Kind: captions
Language: en
There are very weird things going on in
the world that I think you have a unique
lens on. So over your shoulder I see
Anne Rand
>> and we just had a socialist get elected
as the mayor of New York City. So as a
sovereignty guy, as somebody who thinks
about money and wealth from cause and
effect ground up, how do you feel about
that? Oh
>> yeah. Well, um first of all, I don't
follow politics closely. I have heard of
this individual being elected. I found
it very concerning.
People were reposting him tweeting
Marx's infamous line from each according
to their ability to each according to
their need. And like if you've been a
student of history,
you will know that those words have,
[snorts] you know, underpinned the
murder of millions, hundreds of millions
potentially. This idea that we can just
come together in brotherly love and
organize an economy, like it doesn't
work, right? People move based on
incentives. And so, you know, as Mises
proved in his crowning achievement of uh
the Austrian business cycle theory, like
socialism/communism
does not produce prices. Therefore,
there is not data propagating throughout
the market space. So, you end up with
just the government being the arbiter of
all goods and services. You end up with
a lot of shortages, a lot of surpluses,
uh, and a lot of coercion and
confiscation basically. So it's d like
it may sound you know benign. Oh this
idea of all all of us coming together
and ignoring money and ignoring market
incentives and ignoring economics and
we'll just you know from each according
to their ability to each according to
their need has such a romantic tone to
it. But the reality couldn't be further
opposite almost like it is an actual
murderous ideology. So to see it coming
back I think is very concerning. Now, my
deeper conspiracy theorist hat
thinks because this guy is uh he's
Iranian. Is that right? Middle Eastern.
>> Uh he's from Uganda.
>> Uganda. Okay. My mistake then. I thought
he was Middle Eastern
>> by he might be I actually don't know his
uh ethnicity. His nationality is he was
born in Uganda,
>> right? And he's socialist. He's also
been accused of being an anti-Semite, at
least by his critics online. I don't
know if that's accurate or not.
>> He certainly he won't condemn the phrase
globalize the antifat. So I would not
say that he is a friend of Israel to be
sure.
>> Yes. Okay. And so yeah, my deeper
conspiracy theory hat thinks maybe you
let a guy like that get elected so that
you can justify more atrocities in the
Middle East. you get you fment
Americans,
you know, associating Middle Eastern
with socialist with uh anti-Israel and
then if he does a bunch of bad things in
New York, then that justifies atrocities
abroad.
>> Who now I'm curious. All right, I put my
conspiracy hat on. Who who would be
driving that agenda?
>> The term that people like to use is the
deep state. I have no idea who that is.
And again, this is just a speculation. I
have nothing to back it up. But
>> I think politics is a complete sham.
Utter complete sham. Uh Javier Malay,
for instance, the libertarian candidate,
right, that's been elected in Argentina.
>> Um he's not libertarian at all, right?
They the chainsaw he was going to take
to the state, which was a platform he
ran on, uh the central bank he was going
to abolish. Like they're still expanding
the money supply. Uh, Safetina Moose has
done a lot of good work on this,
especially on Twitter, just showing how
oxymoronic it is for this guy to even
call himself a libertarian. He's just a
closet statist basically. But he's
putting all this lipstick on the pig
saying he's implementing these
libertarian policies and it's just
>> do you think he would institute the
policies if um he was able like they're
already behind the eightball? So is it
possible that coming in and just being
sort of LZ a fair it just there's so
much momentum going in a negative
direction or do you think that no no
he's just another guy that wants control
wants to see the state wield power and
he's doing whatever he needs to do to
wield that power.
>> I think he is another puppet. I think
all these politicians are puppets for
deeper power structures. I think nation
states are front organizations.
um when we even think in terms of like
what is the United States doing, what is
China doing, it's like you're not you're
not mapping your your mental model onto
the resolution of reality, right?
Reality is composed of individuals that
act. We form cohorts and coalitions and
we struggle for power amongst ourselves.
We don't move as one indivisible unit
called the United States, right? There
are mil millions of power structures
inside the United States vying for
control. And it's not just political,
it's often economic as well. So I think
the world is basically [sighs]
a bunch of gangs and nation states are
you know the biggest gangs but when you
get people thinking in those terms you
can distract them from the other games
>> that those terms what do you mean what
are they
>> in terms of the nation states themselves
right like US foreign policy you know
Chinese trade policy like these things
do have effects but it it opposite
skates the reality of who's in actual
control. [snorts] For instance, the
shareholders of the Federal Reserve in
the United States, right? This is an
undisclosed set of shareholders. They
have a lot more power than any
politician that's ever in office, but
you never hear that discussed in media.
You never
>> You do if you listen to my channel cuz I
talk about honestly.
>> Thank God for decentralized media.
>> Yeah. Okay. That's very interesting.
This is not uh the mental model that I
thought you had of the world. Okay. So,
let's go with Javier Malay. Um, I think
a lot of people have been broadsided by
Trump and Secretary Bessant um, doing
the whatever they call it, the currency
swap where they're essentially bailing
them out. I think a lot of people were
surprised by that. Um, hey, if these
systems are so good and these policies
work so well, why do you suddenly need a
bailout? So, you think that there's
something more, and I I'm putting a word
in your mouth, but nefarious. there is a
power structure that um people are
trying to hide from us and this is a way
for us to see the real movements of that
underlying power structure. Now, if you
don't know specifically who they are, um
help me understand how you map what goes
on and um how you interface with the
real world if like that's an unknowable
sort of again you're not using the word
evil, but I will paint that brush.
>> Yeah. Um so it's I mean the term that I
use is the shareholders of central
banks, right? I've identified in my
opinion central banking is the most
problematic institution in the world.
You know it controls the money supply
controls the interest rate which is the
price of time or the price of money.
This is the most important price in the
world. That price is being centrally
planned rather than discovered like all
other market prices. So that itself is
very problematic. It's an anti-
capitalistic institution that underpins
all economies worldwide. even the, you
know, so-called capitalist ones.
>> So, as I've said before on your show, if
money is one half of every transaction
and the money itself is Marxist, and I'm
not, this isn't an opinion. This is 1848
Marxist manifesto to the Communist
Party. Measure number five, the state
has to have a central monopoly on cash
and credit in order to be communist.
Right? It's a pillar of communism. So we
have a pillar of communism here in the
US and in every nation state worldwide
that we have central banks. So if money
is one half of every transaction and the
money is Marxist then how could we even
call our begin to call ourselves free
market capitalist right? We are at best
50% capitalist and at best 50 50%
Marxist. And so this is like when I you
know that's what I try to focus on. I'm
not looking for the who done it like who
are these individuals who are the bad
guys because I don't believe that's very
useful. I think it's that people
ultimately are incentive responsive
creatures and that you have to reform
the incentive landscape itself. That's
how you change human behavior or human
action over time. Fair. It's not useful
to just vote harder or even have a
revolution and you know uninstall this
guy and install your new guy. Like that
never works. That's just that just leads
to the endless cycle of bloody
revolutions.
>> Interesting. I I will reject the idea
that it doesn't work. It isn't stable.
It works for a while. I think part of
the problem that we have right now is
that it worked for so long here in the
US that we're forgetting that you have
to earn a functioning government, you
have to earn a functioning economy, you
have to be prepared to be hardcore,
disciplined, etc., etc. But I want to
get back to this. So, okay, you world is
gangs. The worst gang of all is the
central bank. Um, I'm going to try to
find the perfect way to ask this
question, but if I don't nail it, I'm
going to keep going until I get there.
What I'm trying to figure out is
whenever you have a philosophy,
um, take, uh, physics. If you put
forward a philosophy of physics, you
your philosophy must accurately describe
the world that we see. Otherwise, I know
it's false because I see the world, I'm
interacting with it. So
when you think about the philosophy of
what drives governments, what incentives
the gangs or anybody else are following,
>> um it's going to have to describe the
world that I see, nation states. Um that
you can create stability in some
countries. America's been great. The
West has been great for a long time. Um,
so if half of the money is at least half
of the economic exchange is Marxist,
>> um, does it need to be like why does
that rise up?
>> Why does that emerge
>> consistently? Yeah, we will get right
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>> I think humans are opportunistic.
So if there's the possibility of
monopolizing and controlling the money
supply then a if any if that's available
to any set of human beings and they're
going to embrace that opportunity.
There's this great clip of a I think
it's a New Zealand central banker and he
says it very succinctly. He says central
banking is a great business. We print
money and people believe it.
That sums up pretty nicely what this
institution does. It's a currency
counterfeiting cartel.
And the reason it is it emerges I think
is because of opportunism.
Um you could get we could go into a bit
deeper of a discussion. It's like okay
gold is actual free market money right
this is something that emerged on the
market. It did not require any
government intervention to become money
unlike fiat currency. Fiat currency
requires anti-competitive [snorts]
um laws. It requires legal tender laws.
It requires legal coercion to exist.
Basically, that's not true for gold.
What's the problem with gold is that
it's heavy and it's physical and you
can't move it across a telecommunication
network very easily. So, as the world
modernizes from gold standard to
telecommunications,
our information systems started to
outrun our monetary system, right? We're
transmitting promises to gold, not
actual gold. And in that accumulation of
promises, you get a lot of counterparty
risk. And when that counterparty risk
accumulates at large, you get what's
called systemic risk, right? A lot of
people owe a lot of people money, but
not it's all deferred settlement. There
hasn't been any final settlement to
occur yet. So, you get all of this uh
tension, right? And Jeff Booth on the
show a long time ago said this,
summarized this well. He said, "Currency
wars lead to trade wars lead to real
wars, right? Right? Or as Bastiad said a
long time ago, if goods don't cross
borders, soldiers will. So the
opportunism of individuals to control
the money supply and have a business
that basically produces perpetual
profits, right? It's impossible to be
unprofitable when you print money out of
thin air, right? So your shareholders
are enriched at infinite item. You can
then use the purchasing power stolen
through that money printing to fabricate
false academic narratives like Keynesian
economics, fake news, propaganda, right,
to convince the victims that 2%
inflation is really good and healthy for
you and you need it for a growing
economy. Even the term inflation itself
is a euphemism. The money is
depreciating. That's what's actually
happening. It's not nothing's inflating.
The nominal prices of assets denominated
in the depreciating money are inflating.
So that euphemism of people like, "Yeah,
growth sounds better. I'd rather have
inflation than deflation." That term
alone, I think, is a purposefully
implanted euphemism to get people
thinking in terms of inflation being a
good, necessary, and healthy thing.
>> Okay. So, I want to
>> So, what we need to do is remove the
opportunity. And that gets us into the
Bitcoin conversation.
>> Remove the opportunity. Okay. We'll get
to that in a second. Uh the mile markers
that I'm picking up here in terms of
your worldview are uh there is something
in the human psyche that longs for
control.
>> Uh if it needs to be coercive control,
it will be coercive control.
>> I don't think it's control. I don't
think it's control. I just think it's
pursuit of profits.
>> Just pursuit of profits.
>> That that isn't uh that is not my
understanding of what you just walked
through. So if it were just pursuit of
profits then um it wouldn't naturally
follow that you would get central banks
but we do get central banks and so when
I look at the world and I say whatever
philosophy comes up it's got to describe
that and given that central banks as far
as I can tell are everywhere
>> uh then whatever the philosophy is has
to account for the fact that it becomes
everywhere also you said that basically
even nation states are just gangs so
that tells me that gangs rise up. Uh,
very easy to understand why that is.
Weak men need to congregate in order to
protect themselves from strong men. I
don't think that's bad, though. I'm sure
the use of the word weak makes it sound
like I think it's bad.
>> I don't. I can certainly understand how
if your um your tribe is constantly
being raided and the cost is you dead
wife raped.
>> Uh, then I get why people real fast go,
I'm going to start banding together with
a bunch of people. We're going to come
up with ways to protect our stuff. Um,
so I understand that. But there is
something that's driving people that if
they can get more and more control, they
will seek it out. Which is why um you
get the central banks because it it's
you're not entering into a world where
people can't profit and you create a
central bank. America didn't have a
central bank until 1913. In fact, our
best years of growth were before the
central bank.
>> So there is something else in the human
psyche that leads people. Well, I feel
like you've already answered it, which
is
>> But why why were why were the best years
prior to the implementation of the Fed
>> uh because you have creative destruction
and you don't calcify in terms of uh
creating a cast system where people
can't lose. So when you have like if you
believe as I believe that innovation is
almost all that matters
>> that freedom is necessary for innovation
that people will do well for a while but
then they'll burn away and that the
collective cares not at all whether Elon
Musk is the greatest thing for 20 years
and then falls off the face of the earth
and ceases to be interesting at all. And
so if people can create regulatory modes
or otherwise or like with central banks
where and this is one of those things it
hides in plain sight and I don't have
simpler words to say it but inflation is
stealing from everyone and only giving
well I probably got some a lot of the
stuff from you when I first discovered
you.
>> Well when I we first spoke you thanked
me for saying inflation is stuff cuz you
said you thought inflation had been like
given you
>> I thought it was a natural law. Yeah,
>> I just thought it happened.
>> And now to hear you when I see your
clips of you saying inflation
>> Yeah. Listen, man. You've been This is
why I sit across [laughter] from you
whenever I get the chance. Uh so if
inflation is stealing from everybody and
only giving back to the rich, then and
you're willing to do it when a bank
fails or whatever, uh what you're doing
is creating a permanent cast system
because
>> once you're at the top, you're building
the network, you're building the policy
to make sure that you can never fall.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. So if I'm right that uh that is
eventually going to hurt innovation
because you're not getting rid of the
people that did dumb things. You're
propping them up. And so now the true
innovator has undue hurdles that they
have to overcome in order to actually
aggregate aggregate the capital to
innovate. Now the whole world begins to
suffer from that. So, um, I get why
people that get to the top want to yank
the ladder up, but nonetheless, it has
all these horrific ramifications for
>> a society as a whole.
>> 100%. It's well said. Um,
>> so there's two things I want to talk
about here. One is the genesis of gold.
I think this will answer your question.
How did we get how do we get central
banks? How do they emerge
from otherwise free market activities?
Right. So we mentioned that gold is
physical, right? It doesn't work in a
world running on telecommunications,
meaning that you can only transmit
promises to gold. It's very slow and
expensive to send actual physical gold.
So your physical final settlement lags
yourformational settlement, trade,
communication, right? That produces a
gap um that creates systemic risk and
whatnot. Now it might be useful here to
define money. Uh one very useful
definition of it is that money is a tool
for moving purchasing power across space
and time. And [snorts] the purchasing
power is simply what the money can buy
you. The goods and services that that
amount of money can acquire in the
marketplace. So gold because it has a
relatively inflexible supply, right? No
one can counterfeit it. It does a really
good job at holding purchasing power
over time. It functions as a really good
means of savings for people. However, as
we just covered with the the gap between
gold and telecommunications, it does not
move purchasing power across space very
easily. It's very expensive. It's slow.
It requires a lot of security. There's a
lot of risk associated with it. So,
human beings being the innovative
ingenious animals that we are, we
innovated around this shortcoming of
gold, right? gold as money really good
at transmitting purchasing power across
time but not space. So what do we do? We
put all the gold in one vault and we
trust this originally these were called
money warehouses.
we trust this warehouse operator to
issue warehouse receipts, right? Paper
IUS saying, "Hey, I've got this much
gold on deposit with the warehouse." And
then people could go and trade these
paper receipts with one another as if
they were as good as gold because indeed
they were for a long time.
>> And those then then you have solved the
space problem, right? All of a sudden,
gold can move really, really easily
across space or much more easily when
it's in paper form. Even more easily
when it's abstracted into electronic
form, right, or digital form. These
promises can move at the speed of light.
And then so long as the warehouse
operator is honest, you can always go
and redeem the gold from the warehouse
operator. Now, looking at the incentives
of the warehouse operator, what do they
face? they face the
incentive to run what's called a
fractional reserve. Okay, a full reserve
warehouse is one in which all of the
assets match all of the liabilities. So
all of the the paper certificates that
are in circulation that say someone is
old owed gold is matched one to one with
the gold actually in the warehouse.
Right? That's a full reserve
non-fraudulent legitimate money
warehousing operation. What is a
fractional reserve? A fractional reserve
is when you issue more paper, more
liabilities, then you have assets to
back. Once you do that, you're engaged
in an insolvent, fraudulent practice,
right?
>> Known as modern banking,
>> known as all of modern banking. But the
is the thing is from the warehouse
operator's perspective, that's pure
profit. As long as everyone doesn't do a
run on the bank, right? As long as not
more than whatever the percentage of
people is. If I've if I'm running a 50%
fractional reserve, then as long as 50%
of my clients don't come and redeem at
the same time, then we're good. I can
loan these these other paper
certificates into existence as if they
were as good as gold. The market will
not detect this error [snorts] unless
there is a run on my bank. I can earn
interest on this printed money out of
thin air and so goes the scheme. Right?
Now, this can sort of work if you have
competition among money warehouses,
right? So that the bad actors would get
exposed and go out of business and good
actors with good reputations would be
promoted and preserved. However, once
the government intervenes in this game
and says, you know what, we really like
that money printing business you got
there, that fractional reserve bank, and
you know what, we're going to war, so we
need a good spigot of money. I think
we're going to take that fractional
reserve bank and make that our own. Now,
that's how you get this. You go from
genesis of gold as money to paper
certificates, warehouse receipts,
augmenting the portability of gold to
make it more useful for moving it across
space to creating this opportunity for
warehouse operators to run a fractional
reserve to creating this source, this
limitless profit center for governments
to intervene and basically confiscate,
right? And so that's how that's the
centralizing tendency that gives rise to
the central bank. And you know there's
the Bank of Antworp, Bank of England,
like this is not an American thing,
right? This has been going on for about
600 years, I think. Um, and the American
nation was founded largely in response
and in rebellion to not only taxation,
which we always hear about the Boston
Tea Party, right? 2% tax. Was it 2% 4%?
>> Something like that.
>> Throw the tea in the harbor and, you
know, start killing red coats kind of
thing. Well, we were also rebelling and
escaping from the Bank of England, which
had tyrannized people for a really long
time. The US Constitution was written in
a way so that we would not have a
central bank. Um, and indeed we resisted
one implementation of it. We had one for
25 years. The charter expired and then
we got the third attempt in 1913.
You know, obviously read the book at the
Creature from Jackal Island if you want
the story on that, but that one was
successful and we've had a central bank
now for 113 years or whatever it is. So
that I hope answers at least bridges
from how we get to gold to central
banking. And the other thing I wanted to
say I think
>> the only thing that I'll say that's left
out of that and and I really am trying
to bring my audience along in this is if
it were just profit motive as you put it
forward. You can sort of forgive it.
It's a product and hey isn't that
wonderful? But either the people that do
it are completely ignorant to the
following or they are sinister and I put
them in the sinister camp.
>> Yeah.
>> Is that when you issue additional paper
Yeah.
>> that you are uh robbing the purchasing
power of all the people that hold that
paper.
>> Yeah.
>> And then in a modern banking sense you
um reward anybody who holds assets.
>> Yeah. Now, while anyone can hold assets,
10% of Americans hold 93% of the assets.
And I'm going to guess even that 10%
falls on a power scale. So now you're
going to have some ridiculously small
number of people that benefit from the
fact that inflation is happening. But if
people do not understand that second
part, which is that as you inflate the
currency that you are enriching asset
holders and this is the flywheel that
makes the rich richer and the poor
poorer.
>> Then you have to begin to say, well,
hold on a second. Are they completely
naive to that effect or is that exactly
why they're doing it? And I will put
forward that that's exactly why they're
doing it.
>> The shareholders
>> uh the shareholders of the bank asset
holders are now incentivized. Like
technically I'm incentivized for
inflation to happen because I own a ton
of assets.
>> So the more that the money supply is
inflated, the wealthier I get. We'll be
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I would argue that in a zero sum game
perspective, yes, as the currency is
depreciated, the assets that you own as
a larger percentage of your portfolio
will be bid up more than the currency
will be depreciated, right? So, people
living on fixed income, paycheck to
paycheck, pensioners, they're the ones
getting robbed. Y
>> and asset owners are getting rewarded.
But here's the tricky thing is
this. It all comes back to private
property, right? That the the existence
of the central bank [snorts] is premised
on the violation of private property of
savers through money printing, right?
Savers put purchasing power in money.
They expect it to be preserved or
ideally grow across time. The central
bank intervene. That's where we get
gold, right? The market selects gold as
money for that very reason. But then
through state intervention, opportunism,
whatever you want to call this, the
profitability of coercion, and this is
an important thing to disentangle,
right? Because profitabil, there's
nothing wrong with profit in and of
itself, right? That's a signal that
we've we've solved the problem
basically, right? If I'm if I'm
delivering a good or service into the
market space, into a market space, I'm
solving consumer wants better, faster,
cheaper than anyone else, right? That's
that's basically what the profit says.
That profit also induces competitors to
enter, right? They want to come in and
they want to get a piece of that margin,
thereby uh competing prices down and
quality up, right? Which all benefits
the consumer. Profitability is great.
It's a very important signaling
mechanism. It's what coordinates
economics, right? You know, prices,
profits, um all these things denominated
in money. But when you talk about
profiting from coercion like the
violation of private property that
you're profiting by stealing from
someone else
what you are doing in aggregate is you
are reducing total productivity
and this happens in two ways. One,
if I steal something from you,
that is time, effort, and energy I spent
in the nonproductive activity of
confiscation, right? I [clears throat]
didn't produce any good or service. I
actually produced a I didn't produce a
good, I produced a bad, right? A bad for
you, namely, right? Like, I had a table,
you stole my table. What happened? Now I
got to go buy another table. Okay? So,
um,
when you do that,
my time, effort, and energy that could
have otherwise been allocated towards
some productive activity, building a
business, building an asset, labor,
whatever it is, was instead spent
extracting from you. Right? So, that's
one way in which the violation of
private property reduces productivity.
But now look at it from your
perspective. [snorts] If say I sold 20%
of your assets, right, and you acquired
all of these assets through consensual
work and trade, well then you now have a
20% reduced incentive for any further
production. You're like, well, the last
time I produced 100% of the fruits of my
labor, 20% of them got stolen. So my
incentive to work has just gone down
20%. So it's this this is the problem.
This is why the integrity of private
property, as Mises said, right? the the
history of civilization and the history
of private property are in inexorably
linked I think is how we put it. They
that's the whole purpose of civilization
is so that people can own things and
specialize in things and trust that
other people will own and specialize in
things and we can all trade and we can
all enjoy the fruits of one another's
highly specialized labor in this modern
lap of luxury we call 2025.
uh despite all of the anti-market and
anti- capitalistic forces that we're
also dealing with like nation states,
like central banks, like politicians.
So, um it's a matter of do we reward
productive peaceful cooperation?
That would be the profitability of
consent, consensual activity. Or do we
reward non-productive, coercive, and
violent activity, which would be that's
how the central bank is profiting.
That's how nation states are profiting,
right? They engage in these activities
for their own profit, but it comes at
the expense of others. So this economics
game is positive sum, right? It's
win-win,
>> right? When you and I trade something
consensually, we both do that because we
believe that we will leave the trade
better off than we were before. So both
of us walk away with what's called
psychic profit, right? We both at least
think we're better off. We could be
wrong, of course, but we did it
consensually because we both believed it
was in our best interest, right? So,
we've generated value on both sides of
the trade. Once you violate that
principle of consent, by definition,
it's one person's gain at someone else's
loss, right? Your psychic profit at if I
steal your table, your psychic profits
gone down. You've lost one table that
you had before, whereas mine has gone
up, right? I gained a table. But then we
have all those issues related to to
productivity that I described. So the
integrity of private property this is
and it basically it some people get
caught up in that it maybe is a bit
abstract but it's just a prohibition on
killing and stealing and coercing.
That's all it is. Right? This is
biblical ethics encoded legally. Right?
Encoded as a social institution we call
private property. But this is the most
important social institution in the
world. This is what coheres
civilization. This is what allows us.
You know, Hapa makes the point that it's
even presupposed when we have a
conversation.
You are presupposing by listening to me
right now that I have freedom of choice,
that I control myself, that I have
something that you could possibly learn.
And then if you didn't do that, you
just, you know, thought there's nothing
you could learn from me and you know
everything. Well, then all of a sudden
we're not having a conversation, right?
It's something more like I don't know
what it is at that point, but it's not a
conversation. So for to have this free
exchange, we have to presuppose that
each of us individually owns ourselves.
>> Yes, all of that makes sense. Uh the
thing that I want to drag into the light
for people is that if you um let this
get philosophical, you're going to miss
that it's nefarious. And the reason that
I brought all of this up in the context
of mom donnie is that I think that there
is a very bad thing that is happening
that has very knowable cause and effect
and people's failure to accurately
understand the cause and effect is what
makes them elect the person who is
absolutely the worst for them.
>> Yeah.
>> So once you understand that uh the
government can steal your money if
there's a central bank the government
can steal your money by as you said
counterfeit money print. will come under
a much nicer name,
>> but it's counterfeiting your money. When
the money is counterfeited, then your
dollar no longer buys a dollar's worth
of stuff. It buys 90 cents, 80 cents, 70
cents, on down to nothing.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh and then people get into this where I
can't make ends meet. They start feeling
very anxious. That anxiety needs to get
transmuted into something that feels far
more powerful. That tends to be anger.
You go into a populous moment. And great
irony of ironies is you end up voting
for the guy that is really just trying
to get elected. So he promises you free
stuff.
>> The second they promise you free stuff,
what they are promising you is that
they're going to money print. As we just
covered, they're going to counterfeit
money, take from you, but in a way that
you may think you're psychically
profiting, but in reality, you're being
stolen from. And the inability to track
that, yes, is how we end up voting for
these problems. Now one these problems
being very clearly socialism. Now one
thing that I want you to explain why why
does socialism so consistently so
necessarily become murderous. [snorts]
Well let's start with some definitions.
Um
I think I've I've shared this with you
before but I really like the spectrum.
Again this is inspired by the
libertarian philosopher Hapa.
And on one end he has capitalism which
is the universal respect for private
property and the trade of private
property via contract right via consent
basically. So not only can we own things
but we can also trade things
consensually right the rule of law legal
coercion exists only to preserve that.
Right? That's an ideal capitalistic
world. The opposite end of this spectrum
would be communism or Marxism, right?
Which as Markx himself said could be
summed up in one sentence. The abolition
of private property. No one owns
anything. The state owns everything and
tells you what to do. Right? That's the
opposite of capitalism.
Socialism is the gradient between.
It's just what you know, you tell me
what percentage your effective tax rate
is and I tell you what percentage
socialist your society is and what
percentage of slave you are. Right?
Again, if 100% of the fruits of your
labor are being stolen, that's the
definition of a slave, right? You keep
nothing of your work. And if you keep
100% of the fruits of your labor, then
you are sovereign, right? You're not
subject to anyone, right? You are a
fully actualized sovereign agent
basically. And so socialism is the
spectrum between. Uh there's a lot of
different flavors of it, but again, if
we're looking at it through the lens of
private property, it's just at what rate
are we violating private property. And
Hopped takes this further and says that
okay, the percentage,
the rate at which you're violating
private property is the same rate at
which you are incentivizing
those nonproductive,
coercive, violent activities. Right? If
it's profitable to go and get elected to
public office and benefit from tax
dollars and printed money, no matter
what promises you have to make, people,
there are individuals that will take
that opportunity, right, as we're seeing
in New York City today. But if those
opportunities don't exist and we're just
rewarding people
profits from consensual activity, right,
in this domain of pure capitalism over
here, then we're only rewarding prudence
and trade and pragmatism and problem
solving, right? We're not rewarding
problem making, right? You almost call
coercion problem making, right? Like it
is making a problem by definition for
the person being coerced. Otherwise, it
wouldn't be coercion. Again, if it was
consensual, they wouldn't they're at
least leaving. They may have real
problems to deal with because their
psychic evaluation of the situation
wasn't right, but at least their psychic
profit, their belief is that they are
better off after the trade. But once
that principle of consent is violated,
you start sliding from the world of
ideal capitalism into the spectrum of
socialism and then it typically
degenerates ultimately into communism or
Marxism. So it is this like [ __ ] in the
integrity of civilization I think where
um the darker side of human nature can
fester and I think that's why socialism
has emerged in that um you know
>> but why does it become murderous? It
becomes murder I think it has a very
clear mechanism. Okay.
I think it becomes murderous. Again, the
way Booth put it is like you're, you
know, currency wars lead to trade wars
lead to real wars. Once you're getting,
you're earning profits from coercing
someone, stealing from them, right? That
instigates backlash, backlash.
Uh the other side of that trade is going
to seek retribution of some kind, right?
So you you're you're sparking a mimedic
cycle.
>> So basically people are going to be
pissed taking their stuff
>> and they're going to strike back, right?
And then that you get into these like
blood feud situations where like okay
whether it's social revolution, whether
it's basic petty crime, whatever it is,
people get desperate and they start to
act in more of a zero someum game
manner. Right? My win necessarily comes
at your loss, right? That's the only way
for me to succeed. and the less so from
the positive sum mentality of hey let's
trade right let's have free trade let's
act according to the same rules let's
all play pretend that we each actually
have the exclusive right rights to the
things of value we create right that's
kind of the laring that we're doing with
private property but it's very useful
laring because when we do that we play
that game of pretend we get a lot of
peace and productivity when we start to
break the rules of that game or twist
the rules of that game or violate the
rules of that game as politicians do
specifically socialist politicians
that's when it starts to degenerate and
I think you start moving along that
spectrum straight towards communism and
what we know what communism does right
you talk about murderous
uh what are the numbers how many people
did Stalin murder 60 100 million
>> um Stalin is tougher to pin down um but
there is a political scientist I'm
forgetting his name right now, but uh he
clocked the number at over 200 million
dead in the 20th century alone due to
government policy.
>> There you go. Democide, I think he
called it.
>> Yes. So, the thing we might be saying
the exact same thing but in different
ways. Um where this breaks for me is
because it doesn't work, people start
raising their hand and saying it doesn't
work. Yeah.
>> But for me, socialism is born of a very
simple idea. I know better than you.
>> Yeah. And so when you look at the
marketplace and you say rents in New
York are too high, you never stop to
think too high by what metric? What do
you mean?
>> Uh you just mean that some people can't
afford it. That's the nature of things.
>> So when somebody goes, I know better.
Then they try to control the market from
the top down and things start breaking.
Like for instance, if you tell a
landlord, you can only charge X amount
of rent, but it costs more than that to
maintain the building.
>> You're just wrong. You don't understand
capitalism. You don't understand
incentives. All of that. And so that
person raises their hand and says, "This
doesn't make any sense." And then
because they are right, uh you
ultimately have to shut them up. And
once you understand the only way to shut
somebody up is to let them vote and so
you're at risk of being voted out of
office.
>> Uh or you force them to be quiet and now
the guns have come out and hence the
murder.
>> It really is that simple. Like I don't
want people to lose sight of like this
becomes a problem because the plumbers
aren't going to work for free to repair
the building. Uh when you stain the
carpet or get mold, the people that
remove that stuff won't work for free.
>> Uh so you either have to force them to
work for free, which I think everybody
would agree is a terrible idea. But in
>> socialism, you have to because that's
the only way that you can guarantee
those outcomes. And so this is why I'm
trying to like I don't want all this
stuff to be super heady. I want people
to understand listen you won't work for
free and if you won't work for free then
I things can't be given to you for free
because somebody at some point has to
work for free for that to happen.
>> And then of course people are going to
say well Tom just tax the rich. You
could literally tax not just their
income but their wealth. And nobody
understands wealth. Wealth is fiction.
But even if you could tax their
fictional wealth, you would only get
like 2 years runway.
>> It's all gone. It's all gone. And so I'm
like, h this is so basic. This is really
simple. And if people could uh track
that you [snorts] won't work for free,
no one will work for free. And if people
don't work for free, nobody can get
anything for free. Uh, and that over and
over and over every time this is tried,
you end up having to kill a whole lot of
people because eventually somebody goes,
"Uh, hey, Ma, planting
>> uh the same crops at the same time
across a country the size of America,
>> it doesn't work. They're not going to
grow and then everybody starves to death
and so you got to shoot a bunch of
them."
>> Um,
>> it's really that basic.
>> I think we're in deep agreement
honestly. Like I may be saying it in a
much more heady way and you're saying it
in a much more accessible way. So God
bless you for that. But
>> I'm just trying to get like I think
America is racing towards a problem and
they're being stolen from. So like they
get mom Donnie is right. There is a huge
problem.
>> Mhm. All the Marxists are right
>> and the question becomes a why is there
a huge problem and what to do about it?
>> Correct. And so if you can't map out, oh
the I'm being stolen from, like if I
could just get everybody to understand
two things. Thing number one, if your
government is deficit spending, they're
stealing from you.
>> Thing two, if the government is
inflating the money supply, they're
stealing from you.
>> Like if I could get them there so that
>> that's the only way they can deficit
spend,
>> right? Yeah.
>> So if I could get people to look at, oh
wait, you want to make this thing free,
that means that you're allocating
governmental budget towards that. what
are you cutting? Because we're already
deficit spending. So, if you're adding
more to the deficit, well, then that's
going to create more and more problems.
But, it's proving very difficult to get
people to uh follow said cause and
effect. So,
>> I can totally relate to that. As someone
who's been beating the what is money
drum for, I don't know, close to a
decade now, it's it can feel a little
frustrating and that you're trying to
liberate victims from their victimage.
But
>> are you just are you a Bitcoin is lifeer
raft guy?
>> Well,
private property is what we're going
for, right? The ability to own things
that are independent of the opinions of
other people. And I think to that end,
Bitcoin is the strongest form of private
property we've ever had.
um you know first of all
you know money by definition can be used
to obtain any good or service in the
marketplace right so in a way it's kind
of like a meta private property right it
it gives you access to obtain anything
the marketplace can bear any property
that anyone has well it's mostly for
sale not all of it but you know mostly
anything people can create of value it's
available through money the printing of
money is the violation of private
property of savers right people are
holding and here's a here's Just good
way to think about this.
When you go to work, for instance, and
you trade your time for money, right?
You are expending your labor producing a
good or service for someone else. You're
solving someone else's problems and
you're paid in money, right? You can
then take that money back into the
marketplace and you can give it to
someone else. So, they'll solve your
problems, right? They'll sell you a pair
of shoes or they'll fix your sink or
they'll sell you a car, whatever.
Whatever the thing is, this trading of
favors, that's another good definition
of money. The medium through which we
trade favors basically
when you do that, right? So, let's say
you just go to work and you provide
services or you render labor to provide
goods or services and then you are paid
in money and then you hold the money,
you save it. What's happened in
aggregate to the world?
You've increased the productive output
of the species, right? By rendering your
labor to produce goods and services.
You've been paid in money, but you
haven't spent it yet. You're just
holding it, right? It's just potential
goods and services in the future. So,
you've added to the productive output of
the planet, but you haven't yet
subtracted from it. So, this is like
when when it's extremely moral. It is
extremely moral to save. uh Hapa would
point out here too this starts the
process of lowering time preference
which is the rate at which we prefer
present satisfaction to later
satisfaction and he later says that
civilization itself is the um
externalization of our individual time
preference. So the lower our total
average time preference becomes the more
civilized we become. So money is this
meta private property lets you obtain
anything the marketplace can bear. uh
money is this medium through which we
trade favors and to earn money is to do
something that's very moral and useful.
Now if that money you're saving in is
now being counterfeited by the central
bank, well then the purchasing power,
right, the moral act, the reward for the
moral act you did of going to work is
now being depreciated.
Someone who's benefiting from that money
printing is stealing from you. They're
stealing your labor. They're stealing
your time, your energy, your effort.
Um, Bitcoin is money that cannot be
printed, right? It's fixed supply money.
So, it is invulnerable to the violation
of private property through currency
expansion. And that's very important,
right?
>> Now, is the goal though just to get
people off of government controlled
money?
>> Well, that obiates the need for central
banking entirely. So, if we go back to
our definition of our first definition
of money as an instrument for moving
purchasing power across space and time,
Bitcoin is like the internet and gold
had a baby, right? I've probably said
this to you before, but gold was really
good at moving purchasing power across
time because it has the inflexible
supply, but not space because it's
physical. So we augmented gold to have
gold backed currencies which are really
good for moving purchasing power across
space because it's just paper or
electronic but not across time because
it introduced the warehouse incentive
problem where there's an incentive to
run a fractional reserve which leads to
inflation of the currency and ultimately
hyperinflation.
Bitcoin threads the needle. Bitcoin is a
pure digital asset with a fixed supply.
It's the only fixed supply asset in the
history of the human race. the other one
there will ever ever be so far as I can
tell. So it is it perfects the
preservation or transmission of
purchasing power across time. Also
because it's purely digital. It's just
information. You can move it at the
speed of light.
>> Why do you think it it's the only one
that will ever be though? Like it's the
easiest thing in the world to replicate.
>> Because of game theory. We we have we
have 40 million replications of Bitcoin
right now. Right.
>> You're just saying it's the one that got
adopted. I'm saying that absolute
scarcity a fixed supply money can only
be discovered once. I think it's in this
way you have to compare it to something
like the number zero or people also
compare it to like to the wheel right
like are we gonna invent something that
disrupts the wheel like no the wheel is
very fundamental
>> the wheel is a concept I can make a
>> so is Bitcoin
>> Bitcoin is a concept made real
>> yes I don't know if this is where we
want to take the conversation but just
uh because I know people are going to
hammer in the comments on that uh this
is adoption I'm going to channel Peter
Schiff right now uh Bitcoin has no
intrinsic value whatsoever ever at least
gold can be turned into a watch.
>> Sorry, if we're going to do a show on
economics, let's not use the term
intrinsic value.
>> Peter Schiff is the worst for that. All
value is subjective, right? It does not
exist. It is not inherent things to
quote misuses.
>> Agreed. How we respond to the conditions
of our
>> Bitcoin can be replicated has been
replicated a gazillion times. It's just
a question of whether people adopt it or
not. What I'm the reason I'm I'm asking
about Bitcoin though is I'm trying to
make like I uh I have two options before
me. Path number one, um, move to
Singapore and just be a rich guy.
>> We were talking about that this morning.
Singapore
>> path, path number two, uh, stay engaged
in America and try to get people to
understand why they got rad over the
coals.
>> For now, it's path number two. I really
want people to understand this. I've
always had beef with people that are
just like, Bitcoin's a life
>> raft. The reason I have beef with it is
while it's true and it has all these
fancy properties, the reality is people
just need to get the hell away from
anything that can be inflated. Uh, and
so right now, while I Bitcoin is my
single biggest investment, Bitcoin is
also moving more like a tech stock than
it is like gold. So people need to, I
would say, be very honest about uh the
state of Bitcoin currently and make sure
they understand the cause and effect of
all this stuff so they can figure out
how to eject out of just the everyday
fiat currency that they are currently
trapped in.
>> Um I want them to know where to put
their money, how to invest, and how to
vote. Like those are my like just super
small bread basket of things. But
unfortunately, no matter how much I try
to simplify, even like the slightest
amount of nuance, I know I lose people.
>> Um, so yeah, I'm curious as to like
you're going to be fine because you
understand the nature of money, but like
if you had to make this accessible and
understandable to somebody who is going
to get lost very fast, is Bitcoin the
punchline because it can't be inflated
and it's not government controlled or is
there something else? Um,
okay. I'm going to try to make it ex as
accessible as I can. I do try to make it
accessible.
>> Um, let me try to speak like a caveman.
Money printing bad.
>> Okay.
>> Money printing bad, right?
>> Steal from you. Money printing steal
from you. Okay. Money that cannot be
printed, therefore good. Really good,
right? Really good thing. It protects
your purchasing power, which is your
ability to survive in the real world,
right? The work that you expend to gain
resources to improve your own and your
family's survivability.
Sorry, I'm getting fancy words again.
Um, that improves your chances for
survival. That seems reasonable enough.
That is depreciated through money
printing. Okay, so Bitcoin is money that
you cannot print. Okay. So, money
printing bad, money you cannot print
good, Bitcoin good. Okay. Further this
back to this idea of private property
which is ultimately about the integrity
of the relationship between the owner
and his assets. Right.
>> You were doing so well and now
[laughter] we're back to I'll try to
simplify it. I'll try to simplify.
>> So, can't be printed. We got that part.
>> Okay. Let's use this. Let's uh
>> marriage.
>> Government control is not a part of
this.
>> Marriage. What is marriage? A union
between two people, right? And there's
exclusivity, right? Most marriages, most
>> not always.
>> But consensual, why? Like even if
there's not exclusivity, you would
consent to let someone else sleep with
your partner. You wouldn't agree to a
marriage and then she can sleep behind
my back whenever she wants, unless
you've consented to like a don't ask,
don't tell or whatever the thing is.
>> Okay. Private property is pretty
similar. It's like you, the creator or
buyer of that asset, own it. You own it.
You decide what to do with it. You can
exclude people from its use. You can
include people uh for its use, you know,
renting it out, whatever. You can sell
it. You can destroy it. You can eat it.
Whatever it is, right? Like you decide.
So, it's a uh exclusive relationship
like marriage between husband and wife,
between owner and asset. I hope that
helps. Um, the reason Bitcoin excels
here is because to physically custody or
physic to have Bitcoin in your
possession
>> is to just have a private key, is to
just keep a secret.
And so the ability, you know, it was
once put to me, this was a funny guy
sharing a story about a Middle Eastern
gentleman that said what he really loved
about Bitcoin
was that he could put $100 million of
Bitcoin on a hard drive and stick it up
his butt and get on an airplane and go
anywhere in the world if things ever got
bad. Someone really needs to tell that
guy about a brain wallet, by the way,
because you don't have to do that
sticking up the butt part. You can just
memorize 12 words. He and then he went
on to say, "You cannot put $100 million
of gold up your ass."
>> It would be tough,
>> right? So like, okay, I hope this guy
shot, but [laughter]
>> I hope this is accessible for people.
It's like if you want to be able to
control your means of survival which is
purchasing power and economics parlance
with the
with the most assurance that no one else
will be able to um override you right
they'll be able to take it or whatever
then Bitcoin is that thing right you can
own an asset that is technically
unseasable
We could get into the multi custody and
whatnot where like, yes, you're a brain
wallet. You can be tortured and someone
can force you to give up your 12 words.
But if you put your Bitcoin in a multi
and all of a sudden those 12 words are,
let's say, chopped into five pieces and
you need three or five of those pieces
to unlock it. Well, this is the highest
security custody schema we have. This is
what we use for nuclear launch codes,
right? If you ever seen a movie where
the guys have to like put in the keys at
the same time, turn them in the same
sequence, and then they can access the
nukes or whatever, that's a multi-key
setup. You can do that with Bitcoin. So
in terms of money printing bad, money
you cannot print good and then assets
that cannot be stolen easily also good
because that lets you control your
livelihood, your means of survival.
Bitcoin excels everything in both of
those respects. And in term now we could
go into the Bitcoin versus shitcoin
thing like oh well why if Bitcoin is
just open source software why doesn't
everyone just copy it and make a million
different copies of it you know and then
it then it's diluted then it's
hyperinflated. Well first of all we have
17 years of market test. Okay that's
already been happening. We have like 40
million shitcoins in existence.
Bitcoin's outperformed all of them for
17 years straight. It's the fastest
growing asset in human history. And to
try to make it accessible,
the metaphor I've heard used is that you
are free to fork the rules of chess,
right? Chess is open source software,
too, right? It's just rules the game. We
sit down and we play it. You can change
those rules all you want, whatever way
you want, right? People do it. There's
3D chess. There's all kinds of stuff.
But chess isn't going anywhere, right?
Like as a game, it's it's a shelling
point. people have people have coalesed
on it as an existing thing. So even
though as you said earlier it's a
concept like these things really matter.
The essay I wrote was the number zero in
Bitcoin right like the number zero if
you could imagine something disrupting
that
or disrupting the wheel as we said
earlier like this is how you need to
think about Bitcoin it's that type of
innovation. It is something so
fundamental something that like is so
mindblowing and hard to comprehend. And
that's why we're all the six blind guys,
you know, describing the elephant. Um,
that we struggle with different
metaphors. You know, the internet of
money, digital gold, internet and gold
had a baby, etc., etc., etc. And so but
if I'm trying to make it I don't know if
this is accessible but elemental it is
the perfection
>> or optimization at least of private
property which then leads to the
optimization of price discovery and I
think also leads to the optimization of
political freedom.
>> Why does it move like a tech stock and
not like gold? Well, it's gone from 0 to
$2 trillion
in its first 17 years of existence,
which makes it the fastest growing asset
in human history. Price volatility is
inverse to market cap. So, the smaller
an asset is, the more volatile its price
will be, right? You could think of this
as like a little boat on big waves
versus a big boat on those same waves,
right? There's more volat the little
boat will experience relatively more
volatility as those waves move whereas
the big boat will be more stable. Right.
>> So you're saying it's not big enough yet
to match
>> as it grows its volatility goes down.
>> This is already also market proven and
it's not just Bitcoin. It's provable for
number of assets. You could look at
Amazon right? Amazon
>> declined like 94% after the 2001 tech
bubble.
Amazon went down 94% and then it's grown
like 40,000% since. Right. Okay. So the
year I think it was like 18 months that
the Amazon price declined that much. It
was like you know its annualized
volatility was let's say 80%. Something
like that. Right. Okay. What is Amazon
but it was a whatever $5 trillion asset
then not five trillion$5 billion asset
then. Now it's a multi-trillion dollar
asset. What's its volatility today?
Right. It's I guarantee you it's less
than whatever it was then. It was 80 vol
then it's probably a 30 or 40 vault now
right the volatility has declined as
Amazon stock has grown same is true for
bitcoin right so gold is a what is it
now $20 trillion asset 22 sure with the
total market cap but it's soared in the
last year soared
>> yeah soared less than bitcoin but still
soared uh yeah but what so what I'm
getting at is uh there's a reason I'm
very open to what that is but there's a
reason that gold functions the way that
it does, which is in times of uh
inflation, people are going to flee to
gold. In times of um government
uncertainty, whether they'll pay back
their debts, people are going to flee to
gold. They don't expect a big return.
They just expect safety.
>> That's right.
>> Bitcoin does not function like that yet.
Maybe it will one day. Or maybe it's
something that people think of in a
totally different way. And I'm just
like, I have a take. I think I know why
it is, but I could be wrong. And so I'm
just curious what you think the answer
is. So far it sounds like you're saying
it's just new and so as it grows it will
probably function more like gold and
that its volatility will go down because
the it's just raw size will go up.
>> Uh but I was just curious if you think
that people mentally map it differently
now if they see it as a sexy thing that
is sexy precisely because it's high
volatility and so they want in. they're
going to ride that volatility. They're
going to day trade against it. They're
going to do all the fun things that
people wouldn't do with gold. Uh and
then if that's correct, if you think
that um it's inevitable that that
changes but it remains a gold-like thing
or if it stops being the cool new thing
and we move on.
>> Yeah. Well, people buy assets for all
kinds of reason, right? like um how
people arrive at their conclusions is
often beyond me. [laughter]
Um but I will this is where I think it's
very important to be a fundamental
investor or at least take a perspective
on fundamentals of the asset.
Um, one of the most important answers to
the question what is money in my opinion
for me at least in my journey was when I
arrived at the properties of money like
what are the actual
to use um langu this was language
popularized in the 1960s by a guy named
Gibson who wrote a book an ecological
approach to visual perception and he
talked about affordances that organis
isms actually perceive affordances which
are opportunities for real action,
right? And he, you know, it's very, it's
kind of an interesting thing. He makes
the point often that they're neither
subjective nor objective. It's about a
fitness relationship between the subject
and the objective world. And so we could
either call these the properties of
money or we could call these the
affordances of money. Right? Obviously,
there's a monetary metaphor built into
that word affordance.
I and people narrow this down to a
different number of categories, but I've
always narrowed it down to five and it's
divisibility, durability,
recognizability, portability, scarcity.
Right? So when we evaluate gold through
that lens,
it's very divisible. It's very durable.
It's not very portable as we said
earlier. That's why we needed currency,
right? It's somewhat recognizable. We
have to do tests on it. That's what
that's where we get the term sound
money. You would drop a coin from a
certain height and it would make a
certain sound and that was a heristic
for its authenticity. And then
importantly, gold is relatively scarce.
It has an inflexible supply which lets
it hold purchasing power across time
well. Okay. So as a money, it excels in
all of the affordances or properties of
money except portability. That's why we
needed currency, right? And then we get
into the whole ware money warehousing
thing and the fractional reserve banking
scam.
Now evaluate Bitcoin through that same
lens. It is basically perfected all the
properties of money. It's infinitely
divisible. It's divisible right now to
100 million subunits called SATs. You
can increase that divisibility via a
soft fork which is a backwards
compatible software upgrade. So there's
like it's like a non-contentious change
basically. So effectively has infinite
divisibility. Its durability is also
infinite. Uh this is where it's good to
think as we talked earlier about the
idea of a concept versus the the thing.
The example I often like to cite is the
Bible, right? You could go out into the
world and go on a Bible burning
campaign, but no amount of Bible burning
would ever destroy the Bible. Like the
concept of the Bible has so thoroughly
permeated consciousness that it will
exist forever. Bitcoin runs on the same
principles, right? It's like it's
everywhere and nowhere as Bitcoiners
say. So every node has the full history
of what Bitcoin is. So the durability of
it is effectively perfected. Portability
because it's just information. It can
move at the speed of light. Can't get
much faster than that. So portability is
perfected. Recognizability, which again
is the ability to authenticate or verify
the money is what it says it is, right?
It's this is a real gold coin, not a
lead piece of lead plated with gold,
right? Like you have to verify what it
is. You can audit the total Bitcoin
supply. Uh in fact, this is what Bitcoin
does. Every node on the network is
auditing the work of every other node,
mining or otherwise, every 10 minutes.
So the entire system is like 100%
verification and 0% trust, right? You
don't need to trust, no trust me, bros,
if you will. And then finally, Bitcoin
is the only fixed supply asset in the
history of the human race. So, it's
perfected that inflex that relatively
inflexible supply that gold had that
gave it a really good ability to store
purchasing power into the future.
Bitcoin has perfected. We have a fixed
supply asset so that your purchasing
power will not be debased at all.
Not 2%, not 5%, like nothing. Zero.
Right? When you look at Bitcoin on a
fully diluted basis, there's only 21
million that can ever possibly exist.
The number can only go down from there.
>> All right? So that's why I think Bitcoin
is like you you're asking me what it is
today. It trades as a very significant
risk on
asset, right? Which means people are
speculating on it, people are
leveraging, whatever, right? It's high
volatility, right? So it tends to be in
the risk portion of people's portfolio.
But it's fundamentals, what it is, it's
digital gold. Internet and gold had a
baby. You you mentioned gold is the
ultimate riskoff asset right now in the
current world, right? Bitcoin's better
than gold fundamentally
on those same properties that make gold
a good riskoff asset make Bitcoin the
perfect riskoff asset. So we are at a
unique time in history where the world
perceives Bitcoin as the ultimate riskon
asset, speculative, volatile, dangerous,
whatever. And the reality is it is the
safest, most perfect form of private
property available to the human race.
And so that recognition will dawn on
people through the market process and
it's just up to you to, you know, study
Bitcoin, do the work and decide for
yourself. But that's my view.
>> Okay. So we've got this perfect uh
riskoff asset plus we have gold which is
withtood the test of time and we have a
currency in the US dollar that is
inflating like crazy. Uh we're at 122%
debt to GDP and rising. There's a magic
line at 130% where essentially you're
guaranteed to be an open conflict within
your country. Uh often revolution, often
turning the tables over, defaulting on
the debt, just absolute economic
catastrophe. We're racing towards that.
Um so given that we have a problem that
I'll peg, I'm not trying to put these
words in your mouth, but I'll say
somewhere between 8 to 10 years you
cross that line
>> of the 130%.
>> Yep. And you I hope people can already
feel that we're already heading towards
the open violence. It's already begun.
And so it's not like a binary switch
that we get there and then it clicks
over. It will just get worse from here.
>> And we have an exit ramp.
>> Whether that's gold, whether that is
Bitcoin.
>> So how do you see this playing out? Do
you think I'm crazy and that it's never
going to end? Partyy's just going to
keep going. We're all going to be fine.
uh or is it going to be people start
taking that offramp which then further
craters the dollar because there's no
appetite for treasuries which not to
lose anybody new to the conversation but
just know if there's no appetite for
treasuries your country goes broke
>> uh the appetite for the treasuries is
entirely based on confidence and
>> and money printing
>> yes money printing is what will drive
the lack of confidence so
>> well I'm saying money printing is used
to buy those treasuries too. So it this
is why it's selfating the confidence.
>> Exactly. This is why fiat currency is an
oxymoron.
>> Okay. Another definition of money. The
final extinguisher of debt. What is fiat
currency? A debt based money. It doesn't
make any sense. It's you can't like the
dollar you have in your pocket or your
bank account you think is an asset but
in fact there's a liability attached to
it. So in accounting we have an
equation. Assets equals liabilities plus
equity. Right? Right? If I own a piece
of gold or I own Bitcoin, I have an
asset that's 0% liability because it's a
bearer asset and 100% equity. I have
100% equity in the asset, so all the
value is mine, right? You would think
the same thing about a dollar. Oh, if I
have a dollar, it's a bearer asset. It's
mine. But what you don't see is that
invisible liability sewn into it, right?
You could stuff all the dollars under
your mattress you want. That doesn't
stop the Fed from counterfeiting it by
the trillion and stealing your
purchasing power. So, it's you can't
even own it, right? Because it's not
property. It's not private and it's not
property, right? Just like they joke
about the Federal Reserve. It says
Federal Federal Express and it has no
reserves, right? The entire thing is a
[ __ ] scam. And I'm sorry like to put
it that way, but this I share your
frustration. It's like I've done my best
to point to the books. I try to make it
as accessible as possible. I know I may
have talk tendency to talk a little bit
heady sometimes but
>> do you see us as on a timeline or do you
think that this is
>> of course I think statism always
degenerates into I just don't what is
the opening line to that police song
says um
>> don't stand so close
>> have no faith in constitution
there is no bloody revolution
um [ __ ] I'm forgetting the words now but
the I the point is this like You can't
violently, you can't socially organize
people with violence and coercion. It's
not sustainable.
It's not sustainable. Right? If you're
just going to scare people and steal
from them, they're going to look to get
out of that system and betray you and
backstab you every chance they get or
overthrow you, right? And if they
overthrow you, then they install their
new coercive government and the process
repeats. You know, what did you say
earlier? the the two things you wanted
people to understand uh something like
money printing bad right
>> so far so good
>> what was the second one
>> uh that your government if it's deficit
spending they are stealing from you
>> they're stealing from you which all
deficit spending is funded by money
printing so those go hand in hand I
would hope you would add a third or
consider adding a third and that is
taxation is theft
taxation is theft the whole thing is
stealing from you the inflation steals
from you the deficit spending steals
from you and the taxation steals from
you. So what we need to do as a species
is evolve past the idea of legalized
theft as a necessary ingredient of
social coherence because it introduces
the opposite. It's just like fiat
currency, the debt based money. The idea
that we're going to coersse ourselves
into unity doesn't work. What do we
need? We need really strong private
property, really good incentives, and
diminished
uh profitability of coercion and
violence. And I think that's where
Bitcoin, that's probably one of the
deepest perspectives to take on it. That
idea that okay, it can't be printed as
money. So that defunds the war machine.
It's also really hard to steal as money.
>> And you're saying it defunds a war
machine because we can't possibly tax
enough to pay for it.
>> So you could check my numbers on this. I
have one say I think it was I think it
was $8 trillion the United States spent
on the war on terror.
My numbers might be wrong, but the point
will stand. Say it was $8 trillion we
spent on the quote unquote war on
terror. Giant air quotes here because
it's really just genocide and
imperialism. US spent $8 trillion in a
20-year period. The the Federal Reserve
printed like $ 8.5 trillion during that
same time period. Okay. Whatever it
worked out to be, it was something like
the cost of that was $80,000 per US
household. So, had the money printer not
been available to fund the war on
terror, every American household would
have been sent a bill for $80,000
saying, "Hey, here, you know, pay your
fair share of us."
>> They were sent a bill for $80,000. They
just don't realize it.
>> That's right. Exactly. So, the plausible
deniability by elimination of the money
printer, you're eliminating the
plausible deniability of the state where
they they can't print the money to go to
war, so they have to send you that bill.
And then people resist, right? It's
become visible. It's become legible.
People see it. So those are the things
that we need. Are we
>> And then finally because Bitcoin's hard
to steal. Like you go back to the
example of like when uh Germany invaded
Poland, right? The first once they've
conquered Poland, what do they do? They
go to the central bank and they seize
the gold,
>> right? Why? Because war is expensive and
I need the money to go and do more
waring. Okay? If that were magically on
a Bitcoin standard and Poland had their
Bitcoin in a multikey, well, Germany
would have conquered this country and
then it got no payoff. So, the
incentives to violence and coercion even
at scale go down by virtue of the
existence of Bitcoin. This is what I
think changes and tilts us toward uh
like an evolution in human consciousness
even perhaps like what maybe we don't
understand how responsive to incentives
we really are and that by virtue of tra
changing the incentive landscape so
fundamentally.
>> So wait are you saying that uh as we
move towards bitcoin we are less likely
to go to war?
>> Yes. I think war is less possible uh it
has to be paid for with explicit
taxation which people are more likely to
resist. I also think that should war
ensue,
triumphant countries will not be able to
seize the assets of losing countries so
easily in a bitcoinized world. Bitcoin
is very difficult slashimpossible to
steal if custodied properly. So it ch
it's like we have changed the
fundamental grammar of the entire game
of being human. And so now we have to
re-evaluate all of our social
institutions layer by layer and
reimagine it in a bitcoinized world. Of
course, it's not just Bitcoin, right? We
also have the internet, encrypted
communications, decentralized
uh internet provisioning, energy
production, flying cart, like there's a
lot of things that are giving more power
to the individual and reducing the power
of collectives over the individual. I
know you don't pay a lot of attention to
politics, but are you watching closely
enough to be encouraged or discouraged
by the change in policy around crypto?
>> I don't give a [ __ ] Tik Tok next blog.
Bitcoiners do not [ __ ] I mean, I'm
sorry. I don't want to generalize.
I, as a Bitcoiner, right, do not give a
flying [ __ ] about what regulations
you're passing or not passing or doing.
It doesn't matter. It's like you can
also ban gravity but gravity is not
going anywhere. Okay, so there are
things that government cannot do
anything about and Bitcoin is one of
them.
So interesting. Uh this might be where I
start. Uh it's so funny because I'm so
pro Bitcoin, but I think that um that
mentality coming off the Bitcoin
community is so detached from reality
>> that I'm always very confused. Uh so the
world has a structure. There is nowhere
that you're going to go that you're
going to escape uh the fact that there
are governments. Um I know that Bology
believes strongly in the network state.
Um hey, Lord knows I if I'm wrong, I'll
uh I'll be the first to congratulate
Bology. But
>> uh the fact is that if Hitler rolled up
and you've got Bitcoin, Hitler's going
to smash 30,000 of you in the head. and
the 30,01
person is going to hand over their keys.
Um, if you uh kill enough people in the
country, you just take everything else.
Like you money print, you do whatever.
And uh violence is the ultimate trump
card. And I've always had a very jarring
ring when people are like, "They can't
confiscate your Bitcoin." It's like,
yes, they can. Maybe they can't
confiscate yours. It's like maybe you
really will take the bullet to the head
and just be like I'd rather be dead than
you get my money. Uh but the vast
majority of people will not be like
that. They'll try to lie and all of
that, but the the real thing and I think
this is maybe the crusade I'm on. I need
people to understand the nature of the
government itself and the nature of that
government is that it wears a mask
>> and we are finally living in the age of
rapid information. There is such volume
and velocity of information that we can
finally see things for what they are.
And maybe you're helping me map why this
moment for me is so bothersome as I see
people embrace socialism and vote for a
candidate who's very charismatic and
very smiley. Uh but at the same time he
represents a sinister ideology. And I
need people to understand it's not
sinister because I feel some kind of way
about it. It's sinister because I
believe that um starving people to death
is evil.
>> Uh I believe that taking the things that
are theirs is evil. Um and it's knowable
that it will have to do that because it
isn't efficient uh at coming up with
pricing, right? You already said that at
the beginning that hey something as
mundane as like how much should this
cost
>> is going to be born of decentralizing
that answer that humans that trust
themselves too much become
>> a murderous menace to the world. And so
when I hear the we get together and say
you're going to own nothing and you're
going to be happy or god bless Bill
Gates even if he has good intentions
just trying to like solve all these
problems by himself rather than letting
things be more of these bottom-up
solutions and creating incentive
structures for a whole bunch of people
to compete to like become that. Um
that's where I'm just like oh man this
is this is people that trust themselves
too much. uh they will end up saying
something akin to you got to break a few
eggs to make an omelette which means
I've got to kill you I don't know a
couple hundred million of you is it
really that big of a deal like it's so
wild and so getting people to understand
that the founding fathers really had it
right they were super paranoid about
themselves
>> that they understood that we tend
towards tyranny that whatever system you
have has got to plan for the fact that
it tend towards tends toward tyranny
there is a reason that Jefferson said
that you have to like wash in the blood
of tyrants and patriots alike or
something like that. Like like basically
>> the tree of liberty must occasionally be
refle refreshed with the blood of
tyrants and patriots. I think
>> so it's like yeah kids like they're
trying to point out this is the nature
of the system and so living at this part
where I've gotten to taste both like hey
when this is going well and people are
disciplined and we're not deficit
spending and we actually have a surplus
like those times are pretty rad. And so,
uh, but getting people to understand
this is all downstream of culture
>> and what you teach your kids matters
tremendously
>> and we are not teaching people a story
about hard work, discipline, um, that
you should
>> uh, want to save your money, work in the
summer to be ready for the winter. Like
there's just like old school fable type
morals that we've got to get across to
people otherwise things get very very
bad very fast and it is wild and I do uh
I really appreciate the people in my
community that remind me I'm not
screaming into the void. There are some
people that are listening but it is um
this all started for me in CO when I
realized oh these people that used to
work for me uh they grew up in the hood.
They're all going to get eaten alive.
They're all going to lose their jobs.
It's going to suck. Let me make some
financial content for them about how to
save their money. And then I realized I
actually don't like I'm good at making
money. I'm not good at investing money.
So, oh damn, I got to kind of learn
about this. And then you start pulling
all these threads and all of a sudden
you're like, wait, the government's
stealing all your money. It was it has
been such a wild Bitcoin rabbit
>> awakening. It's partly Bitcoin. And I
whenever somebody throws a flag and is
like, well, Bitcoin just solves all your
problems. I'm like, you understand the
vast majority of people just are never
going to understand it. So, it's like
the vast majority of people, they do not
want a high volatile asset. It's too
scary. It's too confusing. I think
governments have a moral obligation
to allow people to do that. I think that
the current administration's change on
crypto and being pro crypto is the right
answer. Um, it is it is
good things from an administration that
is still stealing your money.
>> Mh. And so it's uh it's a bit of a mixed
bag.
>> Oh, it's a lot. I think Well, I think
you're doing good work and I think I
largely agree with you. Um
>> zoom in on the part that you don't agree
with.
>> I mean, I view this as the invention of
the printing press under the reign of
the medieval church type of innovation,
right? So
>> where we go to 30 years of war kill
millions across Europe
>> possibly.
>> But it calls into
>> Do you really think that?
>> Well, I think that the relevance of the
dominant institutional paradigm today,
which is the nation state is going to be
seriously called into question by the
emergence of Bitcoin. In the same way
the dominant institutional paradigm of
the medieval church was called into
question with the invention of the
printing press.
>> And what replaces it, network states or
something else? Well, uh, a more
peaceful, productive, and innovative
world. Now, what does that actually look
like from a political/social
organization standpoint? I don't know.
Right? I think what we need is more
experimentation. So, we have 200 nation
states today. You know, I'd like to see
us move towards a world with like 20,000
free city states, you know, and you
could run experiments and you if you
want to be a socialist, great. [ __ ]
there's socialistville over here. Go
live there. Do your own thing. You know
when it fails then it'll become
capitalistville. You know that type of
of paradigm. So
um it's Bitcoin I you know it's easy
there's a saying too that science
advances from funeral to funeral. Yeah.
>> Right. So it's easy to say oh people are
scared of the volatility. No one
understands it. No one's ever going to
adopt it. It's like you're taking a very
static view of the human race. What are
people actually doing? is that they're
individually pursuing their
self-interest. They're looking for the
best tool for the job.
And over time, as money printing,
government intervention, coercion, crime
creates more of these problems that
Bitcoin solves, you're going to create
more demand for Bitcoin. Right? We like
adults today might not understand it but
kids that grow up with Bitcoin as part
of their their millu will understand it.
You know if not intellectually then by
necessity. How many people own gold?
>> I don't know the answer to that
question.
>> Basically nobody. It's been around for
thousands of years.
>> I I'm just telling you the average
person just they're never going to do
it. like the only punchline is uh people
must become aware of the nature of
government and hold their government
accountable like and maybe that's also
never going to happen.
>> I think there's a lot of people that own
gold. I the American culture is not a
gold owning culture but
>> 10% of Americans own 93% of the assets.
So I'm just telling you in in America
alone 90% of people own [ __ ] all for
assets. That includes gold. So it just
it doesn't happen. Most people are so
caught up in their day-to-day lives
trying to make ends meet that uh they
don't think to invest in anything.
>> That's my key point though is that the
trying to make ends meet over time will
become more and more of a requirement to
have Bitcoin to make those ends meet.
>> Well, so if you're trying to escape a
hyperinflation or you're trying to
escape capital controls or you're trying
to escape outright seizure, right?
Whether you're a broke or you're a
billionaire, wealth redistribution or
whatever the thing is, like you will
need recourse to non-state digital cash
to do that,
>> but it's been available forever and
people don't do it.
>> It's been available for 17 years.
>> No, no, no. You're thinking of Bitcoin.
It's been
>> Gold's not Gold and Bitcoin are not the
same.
>> Yes, but
>> you cannot put $100 million of gold up
your ass. We already talked about this.
>> Yeah, but nobody cares about that. Like,
look, I care about that.
>> No, they really don't, man. They you
don't think people care about fleeing
with their purchasing power intact?
>> No, I don't.
>> If you have the option, someone's
invading you and you're like, "Oh [ __ ]
we got to leave."
>> Yes.
>> Do we want to leave with all of our
money or none of our money?
>> In that moment, people would suddenly
care. But the vast majority of people
just are not thinking about that. It's
like literally in in this interview
alone, the number of times that I've
thought uh because you're so smart,
I don't think you make contact with the
people that like for them this is just
like what?
>> They have no idea what you're talking
about. The the lack of fear for you is
because you know how to navigate the
world. M
>> so your fear is proportionate to the
amount of things that you think will
catch you off guard and you think very
few things are going to catch you off
guard and that's probably true because
you have an intellect. The bad news is
half of people are dumber than the
average person.
>> So I'm just saying you just have to look
at the numbers like there are a few
numbers that are just like oh 90% of the
90% of people in America just don't have
assets. Like that's wild. So, we are in
a situation where if the government is
abusing you, it's game over. And I'm
just saying the government doesn't have
to abuse you, but it is currently
because people don't understand
>> uh how to deal with that. So, listen,
I'm hardcore Bitcoin. I don't want
anybody to be confused. I'm just saying
Bitcoin does not solve the problem I'm
trying to solve, which is how do we make
sure that the average person is not
being
>> just absolutely economically raped? And
then they wonder like, what the hell's
going on? I can't make ends meet. This
is crazy.
>> And if you say Bitcoin is the solution,
it's like saying
>> garbbledegook. Like what?
>> Yeah. Yeah. No, look, I mean, I I don't
know. I feel like I agree and disagree
with this. So, it's um
Bitcoin can prevent people from being
economically predated upon, right? Or
economically taken advantage of, right?
It does
>> get people to hold Bitcoin.
>> You have to understand it, right? So,
this is why like a lot of Bitcoiners
just say just study Bitcoin like you
have nothing to lose now. But the I
think maybe the deeper point of
disagreement is you have you seem to be
having this pessimism on kind of the
intellectual capacity of the human race.
Um and I would agree like you look out
in the world today there's a lot of
idiots and there's people voting
socialists in office and like yeah okay
there's a lot of dumb [ __ ] going on. But
when I look across human history like
how far we've come, I really think we're
very adaptive and we have developed
>> cultural norms and intellectual norms
and mental math and spoken langu,000
10,000 years ago.
>> Yes.
>> So I think our capacity to evolve
>> makes me very optimistic about the more
distant future. Now, the point of
transition could be choppy, could be
dicey, could be the collapse of the
medieval church in the 21st century type
of thing. Like, who knows?
>> But I'm optimistic about the tech
digital technology enabled future. And I
think that we are engaging in like a
reciprocal reconstruction with these
machines, right? That I when the
incentives to violence go down, I think
people will become less violent.
>> What do you think about AI?
ah very mysterious
but a massive productivity enhancer.
So anything that increases productivity
is going to increase the purchasing
power of money
and I also think AIs if they're going to
interact and you know engage in any
economic activity between themselves
will have to make use of Bitcoin.
>> Do you think that we become
post-economic?
>> No.
>> Say more. You're the first person I've
heard say no to that. Space and time
will always be scarce and the wants of
the human heart will always be larger
than you know whatever is available no
matter how much is available we will
people will always what does it say
man's reach always exceeds his grasp we
always want more so that is the
definition of scarcity wherever demand
exceeds supply there is scarcity okay so
I don't think demand can ever be fully
satiated but what do you do in a world
where there is an entity that's better
than you at everything
you do But well, first of all, if it's
better than you at everything and it's
solved like a lot of the economics
problems, well then you don't have to
really work for a living, right? You
have all the food and luxuries you could
possibly want at the snap of a finger in
theory. What do people do? I don't know.
Do they, you know, go on busying
themselves with the furtherance of the
human race? Do they do some artistic
things? Do they go explore the stars?
Like what? I don't know. We're
explorers.
Who am I to say what we will do? But I
don't think scarcity
understood in the proper economic sense
is even possible to be eliminated. The
closest thing we could get to is if we
broke thermodynamics and developed free
energy, right? Or zero point energy as
as Fristan's called it. And then you
would really have like anything you
wanted at the snap of a finger. Be
pretty close to posteconomic. But you
still can't occupy the same space at the
same time. You're still immortal. Like
there's still scarcity even in the even
in that like kind of heaven on earth
scenario. You still have scarcity.
>> So you think there'll be some sort of
competition
for Malibu real estate as an example.
>> Well, I don't know about that per se.
I'm saying demand will always exceed
supply in at least some categories,
right? Like not every category. Air is a
good example, right? We don't price air
because the supply is so super abundant.
Even though it's very essential to life,
our demand is less than the supply. So
it's not scarce. So we don't price it.
We don't fight over it. Right?
>> But other goods, gold, food, water,
etc., we do price and fight over those
things.
So I don't know which specific asset
categories would be, you know, possibly
become non-scarce, but I don't think all
could become non-scarce because again,
space and time. How are you going to
make space and time non-scarce? I mean,
maybe you solve death and make people
immortal. It's okay. Fix time.
>> I don't believe in that either. But how
do you solve space?
>> How do you solve space? Meaning that
Yeah. So, going back to the Malibu real
estate thing. So, that is an interesting
question. I'll get to that, but let me
speedrun what I think happens. Uh, given
that there's essentially nobody anymore
that says that compute will asmtote, so
it's just going to go on forever. The
gap between a definitional [ __ ] and
Einstein is only 2.4x.
Uh,
>> what does that mean?
>> That Einstein was only 2.4 four times
smarter than a [ __ ] who's at like a 70
IQ. Okay.
>> So, yeah, [ __ ] has a definition. I
think it's 70 IQ roughly.
>> Uh, so I ran the math once. Einstein was
2.4x in IQ. that.
>> Uh so that's the difference between the
US government won't even use you as
cannon fodder in the military because
you'll cause more problems on the way to
getting shot.
>> Mhm.
>> Uh and being able to intuitit the
physics of the universe. So that's 2.4x.
>> Now imagine something that's a
thousandx, right? So uh you get into the
point where energy costs will be zero.
>> Uh once energy costs are zero. Do you
mean actually zero or near zero?
>> I mean actually zero.
>> So you think we're going to break
thermodynamics?
>> Uh no. I think that robotics and
material science will get to the point
where you can capture more energy from
the sun than everybody using everything
at all times during the day no matter
how much whatever they're doing. Like
they just will never be able to reach
the amount of energy that is being
kicked off by the sun.
>> Okay. Uh, and given that we'll be able
to get that level of energy and the
first wave of robots will cost money,
but Optimus is already already today, as
of the recording of this podcast, coming
off the line at 20K.
>> Uh, there I am going to be getting a
$1,000 robot for my house, one for each
floor. I'm not kidding. Uh, to run
security. Those are all ready for sale
at $1,000. So, labor is going to drop to
nothing when energy drops to nothing.
That certainly happens within the next
30 years, probably a lot faster.
>> Uh but let's just say 30 years. So 30
years from now, energy cost is zero,
labor is zero. Now it's we're post
scarcity at that point except for
there'll be occasional things
>> like we can't occupy the same space and
people will fight over that for sure and
Bitcoin.
>> So the question becomes like what are we
doing about that? It's just Bitcoin
becomes a a question of is there some
small number of things and we say
Bitcoin is the thing and whoever has the
most like that's who gets that. Maybe
that could very well be true. But the
real thing for me is when that happens,
meaning and purpose is gone. And that's
where I think this all changes.
>> Why does meaning and purpose have to be
gone when we're in conditions of super
abundance and freedom?
>> Uh because of the way the human mind
works. So evolution need to be
loadbearing or challenged to have
meaning. Yes.
>> Okay. So, you fear that with no
challenge, no load to bear, we're just
going to be aimless.
>> That is correct.
>> Hedonistic.
>> That's one of the four paths. So, I see
there's four paths before us. Path
number one is you go to Mars
>> and you play a survival crafting open
world game on hardcore mode.
>> Option number two is New Amish. So, you
reject technology. You go live on a
field like a Menanite. Mh.
>> Uh, option number three is a brave new
world, what you're talking about, drugs
and sex.
>> Uh, and then option number four is Neo
in the matrix. So, you live inside of a
virtual world, but you're awake and so
you're essentially eternally playing a
video game where you can optimize the
challenge perfectly, have real
relationships inside of it.
>> Um, that's the future. Like, that to me
is exciting. But, uh, it is a very
different world. A very different world.
Yeah, it's I mean I hear you. I find it
to be optimistic though. I mean when I
see productivity, optionality, freedom,
purchasing power, all these things going
up and the incentives for people to, you
know, violently
accord themselves with one another going
down. These all seem like arrows
pointing in the right direction for me.
Now, loss of meaning. Sure, we're in a
meaning crisis. I don't know if you've
talked to John Reviki. my favorite guy
to listen to.
>> So many so many levels of brilliant
articulation of the problem and like
tracing it all the way back. Like it's
amazing. I'm not saying Bitcoin is just
going to like fix the meaning crisis,
>> but we definitely have a big issue. Like
as far as engineering problems we can
solve [snorts] for immediately. Like
this one's just obvious. It's like you
your entire global economy runs on a
scam. How about we just stop that first?
Then we can start dealing with the
meaning crisis and all these other
things. So I am not a pessimist about
innovation. I think that it is what
makes us human. The fact that we make
tools, the fact that we create things
that then again reciprocally enhance us
in a way like we're in this we're kind
of like co- captains in our own
evolutionary process. And so I'm excited
about these things. Of course, they
bring new challenges, but I don't
subscribe to a worldview in which, man,
we've solved scarcity or almost solve
scarcity and now everyone's like, man,
life sucks, so there's nothing to do.
It's like, what are you talking about?
Like, we I don't know. I would think
we'd be exploring the stars or maybe we
invent teleportation or maybe we're
going to other dimensions or maybe
there's a psychedelic revolution or a
religious awakening. Like, I I think
people will find something to do. And
the difficulty of all of this is that we
are living in the statist paradigm. So
that anything we say, any speculation we
make about the future, we're sort of
interpreting it through that lens. You
know, oh, people are dumb today. Oh,
people don't have meaning. It's like
that's why it's important to look
backwards, right? They say if you don't
know where you come from, then you don't
know where you're going. And so looking
at the progression humanity has made
across history, I think gives me a lot
of optimism about our future trajectory.
>> I love it. All right. I would stay and
chat forever, but I got to get to the
airport. Where can people follow you on
your journey to do all that amazing
stuff?
>> Yeah. Thank you for coming to Miami and
doing this. Always fun. Um, I'm at
breedlove22
on X and then whatismoneypodcast.com.
>> I love it. All right, everybody. If you
haven't already, be sure to subscribe.
And until next time, my friends, be
legendary. Take care. Peace.
>> If you like this conversation, check out
this episode to learn more. The US is
adding $1 trillion to the national debt
every 100 days. And the interest
payments alone now cost more than our
entire military budget. Our rate of debt
accumulation has pushed us