obviously bring a lot
39:02
of money into Bitcoin. I think now the reputational
39:06
damage of embracing Bitcoin as an asset manager, like that's
39:09
completely wiped out the window. It's like, hey, Larry Fink, the
39:12
biggest asset manager in the world is endorsing Bitcoin like
39:16
you're OK, it's OK, little lemming.
39:18
You can also embrace Bitcoin because Larry Fink does.
39:21
So the interesting part to me, just like how quick.
39:25
Corporate press has switched in regards to their favor for
39:28
Bitcoin and of course it's going to open up the floodgates into
39:31
Bitcoin. But as a Bitcoin, I'm like guys
39:34
just buy spot Bitcoin, take it into self custody like you, you
39:37
want to be holding the real thing and not the paper Bitcoin.
39:40
But I do understand that there is a lot of capital in
39:43
traditional markets that can get exposure to Bitcoin and this is
39:46
the only way they can do it. So it's like.
39:48
It's kind of one of these. I don't, I don't really like to
39:50
say net positive, but it's like it's good for Bitcoin.
39:53
This was inevitable and and anyone awake had to have
39:55
realized that this was going to happen.
39:58
Yeah for sure. I I I completely agree with
40:00
that. I think that I mean that the the
40:01
whole last you know year or two of hopefully taught a lot of
40:06
people about how important self custody is.
40:10
You can really get, you can really get screwed up in these,
40:14
you know, complex financial products, so.
40:18
Yeah, keep it simple, stupid. Come on.
40:22
All right, well, we brought up Bitcoin.
40:24
But before we get to Bitcoin, because I do want to ask what
40:26
bitcoins role in this, but before I get there, like, where
40:30
do you think we currently are in society as a whole?
40:32
Like what? What's your views on where we
40:35
are in this current moment in time?
40:37
Like I I like to call it clown world.
40:40
I always say it constantly on the show.
40:42
Like we're we're at peak clown world.
40:44
And then every other week it's like actually we just peaked
40:47
again. Like, oh, we did.
40:48
We did. You know, we're at peak.
40:50
Yeah, exactly. It's it's continually peak until
40:53
it's peaking on a daily basis until we get some sort of big,
41:01
you know, Freedom of Information breakthrough because we're just
41:06
living in this synthetic. Kind of society that is just
41:11
clearly manufactured based on you know very little information
41:15
relative to the full scope. I mean the government is
41:18
governments globally are are you know more information more
41:22
classified information than unclassified information is
41:25
being produced every day. So we it's what what's?
41:34
And I'm not trying to relate UFO's to everything, but I do
41:38
think it's very symbolic that I mean we have, so we have
41:42
multiple witnesses under oath. Like people can't understate how
41:50
important it is that they did that under oath and what that
41:54
means and what it means that their whole sworn, you know,
41:58
submission to the IG, including all the names, you know, all of
42:03
that's under oath. If if these guys are lying,
42:08
they're going to jail like for a long time.
42:11
So the so the chances of them lying are incredibly low.
42:16
So so where does that lead you Okay.
42:18
So maybe they were fed fake information and but like, in
42:22
which case there's still a massive scandal and there's been
42:26
all of this disinformation flowing through the government
42:29
and they're trying to sigh up each other.
42:31
And that would be just as big of a scandal.
42:34
So it's like either scenario at this point are totally next
42:38
level insane and you know we have to we're we're going to
42:42
figure it out like it's it's there's requests in like you
42:45
have members of Congress that are like ferocious about
42:48
figuring this out and I think that that has huge implications.
42:53
I mean even you see like AOC pressing about like who are
42:56
these corporations like cuz she's under uncovered a lot of.
43:01
You know military contract abuse.
43:04
And so like she's really interested in it from that angle
43:06
and like if hundred like it's it's being alleged that like 10s
43:11
if not hundreds of billions of dollars are being like pushed
43:16
into these special access programs that have no oversight
43:22
and that they're using a a process called.
43:29
It's like this research and development line item on
43:33
military contractor budgets which gives them discretion to
43:38
basically siphon funds into other places.
43:42
And so Grotch in the testimony said that you know you have to
43:44
look at the R&D of all these contracts because in their lies
43:49
a lot of you know answers to where this money is going and
43:51
and how a lot of this is occurring.
43:53
And so you know. It's it's just fully related
43:55
because regardless of if you're talking about, you know, UFO's
43:58
or you know other black budget programs, you know that is
44:03
essential to understand. It's the health of the dollar,
44:06
It's the health of our economy, It's the health of our
44:08
government like this. It's like a serious deep
44:11
cleaning that is going on right now.
44:14
And I I would, I would urge people not like to, you know?
44:17
Just pay attention to it regardless of what you think and
44:20
like what what's interesting, I I I hosted a debate the other
44:23
day with Destiny, Michael Shermer, James Fox and Daniel
44:29
Pinchback and we were talking about the hearings.
44:32
And so Shermer is like a skeptic, you know, very, like,
44:35
skeptical of UFO's and, you know, thinks a lot of it can be
44:39
explained, but he's still like, absolutely.
44:43
Disclose it like it. Now it's on the government to
44:45
prove that Grush is lying and so you have skeptics and like UFO
44:50
people who agree we want transparency.
44:53
Transparency is like a totally cross spectrum issue and I, you
44:57
know, Bitcoin people understand that by nature and so, yeah, I
45:02
mean I think that a lot of the function of our of our
45:05
government and and economy is related to this and.
45:10
It's. Yeah, man, it's crazy.
45:12
So yeah, clown world. Pete, Clown world.
45:16
But do you think with the amount of because I I've been saying
45:20
for a while that I I'm thoroughly convinced that for
45:24
again whatever term you want to use like the powers that be the
45:27
elites. We like to call them the
45:29
parasite class. Well, rather I like to call them
45:30
the parasite class. Do you do you think that they
45:34
have lost control on information because of social media?
45:37
Or do you think that the corporate press still has some
45:41
semblance of control on what is truth at the moment?
45:46
I think that they've definitely lost control, but not completely
45:51
So like you know it's out. The people know not, you know,
45:57
they they understand the corruption in the in the
45:58
corporate press and you know, but even in more specific
46:03
senses, like information is leaking, like there's, there's
46:06
like. Leaks of scandals, whether it's
46:08
a corporations or governments that's happening.
46:12
And then you're getting more whistleblowers and then you're
46:15
getting just people building open distributed systems which
46:20
are just like transparent by default, which you know has
46:24
tradeoffs as well. But, you know, obviously you
46:26
can. You can use Bitcoin in a in a
46:29
privacy protecting way, Satoshi could.
46:32
Yeah, exactly. Prove that.
46:34
So would you say that it's safe to say that we are snapping back
46:39
to like base reality at this moment?
46:44
Sorry, you could have a little bit snapping back to what base
46:47
reality like we're coming back to reality versus like.
46:50
I always use the metaphor of like the moment Where we are
46:52
right now is like Roadrunner and the Coyote, and it's the Coyote
46:56
running off the Cliff. And we're like just looking down
46:59
at our feet before we completely fall off the Cliff.
47:01
And like, that feels like the moment that we are in time.
47:04
And like, are we snapping back down to reality and truth and,
47:10
you know, maybe a better understanding of where we are in
47:13
in this moment in time? Or is it just going to get
47:16
crazier? I think yeah base reality
47:20
consensus I think consensus reality I think is shifting
47:25
where and and that's what's bizarre about the world right
47:28
now is like. There isn't consensus reality.
47:33
Like there's all these different cults that have different ideas
47:37
of of what reality is. And so, yeah, I like to think
47:42
that we are sort of like staring at base reality and like, like
47:46
we need to fall. We need to, we need to fall back
47:49
down to to base reality. So, but it's it's bizarre where
47:55
you kind of have all of these different ideologies and then
47:57
like people are literally living in completely separate reality.
48:00
So it's that it's pretty scary. So that's why we just need need
48:05
the transparency. So people are on more of the
48:07
same page. Yeah, I'd agree 100% Okay.
48:11
Well, at the, you know, the concern of time, we're only
48:15
going to keep you here for an hour and thank you very much for
48:17
so much, but the very end of this, let's come back to
48:20
Bitcoin. What is Bitcoin's role in all
48:22
this, in your opinion? I mean, Bitcoin is the best
48:28
money that exists that I've ever come across and that I think.
48:35
A a growing movement of people realize as well.
48:39
So that's where things are going.
48:41
I mean it's just it's it's a system that exists in parallel
48:45
to the traditional economy and it's just it's a living and
48:51
breathing on its own, you know, every day, all day and never
48:55
stops like that is so powerful and so having these sort of
49:00
unstoppable global infrastructure.
49:06
Systems like that are just living and breathing on their
49:08
own like that protects the world.
49:11
You know you can't like this. The the bank can't just go down.
49:17
Like the bank is always up and so yeah, we need that.
49:22
So I think it's it's it's a it's a huge part of it and.
49:28
You know it we we've, we've been looking into understanding how
49:31
we can get Lightning more involved.
49:35
But again we've kind of run into some of these custodial
49:38
centralization issues like as we've been pursuing Lightning
49:41
integrations. And so it's hard and I I think
49:43
that all you know, everyone working on Lightning is doing
49:45
great stuff, but it's, you know, it's not easy to to to build
49:52
like the frictionless system that's going to work so.
49:57
But yeah, man, I mean I I'm very agnostic with a lot of you know,
50:03
these like their, their core pillars of where we're heading.
50:07
Bitcoin is definitely a part of that.
50:08
But I think that there's a lot of other players and and and
50:11
Bitcoin can synergize with a lot of other distributed systems.
50:15
You're seeing that happen with Noster and I think.
50:17
You know the the neutrality that the community in Nostra have
50:20
Nostra has I think is is nice. I you know I am not a a Bitcoin
50:25
maxi. I definitely see value in other
50:31
blockchains other distributed systems and but like there's a
50:34
lot of nonsense there. Absolutely.
50:36
But you know there's there's nonsense in every community and
50:40
every project they you know there's there's going to be
50:42
people who do do sketchy stuff and.
50:45
I think that I just hope to see less tribalism in Bitcoin and
50:51
because I I think, you know, there's just, it's just
50:54
unnecessary. There's so much that we can be
50:57
working on together that doesn't involve like bickering about,
51:02
you know, various crypto stuff. So I I hope that reduces.
51:05
Do you think that's going to reduce it all or do you think
51:07
that it's going to? I don't think so.
51:08
Like we we are. We're definitely Bitcoin Maxis.
51:11
I know our audience is definitely Bitcoin Maxis, but I
51:15
think at this moment, like the arguing about this stuff I think
51:20
is irrelevant. Like, I think Bitcoin has very
51:23
thoroughly proven itself to be the leader in all this.
51:26
And like arguing about it at this point, I think it's just
51:29
like a waste of energy. It it's.
51:31
Kind of back to the semantics. It's semantics because Bitcoin
51:34
is the best at money. I would agree with that.
51:37
And so you know, does that make me a Bitcoin maxi?
51:39
Maybe some people would say that actually does make me a maxi,
51:42
but but and so. That's why I think a lot of this
51:45
is lost in translation. Because you know, when you look
51:48
at like the value and like the Ethereum ecosystem, like there
51:51
just is value there. Like, you can't say that there's
51:54
no value in the system. I mean, you can, and I'm sure
51:57
many people do try to say that, but the reality is that there's
52:00
a massive amount of interesting energy there.
52:03
And I think it, you know, deserves to be looked at for,
52:05
you know, different use cases which are very different from
52:08
from Bitcoin. And maybe they people in that
52:10
community want it to be more like Bitcoin.
52:12
And you know, that's just going to happen.
52:14
Like more decentralized, like more decentralization is better.
52:18
You know, multiple like we we want to cover our bases like and
52:22
you know, I don't maybe this will trigger some people, but
52:24
like it's not like Bitcoin. It has never, you know, had any
52:28
issues like you know it has been exploited before.
52:32
And it was quickly patched and you know that can happen in any
52:36
system and that's scary to think about like so you so you do you
52:40
know from like a sustainability, resiliency perspective for
52:43
global infrastructure and global, you know value exchange.
52:48
I do think that like why would you not want multiple, why would
52:51
you not want backups to be there.
52:53
So because that that could happen again.
52:56
I think it's unlikely. I mean, a Bitcoin is one of the
52:58
most battle tested. Secure infrastructures.
53:03
You know the world has ever seen and it's been audited by some of
53:07
the smartest people on the planet.
53:09
So, So I think it's unlikely, but it could happen.
53:12
It's happened before, yeah. Well as you can see the
53:15
triggered in the chat, bro. But I mean I I think Bitcoin has
53:20
thoroughly proven itself to be like the the leader in this.
53:23
And again like I I'm a monetary maxi.
53:27
I kind of boil everything down. I I always say I am left side of
53:31
the right side of the bell curve.
53:32
So I always boil it down to just some simple memes and it's like
53:35
that was simple Bitcoin meme, a fix the money, fix the world.
53:38
I think we can both agree on the fundamental problem in the world
53:41
is the broken money and the broken money incentives and that
53:44
and that further how this propagates all the crazy
53:47
information arbitrage that we're seeing right now.
53:50
It's being funded. You know, like where is all this
53:52
Fiat money going? No one has any clue, but it's
53:56
very interesting to come back to the same idea that both sides of
54:01
the aisle can all agree on. Money is the fundamental thing
54:06
that is driving all the craziness right now.
54:08
And a better money would bring about better incentives in the
54:11
world. And I mean, look, you'd said
54:13
earlier that mines is on a Bitcoin standard, already has it
54:16
on their balance sheet. So it's like we can all agree on
54:18
the same thing, like Bitcoin is the best way to store value in a
54:21
digital world, digital money for the digital world.
54:25
And I think the arguing at times, of course I did come out
54:29
of the tribal Bitcoin maxi, you know, echo chamber.
54:34
But now I'm starting to realize like, hey, there is some
54:39
semblance to the idea of like, hey, let's have some
54:42
conversations here, let's let's try to meet some middle ground.
54:44
Yes, I'm stubborn and I'm going to only use Bitcoin forever.
54:48
But hey, if you. Want what if what if you think
54:51
about it like a you know Top Gun you got Maverick, you know
54:55
Bitcoin and then you've got ice man.
54:59
You know, it's like they hate each other but they love each
55:00
other like in a secret way. It's like they their brother.
55:03
They you know, their brothers. But I and and and they may hate
55:06
to admit it. They may hate each other but
55:07
they I do think that there is some like.
55:09
Core, core, love there. Yeah, I would hope because you
55:13
know, and honestly, I don't care.
55:14
I think some of the blood sport is funny and like, I really
55:17
don't. I don't care.
55:18
It's it's fun. It's fun to like compete and
55:22
it's fun to to have that that edginess to end in, to call out
55:26
BS wherever you see it. And it exists.
55:28
So it needs to be called out. Yeah, I'd I'd definitely agree
55:32
with that. And and it kind of leans back
55:34
into the information topic of the at the top of the hour about
55:38
like the world we are living in is just bombarded with so much
55:42
noise and none of that noise ever gets any pushback.
55:46
And if you do get pushed back, you get instantly de platformed,
55:50
you get instantly censored. And I think that's why we're in
55:53
the situation that we are right now is no semblance of
55:57
conversation here. It's just like, dig your toes
56:00
in. This is what it is.
56:02
Follow the party line. Do not trust your eyes and your
56:04
ears. It's, you know, back to like
56:06
1984. It's like a dystopian quote
56:08
where it's like do not trust your eyes or your ears and just
56:10
follow the party line. And I think there is a healthy
56:13
amount of debate that can happen.
56:16
But again, I still think that Bitcoin's winning.
56:20
It's interesting that there's only been is RFK the only
56:23
political candidate to know there's a Vivek Vivid.
56:27
Oh yeah, he embraced it. There's also Ron DeSantis.
56:31
He's in the running. He's also, he's more of like an
56:33
anti CBDC type. The Miami mayor, he says he's
56:39
going to be running for president.
56:41
He's got no chance. So I think right now we're at
56:43
like 4. We know Trump is anti Bitcoin,
56:47
so I think moving forward though, we will see that Bitcoin
56:50
becomes a political point of contention, like people will
56:53
have to have a. Stand totally one way to more
56:56
yeah it's it's it's you know it could become even like a single
57:00
issue thing where like you know like that is the primary concern
57:06
of of a lot of people regardless of party line.
57:09
I mean it it, it sort of should be because it is so, so
57:13
fundamental. Yeah.
57:14
I mean, hey, as a country built on freedom, you think that they
57:17
would be embracing freedom money, right?
57:19
Do you know? If So, what is the actual
57:23
situation of the government's Bitcoin reserves like?
57:27
Because they have stuff that they've confiscated, which then
57:29
they auction like regularly, but like I is there any?
57:34
Evidence of like Federal Reserves of of I don't think so
57:38
yet the I mean. Even secretly?
57:40
Well, like shouldn't. Shouldn't the CIA be just like
57:43
that's the contention that's you know a lot of the criticism and
57:47
the flood lines as people will say like oh you know on the one
57:50
hand the CIA or NSA made Bitcoin or on the other hand it's like
57:54
the US government already holds Bitcoin because they all they
57:56
still have a lot of those silk roads Bitcoin they have like
57:59
100,000 plus Bitcoin or maybe there is some big name people
58:04
that are you know the the shell corporation the front man for
58:08
the US government holding Bitcoin.
58:10
So I think at this point there's no official line which was one
58:14
of those points that's very interesting when they when RFK
58:17
just recently did his announcement about like trying
58:20
to back the dollar with Bitcoin or put Bitcoin on the balance
58:23
sheet or or whatever semantics he was using.
58:26
It's really one of those interesting moments in time
58:28
where it's like okay, we have presidential candidates talking
58:31
about Bitcoin, talking about holding Bitcoin on the
58:34
government balance sheet. It's like, wow, are they
58:36
following that El Salvador party line where it's like we're going
58:40
to embrace Bitcoin, minimize capital gains tax on Bitcoin.
58:44
And it really just makes you think that the information
58:47
arbitrage is, it is an OverDrive right now.
58:49
And it's like, how quickly is this information going to get
58:53
disseminated in popular culture? Or is this just one of those,
58:57
like, talking lip service points right now where it's like, it's
59:00
kind of novel, it's kind of fun. It's like, OK, haha, like, I'm
59:03
embracing Bitcoin. This is why you should vote for
59:05
me. Give me your Bitcoin again.
59:07
We always say everyone's a scammer, You know, everyone
59:09
wants your Bitcoin. So maybe this is where we are in
59:12
the story. And I think probably not this
59:16
election, but by the 2028 election, every presidential
59:21
candidate, almost all politicians, will have to have a
59:24
Bitcoin stance either for or against.
59:26
And they're not gonna have a choice.
59:31
I love it. Yeah.
59:32
I think Trump needs to get confronted over it more.
59:34
I mean he already came out as like, I mean he's also NFT guy,
59:37
he's. Exactly.
59:39
There's no, there's no consistence.
59:41
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's ridiculous, 100%.
59:45
All right. Well, before we roll this out
59:47
because we are at the top of the hour and I know you're important
59:49
guy, you got a lot of things to get to.
59:51
You talked about some of the features that you are trying to
59:54
roll out or in the process of rolling out with minds.
59:56
Let's let's give the audience a little bit of sneak peek.
1:00:00
What are you working on? You kind of mentioned it with
1:00:02
Lightning. But you did mention something
1:00:04
else before we started rolling, so.
1:00:06
Yeah, we're getting live. We we just launched a prototype
1:00:08
for live streaming. We should live stream your show.
1:00:10
If you do, I don't know. If you do, I would love to.
1:00:13
Yeah, we could. We could, can we can we plug it
1:00:15
in to restream? Like, how would we have to do
1:00:16
this? Yeah.
1:00:17
Yeah, yeah, you just when you make a post, you just click the
1:00:19
camera icon, you can grab the stream key.
1:00:21
All right. Sweet.
1:00:22
Yeah. And just and just throw it in.
1:00:23
So yeah, let's do that. So we're really excited about
1:00:25
that because it's funny, man, like every app is kind of
1:00:29
becoming. Similar, which is bad, but also
1:00:34
kind of shows something about the way humanity thinks about
1:00:37
tech. Like there's a dozen different
1:00:40
social media apps. That's like, you have a feed,
1:00:42
you have video, you have like creation, you have, you know,
1:00:45
swiping like it's just like coalescing on this sort of
1:00:48
design standard. And you know, then the
1:00:53
competition is like who has the best incentive system built into
1:00:57
it and. You know what has the best
1:00:59
content? So in live streaming I think is
1:01:01
like essential for getting getting really good content.
1:01:08
And yeah then we have the activity pub stuff happening,
1:01:11
which is going to be really cool.
1:01:13
I think I'm they've the problem with the whole Fetaverse, I mean
1:01:17
there's a huge divide in the Fetaverse world.
1:01:20
There's more like Libertarian Crowd and then like very like
1:01:23
Censorious Crowd, which hopefully you know we can.
1:01:28
You know Bridge in a sense because it's just stupid
1:01:31
arguing, but like they a lot of the maintainers of like Mastodon
1:01:34
are very anti monetization which is just like okay, like why are
1:01:40
even though in the activity pub spec there is actually this,
1:01:43
there's this type, it's activity stream type which is called an
1:01:48
offer. And so I think that there's
1:01:50
stuff that could be done in there with Bitcoin and with
1:01:54
different monetization where it could you know cuz these
1:01:57
different activity stream types are what people, different
1:02:00
instances tap into for you know all of the different types of
1:02:05
data that can be propagated so. You know, I think it's
1:02:10
interesting to think how that that could happen.
1:02:12
Not sure's been doing really cool stuff with Zaps and and
1:02:15
Lightning and I think that that's really interesting.
1:02:17
And so yeah, I'm glad they got let back.
1:02:19
Domus got let back into the App Store.
1:02:22
That was close. Yeah, it was very close.
1:02:23
So what is mine's going to work on?
1:02:26
Some kind of ZAP feature in the near future?
1:02:30
I'm yeah, I'm very down if anyone out there wants to.
1:02:35
Wants to help. Like we would love your idea.
1:02:37
If you go to getlab.com/minds that's where all of our dev is
1:02:40
happening so just feel free if if you're someone who you know
1:02:43
is interested in helping brings apps to minds like please get
1:02:46
involved. Set up an issue and I you know
1:02:49
we're there. That's where I hang out.
1:02:50
I'd love to hear it. Love to hear it.
1:02:51
All right, well, Bill, where can people find you?
1:02:54
Are you behind the lines? Account on Twitter or just get
1:02:58
on lines? Yeah, I pop in there.
1:02:59
Yeah, you can do minds.com/ottman OTTMAN, so you
1:03:04
can find me or at Minds on Twitter.
1:03:06
And yeah, man, thanks for having me.
1:03:08
I really appreciate it now man thank you for coming on it's a
1:03:11
great conversation and it it's good to bounce these ideas off
1:03:15
and and we we always talk about it here on simply Bitcoin about
1:03:18
like clarifying our own thinking and and kind of checking
1:03:23
ourselves is like are we seeing the world clearly and and not
1:03:26
just partaking in our own echo chamber and trying to branch out
1:03:30
and and hit other areas outside of just Bitcoin and bringing
1:03:35
people like minded individuals together to to actually get
1:03:38
these conversations going and also reflect on is our thinking
1:03:41
clearly are we actually seeing the world correctly and I think
1:03:45
everyone can see the problem but few people can actually see the
1:03:47
solutions right now and so you know decentralized protocols
1:03:51
decentralized money I think is the way moving forward and and
1:03:54
the disintermediation of information right now is where
1:03:57
we are and few people understand how this is improving the world
1:04:01
and changing everything we know to be true. 100% man.
1:04:06
Yeah, thanks for putting out what you do.
1:04:08
And yeah, excited to. To drive like we we we have
1:04:12
this, we're like trying to give reach away to create.
1:04:16
That's essentially what happens in mind.
1:04:18
You can earn reach and so you can earn views on your content.
1:04:22
And I think that that's like a lot of what is frustrating for a
1:04:26
lot of people. You know, you have kind of like
1:04:27
top tier of creators who get tons of reach and it's like you
1:04:29
kind of have this. Imbalanced system.
1:04:32
And so we're really trying to make it easier for small and
1:04:34
medium sized creators like actually be heard.
1:04:36
And so you know, because algorithms are just so brutal,
1:04:38
man. And it's like you really do feel
1:04:40
like a slave sometimes. Yeah, with with at the risk of
1:04:44
getting kicked off of YouTube, we're like man, YouTube really
1:04:48
cracks the whip, man. They they really know how to
1:04:51
incentivize you to work harder on the platform, and we're
1:04:54
slaves to the algorithms. No.
1:04:59
As long as you have a place where you're not then it's a you
1:05:03
know it like I to play devil's advocate with myself it's like
1:05:07
dude YouTube's recommendations are amazing also.
1:05:10
So like they do they they do know but the the issue is what's
1:05:15
the default setting and like do you have the ability to turn off
1:05:18
this the surveillance. It's not that algorithms are are
1:05:21
evil, it's like they actually work.
1:05:22
That's why that's why they use them so.
1:05:27
Kind of just the way that you implement it.
1:05:28
Love it. Well, there is hope, man, and
1:05:31
that's that's all we can really, really reach on right now.
1:05:35
It's like there's help in the world, and also there's builders
1:05:38
out there that are building the freedom technology that will
1:05:40
actually make our world a better place.
1:05:42
So kudos to you, bro, and stick around behind the scenes while
1:05:46
roll this out. It'll take like 20 seconds.
1:05:49
All right guys, well, what a conversation.
1:05:53
You already know things get crazy over here on the TTO's on
1:05:56
the live podcast version and really appreciate every single
1:06:00
one of you guys. Of course we will be back
1:06:02
tomorrow at 12:15 PM for our live show going back to normal.
1:06:06
Nico will be back. We will, we will give you guys
1:06:09
the sauce like we do every single day.
1:06:11
On that note, guys, really appreciate you.
1:06:13
Share, like subscribe all that good stuff and we will be back
1:06:17
with more Bitcoin signal. All right, peace out guys.
1:06:20
Have a good night. Play song Akshay.