Bitcoin Ownership Redefined with Tomer Strolight | Bitcoin Infinity Show #178

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It was really extraordinary to be in the capital of the United States, not being persecuted, welcomed by an elite university, welcomed by the Kennedy Center itself.

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To me, the Satoshi is one of the only things on planet Earth that are actually sacred.

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The biggest frustration for me in this discussion is that it's not a dialogue a lot of the time.

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It's a debate and it's not a debate fought on rational merit.

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It's a debate on who is the most insulting of the other person.

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We worship the lead developers.

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We worship these people who had protected, preserved, advanced Bitcoin for some time.

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And so we wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, right?

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It wasn't don't trust, verify.

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It is the most valuable property in the world.

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It's a new form of property.

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It's not well understood.

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For the rest of your life, Bitcoin will be under attack.

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And as is your state, as is anything that's valuable.

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We really have to avoid the Disney remake of Bitcoin.

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That would be the worst outcome ever.

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Why do Albertans want to secede from the state of Canada,

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from the federation, from the nation of Canada?

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Well, they're being stolen.

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I wish I could live 200 years just to see the outcome

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of what's going to be with Bitcoin and sovereignty

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and city-states and culture.

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Tomer, my friend, welcome back to the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

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Nice to have you here.

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Thanks for having me back.

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I'm thrilled to be back.

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the highlight of my life is getting to come on your show. Fantastic. Yeah.

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I just spent a couple of hours with you though. That's what I mean.

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Always a pleasure to talk to you. It was a long time now since we last saw each other. I think

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Madeira was the last one, right? That's the last time we saw each other in person and maybe did

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this podcast. I do think you and I spent New Year's Eve at the billionaire's house.

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At one of our friends' house in Miami.

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That was good fun, yeah.

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But we haven't seen each other since New Year's,

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and it's now practically white paper day.

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Yeah, almost a year has passed, but not quite.

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What have you been up to since?

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Well, most recently, yeah, in the fall,

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at the end of September, beginning of October,

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I was involved in the BTC in DC conference, which I'm eager to tell you a few details about without spending too much time.

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And then just last week, there was the Canadian Bitcoin conference in Montreal that I attended as well.

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Both were good Bitcoin-only conferences.

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Yeah, I saw some stuff from the DC thing.

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I hear Larry Lepard was the bass-to-boomer ever, like doing his bass-boomer thing.

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Yeah. Yeah. He was, he was also at the Canadian Bitcoin conference and in that the Canadian one, the event was quite far from the hotel. It was like a 30 to 40 minute walk. And I, I had the privilege of walking back with him and Cedric Youngelman. And we had a really good long talk. Larry is a real treasurer in the Bitcoin community. He calls him as he sees him. He's a wise old man, you know, and I mean that in the kindest and most flattering way.

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and he's very thoughtful.

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He's got a lot of experience to bring.

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So he's definitely worth listening to

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for as long as he continues to be a contributor.

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But switching to like the BTC and DC conference,

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that was a really interesting event

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that was put on by the George Washington University,

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which is like a top 10 university in the United States

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and a private university.

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And the fact that they had an interest in Bitcoin

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and Bitcoin only rather than rejecting

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the whole idea as part of a scam or bringing all the scammers in for something novel was really

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excellent. It was held at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, which I'm sure almost everyone

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everywhere in the world is familiar with. You've seen honorary events televised from there,

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like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Dr. Sled Zeppelin. So it was really extraordinary to be

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in the capital of the United States, not being persecuted, welcomed by an elite university,

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welcomed by the Kennedy Center itself. There was something about it. People dressed up,

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Bitcoiners dressed up. I know a couple of people who were there who said that they bought a suit

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to attend the event. And I commented that it was the first time in seven years that I tucked my

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shirt. And so it was, it was, there was, I had an opportunity to have a conversation with one of the

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administrators at the university, because we're, I'm talking with them about something more formal

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for Bitcoin. And the point that came up to me during the conversation, which I made is, you

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know, Bitcoin is built off of the most advanced mathematical theories, the most rational economic

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know-how that we have. It utilizes the most advanced microprocessing manufacturing technology

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and the most efficient energy markets. It stands to change a lot about how we think

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about our time preference, economics, philosophy, so many different things.

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So coming into a university for the first time where knowledge has perhaps been, well,

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exclusive of Bitcoin, not embracing of Bitcoin, one can be even more critical of a lot of the

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stuff that's gone on at universities, is a homecoming. It's a coming home of great ideas

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into institutions that are meant to develop, protect, espouse, teach great ideas. So to me,

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the Bitcoin arrival at Washington, D.C., at the George Washington University,

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was like the prodigal son returning and hopefully being welcomed.

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And I'm seeing very positive results in the conversations that I'm having there.

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So it was unique, right?

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It was a milestone, albeit a quiet one.

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Bitcoiners dressed up not because they wanted to bow down to the establishment,

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but to present themselves as, you know, credible to the establishment.

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And to your comment, Larry Lepard didn't exactly mince his words.

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He said something to the effect of these, you know,

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the government is filled with fucking evil fuckers.

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I can't remember the exact quote, but that was the sentiment and verbiage of it.

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And it received applause.

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But, you know, sitting next to him was a U.S. senator.

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When he said present company excluded, it was well received.

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So this metamorphosis of Bitcoin to a mature, widely known, widely understood, respected asset took a step forward.

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I don't want to say it's there yet.

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I think we still have a long way to go.

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But it was nice.

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And I understand that they're planning on doing it again next year.

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Same place, same supporters.

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who great speakers came to it as well from all walks,

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but lots of the most prominent Bitcoiners,

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especially the ones who do the North American circuit, were there.

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Yeah, Larry is not afraid of calling a spade a spade

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and calling theft theft.

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So that's always.

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And I bet there was a lot of suit coiners there.

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The latest saying is you either die a Bitcoin

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coiner live long enough to see yourself become a suit coiner?

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Yeah, you know, it's, um, I actually think there are more suit

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coiners at the Canadian Bitcoin conference because they gave a

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lot of stage time there to the idea of treasury companies.

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And I think the treasury companies had to put on a suit

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because their valuations have been diminished a fair bit so

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that they don't really have much else to stand on.

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But the BTC and DC conference, because it was put on by the

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university had a lot of intellectual topics. So like Giacomo was there and he was talking about

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Bitcoin education and Bitstein was there from the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute. And he was talking

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about the importance of preserving knowledge and know-how and talking about his communications with

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the university. So there was an intellectual air about it that, you know, maybe I think Giacomo

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wore a suit jacket, but a t-shirt underneath. And I can't remember exactly what Michael wore,

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But it wasn't Bitcoin in corporations.

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It was Bitcoin in the mind, Bitcoin in the government, Bitcoin.

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It wasn't that there was no discussion of it or no presence of suit coiners.

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But we didn't see a bunch of people pitching treasury companies on crazy ideas.

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That wasn't present at all, actually.

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That's great to hear because if there's one phrase that I miss hearing from all of these conferences like the last couple of years, it's the phrase, not your keys, not your coins.

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Nobody says that anymore, but it's still just as true as it always was.

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And we're missing the bigger underlying truth here that Bitcoin is not like other assets.

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It's not something that corporations really can own, is it?

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Yeah.

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They delegate the ownership to a committee, and a committee is a composition of individuals.

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Yeah.

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Let me pick your brain on this one.

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This is one of my pet peeve rabbit holes here.

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The way I look at it and the way I try to explain it to suit coiners and the likes of them,

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Like in Lugano, you meet a lot of bankers and similar.

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It is that like you cannot really own a Bitcoin or you cannot possess it.

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Like ownership is a legal relationship between you and a thing.

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But Bitcoin isn't really a thing.

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And if you're if you believe in uncapped principles, then there is no such thing

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as owning information because you don't have intellectual property.

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It's not a thing.

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Like we all know that if I have information, I don't lose anything by you having the same information as me.

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Unless it's your private key.

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Exactly.

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I'm coming to that.

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Possession is when I actually physically control something.

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So if I steal your car, you still own it, but I possess it if I stole it.

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So, but Bitcoin is, to me, it's a layer deeper because it's just information, but it's asymmetric information.

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meaning like that i can act as if i owned it because i i find it improbable that someone else

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has access to the same private key as i do so so it's it's just a secret i keep from others i also

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find it improbable or implausible that the the network will change to such an extent that it

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will render my Satoshi useless because the 21 million cap is changed or some other technical

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change that will lead to unforeseen consequences.

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So like that's the only reasons that I can act as if I own the Satoshi.

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So the thing that is valuable is not the Satoshi itself.

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It's the ability to move the Satoshi.

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And the Satoshi itself is not really ownable.

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Would you agree with this?

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Or do you have another view?

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I will not agree because it would be a boring podcast if I agree.

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Exactly.

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Please debunk me.

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Yeah.

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Well, what I'm going to come down to is a bit of an epistemological point, which

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is, you know, working with concept and their definite and their definition.

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So none of what you said technically is, is incorrect.

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And some of the words are significant understatements like improbable, you

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know, like profoundly astronomically improbable is the, are the right

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adjectives to qualify improbable with in in the case of cryptography and bitcoin but um when we

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talk about when we use a concept like ownership um and historically the concept would have referred

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to a combination of possession and legal retro legal enforcement right like a right situation

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where really there's no state you know it's like two kids playing with a ball and the one who

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who has it, is the owner of it, the one who possesses it. But if there's a dispute,

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you expect, you know, they're either going to fight it over and one's going to walk home with

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the ball and say it's his at this point, or the parents are going to come in and say, no,

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you have to respect the property rights. So it's not a legal thing per se, but there's authority

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and enforcement. So the ability to enforce your possession of something is something that we would

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have called ownership. And, you know, and in Bitcoin, there is, this is, I think, where it's

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important that we don't get lost in the technicalities. You do own a Bitcoin, right? The manner in which

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you own Bitcoin is not physical enforcement because it not a physical good You enforce your ownership by knowing something that you don disclose to others right So the secrecy is ownership of

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an idea. If we broaden the concept of ownership to having control, possession, like exclusive

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control and possession of something. So you need to keep your private key secret to keep your

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bitcoin and i don't think that there's anything wrong with that sentence though the word using

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your implying it belongs to you you're the you're the owner of it right and that's what i mean by

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you can act as if you know it and sufficiently improbable right and so it's sufficient so you

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know being if we if we're going to language i don't think you need to make qualifications right

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well when you say not your keys not your coins they are your coins they are your keys the manner

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in which you keep them is by having a secret that you don't disclose to anyone that you generated

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with entropy, which allows you to enforce your exclusive control of the desk, you know, of what

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ends up happening, if anything ends up happening to those things. It's actually a more powerful

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form of ownership because you may own a ball, but I can come with a screwdriver and, you know,

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and damage it. And now you own a damaged ball. So your ownership of it was still constrained by my

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ability to damage it. I can't, I can't physically damage your Bitcoin. And, you know, unless I roll

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back the chain and I need so much power to do that, it's much more than a screwdriver. It's more power.

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You know, if your blocks are a thousand, if your coins are a thousand blocks old, like I need more

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power than the human race is capable of generating, like to try to overcome the race and unspend on,

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you know, unreceive your coins if I was the one who sent them to you. So it's like, it's more

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powerful form of ownership than has ever existed. And it is more powerful because it's more than

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just you holding something in the physical realm with your hands or putting a box around it. It's

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encased by a cumulative proof of work, a cumulative expenditure of energy. So it's the most powerful

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form of ownership we've ever seen. It's unusual, and it's one of a kind. So it adds to the definition

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of ownership at the concept.

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We don't need a new concept, I don't think.

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I think it is the concept of ownership,

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but it's maintained and exercised in a different manner.

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Yeah, I would agree to that.

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It's close enough to the old definitions of ownership

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to actually call it ownership,

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because you can act as if you own.

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And this is also why I find it so overwhelmingly retarded

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to claim that you can own other data in Bitcoin,

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like owning a DIGPIC, JPEG,

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or whatever token that is supposedly attached to Satoshi

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akin to owning a star in the Andromeda galaxy.

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I mean, you can claim that you own it,

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but you have the same ability to change it

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or move it as anyone else on Earth.

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Once it's inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain,

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you can't move it and you can't modify it on the chain.

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Everyone else can see it.

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And everyone else can see it and everyone else can copy and everyone else can modify their copies of it.

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So your ownership doesn't give you any control over this thing that everybody else in the universe doesn't already have as well.

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And so, you know, that is a destruction of the concept of ownership.

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Like if you say I own something, but everyone, but I can't do anything with it that some complete stranger can't can do with it as well.

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Now you've destroyed the concept of ownership because ownership really does come down to this definitional thing of ownership of a thing means you have exclusive control over it and its use.

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And if it's public information on a public data store, then it's not yours.

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There's no concept of ownership.

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And even Casey, who the creator of inscription says, well, only if we pretend, i.e. lie, you know, detach ourselves from reality, pretend like not only if not in reality, do we think that we own this thing because we're following the trace of a chain of signatures, then we can say we own it.

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But look, if there's a beautiful image and I want to display it on the wall behind me that's inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain, there's no way its alleged owner can prevent me from doing that.

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If I want to modify it, there's no way he can prevent me from doing that.

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If I want to make copies and sell them, there's no way he can prevent me from doing that.

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Unless he invokes the copyright law, but he's not relying on the fact that it's on the blockchain then.

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He's relying on copyright law and the blockchain has no relevance to it whatsoever.

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So this concept of ownership, it's an important point that you're making here. What is secret is in a sense owned because only I can control it and have it.

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And cryptography gives us this remarkable capability of not disclosing the secret, but proving that we know the secret.

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I can prove I have a private key by signing something and sharing the public key.

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And that's what allows this new concept of ownership to exist.

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And it was historically only used to prove identity and authenticity.

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But now in Bitcoin, because we have this property on the chain, which is the Bitcoins,

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we suddenly have ownership of information, so long as we understand how to retain our ownership of it.

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Yeah, I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here because I want to end up at a point which is that we have to get there in mysterious ways.

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Because just before this pod, we decided that the core versus not debate is getting a bit tiresome and that the deeper meta debate is really more interesting, especially from a philosophical perspective.

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And I absolutely love talking to you, especially you about these things, because I think we have such similar mindsets here.

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And I'd like to find where we differ in our definitions and such.

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So what we've been talking about up to this point reminds me of two things.

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One is Gigi's The Map is Not the Territory article, if you remember that, where he explains why Bitcoin is the first time that the map actually defines the territory.

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Yes. So we define what reality is by the map we draw of it. That is what the time chain is.

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And it also reminds me of this chapter from everything divided by 21 million,

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Alchemy, which is about element zero, an idea I stole from Jörg Hemsdorf, which is a very bright guy.

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And the basic concept there is that the information about the asset is the asset. This is what makes

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bitcoin so unique so so i think it all has to do with the sacredness of the satoshi this is what

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makes the satoshi so insanely special because there's nothing like it and there never will be

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they cannot be by definition because um um uniqueness is it's very it's in in in its very core

251
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um pun intended um so so and i love hearing you use the word sacred uh yeah

252
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I use it unironically. To me, the Satoshi is one of the only things on planet Earth that are actually sacred to me. I can't find a better word for it.

253
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Right. I think these words all have down-to-earth meanings.

254
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They do.

255
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Even if they're just in the sense of an ideal that is never realized. But I think Bitcoin realizes certain ideals that we have had for forever in the real world.

256
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It makes the ideal property real, the ideal scarcity real.

257
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Like we've had things that are scarce, but not fixed in supply.

258
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Well, now we have something that's scarce and fixed in supply.

259
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So it's knowably scarce.

260
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Yeah.

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And also divisible.

262
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It takes you to a nearly platonic form of scarcity, right?

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Like that there is perfect.

264
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And we're seeing things from the platonic realm, from Plato's cave, as they really are, you know, which we didn't think could exist.

265
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So we get into a lot of really philosophical, intellectual, logical stuff.

266
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I want to get to the question at the end of this.

267
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So like, I'm going to go on another tangent, too, since you mentioned the word sacred.

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I also feel blessed to have this conversation with you, to have spent the last couple of days in Lugano doing amazing things with amazing people.

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I can't find a better word for it. I truly feel blessed and I truly view the Satoshi as sacred.

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And this is coming from a very skeptical mind.

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mind. So, so, but where I was getting at with the meta debate is like, I had to think about it

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myself, like what, what hill is worth dying on here and for what reason. And I think the, the

273
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people have got their priorities a bit wrong here because I think the, the meta debate is the,

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first of all, everyone should be happy that this is happening in Bitcoin, that there is a

275
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controversy and that people are not agreeing and that people are reacting and acting and doing

276
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stuff to protect Bitcoin. Regardless of what side you are in the debate, everyone should be happy

277
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that something is going on and that people are taking this seriously. The other one is exactly

278
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what we were talking about, about there's no ability to actually own an NFT and it's all

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bullshit. I think that that hill for me is is I love dying on that hill like just explaining to

280
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people why shit coins are shit. If we do that, if we can rid the world of gullible morons that fall

281
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for these scammers projects, then then we won because there will be no more ordinals because

282
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there's no one to sell them to anymore. So that's like the most important battle in my mind. And

283
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And then there's the decentralization of mining.

284
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And in my mind, like Datum from Ocean is like the real groundbreaking innovation.

285
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And that's more important than not even.

286
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I think that decentralizing mining again is, yeah.

287
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And now, of course, we're probably a bit behind here because now they're proposing soft forks and stuff.

288
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But let's not go into that.

289
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but more the meta debates like in your mind what's the what's the most important hill to die on here

290
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uh and anywhere really in yeah debates about these are all good things to fight for but

291
00:25:16,186 --> 00:25:22,846
let's let's start with this discussion around you said people should be happy that uh there's a

292
00:25:22,846 --> 00:25:29,046
dispute uh in bitcoin and happy is maybe not exactly the right you know we're we're going to

293
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they pick on words a lot. I think you and I, people, you know, should welcome. We have nothing

294
00:25:35,286 --> 00:25:40,926
else to do. Yeah. You know, why are people unhappy? Like people don't like to see other people in

295
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disagreement, partly because they're afraid it will lead to some bad outcome, like violence

296
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between the two people arguing or a breakdown of a system, you know, that they were hoping

297
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was already done and baked and, you know, uncontroversial.

298
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So I can understand why some people are unhappy about it.

299
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But then when you take the context of where we are,

300
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when Bitcoin is only 16 years old,

301
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it's not widely accepted by everyone in the world as money.

302
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It has a lot of discovery to do,

303
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which also then bleeds into the other two discussions

304
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that we want to have.

305
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But if we try to remain focused on the fact that we need to embrace and go through the process of controversy, right?

306
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We shouldn't evade controversy.

307
00:26:32,306 --> 00:26:42,666
We shouldn't turn our eyes away and say, oh, there's a controversy about data storage on Bitcoin or the governance of core or how the developers ought to behave.

308
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Let's pretend it doesn't exist or let's cover it up because that might disincline new people from coming into Bitcoin.

309
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And it's like, no, if we avert our eyes from it, if we evade the confrontation of it, then if it's a problem, it festers, right?

310
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And it can metastasize into something bigger.

311
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And if it metastasizes into something bigger when Bitcoin is bigger, it presents a bigger risk.

312
00:27:08,766 --> 00:27:16,326
So let's get through our controversies, our disagreements, however we get through them, sooner rather than later.

313
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Let's confront them.

314
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Let's not be shy about calling what we see as wrong or stupid or short-term thinking by those terms.

315
00:27:26,366 --> 00:27:27,926
And then let's reason about it.

316
00:27:28,026 --> 00:27:35,906
So the biggest frustration for me in this discussion is that it's not a dialogue a lot of the time.

317
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It's a debate.

318
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And it's not a debate fought on rational merit.

319
00:27:39,446 --> 00:27:54,611
It a debate on who is the most insulting of the other person who can score you know the what are the points that they call in political debate I forget what they called but like you know who can get a jab in here and there

320
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rather than how do we work towards what the realistic outcome is? A lot of insincere points,

321
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a lot of, you know, attempting to score points rather than make rational and valid points

322
00:28:05,671 --> 00:28:10,871
is part of the debate. But I think I welcome that too, because I think it then ultimately

323
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demonstrates that the people who are make one line or posts and think that that's a victory

324
00:28:16,731 --> 00:28:23,312
or who claim that another side is stupid when in fact the other side has a lot of merit and

325
00:28:23,312 --> 00:28:29,812
intelligence behind its point are ultimately going to be shown to be wrong and then they have to

326
00:28:29,812 --> 00:28:36,332
confront the ego issue here which is I was wrong am I going to admit that I was wrong or am I I was

327
00:28:36,332 --> 00:28:41,211
wrong and I'm going to dig my heels in and pretend that I was right and, you know, and play another

328
00:28:41,211 --> 00:28:47,492
card towards this losing hand of being metaphysically wrong. So I think we've got,

329
00:28:47,671 --> 00:28:52,072
we've got this incredible chemistry going on right now. And I don't, by that, I don't mean

330
00:28:52,072 --> 00:28:56,812
everyone's getting along. I mean, people are challenged every day to say, was I right? Was

331
00:28:56,812 --> 00:29:01,492
I wrong? Like I, you know, everybody knows, or, you know, everybody should know that you and I

332
00:29:01,492 --> 00:29:08,391
both have been leaning on the knots side in terms of the decision of what node to run for,

333
00:29:08,651 --> 00:29:15,971
maybe possibly for different reasons. But where I was going with this, look, for me,

334
00:29:16,231 --> 00:29:21,371
everything I'm doing, I'm trying to have a rationale behind that I can explain that's not

335
00:29:21,371 --> 00:29:27,592
an emotional, irrational point. And I'm trying to get at something. And for the people who've

336
00:29:27,592 --> 00:29:33,691
taken numerous victory laps prematurely on the other side, telling me, when are you going to

337
00:29:33,691 --> 00:29:38,131
admit that you were wrong about this, that, the other, when some new piece of news comes up and

338
00:29:38,131 --> 00:29:46,711
they think that it's the end of the discussion because it was mildly incorrect or embarrassing,

339
00:29:46,711 --> 00:29:55,572
but not core to the fundamental discussion is something that I try not to rub in people's faces,

340
00:29:55,572 --> 00:30:00,032
but I hope that they're self-aware enough to say, you know, if you leaped to a conclusion that said

341
00:30:00,032 --> 00:30:04,651
that this was, that this was over, that that could be done, that this is, that, you know,

342
00:30:04,671 --> 00:30:11,792
this debate is over, um, you're, you were mistaken and you should do a post-mortem on what your

343
00:30:11,792 --> 00:30:16,391
mistake was, or maybe you knew you were mistaken in the first place, but you were trying to score

344
00:30:16,391 --> 00:30:20,631
a point by saying the argument is over. I'm walking away. I'm done from it. Like I win,

345
00:30:20,631 --> 00:30:25,951
you lose, right? Like, you know, you don't really win in reality just by saying I win, you lose and

346
00:30:25,951 --> 00:30:31,971
walking away. Sometimes if you have won, there's no point in having the debate with someone who's

347
00:30:31,971 --> 00:30:36,931
lost. But there's a debate going on here and there's actions being taken by network participants

348
00:30:36,931 --> 00:30:42,911
that demonstrate provably that there's a debate that's still going on here. Sorry for the long

349
00:30:42,911 --> 00:30:49,492
winded answer. No, no, it's fantastic. I mean, you said a profound thing to me in Madeira, I

350
00:30:49,492 --> 00:30:54,891
remember. And that is like the block size wars. We were all happy about that. We won the block

351
00:30:54,891 --> 00:31:02,111
size wars, but you pointed out that we won the battle, but the war is still ongoing. Like it's,

352
00:31:02,111 --> 00:31:08,032
it's proof that Bitcoin could be resilient once, but it's not proof that it will be forever.

353
00:31:08,931 --> 00:31:15,671
Like, and it was resilient because people did care and because people did the necessary things

354
00:31:15,671 --> 00:31:20,211
to protect the network from being taken over by bad actors.

355
00:31:20,371 --> 00:31:25,171
But it's by no means a proof that it will do that forever.

356
00:31:26,371 --> 00:31:29,772
Arguably, it goes more resilient the more people that are connected to it.

357
00:31:29,812 --> 00:31:33,032
But only if those people are actually doing their homework

358
00:31:33,032 --> 00:31:34,572
and caring enough about the thing.

359
00:31:35,211 --> 00:31:38,032
And that's not just running your own node.

360
00:31:38,171 --> 00:31:40,371
That's all the other stuff as well.

361
00:31:40,371 --> 00:31:46,871
Like I genuinely believe that us having chats like this and talking about this, these things

362
00:31:46,871 --> 00:31:50,931
and being present on Twitter and stuff has a huge influence on how people act.

363
00:31:51,631 --> 00:31:54,691
Like it's not just economic nodes to me.

364
00:31:55,451 --> 00:32:00,391
But taking the humble pill, if you're wrong about something is super important.

365
00:32:00,651 --> 00:32:06,532
I can say that I was probably like a little too happy about Taproot too quickly.

366
00:32:06,532 --> 00:32:12,971
and i think we maybe should have we should have been more careful and not i it was sort of a group

367
00:32:12,971 --> 00:32:17,772
psychology thing like everyone wanted segwit and we got segwit and we won the rock size wars

368
00:32:17,772 --> 00:32:23,231
yes and then everyone was like everyone wants taproot it's done now let's you let's fucking go

369
00:32:23,231 --> 00:32:28,032
and we just did the thing right and maybe we should have thought it through a bit more like

370
00:32:28,032 --> 00:32:36,092
was it worth it yeah i mean i i think these things are super super complicated because in hindsight

371
00:32:36,092 --> 00:32:41,711
you can't objectively know if a change was good or bad.

372
00:32:41,951 --> 00:32:44,631
Like not even the segwit, the witness discounts.

373
00:32:45,111 --> 00:32:45,611
If segwit didn't happen,

374
00:32:45,871 --> 00:32:48,092
it probably wouldn't have been the end of the world.

375
00:32:48,371 --> 00:32:50,931
If the two times that hard work happened,

376
00:32:50,992 --> 00:32:51,891
that would have been bad

377
00:32:51,891 --> 00:32:53,332
because that would have been corporate control,

378
00:32:53,411 --> 00:32:55,131
but we could have just fought for nothing,

379
00:32:55,431 --> 00:32:58,352
for no changes and had the same outcome.

380
00:32:59,131 --> 00:33:02,492
And today's controversy around core versus knots

381
00:33:02,492 --> 00:33:04,032
would not be the same controversy.

382
00:33:04,032 --> 00:33:04,552
No.

383
00:33:04,552 --> 00:33:06,631
There wouldn't be the taproot annex.

384
00:33:07,292 --> 00:33:12,631
And as much as I like that the Lightning Network exists and the people are working on it,

385
00:33:13,471 --> 00:33:17,772
it wouldn't have been that bad if it took another decade.

386
00:33:18,032 --> 00:33:19,971
Would that really be a catastrophe?

387
00:33:19,971 --> 00:33:22,431
I think we would have had a slightly more vulnerable...

388
00:33:22,431 --> 00:33:23,951
We would have still had the Lightning Network,

389
00:33:24,111 --> 00:33:27,492
but we would have had to have different mechanisms which were more cumbersome

390
00:33:27,492 --> 00:33:32,211
to protect us from the malleability bug, which is too technical to get into.

391
00:33:32,211 --> 00:33:41,911
But I think one of the things we find is if we give more time, we can find workarounds that aren't easy, but are still thorough.

392
00:33:42,512 --> 00:33:48,532
And, you know, making changes to make things easy also opens up attack surface.

393
00:33:49,231 --> 00:33:52,691
There's the big lesson from SegWit and Tap.

394
00:33:53,411 --> 00:34:02,191
And indeed, SegWit was so driven by the enthusiasm and demand for the Lightning Network because it sounded like such a great solution.

395
00:34:02,211 --> 00:34:08,572
And I don't think anyone realized how long it would take to build and what, you know, what all the hurdles along the way were.

396
00:34:08,731 --> 00:34:15,331
But when Tappert came, it was, we weren't really sure what the supposed benefits would be, right?

397
00:34:15,331 --> 00:34:19,291
Like it was very technical benefit claims.

398
00:34:19,872 --> 00:34:22,151
Not, there wasn't like a white paper around.

399
00:34:22,392 --> 00:34:24,632
Here's the amazing thing you can build with Tappert.

400
00:34:24,731 --> 00:34:29,711
With Segwit, it was like, you can, we want Segwit so we can build light, the lightning network.

401
00:34:29,912 --> 00:34:31,451
And here's the white paper on the lightning network.

402
00:34:31,451 --> 00:34:35,151
We didn't have that with Taproot.

403
00:34:35,392 --> 00:34:38,471
And so it got activated because we worshipped,

404
00:34:38,512 --> 00:34:40,651
I'm going to use another word that I think you might have.

405
00:34:40,971 --> 00:34:43,271
We worshipped the lead developers.

406
00:34:43,651 --> 00:34:46,291
We worshipped these people who had protected,

407
00:34:46,512 --> 00:34:49,651
preserved, advanced Bitcoin for some time.

408
00:34:49,931 --> 00:34:54,492
And so we wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt

409
00:34:54,492 --> 00:34:58,032
rather than don't trust, we trusted them, right?

410
00:34:58,032 --> 00:35:01,191
It wasn't don't trust, verify everything left, right, and center.

411
00:35:01,191 --> 00:35:05,251
It was a lot of, okay, you know, what they're, these guys know what they're talking about.

412
00:35:05,951 --> 00:35:06,951
They're benevolent.

413
00:35:07,171 --> 00:35:11,912
Let's let them have, uh, the next thing we're bound to benefit from it, even though we're

414
00:35:11,912 --> 00:35:13,532
not exactly sure what the benefits are.

415
00:35:13,572 --> 00:35:13,992
Right.

416
00:35:14,052 --> 00:35:18,291
And I, and so I, I think, I think now those chickens have come home to roost.

417
00:35:18,372 --> 00:35:23,072
It turned out people aren't really doing much with the alleged benefit, but there was an

418
00:35:23,072 --> 00:35:28,412
exploit available, uh, with, you know, you can look at it in whatever way you want, but

419
00:35:28,412 --> 00:35:34,852
now we've got these inscriptions which are which have been a problem maybe it was taken care of by

420
00:35:34,852 --> 00:35:39,211
the fact that there's a block size limit and those things got expensive and the free market demonstrated

421
00:35:39,211 --> 00:35:46,532
that they weren't very valuable so maybe no big deal but we've got this acquiescence issue of

422
00:35:46,532 --> 00:35:52,872
like bitcoin can be used however it can be used and we shouldn't try to prevent it from being used

423
00:35:52,872 --> 00:36:01,331
However, which is at the core, I have to use that word ironically, at the core of the debate between core and nots, right?

424
00:36:01,552 --> 00:36:11,971
That, you know, do we want to restrict its uses from everything that it can do to the more strictly monetary uses?

425
00:36:12,831 --> 00:36:14,771
Sorry if these are long, long answers.

426
00:36:14,771 --> 00:36:16,992
No, no, but I agree with every point.

427
00:36:16,992 --> 00:36:22,731
And this is where this is where this changing of definitions debate comes in, because they

428
00:36:22,731 --> 00:36:30,492
have been like slowly but surely changing some of the definitions of words, like what

429
00:36:30,492 --> 00:36:34,451
op return is for and such, right?

430
00:36:34,451 --> 00:36:37,811
In the documentation around it.

431
00:36:37,811 --> 00:36:42,512
When you're in charge of the dictionary and you change the definitions of words as a metaphor

432
00:36:42,512 --> 00:36:50,432
here. You're, you're trying to police the use of the use of words and here where the you know,

433
00:36:50,432 --> 00:36:56,432
the it's, it's the opposite of policing. And it's more, well, you're not policing, you know, what

434
00:36:56,432 --> 00:37:02,971
was expected to be policed. And we know that the meme is, is like, you have a broken rib, but we

435
00:37:02,971 --> 00:37:10,532
fixed it in Photoshop. It's it's very reminiscent of the definition of vaccine being being changed

436
00:37:10,532 --> 00:37:14,471
in Oxford Dictionary for the COVID vaccine to be legit.

437
00:37:15,052 --> 00:37:15,191
Right.

438
00:37:16,532 --> 00:37:20,131
This has come up like three or four times in our conversation already,

439
00:37:20,352 --> 00:37:25,191
which is around ownership, around the proper use of Bitcoin,

440
00:37:25,392 --> 00:37:26,331
around what a bug is.

441
00:37:26,331 --> 00:37:32,191
We find ourselves constantly, especially in Bitcoin,

442
00:37:32,512 --> 00:37:34,331
and I think because it's a new concept that's complicated

443
00:37:34,892 --> 00:37:38,352
and unprecedented and does many things and nothing before it is done,

444
00:37:38,352 --> 00:37:44,012
struggling to understand it and struggling to define it. Like all the words we use,

445
00:37:44,072 --> 00:37:49,311
the coins aren't coins, right? They're not physical minted things. They're a physical,

446
00:37:50,211 --> 00:37:57,512
ideological, duplicated entries, right? Like everything in the digital realm,

447
00:37:57,512 --> 00:38:03,831
we try to give it terms that come from the realm, which we come from, which is the meat space realm.

448
00:38:03,831 --> 00:38:06,532
and always those metaphors.

449
00:38:06,771 --> 00:38:07,872
And so it's a metaphor

450
00:38:07,872 --> 00:38:12,131
and always the metaphor is broken in some sense.

451
00:38:12,271 --> 00:38:15,311
It's a physical digital translation layer,

452
00:38:15,311 --> 00:38:18,032
but that breaks other things

453
00:38:18,032 --> 00:38:19,951
about the metaphysics of the concept.

454
00:38:20,151 --> 00:38:22,471
So when we talk about digital something,

455
00:38:22,951 --> 00:38:24,852
it's always different from the physical thing

456
00:38:24,852 --> 00:38:26,751
that we use the same thing term for.

457
00:38:26,831 --> 00:38:28,872
A digital coin does not behave

458
00:38:28,872 --> 00:38:30,932
the way a physical coin behaves.

459
00:38:31,432 --> 00:38:33,711
And Gigi's article, Bitcoin is Time,

460
00:38:33,831 --> 00:38:45,171
He talks about this first ever unification of the notion of a token and ledger as being one in the same.

461
00:38:45,171 --> 00:38:52,892
So for people who haven't read Bitcoin this time, it's the best article there is on Bitcoin coming from this year at least.

462
00:38:53,492 --> 00:38:59,892
And speaking to another writer, there's a penny that drops when you read that for the first time.

463
00:39:00,131 --> 00:39:03,331
And the other one I recommend, though, where the map is not deteriorated.

464
00:39:03,331 --> 00:39:10,211
This is not a pipe or whatever. But yeah, profound work. Yeah. So do you think,

465
00:39:14,131 --> 00:39:18,451
long and complicated question maybe, but do you think, not so long, but slightly,

466
00:39:19,811 --> 00:39:25,971
a lot of nuance. A lot of these developer types and the people working in core allegedly

467
00:39:25,971 --> 00:39:30,852
are like more of this San Francisco liberal type,

468
00:39:30,971 --> 00:39:32,151
like more left-wingy.

469
00:39:32,412 --> 00:39:35,971
And thus, some people say that that automatically means

470
00:39:35,971 --> 00:39:37,932
more nihilistic and less principled.

471
00:39:37,932 --> 00:39:41,572
And that's if you're more open to,

472
00:39:42,392 --> 00:39:46,592
that you're somehow more open to changing definitions of things

473
00:39:46,592 --> 00:39:50,612
if you are inclined to do that politically.

474
00:39:50,751 --> 00:39:52,811
Do you think this is a real thing,

475
00:39:52,892 --> 00:39:54,831
or is that just like scaremongering?

476
00:39:54,831 --> 00:40:02,552
it makes me think at the uh canadian bitcoin conference i had a long talk um very civilized

477
00:40:02,552 --> 00:40:07,311
you know so but it was a debate it was a disagreement it was a argument whatever you

478
00:40:07,311 --> 00:40:12,331
want to call it but it was very civilized with someone on the on the other side and

479
00:40:12,331 --> 00:40:22,012
these conceptual uh conflicts kept coming up and it left me thinking and i'm very loathe to

480
00:40:22,012 --> 00:40:28,112
generalize like a whole group of people. Anyone who's in favor of the opera term being blown out

481
00:40:28,112 --> 00:40:35,912
must be a nihilistic Marxist communist, right? I'm very careful about this. And I haven't had

482
00:40:35,912 --> 00:40:40,471
a chance to meet many of them face to face. But one of the things that I've found in this rather

483
00:40:40,471 --> 00:40:47,211
lengthy conversation is that there is, like when I say philosophical, there's a philosophical

484
00:40:47,211 --> 00:40:55,231
disagreement around the idea that things are built with a purpose. Um, and yes, so like Bitcoin was

485
00:40:55,231 --> 00:40:59,971
built with this purpose to be money. And the debate that came from the other side, I'm trying

486
00:40:59,971 --> 00:41:06,372
to do it complete justice was Bitcoin is a set of rules and the set of rules allow you to put

487
00:41:06,372 --> 00:41:13,471
inscriptions into the taproot thing. Someone came up with a way to do this. And so you have to accept

488
00:41:13,471 --> 00:41:16,052
that that's the way that it is, right?

489
00:41:16,112 --> 00:41:18,892
Like there's nothing you can do about it.

490
00:41:19,271 --> 00:41:22,751
And to me, it's like, well, if there was a bug

491
00:41:22,751 --> 00:41:25,872
that made 42 million coins or something,

492
00:41:26,291 --> 00:41:27,492
we would call that a bug.

493
00:41:27,592 --> 00:41:29,932
We would say that's against the purpose of Bitcoin.

494
00:41:30,711 --> 00:41:32,631
And so we would fix the bug.

495
00:41:32,751 --> 00:41:46,717
And in fact if you say a thing is what it does which I heard you know a thing purpose is whatever it does which I heard others in that camp say I think that is an attempt to destroy the concept of purpose Because if you say whatever

496
00:41:46,717 --> 00:41:53,337
a thing is, whatever a thing does, that's its purpose, then you can't ever say, well, this,

497
00:41:53,517 --> 00:41:58,737
this thing that you built does not fit for purpose. I hired you to build a house and you dug a hole in

498
00:41:58,737 --> 00:42:05,157
the ground. And it's like, well, I, you know, that it's a hole in the ground. Its purpose is to be a

499
00:42:05,157 --> 00:42:09,897
hole in the ground, not to be a house for you. I was like, well, I know I wanted shelter to cover

500
00:42:09,897 --> 00:42:14,997
me and protect me from the rain. And you're just saying that whatever the thing is, is its purpose.

501
00:42:14,997 --> 00:42:22,717
So it's, it's not true. And like things are, we as human beings are purposeful beings. We can set

502
00:42:22,717 --> 00:42:28,737
our mind to a purpose and build something that attempts to fulfill that purpose, to meet that

503
00:42:28,737 --> 00:42:33,517
need. And if it fails to do it, we haven't built it according to the purpose. If it's close to it,

504
00:42:33,537 --> 00:42:37,757
we can maybe tweak it and fix it so that it better fits the purpose. If it should the purpose,

505
00:42:37,837 --> 00:42:42,977
we can then look at it and say, what other purpose might it fit? But we can't say that

506
00:42:42,977 --> 00:42:51,597
nothing has any designated purpose that comes from our expectations of it, our contemplation of it.

507
00:42:51,597 --> 00:42:56,997
And so I think that that's a flaw that I can't say I've heard everyone on the opposite side

508
00:42:56,997 --> 00:43:05,537
repeated, but it seems to be a flaw in conceptualization of what Bitcoin is that often gets invoked.

509
00:43:05,717 --> 00:43:10,877
And I think part of the word game, the concept game that we're playing to an even greater extent

510
00:43:10,877 --> 00:43:15,877
is like, you have some people that say, oh, I hate spam, but I can't define it. Some people say,

511
00:43:15,877 --> 00:43:22,457
there's no such thing as spam, right? There's no, there, it is what it, it is what it is,

512
00:43:22,457 --> 00:43:33,337
or there is spam and you can't stop it. And so we just end up with a multi-pronged, uh, set of

513
00:43:33,337 --> 00:43:39,517
invalid arguments, right? Like if you can't, and I think this is really important. If you can't

514
00:43:39,517 --> 00:43:43,597
define every single instance of a thing, because there are edge cases, it doesn't mean the thing

515
00:43:43,597 --> 00:43:49,557
doesn't exist. Like for example, chairs exist, right? We know what chairs are, but I can make

516
00:43:49,557 --> 00:43:53,617
an edge case of something that's both, that can be both a chair and a table. You know, it's this

517
00:43:53,617 --> 00:43:58,697
man-made flat surface that's low, but expands and you, you know, you can choose to sit on it,

518
00:43:58,737 --> 00:44:03,037
but you can also place something on it. So it's an edge case definition of a chair, but you can't

519
00:44:03,037 --> 00:44:07,657
then say, bring that and say, so is this a chair or isn't it? I don't know. I guess chairs don't

520
00:44:07,657 --> 00:44:14,417
exist, which is, which is the, the edge case of some of these, uh, you know, if I do something

521
00:44:14,417 --> 00:44:19,517
that's a lightning network anchor, anchor inscription, and it's used as a justice transaction

522
00:44:19,517 --> 00:44:24,957
for this and that, is that spam? It's like, well, it may or may not be, but the JPEG is a spam,

523
00:44:25,157 --> 00:44:30,637
right? Like don't, don't try to look at the edge case and deny the existence of the undisputable

524
00:44:30,637 --> 00:44:36,437
case, which, well, of which there's millions, you know, like, and then, and then pretend that they

525
00:44:36,437 --> 00:44:42,337
don't exist so the and this to me is where what i was talking about before it's like rational

526
00:44:42,337 --> 00:44:50,717
argumentation requires rational conduct not these gotcha escape hatches you know oh i i said i don't

527
00:44:50,717 --> 00:44:56,117
know what spam is so we can't argue whether you know whether something is spam or isn't because

528
00:44:56,117 --> 00:45:01,697
i just keep keep playing dumb right like when you're in the goalposts right yeah maybe that's

529
00:45:01,697 --> 00:45:06,117
moving the goalposts maybe it's called playing dumb maybe they're they're one in the same uh

530
00:45:06,117 --> 00:45:11,357
sort of thing. But ultimately, you have to move forward. If you can't engage in rational

531
00:45:11,357 --> 00:45:15,437
dialogue with somebody and you make a valid point and they don't acknowledge it, not because

532
00:45:15,437 --> 00:45:23,057
it's wrong, but because they don't want it to be right, now you're dealing with someone who's

533
00:45:23,057 --> 00:45:29,897
evading the truth. And so you're not in an honest debate. And this is where the term bad actor

534
00:45:29,897 --> 00:45:35,857
kind of arises and has one of its two meanings, which is if you're not an honest debater,

535
00:45:36,117 --> 00:45:43,217
you're not really there to help resolve the issue in the best interest of Bitcoin.

536
00:45:43,877 --> 00:45:44,917
You're there to win an argument.

537
00:45:45,097 --> 00:45:46,697
You may have ulterior motives.

538
00:45:46,697 --> 00:45:53,037
And I think a lot of the questioning of what's going on here is the questioning of,

539
00:45:53,197 --> 00:45:55,797
like, if there's no good explanation for the change that we're confronting,

540
00:45:56,397 --> 00:45:58,517
maybe there's a bad explanation.

541
00:45:59,177 --> 00:46:01,497
But, you know, the sure as heck isn't a good one.

542
00:46:01,497 --> 00:46:09,677
I met a lot of people on the core side in Prague at the Trezor event.

543
00:46:09,677 --> 00:46:13,077
In Europe, there's a lot of technical Bitcoiners.

544
00:46:13,077 --> 00:46:14,817
Right, makes sense.

545
00:46:14,817 --> 00:46:27,857
And they have a point that their main point was sort of like that it's useless to run these filters and stuff

546
00:46:27,857 --> 00:46:32,097
because at the end of the day, these things are going to get relayed anyway.

547
00:46:32,657 --> 00:46:36,837
But where I philosophically disagree with them is like,

548
00:46:37,077 --> 00:46:39,257
yeah, but I don't really care.

549
00:46:39,577 --> 00:46:43,437
I'm not going to help facilitate this.

550
00:46:43,957 --> 00:46:48,677
And regardless of the success of my not helping facilitating this,

551
00:46:49,297 --> 00:46:51,277
I'm still not going to help facilitate it.

552
00:46:51,277 --> 00:46:55,617
Because it's only true because everyone thinks that way,

553
00:46:55,857 --> 00:46:57,777
that it's pointless to resist.

554
00:46:57,857 --> 00:47:00,857
But yeah, it's true.

555
00:47:00,857 --> 00:47:07,957
You probably have to get to like 92% momentum in this for this to actually work.

556
00:47:08,497 --> 00:47:12,417
But the same is true for the new proposed defaults here.

557
00:47:12,597 --> 00:47:20,817
Like the 100k thing also has to get to at least 8% or 10% before it starts actually relaying this stuff.

558
00:47:21,257 --> 00:47:27,197
And yes, it's true that you could always bring a briefcase full of dollars to a miner and do that.

559
00:47:27,197 --> 00:47:34,997
Which is why I think that datum and decentralized mining is more important than this debate, because right now you can bypass it.

560
00:47:35,617 --> 00:47:40,877
But still, I think it's sort of a philosophical difference there.

561
00:47:41,057 --> 00:47:45,757
I view my node as the thing I'm using for this stuff.

562
00:47:46,157 --> 00:47:48,637
And what I do with it is none of your business.

563
00:47:48,757 --> 00:47:49,757
I don't have to agree.

564
00:47:50,677 --> 00:47:56,457
Well, just as a point of order, we're finding ourselves dipping into the core versus not specific debate, which we wanted to avoid.

565
00:47:56,457 --> 00:48:09,157
Right. So for me, the last point I'll make about this, and I'll try to make it really quick, is like my disappointment in the whole debate is it should have gotten much more quickly to a framing of.

566
00:48:09,877 --> 00:48:16,337
For years, we have relied on policy, which was effective because, as it turns out, it was a gentleman's agreement.

567
00:48:16,517 --> 00:48:23,077
People didn't route it, miners didn't mine it, and everyone abided by the policy, except for special one offs.

568
00:48:23,177 --> 00:48:25,577
But there were such a minority of the issues that it didn't happen.

569
00:48:25,577 --> 00:48:45,277
And then that broke. One, it broke because there was an exploit that policy didn't cover in the inscriptions. And two, then Libre Relay and other things and Mara Slipstream were breaking that agreement to enforce policy. They were like, look, we can violate policy.

570
00:48:45,277 --> 00:49:02,777
So the conversation should have been, now that policy is no longer enforceable, which elements of policy do we want enforced and how do we enforce them? Presumably through consensus rules because we can no longer rely on gentlemanly behavior to enforce policy.

571
00:49:02,777 --> 00:49:15,497
And we didn't have that conversation. A bunch of people defaulted to, well, it doesn't work, so those are no longer rules, which is dangerous because there are policy rules that are absolutely essential to the continued functioning of Bitcoin.

572
00:49:16,317 --> 00:49:19,937
And there are ones that are undesirable by many Bitcoiners.

573
00:49:20,057 --> 00:49:24,477
So we haven't been having the right debate for whatever reason.

574
00:49:24,577 --> 00:49:26,477
Then there's maybe some lessons to be learned there.

575
00:49:26,937 --> 00:49:30,797
But that's my last on the Bitcoin core versus knots, I hope, for this month.

576
00:49:30,797 --> 00:49:38,477
And I absolutely agree. I think it's that debate is not being had. Like,

577
00:49:40,477 --> 00:49:46,477
Bitcoin is money, like the literal first row of the title of the white paper is big.

578
00:49:48,877 --> 00:49:54,477
Yes. So if it's not functioning as that, but as arbitrary data storage or whatever,

579
00:49:54,477 --> 00:49:59,837
then obviously something is wrong. And sure, I could agree to that maybe we're doing this the

580
00:49:59,837 --> 00:50:05,477
the wrong way and something needs to change but but like the definition like the very purpose of

581
00:50:05,477 --> 00:50:11,317
the thing has not changed like you cannot fix the broken rib with an x-ray like then then you have

582
00:50:11,317 --> 00:50:17,897
to do something else like and and yeah i agree i miss that from the debate yeah anyway you know

583
00:50:17,897 --> 00:50:23,657
and again you end up with people saying you know oh you know you're citing the white paper do you

584
00:50:23,657 --> 00:50:27,757
remember that the b cacher cited the white paper this that the other it's like the distinction

585
00:50:27,757 --> 00:50:30,897
here is really important.

586
00:50:31,077 --> 00:50:31,857
Like the B-cachers

587
00:50:31,857 --> 00:50:35,197
weren't saying that Bitcoin itself

588
00:50:35,197 --> 00:50:35,897
wasn't cash.

589
00:50:35,977 --> 00:50:37,377
It was that people weren't using it as cash

590
00:50:37,377 --> 00:50:38,477
and we intended a second layer.

591
00:50:38,617 --> 00:50:39,797
Not that Bitcoin,

592
00:50:40,037 --> 00:50:40,797
you know, we didn't have

593
00:50:40,797 --> 00:50:42,057
the pro-segward camp saying

594
00:50:42,057 --> 00:50:43,357
Bitcoin isn't cash

595
00:50:43,357 --> 00:50:44,717
and we shouldn't try to use it as money.

596
00:50:44,917 --> 00:50:45,017
Right?

597
00:50:45,097 --> 00:50:45,417
Like that.

598
00:50:45,777 --> 00:50:48,197
So again, we end up with these

599
00:50:48,197 --> 00:50:50,717
very flawed arguments

600
00:50:50,717 --> 00:50:52,537
being used to defend,

601
00:50:53,217 --> 00:50:54,157
keep the status quo

602
00:50:54,157 --> 00:50:56,737
or comply with tolerance,

603
00:50:56,737 --> 00:51:04,977
acceptance, defeatism over non-monetary use cases of Bitcoin being permitted.

604
00:51:05,817 --> 00:51:07,037
But there's a spectrum.

605
00:51:07,217 --> 00:51:10,337
I mean, there are the people who say, look, technically you can't stop it.

606
00:51:10,717 --> 00:51:12,797
There's always some other way to get it in there.

607
00:51:12,917 --> 00:51:14,597
And so you might as well not resist it.

608
00:51:14,757 --> 00:51:20,337
And that, again, is an argument that can really be had.

609
00:51:20,397 --> 00:51:23,097
But let's move away from it because people have heard this to death.

610
00:51:23,097 --> 00:51:30,317
and and we want to talk about at the very least this is healthy for bitcoin right like this is

611
00:51:30,317 --> 00:51:35,297
unless we unless we disagree this is important that bitcoin go through this it's important that

612
00:51:35,297 --> 00:51:41,557
it go through the growing pains it's important that uh the users of bitcoin have to fight for

613
00:51:41,557 --> 00:51:47,517
what they view bitcoin to be and it's and it's important that when there is a legitimate debate

614
00:51:47,517 --> 00:51:52,137
that it'd be had and that it'd end up being resolved without the destruction of Bitcoin.

615
00:51:52,537 --> 00:51:59,097
And I think that's one of the things that's really valuable. And for people who find this

616
00:51:59,097 --> 00:52:04,637
really uncomfortable to the point where they don't know whether they should own Bitcoin because it

617
00:52:04,637 --> 00:52:11,737
makes them so uneasy, there's really only two recommendations I would have. One is close your

618
00:52:11,737 --> 00:52:18,037
eyes and ignore the debate, you know, or to sell your Bitcoin. Like, because this is going to be

619
00:52:18,037 --> 00:52:24,417
a recurring theme in Bitcoin. Like this isn't, we didn't win the war to, or we won, you know,

620
00:52:24,457 --> 00:52:30,037
we won a battle. The war to protect Bitcoin, just think what we're saying Bitcoin is. Bitcoin is

621
00:52:30,037 --> 00:52:35,397
money. It's potentially going to become all the money in the world or the most dominant form of

622
00:52:35,397 --> 00:52:39,377
money in the world. You think people aren't going to fight over that? You think tricksters and

623
00:52:39,377 --> 00:52:44,677
hucksters aren't going to try to separate you from your Bitcoin through any means necessary,

624
00:52:44,857 --> 00:52:50,337
any means possible, including undermining the protocol itself, the development, writing fake

625
00:52:50,337 --> 00:52:55,517
walled books. There's many, many attacks to come. It is the most valuable property in the world.

626
00:52:55,657 --> 00:53:00,177
It's a new form of property. It's not well understood. For the rest of your life, Bitcoin

627
00:53:00,177 --> 00:53:06,657
will be under attack. And as is your state, as is anything that's valuable, right? I think this

628
00:53:06,657 --> 00:53:11,037
this was kind of the point that was not explicitly made,

629
00:53:11,197 --> 00:53:15,317
but in the undertones of Jason Lowry's thesis of software,

630
00:53:15,477 --> 00:53:16,577
it's like people,

631
00:53:16,697 --> 00:53:20,997
people try to get things from other people in life.

632
00:53:21,037 --> 00:53:24,117
Life tries to get things from other things in life and,

633
00:53:24,217 --> 00:53:25,877
and the protection of it.

634
00:53:25,957 --> 00:53:31,057
So how we protect Bitcoin is a new frontier for us to fight,

635
00:53:31,157 --> 00:53:36,217
fight on and how we protect even Bitcoin's definition and purpose is a new

636
00:53:36,217 --> 00:53:40,597
frontier for us to fight on but we have to fight on it and probably always will just like everything

637
00:53:40,597 --> 00:53:47,597
living has to always fight for its life so yes bitcoin is alive i i'd like to i'd like to test

638
00:53:47,597 --> 00:53:53,617
out another metaphor that just popped into my head on you so if if the block size wars was the

639
00:53:53,617 --> 00:54:00,417
like us winning uh the first star wars movie and we blew up the death star like the big blocker

640
00:54:00,417 --> 00:54:06,837
Death Star, right? And this debate is sort of the return of the Jedi. The Death Star isn't ready

641
00:54:06,837 --> 00:54:15,037
built yet like this. Scaffolding around half a Death Star and we're about to win this battle too.

642
00:54:15,797 --> 00:54:20,977
But the real thing, but we should expect Disney remakes and crap and we really have to

643
00:54:20,977 --> 00:54:27,157
avoid the Disney remake of Bitcoin. That would be the worst outcome ever.

644
00:54:27,157 --> 00:54:35,197
so that's your metaphor um i actually used the star wars metaphor just yesterday i think on on

645
00:54:35,197 --> 00:54:41,697
one of my bitcoin philosophy spaces um to wrap up you know it had something to do with using force

646
00:54:41,697 --> 00:54:48,837
right for good or for easy um use the force uh so there's something to the star there's rebels

647
00:54:48,837 --> 00:54:54,557
and there's the empire right and i i was talking about it in the context of bitcoin is a rising

648
00:54:54,557 --> 00:55:00,097
empire. It exists in many places. It has a currency. That's essentially all it has that's

649
00:55:00,097 --> 00:55:06,737
protected by force, right? The use of energy, the use of force is, you know, so when I say use the

650
00:55:06,737 --> 00:55:13,277
force for good rather than for evil, that's what the, this will take us to the mining debate that

651
00:55:13,277 --> 00:55:18,597
you want to have, or the mining decentralization discussion. Decentralized mining is the light

652
00:55:18,597 --> 00:55:23,517
side of the force. Centralized mining is the dark side of the force. It's too much power for anyone

653
00:55:23,517 --> 00:55:26,077
to possess and they can abuse it.

654
00:55:27,897 --> 00:55:33,277
Yeah, so I think Star Wars provides a really interesting metaphor because

655
00:55:33,303 --> 00:55:52,123
Because we were talking about really the mythology of Bitcoin when this came up and how the story of Bitcoin's creation, its origin story, everything that goes on to it is a big part of the value of Bitcoin in that how we as human beings often rely on storytelling to get themes and important ideas across.

656
00:55:52,123 --> 00:56:00,343
And Star Wars is the success that it is because it told a really powerful story of the little guys fighting the big guys.

657
00:56:00,343 --> 00:56:11,783
Well, that is the Bitcoin story of those who are oppressed by those with power and control can come back and win with hope, a new hope.

658
00:56:13,263 --> 00:56:15,443
There's a lot of common themes between.

659
00:56:15,743 --> 00:56:16,183
Absolutely.

660
00:56:16,503 --> 00:56:19,483
And this goes so deep.

661
00:56:19,623 --> 00:56:24,363
That's also why the Matrix is a good metaphor, because it is a hero's journey story.

662
00:56:24,363 --> 00:56:30,343
Like Campbell's Heroes Journey Story is all over Star Wars and The Matrix and all of these things.

663
00:56:31,003 --> 00:56:34,723
And I used a Star Wars metaphor in one of the older books.

664
00:56:34,803 --> 00:56:43,543
I don't remember which one of them, but where the Death Star is the establishment and most people and taxes and inflation and all of that.

665
00:56:43,663 --> 00:56:44,763
It's literally the empire.

666
00:56:46,203 --> 00:56:47,943
And the rebels are, you know, the rebels.

667
00:56:47,943 --> 00:56:52,803
Us, we are the crypto anarchists and, you know, whatever they call it.

668
00:56:52,803 --> 00:56:59,363
the the and the ancaps and bitcoin is the photon torpedoes going into the thermal exhaust vent

669
00:56:59,363 --> 00:57:04,763
in the death star like that's what bitcoin is it's going to blow it the fuck up because now

670
00:57:04,763 --> 00:57:10,043
they can't do anything about us um so that's that's the analogy i had a couple of years

671
00:57:10,043 --> 00:57:15,343
i think you can you can certainly have fun with it bitcoin to the hacker as luke skywalker built

672
00:57:15,343 --> 00:57:21,383
these droids you know and he's yeah so he's a bit of a hacker as as well but it's um it's this big

673
00:57:21,383 --> 00:57:27,883
idea, right? That the little guy can defeat the overwhelming established empire, especially

674
00:57:27,883 --> 00:57:36,023
when he's on the side of good. Like this, this belief that good is victorious over evil

675
00:57:36,023 --> 00:57:43,003
has really powerful, uh, roots and it has rationality behind it because the idea of evil is

676
00:57:43,003 --> 00:57:49,183
evil is dependent on taking what is unearned from the good. Right. It was like, well, you know,

677
00:57:49,183 --> 00:57:56,143
to use your labor, to use your productivity. It really just does come down to theft, taxation,

678
00:57:56,363 --> 00:58:02,223
all these kinds of murder. These things are evil because they take away the free will and the

679
00:58:02,223 --> 00:58:08,243
product of the free will of individuals. So it's all good versus evil is always a battle of freedom

680
00:58:08,243 --> 00:58:14,383
versus slavery or freedom versus some other antithesis of slavery at the end of the day.

681
00:58:14,383 --> 00:58:25,643
And evil always rises in environments of good, sometimes overtaking them, because the good is benevolent, charitable, giving, and generous.

682
00:58:25,943 --> 00:58:30,963
And so when the evil sees the generosity of the good, it takes and takes and takes.

683
00:58:31,303 --> 00:58:39,323
And then it feels entitled and keeps on taking and taking beyond what the good can produce and generously give.

684
00:58:39,323 --> 00:58:47,543
And so we end up with moments where we're confronting evil that is taking so much that even the good can't keep up with it.

685
00:58:47,803 --> 00:58:53,203
I think that is a description of where the Western world finds itself today.

686
00:58:53,423 --> 00:58:56,163
Like government has just grown so big, so out of control.

687
00:58:56,403 --> 00:59:07,563
And it's taking, you know, and it's commitments to give only in exchange for the people granting it more power to take from others that things are inverted and unsustainable.

688
00:59:08,123 --> 00:59:09,043
Yeah, absolutely.

689
00:59:09,043 --> 00:59:11,883
I mean, this is another hero's journey story.

690
00:59:12,063 --> 00:59:18,423
The Shawshank Redemption is what I used for the last chapter I added to the Praxeology book.

691
00:59:18,683 --> 00:59:24,163
And in that, like the Shawshank Redemption is really a metaphor for hope.

692
00:59:24,263 --> 00:59:26,043
It's a very good Bitcoin metaphor in that too.

693
00:59:26,163 --> 00:59:34,003
Like the low time preference of digging yourself up out of the prison with a teaspoon while everyone thinks you're doing something else is great.

694
00:59:34,003 --> 00:59:45,803
And also, Morgan Freeman's character tells Andrew Dufresne, Tim Robbins' character, that hope is dangerous because you are going to die in here.

695
00:59:45,923 --> 00:59:48,483
And if you're hopeful, it's only going to lead to depression.

696
00:59:49,203 --> 01:00:01,103
And he says, look at this 90-year-old guy that got released and two weeks later, he kills himself because he's so institutionalized and used to the three meals per day and the rules of the prison and stuff.

697
01:00:01,103 --> 01:00:19,923
But the meta point of the whole movie is that hope is always a rational choice because guess what? You're going to die anyway. So you might as well live as if there is hope. Because it's only when we live as if there is no hope that there actually isn't any hope.

698
01:00:19,923 --> 01:00:25,043
Like, look at the Soviet Union, a giant prison, continent-sized prison for 70 years.

699
01:00:25,423 --> 01:00:26,763
Hope got them out of there.

700
01:00:27,383 --> 01:00:32,303
Only when they started denying that these things are real that they stopped being real.

701
01:00:32,883 --> 01:00:33,923
So we can never let...

702
01:00:33,923 --> 01:00:40,643
I think this is a really important point here because part of what these repeated wars in Bitcoin are, these repeated battles,

703
01:00:41,123 --> 01:00:48,743
they're battles between those who have hope and are fighting for what they hope is true versus those who say, you might as well have no hope.

704
01:00:48,743 --> 01:00:51,783
Yeah, because the protocol does this.

705
01:00:52,363 --> 01:00:53,343
You can't do anything about spam.

706
01:00:53,443 --> 01:00:54,443
You can't do anything about the government.

707
01:00:54,603 --> 01:00:55,083
You can't do anything.

708
01:00:55,723 --> 01:00:57,923
And it's like Bitcoiners are, I'm going to try.

709
01:00:58,403 --> 01:01:02,623
So thanks for your defeatist advice.

710
01:01:02,903 --> 01:01:05,163
I'm still going to try because I have hope.

711
01:01:05,303 --> 01:01:10,843
Because I can see a path to realizing what I hope for through Bitcoin.

712
01:01:11,143 --> 01:01:12,783
And I mean, it is amazing.

713
01:01:12,883 --> 01:01:16,123
You and I have been in Bitcoins long enough to have seen it,

714
01:01:16,123 --> 01:01:22,283
not just win these wars, but on a much more personal level, deliver many of the things that

715
01:01:22,283 --> 01:01:29,423
we hope for within our personal lives and our family lives. Bitcoin has given me the ability to

716
01:01:29,423 --> 01:01:36,563
stay at home and take care of my kids who have special needs. Bitcoin, which I always hoped to

717
01:01:36,563 --> 01:01:43,283
do, but was unrealistic under the fiat system. And now I have it and now I can exercise it. And so

718
01:01:43,283 --> 01:01:48,243
my hopes have been realized. Bitcoin's, and that's what I want to do with my freedom,

719
01:01:48,923 --> 01:01:54,443
which the state won't let me do, right? And the traditional system wouldn't let me do.

720
01:01:54,443 --> 01:02:03,403
So there's a real hero's journey constantly happening for lots of people. And there are

721
01:02:03,403 --> 01:02:10,163
climaxes that end up happening, you know, and many people's hero's journey ends not because they died,

722
01:02:10,163 --> 01:02:14,543
but because they managed to achieve the goal that they had hoped to.

723
01:02:14,843 --> 01:02:19,523
So there's a lot of happy endings all over the Bitcoin story.

724
01:02:19,683 --> 01:02:21,003
I'm not saying it's only happy ending,

725
01:02:21,103 --> 01:02:23,783
but if you fight for what you believe in within Bitcoin,

726
01:02:24,403 --> 01:02:27,083
that's positive, that's a good outcome

727
01:02:27,083 --> 01:02:30,383
rather than an evil, treacherous, parasitic outcome,

728
01:02:30,963 --> 01:02:33,763
you can see that happen over and over and over again.

729
01:02:34,943 --> 01:02:35,503
Absolutely.

730
01:02:37,503 --> 01:02:39,023
You said happy ending there.

731
01:02:39,023 --> 01:02:44,623
I got a picture in my head of a Thai massage for Sats.

732
01:02:44,623 --> 01:02:46,143
That's your problem.

733
01:02:48,103 --> 01:02:52,583
I heard someone mention Swedish massage the other day.

734
01:02:52,583 --> 01:02:53,903
It's like, what the fuck is that?

735
01:02:53,903 --> 01:02:56,343
Oh, it must be a massage with a sad ending.

736
01:03:00,783 --> 01:03:02,063
That's funny.

737
01:03:02,063 --> 01:03:03,263
That's good confidence.

738
01:03:03,263 --> 01:03:12,983
you no but would it be right to say um first bitcoin must must win the war within you before

739
01:03:12,983 --> 01:03:17,923
you can be a soldier for bitcoin in the external world i think i think there's something to that

740
01:03:17,923 --> 01:03:21,583
and i yeah i think they both happen simultaneously though right it's not

741
01:03:21,583 --> 01:03:27,803
i mean you i i appreciate the point like if you're gonna fight you have to believe in yourself

742
01:03:27,803 --> 01:03:33,763
right because if you're if you're approaching this with a defeatist attitude the only sense

743
01:03:33,763 --> 01:03:39,603
of continuity and effort you get is there's other people saying we're all defeatist and you're

744
01:03:39,603 --> 01:03:46,823
acting out of fear defeatism you know complacency and and surrender and so you're not fighting

745
01:03:46,823 --> 01:03:51,583
you're acquiescing right and you're maybe standing in the way of those who are fighting

746
01:03:51,583 --> 01:03:55,823
and so it feels like a fight because you're just standing there doing nothing and other people are

747
01:03:55,823 --> 01:04:01,023
saying, get out of my way. And you're like, ah, why bother? Just let them do what they're going

748
01:04:01,023 --> 01:04:05,643
to do. They're going to do it anyways. And so you feel like you're in a fight with people,

749
01:04:05,743 --> 01:04:10,063
but you're really, you know, get the hell out of the way. Like you're just being in the way.

750
01:04:10,063 --> 01:04:14,963
You're not fighting for something. You're standing against something. And, and if you really,

751
01:04:14,963 --> 01:04:21,403
you know, assess like, am I, am I on the side of good or evil? That's really, that's really

752
01:04:21,403 --> 01:04:25,363
important. And if you find yourself in a position to say, there's no such thing as good or evil,

753
01:04:25,363 --> 01:04:31,783
then you've missed out on something right like you like my advice to you is really think hard

754
01:04:31,783 --> 01:04:37,743
about the fact that there actually is good and evil uh if you check out and presume that these

755
01:04:37,743 --> 01:04:42,123
concepts don't exist you're going to be lured into doing something that you think is neither

756
01:04:42,123 --> 01:04:47,903
good nor evil but which is evil yeah and if if if you don't find that distinction to be

757
01:04:47,903 --> 01:04:53,163
you know sexy enough go go read economic science and the austrian method by hans

758
01:04:53,163 --> 01:05:04,403
Sermon Hoppe and read up on argumentation ethics, because sure, science cannot derive an ought from an is, but can come pretty damn close to an ought not.

759
01:05:04,403 --> 01:05:09,403
If you're deductively reasoning from first principles, you can...

760
01:05:09,403 --> 01:05:13,123
Well, listen, it's actually, it's so overcomplicated.

761
01:05:13,403 --> 01:05:18,283
You know, the people who say you can't derive an ought from an is, I is hungry, right?

762
01:05:18,663 --> 01:05:21,023
I ought to eat food, right?

763
01:05:21,023 --> 01:05:27,583
yeah that is deriving it's anyone who say you can't like why ought you to eat food because

764
01:05:27,583 --> 01:05:32,383
you'll die otherwise well what you know why don't i want to die because there's because the very

765
01:05:32,383 --> 01:05:38,103
definition of value at some time at some point you have to pick your axioms like your figure

766
01:05:38,103 --> 01:05:45,703
maybe that's a vulgar word word to use in this context to some but uh first principles can do a

767
01:05:45,703 --> 01:05:51,023
lot. Like, uh, the argumentation ethics, I absolutely love it. Like if I argue with you,

768
01:05:51,023 --> 01:05:59,143
by the act of arguing, I show you that I think, uh, communication is a appropriate method for

769
01:05:59,143 --> 01:06:05,183
conflict resolution. And then if I start stealing anyway, it's not argumentation anymore is bullying.

770
01:06:06,503 --> 01:06:12,683
Uh, so it's, it's literally the non-aggression principle. And, uh, I think there's like,

771
01:06:12,683 --> 01:06:15,923
I would love if this was in the backbone of every Bitcoiner.

772
01:06:16,123 --> 01:06:17,543
Everyone had this in them.

773
01:06:17,823 --> 01:06:21,323
But it seems like since Bitcoin is for anyone.

774
01:06:22,483 --> 01:06:23,743
And it includes those who don't.

775
01:06:24,123 --> 01:06:24,823
Yeah, exactly.

776
01:06:25,243 --> 01:06:28,003
I think that's when these wars happen in Bitcoin,

777
01:06:28,223 --> 01:06:29,983
it is this pulling back of the curtain.

778
01:06:30,123 --> 01:06:33,143
We thought we were all Bitcoiners and that it all meant the same thing.

779
01:06:33,143 --> 01:06:36,363
But then we find out, no, different people actually in this group

780
01:06:36,363 --> 01:06:39,583
have different values, are prepared to take different risks,

781
01:06:39,683 --> 01:06:42,443
are prepared to stand up for different things.

782
01:06:42,683 --> 01:06:46,363
And, you know, and their philosophies are different.

783
01:06:46,803 --> 01:06:53,863
And even if they seem to agree on a lot of things that in the traditional world would view, you know, they're all crypto anarchists.

784
01:06:53,863 --> 01:06:57,863
Well, you know, are you a permissive crypto anarchist?

785
01:06:58,823 --> 01:06:59,423
Paranoid.

786
01:06:59,683 --> 01:07:01,063
Aggressive crypto anarchist?

787
01:07:01,163 --> 01:07:01,223
Yeah.

788
01:07:01,603 --> 01:07:16,504
Like look are you extremely paranoid crypto anarchist What are you paranoid Are you paranoid about corruption Are you paranoid about weakness Like so there a lot to fight over to argue about right And it doesn always mean

789
01:07:16,504 --> 01:07:21,984
that there's one right side and one wrong side. I think that's also a false dichotomy. Sometimes

790
01:07:21,984 --> 01:07:25,904
both sides are wrong. Sometimes there's nuance in both. Sometimes there's a meeting in the middle.

791
01:07:25,904 --> 01:07:32,344
Sometimes neither side is extreme enough in one direction. And that's why, you know, there's a

792
01:07:32,344 --> 01:07:36,764
dispute. So getting to a workable solution, sometimes there's many workable solutions,

793
01:07:36,964 --> 01:07:42,344
right? Like there's more than one way to skin a cat. And yeah, so you can do it in different ways.

794
01:07:43,184 --> 01:07:48,504
I heard someone say that organizing Bitcoiners is like herding cats. I like that.

795
01:07:48,964 --> 01:07:54,404
It is. To tie this back to the movie analogies here and stuff, like,

796
01:07:55,144 --> 01:07:59,704
have you seen a South Park episode called The Death Camp of Tolerance?

797
01:07:59,704 --> 01:08:01,024
I don't think so

798
01:08:01,024 --> 01:08:01,864
I haven't seen

799
01:08:01,864 --> 01:08:03,024
I love South Park

800
01:08:03,024 --> 01:08:03,864
but I don't watch it

801
01:08:03,864 --> 01:08:05,664
regularly or religiously

802
01:08:05,664 --> 01:08:05,804
no no

803
01:08:05,804 --> 01:08:07,004
this is from one of the

804
01:08:07,004 --> 01:08:07,804
earlier seasons

805
01:08:07,804 --> 01:08:08,404
and it's great

806
01:08:08,404 --> 01:08:09,164
probably not

807
01:08:09,164 --> 01:08:10,124
because I didn't get into it

808
01:08:10,124 --> 01:08:11,204
until at least the movie

809
01:08:11,204 --> 01:08:12,064
came out

810
01:08:12,064 --> 01:08:13,124
yeah yeah

811
01:08:13,124 --> 01:08:14,384
but this is after the movie

812
01:08:14,384 --> 01:08:15,424
but still quite early

813
01:08:15,424 --> 01:08:16,844
like one of the first 10 seasons

814
01:08:16,844 --> 01:08:16,864
you have to tell me what the episode

815
01:08:16,864 --> 01:08:17,524
is about that

816
01:08:17,524 --> 01:08:18,624
so it's about

817
01:08:18,624 --> 01:08:19,984
in the episode

818
01:08:19,984 --> 01:08:20,764
Mr. Garrison

819
01:08:20,764 --> 01:08:22,264
the school teacher

820
01:08:22,264 --> 01:08:24,104
figures out that

821
01:08:24,104 --> 01:08:25,344
someone has been given

822
01:08:25,344 --> 01:08:27,844
a million dollars

823
01:08:27,844 --> 01:08:29,684
because they were

824
01:08:29,684 --> 01:08:31,844
fired for being gay from a school.

825
01:08:32,484 --> 01:08:33,964
So he does everything in his power.

826
01:08:34,044 --> 01:08:37,444
The rest of the episode, he does everything in his power to get fired for being gay.

827
01:08:37,884 --> 01:08:38,144
Okay.

828
01:08:38,224 --> 01:08:44,084
Which means he starts doing more and more outrageous gay things with his partner, Mr.

829
01:08:44,084 --> 01:08:52,304
Slave, in the classroom, including inserting small animals in various orifices of this Mr.

830
01:08:52,304 --> 01:08:52,644
Slave.

831
01:08:53,384 --> 01:08:59,344
And the more he tries, the more courageous everyone else seems to think he is.

832
01:08:59,684 --> 01:09:04,284
because everyone just applauds him and he gets awards and stuff.

833
01:09:04,284 --> 01:09:07,604
And at the same time, there's a side plot about the Nazi camp

834
01:09:07,604 --> 01:09:11,724
where everyone is supposed to be or forced to be tolerant,

835
01:09:12,724 --> 01:09:14,204
which is hilarious in itself.

836
01:09:14,204 --> 01:09:17,204
But I think this is.

837
01:09:17,204 --> 01:09:19,484
There's a Bitcoin metaphor in here somewhere.

838
01:09:19,484 --> 01:09:22,604
I think that the morale of the story is like,

839
01:09:24,324 --> 01:09:28,684
just because I tolerate something does not have to mean that I approve of it.

840
01:09:28,684 --> 01:09:32,124
Like I can tolerate stuff, but I don't have to approve.

841
01:09:33,164 --> 01:09:35,244
Bitcoin is like that all the time.

842
01:09:35,364 --> 01:09:38,244
There's the consensus rules, which means I tolerate.

843
01:09:38,804 --> 01:09:50,124
I can still use my node and use my filter settings or whatnot to show to the world, maybe in vain, but I don't care that I don't approve.

844
01:09:50,324 --> 01:09:52,544
Like I can tolerate, but I don't have to approve.

845
01:09:53,024 --> 01:09:56,664
And I think that that's the nuance that people are missing.

846
01:09:56,664 --> 01:09:58,524
I mean, we have lived with this.

847
01:09:58,664 --> 01:10:01,504
There are things that are unacceptable.

848
01:10:02,084 --> 01:10:09,964
And we pass laws to say, if you do these unacceptable things, then the state is going to come after you.

849
01:10:10,044 --> 01:10:11,544
That's been the history.

850
01:10:11,844 --> 01:10:15,324
The state's overstepped its boundaries, but that's the concept behind the law.

851
01:10:15,584 --> 01:10:17,684
Then there are things that are unpopular, right?

852
01:10:18,064 --> 01:10:19,584
And we tolerate those.

853
01:10:20,144 --> 01:10:21,704
And so we draw a line.

854
01:10:21,704 --> 01:10:26,324
And we ourselves don't do those things.

855
01:10:26,644 --> 01:10:29,364
Popular is like, they're not for me, right?

856
01:10:30,364 --> 01:10:33,464
But I don't think people should go to jail for doing them, right?

857
01:10:33,724 --> 01:10:35,244
Like happy endings.

858
01:10:35,804 --> 01:10:36,004
Yeah.

859
01:10:37,464 --> 01:10:41,904
So we don't have laws on these things, but many of us frown upon them.

860
01:10:42,104 --> 01:10:45,404
And it's okay to frown upon the things that you don't like and to say to somebody,

861
01:10:45,404 --> 01:10:49,764
hey, you know, like you just, you know, you burped in the movie theater, you, you know,

862
01:10:49,824 --> 01:10:54,884
you spilled popcorn all over the movie theater, you made a mess of the place. That's not

863
01:10:55,564 --> 01:11:01,524
offensive. We need to get the state apparatus involved in, but to call somebody out and say,

864
01:11:01,604 --> 01:11:06,264
think about what you're doing. Maybe you ought not to be doing it is completely legitimate,

865
01:11:06,484 --> 01:11:11,264
right? They can't say, well, you know, so soon someone might say, so sue me if it's against the

866
01:11:11,264 --> 01:11:18,484
lot. But that is, and that's always in a free society going to be a large area where people

867
01:11:18,484 --> 01:11:26,464
dispute without violence, unapproved of activities, but not illegal activities, right? And so that's

868
01:11:26,464 --> 01:11:35,484
a difference between like what we consider valuable and moral. And we just have to accept

869
01:11:35,484 --> 01:11:40,404
that that's always going to be the case. And to your point, which keeps dragging us back into the

870
01:11:40,404 --> 01:11:46,144
nots thing but it's like you know i don't go to jail for putting an inscription and normal inscription

871
01:11:46,144 --> 01:11:51,764
on their monkey jpeg but i don't like it and i'm happy to tell them that i don't like it and i think

872
01:11:51,764 --> 01:11:57,784
they're doing something stupid with their own time and energy that isn't benefiting them and it's

873
01:11:57,784 --> 01:12:04,144
also causing some harm to other other people and so that they ought they ought not to do it

874
01:12:04,144 --> 01:12:11,584
they ought to use Bitcoin exclusively as money. And some people will simply do the opposite out of

875
01:12:11,584 --> 01:12:16,544
mischievousness. And I think we're always going to have to tolerate that because like the good

876
01:12:16,544 --> 01:12:20,964
has to tolerate some amount of not good. I don't want to describe these things as evil because

877
01:12:20,964 --> 01:12:27,124
people will put them in the same camp as best. Well, stamps are evil. I mean, yeah. So those

878
01:12:27,124 --> 01:12:36,344
are intentionally mischievous things to exploit the goodwill of Bitcoin, to do something not

879
01:12:36,344 --> 01:12:41,224
aligned with the interest of Bitcoin that is permissible because Bitcoin has to ultimately

880
01:12:41,224 --> 01:12:50,404
tolerate these things. But the behavior, the conduct of it is not good. It's intentionally

881
01:12:50,404 --> 01:12:57,704
malicious, and it's malicious to other network participants, but it's not able to be forbidden.

882
01:12:58,164 --> 01:13:02,744
Now, maybe it can be eventually, but that's the way it is. And so you're always going to have

883
01:13:02,744 --> 01:13:11,344
these people who are foreigns in the side of any system. And this is indeed where, you know,

884
01:13:12,324 --> 01:13:16,604
someone's saying, well, you might as well let them do anything because they can still do this,

885
01:13:16,604 --> 01:13:21,184
is like, that's a tolerant, that's taking tolerance too far. You know, you do want to stop

886
01:13:21,184 --> 01:13:28,064
people from doing the things that you can stop them from that are wrong to do. If you can stop

887
01:13:28,064 --> 01:13:31,804
them, we don't want perfection to be the enemy of the good. If you say, well, we can't stop all

888
01:13:31,804 --> 01:13:37,464
crimes, so we might as well not have police and laws. That is a very defeatist and obviously

889
01:13:37,464 --> 01:13:42,104
invalid argument. And so, you know, but I don't want to talk anymore about spam and

890
01:13:42,104 --> 01:13:49,004
any more metaphors in that regard so i'm done well good uh what do you want to talk about tom

891
01:13:49,004 --> 01:13:53,544
like where well you were talking about mining you wanted to talk about mining decentralization yeah

892
01:13:53,544 --> 01:14:00,604
yeah and i think that's a that's a really important thing because it it's like the next big attack in

893
01:14:00,604 --> 01:14:05,664
bitcoin or i don't know what the next big attack but a future big attack in bitcoin it's going to

894
01:14:05,664 --> 01:14:13,004
come from, you know, there's three or four parties that can mine that have more than 51% of the hash

895
01:14:13,004 --> 01:14:19,144
power between them, and they want to do something, or they don't want something to be done, and they

896
01:14:19,144 --> 01:14:24,044
have unilateral control over that, and that's going to bring us to a debate about this. So,

897
01:14:24,044 --> 01:14:31,604
we can try to, if we can permanently prevent that situation from arising by decentralizing mining,

898
01:14:31,604 --> 01:14:33,964
that's a war we avert.

899
01:14:34,304 --> 01:14:36,744
We averted through a distribution of power

900
01:14:36,744 --> 01:14:40,064
so that no one can abuse that particular power.

901
01:14:40,924 --> 01:14:43,444
And the decentralization of mining is very important.

902
01:14:43,664 --> 01:14:47,124
There's arguments that are made as to how best to decentralize it,

903
01:14:47,164 --> 01:14:51,484
but certainly the most relevant present matter

904
01:14:51,484 --> 01:14:54,744
is ocean mining and datum,

905
01:14:54,984 --> 01:14:57,184
which is part of the previous controversy

906
01:14:57,184 --> 01:14:58,444
we don't want to discuss anymore.

907
01:14:58,444 --> 01:15:12,924
But it's this notion that you can actually have a pool where participants are each forming their own block templates according to rules that they decide upon.

908
01:15:13,504 --> 01:15:16,324
And so they're not all in cahoots with one another.

909
01:15:16,524 --> 01:15:19,284
And there isn't someone on top of them telling them what to do.

910
01:15:19,484 --> 01:15:21,024
And so they're free and sovereign.

911
01:15:21,364 --> 01:15:22,624
And this is a big deal.

912
01:15:22,624 --> 01:15:34,704
And whether or not that all ends up happening exclusively with an ocean pool, because ocean pool really isn't a pool in the same way that the others are, thanks to Datum, or others use Datum, that's all going to be good.

913
01:15:34,784 --> 01:15:40,004
So I think the pushing forward of Datum for mining decentralization is really important.

914
01:15:40,144 --> 01:15:45,324
And I'd like to see other significant pools adopt it.

915
01:15:45,884 --> 01:15:50,324
Absolutely. And alternatives to ocean and Datum would be nice.

916
01:15:50,324 --> 01:15:58,624
Because right now, if you're mining with another pool, an FPPS pool, you're basically not a miner, but a hashmonger.

917
01:15:59,204 --> 01:16:00,044
That's what you are.

918
01:16:00,124 --> 01:16:02,564
You sell your hash power, but you don't know what block you're mining.

919
01:16:02,684 --> 01:16:04,484
So you can't really call yourself a miner in that case.

920
01:16:04,724 --> 01:16:15,424
Also important to point out that you can mine 100 kilobyte op-return with core using that.

921
01:16:15,424 --> 01:16:22,424
It doesn't stop you from doing any of that.

922
01:16:22,424 --> 01:16:25,424
And there's another actual...

923
01:16:25,424 --> 01:16:33,424
Say, for instance, if all the bigger pools, more centralized pools, refused to mine these

924
01:16:33,424 --> 01:16:34,424
100 kilobyte op returns.

925
01:16:34,424 --> 01:16:36,424
Now we're getting back to this again, sorry.

926
01:16:36,424 --> 01:16:40,424
I know we shouldn't talk about it, but this is in a different context.

927
01:16:40,424 --> 01:16:50,124
then there's actually a bigger risk that one of these smaller miners that is making his old block template is the one that is going to actually put the thing on chain.

928
01:16:50,624 --> 01:16:51,964
So that's the irony of that.

929
01:16:52,444 --> 01:16:56,084
But that aside, I agree with you.

930
01:16:56,224 --> 01:17:03,124
The thing I'd really like to see is competitors to Ocean, like other pools with similar models.

931
01:17:03,484 --> 01:17:07,444
Because it's not good if they are the only one and the only alternative.

932
01:17:07,444 --> 01:17:08,304
That's never good.

933
01:17:08,304 --> 01:17:15,684
like with i'd like to see others i've heard like i think it was at that abu dhabi conference where

934
01:17:15,684 --> 01:17:20,964
someone mentioned uh that they were doing something similar or maybe it was in slovenia

935
01:17:20,964 --> 01:17:27,544
this minor common congress yeah no no there was going to be launching a stratum v2 pool but it's

936
01:17:27,544 --> 01:17:33,304
now more than a half later and it hasn't launched and i think you know this again is perfect being

937
01:17:33,304 --> 01:17:39,284
the enemy of the good. The Stratum V2 is a long-term project that hasn't delivered a working

938
01:17:39,284 --> 01:17:44,244
pool yet, even though there's pools that say they're going to use it. Whereas Datum and Ocean

939
01:17:44,244 --> 01:17:51,924
developed Datum quickly and it is working. It may not be perfect again, but they haven't let

940
01:17:51,924 --> 01:17:58,284
perfect become the enemy of the good and what they're doing is good and they're growing.

941
01:17:58,284 --> 01:18:00,884
there's a long road ahead of them

942
01:18:00,884 --> 01:18:02,864
they're still under 2% of the

943
01:18:02,864 --> 01:18:04,304
whole network hash rate so

944
01:18:04,304 --> 01:18:05,964
we've got a long way to go but

945
01:18:05,964 --> 01:18:08,004
I'd love to see

946
01:18:08,004 --> 01:18:10,564
my

947
01:18:10,564 --> 01:18:12,524
actual miners mining

948
01:18:12,524 --> 01:18:14,944
not miners just hashing someone else's

949
01:18:14,944 --> 01:18:16,844
template but being able to

950
01:18:16,844 --> 01:18:18,164
take the sovereignty over

951
01:18:18,164 --> 01:18:20,584
spread it to surety

952
01:18:20,584 --> 01:18:22,564
40-50% in the next few years

953
01:18:22,564 --> 01:18:24,864
I don't think that's inconceivable

954
01:18:24,864 --> 01:18:26,844
but it requires

955
01:18:27,104 --> 01:18:34,044
education, lobbying, and explanation to the people who control a lot of the hash power.

956
01:18:34,204 --> 01:18:38,004
And I think historically, you know, certainly what we saw in the block size wars was that

957
01:18:38,004 --> 01:18:52,484
miners back then they were just trying to make a very short buck literally dollar as quick as they could So if it came a little bit the hash rate got distributed between Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin

958
01:18:52,484 --> 01:19:01,885
precisely according to where the highest nominal or marginal cent in dollar terms was going to be earned.

959
01:19:01,885 --> 01:19:08,804
um and quite often you know like you know it would even be the case that um fees were ignored

960
01:19:08,804 --> 01:19:14,104
or the hundred block wait time was ignored because you know bitcoin cash might be crashing but

961
01:19:14,104 --> 01:19:20,464
it was if it was worth one one hundredth of bitcoin then miners ended up putting one one

962
01:19:20,464 --> 01:19:25,125
hundredth of the hash rate to bitcoin cash as they did to bitcoin because it was just like

963
01:19:25,125 --> 01:19:31,224
revenue neutral or profit neutral uh it was entirely on without principle right it was entirely

964
01:19:31,224 --> 01:19:33,765
The only principle was make a buck.

965
01:19:34,525 --> 01:19:38,905
And I think mining is such a hard business long-term.

966
01:19:39,804 --> 01:19:42,844
The difficulty adjusts every couple of weeks

967
01:19:42,844 --> 01:19:47,364
to take away any advantage that you had over the network.

968
01:19:47,924 --> 01:19:50,704
The heavy cuts your rewards in half.

969
01:19:50,704 --> 01:19:53,165
But the difficulty adjustment works both ways.

970
01:19:53,405 --> 01:19:55,944
This is why I think anything about tail emissions

971
01:19:55,944 --> 01:19:56,844
or crap is hard.

972
01:19:58,305 --> 01:20:00,545
It's not half the time it works in your favor

973
01:20:00,545 --> 01:20:01,564
and half the time it doesn't.

974
01:20:01,704 --> 01:20:05,285
It's like almost all the time it works against you

975
01:20:05,285 --> 01:20:07,864
because if you're profitable,

976
01:20:07,864 --> 01:20:11,864
then you and other miners have the incentive to mine more.

977
01:20:12,324 --> 01:20:16,924
And if there's someone selling mining equipment to the market,

978
01:20:17,005 --> 01:20:19,324
it's like either you buy it or they buy it.

979
01:20:19,364 --> 01:20:22,665
And if they buy it, they're going to increase the difficulty

980
01:20:22,665 --> 01:20:25,344
and get more of the market share, which is a fixed reward.

981
01:20:25,424 --> 01:20:26,765
It's not like the market is growing.

982
01:20:27,344 --> 01:20:30,464
The amount of Bitcoin being issued is fixed at every block.

983
01:20:30,545 --> 01:20:35,584
And so I think that's what makes it a uniquely, nearly perfectly competitive market.

984
01:20:35,924 --> 01:20:38,025
And it uses game theory, right?

985
01:20:38,064 --> 01:20:45,525
Like the best way to win the mining game is for miners not to add hash power and nobody else to add hash power to the network, right?

986
01:20:45,525 --> 01:20:50,064
Then, you know, it'd be super simple to make tons and tons of money.

987
01:20:50,224 --> 01:20:54,525
But of course, people are tempted by the opportunity to earn more money.

988
01:20:54,984 --> 01:20:59,584
And so they continue to add hash rate as long as it seems profitable.

989
01:20:59,584 --> 01:21:06,765
And oftentimes they overshoot because many of them are adding hash rate at the same time, which makes them, which makes the business.

990
01:21:06,964 --> 01:21:10,864
And when you zoom out at a long time, there's been lots of bankruptcies in mining.

991
01:21:10,864 --> 01:21:14,704
There's been lots of periods of, of, of losses.

992
01:21:15,064 --> 01:21:17,064
You know, it hasn't been a great investment.

993
01:21:17,064 --> 01:21:26,944
And now many of them are making this, the industrial miners are making the shift to being also data centers for AI computation because the pure play thing.

994
01:21:26,944 --> 01:21:31,444
So I think pure play mining is getting harder and harder to be profitable at.

995
01:21:31,684 --> 01:21:39,944
And it'll end up being infused or part of power generation facilities or at least managed for power generation.

996
01:21:40,145 --> 01:21:40,525
Or heat.

997
01:21:40,964 --> 01:21:45,184
Yeah, like trying to extract the heat, trying to do it.

998
01:21:45,245 --> 01:21:52,364
So there's all sorts of different strategies that develop, whether you're trying to get cheap energy that's stranded

999
01:21:52,364 --> 01:21:57,805
or whether you're trying to get benefits from the secondary effects of using the energy to mine,

1000
01:21:57,864 --> 01:22:03,604
such as heat, all these strategies are not about pure mining. And that's where the differentiation

1001
01:22:03,604 --> 01:22:10,424
ultimately comes in. And I think principled mining may well end up being like, we could see a blow up

1002
01:22:10,424 --> 01:22:16,665
of long-term financial support for publicly traded mining companies. That doesn't mean mining is

1003
01:22:16,665 --> 01:22:22,424
going to go away, but it may mean that many people mine at home and, you know, and actually do it to

1004
01:22:22,424 --> 01:22:31,484
protect their freedom, you know, to secure their coins and secure their ability to have their

1005
01:22:31,484 --> 01:22:37,905
transactions included in blocks because they'll be mining in a pool where people generally prefer to

1006
01:22:37,905 --> 01:22:44,084
be permissive of the proper use cases and not permissive of spammy use cases that prevent

1007
01:22:44,084 --> 01:22:51,684
financial transactions from making it into the blockchain too expensively. There's a whole

1008
01:22:51,684 --> 01:22:59,184
unstructured future ahead of us here that we just haven't confronted yet because the challenges

1009
01:22:59,184 --> 01:23:06,164
haven't come. The attack hasn't come to say, I'm a miner with 50% of the network or a substantial

1010
01:23:06,164 --> 01:23:11,885
amount and some governments are paying me to fill the blockchain to either mine empty blocks

1011
01:23:11,885 --> 01:23:15,584
or fill it with stuff that isn't ordinary users transactions.

1012
01:23:15,584 --> 01:23:17,745
And so people are restricted from using Bitcoin.

1013
01:23:18,164 --> 01:23:19,964
How do we overcome that?

1014
01:23:20,265 --> 01:23:22,245
You know, and there can be all kinds of solutions,

1015
01:23:22,245 --> 01:23:25,984
but mining centralization is a problem.

1016
01:23:26,285 --> 01:23:29,224
And mining philosophy could be a problem.

1017
01:23:29,344 --> 01:23:30,885
Like if we have very decentralized miners,

1018
01:23:30,964 --> 01:23:33,025
but they all act the same because their philosophy is

1019
01:23:33,025 --> 01:23:35,104
just take whatever I can

1020
01:23:35,104 --> 01:23:37,584
rather than take what's good for the network.

1021
01:23:37,905 --> 01:23:39,684
And there's someone putting a lot of stuff

1022
01:23:39,684 --> 01:23:41,385
that's bad for the network out there.

1023
01:23:41,385 --> 01:23:45,224
into the mempools, then we've gotten the same sort of problem on our hand.

1024
01:23:45,565 --> 01:23:47,964
But I'm sure we're going to confront all of these battles,

1025
01:23:47,964 --> 01:23:50,565
and they'll all be stressful and straining,

1026
01:23:50,684 --> 01:23:52,745
and we'll have to figure out how to resolve them.

1027
01:23:53,385 --> 01:23:55,324
I think, though, that directionally,

1028
01:23:55,584 --> 01:23:58,285
they will have to be more philosophically aligned

1029
01:23:58,285 --> 01:24:00,984
because they will, over time, realize that the Satoshi

1030
01:24:00,984 --> 01:24:02,924
is more valuable than a dollar.

1031
01:24:03,484 --> 01:24:08,885
Like, that a quick buck is not as desirable as the Satoshis themselves.

1032
01:24:09,104 --> 01:24:10,745
That will be crossing the Rubicon.

1033
01:24:10,745 --> 01:24:29,065
When miners want to hold on to Bitcoin because energy providers to them accept Bitcoin as payment for their energy, and then energy producers are accepting and holding Bitcoin, we will be in a new world then, and hopefully an easier world.

1034
01:24:29,065 --> 01:24:48,905
I guess it'll have all sorts of new challenges that we haven't discussed yet, but we will have won an important war, which is the acceptance of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, especially for energy, which is kind of the base, the commodity in our Western industrialized world.

1035
01:24:48,905 --> 01:24:55,864
yeah and i i love the fact that uh in the future we're gonna have to have figure out parallel use

1036
01:24:55,864 --> 01:25:00,704
cases to mining and heating is the most obvious one i'm just waiting for i'm gonna give them a

1037
01:25:00,704 --> 01:25:07,444
shout out of course i'm waiting for my often two from 21 energy which is a bitcoin miner and a

1038
01:25:07,444 --> 01:25:11,805
house heater and it's really good to have it down here in spain because the houses aren't insulated

1039
01:25:11,805 --> 01:25:17,844
so like january february in spain is really shit cold inside right so it's very good to have one of

1040
01:25:17,844 --> 01:25:22,045
those and it's going to be super fun to install it and start mining.

1041
01:25:23,184 --> 01:25:25,944
And it's just a room, it's a room heater, like a space heater.

1042
01:25:26,184 --> 01:25:26,484
Okay.

1043
01:25:26,484 --> 01:25:26,724
Yeah.

1044
01:25:27,924 --> 01:25:30,505
It's yeah, indoor room heater.

1045
01:25:30,565 --> 01:25:31,125
Exactly.

1046
01:25:31,944 --> 01:25:39,805
So instead of gas or electricity, well, it is electricity, but it will not only heat up the

1047
01:25:39,805 --> 01:25:42,625
room, but mine Bitcoin as well.

1048
01:25:42,625 --> 01:25:43,164
And why not?

1049
01:25:43,164 --> 01:25:43,464
Yeah.

1050
01:25:43,464 --> 01:25:50,464
Um, that another funny aside is that the, the, the fact that hash rate is constantly

1051
01:25:50,464 --> 01:25:52,944
going up because Bitcoin is awesome.

1052
01:25:53,305 --> 01:25:57,525
It also means that the 10 minute interval is, is in reality wrong.

1053
01:25:57,525 --> 01:26:00,684
It's more than, it's more like nine and a half minutes.

1054
01:26:00,684 --> 01:26:00,984
Yeah.

1055
01:26:01,645 --> 01:26:02,785
Which is interesting.

1056
01:26:03,025 --> 01:26:03,405
Right.

1057
01:26:03,525 --> 01:26:05,045
But it is what it is, I guess.

1058
01:26:05,405 --> 01:26:05,785
Yeah.

1059
01:26:06,084 --> 01:26:10,104
Well, I mean, yeah, but the faster blocks end up, you end up paying, if you're a

1060
01:26:10,104 --> 01:26:14,104
a minor you think you're getting blocks faster but you're ending up paying for them in higher

1061
01:26:14,104 --> 01:26:18,684
difficulty yeah yeah yeah so it all levels out in the end it's just like it's constantly working

1062
01:26:18,684 --> 01:26:24,444
against you you're like i'm helping you bitcoin it's like well you know yeah yeah well i'm helping

1063
01:26:24,444 --> 01:26:30,364
you too but you need to lower your time preference i'm a bitcoin's bitcoin's reply is yes i'm gonna

1064
01:26:30,364 --> 01:26:37,545
help you too but only if you can be patient for a decade like it yeah lower your time preference

1065
01:26:37,545 --> 01:26:38,885
and I'll pay you too.

1066
01:26:39,664 --> 01:26:41,224
Maybe another little pivot

1067
01:26:41,224 --> 01:26:43,785
is you turned me on to Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

1068
01:26:44,525 --> 01:26:45,344
Oh, you did?

1069
01:26:45,785 --> 01:26:46,924
You've been reading Hoppe.

1070
01:26:47,525 --> 01:26:48,005
Excellent.

1071
01:26:48,484 --> 01:26:49,824
I've been reading some of his stuff

1072
01:26:49,824 --> 01:26:52,364
and one of the topics that comes up a lot

1073
01:26:52,364 --> 01:26:53,924
and I was talking that I was at

1074
01:26:53,924 --> 01:26:55,125
the Canadian Bitcoin Conference

1075
01:26:55,125 --> 01:26:57,324
is this topic of secession.

1076
01:26:58,645 --> 01:27:00,184
Like states or provinces

1077
01:27:00,184 --> 01:27:04,385
seceding from a federally established government.

1078
01:27:04,944 --> 01:27:06,224
And he talks about it

1079
01:27:06,224 --> 01:27:10,645
you know, as like cities being able to secede from European states.

1080
01:27:11,645 --> 01:27:15,444
I think he says 10,000 Liechtensteins somewhere.

1081
01:27:15,805 --> 01:27:16,844
Like that's what we would want.

1082
01:27:17,104 --> 01:27:17,184
Yeah.

1083
01:27:17,364 --> 01:27:17,565
Yeah.

1084
01:27:17,785 --> 01:27:25,545
And he says, you know, this is the correct action for when the federation,

1085
01:27:26,025 --> 01:27:30,125
when the larger, higher level of government oversteps its boundaries

1086
01:27:30,125 --> 01:27:31,964
and becomes illegitimate.

1087
01:27:31,964 --> 01:27:34,444
I mean, he's very big on using the term illegitimate.

1088
01:27:34,444 --> 01:27:43,664
when the government becomes evil, that's my term, it becomes illegitimate and it becomes right to take the power away from it.

1089
01:27:44,104 --> 01:27:48,505
And when you actually have like a two-party system where both parties are corrupted,

1090
01:27:49,005 --> 01:27:56,664
and so your only choice is to vote for one or the other, secession is the legitimate action to remove the illegitimate government.

1091
01:27:56,664 --> 01:28:03,964
And in Canada, we have 10 provinces and three territories, and two of the provinces are

1092
01:28:03,964 --> 01:28:07,625
stirring about talking about secession.

1093
01:28:08,045 --> 01:28:15,325
And one of the challenges that you have when you have a fiat currency issued by the federal

1094
01:28:15,325 --> 01:28:22,484
establishment is all of your money is made up and controlled by the federal government.

1095
01:28:22,484 --> 01:28:28,545
And so if Alberta or Quebec tries to secede from Canada, what does their money become?

1096
01:28:29,444 --> 01:28:36,745
They become the El Salvador's of the nation once known as Canada.

1097
01:28:36,745 --> 01:28:45,045
And so they need to have reserves of money that will be accepted elsewhere, that can't be overinflated at their expense.

1098
01:28:45,045 --> 01:28:57,005
And I think Bitcoin has this incredible candidate for restoring the justice of legitimacy of government or the option to exit illegitimate oversight that hasn't existed before.

1099
01:28:57,005 --> 01:29:18,545
And so, you know, I don't want to expect these things to happen quickly, but I think the view of Bitcoin as being this Austrian libertarian empowering tool, not just for savings, but for enforcing government legitimacy or exiting illegitimate government hasn't really been something that's been talked about.

1100
01:29:18,545 --> 01:29:40,364
But when there's conversations at Bitcoin conferences around this thing, I really encourage people to read his essays on illegitimacy and secession and to consider how Bitcoin may be a valuable instrument in a province, a city, a state, establishing for themselves.

1101
01:29:40,364 --> 01:29:45,484
So, you know, people talk about strategic Bitcoin reserves for what purpose, right?

1102
01:29:45,904 --> 01:29:55,085
Well, ironically, for the purpose of a local government seceding from a tyrannical overarching government.

1103
01:29:55,125 --> 01:29:55,384
Yeah.

1104
01:29:55,684 --> 01:29:56,585
It could be the reason.

1105
01:29:56,684 --> 01:30:05,464
So when states and cities start forming these reserves, it makes a lot more sense to me than when federal governments start accumulating these reserves.

1106
01:30:05,464 --> 01:30:09,245
because I don't know what a federal government that's issuing a fiat currency is going to do,

1107
01:30:09,484 --> 01:30:13,944
but a local government that doesn't issue a fiat currency and is subordinate to the fiat currency,

1108
01:30:14,285 --> 01:30:26,685
legal tender laws of the federal government it does create options and value Absolutely I mean I visited the state of Alberta this summer Province

1109
01:30:27,465 --> 01:30:30,085
The province of Alberta.

1110
01:30:30,165 --> 01:30:31,585
I would say the state of Alberta.

1111
01:30:32,485 --> 01:30:41,845
And yeah, in order to do so, I had to accept some interference from the bigger mafia

1112
01:30:41,845 --> 01:30:46,645
that wanted me to use their cock buck money

1113
01:30:46,645 --> 01:30:51,905
and put up a border and some signs saying Canada all over the place.

1114
01:30:52,025 --> 01:30:53,345
But I was never in Canada.

1115
01:30:53,345 --> 01:30:57,045
I was in Alberta and I used Bitcoin with the real Albertans

1116
01:30:57,045 --> 01:30:58,465
that already use Bitcoin.

1117
01:30:59,005 --> 01:31:00,385
Bitcoin already fixes this.

1118
01:31:01,165 --> 01:31:07,285
And there was a lot of state agents from the Canada thing roaming around,

1119
01:31:07,445 --> 01:31:08,925
but I was never with those people.

1120
01:31:08,925 --> 01:31:14,485
I was with the true Albertans and they all used Bitcoins and they lived in Alberta and I loved it.

1121
01:31:15,185 --> 01:31:27,425
Yeah, I think, well, I mean, this will maybe be a shorter conversation, but it is remarkable how Bitcoin reaches the individual and then it reaches these organizations.

1122
01:31:27,685 --> 01:31:35,425
And I think, I can't remember if it was before we started recording, but when we talk about companies trying to hold Bitcoin, well, Bitcoin is meant to be held by the individual.

1123
01:31:35,425 --> 01:31:44,165
But, you know, it's not ridiculous to think that Bitcoin could be held by a dependent state, right?

1124
01:31:44,285 --> 01:31:51,305
A state that's part of a federation that's seeking independence through secession and needs to secede.

1125
01:31:51,385 --> 01:31:57,505
Like, why do Albertans want to secede from the state of Canada, from the federation, from the nation of Canada?

1126
01:31:57,925 --> 01:31:59,725
Well, they're being stolen, right?

1127
01:31:59,725 --> 01:32:11,605
They're actually in Canada, something called transfer payment, which is the government looks at how much income everybody has with the average income is in different provinces and says, well, yours is too high because it's higher than these other people.

1128
01:32:11,665 --> 01:32:14,825
So we're going to increase your taxes and send the money over there.

1129
01:32:14,905 --> 01:32:18,085
So they're being stolen from by the power of fiat usury.

1130
01:32:18,085 --> 01:32:26,585
And if they just tried to secede with the fiat dollars that they have, the government would simply print more and not distribute them in Alberta.

1131
01:32:26,705 --> 01:32:31,685
And even though Alberta seceded, it would essentially become poorer from its financial resources.

1132
01:32:31,885 --> 01:32:36,665
It needs to divest itself of the Canadian dollar and into something else.

1133
01:32:36,765 --> 01:32:41,925
But how can it really divest itself of the Canadian dollar without Bitcoin?

1134
01:32:41,925 --> 01:32:48,285
What are people going to use as money during the years that it takes to divest itself of the Canadian dollar?

1135
01:32:48,765 --> 01:32:50,865
There's nothing else.

1136
01:32:51,165 --> 01:33:08,105
So the importance and the need for low time preference around the adoption of Bitcoin for citizens to have future choices for themselves and their posterity can't be overstated enough.

1137
01:33:08,105 --> 01:33:14,165
right like it's really really important because if you're subordinate to a money printer then you

1138
01:33:14,165 --> 01:33:18,685
are a slave of the money printer and you can't escape the money printer and this is the sly

1139
01:33:18,685 --> 01:33:26,225
roundabout way that gets you freedom from even though it may take many many years absolutely

1140
01:33:26,225 --> 01:33:33,325
it's the bitcoin fixes these this bitcoin fixes this thesis playing out in real life and yeah

1141
01:33:33,325 --> 01:33:40,605
absolutely agree like smaller and smaller units uh ultimately the responsible individual holds the

1142
01:33:40,605 --> 01:33:47,165
bitcoin and that's the way it should be like we we're taking back the driver's seats of our our

1143
01:33:47,165 --> 01:33:53,645
lives here on on multiple levels but but i think this this is an underappreciated level like a

1144
01:33:53,645 --> 01:33:59,565
secession the secession narrative and yeah it's not taken seriously by federal governments like

1145
01:33:59,565 --> 01:34:04,345
They think, oh, we'll bring in the troops, we'll pass a law, we'll print them into oblivion.

1146
01:34:04,345 --> 01:34:12,385
But if you look at a place like Madeira, for instance, we were there, how long ago was that?

1147
01:34:12,625 --> 01:34:14,325
Like almost two years now?

1148
01:34:14,365 --> 01:34:14,985
Last string, yeah.

1149
01:34:15,145 --> 01:34:15,845
So a year and a half.

1150
01:34:16,185 --> 01:34:17,125
Yeah, a year and a half.

1151
01:34:17,565 --> 01:34:23,605
And that place is already kind of independent because it's on an island and it's far off.

1152
01:34:23,725 --> 01:34:28,225
So the bigger Portuguese government can't do too much to them.

1153
01:34:28,225 --> 01:34:36,365
But what they can do, though, and what the EU can do is melibulate the euro and control them that way.

1154
01:34:36,705 --> 01:34:45,705
But Madeira now has almost 200 retailers accepting Bitcoin and a thriving Bitcoiner community.

1155
01:34:46,765 --> 01:34:47,985
And what can they do about it?

1156
01:34:48,105 --> 01:34:48,365
Nothing.

1157
01:34:48,645 --> 01:34:53,425
They are regaining independence through just having this thing around.

1158
01:34:54,305 --> 01:34:57,625
It's a small economy that it won't be fought over, right?

1159
01:34:57,625 --> 01:35:09,545
But Alberta and Quebec or Texas, they're going to have a harder time if they want to declare independence than Madera might.

1160
01:35:09,905 --> 01:35:10,765
Madera is geographic.

1161
01:35:10,765 --> 01:35:16,965
It's more likely that it's on a city level than on a province level.

1162
01:35:17,345 --> 01:35:25,625
I wish I could live 200 years just to see the outcome of what's going to be with Bitcoin and sovereignty and city-states and culture.

1163
01:35:25,625 --> 01:35:30,425
because one of the things that we're seeing,

1164
01:35:30,526 --> 01:35:33,985
and this again is an underappreciated cost of fiat money,

1165
01:35:34,245 --> 01:35:36,585
it's not just that people are stolen from,

1166
01:35:36,765 --> 01:35:40,965
it's the culture becomes vastly diluted

1167
01:35:40,965 --> 01:35:44,665
because you may have whatever legislature you want in Spain.

1168
01:35:44,665 --> 01:35:47,645
If you use the euro, it's that European Central Bank

1169
01:35:47,645 --> 01:35:50,885
that controls the debasement and so many other things.

1170
01:35:51,005 --> 01:35:54,765
And the only country we've seen secede from the European Union

1171
01:35:54,765 --> 01:36:00,925
is the one that never surrendered its currency to the euro which is the uk right but like they

1172
01:36:01,485 --> 01:36:06,045
there are other countries that didn't surrender the currency though right so they may be able to

1173
01:36:06,045 --> 01:36:11,725
succeed much more easily than the countries so some of them are like they have different ties

1174
01:36:11,725 --> 01:36:19,565
to the euros like the swedish krona the czech krona the the bulgarian lev are all detached from the

1175
01:36:19,565 --> 01:36:25,485
euros to the different degrees now bulgaria is switching over though which would would have been

1176
01:36:25,485 --> 01:36:31,805
a great opportunity for them to switch for to a real money instead but but you know there's a lot

1177
01:36:33,245 --> 01:36:39,965
momentum of history doesn't shift quickly it is history is a slow thing that you study over

1178
01:36:40,685 --> 01:36:48,445
decades and centuries right not months and weeks um no like as historic as i think bitcoin is i

1179
01:36:48,445 --> 01:36:54,965
I think it's important to recognize that its historic impact is going to be felt over centuries.

1180
01:36:56,345 --> 01:36:57,445
It's really cool.

1181
01:36:57,585 --> 01:37:03,385
It's really interesting to be involved in it now and to be able to have your voice heard

1182
01:37:03,385 --> 01:37:09,165
and to form an opinion that it matters what your opinion is on the adoption of it as money

1183
01:37:09,165 --> 01:37:10,385
and its direction.

1184
01:37:10,385 --> 01:37:28,805
but it's like, it's a really big impact is going to be to be to liberate humanity from broken money and broken government, right? It's a historic, political, economic phenomenon of unprecedented proportion.

1185
01:37:28,805 --> 01:37:38,785
And so it's, you know, the humanity developed industrialized civilization, but suffered from centralization at this point.

1186
01:37:38,865 --> 01:37:47,085
And the only real thing that's actually going to matter in decentralizing industrialized humanity is Bitcoin.

1187
01:37:47,665 --> 01:37:49,165
I know that's a bold statement.

1188
01:37:49,445 --> 01:37:56,225
I probably need to write a book or two about it rather than spend the last five minutes or 10 minutes of a podcast on it.

1189
01:37:56,225 --> 01:38:03,485
but i i re i rationally believe that not just it's more than just hope it's more than just

1190
01:38:03,485 --> 01:38:08,605
platitudes it's like this is this is going to take over the money and the money is the

1191
01:38:08,605 --> 01:38:13,105
it's the one really bad thing about government like if government didn't have the ability to

1192
01:38:13,105 --> 01:38:17,645
print money it wouldn't actually be as bad as it is it would know they would be much more and

1193
01:38:17,645 --> 01:38:22,805
they would be held accountable to a much larger degree like it's the illusion but but it's also

1194
01:38:22,805 --> 01:38:28,605
what people want they want more they want the free lunch the urge for to have the free lunch is like

1195
01:38:28,605 --> 01:38:34,985
the the source of all evil in that sense yeah because it is the source of all money yeah and

1196
01:38:34,985 --> 01:38:39,026
it's a little failure to recognize it that that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch right

1197
01:38:39,026 --> 01:38:44,565
no exactly for it nor freedom you're paying for it with the civilization's culture you're paying

1198
01:38:44,565 --> 01:38:50,526
for it with your ability to create a long-term plan for yourself and you know you're paying for

1199
01:38:50,526 --> 01:38:52,005
in all sorts of different ways.

1200
01:38:52,765 --> 01:38:54,445
And we've been through this before, Tomer,

1201
01:38:54,565 --> 01:38:56,825
nor is there such a thing as a second breakfast.

1202
01:38:57,185 --> 01:38:58,745
You can only break your fast once.

1203
01:38:59,245 --> 01:39:00,285
There is no second breakfast.

1204
01:39:00,665 --> 01:39:01,225
Okay.

1205
01:39:02,526 --> 01:39:04,245
I'm not technical enough to understand.

1206
01:39:06,026 --> 01:39:08,285
And there's no such thing as a damn brunch

1207
01:39:08,285 --> 01:39:10,546
because that's gay and retarded.

1208
01:39:12,645 --> 01:39:14,605
It's a breakfast for fuck's sake.

1209
01:39:15,685 --> 01:39:18,585
Slightly late breakfast with lunch and food.

1210
01:39:18,585 --> 01:39:22,145
No, no, no. Fasting is good for you. Eggs and bacon are good for you.

1211
01:39:22,145 --> 01:39:27,585
Like, yeah, it's a breakfast. Anyway, I mean, if you want more from Tomer,

1212
01:39:27,585 --> 01:39:30,985
you should check out the legendary treasure of Satoshi Nakamoto.

1213
01:39:30,985 --> 01:39:37,225
It's a beautiful piece of Bitcoin film art and a beautiful piece of writing.

1214
01:39:37,225 --> 01:39:42,865
I'd say one of my favorite pieces and also the Bitcoin philosophy Sundays.

1215
01:39:42,865 --> 01:39:45,026
Right. That's the name of your space.

1216
01:39:45,026 --> 01:39:51,865
Yeah, that's what I do on Twitter on Sunday mornings at 8.30 Eastern time, depending on what your time zone is.

1217
01:39:52,385 --> 01:39:57,165
Definitely a good time for Europeans to join in because it's early afternoon for them.

1218
01:39:57,665 --> 01:39:58,265
Yeah, yeah.

1219
01:39:58,425 --> 01:39:59,585
And it's great fun.

1220
01:39:59,745 --> 01:40:01,425
I join every now and then.

1221
01:40:02,085 --> 01:40:08,205
I think I've even been invited to host it at one point, but unfortunately I couldn't do it that time around.

1222
01:40:08,205 --> 01:40:13,765
Well, I have plenty of vacations, so to have you fill in the guest post would be really nice.

1223
01:40:13,765 --> 01:40:14,885
Anytime, man.

1224
01:40:15,026 --> 01:40:16,105
I love it.

1225
01:40:16,185 --> 01:40:17,225
Next month.

1226
01:40:17,305 --> 01:40:18,725
I got a week in November.

1227
01:40:20,485 --> 01:40:22,745
Anywhere else on the internet where you want to send our listeners

1228
01:40:22,745 --> 01:40:24,026
or anything you want to promote?

1229
01:40:24,665 --> 01:40:28,505
I think if you're going to read some of my stuff,

1230
01:40:28,685 --> 01:40:31,425
there's some really interesting articles that are finding a second life.

1231
01:40:31,785 --> 01:40:34,165
They're on my medium, so tomerstorlight.medium.com.

1232
01:40:34,505 --> 01:40:36,685
There's one that people are really enjoying a lot lately.

1233
01:40:36,845 --> 01:40:38,685
I've had a lot of requests to read it.

1234
01:40:38,905 --> 01:40:40,565
It's called Hello, I am Bitcoin.

1235
01:40:41,205 --> 01:40:41,945
Oh, yeah, that one.

1236
01:40:42,405 --> 01:40:44,465
Yeah, it's like Bitcoin speaking to you.

1237
01:40:44,465 --> 01:40:46,765
I wrote in the first person view of mine.

1238
01:40:47,026 --> 01:40:51,105
So if you want to talk, if you want to listen to Bitcoin, that's a good one.

1239
01:40:51,105 --> 01:41:00,065
And another one that's been finding a little bit more life and enthusiasm is called Why People Wonder If Bitcoin Is Alien Technology,

1240
01:41:00,245 --> 01:41:04,145
where I talk about how different Bitcoin's technology is from everything else on Earth.

1241
01:41:04,585 --> 01:41:08,605
And so there's like four or five unique things that Bitcoin does that nothing else on Earth does.

1242
01:41:09,065 --> 01:41:12,225
And so it makes people wonder, well, maybe Satoshi was an alien.

1243
01:41:12,225 --> 01:41:22,305
No, I've read them both and I love them. They're great pieces of work. So go check out Tomer's

1244
01:41:22,305 --> 01:41:24,905
stuff. And yeah, nice to have you on again.

1245
01:41:24,905 --> 01:41:27,825
Yeah, thank you for inviting me. It's been too long.

1246
01:41:27,825 --> 01:41:33,925
Yeah, it has. Live long and prosper. And to everyone else, this has been the Bitcoin

1247
01:41:33,925 --> 01:41:40,205
Infinity Show. Go like, subscribe and brush your teeth and all of that. And see you next

1248
01:41:40,205 --> 01:41:40,465
time.

1249
01:41:40,865 --> 01:41:41,125
Cheers.

1250
01:41:41,225 --> 01:41:41,725
Thanks, Tomer.

1251
01:41:41,725 --> 01:41:42,345
Bye-bye.