0:00 - Introduction to Freedomain
1:25 - The Impact of Philosophy on Parenting
1:53 - Exploring the Crypto Landscape
5:32 - Centralization vs Decentralization in Tech
9:56 - The Nature of Trade-offs in Life
13:58 - The Importance of Acknowledging Downsides
14:51 - Closing Thoughts and Farewell
In this episode, I tackle some thought-provoking questions sourced from the Freedomain community, exploring the complexities of investment strategies amidst rising inflation. I reflect on the traditional views regarding assets like gold, silver, Bitcoin, and real estate, asserting the necessity of converting currency into tangible, limited, and portable investments. I caution listeners that while real estate can be a stable investment, its value heavily relies on influxes of new residents, which can lead to societal challenges.
One listener shares how my work has shaped their views on atheism and peaceful parenting, especially in regard to recognizing the personhood of children. I appreciate this feedback, recognizing the vital impact that philosophy can have on parenting and personal ethos. These discussions illustrate the broader implications of philosophical inquiry in our everyday lives and relationships.
Shifting gears, we delve into the fascinating and often contentious world of cryptocurrency, specifically examining the emerging popularity of Solana. I express skepticism about Solana’s claims of efficiency, drawing from my technical background to highlight how scalability issues often emerge when user volume increases. The conversation navigates the delicate balance between decentralization and centralization in tech systems, elucidating that while centralization may offer speed, it comes with the grave risk of vulnerability and oversight.
I share insights from my coding experience, emphasizing that no technology can promise both speed and decentralization without trade-offs. The crux of my argument rests on the notion that assertions of perfect solutions without drawbacks can be, at best, overly optimistic and, at worst, misleading. Using relatable analogies, I illustrate that comparisons of speed between cryptocurrencies can often miss the mark without considering user traffic and transaction volumes.
Further, we address the importance of recognizing both advantages and disadvantages in various life choices, arguing that any decision — whether in philosophy, finance, or personal fitness — must weigh both sides of the coin. I assert that philosophy, while enlightening, can come with its struggles, akin to any commitment that involves growth and change.
To conclude, I emphasize the importance of engaging with credible sources that acknowledge the complexities of any proposition. Whether discussing parenting or technological advancements, it's prudent to remain vigilant against claims that ignore inherent trade-offs. My hope is to foster a community of critical thinkers who not only celebrate strengths but also confront weaknesses transparently.
Listeners are encouraged to visit freedomain.com to support the show and engage in continued discussion on these multifaceted topics.
[0:00] Yo, good evening everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. So, a couple of last questions from Facebook. Don't forget to join the great community at freedomain.locals.com or subscribe to star.com slash freedomain. Donations, of course, always welcome. Very, very gratefully accepted at freedomain.com slash donate. All right, somebody says, I'm an uneducated 33-year-old, some of the most reasonable men in my opinion, are Ron Paul, Thomas Sowell, and you well that's really elevated company i appreciate that thank you do you believe gold silver bitcoin and real estate are how to combat inflation yeah i would say the only thing that i mean i can't give anyone investment advice of course right but i can just talk about my own sort of thoughts on this that currency dissolves in the bank so you want to try and get i think Bank your currency into hard assets, limited assets, and portable assets.
[1:01] Bitcoin, of course, is volatile, but it's portable. Gold is less volatile, but it's less portable, as is silver. And real estate, well, the only way that real estate maintains its value is if more and more people keep coming to the country, which causes a whole bunch of other problems that may have you not enjoy the country so much. So real estate has its limits. All right.
[1:25] Somebody says, I know this is about questions, but I'll take this moment to thank you because your work gave me the effective and philosophical case for atheism and for peaceful parenting. And while I'm not an atheist, it did certainly give me the tools to better assess any God claims that are made and therefore investigate as opposed to believe. I've had four children since I started listening to your work in 2013, and they're all very cooperative and well-mannered. And I certainly have to attribute that to having attributed personhood to them as you admonished to do so in the early days.
[1:53] Salute to you sir i hope you're doing well oh thank you i obviously appreciate your kindness and massive congratulations to you and your family that is beautiful and wonderful and lovely to hear so i really really appreciate that update wonderful why don't you ever mention solana when it's not only solved the coffee and donuts problem but it's absolutely killing it in the crypto space right now also your main gripe with ethereum nfts was the gas gas feeds which are also solved with Solana. Well, I'm obviously happy to learn more about various cryptos, I suppose.
[2:31] The major question I would have with Solana is that everything seems efficient until you get a lot of users, right? I mean, so one of the things that I know from my early days as a database programmer is, you know, my code ran absolutely beautifully in lightning fast as long as, as long as I was the only user. Now, even if you threw in another user, it wasn't so bad. But of course, when another user is editing the record, you need to lock it and notify them when it's released. And so it's fine when you have a small number of users. I remember writing Ode for a major multinational organization. It was on just about every continent except the icebound ones.
[3:26] And it just didn't work fast. It just did not work fast enough. So we had to have local copies, which then synchronized overnight. Local copies of the database to each continent, which then synchronized overnight, which has all of the exciting challenges of which dataset wins if Someone changes, two people change the same record, right? So everything is fine when it's small. Everything becomes a real challenge when it becomes large. In general, in tech, and again, I have a fair amount of experience of this, so I hope you'll bear with me. But in general, things are faster when they're decentralized, but then they're more difficult to merge. The more centralized things are, the faster they are, but the more vulnerable they are to the problems of centralization. So, for instance, when I was doing my database coding, if we had a database in, let's say we had 20 databases in 20 different countries, every person working locally. Okay. Well, those databases were thus a lot faster because it was decentralized, but then we had the problem of merging all the files together into one, all the data together into one big database for worldwide corporate reporting.
[4:47] So, decentralized had its advantages, which was faster local access, but it was not decentralized. Now, when we had things centralized, it was great because if I was working on a record, you would be informed that the record was locked and you wouldn't be able to work on it and it was all great except it was gruesomely slow.
[5:08] So centralization solved problems and caused problems, and decentralization solved problems and caused problems. So Visa, of course, is much faster because the database is centralized, but then, of course, it being centralized, it's not doing exactly what Bitcoin is supposed to do, which is to require no centralized authority to control it, right?
[5:33] Decentralized blockchains are wonderful in terms of there's no central authority that could be hacked or controlled or corrupted or managed or grabbed or subverted, right? So you have the decentralization. With the decentralization comes the coffee and donuts problem, which is can it be used to pay for a coffee and donuts? And again, I understand the lightning layer with its sort of accumulated bar tab approach is a way of trying to solve that and seems to have some success.
[6:02] But I've worked enough tech for enough years in enough places to know that anyone, you know, present company included, anyone who says my tech solves all of these problems is full of absolute, complete, and total crap.
[6:21] The only way, and again, I'm on a limb here, I haven't researched this, but based upon, you know, 15 years as a coder and dealing with the problems of centralization versus decentralization, anyone who says, I can give you all of the advantages of decentralization and all of the advantages of centralization, but none of the disadvantages of either, is just full of crap. at. It's just not true, at least in technology as it stands. So, Solana may have particular advantages, and those particular advantages are going to create other disadvantages. It is unfair to compare any particular crypto with the possible exception of Ethereum. It is impossible to compare any crypto to Bitcoin, since Bitcoin is the king of crypto and has by far the largest user base and is the most accessed and transferred and used and updated of all of the other cryptos. The market cap is massive, the number of users is immense, and the number of transactions is enormous and it's decentralized.
[7:38] The decentralization problem may be solved in the long run with even faster internet. There was an internet download speed achieved in Japan from a remote server that downloaded the entire 100 gigs of the install files for Baldur's Gate 3 in less than half a second. I believe it was less than a quarter of a second. Now, you start to get that stuff cooking. you start to get internet speeds that fast or even if they're a hundred times slower or maybe 10 times slower would be more accurate and then you're starting to look at being able to close.
[8:15] The gaps in trade-offs between centralization and decentralization but if i were to look at i'm doing this without research so again i'm out in the limb i could be wrong but if i were to do the research on Solana, they would say, oh my gosh, it works so much faster than a Bitcoin. Look, a Bitcoin transaction takes this amount of time, yet a Solana transaction is one hundredth the time. It's a hundred times faster than Bitcoin, which to me is about as intelligent, honestly, I don't mean to be insulting, but I'm just telling you my perspective. All of that is about as intelligent as saying, well, you know, it takes me an hour and a half to drive to work at 7.30 in the morning. But holy crap, at 3.30 a.m., I could do it in 20 minutes. It's like, well, yes, I understand that.
[9:11] But that's only because the road has far fewer cars on it and very, very few trucks. Right.
[9:19] So saying that when the number of users is far lower, it's far faster, is not important. And it's not intelligent. And it's scammy. Frankly, I'm not calling you a scammer. I'm just saying that making the claims that a lot of cryptos make, hey, it's way faster. It's like, well, yeah, because there's less traffic, right? If it had the same number of users and the same number of transactions as Bitcoin, it it would be the same kind of situation. Now they say, ah, yes, but this one's much faster. Okay, well, then how have you achieved that speed? Well, through centralization.
[9:57] There's one big central data. It's like, okay, but then that's fine.
[10:02] But you've lost one of the advantages of Bitcoin, which is the decentralization, which is really part of the foundational ideology to have a system that cannot be controlled by any central entity. It's a big thing in life to understand The most honest people will always tell you There are advantages and disadvantages, Always The least honest people will always tell you That there are only strengths and no weaknesses There are only advantages, no trade-offs and no compromise mice so people will tell you that having kids is just purely wonderful and no trade-offs but there are trade-offs of course there's time expense uh sleep and so on there are trade-offs people who tell you well going to the gym is just all plus all plus all great there's no well no there's there's massive trade-offs and in particular you know when you see those guys with the really ripped physiques you know even assume that they're full natty like even assume that they're not roiding up the planet. I mean, that's two, two and a half hours a day in the gym. It's like a part-time job and it costs them a lot of money because you can't make money at the gym.
[11:25] You're spending a lot on supplements, a lot on protein shakes, a lot on... And that's just the time in the gym. You also have to spend time learning about how to do all of this stuff and bro-max your muscles and all that kind of stuff. So it's just a massive amount. It's a part-time job. And hey, I've got no issue if that's what you want to do, but let's not pretend that it doesn't come without a cost. And I have been, I will say this as with all the humility of being a far from perfect person, but I said this from the very beginning of this show. Philosophy is great, but it's going to suck ass on a regular basis. Philosophy is fantastic, but it is going to make you unhappy from time to time. And the beginning is really tough. Right, my very first book, On Truth, The Tyranny, Evolution. You can get it for free at freedomain.com slash books. Very first book. It's rough, man. It's difficult. It's tough. I didn't say to you that it's all sunshine and roses and a life of integrity is wonderful and perfect. There's no downside, no problems, because that's just false, right? It's like the spending versus saving or the renting versus buying.
[12:42] People will say, oh, but if you rent, you're just throwing money away. And it's like, no, you're not. Because if you have to cough up $50,000 to $100,000 for a down payment on a house, well, you could have thrown that into crypto. And it could have turned into millions and millions and millions of dollars. Well, you're not throwing money away then. You threw your money away. Let's say you bought a house in 2006, God help you. And then your house value crashed.
[13:10] Right? Well, that's not good. All the pluses, all the minuses. I mean, there are pluses even to addictions. Nicotine raises testosterone. Nicotine focuses the mind. Nicotine can unleash significant creativity. And there are some people in this world who are probably better off because they smoked, right? People who were writers or creators who managed to get a particular... I'm I'm not recommending it. I'm just saying that there are people, without a doubt, who are better off because they smoke. They were more creative, more focused. Yeah, maybe they died five years earlier.
[13:47] But they also achieved immortal art. Maybe it's worth it. It's not worth it for me, but maybe it's worth it for some. So I think it's interesting. I'll have a look into it.
[13:59] But anyone who says all of these problems have been solved with absolutely no downside and have not talked about the downsides. If they say it's all benefits, no trade-offs, that's got a scammy feel to me. And I'm always, I generally dismiss such claims. People who don't talk about strength weaknesses are not credible to me. And I would suggest that if you want to be around intelligent people capable of rational discrimination, don't pump things as if there's no downside. There's always a downside. There's always a downside. And if you want to have intelligent people around you, don't say things are all positive but no negatives, because those intelligent people will do their very best to avoid you because of that scammy feel. Hope that helps.
[14:52] Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. Lots of love. Talk to you soon. Bye.
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