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You hate when people say Bitcoin is the
offramp for the like the federal
government money problem.
>> It's both true and emotionally
disgusting.
>> Yeah. Like you hate that. It's like all
right, we'll be good. Like Bitcoin will
save us. I'm seeing a lot of people in
the chat were like, well, why are we
fighting against socialism where we're
about to get UBI soon and AI is going to
come and save us. And I feel like that's
that AI age of abundance is starting to
feel like the same way where it's we're
in a crazy government undoing right now.
The we have too much debt. The country's
the economy is unwinding. We're so
worried, but don't worry. Once we get AI
implemented fully, everything is going
to be happy. Y and that's the same thing
as we're in too much debt. Their
inflation is taking all your money away,
but don't worry, you can just buy
Bitcoin and you'll be fine. And it's
like there's these things that are like,
yeah, we're good, but over here it's
just going to be fine and dandy lines
and roses. I like everybody else, but I
feel like we do need to kind of be
grounded about this UBI AI age of
abundance that's coming. And it's not
just a light switch that will flip on.
>> It's not a light switch that will flip
on. The age of abundance probably will
eventually arrive, but it will be on the
back of massive amounts of bloodshed.
People have got to stop betting on a
future that might happen and deal with
the reality that they have now.
Facilitate the future that you want to
happen for sure. Lay the groundwork,
create the systems and the incentive
structure so that we can get to that
point.
>> But you can't spend money today as if
that future has already come true. And
that's the way that people are starting
to behave. Also, we did something. The
greatest crime that the West ever
committed was breaking the ambition of
young men. That was so stupid. And just
like understanding that entrepreneurs
are the engine of tax revenue that you
only make that money if you have
business people creating solutions to
problems that people want.
>> If you lose sight of that, you're going
to be in for a world of hurt. If you
lose sight of the fact that when you
take it on average, men are hyper
ambitious when properly incentivized,
that that's how it set up this game. And
when you distort those incentives, then
you break everything else. And we did.
We broke everything else. And the great
tragedy of the human experience is the
very thing that breaks that flywheel of
prosperity is the results of prosperity
itself. And so by being in such a good
position for as long as we were and
thinking, "Oh my god, let's globalize.
Let's bring in cheap labor because then
we can just keep the prosperity flywheel
going and going and going." What you end
up doing is nobody has to be more
innovative. Nobody has to think harder.
You just go, "Oh, you want this to be
cheaper? Outsource it to essentially a
broken economy. Give them some hope
because they have access to the strong
dollar." Um, and now all of a sudden it
looks like you're doing something
interesting, but you're really not
creating that much more additional
productivity. Productivity might be the
thing that because people don't
understand it causes a whole lot of
problems in the economy. But setting
that aside for a second and staying on
the the core thesis here is if we had
continued to let that be difficult,
that's problem solving in a way that is
financially potent, people would have
had to continue to innovate. We would
have had to figure out a way if people
are only willing to pay XYZ for
strawberries and we've got to find a way
to drive the cost of strawberries down.
The way that you drive the cost of
strawberries down is one of two things.
Import cheap labor or innovate on
technology. Had we chosen the innovate
on technology standpoint, we would have
incentivized the thinkers, the kids to
go, oh, I want to go into that because
there's a real reward. Instead, what
America has done is financialize
everything. And so if you want to get
rich in America now, you better learn
the finance game. That's wild to me. I
grew up believing you had to build
something. But once I built it and
started learning about economics, I was
like, why did I do all that? Like if you
just master the economy, holy Jesus,
like you can really make money. It's
it's crazy. If you've got the intellect
and the temperament for it, go into
finance. I'm okay with that being an
option that people have, but the brutal
reality is that finance being the place
that is the most advantageous, you're
only innovating on financial markets.
You're not introducing a new thing to
the world. And so what they don't
realize is you're incentivizing all
those young, hardworking, ambitious
people. The biggest reward set is like
as a middleman. It's not as the person
actually building the thing. And so this
is part of why I get so distressed when
I see people maligning Elon Musk is
like, listen, this guy's insane wealth
is because he's the most effective
entrepreneur ever. He's building things
that actually matter. He's innovating in
areas that actually matter. And so when
you hit someone like that with a social
sledgehammer,
>> you're disincentivizing people to go
down that. When you train people to
think that he's evil in some way, you
disincentivize people from going down
that path. You want to venerate that
guy. You want to say this, we want to
see more of this. We want a dear young
person, we want to see you look at the
world, identify the biggest problems
that you think society faces and then
engineer our way out of this. Don't just
go, oh, all of life is a casino and if
you can master blackjack, you can make a
ton of money. And once you understand
that the slot machines are driven by
algorithms and you can figure out like
when one's about to pay out, and that's
what people do. And so everybody goes
into that game and there's just a
distorting factor. I don't want to try
and make it illegal. It's a modern
miracle. But we really have to look at
the fact that only 10% of people play in
the casino in a meaningful way. And then
of the 10% that play in the casino in a
meaningful way, how many of them are
playing well? So it's like this is where
you get that insane like 50 families
control 50% of the wealth in America.
It's something crazy. It's interesting
though because I think that there is
that you call it like the finan
financialization of the economy and I
think that that is the roots of a lot of
problems that we're dealing with where
whether it's private equities who are
basically glorified scrapyards in suits
that are just looking at companies how
can I get number to go up you know I
mean so the the force of the innovation
and all those things are driving it down
right now America is the most innovative
country in the world
>> by far
>> and the way that we track that is
because we are the most c the the
country with the most billion-dollar
companies. Yep. So if companies only
exist for profit, then in a post
scarcity economy, what's the motivation
for a company to do anything if there's
no profit now to be made?
>> They probably won't. So this is one
we're now in thought exercise territory.
>> Yeah, 100%. We're skipping the the age
of abundant like we're going right to
like now what of that?
>> Yeah. So here's so cause and effect.
Cause and effect. Cause and effect. I'll
I'll take being meme to death on this
idea. Once you start thinking from cause
and effect and you get to the point
where you realize why we became economic
units, which was I didn't want to have
to catch my own food every day. I'm not
good at that, but I'm good at weaving
the backpack that you need to carry your
stones to go on the hunting trip. So,
what I'm going to do is I'm going to do
that. You go hunt, but I don't always
want to have to trade the backpack that
I made for the food or for the whatever
I need. you know, let's say that my wife
gets sick and I don't want to have to
trade backpacks for medicine. Like,
let's just abstract this. Every society
ever ends up abstracting that. And
whether it's seashells, beads, gold,
whatever, you come up with a mechanism
to say that backpack is worth this. And
so, you realize, oh, I can exchange my
time. In fact, my job as an economic
unit to survive in this openw world
survival crafting game is to do a thing
with my time that can be turned into
this universally accepted money where I
can go right now what I need is
medicine. Right now what I need is
clothes. Right now what I need is food.
But I generated it all because I was
better at making the backpack that you
needed to go on your hunting trip. Okay?
That's how we become economic units to
stay alive. And so it becomes far more
efficient. Humans have in their mind
this desire to make progress. Progress
means progress towards making winning
the survival crafting game easier. And
so we've become what we've become
because at every step of the
evolutionary ladder, we were just going,
how do we how do we make surviving
easier, more guaranteed? Now it's like,
okay, we've gotten really good at that.
That's turned us into these economic
units. And so now flash forward where
we're looking at AI coming and AI is
going to completely obliterate the very
thing that we were evolved to be good
at. That's why it's like this huge
question mark. We have created the
ultimate way to win the open world
survival crafting game that is life. And
that ultimate way is to create something
that is hyper intelligent. We're now
going to offload the need for increased
intelligence, for increased innovation
to a synthetic thing that we call AI.
Now, what happens though when that's
better than us at everything? It makes
better backpacks. It hunts better. All
of it. It does better. Well, the whole
reason we became economic units was
because I needed to make the backpack so
you could go do the thing. Do I need to
be an economic unit anymore when the AI
is going to do everything? It's really
nonsensical because now the only thing
that we're limited by is scarcity of
actual findable resources. But then
remember out in space there's like
everything. And I know right now people
feel like that's so sci-fi like
whatever. No, no, no. We're already we
are we are talking about in the next
decade having a base on the moon.
>> Yeah. Trump just released the EO trying
to get a moon outpost established by
2030.
>> Correct. So now imagine in the next 10
years. So right now AI has already hit
the 147 IQ benchmark. Now let's say IQ
hits 250. Now you're into territory no
human's ever been that smart. Let's say
that it gets to 500. If you won't even
give me the next 10 years, which I think
is already very probable, 20 years.
That's still most of our lifetimes. So
now you've got something that's like
more than twice as smart as the smartest
human that has ever lived. And you
effectively have millions of them. And
so the world just looks radically
different. So you have access to
resources anywhere, everywhere. So now
energy is free because of the sun and
anything you want is free because you
can get the resources from out in space
mined by these hyper intelligent
creatures that will send it back
presumably if we can get them to
cooperate with us. And now you have a
world where the whole reason that I
became from an evolutionary standpoint
an economic unit is just gone. Doesn't
exist. And so what then happens to the
economy? The only thing I can think of
is we maybe play a game where we have an
economy because we we're hardwired to
want things to be scarce. We're
hardwired to want to climb a hierarchy.
>> So create scarcity when they when the
scarcity goes away.
>> Correct. For sure. We did it. It was
NFTTS were everybody going but wait I
don't want my digital goods to be
infinitely replicatable. I want them to
be scarce. That was the very thing that
got people excited about that. And so we
will create artificial scarcity for
sure. But I think the bigger question
just becomes meaning but meaning and
purpose. That wasn't your question. Your
question was around what happens to the
economy. It will be unrecognizable at a
minimum and it may only exist with
inside games people choose to play. So I
have a Birkin bag and that still matters
because the bots will only make 10,000
of them. And so now I'm one of the
people that did whatever game we decided
you had to do to get the Birkin bag.
It's just a loop that we live in. And
the question is, does AI eject us out of
that into something else completely
where we have a meaning crisis? Have you
read the book uh A Brave New World?
>> Oh my god. If you read it now and ju and
I say this is AI, what AI produces,
you're going to freak out because it is
a world where nobody has to work,
everything's leisure, it's all good, and
so everybody just does drugs to keep
themselves numb and to keep themselves
unaware of how meaningless their lives
are.
>> That's what I worry about.
>> And it seems like small businesses will
be virtually eradicated at this point.
>> Not virtually, they'll be gone. They
won't they'll be nonsensical. in there.