In this X Space from 7 October 2025, philosopher Stefan Molyneux engages a lineup of callers, diving deep into the multifaceted world of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and the underlying philosophical implications of our modern monetary systems. The discussion kicks off with a patient caller, Privateer, seeking clarity on the recent Core 30 update within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Stefan elaborates on the significance of blockchain updates while expressing skepticism about potential misuse, likening the evolution of Bitcoin to the age-old principle of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” He reflects on the rapid growth of Bitcoin over the last decade and the need for technological improvements, debating the practical interference of banking interests on Bitcoin's developmental pathway.
As the conversation shifts into the realm of market dynamics, another caller, a long-term Bitcoin investor, weighs in with an eerie observation: despite increasing interest and investment, current Bitcoin price movements seem lackluster compared to traditional financial markets. This provokes an intricate discussion about the relationship between Bitcoin and traditional finance (TradFi). The caller warns of possible “rehypothecation”—the idea that institutions may be creating non-backable Bitcoin assets, diluting the real value of the cryptocurrency and stunting its growth.
Stefan chimes in with his usual passionate rhetoric, postulating that a considerable portion of society does not grasp the intricate yet critical values underpinning Bitcoin due to their entrenched relationship with the fiat system. He provocatively highlights that mainstream societal concepts and language have been shaped through centuries, and the simple act of understanding Bitcoin requires a mental unlearning of these precepts. The core challenge, he argues, lies not just in technical financial literacy but also in breaking free from ideological constraints imposed by cultural and historical contexts.
The episode culminates in a rich philosophical debate, where another caller applies the concepts discussed to the existential realm, pondering the interplay between life, meaning, and mortality. Molyneux examines the value of experiences and their transient nature, arguing that even in light of mortality, the act of living, creating, and connecting carries profound significance. The interaction encapsulates a powerful moment of inquiry into the essence of existence itself, suggesting that life's fleeting nature does not diminish its worth.
This episode resonates with anyone who has contemplated not just the nuts and bolts of cryptocurrency investing, but also the broader implications of finance on human behavior and societal constructs. With open dialogue that intertwines philosophy, economics, and individual agency, Molyneux not only informs his audience about cryptocurrency's turbulent landscape but also invites deep reflection on the value systems that govern their lives.
0:03 - Opening Thoughts on Bitcoin
1:04 - The Core 30 Update Debate
2:59 - Concerns About Image Generation
3:41 - The Role of Free Market Decisions
6:47 - The Influence of Bankers
7:48 - Transitioning to New Topics
8:14 - Market Action and Underwhelming Performance
11:35 - Rehypothecation and TradFi Concerns
19:38 - Challenges of Explaining Bitcoin
23:43 - The Moral Case for Bitcoin
26:02 - The Impact of Language
35:01 - The Nature of Value and Consciousness
38:26 - The Continuation of Ideas
41:48 - The Role of Personal Experience
45:51 - Wrap-Up and Future Discussions
[0:00] So, that's a quick sprint through what's going on. I'm happy to take your questions and comments. We have somebody who has been waiting, oh, so patiently. Private ear of the something. Private ear. That's like phone sex, right? Okay, but don't do that. Okay, maybe. If you wanted to unmute, if you have questions, comments, and if anybody else has questions, comments, you know, we can open it up to other topics if you like, but I'm just going to check and see. I would assume that since I started this show, things have gone up, because that's just the kind of power I don't have. No, they've stayed flat. All right, Privateer, what's on your mind? Ali, how are you doing, Stefan? Well, thanks. How are you doing? Great. I just wanted to know if you had any information on the Core 30 versus Knotsdebate that's been circulating. I'm kind of out of the loop there, so I was wondering if you could shed some light on that. Oh, do you mean like the, because I think I just did a show on this a couple of weeks ago, on the larger return size, is that right?
[1:04] Well, I think it's like the validation of the entire blockchain, if I remember correctly. The Core 30 update, I think, is happening on Friday. And I think the Core 30 issue is that it's going to allow for image generation within the blockchain, and then it stays on the blockchain. But the issue is that it can, well, be used maliciously, potentially. So that's just a concern, I think. Yeah, I did a whole show on that, and you can check it out. It's 6096. So FDR Podcasts, just search for 6096. Fantastic. Thank you, sir. Yeah, you can just check that out. We did that on the 14th of September. I don't think, not that I've been following it obsessively, but I don't think that there has been a huge amount of changes. because I have faith that the architecture as a whole will work out. If that turns out to be bad, people would just stop upgrading. But yeah, I certainly do recognize the danger of being able to insert images into the blockchain. I'm not a big fan. But then there are technical issues that they're trying to solve. Is this the best solution?
[2:11] I'm a big fan. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And Bitcoin being the fastest growing asset in all of human history, even bigger than my own ass, that is really an impressive thing and i don't know why people want to keep improving stuff that is working fantastically uh you know there's this old scott adams thing um about dilbert right but dilbert's like i think i'll just mess around with my computer settings until i break something and then i feel like i'll i'll be satisfied and i'll be productive by fixing it and so well bitcoin has survived a lot of many many changes throughout its over almost 20 years now um.
[2:49] It's quite incredible. No, not 20. It's getting there. It's getting closer to 20 than it is to 10. Yeah, yeah. That's for sure.
[2:56] 2009, 2008. Yeah, it's getting up there. So we're getting up there. So it survived a lot of pushback from other hard forts, I guess we could say, right? Yeah, and if this really does blow, then people will just roll back, right? I guess to do a hard fork, right? I mean, I guess that's always the safety. To do a hard fork, you could just use the older clients and things like that. So there's a bunch of different things.
[3:22] Eventually, it does end up being democratic, although it's long and painful, but you still can't force people to upgrade. Yes, and it can be quite messy, but sometimes that's what's needed, unfortunately.
[3:34] Oh, we'll see, I guess, right? Yeah, I mean, it's whatever the free market decides. Like, this is not something that is imposed by governments, so it has a chance of not sucking eggs. A chance, right? Most of what people, this is the funny thing about the world, right?
[3:52] Most of what people do fails. And this is true no matter what. So if you look at, what was it? 52 plays from Shakespeare, of which maybe six to eight are produced on a regular basis. That is sort of the famous, the Macbeths and the Taming of the Shrews and Hamlets and Merchant of Venice and so on. Although I think that one's a little less popular these days. Oh, yeah. I work in technical development, so I'm totally aware of that. For every idea, have them fail. Well, yeah. And so if you look at Shakespeare, the most brilliant writer I think the world will ever see. Honestly, I don't think that you'll ever... I'm certainly aiming at it, but let's just give him number one for all time. And three quarters of his plays are not considered particularly great. I mean, the sonnets, you know, there's maybe 10 or 20. If you look at Dickens, wrote like 37 novels, of which, you know, eight or so are considered sort of venerable classics, The Great Expectations, and David Copperfield, and Christmas Carol, and so on.
[4:58] I mean, even within programming itself, I mean, programming itself, I'm not too familiar, but I know a little bit about it.
[5:05] And, well, if you wanted to push, for branches and some branches just don't work out then you can always just roll back and start all over oh yeah i mean so even if you look at you know uh sort of number one bands like a queen that lasted from the late 60s to the early 90s uh you know they the queen's greatest hits uh you know of the hundreds of songs that they produced you know people in general know maybe 10 maybe 12 and so you know they have a success rate of you know hits of 10 what was the last time that that paul mccartney came up with a great song and so on so even among you know stone genius is the failure rate vastly exceeds the success rate so and this is why when you when you ring things with government force like currency creation and interest rate manipulation and so on the bad ideas just never get weeded out so at least with bitcoin it's not imposed dare I say by fiat right it's not imposed by force and therefore it has a chance of not sucking and yes that's just it absolutely does and now we have the banksters which has its own pros and right but like they do they do it they do carry a lot of weight behind them and if they're invested in it like we are they want it to succeed so they're going to try and do whatever they can to ensure that a blockchain stays healthy.
[6:34] Yes, yes, I think that's true. And, you know, the only thing worse than not having the bankers involved in your enterprise is having, sorry, the only thing worse than having the bankers involved in your enterprise is
[6:46] having them not involved in your enterprise. And there was simply no way for Bitcoin to become as stable and widely accepted as it is without the bankers getting involved. It's kind of a deal with the devil but it doesn't really matter because we just they're just going to be there otherwise it's going to be otherwise it's going to take too many highs and lows to be taken seriously i mean the bitcoin has stabilized enormously since they came in which is not that tough to predict so we'll see we'll see with this upgrade if it takes great for sure if it uh if it doesn't uh then there'll be a rollback and it'll be like new coke right like this is back it was of the 80s or the 90s, Coke finally changed its recipe and they poured a zillion dollars into trying to get people to try a new Coke and everyone tried it and like spat it out because it tasted like it. I was never around for that. So I was unable to taste what it tasted like before. So you're lucky, I guess. Yeah. Well, now they brought the original recipe back because the new Coke was like a combination of saccharin, bull semen, and antifreeze. It was just a bad, bad combo all around.
[7:48] All right. Is there anything else you wanted to mention? Alrighty. I think we're all good here. You can bring someone else up. Thanks for talking. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. All right. Renegade. Renegade Investoruck.
[8:01] I'm very good at pronouncing these things. Yes, sir. What's on your mind? Oh, hi. Hi, Stef. Thanks for doing the talk tonight. I just wanted to get your opinion on a theory that I've been thinking about for a long time.
[8:14] And I've been in Bitcoin for a long time, almost 12 years now. And I've never seen... Okay, hang on. Hang on. So that's 12 Earth years. But Bitcoin years are like dark years. So how long does it feel? Oh, my God.
[8:29] Longer than I want to admit. it oh yeah bitcoin years are like high school dating years they're like dog years like anybody who dates for six months in high school is like the equivalent of five years as an adult so yeah it feels uh it feels a lot a lot it's like it's like the meme of the gray-haired guy and he says uh bitcoin's not stressful i'm 25 and i feel great it's like that ain't that the truth all right so sorry yeah um but it's just something i've been thinking about for a while and i've.
[8:56] Been in bitcoin for a long time but it just feels recently like bitcoin is like a wild dog that feels like it's been neutered ever since tradfi got involved and the and i just want to say whilst before i say this like i'm a true believer in bitcoin like i'm all in i have been for a long time i've created content everything like that like i'm absolutely all in believe it's going to lead to like a libertarian salmoney free market future like the best shining light in the world right now but it almost feels like at the moment the market action of bitcoin is completely underwhelming and it just i'm sorry the what we're sorry just the what reaction just like the the market uh just the price action in bitcoin seems completely underwhelming because it's not even sort of outperforming a nasdaq and the s p 500 in terms of percentage gain and their markets that are respectively 20 trillion 50 50 trillion dollars and even gold which is 22 trillion is absolutely trouncing the sort of recent returns on bitcoin and people are flirting the idea of why this might be because the inflows have been absolutely huge like over the summer i think the supply demand sort of uh demand supply ratios were almost up to like 10 to 1 when you look at all the etf inflows and all the bitcoin treasury companies um so there was no sort of lack of demand for Bitcoin.
[10:20] It's coming in from all angles. Yet, the upside seems so limited compared to the relative strength of the inflows. And people are starting to float the idea of whether there's any way that TradFi is sort of, or maybe potentially creating paper Bitcoin or rehypothecating the underlying collateral to kind of dampen the... Okay, sorry. I'm afraid you're going to have to step me through this theory because it doesn't leap full-formed into my brain as something I can comprehend. So step me through it. So actually, it might be worth linking this back to precious metals. So for a long time in the precious metal space, a lot of people believe that, There's a lot of rehypofication or re-collateralization of contracts on the COMEX or the commodity exchange where they trade all the sort of gold and silver contracts and they're not completely backed by the physical metal.
[11:17] And so for a long time, sort of price action in gold and silver was very dampened, especially in silver where, you know, there seemed to be systematic sort of hits on the price daily. And people believed that they were just creating contracts, which then artificially
[11:33] increased the supply to dampen the price. And people are now starting to wonder because… You mean leveraged stuff, like they're trading stuff that's highly leveraged? I'm sorry if I'm just dumbing it down too much. No, just literally creating contracts that aren't backed by the underlying asset. Okay, got it.
[11:51] It's reflective of the underlying asset, but it's not a one-to-one ratio. Is that right? Yeah. So they're creating contracts that are not physically backed by the underlying asset, but the market perceives it as you're having supply in the market, if that makes sense. And so I'm beginning to wonder whether now the TradFi has got involved in Bitcoin and the price action seems really sort of like it's not on fire like you would imagine it would be for an asset that is, you know, like, because like Bitcoin's market cap is just over $2 trillion. And it's not even outperforming sort of other risk on assets that are 20 and 50 trillion and so you'd think you mean like gold and silver? Yeah, gold, yes, and pain, and NASDAQ like all of these.
[12:38] So I just think to myself, man, you'd expect for a risk on asset like Bitcoin to be a fraction of the slice to not be able to outperform such big indices. Like, yeah, it just doesn't seem right. And I'm just wondering whether the same dynamic is playing out where they're perhaps, TradFi is somehow creating some form of paper Bitcoin that isn't backed by the underlying collateral to increase supply and dampen the price. But I just, yeah. I mean, I sort of, there's this old cartoon about some medieval battle. And it's like, longbows? Could they do that? You know, like, is that allowed? I don't know if they're allowed to. And again, I'm not any kind of expert on financial regulations. But, you know, I don't know.
[13:29] The SEC or other agencies, you know, they can be kind of strict. I mean, just go ask the library guys, right? The LRBY guys, right? They can be kind of strict and so on about what they consider to be an asset and what they allow in terms of collateral and so on. So I don't know if they can. Are you saying that they can do it and they're not telling people? Or do you think it's something that might be happening under the table? Or what's your theory? I guess my theory is that I guess if you have a lot of Bitcoin on exchange, you could physically see your Bitcoin on the exchange, but maybe they don't have to all about backing the bitcoin in the background ah okay something like that so they've got something that uh is supposed to theoretically represent bitcoin yeah but they don't have it all right yeah that makes sense i mean so i hate to sort of say just reduce it to to leverage but uh that they i mean they have to have some bitcoin but if they have 100 bitcoin they're trading like they have 200 or maybe even more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
[14:32] Okay, got it, got it. Yeah, because I mean, I remember in 07/08, some financial institutions were leveraged 30 to 1, which means a 3% drop can almost wipe you out. It was insane what they were leveraged at and the fact that they were allowed to do it well. I actually had a presentation about things that government regulators get wrong on a regular basis, like the number of people who warned about Enron, the number of people who warned about Theranos, the number of people who warned about, I can't remember the guy's game now, but the guy who stole from Kevin Bacon and the guy who went to jail and died in prison. I can't remember his name right now, but a financier who was running a Ponzi scheme and just tons of warnings. Bernie Madoff, thank you. Yeah, I shouldn't remember that. It's like a simulation thing made off with all the money, right? So I don't want to give you my rant until I have as much information as you want to pass over. So there's more that you want to say before I start bellowing and swearing.
[15:37] With regards to my theory, I guess for a long time, I didn't think it would be possible because in Bitcoin, you kind of have unspent transaction outputs, which kind of collate every single spending. So you can't sort of have artificial spending, but it doesn't get around the fact that you have centralized intermediaries that could artificially increase supply in the short term by not having the full amount and maybe crediting accounts with Bitcoin that doesn't exist. And yeah i'm just just wondering whether that is feasible and how long it would take for it to kind of get rooted out because i guess one way would be for everyone to pull their money off the exchange to see if it was happening but um yeah that would take a massive concerted sort of mission to do right right right yeah well of course it absolutely could be the case that and i would be shocked if nothing shady was going on having been around the finance world um quite quite a bit over the course of my career both as a programmer and also as a guy trying to raise investment and having uh investment meetings and so on i would be shocked if there was nothing shady going on but i don't think it's enough i i think it's another answer and again it's just my obviously opinion uh formal permission to swear request submitted yeah go for it are you sure all right All right, because I can get quite colorful.
[17:04] So yes, tender ears, please get your smelling salts ready.
[17:08] So how long have you been in Bitcoin? Since 2013. Right. So a latecomer. I'm just kidding.
[17:19] So here's the problem. And it's an obvious problem. I don't claim any intelligence for pointing this out. Hopefully some intelligent stuff will come soon. But the problem is that when you get incredibly familiar with something, it's really hard to remember how fucking stupid people are about it. So you know the ins and outs of Bitcoin. You've been immersed in the environment for 13 years. So your knowledge of Bitcoin and your investment in Bitcoin is so old that its balls are dropping and it's starting to smell at the armpits.
[17:54] So it's second nature to you. You understand it deeply, which means it's hard to remember how retarded people are about Bitcoin. I mean okay how often do you go to people let's say they're in their mid to late 60s and try to explain bitcoin to them um i talk to people all the time from every age group and i sometimes i know what you're trying to say like i've normalized it so much that i forget what people don't know okay so but are you talking to people who are generally interested in bitcoin already or are you just like grabbing people by the lapels on the bus or something well not the bus because you're into bitcoin so you're living in a cardboard box but a whole range a whole range like people are know nothing people are into it people are experts like yeah okay so what is your experience of trying to explain bitcoin to people who don't even know what fiat currency is i mean people don't even know what the problem bitcoin is trying to solve is.
[18:57] Yeah it can be a real challenge i have a cancer cure oh what's cancer oh god right i mean do you talk to turbo normies and i'm not saying you should i'm just like have you had that experience of trying to explain bitcoin to turbo normies oh yeah yeah same anytime how does it go um, i just have to go really slowly i just use i explain it as like the internet of money, um that's the i find that's the easiest way to do it you say it's not information it's money rather than information um but yeah you have to go through a whole series of different analogies to try and explain it and it is to some degree incomplete right.
[19:39] Yeah because it's i mean obviously it uses internet protocols but it's not really the internet of money and i mean it's a good analogy i get that it's on the internet and it has value, but um the internet doesn't have to sync and the internet is run by centralized computers and yeah so it doesn't have to all update it's not when i update my my blog it has to be updated everywhere else on the planet immediately so i get that and i'm not i'm not trying to nag at your but it's somewhat incomplete and since for people a lot of their money is digital already they're not even sure what problem bitcoin is trying to solve, So, what is your success rate of getting people to genuinely understand why Bitcoin matters and what it's for, starting from scratch? I mean, it's pretty good. I've converted a lot of individuals in my time to actually make their first investment. I think in terms of percentage, it's hard. No, no, no. That's investment. Fine. Bernie Madoff did that, too. Not that I'm putting you in the same category. Oh, sorry. In terms of completely understanding. Yeah, yeah. As opposed to, yeah, it's going up. I'll buy something. Oh, man, it's probably much smaller.
[20:52] So over 13 years of conversations, just ballpark, what percentage of people that you talk to who don't really know much about Bitcoin come out with a deep understanding of it? God, it must be under 1%. Right, right, right. Because Bitcoin is an IQ test. Yeah. And it's not just an IQ test because there are smart people who still don't get it, but it's an IQ and moral test. Now, the overlap of IQ and morality is really tough because smart people know just how much money can be made from being amoral.
[21:27] And so trying to get people to understand that Bitcoin is not a value technology, it is a moral tool of humankind's salvation. It is the only fucking chance we have. Getting people to understand that is tough. Because to get people to understand why bitcoin matters they have to understand just how fucking evil the system is that we have right now how predatory how enslaving of the young it is how the funding of everything that wrecks us is gleefully enabled by people who can type numeric shit into their own bank accounts and use it to dissolve the west that is the fact that the people who get the newly minted, typed-in money shit can spend it at full value, while those on fixed incomes and the poor, the old, the aged, spend it at a fraction of its former value. It's the most regressive tax known to man. The fact that it funds war.
[22:31] The fact that it has been used to swell the population of, say, Africa, five or six-fold in an unsustainable system of what happens then, what happens when the money runs out. So in order to get people to genuinely understand what Bitcoin is, you've got to rip them out the matrix that every dollar they touch is a fucking bloody Aztec manacle around the next generation. And it is the funding of war. It is the disassembly of human beings, and it is the predation upon the productive, the kind of which even the most fevered dream capitalist in a Marxist nightmare could achieve. So getting people to understand that bitcoin is moral say the internet of money well the internet is used for a lot of shitty stuff right it's used to push propaganda pornography uh just uh all kinds of falsehoods and defamation and i mean for god's sakes wikipedia is on the internet right so so getting people to understand what bitcoin is for requires getting them to understand, what Bitcoin is against.
[23:44] And that's really tough for people. And the older they are and the more they've been invested in the system. See, people don't evaluate ideas. They evaluate the effect of those ideas on their social circle. That's a whole different planet, right? This is why people veer away from conspiracy theories, even though, as you know, the gap between a conspiracy theory and an accepted fact is now down to the months. It used to be the centuries, then the decades, then the years. Now it's down to the months. Look how many FBI agents were January 6th. Anyway, so people don't evaluate, oh, Bitcoin, that's interesting. Ah, Internet of Money. Oh, that's interesting. What they are going to evaluate is, oh my God, hang on. Are you saying that the financial system that we have right now is hopelessly corrupt and evil?
[24:35] I've got Thanksgiving to go to, man. I don't want to know that.
[24:39] Because what am I going to say to people? You know, there's that old saying, depression or dissociation is looking at the world through a glass darkly. Well, that's what happens. This wall comes down. It's not quite the right analogy because it's actually a view that's opening up. But it's a wall, like a wall, like a garage door comes down between you and everyone else when you understand the system that is. It's like universally preferable behavior. people resist it well because it echoes their conscience and also because if they understand it then it's like it's like knowing that the world is a sphere when you live in an entire society that ostracizes anyone who doesn't accept that it's flat or doesn't think that it's flat it's like okay so oh fantastic so now i accept that the world is a sphere, and i gotta shut up about it great i can't change it i can't change people's minds everyone's just going to ostracize me. Thanks for nothing, fella. Thanks for putting that glass wall down so that everyone seems muffled and weird and rippled. Because I know the truth. And once you know the truth, you realize people's addiction to lies. So it's tough. It's a tough sell. Now, the other thing too, of course,
[25:55] is that people often absolutely love appearing smarter than they are. And certainly they love appearing more knowledgeable than they are.
[26:08] So what happens is people hear, and I'm looking at you, Dave Ramsey, right? So people hear, or Portnoy, was it? Anyway, so people hear that, oh, Bitcoin is a scam. Bitcoin, it's not backed by anything. Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. They just hear this stuff. They don't really understand it. They don't look for counter arguments. count. I mean, the first time I hear an argument, I immediately go look for the counter argument, whether it's an argument I like or I don't like. I will go look for the counter argument. And in fact, I'm more likely to look for a counter argument to something that I like, because I know what the confirmation bias problem is all about. So people hear this vague shit. Oh, it's just ones and zeros, man. It's not backed by anything. Oh, what happens if the electrical grid goes down? What happens if there's an EMP attack? Huh? Huh? right they they don't you can't hold it in your hand man it's just a bunch of digits digits and bits and burps and right they don't understand anything but they've been handed their idiot cards their idiot card talking points right that's what they do be oh it's it's uh it's not even like digital gold at least gold is real you can't use bitcoin to make electronics you can use gold nobody's going to order a bitcoin ring but you'll buy a gold ring if you get married It's not dual use.
[27:31] And I mean, it's slow. I mean, a lot of people I've talked to about Bitcoin, they don't even realize that there is such a thing as a Satoshi. They think you've got to buy. It's like when I was a kid, there was a movie that was shown in my boarding school called The Million Pound Note. I mean, this would be the equivalent, I guess, to a billion pound note now or something like that. The Million Pound Note. And like, what can you buy with a million pound note? I don't know. An mp um prince andrew i don't know but they they think that they literally think that you have to buy or sell a whole bitcoin like but they still have opinions about it but they don't even understand the basic technology and so people are given their idiot talking points by fools, who are subject to huge conflict of interest like yeah of course a guy who's selling stocks is going to be anti-Bitcoin, blah, blah, blah. People who want all of the corruption of central banking are going to be anti-Bitcoin, blah, blah, blah. People who sell a lot of gold are going to be anti-Bitcoin, blah, blah, blah, right? I mean, I get that there's conflict of interest with the Bitcoin people too as well. I understand that. But at least that's fairly obvious, right?
[28:46] So people get their idiot talking points and they just recite them. Like you always think about actors who they have to play a character who speaks Japanese. They don't go out and learn Japanese, which is like a decade-long process if you're lucky, they just learn the mouth sounds of Japanese. That's it. That's all they do. And people learn the mouth sounds of TradFi criticisms of Bitcoin and they go around mouthing it around. And I love them for it. I think it is a massive, beautiful, wonderful, delicious, delightful, and good service that they're providing to mankind. Bitcoin is not a value just for the people who understand it. Bitcoin is not just a value for the people who like it. I would say, argue, that a significant portion of the value of Bitcoin is that it repels vain, pompous, posturing, empty-headed idiots. Idiots, it keeps them far at bay, long way away. Because if you just mouth empty platitudes, you don't deserve Bitcoin.
[29:57] If you don't research it and you just put it down, not only do you not deserve any Bitcoin, but no empty-headed, vacuous, space-eyed moron who listens to you deserves Bitcoin either. Bitcoin is accumulating as a whole, as a whole, to wise, smart, humble people. And Bitcoin is accumulating in particular to those who know that it is a moral mission for the salvation of mankind from an AI, hyper-observational, central bank, digital currency, totalitarian state. It's Bitcoin or bust. I made the speech. I won't repeat the whole thing. I made the speech like 12 years ago. Oh, no, you've been in 13. I made it 13.1 years ago. Oh, petty, petty.
[30:44] But yeah, it's Bitcoin or bust. We either get to Bitcoin or we're kind of enslaved forever. And what George Orwell anticipated is going to be nothing based on what is going to come. Where your social credit score is monitored by AI, your photos, your posts are all monitored by AI. Any wrong think will be immediately punished with no because at least totalitarianism in the past was limited by the human labor that was required to maintain it with ai and computers and the automation of the downgrades in your social credit score the limit on totalitarianism that is required because people would have to manually go through things is lifted, so it's bitcoin or bust so if people just mouth things that they don't understand if they have never researched any counter arguments, I don't want them touching the beautiful snow white moral purity of Bitcoin. They should stay away from it. And I've encouraged people repeatedly on X, when they don't understand Bitcoin, I'm like, please tell your friends.
[31:53] Tell everyone you know how stupid you think Bitcoin is. Please, for the love of all that's holy fiat currency is for morons bitcoin is for the elite and i'm not a moral elite intellectual elite humility elite rational elite whatever you want to call it but we are as the smart people and the moral people particularly listeners to this show we are staking our claim, on the new continent called moralistan.
[32:27] Virtuopolis the shining city on the hill and i strongly encourage you to do this you the caller everyone who's out there if people are idiots about bitcoin don't correct them encourage them that's interesting you should tell more people about this you really should because bitcoin can survive just about anything except idiots getting a hold of Bitcoin. And we've had to suffer under the rule of idiots living as we do in a bribeocracy, right, where the productive get stripped of their resources in order to buy votes from the incompetent and the foolish and the greedy and the wastrels and the incontinent and impulsive people who won't take responsibility for their actions shift the burden to the more responsible, and we get plowed under the wet earth of grasping fingers.
[33:23] And we get to a meritocracy with zero barriers to entry that are physical. The meritocracy of understanding the need for a store of value independent of political control. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. money outside the greasy grasp of greedy politicians is essential, not just for a better economy, that's true, not just for the depoliticization of the economy, that's also true, but for the salvation of mankind from the predations of inflation, the manipulations of interest, and the population shredding disasters of endless war, and the enslavement of the next generation through debt, deficits, and unfunded liabilities.
[34:16] So we have an aristocracy of value acquisition based on what? Well, I mean, of course, you've got to have some scratch to buy some Bitcoin, but it is based on the willingness to cast aside all prior knowledge and start from scratch, which is really the dream of Socrates. Socrates says, the only thing I'm certain of is that I know nothing. And the sophists and the liars and the manipulators and the bribers, those who, like all sophists, make the worst argument appear the better, have been in charge of the human universe since there was such a thing.
[34:53] Now, finally, we get the chance to acquire value based on humility, based on humility.
[35:02] In my salad days, I went to people I knew and I said, Bitcoin is very important. You know how we've studied this stuff since I was in my mid-teens? It's very important.
[35:13] Ah, what do you know about? You don't know anything, blah, blah, blah. Even if it is the email of money, who makes money off email? Even if it is the internet of money who makes money from pushing just empty digits around, show me something tangible well i guess your own stupidity isn't tangible and i can't show you that but the people who are willing to wipe the slate clean the people who are willing to take all their prior conceptions like a whiteboard and just hose it down and start from scratch what is value what is truth? What is goodness? What is storage? What is money? What is politics? What is fiat? What is debt? What is profit? What is wealth?
[35:57] I spent the last week and a half chatting with our good friends on the Indian subcontinent who think that the transfer of gold makes people wealthy, like they never heard of Spain and the 400-year recession that followed the acquisition of gold from the new world, but they debased and destroyed their currency. So we finally have philosophy, humility, virtue, the lack of pretense of knowledge, and the building up wisdom from scratch. Finally, it doesn't just get you a cup of fucking hemlock. A commitment to universal values and virtues no longer gets you nailed to a cross, no longer gets you tortured like the aged Galileo.
[36:45] Longer lets you get drawn and quartered like heretics in the Middle Ages, no longer lets you get or forces you to be deplatformed. I mean, that will still happen, but you can't be deplatformed from blockchain. It is the haven. It is the safe haven for humble and moral souls, an utter reversal of the majority-fool dominance of endlessly greedy, graspy, Aztec child-shredding fiat currency intergenerational theft and enslavement. It is a value to be earned by reason and the self-erasure of prior propaganda and the building of knowledge from first principles. Naturally, I have to put in the caveat, clearly, that's not everyone in Bitcoin, but that's the essence of what it is.
[37:43] And the reason why Bitcoin is not worth as much as gold is because people aren't willing to unlearn the evil they've learned. And that's fine. They can be left behind. But the people who are willing to be humble in the face of new knowledge and to understand and the shining staircase to the glowing golden city on the hill that Bitcoin and only Bitcoin represents. Weak in a cent. The prior aristocracy was based on the violent acquisition of land.
[38:19] The new aristocracy is based on the fraudulent creation of made-up money. But the future aristocracy will be based on the humble acceptance of basic moral truths that human beings cannot handle power.
[38:40] Human beings cannot handle the right of infinite fraud and counterfeiting. Human beings can only handle peace, reason, the non-initiation force that Bitcoin represents. It will not make a perfect universe but it rewards humility reason and a dedication to peace at any price and that's why it's not worth more because people are worthless does that help at all at least from my perspective, all right we may have lost it all right does anybody else questions comments issues challenges problems appreciate y'all thank you for dropping by today a great pleasure to chat and you guys certainly do poke some fairly decent language out of me, and I thank you for all of that. All right. I think we have not. I have done good or put people to sleep. I think done good. I think done good. Oh, he's back. Is there something that you wanted to mention at the end?
[39:43] Wanted to respond but yeah absolutely i couldn't agree more of what you say like coin is all about the moral mission and yeah this just just the whole process of reducing state power that is just causing so many issues in the world um but yeah thank you so much for your response and i just want to say one other thing that really blew my mind that you spoke about once and i've been in Bitcoin a long time, and this absolutely melted my brain. You were talking about how Bitcoin created a universal standard for money and transacting, and it took away what you said, it took away exceptions from society. And it was this focus on exceptions, because in the current monetary system, financial system, we have so many exceptions that benefit a few people. So, for example, it could be anything from arbitrary decision-making to bailouts to favorable regulations to too big to fail, too big to jail, all these different exceptions. And so what Bitcoin does is it gets rid of those exceptions. And the way you described it is when you have exceptions in a society, the exceptions take you to hell. It creates a win-lose situation, which is essentially the animal nature of humans, of how we used to be before we became civilized.
[41:07] And instead, Bitcoin takes us to a win-win situation, which is much more enlightened. Learning that just blew my mind, because once you see those exceptions, you see them everywhere. And when you realize that Bitcoin can get rid of all of them and level society, it's profound. I appreciate that. And thanks, James. He also mentioned Bankman Freed. Bankman Freed, another serious scam artist. And Bankman Fried is...
[41:38] I think it's part of the nod. Scott Adams, but I think call it a nod from the simulation. I don't believe in simulation theory, but it's kind of funny having these coincidences.
[41:48] All right. Somebody else had something they wanted to say. They kind of surfaced and went back down like an easy humpback whale. Are you in? Just for those of you who want to support the show, want to support what it is that I do, I really do appreciate that. And if I've provided value to you over the last almost 20 years, I would really appreciate some support at freedoman.com/donate. And also, I've done chapter 10 of my new novel as an audiobook. It's really some fantastic writing. I hope you'll check it out. All right. We have Gadsden. Now I'm thinking of an actor. Gadsden, what's on your mind?
[42:24] Unless you misclicked. Sorry, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Go ahead. Yeah. So I just listened to one of the Mises videos, and there was this girl, Borgon, who was talking about how Bitcoin was problematic. It uses a lot of energy and other falsehoods. And for those who don't know, and I'm sure most people here do, most of us use the Lightning Network or another alternative chain for these types of transactions that don't really use a lot of energy. So I'm wondering, I mean, you spoke about going on the offensive and I feel like often I end up in the sort of libertarian Google nanobot who has to research these things as you are very familiar. Should we go on the fence for these Philistines or how should we handle them?
[43:16] I mean, there's a couple of questions just to find out if people think. I mean, just find out if people think. Right. So I'm posted the other day about how, of course, the settlers didn't hand out smallpox blankets to wipe out the native population. Like, of course they didn't. There wasn't even a robust germ theory until the 1880s. And in 1832, there was a desperate attempt to try and inoculate the native population against smallpox with an actual act of Congress. But Of course, they didn't know that smallpox could be carried with blankets. And it actually can't be, except for a couple of hours. And then even then, the smallpox would have to be rubbed into some sort of open wound or sore, and it never worked. And there was like one guy who mentioned it in passing, but it never worked. It's all just a bunch of Marxist nonsense. But so, yeah. So if you hear this stuff, my first impulse is, okay, what's the counter case, right? So you just ask if people think. So Bitcoin uses energy, right? It's like, okay.
[44:16] Do hospitals use energy? Yes. Should we shut them down? Well, no. It's like, okay, so using energy isn't bad. Quick question. If you fall down the stairs and your shin is sticking out through your skin, would you call 911? Well, because that costs energy. And then heaven forbid that the ambulance comes to get you, that costs energy as well. Sirens and lights and gas and all of that, would you call so of course so then you say well the use of energy is not bad right and then i would say how much excessive energy has been used by buying things on credit right because if a guy goes out and orders a maserati that he can't pay for he's just in a sense created one extra maserati right because by the time it's returned there's probably another one made and so when you buy things using debt you are stimulating production in the here and now consumption in the here and now. And so, how much energy does the national debt represent that has been consumed in, in advance of what people can afford. What about unfunded liabilities? In America, for instance, that's $200 trillion, which is massive, absolutely massive. Many, many, many multiples of the entire economy in unfunded liabilities, which is promises that the government has made that it does not have the money for.
[45:41] What about money printing? The fact that America and other countries, of course, I don't want to just pick on our American friends, but the fact that the government.
[45:51] Can fund a whole bunch of stuff without raising taxes, how much energy does that consume? How much energy does mass migration, which is a government project funded by fiat currency and debt, how much is that, right? So just ask people some basic questions. How much does war cost in terms of energy? War is a massive consumer of energy, and of course, the entire purpose of an army is to break things and kill people. Those people need to be replaced, which costs more energy. Think of all the energy it costs to raise a human being, put them in a battlefield and have them blown up by a drone. The drone costs energy.
[46:26] The training costs energy. The people cost energy. And so how much energy does war? And try funding a war on Bitcoin. And just how would you fund a war? If the government ran on Bitcoin, how would you fund a war? Well, you'd have to ask people to donate to Bitcoin, but you couldn't just create your own Bitcoin. So you just ask people some basic questions about energy. Now, an honest person, of which there's those of us in this chat and maybe 12 other people, and you can purchase your honesty at freedomain.com/donate. No, that's just a little bit of integrity. But anyway, so honest people, when you point this out, will be like, huh, I never thought about that before. And I'd be like, yeah, good, good. you know i get it but you know that might want to be a habit you get into right if somebody says oh bitcoin is not backed by anything uh okay have you ever like what are the counter arguments of that this is what i ask people as a whole what are the counter arguments like you know believe it or not i've been called a racist in the past shocking and you know whenever i'm called a racist i'm like oh so tell me where you've called a non-white person a racist and of course nobody who calls me a racist has ever called a non-white person a racist, which means they're just a racist. And their opinion can be utterly discarded. So people say, oh, Bitcoin uses a lot of energy. Okay. So the fundamental question is compared to what? Compared to what?
[47:51] And if people have never thought of that, have never looked up a counter argument, then I would say, look.
[47:59] Really call yourself knowledgeable about anything unless you know the counter arguments you don't know anything if you don't know the arguments against it which is why when i do shows i like please please come on board and tell me how i'm wrong what did i get wrong it's all given samuel's line right uh you know issues criticisms i'm always inviting people when that philosophy professor a week or two ago wanted to chat man top of the line front of the line take me down brother sharpen my sword with the sparks of your intellectual whetstone so if people have these opinion bitcoin uses a lot of energy okay let's say that it does it does but do we yeah compared to what have you have you looked at the counter examples and if they haven't i just invite them to go and do that and come back when they actually know something sorry go ahead and yeah that's also been my experience i mean the the best conversations they they do come from sort of this socratic way of sort of nudging them because you know all the facts that you have to sort of in this labyrinth where they have to where you have to guide them and they have to learn to get their way out but i would i'm thinking in the context of what you said earlier right that we don't we don't want necessarily you owning bitcoin i mean please go and tell i think it's so funny but yeah yeah absolutely yeah because you and if people are like no i just know the way bitcoin uses energy it's like so your argument is anything which uses energy is bad well fiat currency uses a huge amount of energy right i mean it literally has.
[49:26] To be enforced by law which takes a lot of energy.
[49:30] So so anyway but if people deny that i'm like you know what go in peace please tell everyone you know that bitcoin is bad because it uses energy and and be sure to use some energy when telling people that bitcoin is bad because it uses energy be sure to fuel yourself with a sandwich in order to do that so no honestly uh i've i've said this from the very beginning like 20 years ago right that if you hate me.
[49:55] Without any reason. What reason is there to hate me? I mean, I'm reasoning for the good of mankind, right? I mean, occasionally I could be a little impatient or whatever, but, you know, so I can bear some correction and some, you know, maybe some mellowing of the sharper edges, but not hatred, right? So it's like, yeah, if you think I'm just some bad guy because some idiot with a keyboard told you, then yeah, please go and tell all your friends I'm a bad guy. And that way, they'll stay away so yeah it's not i wrote this about uh an exclusive club in my new novel which is called dissolution and i said uh 10 of the value of the club is who's allowed in 90 of the value of the club is who's kept out and that's the uh big box costco you did a membership that's the idea so all right well i appreciate that is there anything else you wanted to mention yeah i wanted to mention before leaving, of course, that we have different chains even to Bitcoin. We have the Bitcoin Lightning Network and other ones. So I would not even see the point that Bitcoin uses a lot of energy.
[51:02] I think people just in general on this subject, I've never heard so many people speak. Well, actually, that's not true. Speak so confidently about something they know very a little about. But I really appreciate everything, Stef, and hope you have a great show on with. Thank you. I appreciate that. Very kind for you guys to drop by tonight. I really do appreciate that. Let's take a last caller. Sam Squared. I always think of Sam like it was a speed module on my old Atari 800. Hello, this is Sam. Hello, this is Sam. Yeah, yeah, what's on your mind, man? Hi, so it's the first time I've heard you, and enjoyed what I heard. I enjoy the more philosophical or psychological discussions around Bitcoin. I just wanted to say that I have, since I got into Bitcoin, tried to orange-pull people.
[52:00] And so at the beginning, I just couldn't understand why these otherwise intelligent, logical people couldn't accept the evidence that I was presenting to them. So then after a while I sort of stepped back and tried to analyze it all and I came up with a few thoughts.
[52:20] So people sometimes ask what is money? But I think the bigger question is what is their relationship with money? It's not necessarily what is money. And I think they're the kind of I think a large percentage of the population, have a sort of a Stockholm syndrome relationship with fiat money at this stage. I guess it keeps getting stolen from them through inflation and stuff, right? Well, they know, like, people know on some level that, Governments don't necessarily act in the people's best interests and that they spend money beyond their means and that they fund wars. They know this. People know on some level where inflation comes from. They know that when they go to the supermarket that the price of goods is going up because the government can't balance a budget. But yet, when you try to introduce the concept of a hard money asset, which interacts that, it's like they can't let go from the system that's punishing them. And that's so that's one observation that it's like a Stockholm syndrome. And then the other. Well, I'm sorry. The other thing, too, is that when you accept something like the orange pill, you have to look and say.
[53:40] Holy shister balls, Batman, every single major institution is lying their asses off to me. Like, why didn't I ever hear about this in government schools or the government media? Yeah, or like there was a bombing, I think it was a bombing of a plane off Ireland, and it was being reported on by some Canadian media outlet that I think is pretty much government funded. And they were playing all the sad singing sounds in the background. And it's like, what? It's programming people to be sad rather than angry that 100 people might have been blown out of the sky. So it's just that level of programming that, well, why has nobody ever said this? If it was, it would be on the news. It's like, no, no, it's not going to be on the news. They're all born and paid for. So I think it's uncoupling people from that. It is unplugging them from the matrix, and they wake up in a place that looks very different. Sorry, go ahead. Yes, it is the matrix. And it took me a while to understand that your gripe shouldn't just be with central bankers, bankers, governments. And it goes much deeper than that. So as you can probably guess, I'm Irish, but I've been living in New York for 10 years.
[54:45] And I would say that the fiat system extends into the media it extends into the education system it extends into the tentacles political power as a whole political power is based on money creation and that's why Bitcoin limits political power because you can't just wish money into existence and use it to bribe people and so everybody who's a political addict a political junkie wants more political power, loves fiat hates and fears uh bitcoin and they just can't be objective sorry go ahead um so just one final point um.
[55:23] And so obviously living in New York City now, others may contradict what I'm about to say, but I would have seen, so I'm 52, so when I was in my teenage years and 20s, I would have seen New York City as the capital of capital, right? It was the capital of capitalism, right? New York City, in about a month's time, is going to elect a very hard-left socialist mayor. And to me, that seems—like, I respect democracy, obviously, but to me, that just seems inconceivable. I'm sorry, why do you respect democracy? Well— I mean, you'll obey it, I guess. I'm sure, if I can't.
[56:04] I respect—I'm a romantic, so I respect if democracy is here. Now, maybe I'm naive, but the point I wanted to make is you were talking about how people react. And it seems to me that as Bitcoin is getting more widely adopted and as conversations about the money printer being so damaging are penetrating further out into society, there seems to be more people drifting towards sort of running after, like running after the pied piper, the socialist who's going to promise free things. To make the cost of living lower than there is coming to the Bitcoin side. And I just think that's an interesting dichotomy that's going on. The rise of Bitcoin in parallel was the rise of socialist ideology. Yeah, there was a teacher I had when I was a kid. I still remember her name. And she would say, do this, right? Do this, do this, please. And if you hesitated or didn't listen, she'd say, I'm asking nicely. And it was like vaguely threatening, but she never really followed through on it. And listen, I, there are people who threw no fault of their own or down on hard times and down on hard luck and so on. But the problem with all this kind of free stuff is that people.
[57:25] And cheat and steal and it just corrupts people. So when it comes to charity and helping people, it's like, I just want people to ask nicely. That's all. I just want people to ask nicely. Maybe you're a young woman. Maybe you were badly raised, no dad, and you got pregnant out of wedlock and you're very religious. You want to keep the kid. Hey, you know what? I'm not going to, you know, you don't burn people like that at the stake. We all have made mistakes over the course of our life. Help people out. But you got to ask nicely. Don't come at me with the state. Don't come at me with guns and laws and counterfeiting money, printing debt, unfunded liabilities. Don't come at me with that shit. Ask nicely. Ask nicely and we can talk. But when people are like, you got to feed my kids, you know, you got to, you know, or I'm going to call the cops and raise taxes and print more money. It's like, now you're not asking nicely. Now we don't have a friendly relationship.
[58:19] There's a Reacher. It's kind of a goofy, semi-cartoony show, but fun. And he's like no why not you didn't ask nicely say please that's if i grew up with the please and thank you and this sort of maybe a little over anal british repression of any of that kind of aggression but it's like ask nicely when i was a kid what was i always said what was i always told ask nicely i want dessert i want dessert what oh ah sorry i want dessert please right or my mother would always say when I would say, can I have a piece of chocolate? Well, I know that you can. I just don't know that you may, which is a bit more technical, but yeah, just ask nicely. And Bitcoin restores civility because if you want help, you have to ask nicely. You can't just shake your fist. You can't just shake your fiat fist in people's faces and demand that they fund increasingly self-destructive lifestyles. Just ask.
[59:17] Nicely. And if you ask nicely, we can talk. And I'm sure that there's a lot that people will do to help those down on their luck. But we also have to keep people away who are going to game the system. Well, you know, there's people who are disabled and they need money. It's like, okay. But then you get a bunch of people who fake disabilities and scam the system. It's, well, we've got to send COVID checks out. It turns out there are billions of dollars stolen through COVID scams and all of this kind of stuff. So everything you do gets corrupted, which is why people have to ask nicely. Otherwise, they'll just eviscerate your financial bowels. All right. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention? I think we had another call or two, if I remember rightly. No, that was it. Thank you for letting me speak and I enjoyed the space so far. Well, thank you. And I appreciate you bringing back the accent of my childhood. I was born in Ireland and spent a good deal of my youth there in and around Athlone. And it was just a lovely lovely time in ireland i absolutely love the place i'm not sure i'd be allowed back but i love the place all right color bloom speak now he ordered i'm i'm asking nicely i'm asking nicely yes now yes now all right we will move on can you hear me yes hello oh awesome it's nice to be talking to you finally i've been listening to your stuff since back when uh bitcoin was worth 600 bucks a pop.
[1:00:39] Wow, nice. Yeah, back in the newsroom days. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I wish I'd bought some back then. And I wish I'd caught this airing you've had going on tonight. I hope you bring on the same subject again and have another discussion because I think we're mostly running out of time, but I wanted to talk about Cardano and ICP versus Bitcoin because I think they're three incredible crypto projects with a lot of integrity. And I know that Bitcoin could arguably be the most decentralized, the most secure, but Charles Hoskinson, the guy that, And Cardano was talking about how the problem with Bitcoin is it can't scale, and the only way to get it to scale is with third-party solutions, which are centralized.
[1:01:22] And so he was saying when he built Cardano, he went back to the drawing board of the idea of Bitcoin and said, okay, let's start this thing over. And he essentially tried to create, it's like the same anatomy of input-output, what do you call that, the UTXO model of Bitcoin, but it's extended. And his idea was to make Bitcoin again, but make it get everything right that Bitcoin didn't get right. But then you had Dominic Howard come in. He was around the founding of, he was one of those big crypto guys that knew Charles and maybe knew some of the people that created Bitcoin. And he's like, okay, you guys can go do your projects. What I'm going to go try to build is a world computer because if we're going to really get this blockchain thing going to scale, he looked at what Charles was doing and what Bitcoin is doing, and Ethereum, you know, like trying to change something mid-flight. He says, if you really want to build a rocket ship that's going to blast off to the moon, you've got to start from scratch and you actually got to build a computer system that's able to be a platform. I enjoy Laura, the next guy, but... I'm sorry. How do you centralize? How do you speed things up without centralizing. And if you are centralizing, how do you solve the problem of centralized control? Well, right. This is where... What...
[1:02:50] Guess what dominic howard on icp was trying to say is you get a decentralized uh network of it's like building a new computer infrastructure over all these different jurisdictions all over the globe which is what they've already they're in the process of doing and they've already built some so bro i i with all due respect and i i find the topic fascinating uh i've i've been in tech sales and i know a sales pitch rather than an answer when i hear one so, The challenge with Bitcoin, of course, decentralized is slower, but resists centralized control, which is why Visa can process a zillion transactions a second, because it's all centralized. But then you have the problem of centralized control. So decentralization is slow, but it's resistance to tyranny. So how does another architecture solve the problem of that, solve that issue?
[1:03:46] Well yeah i mean that's where i you know i guess i gotta get back in and see it's the kind of thing where like i watch his interviews and i listen i'm like okay he had a good answer to like the question you just posed but me coming on to the show i was just more excited to like just talk about the subject but i think i mean he's trying to say there's like on-chain governance um he's trying to say it's decentralized and i think charles brought up a good point of like well what is decentralized though and we got to answer that question actually because you hear the word all over the place. And so my experience as a programmer was, sold systems to multinational corporations back in the 90s when everything was crazy slow.
[1:04:24] And decentralization turned out to be the only way things could work. When I centralized things and there were systems that I had written and created that were in five different continents, and I couldn't have a central database. It was too slow. So I had to have a decentralized database that exchanged information overnight. So I have some actual technical experience in this problem of centralization versus decentralization. And there is no magic wand. If you're going to centralize more, you have the problem of centralized control. If you're going to decentralize, it's going to cost you speed.
[1:05:00] And it's sort of like back in the day, Java was a layer of abstraction that ran on code that then translated into local machine code, but there was sometimes a 10 to 20 times performance hit. So you could write code that, you know, write once, run anywhere. Java just another vague acronym i think was the acronym source right and so yeah you could write once around anywhere but you downgraded computers about 15 years back in the past in terms of speed so and listen i'm i'm i'll look into it some more and if you you're welcome back if you have some more technical stuff or if there's someone you want to bring on it's like you know when um when elon musk i think was talking about how fast doge was it's like yeah and the systems that i wrote were incredibly fast when they were just on my computer but when we sort of put them on five different continents they slowed to a crawl and then i had to have local databases that synchronize to one central database overnight and it's all very exciting so yeah so i i know some sort of the technical side of things and uh that is uh.
[1:05:58] I'd love to hear more about. But, you know, and I understand that it's easy for people to say, well, you know, Bitcoin has this flaw and, you know, my approach will solve it. It's like, yeah, but what is that exactly? And that's what I'd like to hear. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's why I wanted to discuss it. I'm sorry, I got caught you at the end of the show. The only last point I want to make is that ICP is more like trying to compete with Amazon and Google Cloud Services. It's more like they're creating a platform for computing, whereas Cardano is more like creating a competing cryptocurrency that competes with Bitcoin. So I'm wondering what you thought about the idea of in the future, it wouldn't just be like a single monetary unit cryptocurrency floating around, but it'd be more like decentralized systems of cloud computing.
[1:06:40] Like ICP, where you have canister smart contracts is what they are. And you actually own your own code that you can vote with or something like that. I want to look more into it. I hope you do too, because I thought it was fascinating. You, something that is not centralized for computing like Amazon and Google services or whatever you call it, Google Cloud. Yeah, but I appreciate that. And I'll get to the last caller. But the challenge then, of course, is that cloud computing is centralized. When you are renting something from Amazon or you are running OneDrive or Google Drive or something like that, that's all being run on centralized computers, which is why it tends to be kind of snappy and fast. But then you have the problem that if somebody is in control of the centralized computers, a that's a vector of attack that is very vulnerable and b it's too much control to give an individual or any corporation or organization any kind of centralized control over human currency as a whole then we're just kind of back to fiat so all right let us go with drago i feel like you're in a a a poorly pantsuit about to shake me down for money in eastern europe what is on your mind my friend.
[1:07:48] Stefan, thanks for having me. I just want to be respectful. Is this topically about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency or just general open forum? If you want to hit me, I've got to eat some food I forgot to eat today. So if you want to hit me with something, sorry to be annoying, but if you, I was supposed to end 20 minutes ago, but if you want to hit me on something relatively short, I'd be thrilled. Otherwise, you might want to wait for the next one. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Well, in that case, I'll save, you know, because things like existence of God or something, you know, that's not going to be in time for the food. No, I might be fast on that one. Lord knows I've had some greasy polish on that subject. So if you wanted to mention something, I'd be happy to give you a response.
[1:08:26] Okay, well, you know what? Let me, okay, so I'll do the short one. But I will ask you, when in general do you do the spaces and the schedule with the subscribers? I did sign up, by the way. And for those listening, I do recommend signing up for Stefan's if you like the Velocity chats. But yeah, I know you have the Sunday subscriber only one. I just want to check. Are there other times? Or are you just kind of like, depending on when you want to speak, you pop up? As the spirit moves me, so to speak. So I don't have anything. I'm going to get around to scheduling, but I have to, because the subscribers are kind of scattered. And yes, I appreciate your pitch for the subscriptions, but you do get a lot of really juicy, tasty bonuses on the subscriptions. But I have yet to sort of figure out a good time that works for everyone. So it's a little bit catch-a-scatch can. But yeah, Sunday's 11 a.m. is definitely the scheduled time. So yeah, hit me with a question and I'll do my best. Right on. And last clarification, I'm the guy on the forgiveness thing where I came in with the blitzkriegs. I only had a couple minutes to talk. So thank you for that. And apologies when I had to bail out. No problem. Yeah, so I'll save the fun or transcendental thing for next time. But the quick one is, okay, so from an economics argument or finance, we have the present value and the future value of money, right? So present value, based on the growth rate, it becomes future value, future value discounted by the growth rate or discount rate brings us to present value so would you agree about interest rates.
[1:09:54] Yeah, no, just for those listening, because I want to make an analogy based on economics. Just so people, because the future value of money is a bit abstract, and I don't want to reframe your argument, but just let me know if this makes sense to the audience as a whole. Because if we rush, we lose people. So interest rates are because money is worth more now than it is in the future. And so if you want money now, you have to agree to pay the price of renting that money, which is the interest rate. So if I want to buy a computer now, let's say I need 500 bucks to buy a computer, the computer is worth more to me now than if I save up 10 bucks a week and can buy it in a year.
[1:10:31] And so because the computer is worth more to me now, I borrow $100 at 5% interest, so I pay $105 back in a year, but I have the extra year of use of the computer, which is worth 5 bucks or 10 bucks. Or I'm sorry at 5% at 500 bucks it would be more than that sorry 10% of 500 bucks would be 50 bucks 5% would be 25 bucks so I pay that money in the future because the computer is worth more to me in the present than it is a year from now and so that's what interest is is the price of money because we're mortal and things are worth more now I mean I could get hit by a bus between now and next year in which case there's a risk in lending me the money because I won't pay it back because I'll be dead. But also I get the, if I save up to get a computer and I get hit by a bus on the way to get the computer, I never actually get the computer. So it's better to have it in the here and now, especially of course, if I'm using the computer to make money, then it's well worth it from that standpoint, because I'll make more than the interest rate price of getting the computer now. And the same way you could save up for 25 years to buy a house, or you can get a 25 year mortgage, in which case you get the house for 25 years and you don't have to rent some other place. So I just, if that's okay, so future of value of money is basically interest rates, which is that money is worth more now than it is down the road. So, or assets. Does that make sense?
[1:11:49] Yep. No, no, for sure. And so, right. And I come from a finance background. So, right. So, and I know you understand it, I guess, in the audience, I hope everyone understands it. And similarly, the value of any asset today is a discount of all the future cash flows. And I don't want to get technical, but the point is all the future value you're going to get, you move it through time using these formulas to the present. So all this to say, to bring me to my main point, if.
[1:12:14] A cessation of consciousness is kind of the inevitability where your consciousness and my consciousness it all goes down to zero, complete nothingness. No matter what path, no matter what fork in the road, we all go to nothing, which is to say the future value is zero, right? Because I mean nothing is zero. So if the future value... Hang on. Hang on. I just want to make sure I understand what you mean. the future value is zero. And that's, I mean, the future value of consciousness for us subjectively is zero because when the lights go out, there's just nothing there.
[1:12:46] Yes, yes. Us subjectively, sure. And then the fact that if for any being, you know, right, I mean, death is for everyone. I mean, maybe we just kick the can down the road, right? But eventually it converges to zero, the cessation of consciousness. And so if the terminal endpoint is zero, then if this future value, present value relationship can be applied in this context, then would that not mean that the present value is also zero? Hence, the concept of choice becomes kind of, you know, meaningless, just that, you know, short sighted because in the long game, it doesn't matter. Now, I get it that we don't exist then. So who cares? But, you know, the question is, is it rational to prioritize my present moment sensation, knowing that the end of the story is going to be identical? No matter what fork in the road, the end of the story will end exactly the same way. And so, yeah, it's a good question. I have sort of three thoughts that pop into my mind. I'm not going to say this is definitive. Now, the first, of course, is that the fact that something ends doesn't mean, that the enjoyment of it is meaningless. You go to a concert, your favorite band, they play for two hours, and then you got to fight traffic to get out or take a bus full of rowdy people to get home. So the concert is over, but you still enjoy the concert.
[1:14:04] Sex lasts for three to four days if you're staying and three to four minutes if you're not. And it's over, but it doesn't mean that you don't want to have sex or a great meal. Finish and it doesn't mean that you didn't enjoy the meal. So that kind of stuff, right? So the fact that things end doesn't mean that the process has no value. Like nobody goes to a concert and nobody says, well, I don't want to go to a, let's say you get free tickets, free tickets to your favorite band. Nobody says, well, I don't want to go because the concert is just going to end. And it's like, yes. I mean, people who love are going to lose, right? I mean, I love my wife. she loves me, and one of us is more likely to die, probably me, before the other, does that mean we shouldn't enjoy each other's company? No, because it's going to end. We should enjoy it even more. If it's a 14-hour Bruce Springsteen concert where he wrecks his voice before recording We Are The World, he might not be so enjoyable. So the fact that something ends doesn't mean that the process is not fun. That's number one. Number two is if you look at yourself as a collection of genes, well, you have kids and your genes continue. And, you know, slightly altered, of course, mixed in with somebody else's genes, but hopefully that's somebody who you have some compatibility with, which also includes genetic compatibility.
[1:15:22] So you do live on if we count ourselves not just as consciousness, but as a transmitter of genetics, we do live on in our children genetically. That's number two. And number three, combined with two, but also separate from it if necessary. I hope that my work will last the test of time. I know that we were just talking about Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and so on earlier. We still enjoy the fruits of their consciousness even though they are long gone. So in a sense, you do live on in that the products of your consciousness, either the products of your genes or the products of your consciousness outlast you. And sometimes it can be a combination of the two because, you know, my daughter has.
[1:16:01] Of my genes and she also has a number of thoughts that I have taught her or we have conversed with and she's also taught me over the years so it's kind of intermingling so I don't think that the future value goes to zero because even if it does it doesn't mean that we don't enjoy the present and we also get to live on in our genes and we also get to live on in our thoughts as we put them down even if we never write anything down but only talk to our kids we still adjust it the way that they think based upon our conversation and so live on. Does that make sense? I'm not saying it's a final answer, but that would be my sort of first three. Sure, sure. Well, and I have three responses, but I'll defer to you because I know that you're probably hungry. So I'm going to defer to you whenever you want to close this. Yeah, go for it. Well, okay, the first one, so sure, experiences are enjoyable. But then I ask, well, that great meal that you had last year, or let's say the great intimate moment of intimacy, how much value do you get from that today. Well, we'll basically zero because when you really want it, when you're really hungry, you know, whether for food or other pleasure, you could care less that you enjoyed it, you know, last month, last year, Friday. No, you do care. Hang on. No, you do care. Because if I didn't have any meals last year, I'd be dead. So part of the plus of having meals last year is I got to continue to exist so that I can enjoy meals this year.
[1:17:17] If nobody ever had sex, we wouldn't even be here to experience pleasure or not. So the fact that things, the pleasure doesn't last forever. In a way, it kind of does, because if you don't eat, whether it's a good meal or a bad meal, if you don't eat, you don't get to enjoy it. Your meals. And if you don't have sex, then you don't get the aforementioned continuation of genetics and mimetics that characterize a fairly close part of immortality. But sorry, go ahead.
[1:17:41] Oh, sure. Well, right. So then that brings to the second point, to what extent? Because right, okay, my genes can live on. And maybe, you know, imagine I have a Genghis Khan, you know, a thousand ancestors, whatever, I guess I'm eternal.
[1:17:52] Or my ideas, my ideas are so profound, they're in the books, you know, everyone's thinking about it and all the future generations and so forth.
[1:17:58] But then, you know, from my subjectivity of nothingness, there's no, I cannot appreciate the fact that I have ancestors and descendants or versus the person who has zero impact on the world. Both are equally in a state of nothingness. And hence in that state, if we zoom into that, it really makes no difference from that point of observation. Now the genes may propagate, but there's no like my consciousness, I mean, unless it's some mystical thing, isn't really like aware and in the genes of my descendants still kind of checking things out like oh cool like the world's going on and this is cool like people like my ideas right let me ask you this how many of the words that you used in that speech did you invent yourself uh none of them none and listen i've tried to invent some words dick napped and uh bullshit non-apologies the uh so so i've tried to and they don't you know it's really tough to to get them to take right so the words that you and i are using were all created by our ancestors and so the consciousness that they applied into the creation of the wonderfully complex english language is what we are using to communicate so shards of their consciousness are arising from our throats and being shaped by our tongues and lips every time we talk so they are living on even in the conversation that we talk about their consciousness like consciousness ends it's like but the very words that we use to describe consciousness as ending are a continuation of consciousness from our ancestors who developed this lovely language.
[1:19:28] And I completely agree with that. Are our ancestors currently delighting in their words, propagating, or do they have no awareness whatsoever that this is even occurring? Oh, they have no awareness whatsoever that this is even happening, for sure. But nonetheless, their thoughts and their consciousness does live on in the language that we use to describe these concepts. Yeah, and I guess it's tricky because there's like true and false, right? There's evidence, all this stuff. But when we're talking about if we should care what matters, I guess it becomes a little more esoteric because in this case, what I'm trying to get to is like, why should that matter? Like, it sounds like it should matter that these shards of consciousness in language exist. And that is so meaningful and beautiful. But like, why other than personal taste or aesthetic satisfaction in the moment, Like, what gives that actual grounding to matter is something worthwhile. But you can't say that language doesn't matter while using language to discuss something that matters to you.
[1:20:23] Yeah, language matters. Right now I can communicate with it, but I guess why does it matter for me to be an agent of creating future language? Well, you're propagating thoughts. I'm propagating thoughts using existing language, but you yourself are having a debate which you enjoy, and it's a great debate. I appreciate it. You're having a debate that you enjoy using language inherited from our ancestors. Now they themselves cannot watch this debate. They're dead and gone. but we are using the sounds that they generated and wrote down and communicated to us in various ways and so there's this continuation of consciousness from the past to the present and you say well why does that matter well it allows us to have these conversations if you and i had to invent language from scratch we'd never ever be able to have a conversation be like the guys who tried to get to try to make esperanto a thing right doesn't doesn't really work so So the fact that we're able to have this conversation is because the thoughts of our ancestors live on long after them and paved the way for us to be able to have these kinds of lovely exchanges.
[1:21:29] Yeah. And by the way, I'll take off my skeptic hat in the sense that I agree. I think this is beautiful. I share that this is a good thing that's happening here. And of course, I mean, look, for reveal, right, I'm a Catholic. So for me, of course, I'd say that it's because we aim towards, you know, truth, goodness and beauty. itself and kind of that. And so that's kind of the ultimate ends to like why this conversation is meaningful and so forth. But I'm just trying to remove my assumptions and say, okay, if I truly operate under a paradigm where consciousness will cease to exist and there's no continuity, would I, you know, am I even able to make any meaning of that other than just saying, hey, it feels good right now in the moment. So that's all that matters.
[1:22:12] And for me, I would argue that the mortality that I expect to grip me in its icy, non-existent fists at the end of my life is one of the things that drives me to create and produce as much as possible before I go. And it's sort of like if you're going on a long journey, you don't know where you're going to get food along the way. You eat as much as you can in the here and now because you don't know when your next meal might be. And so for me, I want to be as productive as possible with the short time that I have, both to help the future with the gifts that I've been given and also in appreciation for the sacrifices that those of our ancestors that made those sacrifices in the past gave us freedom of speech, gave us some free markets.
[1:22:54] Gave us this amazing language, which we should never under-appreciate. I mean, English is an exquisite language for communicating concepts, philosophy. Freedom, liberty comes from the Greek, comes from Anglo-Saxon, comes from Latin, and a lot of which was maintained by Muslim scholars, and in particular, the Catholic Church, as you well know. So I do think that there is a great beauty and honor of the immortality that we can achieve through the deep rooting of our language in the most permanent universal and moral concepts that we can come up with, which is why I talk quite passionately about virtue and universality, because the deeper we go into truth, reason, and virtue, the longer, the taller our words are, and the longer the shadows, or hopefully the light, they cast into the future. And I can't think like Aristotle of a more worthy pursuit of the time that we have here than the promotion of virtue and the thwarting of evil. Amen. Well, Stefan, thank you. I appreciate your time perspective. I do hope to come on a different time when you have more time because I did release an argument step by step that I think is pretty convincing. But with your brilliant mind, I would like to test that by you and for you to challenge and expose the assumptions you might find disagreeable. So maybe at the next time, I would like to do that. But thank you for having me up here. I appreciate that. I also appreciate your kind words. With all humility, basically philosophy speaks through me.
[1:24:23] And I could take very little credit for the production of language that I do. The language arises within me. The three categories arose within me spontaneously.
[1:24:33] And the analogies flow into my mind like water down the side of a thawing glacier. So I appreciate your kind words. I take very little credit for what it is that I do. I just hope that I can shape the wild words within me to something approximating truth and value to the future. All right. I'm sorry, Case, I am going to stop here, but I do appreciate everyone's time. Thank you so much, freedomain.com/donate to help out the conversation. Lots of love, my friends. I will talk to you tomorrow night at 7 p.m. Eastern. Bye.
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