Free Will, Consciousness, and Bitcoin with Volker - FFS #83

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If there's one thing that you can take from this very complicated discussion

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about free will and everything is, you can't really will yourself to do

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something you don't really have control.

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so it's, okay to accept that you are a mere observer and if you

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accept that you're a mere observer, life gets much less difficult.

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You can just let stuff happen because you you're conscious you can't influence it.

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You're conscious you can't influence what you're going to do.

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You can let happen whatever is happening and just be happy about it.

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Welcome back to the Freedom Footprint show, the Bitcoin

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philosophy show with Knut Svanholm and me, Luke the Pseudo Finn.

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And today, our guest is our friend Volker, German Bitcoiner, who

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has translated a whole bunch of books between German and English.

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English and German, and is also a translator between nerd and noob.

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I'll let him explain that a little bit more.

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He's the translator of, I think, all of Knut's books as well.

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So yeah, excited to have Volker here.

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So Volker, welcome to the Freedom Footprint show.

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Thanks for joining us.

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Thanks for having me.

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Looking forward.

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Yeah, if you don't know this guy, and you call yourself a bitcoiner,

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you should be absolutely embarrassed, because Volker is a total OG.

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And one of my favorite people bitcoin space, for sure.

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So, a warm welcome to you, friend, so I think we're going to go deep in this one

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and try to, uh, Put another angle to the whole, uh, consciousness, reality being

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consciousness reflected back at you, like adding on to the conversation we had

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with Jeff Booth a couple of weeks back.

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I mean, we've been sort of hinting at that for a couple of episodes now, uh, Luke.

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And, uh, I, I think, Volker, you have some, um, theories about free will,

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that we can have it, but In order for us to have free, for human beings to have

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free will, that sort of requires that it doesn't come from the brain, so could,

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could you explain that thesis for us,

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Yeah, it was a, it was something we talked about on the way to the, to

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Plochingen, right, to the Bitcoin Hotel.

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so basically, you got to accept.

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Or if, if you, if you are a rational person, you have to accept the fact

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that, uh, all your motor nerve, motor nerves, and all your muscles

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are controlled by your brain, right?

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So there's a brain that tells, uh, that tells my muscles how to move.

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So in order to speak the words I'm speaking right now, okay.

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Now, if I want to think that I have a free will, there must be something that

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is able to control the brain so that it makes the right words, it makes, it

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pulls the right strings on my brain.

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Muscles and vocal cords to utter the right words or to do this, the right

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things, the things that I want to do, but where would that come from?

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I mean, what is the substance, the substrate on which that.

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Will would exist.

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It would have to be a soul or something like a soul that is not part of the brain,

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because otherwise it would be subject to the neurochemistry of the brain itself.

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So it had to be, it would have to be, uh, independent of the brain,

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but still able to control the brain.

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And that's something that's really hard to swallow for everybody,

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for me, I mean, me included.

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But there's no way around it.

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I would, I would be very happy to learn of any way around it.

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But I don't see any.

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okay, so, so this is based on, on, uh, if I remember our conversation correctly,

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it's, it's based on some research that I, uh, I read about like 10 or 15 years back

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about, uh, experiments with uh, You know, people putting their hand on a hot stove

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or something and, uh, you know, conscious, the, the brain thinks it's making the

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conscious decision to remove the thing, uh, or whenever you do something like, uh,

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Consciousness has been shown to have like a half second lag, so the things that,

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when you think that you make a decision, you're actually being told by your brain

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what decision your quote unquote soul made, uh, half a second back or more.

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Yeah, that's, that's right.

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So there's a famous experiment.

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I don't know the name, but the experiment goes like this.

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So you have a, the subject sits in the chair.

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And it's told to look at a wall clock, and the wall clock just has one hand, and that

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one hand makes one rotation per second.

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Okay, and you put a red button in front of him and tell him, you can

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press the button whenever you want.

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Just, the thing we ask you to do is, uh, when you decide to press

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the button, remember the position of that one hand on the clock.

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Just remember what it looked like when you made the decision

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to actually press the button.

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And then you insert an electrode into the nerve that controls the finger,

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and you measure the exact microsecond when the muscle is triggered.

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And you note that down, you write down what the hand said, and then you ask the

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subject, the hand, at what position the hand was when they took the decision.

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And the lag is about 300 milliseconds, so the decision, the

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free will, the apparent free will.

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happens a quarter or third of a second after the action has been done.

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It's just, you can measure that in, in all kinds of ways.

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The brain does very weird things with your, with your consciousness.

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so action precedes decision making.

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So action precedes consciousness.

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And that makes a lot of sense when you, when you, uh, when

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you're honest with yourself.

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and Inquire your own capability for free will.

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Let's say, let's assume you have a free will, okay?

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Let's assume everybody has a completely free will.

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There is no more smoking.

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There's no more laziness.

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There's no more alcohol.

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There's no more people getting enraged.

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The world would be perfect, right?

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Because you have a free will.

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You can just stop drinking, you can just stop smoking, there's no

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problem, you can keep your diet.

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It's not possible.

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You don't have a free will over what your body does.

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it is very difficult to talk about it or to think about it, but it gets much easier

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when you, when you understand that you can separate the term you into two yous.

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Okay.

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So there's, let's define two yous.

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You have a bodily you, that's the, the, the biomass that your body is

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made out of, including your brain.

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Okay.

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And that biological you, that does have a free will.

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The free will.

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Is something that your consciousness often doesn't like, like gets upset

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and then hits the policeman, right?

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Or gets hungry and eats and breaks a diet.

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Um, that biomass makes billions of decisions every minute, tiny, tiny

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things that it does, but that's not.

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controlled by a conscious you, and the conscious you is the other you,

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and that's unfortunately is the you that you typically talk about

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when you're talking about yourself.

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Okay, so the biological you has a free will and does whatever it wants.

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It's just controlled by the neurochemistry and the sensory organs and everything,

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whatever they come up with, basically by random and genetics and environment.

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Um, but that's not reflected in your conscious you and the conscious you

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observes what your biological you does.

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Usually gets horrified and then comes up with some explanation

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for it so that you don't, get, I don't know, you don't turn crazy.

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So you come up with, explanations for why you did something, for why

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you're biological you did something.

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There's another experiment, um, that's, uh, that's pretty good for that.

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To understand that, so in that case, you, you connect an, uh, an electrode

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to a muscle in the shoulder and when you, so what the electrode does is it

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triggers the motor, uh, it triggers the muscle That lifts your arm.

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Okay.

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So once that is in place, when the, the researcher hits a

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button, your arm will go up.

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Okay.

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So, and then the two, the, the, whatever the, the, the subject and the, tester,

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sit, um, opposed, and at one point, the, the tester, the, the researcher presses

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the button, and your arm goes up, and then you're asked, why did you put your arm up?

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And you won't say, oh, I don't know, it just happened.

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You would say, oh, there was a fly I was trying to catch.

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Or, um, I had an itch in my head, or something, you will automatically,

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you always, and even if you do it 10 times in a row, you will

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always come up with an explanation.

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And it's not on purpose, it's because your consciousness automatically comes up with

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an explanation for whatever you do, even if you know that you're being manipulated.

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It's pretty wild.

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Yeah, it's very wild.

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Like, I'm, I'm thinking about, like, just the conversation we're having now.

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I mean, we, we, at some point, it feels like consciously put

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this, pod in our calendars.

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We consciously made the decision to sit down here and turn on the computer

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and put on the headphones and whatnot.

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And I'm sitting here listening to you explain, explaining this and

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consciously trying to not interrupt whenever the urge to interrupt comes

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into my brain and all of this stuff.

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And to me, it feels very deliberate what I'm doing.

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Like, um, I know that there's a process that I can't really handle, which is

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like the sounds going into my ears and my brain processing what you're trying to

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say that sort of goes out automatically.

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But selecting between different responses feels like a very real thing, but

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you're saying it's not, uh, I guess, uh, that it's just my consciousness

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trying to come up with a reason for why I gave you this specific answer

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and not Just some other random answer.

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Uh, yeah.

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So you see how, how often I did this today?

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I don't want to do that.

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It just happens.

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No, I, I, I never noticed until now.

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Okay.

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But you will notice in the, in the coming minutes, uh, because I keep

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doing it and I don't know why I would really love not to do it, but.

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It just happens and I think, I think there's something like an itch or

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there's just a, an urge to touch it.

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I don't know why.

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It just happens.

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It's my bodily you.

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For those of you who, who are listening and not watching, Volker

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is having an itch next to his eye.

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And at the same time, I'm twirling my beard here, which I always do.

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There's the same, same kind of tick.

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I'd say

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Yeah, and almost everybody has something like that, right?

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Yeah.

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Well, so fascinating.

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So, well, like what it feels like to be a human being, like, it feels

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like you're, uh, different people have different, levels of, psychic

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strength or what you will, resilience to impulse so that some people can

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actually, you know, quit smoking or, or go on a diet or whatever it is.

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Because they make a very conscious decision, what feels like a very conscious

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decision to, to like, be disciplined.

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You're a Ragnar Deshapred, but you know, to, to, to be able to

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focus their energy, uh, like that.

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And what, what do you, what, what do you think?

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Do you think that's real?

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Or do you think that's just an illusion too, that people have this?

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Ability to, to focus that makes them, uh, more resilient to impulse and high time

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preference,

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No, it's real.

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It's real.

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It's just not controllable.

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It's a result of their specific neurochemistry.

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It can't be anything else.

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can it be anything else?

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If, we presuppose that there is such a thing as a soul or something outside

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of the brain that controls the thing.

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yeah, then it can be, but only then.

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Huh?

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But it's much more reasonable to assume that, that, uh, different brains.

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develop differently and they have, so that you have different genetics,

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you have different environment, different upbringing, different

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education, different experiences.

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So of course the brains are all different and, um, your brain learns

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over time what you want to do.

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What outcome to expect from what kind of action, and if it's learned at an

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early age, hopefully, um, that for instance, things like smoking or other

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short term oriented behavior is not a good thing, and maybe the brain is of

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the type that is oriented more towards the long, um, uh, long term, so low

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time preference brain, basically, then It will take other decisions.

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It will take the decision to eventually stop the smoking thing or just somehow

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the urge will be repressed because that part of the brain that dominates the long

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term thinking will suppress more of the urge to do something short term oriented.

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And vice versa.

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But it's not something that you come up with independently of your

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brain, because you are your brain.

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Hmm.

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And you are your bitcoins, since they're in your

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And you're hyperbitcoin, right?

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Yeah.

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So, so like, from, from what I've learned, uh, about meditation and from

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meditating, uh, the thing that you, if there's one thing you actually can do to

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your brain, it's noticing when a thought is Pops into your head, like you can,

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you can deliberately sit down and, and focus your attention on not thinking.

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And then when, whenever, uh, a thought enters your brain,

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00:15:30,747 --> 00:15:32,607
you can notice that it did so.

236
00:15:33,077 --> 00:15:37,077
So, uh, so if I'm, I'm sitting down and like focusing on my breath and

237
00:15:37,077 --> 00:15:41,687
doing this meditative stuff, uh, all of a sudden I realize like, oh

238
00:15:41,687 --> 00:15:43,457
yeah, I should call that guy today.

239
00:15:44,007 --> 00:15:45,347
And I can notice that.

240
00:15:45,832 --> 00:15:48,102
That thought popped into my head.

241
00:15:48,132 --> 00:15:54,142
I, I can't control what thoughts pop into my head, but I can notice that they do.

242
00:15:54,142 --> 00:15:56,212
So do you think that is false as well?

243
00:15:56,892 --> 00:16:03,922
Does that also presuppose like something outside of your, of your neurochemistry?

244
00:16:04,667 --> 00:16:05,827
It's not false.

245
00:16:05,837 --> 00:16:12,807
It's just that you're attributing your urge to meditate to something

246
00:16:12,817 --> 00:16:14,557
that is outside of your brain.

247
00:16:15,997 --> 00:16:21,087
When in fact, the brain takes the decision that now it's a good idea to meditate.

248
00:16:22,037 --> 00:16:25,367
And then your consciousness observes that.

249
00:16:25,927 --> 00:16:31,687
And tells you that you just had the idea you want to meditate and everything else.

250
00:16:31,737 --> 00:16:38,003
I mean, the, the idea that, um, you just observe your thoughts and let them come

251
00:16:38,003 --> 00:16:39,693
to you and don't try to do anything.

252
00:16:41,233 --> 00:16:51,413
It's from your brain being upset about all the, all the, um, the signals coming in.

253
00:16:52,173 --> 00:16:57,393
And it's trying to shut down as much as possible of that, and it has learned a way

254
00:16:57,393 --> 00:17:03,793
to do that, which is to sit quietly in a quiet room and not move and then observe,

255
00:17:04,133 --> 00:17:06,853
but it's not, it's not a willful decision.

256
00:17:08,013 --> 00:17:09,063
Something that happens.

257
00:17:09,731 --> 00:17:12,620
Again, you can always, you can always just go back to.

258
00:17:13,881 --> 00:17:19,031
Whatever your, the, whatever the muscles do that make you

259
00:17:19,091 --> 00:17:22,031
do something or say something.

260
00:17:22,361 --> 00:17:25,991
These muscles are controlled by the brain and there's nothing

261
00:17:25,991 --> 00:17:27,401
that controls the brain.

262
00:17:28,241 --> 00:17:32,071
Where, where would that thing be that controls the brain?

263
00:17:33,006 --> 00:17:34,206
That would be the soul.

264
00:17:34,941 --> 00:17:37,941
In the notification settings on your smartphone, probably.

265
00:17:39,516 --> 00:17:40,046
Possible.

266
00:17:40,926 --> 00:17:43,716
But there's an interesting twist actually.

267
00:17:44,456 --> 00:17:45,606
So, um,

268
00:17:46,773 --> 00:17:48,663
why did we develop consciousness?

269
00:17:49,913 --> 00:17:53,876
why, not just act, um, what's it called?

270
00:17:54,420 --> 00:17:55,480
By, intuition.

271
00:17:55,686 --> 00:17:58,816
Why doesn't, why don't humans just act on intuition?

272
00:17:59,930 --> 00:18:06,410
we developed a consciousness so that we could Make plans.

273
00:18:06,930 --> 00:18:11,610
We could, I have to explain by an example.

274
00:18:11,930 --> 00:18:13,380
Sorry, it's hard to abstract it.

275
00:18:15,610 --> 00:18:20,160
If you, as a caveman, approach the lion from behind carrying

276
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:23,220
a medium sized stick, you die.

277
00:18:23,890 --> 00:18:24,320
Okay?

278
00:18:25,180 --> 00:18:33,212
If you think of yourself doing that, So you, project your virtual eye,

279
00:18:33,642 --> 00:18:37,592
your virtual self onto a situation that looks like the situation at

280
00:18:37,592 --> 00:18:41,932
hand, then you only die virtually, you have just virtualized yourself.

281
00:18:42,432 --> 00:18:48,872
And that's useful if you are not an apex predator, which humans definitely aren't.

282
00:18:49,522 --> 00:18:51,912
I mean, we, when we get lost in the woods, we die.

283
00:18:52,362 --> 00:18:52,682
Okay.

284
00:18:53,002 --> 00:18:57,352
So we had to come up with something that would let us virtualize

285
00:18:57,352 --> 00:18:59,582
ourselves, which is, which is.

286
00:19:00,053 --> 00:19:00,863
our Consciousness.

287
00:19:01,412 --> 00:19:07,622
But then that consciousness observes what we do and it gets difficult

288
00:19:07,682 --> 00:19:12,802
because it observes that we are doing things we don't want to, okay?

289
00:19:12,962 --> 00:19:14,662
And then it comes up with these explanations.

290
00:19:14,892 --> 00:19:20,512
It's just that it's a kluge to enable the consciousness to exist

291
00:19:20,582 --> 00:19:22,592
and not become crazy over time.

292
00:19:23,702 --> 00:19:29,209
And, when language popped up or when we started.

293
00:19:29,979 --> 00:19:38,831
To be able to communicate complex thoughts among each other, then the

294
00:19:38,831 --> 00:19:43,171
whole thing became, became 10x or a hundred or a thousand x more powerful

295
00:19:43,861 --> 00:19:48,811
because now we can exchange, we still cannot control our own brain, right?

296
00:19:49,721 --> 00:19:51,831
But we can exchange.

297
00:19:52,331 --> 00:20:00,771
Virtual experiences with each other, so brain A can formulate in language what

298
00:20:00,781 --> 00:20:07,591
it has experienced or what it decided to do stupidly and how stupid and bad

299
00:20:07,591 --> 00:20:13,441
the result was and it can communicate that to brain B and that will actually

300
00:20:13,571 --> 00:20:20,821
alter the state of brain B to maybe think a little bit differently and create a

301
00:20:20,901 --> 00:20:22,416
little bit different with each other.

302
00:20:22,836 --> 00:20:26,606
Neurochemistry to make the decisions a little bit better.

303
00:20:27,625 --> 00:20:29,875
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's clear.

304
00:20:29,875 --> 00:20:33,505
It's why, it's why Bitcoiners are growing in numbers and Ethereums

305
00:20:33,515 --> 00:20:34,565
are shrinking in numbers.

306
00:20:35,050 --> 00:20:41,130
And, and it's also why it does not make you un culpable for bad deeds.

307
00:20:41,510 --> 00:20:45,500
So you could come, you could say if, uh, if you, if you argue

308
00:20:45,500 --> 00:20:47,120
that you, there is no free will.

309
00:20:47,540 --> 00:20:50,995
The first question that pops up is, okay, why do we still have prisons?

310
00:20:52,280 --> 00:20:54,200
Because people aren't culpable.

311
00:20:55,150 --> 00:20:56,510
It's not their free will.

312
00:20:56,620 --> 00:21:00,970
It's not the free will of the guy who spat in the policeman's face, right?

313
00:21:01,380 --> 00:21:03,390
It wasn't his free will, it was just his brain chemistry.

314
00:21:03,710 --> 00:21:08,620
But you have to, you have to give the feedback so that that

315
00:21:08,630 --> 00:21:10,210
brain won't do that again.

316
00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:11,940
And that's, that's guilt, right?

317
00:21:11,990 --> 00:21:12,970
Guilt and punishment.

318
00:21:13,870 --> 00:21:19,430
But hang on, like, if we have no free will, the prison would

319
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:22,180
have been built anyway, you know?

320
00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:26,090
That was not a conscious decision either, like, none of it is.

321
00:21:26,648 --> 00:21:30,818
There can't be a dichotomy between bad decision making and other, like

322
00:21:31,353 --> 00:21:36,153
All the decisions are made not from free will then, but I guess it's like

323
00:21:36,243 --> 00:21:41,553
some type of mechanism that helps us self regulate as a species, I guess.

324
00:21:42,155 --> 00:21:46,799
yeah, it's, it's really interesting because, it's super complex

325
00:21:47,629 --> 00:21:51,739
because, um, so the, the initial question is complex enough.

326
00:21:51,739 --> 00:21:55,539
Many people have trouble understanding that, that you don't

327
00:21:55,549 --> 00:21:58,954
have a free will, even if you know that you have a free will.

328
00:21:58,954 --> 00:22:01,334
I mean, subjectively, everybody has a free will.

329
00:22:01,334 --> 00:22:06,334
I have the free will to just do this right now.

330
00:22:06,414 --> 00:22:07,134
It's my free will.

331
00:22:07,164 --> 00:22:07,784
I can do that.

332
00:22:08,864 --> 00:22:11,656
Only, it's not my free will.

333
00:22:11,656 --> 00:22:16,476
It's the free will of my body or my brain that decided that that would

334
00:22:16,496 --> 00:22:21,776
be a good Explanation for showing that I have something like free will.

335
00:22:22,026 --> 00:22:22,936
It's just what happened.

336
00:22:23,336 --> 00:22:23,596
Okay.

337
00:22:23,796 --> 00:22:28,046
So it's, it's, it's a difficult thing and, and it gets much more difficult if

338
00:22:28,046 --> 00:22:35,192
you, if you, um, uh, take into account the, interdependencies of individuals.

339
00:22:35,332 --> 00:22:41,142
So when brains communicate with each other, or when larger groups communicate,

340
00:22:41,762 --> 00:22:48,842
or when group A communicates with group B, or individual A communicates with group

341
00:22:48,842 --> 00:22:52,792
C, and so on, it gets incredibly complex.

342
00:22:53,622 --> 00:22:54,032
And

343
00:22:54,611 --> 00:23:04,872
that's what makes me extremely, skeptical about any fixed rational framework for

344
00:23:04,872 --> 00:23:07,702
every, for anything or for everything.

345
00:23:08,682 --> 00:23:16,212
Something like, okay, well, all we need to do is say that, uh, you can't, um, so the

346
00:23:16,212 --> 00:23:19,152
only principle we need is a non aggression principle or something like that.

347
00:23:20,252 --> 00:23:22,702
Yeah, that's, I think.

348
00:23:22,932 --> 00:23:29,372
Given the enormous complexity of actual life, it's not reasonable to

349
00:23:29,372 --> 00:23:38,432
assume that humanity can come up with rules that work in all circumstances.

350
00:23:39,212 --> 00:23:49,192
But the only thing we can actually do is rely on the deepest, most honest

351
00:23:49,232 --> 00:23:58,857
intuition that we have, because that's That encompasses all of human evolution.

352
00:23:59,547 --> 00:24:11,019
You go back to what you really, deeply know is good and positive.

353
00:24:11,379 --> 00:24:17,512
and Not evil, and that you do that, that that is the rule set that you need.

354
00:24:18,912 --> 00:24:24,845
And even if you try to create a rule set, for what is good and

355
00:24:24,850 --> 00:24:30,685
bad, some, some kind of morality, a rationally created morality, you

356
00:24:30,690 --> 00:24:34,975
would have to evaluate the rules.

357
00:24:36,435 --> 00:24:39,855
Like is that, is that proposed rule a good or bad rule?

358
00:24:40,005 --> 00:24:41,445
How would you evaluate it?

359
00:24:41,565 --> 00:24:43,930
You would have to evaluate it based on your intuition.

360
00:24:44,545 --> 00:24:48,375
And your intuition is what encompasses all of humans.

361
00:24:48,835 --> 00:24:49,995
So you can cut that out.

362
00:24:49,995 --> 00:24:52,185
You can just go, no, do your intuition.

363
00:24:52,195 --> 00:24:52,615
That's it.

364
00:24:53,618 --> 00:25:01,018
Yeah, and I mean, the thought of there being no free will is scary, but I also

365
00:25:01,018 --> 00:25:07,103
think it's very comforting, because it means You know, feeling sorry or bad

366
00:25:07,113 --> 00:25:11,583
for anything is completely pointless, like, because you can't do anything

367
00:25:11,593 --> 00:25:17,323
about anything, you can just enjoy the ride and, uh, and die, basically.

368
00:25:17,923 --> 00:25:25,473
Uh, so, so I'm trying to think how this maps on to praxeology, and I'm

369
00:25:25,473 --> 00:25:30,133
trying to come up with, like, devil's advocate arguments for why it doesn't.

370
00:25:30,523 --> 00:25:32,993
But I can't really do that, because it maps on perfectly

371
00:25:32,993 --> 00:25:36,143
to praxeology, regardless of if you have free will or not.

372
00:25:36,673 --> 00:25:41,233
Because action follows the same laws anyway, and the

373
00:25:41,233 --> 00:25:45,743
decision is made by something to prioritize one act over another.

374
00:25:45,743 --> 00:25:50,568
So when you waved your hand there before Something in your brain

375
00:25:50,918 --> 00:25:55,418
thought that that was the correct, uh, the, the most precious thing

376
00:25:55,418 --> 00:25:59,558
to do at that moment, like there's no denying that because you did it.

377
00:26:00,648 --> 00:26:06,038
So, so it still maps on to that, and from the praxeology, we can

378
00:26:06,038 --> 00:26:13,308
derive these principles that are as objectively as possibly, as

379
00:26:13,318 --> 00:26:16,803
possible, uh, Ethically correct.

380
00:26:17,493 --> 00:26:23,223
So, which sort of contradicts your point about that we can't make up an

381
00:26:23,233 --> 00:26:29,443
ethical or moral rule that is true for all times, but the whole right to be

382
00:26:29,443 --> 00:26:34,613
left alone principle, or non aggression principle, sort of is that, it is

383
00:26:35,528 --> 00:26:43,918
Uh, based on logical deduction of an observation of how human beings function.

384
00:26:44,598 --> 00:26:51,568
Uh, if, then if you call it ethics or, or morals, or whatever you choose

385
00:26:51,568 --> 00:26:54,968
to call it, doesn't really matter, but it's still an irrefutable.

386
00:26:55,283 --> 00:26:59,593
Axiom, uh, or, or do you, do you disagree?

387
00:27:00,304 --> 00:27:01,314
No, I don't disagree.

388
00:27:01,314 --> 00:27:05,424
I just think it doesn't encompass all your need because what it encompasses is

389
00:27:05,454 --> 00:27:12,464
it explains the actions, but it doesn't give you a framework of what to do, right?

390
00:27:13,154 --> 00:27:15,254
It just explains why you did things.

391
00:27:17,394 --> 00:27:24,007
It does give you a framework for what not to do, and in a sense, uh,

392
00:27:24,037 --> 00:27:28,517
you know, science can't derive an ought from an is, it's impossible.

393
00:27:28,687 --> 00:27:34,217
It's a philosophical conundrum that has been bothering thinkers for centuries.

394
00:27:35,042 --> 00:27:39,342
Yeah, I was, that's what I was trying to, trying to get to with the stuff I said

395
00:27:39,342 --> 00:27:41,242
before, but it's, you said it better.

396
00:27:42,932 --> 00:27:45,862
You can't rationally detect a moral framework.

397
00:27:47,037 --> 00:27:47,307
Yeah.

398
00:27:47,307 --> 00:27:51,837
So you can't derive from an ought from an is, but what you can do is.

399
00:27:52,512 --> 00:27:59,872
You can, you can reason yourself to saying that a, uh, an

400
00:27:59,882 --> 00:28:02,622
argument is self contradictory.

401
00:28:03,482 --> 00:28:09,232
So if you argue against argumentation, for instance, or if you argue against that, if

402
00:28:09,232 --> 00:28:11,332
I saVolkerer, you control your own body.

403
00:28:12,532 --> 00:28:19,262
You can argue against that, and by you, I mean, like, either your biological you

404
00:28:19,272 --> 00:28:23,942
or your soul you now, like, something, something, something connected to the

405
00:28:23,942 --> 00:28:25,952
word you is controlling your body.

406
00:28:26,452 --> 00:28:31,562
And if you claim that you don't, as a rebuttal to my argument, you prove my

407
00:28:31,562 --> 00:28:35,782
point, because you need to use your body to make the argument in the first place.

408
00:28:36,287 --> 00:28:39,128
You know, are we onto something here?

409
00:28:39,128 --> 00:28:42,388
Is there a novel thought here somewhere to do this map onto one

410
00:28:42,388 --> 00:28:45,168
another or is it just a word salad?

411
00:28:46,693 --> 00:28:48,513
No, it's not word salad.

412
00:28:48,893 --> 00:28:50,053
It's just, um,

413
00:28:50,897 --> 00:28:58,517
I don't think it's very useful because it's just a point of explanation.

414
00:28:58,527 --> 00:29:06,168
You're explaining one particular thing and it's not a, a rule set of any

415
00:29:06,188 --> 00:29:12,308
kind that you could use to, to tackle the complexities of, of, uh, society,

416
00:29:12,308 --> 00:29:18,228
for instance, I mean, yeah, you, you, you just explained that you, there

417
00:29:18,238 --> 00:29:24,758
is A sentence that you can say that I cannot disprove, because by disproving

418
00:29:24,758 --> 00:29:29,188
it, I am proving it, or by stating the opposite, I am disproving it.

419
00:29:29,198 --> 00:29:32,688
That's basically, it's just a paradox.

420
00:29:32,718 --> 00:29:34,188
It's just a semantic paradox.

421
00:29:35,498 --> 00:29:40,218
I don't think it's particularly valuable from a philosophical standpoint,

422
00:29:40,889 --> 00:29:43,289
So, uh, okay.

423
00:29:43,289 --> 00:29:50,209
We've concluded that the word you is, is hard to define because you either mean.

424
00:29:51,154 --> 00:29:57,564
The biological you that has its own free will, if you will, and that

425
00:29:57,564 --> 00:30:03,204
we can't control, and the other you that thinks it has free will,

426
00:30:03,214 --> 00:30:04,574
but we have no idea if it does.

427
00:30:05,669 --> 00:30:12,316
Well, no, no, When you, when you say you, you are speaking of consciousness.

428
00:30:12,506 --> 00:30:13,826
You're speaking of the conscious you.

429
00:30:14,406 --> 00:30:18,346
When you address any you or I, what you're talking to is your consciousness

430
00:30:18,366 --> 00:30:19,526
or somebody else's consciousness.

431
00:30:20,386 --> 00:30:23,346
And you, you or everybody else thinks.

432
00:30:23,776 --> 00:30:28,896
They have their free will, but the conscious you is not

433
00:30:28,976 --> 00:30:30,336
the one with the free will.

434
00:30:30,756 --> 00:30:33,986
The unconscious, the biological you is the one that has the free

435
00:30:33,986 --> 00:30:36,254
will, but you can't control it.

436
00:30:36,859 --> 00:30:43,339
Yeah, yeah, sorry, I was uncareful with my words there, but you're absolutely right.

437
00:30:43,909 --> 00:30:50,819
Yeah, so, but another word that you just used in the last argument.

438
00:30:51,389 --> 00:30:55,064
A string, uh, was the word society.

439
00:30:55,974 --> 00:31:00,924
So if I'm referring to you, your conscious, you, when I use the word

440
00:31:00,924 --> 00:31:06,204
you, what the hell does society refer to except for human beings

441
00:31:06,204 --> 00:31:07,554
interacting with one another?

442
00:31:08,701 --> 00:31:09,451
Good question.

443
00:31:10,831 --> 00:31:15,241
And when I, when I say society, do I refer to the bio biological brains

444
00:31:15,241 --> 00:31:21,906
interacting or to the consciousness, consciousness, eye of, of, uh, the group.

445
00:31:23,711 --> 00:31:30,313
Uh, it's probably the emergent behavior of the, of the group, because, um,

446
00:31:31,203 --> 00:31:37,419
if you put several brains together and have them interact something.

447
00:31:37,839 --> 00:31:42,679
of new quality appears because of the, because of the mutual interactions.

448
00:31:43,769 --> 00:31:50,469
Um, and that's, that's, it's so random that it's not predictable or controllable

449
00:31:51,557 --> 00:31:54,637
and that will be society basically.

450
00:31:54,857 --> 00:31:57,217
But it's, it's really hard to define that.

451
00:31:57,928 --> 00:32:00,708
Could you give an example of such an emergent property?

452
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:05,194
Soccer games, people, people at soccer games.

453
00:32:06,044 --> 00:32:10,044
Reacting completely differently from the normal behavior when a goal

454
00:32:10,424 --> 00:32:15,384
happens or when your, when your home team wins or when your home team

455
00:32:15,404 --> 00:32:19,328
loses, it's completely, irrelevant.

456
00:32:19,808 --> 00:32:25,788
It's just a, a digit on a, on a counter board that goes up or down,

457
00:32:26,778 --> 00:32:27,868
It's like an election.

458
00:32:28,743 --> 00:32:38,143
Yeah, but it turns people into, into, uh, wildly, uh, partying, happy people

459
00:32:38,143 --> 00:32:42,553
or into absolutely rabid monsters in a split second or in a second,

460
00:32:44,673 --> 00:32:46,353
that's, that's an emergent behavior.

461
00:32:47,171 --> 00:32:50,791
Alright, you might have noticed that we've recently partnered with AmberApp.

462
00:32:51,082 --> 00:32:55,412
After our episode with Izzy, their CEO, and our close friend, we knew we

463
00:32:55,412 --> 00:32:58,817
would have to partner with them in some way, If you haven't seen our episode

464
00:32:58,817 --> 00:33:02,907
with Izzy, definitely go check it out, you'll see why it's such a great fit,

465
00:33:03,157 --> 00:33:07,087
and honestly, they're following the orange glowing light like Izzy always

466
00:33:07,087 --> 00:33:11,177
says, and that's exactly what we try to do here at the Freedom Footprint Show.

467
00:33:11,501 --> 00:33:13,840
The big news about AmberApp is that they're going to be

468
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:15,650
launching their version 2.

469
00:33:15,867 --> 00:33:19,377
I've seen some of the screenshots and it looks fantastic.

470
00:33:19,672 --> 00:33:23,483
They're going to be including a non custodial on chain wallet, an

471
00:33:23,503 --> 00:33:27,754
anonymous lightning wallet, a fiat wallet, And finally, it's going

472
00:33:27,754 --> 00:33:29,094
to be an exchange, of course.

473
00:33:29,335 --> 00:33:32,237
it's going to be just this super app, They're also going

474
00:33:32,237 --> 00:33:33,587
to be launching globally.

475
00:33:33,607 --> 00:33:35,157
Everyone's going to be able to use it.

476
00:33:35,397 --> 00:33:37,127
we're really excited about all that.

477
00:33:37,257 --> 00:33:39,897
Stay tuned with us and you'll hear all about it.

478
00:33:40,097 --> 00:33:42,447
And for now, check out their website, amber.

479
00:33:42,697 --> 00:33:45,407
app and the episode with Izzy to find out more.

480
00:33:46,176 --> 00:33:49,516
So what's the difference between society and civilization?

481
00:33:50,698 --> 00:33:51,908
I need more preparation.

482
00:33:53,053 --> 00:33:55,523
You know what you signed up for, man.

483
00:33:58,743 --> 00:34:03,693
I was hoping for Drunk Knut and Drunk Luke.

484
00:34:04,213 --> 00:34:08,033
well, you can't book the show at two o'clock in the afternoon.

485
00:34:08,793 --> 00:34:13,313
Well, so, okay, uh, I'll give you my explanation.

486
00:34:13,793 --> 00:34:18,358
Civilization, to me, is You know, civilized behavior.

487
00:34:18,358 --> 00:34:23,343
It's very connected to civilized behavior and civilized behavior sort

488
00:34:23,343 --> 00:34:28,933
of is free market behavior as opposed to it's catalytic competition as

489
00:34:28,933 --> 00:34:31,043
opposed to biological competition.

490
00:34:31,543 --> 00:34:34,173
I mean, I know you read the book because you translated it.

491
00:34:34,663 --> 00:34:41,763
Uh, so it is, uh, consensual interactions rather than forced interactions.

492
00:34:42,483 --> 00:34:48,276
So, well, if we say society, that's a much harder word to define because it

493
00:34:48,276 --> 00:34:55,096
sort of includes like everything from, you know, drunk football hooligans to,

494
00:34:55,146 --> 00:35:02,486
to, you know, religious ceremonies or, uh, elections or, uh, you know, all sorts of

495
00:35:02,536 --> 00:35:08,766
courts and justice systems and all sorts of stuff that is not necessarily legal.

496
00:35:10,725 --> 00:35:15,225
Catallactic nor biological competition is just behaviors that

497
00:35:15,295 --> 00:35:18,645
make sense to a certain group of people and less sense to others.

498
00:35:19,317 --> 00:35:26,057
But civilized sort of means not forced or not coerced.

499
00:35:28,042 --> 00:35:28,802
Do you agree?

500
00:35:30,722 --> 00:35:36,342
in part, yeah, I think there might be civilizations where force was

501
00:35:36,342 --> 00:35:38,702
used effectively and it worked.

502
00:35:39,062 --> 00:35:50,121
I think civilization is basically that type of society that has Uh, that has

503
00:35:50,121 --> 00:35:53,201
managed to stay in place for a long time.

504
00:35:53,871 --> 00:36:02,011
So something like a self, self feeding or self accelerating, um, type of society

505
00:36:02,321 --> 00:36:08,721
that has worked and continues to work and is sufficiently able to adapt to changing

506
00:36:08,721 --> 00:36:10,481
circumstances, which always happen.

507
00:36:12,184 --> 00:36:19,473
And, there is, there are types of behavior that that, um, accelerate

508
00:36:19,503 --> 00:36:24,513
or that, um, contribute to civilization, which is typically,

509
00:36:24,553 --> 00:36:27,093
uh, low time preference behavior.

510
00:36:27,743 --> 00:36:33,073
So delayed gratification, delayed satisfaction, you, save up in order

511
00:36:33,073 --> 00:36:38,703
to build something that is more, a more powerful tool for the next cycle.

512
00:36:38,703 --> 00:36:41,823
And then you have this in the next cycle, you have this more powerful

513
00:36:41,823 --> 00:36:46,513
tool and then you get greater rewards, greater gains, and then.

514
00:36:47,098 --> 00:36:53,798
You delay the gratification of by not consuming these gains in even in that

515
00:36:53,798 --> 00:36:57,878
cycle, but instead create even more powerful tools and so on and so on.

516
00:36:58,508 --> 00:37:02,041
And that's what you wrote in the, in the Praxeology book, right?

517
00:37:02,041 --> 00:37:08,022
Uh, so you start with, uh, Catching a fish by hand every day and then one

518
00:37:08,022 --> 00:37:09,862
day you said, okay, today I won't eat.

519
00:37:09,862 --> 00:37:14,822
I will build a fishing rod and then next day, from next day on, you

520
00:37:14,852 --> 00:37:16,192
catch two fish a day and so on.

521
00:37:16,192 --> 00:37:21,472
And then you say, okay, I won't eat two fish or I'll save, I'll save both

522
00:37:21,472 --> 00:37:23,712
fish and build a fishing net and so on.

523
00:37:23,722 --> 00:37:28,012
So you get more powerful tools and you end up with a trawler.

524
00:37:28,392 --> 00:37:31,852
That's something that creates civilization or at least.

525
00:37:32,327 --> 00:37:39,117
This lays the base for civilization, the technological base, um, and the

526
00:37:39,117 --> 00:37:45,227
short time, uh, preference, uh, behavior typically destroys civilization because

527
00:37:45,227 --> 00:37:52,850
it consumes the productive capacity and in the end, everybody is poor, but the

528
00:37:52,850 --> 00:37:58,120
technological base isn't sufficient for society because, I mean, you look around,

529
00:37:58,820 --> 00:38:01,560
look around the world as it is right now.

530
00:38:01,570 --> 00:38:05,025
We had Basically paradise in the 90s.

531
00:38:05,715 --> 00:38:09,765
And in the early 2000s, the world was in the West was nearly perfect.

532
00:38:10,405 --> 00:38:11,105
We were rich.

533
00:38:11,355 --> 00:38:12,445
We were healthy.

534
00:38:12,455 --> 00:38:16,605
We had, we had everything we wanted and now it's all coming down.

535
00:38:17,355 --> 00:38:19,215
It's not, it's nothing technological.

536
00:38:19,245 --> 00:38:24,585
Society is tearing itself down and it's not free will either.

537
00:38:24,615 --> 00:38:25,945
I mean, nobody wants that.

538
00:38:27,665 --> 00:38:29,095
It's just an emergent behavior.

539
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:33,040
Okay, I'm going to play the devil's advocate here again, because

540
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,340
I don't, I don't fully agree.

541
00:38:35,850 --> 00:38:40,870
Like, I think we had a lot of problems in the 90s and early 2000s as well.

542
00:38:41,350 --> 00:38:44,140
And there were a lot of problems that needed to be solved.

543
00:38:44,630 --> 00:38:47,970
And some of those problems are solved, like video conferencing,

544
00:38:47,970 --> 00:38:53,230
for instance, wasn't available in the 1990s, nor the early 2000s.

545
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,490
We couldn't have done this 20 years back, because the technology

546
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:58,170
simply wasn't good enough yet.

547
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:03,420
So that has solved a lot of problems and allows for people to communicate

548
00:39:03,540 --> 00:39:09,160
across borders way easier than was possible in the early 2000s.

549
00:39:09,170 --> 00:39:13,590
So on a technological front, I think we've liberated more and more people.

550
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:20,220
Uh, but at the same time, it's like the, the tools for mass control and

551
00:39:20,220 --> 00:39:26,350
population control governments and, and other criminal organizations have today

552
00:39:26,690 --> 00:39:29,630
are, are way more powerful as well.

553
00:39:30,100 --> 00:39:39,364
So, so for people who are willing to try to break out and be sovereign to a larger

554
00:39:39,364 --> 00:39:44,959
extent, uh, the world has Uh, become worse, but for people who have found the

555
00:39:44,959 --> 00:39:50,319
tools and who were early Bitcoin adopters, for instance, and early adopters of any,

556
00:39:50,959 --> 00:39:56,678
uh, new technology that empowers them to be more, more akin to a, a sovereign

557
00:39:56,678 --> 00:40:00,898
individual that can, that doesn't have to worry too much about whatever

558
00:40:00,938 --> 00:40:08,058
political thing is going on, for that person, the world 90s and early 2000s.

559
00:40:08,078 --> 00:40:13,183
So I think it's very, uh, I think we're, maybe we're more polarized right

560
00:40:13,623 --> 00:40:19,053
now, but I think also this notion of better and worse is, at its core, very,

561
00:40:19,053 --> 00:40:23,343
very subjective, and some people are very much better off now, and some

562
00:40:23,343 --> 00:40:29,433
people aren't, and, uh, To me, the generalization that everything is worse

563
00:40:29,463 --> 00:40:34,743
now than it was, it's like sort of missing, missing the optimistic side.

564
00:40:34,763 --> 00:40:39,733
I mean, there, there are a few, there's less poverty now than it was back then,

565
00:40:39,763 --> 00:40:44,353
even though we have the, like, despite all the inflationary currencies and

566
00:40:44,363 --> 00:40:51,593
stuff, I guess when it comes to wars, I think the number is about the same.

567
00:40:51,593 --> 00:40:56,233
It's just that we, we get to know about the wars faster now.

568
00:40:57,188 --> 00:41:00,448
I mean, when I grew up, there was the war in, in, uh, old

569
00:41:00,448 --> 00:41:02,408
Yugoslavia in, in the nineties.

570
00:41:03,128 --> 00:41:08,388
And if you compare that to the war in Ukraine today, like nobody in Sweden gave

571
00:41:08,388 --> 00:41:11,018
a shit in the nineties about Yugoslavia.

572
00:41:11,108 --> 00:41:13,308
Everyone gives a shit about Ukraine today.

573
00:41:13,348 --> 00:41:18,988
There's a difference, like, because we're closer, we're more interconnected

574
00:41:18,988 --> 00:41:20,218
than we've ever been before.

575
00:41:20,218 --> 00:41:21,258
So, so yeah.

576
00:41:22,118 --> 00:41:23,798
Thoughts on that stance.

577
00:41:24,708 --> 00:41:24,938
Yeah.

578
00:41:24,938 --> 00:41:31,362
I guess what I, what I was trying to get to is, um, that, um, you're right that,

579
00:41:31,402 --> 00:41:35,432
uh, some people are better off and some people are worse off, so it's subjective

580
00:41:35,432 --> 00:41:42,252
and it's, it's a very, um, uh, it, it concerns 8 billion people, so obviously

581
00:41:42,282 --> 00:41:43,792
some are better off and some are worse.

582
00:41:44,532 --> 00:41:54,305
Um, what I'm saying is, um, You know about these, um, these, four generational

583
00:41:54,325 --> 00:42:01,405
cycles, the strong man create good times and the fourth turning um, the,

584
00:42:01,435 --> 00:42:03,875
the first generation makes money.

585
00:42:03,875 --> 00:42:11,543
The second, uh, commands, uh, or the second, um, controls the money.

586
00:42:12,093 --> 00:42:17,383
And the third studies or maintains the money and maintain the first

587
00:42:17,423 --> 00:42:24,793
makes money, the second controls their wealth, the third studies art

588
00:42:24,793 --> 00:42:28,443
history, and the fourth is completely bankrupt, something like that.

589
00:42:29,483 --> 00:42:32,033
So, and then it restarts.

590
00:42:32,033 --> 00:42:32,913
That's what I'm saying.

591
00:42:33,783 --> 00:42:36,553
And what we are observing right now, we had this.

592
00:42:37,293 --> 00:42:38,613
Fourth generation.

593
00:42:39,393 --> 00:42:43,503
Uh, so the, the generation, uh, so I was born in 63.

594
00:42:43,503 --> 00:42:47,463
The, the next generation ro roundabout, the nineties, I don't know what,

595
00:42:47,763 --> 00:42:51,393
what you call them, millennials or, so gen, gen X, Y, Z, something.

596
00:42:52,093 --> 00:42:53,713
Yeah, the nineties is millennials.

597
00:42:53,813 --> 00:42:58,413
I think gen, gen X is, I think Gen X started two years after myself.

598
00:42:58,828 --> 00:42:59,188
Something

599
00:42:59,203 --> 00:43:00,183
Yeah, yeah, I think I'm a

600
00:43:00,228 --> 00:43:01,118
between Boomer and

601
00:43:01,433 --> 00:43:01,833
Yeah.

602
00:43:03,068 --> 00:43:09,568
and, and the generation that was born around the nineties are the generation

603
00:43:09,578 --> 00:43:11,308
that studies art history, right?

604
00:43:13,568 --> 00:43:17,588
So now everything's crumbling and it's not crumbling in China,

605
00:43:18,348 --> 00:43:20,808
but it's crumbling where it was.

606
00:43:21,738 --> 00:43:27,181
Where it was, um, blossoming the most before.

607
00:43:27,992 --> 00:43:31,722
So instead of continuing to blossom and just go up, up, up

608
00:43:31,752 --> 00:43:33,422
and up even more and up even more.

609
00:43:33,652 --> 00:43:34,532
Why doesn't it do that?

610
00:43:35,982 --> 00:43:40,765
It doesn't because, well, for my own personal feeling.

611
00:43:41,605 --> 00:43:48,735
You get feelings of guilt when you see how incredibly wealthy the place is where you

612
00:43:48,735 --> 00:43:53,395
live, and you didn't actually contribute a lot, and then at the same time, you see

613
00:43:53,395 --> 00:44:01,105
that other places and other people are less well off, so You study art history

614
00:44:01,105 --> 00:44:07,395
and try to find out why, and you invent thousands of genders, and you come up

615
00:44:07,405 --> 00:44:13,475
with all kinds of weird ways in which you make yourself guilty for something

616
00:44:13,475 --> 00:44:19,995
that you didn't do, like invade America 250 years ago and kill the natives.

617
00:44:20,335 --> 00:44:23,295
It's this anti colonialism.

618
00:44:24,335 --> 00:44:28,713
A lot of that is just because people can't bear the thought.

619
00:44:29,238 --> 00:44:35,763
That they are in a very good place, but haven't actually,

620
00:44:36,803 --> 00:44:38,823
but don't actually deserve it.

621
00:44:39,993 --> 00:44:43,083
I think that's where a lot of that fourth turning comes from.

622
00:44:44,613 --> 00:44:51,023
You climb up the ladder and at one place, at one echelon, you

623
00:44:51,173 --> 00:44:52,593
just say, Oh, wait a minute.

624
00:44:53,293 --> 00:44:54,863
This, I don't belong here.

625
00:44:54,873 --> 00:44:58,683
It's not, I didn't, I didn't climb that ladder.

626
00:44:59,373 --> 00:45:01,323
My ancestors climbed the first.

627
00:45:01,593 --> 00:45:06,098
echelons And now I just do one step and why am I in paradise?

628
00:45:06,328 --> 00:45:07,118
That can't be.

629
00:45:07,358 --> 00:45:11,048
And then your brain, not you, not your consciousness, your brain comes

630
00:45:11,048 --> 00:45:16,808
up with stupid ways to normalize the whole thing and bring it down

631
00:45:16,838 --> 00:45:18,358
to the level that's reasonable.

632
00:45:19,018 --> 00:45:20,348
And that's when everything crashes.

633
00:45:21,258 --> 00:45:23,588
That's how my brain explains it.

634
00:45:24,185 --> 00:45:26,415
So how does fiat affect that?

635
00:45:26,605 --> 00:45:31,125
Like, what role does fiat currency and, you know, going off the, next time

636
00:45:31,125 --> 00:45:35,645
going off the gold standard in 71 and all that, how does that play into that?

637
00:45:36,650 --> 00:45:46,343
I'd say, so for every, uh, characteristics that a brain can have, you have basically

638
00:45:46,353 --> 00:45:48,303
something like a Gaussian distribution.

639
00:45:48,863 --> 00:45:52,103
And one of the characteristics is, uh, the time preference.

640
00:45:52,263 --> 00:45:58,013
So you have a few people that have extremely high time preference, and a few

641
00:45:58,013 --> 00:45:59,503
people have an extremely low preference.

642
00:46:01,383 --> 00:46:06,193
Extremely low time preference, and most of the people have some

643
00:46:06,193 --> 00:46:07,913
medium time preference, okay?

644
00:46:08,933 --> 00:46:14,253
Now, Bitcoiners typically, as a group, tend towards a high time preference,

645
00:46:14,283 --> 00:46:19,293
uh, sorry, low time preference side of the Gaussian distribution.

646
00:46:20,383 --> 00:46:22,308
But most of the population does not.

647
00:46:22,628 --> 00:46:29,238
Most of the population wants to consume sooner than we would, okay?

648
00:46:30,408 --> 00:46:36,896
And a nice way to consume, is to consume stuff before you actually deserve it,

649
00:46:36,896 --> 00:46:47,956
before you produced it, by taking credit from your future generations and consuming

650
00:46:47,996 --> 00:46:56,626
what they are then supposed to produce and, uh, which is what fiat does, right?

651
00:46:58,026 --> 00:47:01,296
And the gold, a gold standard has inhibited.

652
00:47:02,206 --> 00:47:07,476
So, um, to please the masses, basically to please the, the center

653
00:47:07,476 --> 00:47:14,806
of the GOs curve, you have to detach yourself from the fixed standard

654
00:47:16,146 --> 00:47:18,126
and just allow production of money.

655
00:47:20,501 --> 00:47:24,211
Yeah, and it's a vicious cycle because you have to please the

656
00:47:24,211 --> 00:47:26,911
masses if you're a politician, right?

657
00:47:27,136 --> 00:47:27,616
Exactly.

658
00:47:27,616 --> 00:47:28,306
Mm-Hmm,

659
00:47:28,671 --> 00:47:29,241
you lose.

660
00:47:31,166 --> 00:47:36,006
And you probably have to have politicians because you need the illusion.

661
00:47:36,006 --> 00:47:39,216
The group needs the illusion that somebody's in charge.

662
00:47:39,591 --> 00:47:41,841
Because otherwise they get scared and anxious.

663
00:47:42,151 --> 00:47:49,271
So you need some instance to be there that causes all the brains

664
00:47:49,381 --> 00:47:54,161
to think that they are safe because some good guy is in charge.

665
00:47:55,341 --> 00:47:59,461
But then that good guy doesn't have the, the, the good, uh, the guy in

666
00:47:59,461 --> 00:48:05,911
charge shouldn't have a lot of power, should have just minimal power, but

667
00:48:05,911 --> 00:48:08,601
should appear as having a lot of power.

668
00:48:09,331 --> 00:48:10,881
That's probably the ideal setup.

669
00:48:11,756 --> 00:48:14,256
It's usually the other way around, unfortunately.

670
00:48:14,386 --> 00:48:14,686
Yeah.

671
00:48:17,186 --> 00:48:23,106
Yeah, I think it was, like, one of the, uh, ancient Greeks, uh, Socrates

672
00:48:23,106 --> 00:48:27,933
or someone who said that, uh, Or even Plato who said that, uh, when

673
00:48:27,943 --> 00:48:33,213
given, given the option, people will vote for the baklava salesman

674
00:48:33,213 --> 00:48:34,993
and not the surgeon that they need.

675
00:48:35,453 --> 00:48:41,143
Uh, like, it's, it's very hard to get people, people to vote for,

676
00:48:41,663 --> 00:48:44,263
for, for hard pills to swallow.

677
00:48:44,913 --> 00:48:51,363
Like they, they will always vote for, uh, for something that sounds good regardless

678
00:48:51,363 --> 00:48:53,493
of if it's actually possible or not.

679
00:48:54,038 --> 00:48:54,278
Yeah.

680
00:48:54,298 --> 00:48:55,288
At least most people.

681
00:48:56,043 --> 00:48:56,473
Yeah, most

682
00:48:56,488 --> 00:48:58,938
mean, there are some that do it right.

683
00:48:59,318 --> 00:49:00,868
Let's say, what is right?

684
00:49:00,908 --> 00:49:01,338
I don't know.

685
00:49:01,928 --> 00:49:04,788
There are some that do it the way we would do it, right?

686
00:49:04,848 --> 00:49:08,108
The long term, civilization building way.

687
00:49:08,852 --> 00:49:10,082
yeah, how do you define right?

688
00:49:10,122 --> 00:49:13,692
I mean, the left isn't right, and there's no right left, right?

689
00:49:15,691 --> 00:49:16,111
Nice.

690
00:49:16,891 --> 00:49:18,341
Does it work in Swedish, Stolten?

691
00:49:18,916 --> 00:49:20,576
uh, no it doesn't.

692
00:49:20,606 --> 00:49:23,206
Links and rechts, does it work in German?

693
00:49:23,776 --> 00:49:24,276
Uh,

694
00:49:24,761 --> 00:49:25,341
Almost.

695
00:49:25,711 --> 00:49:26,441
It's a recht.

696
00:49:26,851 --> 00:49:30,251
If you substitute recht for rechts, then it

697
00:49:30,336 --> 00:49:31,296
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

698
00:49:33,786 --> 00:49:39,226
I mean, what was it, uh, oh, that lyric from the Queens of the Stone Age song?

699
00:49:39,306 --> 00:49:43,336
It's, uh, you can't always do right, but you can always do what's left.

700
00:49:44,816 --> 00:49:45,796
I love that one, too.

701
00:49:45,936 --> 00:49:46,196
Yeah.

702
00:49:46,511 --> 00:49:47,041
Yeah, that's nice.

703
00:49:47,730 --> 00:49:49,298
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709
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710
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728
00:51:00,785 --> 00:51:02,955
I mean, I love the, absolutely love this.

729
00:51:03,345 --> 00:51:06,925
Luke, curious to hear what's on your mind at this point

730
00:51:06,965 --> 00:51:08,705
as it is in the conversation.

731
00:51:09,015 --> 00:51:09,165
Yeah.

732
00:51:09,195 --> 00:51:12,915
Kind of as usual when, uh, these deep conversations go

733
00:51:14,005 --> 00:51:15,715
this direction, super deep.

734
00:51:16,015 --> 00:51:19,555
Uh, nothing, I, I, I'm not bringing anything else to the

735
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:21,355
table on this specific discussion.

736
00:51:21,355 --> 00:51:25,635
I, I think, uh, I think I'd just like to hear more about your experience

737
00:51:25,635 --> 00:51:29,805
with Bitcoin and the, the translation and, and what got you into that Volker.

738
00:51:30,255 --> 00:51:31,485
Can you tell us a little more about that?

739
00:51:32,290 --> 00:51:32,910
Yeah, sure.

740
00:51:33,820 --> 00:51:35,880
Oh, well, uh, Knut got me into that.

741
00:51:36,540 --> 00:51:42,090
So we met in, um, Riga in, I think 2019, was it, or 2018?

742
00:51:42,350 --> 00:51:43,140
Knut, do you remember?

743
00:51:43,275 --> 00:51:43,525
2019.

744
00:51:44,700 --> 00:51:45,400
2019.

745
00:51:46,455 --> 00:51:50,165
there was a, a pretty boring presentation.

746
00:51:50,715 --> 00:51:56,175
So I was strolling around in the conference, uh, area and there was this

747
00:51:56,595 --> 00:52:05,730
lonely guy, uh, on a table At a table with a lot of books, , uh, with a big Bitcoin,

748
00:52:05,940 --> 00:52:10,390
uh, word on top, um, on the, on the front.

749
00:52:11,620 --> 00:52:15,520
And I just strolled there and looked at him and said, Hmm, those your books?

750
00:52:15,610 --> 00:52:16,330
And says, yes.

751
00:52:17,110 --> 00:52:19,720
I looked inside the book, read one paragraph.

752
00:52:19,810 --> 00:52:23,750
So well, okay, open different page.

753
00:52:23,750 --> 00:52:24,740
Read another paragraph.

754
00:52:24,740 --> 00:52:26,060
I did that four or five times.

755
00:52:26,060 --> 00:52:26,990
Read a few paragraphs.

756
00:52:27,685 --> 00:52:32,885
Then I shut the book, looked him in the eye and said, you get it, right?

757
00:52:33,885 --> 00:52:38,395
I mean, you get Bitcoin because it was, it was really good.

758
00:52:38,765 --> 00:52:41,845
That was the Sovereignty Through Mathematics book, his first book.

759
00:52:42,874 --> 00:52:49,454
so I bought it and uh, then I wanted to translate just the important

760
00:52:49,454 --> 00:52:55,364
parts of it to hand off, to hand out to my, um, orange pillies, the

761
00:52:55,364 --> 00:52:57,084
friends and family and neighbors.

762
00:52:57,874 --> 00:52:59,334
So I decided to translate.

763
00:52:59,824 --> 00:53:04,314
Parts of the book, maybe two or three pages, and just the important part.

764
00:53:04,804 --> 00:53:11,934
So I started and everything was important, couldn't reasonably leave anything out.

765
00:53:12,254 --> 00:53:16,394
And since it was only about a hundred pages, I just kept doing it.

766
00:53:17,345 --> 00:53:23,015
And, um, then I sent it to you, Knut, and you uploaded it to Amazon

767
00:53:23,025 --> 00:53:25,955
and like 30 minutes later, you could download it as an ebook.

768
00:53:27,055 --> 00:53:27,905
That's pretty wild.

769
00:53:28,470 --> 00:53:28,970
Yeah.

770
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:31,290
Oh, what a, what a journey like this.

771
00:53:31,310 --> 00:53:35,300
It's so beautiful how all of this comes full circle in this.

772
00:53:36,330 --> 00:53:36,610
Yeah.

773
00:53:37,145 --> 00:53:38,955
And thanks for your kind words, by the way.

774
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:42,790
Uh, I wasn't overdoing anything.

775
00:53:43,610 --> 00:53:50,721
Um, and then, in translating your book, I came on the, your, what you

776
00:53:50,811 --> 00:53:56,751
call this, the thanks department, where you say thank you to, to, um,

777
00:53:56,811 --> 00:54:00,721
Kalle Rosenbaum because everything, all the technical details you had from

778
00:54:00,721 --> 00:54:02,366
Kalle's book, uh, Crocking Bitcoin.

779
00:54:02,366 --> 00:54:04,041
Oh,

780
00:54:04,246 --> 00:54:10,076
no, uh, he hadn't, Grokking wasn't done yet at that point, I think.

781
00:54:10,536 --> 00:54:16,526
No, uh, so I just, uh, I think he was working on it and had announced it.

782
00:54:16,526 --> 00:54:21,116
I think it was done when we were in Riga, but not when I finished writing the book.

783
00:54:21,356 --> 00:54:21,916
Oh, okay.

784
00:54:22,076 --> 00:54:25,726
But anyway, the, the books, you said that every, everything, you know, is

785
00:54:25,726 --> 00:54:27,626
from, you know, from Kalle Rosenbaum.

786
00:54:28,106 --> 00:54:31,886
Yeah, yeah, he helped me a lot with whenever I ran into like

787
00:54:32,396 --> 00:54:35,586
a technical, I had to do a technical explanation of something.

788
00:54:35,946 --> 00:54:40,886
I, uh, Kalle advised me on that because I, so I basically had him

789
00:54:41,036 --> 00:54:45,886
proofread it, technically proofread it, and then coming with suggestions.

790
00:54:46,746 --> 00:54:46,966
Yeah.

791
00:54:46,966 --> 00:54:53,076
And so I Googled Kalle and hit the Grokking Bitcoin book and I contacted

792
00:54:53,076 --> 00:55:00,446
him and said, um, uh, I heard from Knut that your book is supposed to be

793
00:55:00,446 --> 00:55:03,236
really good and can I translate it?

794
00:55:04,236 --> 00:55:04,956
And he said, sure.

795
00:55:05,496 --> 00:55:07,116
It's, it's open source anyway.

796
00:55:07,186 --> 00:55:08,016
It's on GitHub.

797
00:55:08,226 --> 00:55:08,376
We can just.

798
00:55:09,471 --> 00:55:10,111
Download it.

799
00:55:10,141 --> 00:55:12,481
It's, it's even prepared for translation.

800
00:55:13,051 --> 00:55:18,681
Um, so you can just download it into Transifex and, and, uh,

801
00:55:18,711 --> 00:55:21,371
translate string by string and it will keep track and everything.

802
00:55:22,831 --> 00:55:27,981
So I decided to just translate it because I wanted to absorb

803
00:55:28,111 --> 00:55:29,831
everything that this guy wrote.

804
00:55:30,971 --> 00:55:36,601
And if you, if you just, if you buy a book and read it, especially me.

805
00:55:37,751 --> 00:55:44,081
My free will cannot force my eyes to stick to the pages, right?

806
00:55:44,271 --> 00:55:48,781
I cannot force myself to read a book back to back to back or

807
00:55:49,301 --> 00:55:51,291
front to cover, front to back.

808
00:55:52,493 --> 00:55:56,623
but if I have to translate it, then I have to read every word, right?

809
00:55:57,683 --> 00:55:58,953
I mean, everything.

810
00:55:59,543 --> 00:56:02,693
So I forced myself to commit myself to translate it.

811
00:56:03,421 --> 00:56:06,411
You know, a really, a really funny thing here is that I read all of Knut's

812
00:56:06,441 --> 00:56:11,691
books originally in translation as a language learning aid, basically.

813
00:56:11,691 --> 00:56:16,121
I, I, I read all of his books in Finnish before I read any of them in, in English.

814
00:56:16,141 --> 00:56:22,021
And, I mean, that's really part of how this whole I got connected

815
00:56:22,021 --> 00:56:26,721
with Konsensus Network who had facilitated the translation into

816
00:56:26,721 --> 00:56:28,691
Finnish of all of the books.

817
00:56:28,691 --> 00:56:33,591
Next thing you know it's me and Knut here and this is going to be

818
00:56:33,591 --> 00:56:35,531
something like episode 79 or 80.

819
00:56:36,071 --> 00:56:40,801
So we've had a lot of fun, but the translations is what enabled all this.

820
00:56:41,081 --> 00:56:45,021
And I think I'm in the minority that I read a book in translation.

821
00:56:45,441 --> 00:56:49,691
As a language learning thing, but I, I, I still really have a, a

822
00:56:49,691 --> 00:56:51,941
soft spot for the translations.

823
00:56:51,941 --> 00:56:56,471
And I, and I love what, what you do ker and, and what anyone who's, who's doing

824
00:56:56,476 --> 00:57:01,021
these translations does, because it just spreads the, spreads the message even

825
00:57:01,021 --> 00:57:05,751
further and makes it our, our, our friend Birn, uh, t here says that, that, uh,

826
00:57:05,751 --> 00:57:08,991
something like it is just much better to read in your own language Right.

827
00:57:08,991 --> 00:57:10,761
As opposed to, to a different one.

828
00:57:10,761 --> 00:57:13,701
So I do it on hard mode, but I think for everyone else, they, uh,

829
00:57:14,155 --> 00:57:17,555
They, they, they get the message a lot more, uh, easily, right?

830
00:57:18,205 --> 00:57:18,755
Yeah, cool.

831
00:57:18,785 --> 00:57:20,145
I didn't know you were learning Finnish.

832
00:57:20,145 --> 00:57:20,865
That's pretty cool.

833
00:57:21,830 --> 00:57:23,710
So you want to get rid of the pseudo.

834
00:57:24,435 --> 00:57:24,905
Yeah.

835
00:57:24,905 --> 00:57:25,155
Yeah.

836
00:57:25,155 --> 00:57:26,615
Well, I mean, I live here now.

837
00:57:26,615 --> 00:57:31,755
I've, I've lived here for a few years and, uh, trying to, trying to get better at

838
00:57:31,825 --> 00:57:33,395
Finnish all the time, but it's a hard one.

839
00:57:33,395 --> 00:57:36,065
It's, uh, everyday life is okay now though.

840
00:57:36,205 --> 00:57:36,515
So

841
00:57:36,950 --> 00:57:40,930
It's not related to any language that you normally know.

842
00:57:41,770 --> 00:57:44,620
I think it's pretty close to Hungarian or something like that.

843
00:57:45,075 --> 00:57:49,065
yeah, Estonian and Hungarian are the only major relatives basically.

844
00:57:49,065 --> 00:57:53,205
So yeah, no, no, no, uh, um, connections there basically.

845
00:57:53,205 --> 00:57:55,615
But if you live in Finland, it's pretty useful.

846
00:57:55,665 --> 00:57:55,885
So.

847
00:57:56,960 --> 00:57:57,490
Yeah, I guess.

848
00:57:58,180 --> 00:58:03,020
But the pseudo will stick until, uh, until I'm, uh, well, I, my wife

849
00:58:03,020 --> 00:58:06,720
says that, that I'll be pseudo no matter what, even if, even if I get

850
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:10,960
citizenship, I'll never be a full Finn, but, uh, we'll see, working on it.

851
00:58:11,255 --> 00:58:17,495
You'll never stand outside the club on a Friday night at

852
00:58:17,525 --> 00:58:19,265
minus 20 degrees in a t shirt.

853
00:58:20,560 --> 00:58:24,290
I, I could, I could do that and then go get a, go get a meat pie

854
00:58:24,290 --> 00:58:27,850
and, and drink a long drink, uh, out on the street and everything.

855
00:58:27,850 --> 00:58:30,140
Yeah, I, I think I fit in pretty good here.

856
00:58:30,530 --> 00:58:31,410
That's pretty impressive.

857
00:58:32,330 --> 00:58:32,900
Yeah, thanks.

858
00:58:33,315 --> 00:58:36,265
Yeah, Luke takes his live roleplaying seriously.

859
00:58:36,285 --> 00:58:36,675
Like,

860
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:39,590
That's true.

861
00:58:39,670 --> 00:58:40,170
That's true.

862
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:45,200
And you auto social distance by three meters or so at

863
00:58:45,220 --> 00:58:51,290
when the corona distancing rules were let go, everyone was so relieved that

864
00:58:51,290 --> 00:58:55,620
they could go back from, uh, to the default, uh, instead of 3 meters, they

865
00:58:55,620 --> 00:58:57,390
could go back to the default of 5 meters.

866
00:58:57,450 --> 00:58:57,690
Yeah.

867
00:58:58,410 --> 00:58:58,830
Okay.

868
00:59:01,430 --> 00:59:02,050
That's a good one.

869
00:59:03,960 --> 00:59:06,690
Anyway, back to the translations though, it's just, it's

870
00:59:06,690 --> 00:59:07,870
always this connection here.

871
00:59:07,870 --> 00:59:13,370
I really, really appreciate the work you do to make these translations

872
00:59:13,370 --> 00:59:18,120
happen and, uh, well, glad that the connection happened because I, I think,

873
00:59:18,150 --> 00:59:22,370
uh, if you've heard the story here and there, that that was really Knut's

874
00:59:23,020 --> 00:59:25,320
big, uh, coming out party, right?

875
00:59:25,320 --> 00:59:27,400
Like 2019 Riga, that's the one, right?

876
00:59:27,815 --> 00:59:28,185
yeah.

877
00:59:28,285 --> 00:59:32,075
That's like the first time I made a somewhat public appearance.

878
00:59:33,015 --> 00:59:33,975
And then look where we are.

879
00:59:33,975 --> 00:59:36,245
It's four and a half years later.

880
00:59:36,245 --> 00:59:36,755
Barely.

881
00:59:36,755 --> 00:59:37,235
And

882
00:59:38,015 --> 00:59:38,385
Yeah.

883
00:59:38,425 --> 00:59:39,265
look, look where we are.

884
00:59:39,355 --> 00:59:39,445
It's

885
00:59:39,565 --> 00:59:39,945
Yeah.

886
00:59:39,965 --> 00:59:40,305
So,

887
00:59:40,980 --> 00:59:41,150
Yeah.

888
00:59:41,150 --> 00:59:43,210
Everybody's lives have changed, right?

889
00:59:43,210 --> 00:59:46,670
And it's just Bitcoin changed every one of us.

890
00:59:47,660 --> 00:59:49,050
It can change so many people.

891
00:59:49,665 --> 00:59:49,975
yes.

892
00:59:50,005 --> 00:59:54,825
And so to such a large extent, it's just, it's just absolutely.

893
00:59:55,185 --> 00:59:58,435
Mind blowing when you think, when you think about it.

894
00:59:58,865 --> 00:59:59,625
Absolutely.

895
01:00:00,825 --> 01:00:02,895
Any other ways that Bitcoin has changed your life?

896
01:00:02,895 --> 01:00:03,315
Volker

897
01:00:04,431 --> 01:00:05,461
Ooh, let me think.

898
01:00:08,001 --> 01:00:08,441
Yeah.

899
01:00:09,791 --> 01:00:10,141
Yeah.

900
01:00:11,551 --> 01:00:15,041
It gave me hope for humanity.

901
01:00:16,051 --> 01:00:17,441
It's basically the essence.

902
01:00:19,268 --> 01:00:21,128
So it gave me hope for humanity.

903
01:00:22,008 --> 01:00:28,678
I was observing the deterioration of our civilization and our values.

904
01:00:29,938 --> 01:00:35,388
And now everything went towards the crapper or down the crapper more and

905
01:00:35,388 --> 01:00:38,408
more and there was just no stopping it.

906
01:00:38,448 --> 01:00:43,353
There was no, I didn't see anything that could slow it down

907
01:00:43,353 --> 01:00:46,223
or stop it or even revert it.

908
01:00:47,463 --> 01:00:49,273
And then Bitcoin came in.

909
01:00:49,928 --> 01:00:55,528
Like a wrecking ball basically and saying, okay, here is

910
01:00:55,528 --> 01:00:57,788
something nobody can mess with.

911
01:00:58,048 --> 01:00:58,848
How about that?

912
01:01:00,928 --> 01:01:06,198
And all you need to do is just hang on to it and cling to it and not let go.

913
01:01:07,338 --> 01:01:11,398
And that'll slow it down and then it'll stop it and then it'll revert it.

914
01:01:11,778 --> 01:01:12,728
And that's our chance.

915
01:01:13,648 --> 01:01:16,278
That's what it did for me.

916
01:01:16,498 --> 01:01:20,268
And that changed a lot in my life.

917
01:01:20,896 --> 01:01:22,296
Beautiful way of putting it.

918
01:01:24,176 --> 01:01:27,686
This is a wrecking ball without Miley Cyrus on top.

919
01:01:28,211 --> 01:01:31,401
You know, it's beautiful even without her.

920
01:01:34,321 --> 01:01:39,641
So, you told me a story once about the years following

921
01:01:39,651 --> 01:01:41,191
the fall of the Berlin Wall.

922
01:01:41,711 --> 01:01:45,901
And the story we've all been told is that East Germany was liberalized,

923
01:01:46,171 --> 01:01:50,731
and started to adopt West German values, or Western values.

924
01:01:50,851 --> 01:01:54,411
Western values in general, and now they're a free market economy,

925
01:01:54,791 --> 01:01:56,411
and communism is gone forever.

926
01:01:56,721 --> 01:02:01,071
But you had a, uh, uh, what people leave out is a different perspective.

927
01:02:01,091 --> 01:02:02,521
Can you tell us a bit about that, please?

928
01:02:03,381 --> 01:02:03,641
Yeah.

929
01:02:03,641 --> 01:02:09,471
We absorbed these, uh, I think it was five new, um, uh, countries or

930
01:02:09,531 --> 01:02:14,971
states or what you call them, uh, with, I think, 11 million people.

931
01:02:14,981 --> 01:02:21,820
We had about 74 million and, uh, we thought that, we would bring them.

932
01:02:22,135 --> 01:02:28,345
Western democracy and free market, uh, uh, behavior.

933
01:02:29,390 --> 01:02:33,990
And instead they brought us communism in a, in much bigger proportion

934
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:36,010
than, than the proportion of people.

935
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:40,310
Um, so much more than 11 over 74.

936
01:02:41,190 --> 01:02:48,640
Uh, and the way it happened was, they were so used to everything being

937
01:02:48,670 --> 01:02:53,580
taken care of by the state that they couldn't accept the free market.

938
01:02:54,225 --> 01:02:59,855
It was like in the, in the old, um, states of Germany.

939
01:03:00,895 --> 01:03:05,795
If you wanted your child to be, um, taken care of, you need daycare for your child.

940
01:03:06,045 --> 01:03:07,895
Well, you can buy a daycare, no problem.

941
01:03:08,155 --> 01:03:11,745
It's about 300 euros a month or so, uh, German, Deutschmark at

942
01:03:11,745 --> 01:03:13,515
the time, 300 Deutschmark a month.

943
01:03:13,685 --> 01:03:14,215
And you get.

944
01:03:14,560 --> 01:03:15,020
Take care.

945
01:03:15,340 --> 01:03:15,800
No problem.

946
01:03:15,830 --> 01:03:16,400
You can buy it.

947
01:03:16,880 --> 01:03:20,440
And then there are some churches that do it for less, maybe 180.

948
01:03:21,300 --> 01:03:22,180
But you have to pay for it.

949
01:03:23,310 --> 01:03:27,578
But in the East, it was all state run because the state wanted to indoctrinate

950
01:03:27,578 --> 01:03:30,150
the kids at the earliest age possible.

951
01:03:30,220 --> 01:03:33,480
And they also wanted, or needed, Everybody to work.

952
01:03:33,740 --> 01:03:38,490
So every woman has to work because all people are the same.

953
01:03:38,770 --> 01:03:40,260
So there is no motherhood.

954
01:03:40,270 --> 01:03:45,570
There's just giving birth and then going back to work and leaving your kid at the

955
01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:48,810
state owned indoctrination institute.

956
01:03:49,860 --> 01:03:51,140
So they were used to that.

957
01:03:52,110 --> 01:03:56,420
And now suddenly they have to pay for childcare?

958
01:03:56,815 --> 01:03:57,805
That's impossible.

959
01:03:58,675 --> 01:04:01,635
So they had to keep the free child care.

960
01:04:02,765 --> 01:04:05,345
And then the people in the West said, wait, where are

961
01:04:05,355 --> 01:04:06,785
they getting free child care?

962
01:04:06,795 --> 01:04:07,785
We are not getting it.

963
01:04:08,635 --> 01:04:08,905
Okay.

964
01:04:08,905 --> 01:04:09,925
That's just one example.

965
01:04:09,935 --> 01:04:16,935
So they kept their state privileges or the state kept being in charge for everything.

966
01:04:17,745 --> 01:04:23,605
And the Western part of German, Germany saw that as a freebie

967
01:04:23,655 --> 01:04:25,075
and they wanted the same freebie.

968
01:04:25,255 --> 01:04:26,335
So they demanded that.

969
01:04:27,400 --> 01:04:32,030
And no politician will ever say no if a large group of people demand

970
01:04:32,060 --> 01:04:36,443
something because then they can give it to them and then get reelected.

971
01:04:37,228 --> 01:04:39,238
Only they can't really pay for it.

972
01:04:39,578 --> 01:04:44,458
And they can't tax the people more to pay for it.

973
01:04:44,608 --> 01:04:46,878
So they will just print more money, right?

974
01:04:48,048 --> 01:04:51,398
I mean, just go deeper in debt.

975
01:04:51,588 --> 01:04:52,438
And that's what they did.

976
01:04:52,888 --> 01:04:55,958
So we end up with the state being responsible for everything.

977
01:04:56,258 --> 01:05:02,448
People getting all kinds of free shit and we're pretty much in debt.

978
01:05:02,788 --> 01:05:08,328
I mean, much less than many other countries still, but pay a lot of taxes.

979
01:05:09,438 --> 01:05:13,598
And, uh, we got socialism instead of them getting free markets.

980
01:05:14,647 --> 01:05:17,927
It's funny how you never hear about that, and I love this, um,

981
01:05:18,007 --> 01:05:21,367
politician's way of using the word free.

982
01:05:22,252 --> 01:05:26,932
When what they actually mean is, uh, a lot more expensive because of

983
01:05:26,932 --> 01:05:30,782
a lack of free market competition, but they promote it as free.

984
01:05:31,868 --> 01:05:40,538
Yeah, well, it's free for a certain time, and that appeals to the brains

985
01:05:40,538 --> 01:05:47,898
that have a high time preference, which is unfortunately the, is probably

986
01:05:47,898 --> 01:05:53,248
not a majority, it's probably Well, I would say the majority certainly has

987
01:05:53,248 --> 01:05:59,849
a much higher time preference than the typical Bitcoiner and I'm even, I'm

988
01:05:59,849 --> 01:06:04,349
not even sure uh, that's a good thing.

989
01:06:04,789 --> 01:06:11,219
I mean, you could say, you could say it's definitely Civilization building.

990
01:06:12,469 --> 01:06:19,619
So it's good as long as conditions are stable and building a civilization is

991
01:06:19,619 --> 01:06:27,139
worth it, but it's not good if conditions are unstable and you are under threat of

992
01:06:27,139 --> 01:06:32,229
life every year or every week or every day Then you better consume immediately

993
01:06:32,459 --> 01:06:34,009
because everything else would be a waste.

994
01:06:34,939 --> 01:06:40,439
So you can't really objectively say that high time preference is bad

995
01:06:40,439 --> 01:06:43,159
and good time preference is good.

996
01:06:43,899 --> 01:06:45,159
Low time preference is good.

997
01:06:46,779 --> 01:06:52,076
It's just good for certain circumstances or a certain environment.

998
01:06:52,706 --> 01:06:59,036
And we happen to live in an environment where low time preferences Low time

999
01:06:59,366 --> 01:07:04,556
preference behavior would be good because it's pretty stable here, but for instance,

1000
01:07:04,556 --> 01:07:07,236
Russia, it's all high time preference.

1001
01:07:07,676 --> 01:07:09,606
Latin America, high time preference.

1002
01:07:10,596 --> 01:07:14,076
Consume before the drug mafia kills you.

1003
01:07:14,928 --> 01:07:16,018
It's not so easy.

1004
01:07:16,028 --> 01:07:19,808
You can't just say, uh, high time preference is bad.

1005
01:07:20,358 --> 01:07:22,858
It's just, it is bad for Europe.

1006
01:07:23,538 --> 01:07:27,588
It's bad for highly developed countries, but it's not generally bad.

1007
01:07:29,018 --> 01:07:34,128
Yeah, the word good and the word bad are kind of hard to define too, since they're

1008
01:07:34,128 --> 01:07:37,338
so subjective in their very nature.

1009
01:07:37,338 --> 01:07:46,478
So, yeah, I guess it's a, uh, correlation is not necessarily causation type,

1010
01:07:47,108 --> 01:07:51,608
type of problem to define what, like, what a low time preference.

1011
01:07:53,258 --> 01:07:59,780
When it's useful or not, sometimes the high time preference is there because

1012
01:07:59,780 --> 01:08:04,371
of the circumstances, or more often than not I would say, and not the other

1013
01:08:04,371 --> 01:08:08,211
way around, it's not like people in the civilized world just decided to

1014
01:08:08,421 --> 01:08:13,611
adopt the high time preference all of a sudden, it's like there is a correlation

1015
01:08:13,611 --> 01:08:20,686
to the money printing and You know, uh, being incentivized to want free

1016
01:08:20,686 --> 01:08:26,236
stuff, uh, being incentivized by, by mass media and, and indoctrination

1017
01:08:26,266 --> 01:08:29,806
to, to crave these things because the politicians want their votes, right?

1018
01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:31,160
Yep.

1019
01:08:32,520 --> 01:08:34,750
But they too don't have free will.

1020
01:08:35,690 --> 01:08:44,030
So they only react to the, they only react to the environment and they, they

1021
01:08:44,200 --> 01:08:46,820
follow a strategy that their brains.

1022
01:08:47,235 --> 01:08:55,405
Tell them is, uh, going to be, uh, successful and sometimes they're right.

1023
01:08:55,405 --> 01:08:56,355
And sometimes they're not.

1024
01:08:57,785 --> 01:09:00,075
And the outcome is whatever the outcome is.

1025
01:09:02,275 --> 01:09:06,405
I mean, there's the one thing that you can, you can take.

1026
01:09:07,370 --> 01:09:11,250
If there's one thing that you can take from this very complicated discussion

1027
01:09:11,260 --> 01:09:18,482
about free will and everything is, you can't really will yourself to do

1028
01:09:18,482 --> 01:09:21,182
something you don't really have control.

1029
01:09:21,712 --> 01:09:28,072
So what, so it's, it's okay to accept that you are a mere observer and if

1030
01:09:28,072 --> 01:09:33,342
you accept that you're a mere observer, life gets much less difficult.

1031
01:09:34,142 --> 01:09:35,452
Life gets much easier.

1032
01:09:35,742 --> 01:09:40,092
You can just let stuff happen because you can't, you're

1033
01:09:40,092 --> 01:09:41,852
conscious you can't influence it.

1034
01:09:42,302 --> 01:09:44,682
You're conscious you can't influence what you're going to do.

1035
01:09:45,202 --> 01:09:48,632
You can let happen whatever is happening and just be happy about it.

1036
01:09:49,382 --> 01:09:54,312
And that's very Taoist view of the world.

1037
01:09:54,312 --> 01:09:59,332
You are your surroundings because they define what you

1038
01:09:59,332 --> 01:10:01,042
do and you just let it happen.

1039
01:10:01,252 --> 01:10:02,702
It's very comforting.

1040
01:10:03,687 --> 01:10:07,087
But hang on, wouldn't that be a conscious decision, to do

1041
01:10:07,112 --> 01:10:08,832
No, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be conscious.

1042
01:10:08,852 --> 01:10:17,232
It's just Uh, if I, if I say that to you, if I tell you that, that influences

1043
01:10:17,232 --> 01:10:24,272
your brain so that it might try that out and it will find that the feedback

1044
01:10:24,302 --> 01:10:28,902
gets better and then it create, hopefully creates a feedback loop that

1045
01:10:28,902 --> 01:10:34,522
will make you do that more often in that way, my brain influences yours.

1046
01:10:34,757 --> 01:10:38,877
Using language, but it's not something that I came up with

1047
01:10:39,247 --> 01:10:46,117
because you, you cannot have an idea just as you cannot have will.

1048
01:10:47,087 --> 01:10:53,217
I didn't come up with it and I don't want it to happen.

1049
01:10:53,307 --> 01:11:01,744
It's just, it popped up in my brain because my brain thought in air quotes.

1050
01:11:02,434 --> 01:11:04,384
It would be a good idea to tell you that

1051
01:11:05,448 --> 01:11:05,828
Yeah,

1052
01:11:05,928 --> 01:11:06,378
what it leads to.

1053
01:11:07,178 --> 01:11:09,208
and you're happy that it did, I assume.

1054
01:11:10,288 --> 01:11:12,318
Which I can never know, but I assume so.

1055
01:11:14,203 --> 01:11:15,623
And, uh, it probably worked.

1056
01:11:16,083 --> 01:11:18,573
Did you hear about mirror neurons, by the way?

1057
01:11:19,588 --> 01:11:20,208
Oh yeah, sure.

1058
01:11:20,933 --> 01:11:25,303
I find that that's probably very connected to this stuff, that when you

1059
01:11:25,303 --> 01:11:32,403
do something, even if I just wave my hand like this, uh, you, there are parts of

1060
01:11:32,563 --> 01:11:38,163
both your brain and Luke's brain, who's seeing this right now, that, uh, can

1061
01:11:38,503 --> 01:11:44,203
feel What it's like to wave your hand like that, or like, who, who, you cannot

1062
01:11:44,213 --> 01:11:48,053
help but imagining what that would feel like when you see someone else do it.

1063
01:11:48,948 --> 01:11:52,328
There's a, there's a better way to, uh, illustrate that.

1064
01:11:52,368 --> 01:11:58,158
It's, uh, whack yourself with a hammer on the head or, or watch,

1065
01:11:58,488 --> 01:12:02,658
watch somebody getting really hurt, getting hurt really bad.

1066
01:12:03,608 --> 01:12:07,138
If you watch someone banging their head in, you hurt.

1067
01:12:08,126 --> 01:12:08,406
Yeah.

1068
01:12:09,156 --> 01:12:13,266
So yeah, that, with the hammer, I mean, that's what movies do, right?

1069
01:12:13,266 --> 01:12:15,616
They create mirror neurons all the time.

1070
01:12:17,267 --> 01:12:21,187
but you're actually not watching, uh, you're watching a recording of

1071
01:12:21,187 --> 01:12:25,397
what a human being did and not an actual human being who has that neural

1072
01:12:25,437 --> 01:12:27,357
pattern in his head at the moment.

1073
01:12:28,027 --> 01:12:31,337
I guess watching a recorded actor is, is different.

1074
01:12:31,347 --> 01:12:32,547
It's not really a mirrored neuron.

1075
01:12:33,407 --> 01:12:36,727
It's a neuron reacting to something on a screen.

1076
01:12:37,067 --> 01:12:42,127
Not exactly the same, I guess, but the mirror neuron thing is, uh, that

1077
01:12:42,137 --> 01:12:46,107
there's actually the same pattern going on, and they've detected this in

1078
01:12:46,107 --> 01:12:52,495
chimpanzees and bonobos and whatnot, as well as all sorts of primates, and yeah.

1079
01:12:53,275 --> 01:12:54,175
It's fascinating.

1080
01:12:54,245 --> 01:12:57,985
I think it's hard though, with this free will discussion, to not end up

1081
01:12:58,405 --> 01:13:07,045
in a paradox, like, it, it, I can't properly explain it, uh, but it feels

1082
01:13:07,045 --> 01:13:15,043
so paradoxical, because the words want, uh, and, you know, desire and

1083
01:13:15,044 --> 01:13:20,613
what not, if I want to do something, it's not really me wanting something,

1084
01:13:20,613 --> 01:13:27,168
it's just my Just my body saying these words, and my consciousness

1085
01:13:27,168 --> 01:13:29,078
fooling me that that's the case.

1086
01:13:29,898 --> 01:13:31,948
And it's my body that wants something.

1087
01:13:33,077 --> 01:13:38,317
but that feels very weird, because the want, the feeling is still there, right?

1088
01:13:39,502 --> 01:13:43,512
So even if, even though if, if it's not in the driver's seat and if it's,

1089
01:13:43,532 --> 01:13:49,159
if it's not controlling the impulses, if there's a constant stream of the,

1090
01:13:49,189 --> 01:13:53,579
uh, a certain emotion, so like, I really want that woman, or I really

1091
01:13:53,579 --> 01:14:00,861
want that car or whatever it is, uh, that is a driving force in, for your

1092
01:14:00,911 --> 01:14:06,881
bodily you, but you're still feeling it all the time as your conscious you.

1093
01:14:08,716 --> 01:14:17,336
So, uh, even if the conscious you is the observer and not the, uh, decision

1094
01:14:17,336 --> 01:14:19,806
maker, they are interconnected.

1095
01:14:19,816 --> 01:14:23,866
Like they're, they're, uh, they're not separated.

1096
01:14:23,866 --> 01:14:24,496
It's not two.

1097
01:14:24,946 --> 01:14:26,036
Different things.

1098
01:14:26,066 --> 01:14:28,586
Is the dichotomy even real?

1099
01:14:28,636 --> 01:14:31,796
Like, how would we even know?

1100
01:14:32,766 --> 01:14:35,436
No, it's not, it's not, uh, separated at all.

1101
01:14:35,886 --> 01:14:42,236
It's just that, um, the body is in charge because your brain, your

1102
01:14:42,246 --> 01:14:48,016
neurochemistry and your sensory organs and, and, uh, the biome in your gut and

1103
01:14:48,016 --> 01:14:51,186
everything, they define what's happening.

1104
01:14:51,516 --> 01:14:54,156
They create what you do.

1105
01:14:54,576 --> 01:14:57,196
They create what you feel and what you think.

1106
01:14:58,026 --> 01:15:02,736
And that's the bodily you, the biological you that we never

1107
01:15:02,786 --> 01:15:06,346
talk about, but that's in charge.

1108
01:15:07,036 --> 01:15:11,686
And then the you that we talk about feels like it's in charge,

1109
01:15:12,366 --> 01:15:13,906
but that feeling is false.

1110
01:15:14,396 --> 01:15:15,486
Because it's not in charge.

1111
01:15:15,486 --> 01:15:19,786
It only explains what already happened by the biological you.

1112
01:15:20,485 --> 01:15:21,995
So it's, it's not a dichotomy.

1113
01:15:21,995 --> 01:15:24,815
It's just a reverted arrow, right?

1114
01:15:25,415 --> 01:15:29,215
It's not, I want something and then the body does something.

1115
01:15:29,215 --> 01:15:30,895
It's the body did something.

1116
01:15:30,895 --> 01:15:35,455
So I'm explaining that to my consciousness or it explains it to

1117
01:15:35,455 --> 01:15:40,375
my consciousness as, or it pops up in my consciousness as I want that.

1118
01:15:41,485 --> 01:15:43,695
And you also get this wonderful time delay.

1119
01:15:43,695 --> 01:15:45,825
It's, it's just great.

1120
01:15:46,522 --> 01:15:51,892
so if you, let me explain a few more experiments, or at least one.

1121
01:15:53,742 --> 01:16:01,347
You have a certain time that, uh, nerve impulse Needs to

1122
01:16:01,387 --> 01:16:03,587
travel a certain distance.

1123
01:16:03,707 --> 01:16:04,017
Okay.

1124
01:16:04,017 --> 01:16:09,237
So if you, if you poke your finger on a needle, if you poke a needle into your

1125
01:16:09,237 --> 01:16:14,337
finger, it takes, I don't know, a fifth of a second or so to reach the brain.

1126
01:16:15,517 --> 01:16:19,702
If you poke a needle in your neck, It's almost instant.

1127
01:16:20,552 --> 01:16:26,762
And if you poke a needle in your, in your toe, it takes half a second.

1128
01:16:26,832 --> 01:16:27,772
Let's say half a second.

1129
01:16:27,832 --> 01:16:32,072
I don't know exactly how much it is, but it's a significant amount of time.

1130
01:16:32,312 --> 01:16:32,592
Okay.

1131
01:16:33,022 --> 01:16:34,232
Now the experiment is this.

1132
01:16:35,263 --> 01:16:40,693
You poke a needle into the toe and the neck at exactly the same time.

1133
01:16:41,923 --> 01:16:44,593
How do you perceive that?

1134
01:16:45,423 --> 01:16:51,603
It's perceived as synchronous, but the nerve impulse takes a lot longer from

1135
01:16:51,603 --> 01:16:56,203
the toe than it does from the neck, but still the brain perceives it as

1136
01:16:56,973 --> 01:17:02,833
happening at the same time because it, it, it knows about the time delay.

1137
01:17:03,658 --> 01:17:08,128
And your consciousness is not aware that the brain knows that

1138
01:17:08,478 --> 01:17:12,088
and it's not aware that the brain recalculates all this stuff.

1139
01:17:12,658 --> 01:17:13,618
It's really wild.

1140
01:17:14,323 --> 01:17:15,003
Yeah, it is.

1141
01:17:15,352 --> 01:17:20,922
that kind of error correction is necessary for this movie we call our

1142
01:17:20,922 --> 01:17:23,882
consciousness to, to, to function, right?

1143
01:17:24,682 --> 01:17:28,912
Because we couldn't really have a brain that functioned differently, that felt

1144
01:17:28,942 --> 01:17:32,732
the needle in the neck and the needle in the finger at different times.

1145
01:17:33,182 --> 01:17:34,442
It would be very weird.

1146
01:17:35,325 --> 01:17:42,485
Yeah, we're living time shifted and it's, it's, um, the time shift is different for

1147
01:17:42,485 --> 01:17:44,755
different body parts, but it's the most.

1148
01:17:45,645 --> 01:17:49,765
Uh, drastic or has, can have the most drastic impact on your life,

1149
01:17:49,825 --> 01:17:59,945
especially if you're a motorbike fan, um, and you, you, uh, think that you're

1150
01:17:59,955 --> 01:18:04,255
living in the present, but you're actually living in half a second past.

1151
01:18:05,365 --> 01:18:11,725
And you drive, uh, so, okay, let me, let me scroll back for a few seconds.

1152
01:18:13,205 --> 01:18:19,205
Your visual cortex, that's the part of the brain that processes

1153
01:18:19,285 --> 01:18:21,875
what your retina receives, okay?

1154
01:18:22,125 --> 01:18:28,795
Your retina gets all the visual, uh, impact from the photons hitting your eyes.

1155
01:18:29,385 --> 01:18:33,395
Okay, the retina absorbs the photons, creates electrical

1156
01:18:33,775 --> 01:18:35,895
currents that trigger the neurons.

1157
01:18:37,185 --> 01:18:41,965
And then there's a neuron from each retina leading away from each retinal

1158
01:18:41,965 --> 01:18:49,035
cell, leading away to the visual cortex.

1159
01:18:49,215 --> 01:18:56,315
And the visual cortex takes about seven steps of seven layers of neurons to

1160
01:18:56,315 --> 01:18:59,735
create the perception of a picture.

1161
01:19:00,360 --> 01:19:07,180
Okay, so initially you get something like, um, uh, uh, brightness, brightness

1162
01:19:07,180 --> 01:19:10,780
information, and then you get something like dots, and you get something like

1163
01:19:10,780 --> 01:19:16,240
lines, uh, curved or straight lines, then you get something like blocks, and

1164
01:19:16,240 --> 01:19:19,620
then you get something like shapes, and then you get something like a scenery.

1165
01:19:19,630 --> 01:19:21,750
Eventually you end up with something like a scene.

1166
01:19:22,180 --> 01:19:22,520
Okay.

1167
01:19:22,890 --> 01:19:29,060
But that takes at least seven layers of neurons and each neuron takes about

1168
01:19:29,060 --> 01:19:35,550
50 milliseconds to process it just for the action, the action potential to

1169
01:19:35,570 --> 01:19:39,770
travel along the dendrite and trigger the synapse at the other end, it just

1170
01:19:39,780 --> 01:19:48,790
takes a few milliseconds so you can prove biologically your reaction time to it.

1171
01:19:48,950 --> 01:19:54,390
A to an arbitrary picture, not something like a red flash or something

1172
01:19:54,470 --> 01:19:59,550
trivial, which, which can shortcut a few of these neural layers, but

1173
01:19:59,560 --> 01:20:04,665
something like a complex scenery, like when Michael enters the bathroom.

1174
01:20:04,905 --> 01:20:06,445
The room from the left.

1175
01:20:06,595 --> 01:20:07,495
Then do this.

1176
01:20:07,545 --> 01:20:07,825
Okay.

1177
01:20:07,825 --> 01:20:08,445
Something like this.

1178
01:20:08,465 --> 01:20:10,735
You have to understand the scenery.

1179
01:20:11,625 --> 01:20:16,285
This can never be less than 500 milliseconds because the neurons just

1180
01:20:16,345 --> 01:20:19,585
take so much time to create that image.

1181
01:20:20,375 --> 01:20:23,675
Okay, now I'm coming back to that.

1182
01:20:23,675 --> 01:20:25,085
So I got that part

1183
01:20:26,180 --> 01:20:28,740
yeah, it's my internal frame rate, right?

1184
01:20:29,255 --> 01:20:29,605
right.

1185
01:20:29,665 --> 01:20:34,095
Your internal frame rate is I think 350 to 500 milliseconds.

1186
01:20:34,095 --> 01:20:37,325
It varies a little bit between people.

1187
01:20:38,188 --> 01:20:41,354
but the thing is you can't go below 350 or so.

1188
01:20:41,924 --> 01:20:44,684
And now coming back to the motorbike rider.

1189
01:20:45,004 --> 01:20:48,944
I was on my motorbike like 15 or 20 years ago.

1190
01:20:49,624 --> 01:20:54,084
I was accelerating pretty hard onto an autobahn in a curve.

1191
01:20:54,704 --> 01:20:58,964
So, just onto the on ramp, right, the on ramp was an arch curve.

1192
01:20:59,704 --> 01:21:07,194
I was pretty low on the street and accelerating and always looking as far

1193
01:21:07,194 --> 01:21:13,774
ahead as 50 meters or so, and I'm in complete control because I have my bike

1194
01:21:13,774 --> 01:21:21,104
under control and I've 25 years, so I'm a very, very happy driver, accelerating.

1195
01:21:22,174 --> 01:21:24,544
And then there was a huge patch of sand.

1196
01:21:26,144 --> 01:21:31,124
And I recognized the sand when I was past it.

1197
01:21:32,604 --> 01:21:40,092
I mean, in retrospect, of course, my eyes continually fed me

1198
01:21:40,092 --> 01:21:44,464
the scenery, but the, the, um,

1199
01:21:46,372 --> 01:21:46,902
what's it called?

1200
01:21:46,902 --> 01:21:47,782
Der Schreck?

1201
01:21:49,012 --> 01:21:50,722
What's Schreck in English?

1202
01:21:51,612 --> 01:21:51,732
The

1203
01:21:51,897 --> 01:21:55,917
Yeah, it's, it's a green ogre animated.

1204
01:21:56,872 --> 01:22:01,282
no, no, no, it's the negative surprise.

1205
01:22:02,027 --> 01:22:02,807
The shock, the

1206
01:22:03,117 --> 01:22:07,937
Uh, yeah, the skrek, skrek, uh, yeah, the shock, the shock.

1207
01:22:08,792 --> 01:22:14,102
the shock hit me when the visual cortex actually presented the

1208
01:22:14,102 --> 01:22:15,472
pictures to my consciousness.

1209
01:22:15,492 --> 01:22:18,072
And that was when the sand was way gone.

1210
01:22:19,132 --> 01:22:21,162
I was 20 meters behind the sand.

1211
01:22:21,352 --> 01:22:25,752
Luckily, nothing happened because it was a small enough patch and the bite

1212
01:22:25,812 --> 01:22:28,662
was stable enough that nothing happened.

1213
01:22:28,662 --> 01:22:35,022
But man, that was the moment I recognized that this visual processing time is real.

1214
01:22:35,262 --> 01:22:39,452
And from that time on, I always kept a larger distance to the car

1215
01:22:39,452 --> 01:22:45,002
in front of me because you think that you see whatever happens.

1216
01:22:46,192 --> 01:22:50,732
But in fact, it's already happened half a second ago and you had

1217
01:22:50,742 --> 01:22:52,142
no chance of doing anything.

1218
01:22:53,321 --> 01:22:54,301
absolutely.

1219
01:22:54,361 --> 01:22:59,621
Like, and sometimes, like, it feels like you're even better at, you don't,

1220
01:22:59,881 --> 01:23:06,691
you're not truly good at any, anything, any specific skill before how you learn

1221
01:23:06,711 --> 01:23:10,361
to do it with your, just with your intuition that you, that you can turn

1222
01:23:10,361 --> 01:23:12,121
your brain off while doing something.

1223
01:23:12,971 --> 01:23:17,061
So it's just your subconscious doing the thinking, and you don't even have

1224
01:23:17,061 --> 01:23:21,711
to, like, put in the effort, so you're done your 10, 000 hours, basically, and

1225
01:23:21,961 --> 01:23:27,721
you're sufficiently good to just relax and observe yourself doing the thing.

1226
01:23:27,731 --> 01:23:32,071
It doesn't matter if you're playing guitar or writing an article, even.

1227
01:23:32,241 --> 01:23:37,901
Like, all of that can be done with the subconscious part of your brain.

1228
01:23:37,971 --> 01:23:42,544
You don't really need to be, To have this illusion of being aware

1229
01:23:42,544 --> 01:23:43,844
and in control of all of it.

1230
01:23:44,564 --> 01:23:51,104
Uh, uh, and I feel like some of my best work has come from that type of

1231
01:23:51,754 --> 01:23:55,324
position where, where I know that I don't have to be, you know, be conscious

1232
01:23:55,334 --> 01:23:57,344
all the time of all that's going on.

1233
01:23:57,344 --> 01:24:01,654
I can just, the more relaxed I am, the better it becomes basically.

1234
01:24:02,609 --> 01:24:03,479
Yeah, I agree.

1235
01:24:03,759 --> 01:24:06,319
Your consciousness gets in the way more than it helps.

1236
01:24:07,549 --> 01:24:14,249
Consciousness helps when you need to, uh, to interact with other brains.

1237
01:24:14,699 --> 01:24:17,349
So you have to, you have to express.

1238
01:24:17,834 --> 01:24:25,224
Language or dance or whatever, uh, to communicate with other, to communicate to

1239
01:24:25,254 --> 01:24:28,834
other brains what you think is going on.

1240
01:24:29,614 --> 01:24:31,314
That's when you need the consciousness.

1241
01:24:31,934 --> 01:24:35,724
And for everything else, consciousness typically gets in the way.

1242
01:24:37,425 --> 01:24:37,825
mine.

1243
01:24:39,209 --> 01:24:40,559
Uh, fascinating stuff.

1244
01:24:40,604 --> 01:24:42,104
You can also just drink wine.

1245
01:24:42,114 --> 01:24:42,584
It helps too.

1246
01:24:43,669 --> 01:24:46,519
Yeah, yeah, but then you have to make a conscious decision to do

1247
01:24:46,519 --> 01:24:48,079
so, and that's impossible, so,

1248
01:24:48,834 --> 01:24:49,834
Comes automatically.

1249
01:24:50,109 --> 01:24:54,199
yeah, at least don't whine about it, like,

1250
01:24:58,974 --> 01:24:59,604
Nice.

1251
01:25:01,509 --> 01:25:06,639
well, uh, Luke, do you have any more questions for Folker, or do you think, I'm

1252
01:25:06,649 --> 01:25:11,309
making the conscious decision that this is sort of a good moment to wrap this thing

1253
01:25:11,309 --> 01:25:14,039
up, at least I'm telling myself that I am,

1254
01:25:14,479 --> 01:25:15,739
Yeah, I would agree.

1255
01:25:15,739 --> 01:25:19,729
We've, we've, we've really dug into a few excellent rabbit holes here.

1256
01:25:19,729 --> 01:25:22,169
So I think this has been a fantastic episode.

1257
01:25:22,169 --> 01:25:27,129
So Volker, can, can you just, uh, any last, tell us any last thoughts

1258
01:25:27,129 --> 01:25:31,569
on your mind and where our listeners can follow you if they would

1259
01:25:31,569 --> 01:25:33,599
like to see more of what you do?

1260
01:25:34,564 --> 01:25:35,494
Oh, yeah.

1261
01:25:35,494 --> 01:25:35,964
Thank you.

1262
01:25:37,044 --> 01:25:38,604
I liked it a lot too.

1263
01:25:38,604 --> 01:25:40,844
It was a nice, uh, nice podcast.

1264
01:25:41,994 --> 01:25:45,534
It's always fun talking to Knut and also to you.

1265
01:25:47,139 --> 01:25:50,899
Well, if you want to follow me or see whatever I'm doing, you can

1266
01:25:50,899 --> 01:25:58,999
follow me, uh, on Twitter at uh, x, uh, I'm Volker BTC or on nostri.

1267
01:25:59,029 --> 01:26:08,419
My P key is N one PUB, capital A 4 0 8 8 9 C oh, forget it,

1268
01:26:09,309 --> 01:26:11,379
uh, just for b, d, c there too.

1269
01:26:12,459 --> 01:26:12,879
Uh.

1270
01:26:14,149 --> 01:26:17,829
And, uh, not much else, I think.

1271
01:26:18,009 --> 01:26:18,809
Is there anything?

1272
01:26:19,069 --> 01:26:19,839
I'm not good at that.

1273
01:26:20,399 --> 01:26:25,009
Just go and follow Folker on both X and Nostr because he's a great

1274
01:26:25,009 --> 01:26:28,789
follow, he's an excellent shitposter.

1275
01:26:28,969 --> 01:26:34,519
Yes, often the humor flies over my head, but when it clicks it's fucking awesome.

1276
01:26:36,599 --> 01:26:38,099
Over your head or under the radar?

1277
01:26:38,229 --> 01:26:38,749
Either one.

1278
01:26:39,589 --> 01:26:45,149
Yeah, my head is, uh, I'm trying to make a head level radar joke

1279
01:26:45,149 --> 01:26:49,129
here, but no, I can't consciously do that, so I'll skip it.

1280
01:26:50,687 --> 01:26:51,187
Okay.

1281
01:26:52,357 --> 01:26:53,537
Let's wrap it up then.

1282
01:26:54,697 --> 01:26:56,107
Alright, thanks a lot, Folker.

1283
01:26:56,147 --> 01:26:59,217
Looking forward to seeing you on Madeira next time, I guess.

1284
01:26:59,507 --> 01:27:00,167
Yeah, sure.

1285
01:27:00,407 --> 01:27:00,907
I'll be there.

1286
01:27:01,307 --> 01:27:02,137
fantastic.

1287
01:27:02,637 --> 01:27:03,227
See you there.

1288
01:27:03,727 --> 01:27:04,117
Okay.

1289
01:27:04,127 --> 01:27:04,607
See you.

1290
01:27:04,747 --> 01:27:05,287
Bye bye.

1291
01:27:05,687 --> 01:27:06,037
Yep.

1292
01:27:06,067 --> 01:27:06,897
Thanks Volker.

1293
01:27:07,017 --> 01:27:08,687
This has been the Freedom Footprint Show.

1294
01:27:08,867 --> 01:27:09,737
Thanks for listening.