There's a very real possibility to radically alter our future so that our children can be free. Because right now it looks dark. Like we're in line at the fucking concentration camps and it's very clear that you're gonna get a fucking tattoo that's gonna be used to track you forever. If that's what you want, that's fine, but I'm not gonna fucking do it. And I'm not gonna put my kids in it and I'm gonna help every single person struggle away from that as I can. Because it's fucking wrong.
That's all it is. It is plain wrong. It is despicable and deplorable that other human beings want to do that to you because they are terrified of what it means to have other people empowered in this world. So my call to action to other bit coiners is speak about the real truth of bitcoin. This has nothing to do with the economics means.
It has to do with the ethical means of what it means when you have rogue, warmongering, violent heathens who control the economic means for the world and they use it to kill other human beings. Like that, that's my bottom line. These pieces of shit who don't care about other humans utilize their position of power to make money to kill other people. That's why they do it.
So if that's something that you don't want and I don't think you do, you should really think hard about what we're trying to do here and help us achieve it. Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs. My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin podcast. The Bitcoin time chain is 845942 and the value of one bitcoin is still one bitcoin. Today's episode is Bitcoin talk where I talk with my guest about bitcoin and whatever else comes up. Today, that guest is Eric Kasin.
Eric worked at Coinbase in the early days, but he now focuses on writing and educating people about bitcoin and everything that comes along with that. He just published the book Crypto Sovereignty, which I highly recommend you check out. Eric and I went deep into discussions about the state, the law, sovereignty, cryptography, political disillusionment, personal growth, the nature of truth and a whole lot more.
We also dig deep into the perils of CBDCs and totalitarianism and what Bitcoiners who actually give a shit about the future should do about it. I love the way Eric thinks and he goes on some pretty incredible and inspiring rants during our chat. I am very confident you will enjoy the heck out of this conversation. I know I did. Before we dive in, do me a favor and subscribe to the Bitcoin podcast wherever you're listening or watching and give this show a five star rating.
Or don't, bitcoin doesn't care, but I certainly would appreciate it. Also, just a heads up that you can find referral links in the show notes to get discounts on the bitcoin only Bitbox O2 hardware wallet from Bitbox and on 5G SIM cards from Cloak Wireless that protect you from SIM swap attacks. The promo code is Walker for both. If you'd rather watch the show than listen, head to the show notes for links to watch on YouTube, Brumble and now on Noster.
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Finally, if you are a Bitcoin only company interested in sponsoring another fucking Bitcoin podcast, hit me up on social media or through the website, bitcoinpodcast.net. Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk with Eric Cason. Music Man, thanks for coming on. It's been a... For anything last time I saw you, I think was in Miami maybe? Or maybe... Yeah, maybe... Brog, something like that. Were you at Madera or no?
I was not. I wanted to be really badly, but our little guy was only a couple of months old at that time. He was just born in December, so we were like, ah, that's a bit early to be taking a trip overseas with him. But I'd like to think he'll be at the next one. So it looked like an awesome time. Yeah, Madera's probably been my favorite one so far. So yeah, I guess it was probably Miami hanging out at Sailor's Mansion, which is like a weird thing.
Like a strangely surreal thing where you're like, how am I here right now? Yeah, particularly like he wants to have dialogue and I'm like, what am I... Who am I to talk with you about really anything? So... Yeah, it's kind of the funny thing about this. And obviously you've been around this space for a lot longer than I have.
But in my few short years of diving down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and then going to conferences and getting to know Bitcoiners, it's kind of crazy like these conversations and these doors open up that you just didn't ever think you'd have access to. And like you end up just talking with people, you're like, this is really amazing and also really surreal. Like in the best possible way where you're just kind of like feeling grateful to be there.
But it's a cool feeling where it's like, oh, this is a group of people who genuinely give a shit about the direction the world is heading and are willing to open up themselves and their lives to other people who have similar interests in the general betterment of our species, which is not such a concentrated group of people thinking like that that I've ever found myself in before until Bitcoin. So that's a beautiful thing.
Oh, yeah, I mean, it's pretty phenomenal. And in a lot of ways, like to me, like that's sort of the real radical framework it has is that like it gets everybody together like at the root of the problem of giving a shit about really trying to transform humanity in a meaningful way. And it's really interesting because like you'll have these conversations with other Bitcoiners
who really get it. And then you talk to, you know, like a normie who and I deeply emphasize like this is an extremely complex thing to sort of get to the bottom to. But yeah, it reminds me of the Henry David's throw quote of like there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil, but one who hacks at the root. And I think he wrote that in not citizenship in the Republic.
I'll butcher it if I try to figure out which book it was. But I think it's really important in that like it's first of all, one is that like it's really started to accelerate in the last few years because people are really getting how broken the system is sort of universally and across the board. But I think more importantly is that like by asking the these like really radical questions
about like what is the nature of truth, reality, our existence, what does it mean to be in our world? It seems to put forth a very radical question that unites all people and that like we get to actually break out of the NBC framework and like have real questions about like, hey, like shit super fucked up, right? And like it seems there's like, and even if it's conspiracy, there like seems to be evidence that there is
a satanic cabal of child eating politicians that like are actually running the world. And like even if that's not true, there seems to be something pretty off. So like how are we actually going to deal with it in a meaningful way? And how are we actually going to,
and even more importantly, like how do we do it in a nonviolent way? And to me, like that's the most radical thing that Bitcoin does is it sort of pushes the nonviolent praxis of economic means to its most extreme place that then sort of beautifully unfolds in this way that we seem to all be discovering together that there is a way to actually change the world positively without violence. Which which is truly a radical thing because every revolution in history has been an incredibly bloody one.
Like there's you, I don't think I'm sure that somebody much smarter than I could find a way to reason around that and find some caveat to that. But generally, when there is a revolution taking place, a lot of people die. And necessarily, a lot of people who had nothing to do with that revolution on either side end up dying. And of course, you know, some of the folks at the top, you know, the heads get cut off of the snakes in power.
But a lot of other people's heads get chopped off in the process. And the idea that we can have a truly paradigm shifting revolution without not only all the collateral damage, but without like the bloodshed period is kind of an incredible thing to think about. And I think that that's really difficult for people to wrap their minds around because we've just been so
inundated for so many generations. I mean, basically for all of human history with if you want something to change, well, it's going to be messy, like really messy. And maybe that's why it's so difficult for people to to come around to Bitcoin in some ways, because it's like, well, that can't possibly work. Like it's going to need to be different than that. You know, people are going to have to die and, you know, people die regardless.
But like the idea that we can change things, but also change the way that we change things is really powerful, I think. Absolutely. I mean, like I go past even calling it revolutionary, because to me, like this isn't another cycle of history to repeat itself. But this is a fundamentally breaking of that paradigm. And to me, like it, Bitcoin really allows a production of ethics as a philosophy as a first philosophy.
And it's about the determination of what rights does the other actually have to possess their own property, including their bodies itself. And I think that that's one of the most radical ideas is that like, we can have an ethical practice where I can say you are entitled to own something for yourself entirely.
And like that's done through a secret cryptographic key, which also is like this apex of technology of war that, you know, really the only thing that was more important than the development of the nuclear weapons during World War Two was the development of cryptography.
And I think it's really essential and important to understand that like this, this isn't just like fun magic internet money, but like this is the absolute apex of war carried out through an economic means using a discretionary means to essentially achieve that. And those discretionary means are using the fuseation of cryptography and then possibility to ever randomly guess your private key.
And so like once we can actually force that ethical practice to the forefront of being a philosophical idea of that, like, we actually have rights to own not only our economic wealth, but our bodies as well. And to me like this is where the paradigm of what the state's doing and how they want to control and own our actual lives intersects with the economic means of what it means to be alive today.
And it's, it gets continually crazy, you know, and I oscillate a lot between positions of wanting to retreat into my own very beautiful private life and you understand all of the things that are there.
And on the opposite side of, you know, like I want to help go build the vanguard that is going to educate the masses on like why and how they need these tools and power in order to keep themselves essentially out of the state's panopticon and their systems of control that are clearly tightening the news very dramatically right now.
I think that that's one of the real challenges that I completely feel on my side as well now having a having a child and realizing that, okay, I now have a whole different appreciation for giving a shit about the future, because even after I'm gone, there is somebody who I care about so incredibly deeply that will still be living. And having to carry on in this world.
And it's one of those things that you can like theorize about and you know pontificate about before you have kids then you have kids and it's like everybody's right it does change everything. But there's this, this kind of friction almost between okay, I want to, as you said, you know, go out and be at the vanguard and try to educate the masses and and wake people up.
And then at the same time you're like, but you know, is it better if I just kind of retreat a little more inwards and stay more, more isolated and just focus on family and perhaps those two things are also not mutually exclusive and needn't be, because you can still very much focus on family and and set an example for that family by being at the vanguard and by trying to actually practice what you preach but it's a it's a difficult thing I think and as in the coming years as
the wealth that has been accumulated by Bitcoiners continues to, you know, appreciate. There's going to be a lot of tendency to say well you know what, like, fuck it, this is everything's fucked. I'm out, like it's not even worth trying let me just go and try to stay as far out of this mess as I possibly can isolate myself and my family and you know hope that the the fiat fuckery doesn't have tentacles that reach this far.
But I don't think that's a long term strategy, you know, it's, it's a nice hope, but it's like nothing changes unless people change it.
And so you have to kind of, it's a tough balance though it's like it's something that I think about a lot. And again, especially more so now that I've got a little, a little son who's, you know, starting to start wandering around the world soon like it's a, it's a difficult thing to kind of grapple with but I think it's something we all have to grapple with if we're going to figure out what we actually want to do. Versus, you know, just being passive and sitting back and watching things happen.
Yeah, I actually think at sort of the apex of those two different lives they fuse into a single where like if if you're really living like your highest spiritual self and destiny like you know I could imagine Carla is going to very actively support you and be like, yeah like you need to go out and like be the man that you know I want to like be the little man you're just suing for because I mean one you're just dashing to start with but
but also just you know like that I've noticed that for myself of that, if I can be who I'm supposed to be at my greatest like that means I'm gonna be out in the world doing what my purpose is and furthermore like that should help secure my personal family life more so and for me the big one is You know like I have a really hard time with my parents and sort of the paradigm and like they don't get any of this They try their best to support but frankly like their NPCs
and it's just really difficult because You know like mom's a phenomenal grandmother, and I'm very very happy to have her and her support, but She has this very small view of that like we just have to take care of our kids right now in this moment And I'm like look like I'm concerned about what happens in 150 years when my son is on his deathbed like how do I make sure?
That he has greater opportunity than I did how do I make sure he doesn't feel betrayed in the same way that I feel betrayed by you and that Things are way worse for us than it was for our parents
And and my truth is is that like that's on them. That was their responsibility They tried to fight in the 60s, you know like we saw what happened in the DNC convention in 68 and those sort of things But really what my experience that I pull away from that is is that when they were sort of defeated by the
Final creation of going to a fiat standard. They just sort of wouldn't well, you know like maybe this will work for us And now I think like we have this very radical privilege to need to actually renew the political destiny of what being America What being American is and I think like in the whole context of Bitcoin us as being Americans I think we have a special privilege
And that like in the same way that Americans were the first to create the idea of a republic and actually push that out into the world And change the political destiny of humanity I think we're at the same place again And we need to renew that American dream and it's not gonna be done by either one of these parties but it's gonna be done by a Radical and I wouldn't call a third party but like a radical new political praxis
That has nothing to do with our contemporary political system and that's frankly what Bitcoin is starting from an economic standpoint And as it pushes out like I actually believe that that the economic Theorem of Bitcoin is quite secondary to the political one And that's why my book is crypto sovereignty is that like I think in the digital age cryptography itself Ah, thank you very much
Of course in the in the in the digital age cryptography itself like it becomes the preeminent power and particularly with the mass surveillance with LLMs being deployed sort of universally at this point like The only way that you will be free in the digital age is if you understand how cryptography protects you and the right methodology Is to implement that otherwise you will be a slave to the system and there won't be escape Yeah, it's
This is something I really wanted to pick your brain about actually just because as it relates to the The political and I would I would completely agree with you that We do have an American privilege that we have gained because of the actions of our forebears because of the actions of For the most part very young men You know most of whom are the most of the founders of our country were younger than than you and I are and They were out there Henry with 17 which is insane
Like I was a fuckhead at 17 God, but you know Times were different right and and you got you got smart and you got courageous by by force often not necessarily by choice But not everybody rose to that challenge of force that was presented But I I think that you're absolutely right that now we are at a similar inflection point where we have Because of Bitcoin because of strong cryptography Because of the internet because of new means of communication that we have
We have a chance to shift the paradigm of what? What society what humanity looks like going forward and At the same time In you know as an American I'll speak firm for Americans or speak from an American perspective here when we look at the the duopoly of the Republican Democrat red blue, you know this this false dichotomy that's been forced upon us that it's either Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola, you know, you've got a you got to pick one team to be on and okay
sacrifice your morals and just choose the lesser of two evils because at least this evil isn't quite as bad as the other evil, right and 50% of the population thinks that that is true of their guy and 50% thinks that it's true of their guy and back and forth we go in this round robin cycle of Just repeating the same shit over and over again, but always this time is different, right?
This time our guy is gonna make change happen this time You know this is the most important election of our lifetime every election is the most important election of our lifetime This time we'll fix it, right? We'll fix it. We'll finally keep our promises but they never do and This is not to single out Republicans or Democrats because something that I say ad nauseam to the point where
Carla is you know will will laugh every time I say it now is there is no red. There is no blue There is the state and there is you And some people would push back and say well, yeah, but you know look at look at Biden and you know Trump's not nearly what Biden is and it's like I'm not just talking about Trump and Biden I'm talking about this never-ending fucking cycle of political depravity and widespread systemic theft that has been foisted upon a now somewhat
unknowing but waking up a little bit populous and I'm curious of your perspective because now, you know The whole Trump hush money to you know a porn star is is all over everywhere And you see a lot of people also with Trump now having a changed script about you know Bitcoin and crypto Not the kind of crypto you talk about in crypto sovereignty, but you know the buzzword of Dijour crypto You see a lot of Bitcoiners coming in saying well see you know Trump's gonna Trump's gonna be pro Bitcoin
Trump's gonna free Ross even though his administration reviewed Ross as one of the potential pardons last time it didn't do it even though Trump's DOJ indicted Julian Assange on 17 counts of the Espionage Act which is So reprehensible it makes me sick
But no we'll forget about that. He's gonna be different this time this time he'll drain the swamp even though he filled it last time this time He'll fix things and on the other side, of course if Trump you know from the Democrat point of view if Trump gets elected
Again, it will again be the end of democracy as we know it. I mean just this non-stop hyperbole So I mean what's what's your feeling on all of this our our Bitcoiners let's maybe we can talk more from the Bitcoin perspective our Bitcoiners Falling into the same traps as the NPCs right now It is maybe this time is different, you know, maybe am I being too? to jaded Or am I to jaded with all of this thinking that no
Nothing's gonna change. You can't change the system from within the system I'd love to know your take on that because it's something that I'm currently just battling with and trying to figure out for myself Yeah, uh, I guess this is a good place for a rant, uh, like first of all anybody who believes like rudder blue like like get fucked Like like I fucking hate the very idea that you believe that that your piece of shit corrupt party
That is obviously involved in systematic corruption at the deepest fucking levels can somehow Change because you have a new and different guy like This is just the general functions of how this system operates and then incentives are so incredibly Misaligned that is designed for the most Reprehensible and disgusting forms of corruption and like the the the thing that disgusts me the most is that like These motherfuckers are cheap Like it it costs like
$20,000 to buy a fucking senator to vote for something that's not really worth it The fucking senator to vote for something you want like think about that from it like that's not even you could Most normal people could just put down six months of their salary And if they desperately cared enough they could fully sponsor a fucking bill to get rammed through like it is Horrible and disgusting so when I meet people that try to tell me, you know
Like Trump's gonna be the end of America first of all I go So how the fuck was he the president for four years didn't start any new fucking wars and actually left when it was time to do that Meanwhile your senile guy is out here Giving more money to foreign wars than to our entire fucking military corps like it's absolutely Crazy and you think getting a new person in here will change something and to me this is why first of all I go
I don't vote. I think it's an absolutely fucking pointless endeavor that gives people a false hope That's really about not wanting to deal with the existential angst of Seeing that like we're actually fucking slaves and they give us a very small margin of things to talk about and vote about and to upset and anger us So meanwhile like these assholes can funnel billions of dollars to themselves their buddies their cronies their industries and to use that money
To go kill innocent people abroad under the auspices that that somehow represents American interests It is fucking disgusting and deplorable anytime I meet anyone who says well We have to fight the Russians or we have to support the Ukrainians or we have to bomb the Palestinians Or we have to make sure that the Houthis all die like fuck you if you want to go kill people tell you what you go get a Gun go abroad and go fight those people
I'll be very happy for you in doing that and maybe you'll actually learn something that like Uh, human life is actually like a beautiful and incredible thing and maybe we shouldn't just eliminate it for whatever causes we believe um So like I find the whole political process disgusting and I would really like to see a radical and again I don't want to call a third party because I really want it to be a movement that has nothing to do with our political system
Of where I can meet other people that would go. Yeah, like fuck either one of these people And if you come to me being like well, it has to be the democrats that are public Fuck you. You're a fucking traitor to the the american ideal
You're a traitor to the u.s. Constitution and you represent a disgusting and deplorable violent apparatus that you can't change that you're a slave to and you would rather live in your own pedantic fantasies about creating some fucking change That'll never come about because it's just not designed to operate that way um, and I think bitcoiners on a whole uh We're tempted in the same way and to me I've really found the last two years has been extremely valuable for me to find the division between
Who I consider real bitcoiners as cypher punks and who I think are status bitcoiners who really like number go up They really like the idea of this sort of libertarian idea that we can sort of restrain government a little bit Uh, and I'm frankly like I think it's a fucking stupid idea and I'm very worried and concerned about how the etf's and financial bitcoin is capturing a lot of the core cryptographic procedures that allow for bitcoin to actually operate as it has so
But yeah, I find the the whole american dialogue really despicable and I think a lot of it comes down to Most people just don't actually want to engage in critical thought they just want to repeat a lot of the shit they hear on the news the media and otherwise and uh You know like I had a much older friend visit this last week. Uh, he's very hardcore liberal, uh And I just find a lot of his perspective is confusing and I think he does as well and hasn't given much thought to it
Because he'll he'll repeat a lot of this stuff. He says on the news and and like I'll ask him stuff like well, so like why do you support this war in ukraine? Like it doesn't make sense to me that like innocent people are dying over there And to me the preeminent idea in politics is who gets to live and who gets to die So like why are you supporting people dying who you've never met?
Like it doesn't make sense to me and he just didn't have a good answer to it other than you know Like seems to be that Putin's real bad guy and we got to stop him It's the first of all uh here here uh on the despicable nature of the the dialogue and I think that this is such a key point that you mentioned where When you actually get into conversation because I still have You know a lot of what we would call that you know normie friends um who I love very dearly and will continue being my friends
Uh for a long time and we you know, that's the thing you don't have to agree with somebody on absolutely everything um and you can have friends that are uh Diometrically opposed to you in certain views that you can still find a lot of commonality with
Um and you don't find friendship frankly amen. I think that's something that we seem to uh Not we as you and I but we as the collective seem to have lost the ability to do in some ways But sometimes you know you get into these conversations with people and and you just genuinely realize Oh, you just really haven't thought about this like at all Like you really you are truly just parroting A couple of lines that you've heard like you're and you're not even parroting the you know
The the the body paragraphs of what you heard. You're just parroting the headlines like you you you haven't even gone You know you didn't even open and read the article like you're just you're just truly spouting off the top line and and when you realize that It's like oh, okay so this is It it's a knowledge problem, but it's also a I think A curiosity problem or maybe you could say a laziness problem
Uh and perhaps by the to give a little bit more of uh benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it's also an inability to access good information problem Because in you know good information because we are inundated and information is growing exponentially It is increasingly difficult to sift through the noise to find the signal Especially if you are your brain is not well equipped to do so if you have not actively tried to train yourself to do so
Because it is a skill and like any skill it needs to be worked at But I see so many people whether it's in uh, you know in the real world or on the You know in in the real world or on the you know digital real world and on on x. Let's say Complaining about you know this problem or that problem whether they're on the you know on the left They're complaining about one side on the right. They're complaining about another set of problems
And that's all they seem to do is complain about the problems. Um and and it's never Never talk of the solution and it's and even if they do think they're talking about a solution
They're never talking about a real solution. They're talking about a band aid. They're talking about a a political Uh a political win that is presented as a solution But it's really just a means to an end To get whoever is pushing this solution Elected in the next cycle so that we can continue the same song and dance all over again and I think that I do have the sense that more people are starting to
Open their eyes and to wake up because the pain is starting to get you know, if we look at just something like like inflation Uh and you know price is rising as a result of this inflation We don't even have to get in the fact that most people think that inflation is just some animal spirit of the market that comes out of nowhere and you know, the fed will fix it by You know stopping printing money for a little while and they'll start again once you don't see it anymore, but
They they're starting to feel the pain so much that they're realizing. Okay. Maybe there's a deeper problem than I thought There was and maybe these lines that I've been fed You know, I don't see any change happening So maybe I'm being fed some bullshit, but I think there are still so many people who maybe are getting to that stage But then start to feel quite nihilistic because they don't they don't see the solution yet
And I mean the real solution the change in the base layer the change in the incentives at the base layer And without seeing that I can see why it would be easy to get nihilistic
Um, it's it's an easy trap to fall into optimism. I think is harder to have than nihilism it always But and and I just want to point out that that nihilism is an extremely important and powerful factor and Causing for that descent because when You reach that level of nihilism, it's like well, why shouldn't I engage in the same criminal processes? Why shouldn't I get the same money for me? What like this is just how the game is played?
And there is no good. There is no evil. There is no god. There is no purpose There's no ethics. So why don't I just gather up the most things that I can and take care of myself? And even people that that really empathize and see that this system can't be solved They look at it and they go, well, there's no solution. So why don't I just engage over on this side? And I think uh, what you pointed out of that
People can't sift through the information. So a lot of times they they grab whatever main thing comes up for them They read it and then they regurgitate it and I feel very strongly that most people think that that's thinking Most people genuinely believe that if they repeat something an authority said that that is a form of thought and it's not and It's really upsetting to me because I'm I'm very pedantic about this with some friends of that like
Thought is about the rigorous form of logic that is connected through a chain of reasoning Like that's what thought is and you can do it all on your own And so like when I ask you something like do innocent people deserve to be bombed because they're associated with people like Hamas Most people say no immediately and it goes. Well, so why the fuck are your policies supporting something entirely different?
like that that seems to be a very real disconnect from thought, you know and uh It's very painful because I think a lot of people And I think this relates to my book too and that uh, like I'm very pedantic about the Hobbesian maximum of the idea that Uh authority not truth is the purveyor of legitimacy and I think over the last 500 years that very core form that the state is on of itself has overtaken the entirety of the philosophical paradigm of life so that most people when it goes
Okay, well like I'm sick with covid like that means I'm gonna die and I have to go to the doctor and get 700 injections and Do all the different things that they say to save myself When the truth is is that they have just implemented that same form of thought of where I'm not worthy of figuring out for myself how to help my body I have to go to somebody else who knows more about my own body than I ever could And they can only impart that information to me that I then use to heal myself
And it's very tragic because that same authoritarian form of What some would call thought Is really a thing that prevents people from thinking at all because they don't have the esteem confidence or capacity in themselves to say Maybe I can know and understand this for myself first and foremost And to me like this is this is part of the much more important thing that bitcoin seems to secretly unveil to people Is the idea of a higher power purpose and a sense of self-control is that like
Maybe actually The answers are already inside of me and maybe if I love myself enough believe in myself enough and actually challenge myself to do the work
That through the process of doing the work. I can discover what the truth is on my own And to me like that's one of the other radical things bitcoin represents is that like we're We're about a process of proof of work through this rigorous chain of logic at any point in the bitcoin time chain We can go back and figure out the very exact methodology mathematically of how we got to that block And that's extremely important because pretty much every other system says don't do the work
Listen to the authority plug the answer in you're good to go. Yeah I you hit the nail right on the head there and you know, I this is actually a nice opportunity because I would like to know a little bit and I think it's helpful for other people uh to hear about kind of personal journeys a little bit and and what What changed in you because uh, you know, whoever we are here today sitting here is not who we always were
Right. We are we are constantly learning and evolving and and trying to figure things out or at least we should be You know, that's that's that's that's the goal is to constantly create a more evolved version of yourself a better version And I'd love to know and I this is a a very simple question. I ask but I find that it elicits very Uh, very nice answers is just who are you and how did you get here today to be now writing?
Uh or to have written a a book that was many years in the works. I know crypto sovereignty What what was your journey and perhaps another way of saying this what what opened your eyes? Uh, you know, assuming they were at one point closed to everything you now see Was there a turning point that opened your eyes and and how did you make it all the way here?
Yeah, it's a big question and I think uh, I think for starting Uh, when I was much younger teenager, uh, I became really fascinated with history and with world war two and you know For all the different propaganda and media that we get with it And so I traveled to europe by myself to really kind of find myself and who I was and part of that process was really Exploring all these war memorials going to different concentration camps
visiting secret police prisons kind of learning about all this and I was truly horrified to like learn that there was uh Uh, first of all just learning about the holocaust. I was like how the fuck is it possible that? Debating whatever the numbers are like there was very clearly a systematic form of genocide that was carried out to eliminate the entire populations of people men women children all sorts
And I was just like how the fuck is this even possible? Like how how did this happen? And then like
Learning that we'd say never again and then like every single decade. There was a successive horrific systematic genocide that occurred again And I'll just like how is it possible this thing continues to glitch out And so in that sort of approach I saw that liberalism and socialism at the time had this really core anti-war principle that I linked up with and you know participated in the protests of the iraq war in 2003 and those sort of things
So I was really committed to those ideals because I didn't understand any of the economic theorem at that point Uh, and so when occupy came along everyone was organized really great movement felt powerful all kinds of great things And as I got involved with it I really learned that there was no economic basis to sort of anything that they were saying it was all sort of wishful thinking and hoping Which was really nice
But then experiencing the actual failure of that not only because of the economic means but the the capacity to not organize in a thoughtful way Uh, I realized it was all like a shitload of virtue signaling to like go get ourselves beat up so we could come back and be like Well, we tried our best. Let's go vote for the democrats Uh, and ironically like in those first protests some like a literal massed anarchists that I started talking to is like
Yo, there's this like bitcoin thing. You should check it out. It's really important I was like, yeah, whatever magic internet money. Um, after occupy failed I was kicked out of graduate school Like lost my job like didn't have any money had to move home Uh, this was on the back end of like a bipolar episode where I had been manic through all of occupy and then in the afterwards I crashed into like really a suicidal depression
Uh, because I didn't feel like there was any solution or hope or possibility. So like why what's even the fucking point?
And sort of like in that I like remembered hearing about bitcoin I like read the wired article that they had wrote about it and I was like, oh, this is weird So I started studying it more and more and that opened me up not only to Uh, austrian economics, but also like deeper philosophy of you know, just reading adam smith and ricardo and others And I really was like, oh, okay, like this economic thing is really really really important in a way that I didn't understand
And slowly just studying from all of the questions that I had that were never answered in school Which again, I thought was pretty weird that like I had You know, like one of my degrees is in history the other degree is in international relations with a focus on international economics I was really surprised at how little I actually knew about any of this So as I pulled back more and more layers eventually
The real key point for me was when I had read an article about guys that were uh, like getting money out of china using bitcoin At the time and that's one like a real key hit for me I was like, oh, these guys can get around capital controls from like the most powerful Communist regime in the world. How the hell is that possible?
And for me that that's what really sort of opened things up where I was like, oh Like if this can challenge the power of the chinese communist party that like this is one of the most radical things that there is And for me that started a journey kind of up into the right from a recovery not only from my depression But really understanding that there's an actual way to change the world meaningfully so Luckily after getting rejected from coinbase for a bunch of different positions
They finally brought me on when they were kind of desperate for bodies and just like needed someone uh, and that was sort of my uh Base level education and all things bitcoin of where like I really got to level up understand things really get deeper into cryptography coding All that stuff And I felt deeply empowered by it and it really helped me understand that the perspectives I had were really important and now
Now I was really compelled by this other question of like how like what is cryptography and why does it achieve this new level of sovereignty for us? How is that possible?
and sort of from that like each question that sort of Explored in crypto sovereignty was explored and these were all actually that wrote on my own for myself because I was really curious about this and wanted to dive deeper um and meanwhile like I it's kind of funny my bookshelf over here is like my entire philosophy bookshelf which In 2014 I just gave myself permission that any philosophical text that I wanted I could buy and have a physical book for and that I would then try to read
uh, and it was hugely powerful because I realized that there was this whole area of um Not only learning but like this different form of learning this like really critical form of learning that was like about Rewriting everything that I had learned was really possible and it felt really good and so as I explored those more I realized that uh, like I'm a deep thinker that Philosophical questions are really important to me and then seemed to have a relationship to cryptography that I was really
Really excited to explore So eventually after doing a lot of these podcasts and other things and just finding that people wanted to talk to me Which I found shocking just because in normal world like I'm just a freak, you know like I don't want to say people don't like me, but let's just So so often in conversation I get these glaze overs um and it was really only until I had like met some of my My closest friends today who are bitcoins that they were really able to go like you're
You're not like a freak a weirdo or an idiot like you're you're actually you have a lot of intelligence in a way that most people don't have So when you put that out there it really scares people and they don't understand what you're talking about So they'd rather act like you're an idiot and a weirdo Then really engage with you um And it's been a really healthy and powerful process of learning to love myself and learning that my uniqueness is an important thing that
In that reflection from bitcoiners has really raised me to a higher task. And so for me, uh Bitcoin has really been about a deeper spiritual awakening of learning to love myself Because of my own thoughts my own approaches and the relationships that I get to build through that and so now I feel a very deep call and purpose towards bitcoin that uh Not only do I feel completely unworthy of and incapable of achieving
But that I still must strive for and through the relationships that I build with other people in the way that they can love and appreciate me
I feel such a deep gratitude that I sort of want to redouble into it. Um And it's really important because like and it's kind of hokey, but like, you know, the the real wealth we make with bitcoin is like the friends we make along the way I mean amen to that and and thank you for for sharing that journey because uh It's amazing to see Like bitcoin is this This network this code this money this technology, right?
And somehow you wouldn't think that this sort of thing that exists in this, uh, you know digital, uh, ether, uh, not ethereum to an actual ether could could could have such a profound effect on so many people
Uh, like like yourself like me like so many bitcoiners. I talked to that it is part of this larger awakening And I think that that's a really profound thing that again is one of the reasons I love to talk with people about bitcoin Uh and honestly, especially people whose eyes are not yet open, uh, to the way the world works and the way that the world could work also You know, their their eyes are not open to the depravity that exists now
And they're also not open to the possibilities that exist in the future and it's Not everybody is ready to open their eyes But when you find people that are and that genuinely start to engage with these ideas And don't just have their eyes glaze over most of the time. That's the case, right?
Like because most people just aren't ready and that's the the sad fact But when you do find somebody who's ready to engage That's really powerful because you can see the wheels start to turn you can see that process
And it's not something that somebody can walk you through all the way. That's that's not the point of it It's a journey you have to take alone But you meet some incredible people along the way and you find out more about yourself and it forces you to genuinely question your beliefs And the things that you thought you were thinking but you may have just been as you said earlier
Regurgitating which is not thinking at all. That's just you know, that's just mimicry. That's just uh being being the puppet not the puppeteer And so I I want to thank you for sharing that journey because that's It's uh, I'm very uh, very glad to have met you personally and and to now be talking with you here and that's That's all because of this anonymous nobody who decided to step back from one of the most incredible discoveries in human history Because that person or persons
Existed and decided to do something that was radically different from from anything somebody had done before and then to step away from it And that's just that's an incredible thing It's incredible that that the actual person is a person Incredible that the actions of Of one or a few can have such a profound impact on so many And I think that's an important thing for people to remember is that sometimes we feel that we
What can little old me do right? Well if Satoshi had thought that we wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation today We wouldn't be sitting here at the precipice of a paradigm shift that is potentially going to rewrite The way we work as a species how we organize as a society And so I would encourage everyone to to never think that little old you can't do anything because If you think like that you never will and you know speaking of kind of deeper philosophical questions
One thing I wanted to get into you with a little bit Uh, this is a slight gear shift, but I really wanted to pick your brain on it is the idea of rights and sovereignty Uh at a kind of fundamental level and and perhaps I can just start with this question Do you think we have rights Uh and put a different way. Do you believe that rights are given? Are they taken or are they naturally emergent?
and and self-evident I would go with the latter I think they're naturally emergent and self-evident And I think one is if you trace the concourse of human history and you go back 3 000 years like they're they're obviously were no rights imparted by a state But I think there were rights imparted by nature And I mean I think this returns us back to Plato's Republic and the very reason why the Athenian stranger
Starts the entire engagement of the dialogue of like why you don't need the gods is because like you just live in harmony with nature here Um and I think that that's really important because part of the achievement of what the enlightenment was was showing that there is this There is a truth to nature that is part of a form of rigorous logic and reasoning and part of that rigorous logic and reasoning is is like
I shouldn't just violently achieve all the things that I want for myself because like that causes for a very real crisis and discord amongst The natural world whereas like if we can actually live in peace and harmony with one another like that actually produces a much greater and more beautiful world And it's kind of interesting that like this is sort of uh This was something that Hobbes talked about in Leviathan is that the idea of that like if we don't have
The achievement of law like there there's no culture. There's no writing. There's no literature Like there there's none of the things that we've been able to achieve as a human species And so like law is something absolutely essential that we need
And the achievement of the west falian state. I actually think was was one of the quintessential achievements that humanity was able to create But there was also very radical and difficult problems again I think part of the achievement of what the west falian state created in 1648 at the piece of west failure was this idea of territorial Districtions that like all law universally applied to and I think that allowed for us the achievement to get into modernity
Which was again essential for the forms of life that we need today However, like in the concourse of the last 500 years We've witnessed the absolute corruption of the law from being About unifying and creating the justice towards nature into just being raw Authoritarian decrees that are supposed to overcome the truth to create legitimacy And that's like created a super fucked up world However, what satoshi proved to us vis-a-vis mathematics is that like you can create
legitimacy through truth itself a truth that's beyond authority that that only speaks through mathematics And it's almost like this very beautiful unfolding of the re-achievement of law through digital means And now the difference is is that through digital means instead of I need to have rights imparted to me by a state to not be violated I'm giving those rights directly through mathematics itself
And so like you want to steal all my bitcoin? You're absolutely welcome to please guess my 12 words. Can you do it?
you know and uh And I always find it really fun and interesting when I'm talking to people that aren't down the rabbit hole and how often they're like Well 12 words like I got that down and I was like what if I actually told you if you had the most powerful Supercomputer that had ever been developed and you had all the energy of the sun and you had all the time in the universe And you still couldn't do that
Do you actually think that's possible? I'm like their heads usually just explode there. Um but I think it's really important for us to really understand that what satoshi did was he didn't invent something He discovered something he discovered this new methodology To be able to create a form of legitimacy through truth alone and like that Fundamentally inverts the paradigm of what the state represents
And then I think it allows for an achievement of the truest form of law that humanity's ever encountered before And so I think as more and more people come to understand that and what that means for humanity Uh, I think there's a real possibility of of like There essentially being some great moment that like a lot of people wake up all at the same time and they choose to Create sort of a new political paradigm that will allow for the state to sort of atrophy and fall away
And for us to have this new form of law and I don't know what that is and who knows how long it'll take but It's one of those things of that like now that bitcoins out in the world that uh, we have strong cryptography deployed and decentralized To me, it's just a matter of time because like these Achievements and discoveries can't be taken back in the same way that like the development of the gun can't be taken away
Yeah, it's it's out there like the the genie is out of the bottle and you cannot put the genie back in Uh, and now we all have the genie Uh, the genie speaks to all of us and that's a beautiful thing and I I want to uh I want to build off of that a little bit because one of the things you talked about is the idea of the state falling away But still the importance of law and I think a lot of people I've noticed uh, both in personal discourses and online Get very confused about the idea of anarchy
And I think that it is one of the it's been such a propagandized bastardized perverted word Because of pop culture and and just general ignorance That people have have lost the meaning of what anarchy is and when somebody like you uh, or or myself or I was talking with With max cillibrand the other week when we talk about anarchy, we mean something very specific But people don't grasp that and they think it's this mad max lawlessness
Uh, you know chaos whatever but that could not be further from what it is So I I'd love if you could set the record straight perhaps on what Anarchy means and how anarchy and the law And really private property are actually intimately related and not diametrically opposed as the modern propaganda would have you believe Sure, uh, so I think a few things for For for a background understanding what anarchy is is first of all anarchy was a pejorative term that was developed in
1892 or 1894 after the assassination of presidential Garfield where someone who Identified themselves as a libertarian socialist walked up to the world's fair pulled out a revolver and shot him in the chest And he did that because he was a libertarian socialist Which is the classic terminology that was used for anarchism And as something I like to point out is that like anarchism for a long time had a very deep relationship with the development of socialist ideology well before Marxism
And wasn't a deep alliance with Marxist ideology up until the declaration of the communist manifesto That's when the libertarian socialist portion i.e. the anarchists approach Marx and they're like What's this fucking bullshit about using the state to achieve our means of a stateless society and Marx was like
Yeah, we need like a dictatorship of the proletariat. We've got to like take over the state Meanwhile, the leader of the the anarchist contingency back in was like get fucked like we want nothing to do with that uh, and they they They divided themselves off from the communist movement and went and created their own movement that uh because of the lack Of an actual economic paradigm that was meaningful anarchism essentially fell to the wayside in the 20th century to
Really kind of descend into this propaganda of that uh, this these were individuals that wanted no rulers which anarchy which means no rulers in latin Uh was what they wanted it didn't work because they didn't have an economic means or the ability to self organize in a powerful praxis In the same way that authoritarians could do so With all of that being said what anarchy really represents is is just the mutual agreements that people make amongst themselves to
have mutual relationships that are agreed upon And that's really the main thing is that it wants to utilize the idea of the non-aggression principle for individuals to make choices For themselves about what sort of contractual relationships that they engage within Now, I think the idea of private property and anarchy particularly from this some more classic libertarian socialist perspective
It didn't make sense for a long time and that's one of the reasons why uh, you had the idea of like anarcho capitalists Who that most theorists when you would approach them about that it was a pretty laughable idea Which I agree with in in the idea of the contemporary state with fiat money the idea of anarcho socialism Or of anarcho capitalism is like a pretty ludicrous idea however Bitcoin seems to be the thing that unifies that and allows for that to actually function in a new way because
In the i.e. law of bitcoin all I have to do is have my private key secured and that that alone allows me the Self-sovereignty of the law that is the bitcoin network and the promise of that if I have my
Private key secured and my bitcoin in that address. There is no exception to the law There is no state of emergency that can strip me of those rights that that is mine and mine alone as the law of bitcoin sort of achieves itself And I think that this is a really important thing and something that i'm sort of working on for my second book is that bitcoin seems to take these very powerful ideas from across the political spectrum
So it takes the most radical aspects of fascism the most radical aspects of communism And it synthesizes them to create the most radical form of liberalism that there has ever been And it's very strange that it utilizes these other political practices to do it because like the The fascist portion that I see is that like Satoshi Nakamoto as an authoritarian decree made a choice for 21 million units He made the system of how bitcoin mining would
Distribute all of those and like that was set that was his unitary choice that he made alone that other people are following In that there's this radical idea of that like my bitcoin is worth the exact same amount as your bitcoin I have the exact same rights to the bitcoin network that you have Uh like my address is it just as identifiable to your address and like that's totally homogenized through cryptography across the board That's an extremely radical
communist idea because like we are completely collectivized in that form of law together And through these two very radical perspectives that synthesizes into the most radical form of liberalism that there is of that You now have access to this law that no one can ever violate by any means outside of the cryptographic protocol itself which in my opinion is an achievement that is far beyond anything of Traditional rights because now Through mathematics alone and nothing else
I have the ability to secure a kind of wealth for myself that if I choose I can just destroy it and no one can ever have access to it uh and to me like that Really recreates the entire paradigm Of how we can live today with us all having been captured under the guise of statism for You know debatably anywhere from 500 to 50 years depending on where you're at Yeah, I think it's incredible because essentially uh bitcoin creates true private property
And if we go to somebody like bastia who would tell us like I've gone through the the law uh by bastia multiple times now because I it just like I couldn't believe it took me so long to read it the first time that I read it and I was like fuck okay Uh like this is something but is his entire to synthesize his thesis it's basically that the purpose of the law is to organize the collective defense of private property and The purpose of the state if it has one is to enforce the law
But that's where things get sticky because if you want to have the law enforced you need somebody who has the operating uh authority to enforce that law and and so there's always going to be hierarchies that are created In order to enforce that law which again is supposed to organize for the collective defense of individual private property But then the law becomes perverted by the very people who are supposed to enforce the law because
People are people they are going to pervert it and then the enforcers of the law the state Become the very plunderers that the law is supposed to protect private property against whereas with bitcoin You now have a law that is not subject to state authority a law that cannot be perverted When you have a law that cannot be perverted you have organized for the collective defense of private property But in this way which bastia could of course never have dreamed at that time
You've organized for the collective defense of private property with non-violence which is Unfathomable to It would be impossible without cryptography and that's such an incredible thing to look at that this And and one of the things you you really get out in your book is that this is the new paradigm of what the law is And it's law that does not need violence to enforce or to defend against And it's law that cannot be perverted and if you want to try and pervert that law
Okay fork off like you can go and do your own your own thing But nobody is forced to accept your new version of what the law is And so again you have the principles of non-violence being central to that and I think that that is such a powerful idea because through that you have the potential to get closer to sovereignty and another thing I wanted to ask you is Do you think anyone can ever be completely sovereign or is sovereignty kind of a
Like you know an asymptote that where you can you can get closer and closer and closer but you can never fully achieve it, but again the aim is to get as close as possible And and how does I'm further I guess how does Crypto sovereignty enable you to perhaps move closer to that idea of sovereignty itself It's a really great question and I think first of all like Is there a way to identify an actual difference between spiritual sovereignty and material sovereignty?
And I actually don't think that there is And I think that's one of the reasons that there is such a quintessential achievement of what bitcoin does is because in the way that it wants to offer us Material sovereignty, it's also spiritual sovereignty and that like it It is literally like a non physical non materialized thing that you achieve through a form of knowledge of like what your private key is and the very real security that you get in knowing and understanding what that is and
A good example is like a lot of people think like I'm fucking insane for keeping all of my wealth in bitcoin And I think they're fucking insane for keeping all of their wealth in a 401k in a bank Uh, you know, and it's always really interesting because they're like well How how can you actually know that like you're free and sovereign with your money when like there's nobody having oversight to give you access to that?
And I always point out to them like those are the very people that rob you of the ability to access that Uh, and to me like this is the the this is the radical hidden like the Crypto sovereignty of bitcoin is that in the opposite direction of that like that the hidden sovereignty is the achievement of what knowledge gives you It's not that bitcoin allows for us some radical economic paradigm to be independent It's that it allows for a radical paradigm of through forms of knowledge
You can achieve sovereignty so that you truly are free all the way up to the place of where you challenge yourself and go through the Concourse of philosophical questions of what does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to live here? What does it mean to try to seek a higher power?
if there is one and I think all of these True questions when you're very curious about it and actually want to know for yourself leads towards Not only finding And I don't like to use the word god But that's kind of the best that I have is that like there is a higher power and in a greater Reasoning to the world in the universe beyond material means and what does that mean when we can access that?
And I think it's a very powerful Ideal that allows for us to achieve law in the most meaningful way which again I think brings us all the way background with like I think all that Well, I don't want to say all but I think that One of the things that jesus did in the way that he lived his life and how he died is he proved that like there Was this other form of law that is messianic law that like is accessed through
Religion and spirituality that there is a truth to nature that is legal if you will and like that's what moral ideas and principles are and through us wanting to Strive towards those things we we achieve greater and greater sovereignty for ourselves in a material way that I think as you're saying gets us closer and closer to sovereignty And I think the most radical place where we're truly self-sovereign is where we finally achieved a place where like we can actually
willingly die for our principles and ideals and then like that's an okay thing we can actually move on from this material World and be okay with it Yeah, and I think that that's uh If I'm if I'm understanding also your use of god you're using it in the the context of let's say an alan wazian Uh conception perhaps of of god in a in a more generalist sense versus a specific religious sense Yeah fair fair always hammers me for this and and he likes if I call it the infinity
He like sure I can I can handle the infinity. He was like god But and I want to honor and respect that like It's an extremely loaded term that people ascribe to like their individual judaic or muslim or catholic or whomever And I'm talking about a much wider idea of something that is beyond the material Yeah, I'm on the exact same page with you there another another good term that watz uses is you know the one
Um, and I think that that's also a you know the one is also the infinity right in in this sense And I think that is a an important thing and it's because if you don't have some sort of conception of of everything As it exists and of yourself being Not all not just part of that everything but yourself also being Everything and those two things being so intimately interwoven that you can't separate the there is no part to separate from the whole
Uh, and now you know people some people may be hearing this right now and be like the the fuck of these guys saying You know, you've hit me you smoked too much weed this morning, you know but Like it is an important thing to think about and it's like this is one of those things where in My god the people who have not started even asking themselves the basic questions about how the world really works don't even get close to this question
Right, they they don't even they can't even scratch this question Because it's there's a lot of steps that need to that need to come first, but perhaps for everybody there is a a time for that realization and uh, you know I'm it's interesting to think about bitcoin as this shift and this complete departure from the cyclical nature of violence that has been existent for all of human history and and to what you got at earlier about The lack of an economic model
to further the ideas or to make the ideas actually uh Practicable of things like anarchy because without that economic model that doesn't work right?
It's it's like a nice thought but bitcoin actually enables that to happen And then if you swing let's let's swing completely to the other side where you look at the ultimate form of fiat which in my mind is totalitarian CBDCs because if we think about fiat as okay Let's think of it in its first conception as paper money, you know, okay, let let it be let's by fiat We will create this paper currency. We will print it out of thin air
Okay. Yep. That's that's fucked But now take it to the CBDC level where you have not only not only printing by fiat and digital printing by fiat
Which is even better. You don't have to waste the paper, right? But you have uh Uh Surveillance by fiat at at any time you have confiscation by fiat You have the ability to be to cut off somebody from this system by fiat at the drop of a hat And so to me I I've been looking at CBDCs as this ultimate embodiment this kind of natural actually end game Of fiat money and it's it should absolutely fucking terrify people
To think that this is you know, there's like 90 some pilot programs for CBDCs going on around the world And you're seeing some pushback against this Uh, even from some of those that are within the political sphere, which is heartening to see But to me it is so anti-human And so loaded with hubris because that's the other thing is that fiat Requires a level of hubris that is shocking that folks can get there because it's ultimate centralization
It's ultimate. Uh, as you said authority not truth Uh, and it's it's complete trust in that authority versus verification of the truth for oneself And I'd love to know just kind of how uh, how you see this playing out Because obviously the world is larger than america and even if we you know are able to kind of forestall CBDCs in america for a while It seems that we already know they're here in in a number of a number of places
Uh, and and more will be coming and how do you see this like is this the kind of Battle that begins to play out because again, we're talking about the base layer technology of money So is that ultimate battle kind of Between cbdc's and bitcoin and is there a failure case? for bitcoin As this totalitarian reach at the base layer becomes ever more Prevalent and the panopticon just continues
To a mass more power. I do see a failure case for bitcoin in that or how do you see this dynamic playing out? Uh, I I do see a failure case in bitcoin specifically through Uh, like etf financialization capture the inability to to mix with using Like only white listed. Well, like there's a whole series of things that can be played out. Uh And frankly like how I see this playing out, uh, like this is where you know, like put on your tinfoil hats boys and girls like
Shit's about to get crazy. Uh, like I I truly actually think that this is uh Like the messianic moment and that like this is Uh, like the messianic moment and that like this is truly the battle between good and evil And I think that that's logically What it actually is like I we're talking about a form of absolute totalitarianism That has given a label and number to every single human being on the planet
Like the fucking mark of the beast like I'm sorry like if you read through the astrological literature
There's like a bunch of stuff that lines up. That's like deeply alarming um And I actually think that like as this battle plays out it's going to be A quintessential thing of that like cbdcs are just the the the basis substrate of where they start to observe these things But it's also very clear that like we're going in a direction of communist style cccp Uh, ai totalitarianism where like if you do the wrong thing like drones will show up and shock you to like go climb into a cage
Where like you'll go into a reeducation center Where they'll put a neural link chip in your brain so that like if you do bad things or have bad thoughts you will be fucking shocked Uh, and like this destroys the very idea of who and what being human is And to me like I think that that's why this is a messianic question is like we're on the precipice of What it actually means to be like what does it mean to be a human today? What does it mean to be an american?
What does it mean to be under these systems of surveillance and monitoring that are so thick and deep that it'll eventually get to a place where the very idea of
Privacy itself can't be achieved. I mean Fuck i'm already at the place where like if I want to actually have a private conversation I like far day up our fucking cages leave them in the car and walk three miles into the forest And like even then I still feel pretty uncomfortable that there are things out there monitoring me uh like this is bat shit crazy And we should have never gotten here and the truth is is that vis-a-vis cryptography in a deep understanding of how the web works
Like we can rebuild all of this to actually be functional private Self-sovereign and the ability for us to choose where and when to unveil what information we want But that's going to be a huge striving and achievement that demands people really understand this knowledge and praxis uh Really from this very deep ideological perspective that demands people wake up to what's going on And I think there's going to be a very small portion of people that actually do that work
But I think like they're going to be the saving grace of humanity uh, and I think it's going to be truly terrifying to see what happens as uh, all of this plays out because like I don't I don't think it's going to be peaceful I don't think it's going to be non-violent and I don't think that uh, it's going to be smooth But I do think that there is a very real exit and capacity to achieve the new world
And I think that has to happen because like if we don't uh, it's going to be a boot stomping on a human face forever without any escape from it If you want to protect yourself from the ever stomping boot of totalitarianism and the fiat monetary panopticon You need to keep your bitcoin secure for the long haul head to bitbox dot swiss slash walker and use the promo code walker for five percent off the fully open source bitcoin only
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Not only do you get five percent off, but you also help support this fucking podcast. So thank you That's uh And that's also why it's messianic, you know, is that like yeah, there are two potential worlds one where humans are free And one where people live under total surveillance and totalitarianism that eliminates the very Forms of thought that allow for creativity to actually allow for humanity to continue to go up into the right And I hope that anyone listening to this
Truly internalizes that Uh because again so often we find ourselves We as the collective find ourselves looking for solutions and messianic figures Uh in the political space thinking that this political messiah Is going to save us from the the coming, you know, the the boot of totalitarianism which is And has throughout history stomped harder and harder and harder And if it is not pushed back against, you know, the old uh, the old saying, you know, you you vote your way into communism
You shoot your way out. It rings rings very true uh and I hope it blows my fucking mind that there are people out there Today in the year 2024 that still genuinely say The real, you know true communism hasn't yet been been tried and we'll get it right this time And it's like are you like are you fucking stupid or just ignorant or are you evil or all of the above?
You know, it's like the you take the circles. It's smart honest communist. You pick two out of three. Um, you can only have two out of three Uh, but it blows my mind that some people genuinely advocate for this, you know, uh You know govern me harder daddy and like Those people I think may be totally lost Like you're just you're not going to get through whatever insane Propagandized wall has been built up around their psyche But there's a lot of people who
Do not have that wall yet and those are the people that I think are ready to hear Truth and are ready to accept a new form of law But even for those people it's so easy to get sucked back into the political savior Uh idea that well, yeah, that's these ideas are all nice and good Eric, but let's let's be realistic here You know, we've got a still we've got to still operate in the real world not not your your happy go lucky crypto anarchy land
And and so I'm curious of you know to to that kind of person who says well, you know, again It's the lesser of two evils We just got to pick the blue guy or the red guy this time and then we'll then we'll figure out the rest of this stuff Then don't worry once we get that done Then we can be past this crisis this state of emergency that we're always Perpetually and some of you talk about in crypto sovereignty that that state of emergency always being leveraged
But I'm wondering if you could talk about that Perpetual state of emergency a little bit as you as you do in in the book and also just kind of For the state in general Do you see a role for the the modern state? Do you see a new form of the modern state that could or should or shouldn't exist? And how do you think about that as it relates to the state constantly imposing a state of emergency?
To always trick us into well next time next time we'll fix things next time. We'll get it right once we get through these emergency times Well, I think first of all like uh It's very important to understand like the the state of the state of emergency like is the fundamental praxis That's always used to violate the law and like you there are dozens if not hundreds of examples of this, you know from Nazi Germany just sending in to hitlers totalitarianism through a state of emergency
From the gold standard in the united states being suspended under a state of emergency. These are also always temporary as well Uh, and they and very much as we were warned by hayek that you know, uh I'm pretty sure it was hayek who said that you know Any temporary government measure becomes a permanent one in time or something to that effect Um, and you see this repeatedly and successfully and like to this very day in the united states
Like we're still under the state of emergency decrees that were declared on september 12th 2011 or i mean september 12th 2001 And it's it's really important to understand that like that's always what it does And there's a really great quote that I have in my book from falter benjamin That's something to the effect of that like it's only when we realize and understand that like the state of emergency like
Fundamentally is our daily lives that we can finally understand what we need to in order to advance our struggle against fascism Um, and it's really important to understand that like that's the notion that will always play out that always reserves for itself a right to violate your rights And it's pretty scary because to me like That's the acceleration of the methodology that the state does to do its labeling of who are friends and who are enemies
And it uses the state of emergency in order to make sure that can flush out its enemies And make sure that everybody is an ally that they can utilize for whatever purpose it wants Um, and I believe that the modern state particularly since the end of world war two Is much more of an organizational form that's very similar to concentration camps And that like it wants you to live a certain life
It wants you to produce a certain form of labor and then when you're done with that it wants to dispose of you Uh, and it's a very sick and twisted and demented form of reality But I think it's part of the truth and I think the really radical thing with bitcoin now is like I don't have to participate In any collective process other than the bitcoin network, which is wholly global Which now means that like I now have a higher level
Of identity towards the bitcoin network than I do towards say being american And by me choosing to take all of my economic power and put it into that When I come head to head with the socialists to go. Hey, well, you have to participate in this I can say no, I don't And when they go, well, yes, you do I go, okay
So what are you going to do when I won't participate in it? I won't give you my private keys They go, well, we'll we'll tax you out of existence before that does that another and I'll be like so You're really showing your actual totalitarian nature of that If I make a voluntary choice to withdraw from a network that you're trying to force me into That you will continue to utilize forms of force And where does this end and it's pretty interesting because it usually gets to a place of violence
And I fundamentally believe that if you want to come to my home and bring violence to me in order to try to economically exploit me Like I will fight you and I I don't want to see what that happens I don't want to know the outcome of it But I think it's important to understand that there does come a place where it becomes essential to say Hey, if you're going to invade my home and threaten my family like I'm going to fight back And it's going to be dirty and nasty and hard
Uh, and I think furthermore as we are more collectivized with bitcoin and we become uh We get more apparatuses around programmable money There and I actually becomes in a sense of that like I can have dead man keys operating so like yeah You can come to my home and kill me But there's also going to be my fortune is going to be a ghost that will seek out your soul and make sure it is destroyed
In the name of what you did to me and my family so I think that more and more we're going to see these new collective forms of Not only protection but of mutualism towards one another and what we want to achieve And I think that's going to be the rhyme zone of a new political structure of essentially where We'll belong to collectives that say hey, we we all use bitcoin We engage in mutual exchange if somebody comes to my home and threatens me or comes to your home and threatens you
some amount of my stash goes into a dead man keys protocol where You know if you're my neighbor and you show up at my house with a shotgun within two blocks of that happening Like you're going to get a 10% payout or however we program this thing to work uh, and I think it's really it's going to be a very powerful and difficult Course to follow because this is all really unknown
And my best hope is is that most people will be able to have a peaceful achievement with because at the end of the day like Uh, and all honesty like I have a lot of very deep empathy for far left socialists Um, maybe that's because I was one at one point in time and same thing with you know far right fascists or whatever you want to call them Like this is all a product of very deep suffering of wanting a political solution and not being able to find it
and so they go into extremisms of classic ways of being because That's what worked classically like fascism worked well for nazi germany didn't work well for the jews or for you know Other minorities or for the rest of the world, but there there was there's a very important story of why and how Nazism achieved what it did in germany at its time On the same thing to be said for socialism and for communism in russia during its time
These were ideas that people wanted to have be very real solutions and we see in the outcome
They were fucking horrific. There were some of the most awful and terrible things that ever happened to humanity So I really hope that we'll never repeat those things But I also hope that people will look at these classic solutions look at the technology and the means that we have today and go Oh These classic ideas don't fit in the new world What we need is a totally new form of politics that uses the internet technology computational science and
What those things allow for us and so like I think we get some really freakish looking Uh amalgam of a bunch of tiny collectives that operate in liquid democracy And sort of bond to each other to create new collectives Sort of instantaneously And that it's going to be really weird and wild and wacky because I think of how fluid and changing the dynamics are And the other thing that I think most people really struggle the most with is I I think there's going to be no leadership
I I really think that there's going to be a new radical subjectivity where people Understand that it is only through what they choose to do and by following others with good ideas that we'll find a new form of politics so I think that's a really difficult thing for anyone to wrap their heads around the idea that you could have a form of for lack of a better word governance without leaders right because we've been so programmed to think that
There has to be somebody manning the ship, you know, there otherwise will crash in the rocks and we'll all die like we need somebody up there But then to those people it's like just take a step back and think you know Uh, we've had different people manning if we look at America different people manning the ship, you know every four or eight years And we're still steering onto the rocks seemingly purposefully
Uh, and and you're getting thrown over boards. Well overboard while the uh, while the folks who are uh, who are you know or you know closer to the creation of money and the thereby power Are sitting nicely in their cabin enjoying a meal and laughing about what a fucking idiot you are for believing them this whole time And so I think that it's As much as it is a challenge for folks to perhaps internalize that there could be a different form of governance Everything sounds
crazy until it happens and it's not Uh, everything sounds impossible until Somebody or some group of people does something and proves that it can be done This is what we have with the discovery of bitcoin, right?
So many people trying different things over the years providing different pieces of that recipe that satoshi eventually used to discover bitcoin But with each of those failing because they were too siloed and looking at one thing too specifically They had their own failure modes that made them not viable as a long term or widespread solution bitcoin was impossible unthinkable until all of a sudden it wasn't and now it's not so if something as radical as non state-based
non centralized money is possible What who are we to think that something as radical as governance without leaders Anarchy without leaders, you know no masters no slaves Who are we to say that that's impossible and that's something that gives me hope is that again?
If something like bitcoin can be discovered and exist and continue Well, then a lot of things that we probably think sound impossible are not impossible at all They just require the forceful will of enough individuals to say we're gonna make this happen And I see a lot of those forceful individuals in in bitcoin And that gives me a lot of hope Absolutely, and I'd point out that like it's not necessarily even about no leaders because like satoshi is absolutely our leader
But he's an he's a nobody and there's this tension between The prison and and this is another thing I've been working along a lot on is uh There's a very specific achievement that anons and pseudo anons have in the digital age and allows for them to speak a Radical truth that like no actual physical being can say or do And like it's very obvious to me that like if satoshi Nakamoto was a man alive today like he would be the most wanted and most dangerous person alive and
Through him operating in the cryptographic procedures of perfect forward secrecy like he actually proved What the dignity of cryptography can achieve but also how an individual can actually step into these roles of leadership that are so Extreme and dangerous that it would threaten their very existence And that can be achieved through this new presentation of anon anon
And so like in this insane cypherpunk future. I imagine there's a very powerful dynamic relationship that operates between known Humans and actors and like how they interact with anons on the internet And the support that they offer and my great hope is is that we will continually having you know Like big dick johnson 420 like coming on and debating and and like having a deep intellectual debate that actually Unveils the truth in a way that nobody except for big dick johnson could achieve
Because man, he's got a big dick You know, I love that and I think Anytime I see somebody who's like we shouldn't be talking about I see somebody who's like we shouldn't you know, we should do id verification for social media We should uh, you shouldn't be able to be a non because these are non's are just trolls as soon as I see somebody say that I'm like Fuck off, uh, you you clearly have not actually thought about this very much and you got your feelings hurt by big dick johnson 420 once
And so now you think nobody should be allowed to be a non grow the fuck up Uh understand that what you are calling for is on the road to totalitarianism And maybe just maybe just shut the fuck up But also don't because it's a free fucking world and you're free to say that and big dick johnson is free to troll you into oblivion Because that's a just an idiotic and incredibly short-sighted thing to say that you shouldn't be you know
Shouldn't be allowed to be a non online and you can see already twitter's Slowly taking steps x excuse me towards getting rid of a non's now to get a payout for twitter ad sharing You need to verify with an id within like the next all new accounts that want it have to do it immediately And any accounts that are currently Getting payouts need to do it by like july 1st or something and that's of course just the first step It won't stop there. It'll be well if you want to post on the platform
We need to know that you're a real person right so there's another id verification. That's why I'm so glad that things like no star exist because like Any centralized system will always be vulnerable to totalitarian overreach whether that comes from the person leading it And starts out as a good idea just because you know, well We need to fight spam on the platform or whatever and or whether it comes from the state
Exerting control over that centralized platform because there is a throat to choke It's not run by a nobody It's run by a somebody and that somebody has a home that you can go and visit And apply pressure to that person Or they have Shitloads of subsidies from the government and the government can threaten to take away those subsidies Not naming names here, but I think we all we all know and that's why no star is such a great thing It's like there's no throat to choke
There's I think about it as the idea of the the many-headed hydra from greek mythology You know you cut off one head and two more grow in its place And you can try to keep fighting it and keep swinging cutting off heads, but you won't kill it that way and so again, but that comes down to a decentralized system based on public private key cryptography enabling us to have You had one of the great satoshi quotes in your book that you that you had in there about like
You know we may be able to achieve a little bit of freedom for a little while and it may be enough to basically give us a head start I'm paraphrasing massively the quote, but you know That's the incredible thing about this this new law that is created by cryptography Is that it does buy us a little bit of freedom It buys us and even if it buys us a little bit of time to be able to collectively organize a little bit To wake more people up
It may be enough to stave off this fucking ever stomping boot of totalitarianism that we see So strangely predisposed To go toward which is another thing I I never quite get why this tendency of not all humans, but certain to always trend toward total control I don't know I I think that's it's part of the general wreckage that the western philosophical perspective of Individualism sort of imparted to us at its most extreme because like now we're just a tiny little unit against this entire world
So like we have to collectivize ourselves into this thing but I mean No, sir is so exciting to me because to me like that That's one of those quintessential achievements that I was trying to point at in crypto sovereignty is that like it's about the The way to utilize cryptography in order to achieve new forms of sovereignty and to me like that's one of the other Main apparatuses that we have now is is how powerful and thoughtful noster is
Towards social media because most people have a gross misunderstanding of they just think their feet is just the thing that gives them the stuff They like and they don't understand how highly emotionally manipulated they are within that and how much it's designed to actually trigger Not only really antisocial behaviors, but also to like really fuck up their dopamine system in a really
Profound way that I don't think most people understand until they've actually removed themselves entirely from it for like weeks on end Um, and it's really important that like we Continue working on you know these other cryptographic achievements And this is one of the reasons why like I I've shat so much on the idea of ordinals But I've also sort of provided space for inscriptions of that like I think what project Spartacus did with inscribing Julian Assange's war logs
And I think uh, there were other individuals that inscribed 3d printed weapon plans onto bitcoin's blockchain is really important like that That's a new achievement for being able to embed information that I believe is very important into the bitcoin blockchain and it's also paying miners in a way that I think is uh Uh, there's a problem with how it is, but I'm happy to see people fucking with bitcoin and trying new and different techniques in order to Get information out into the world
Because to me like that's the most important thing is allowing for people the information and knowledge that allows for new forms of sovereignty, which Uh, I'm not sure if you followed at all, but like it's really interesting that like 3d printed weapons are fundamentally transforming the topography of what warfare is and allowing for the individual to become much more powerful than before
And so like we've actually witnessed the 60 year civil war that's gone on bermot to really change tides radically in the last four years Because of 3d printed weapons and how they're using those deployed actively in war zones to actually make headway Uh, and so I think as we continue to move in this direction where a lot of people redouble towards totalitarianism and
Integrating themselves in that system. I think more and more people are gonna see not only how fucked up and maniacal it is But the truth is like that system fucking sucks like it's fucking lame It hates you it doesn't want you to be a unique powerful weird crazy person like it wants you to be A little plug that goes in plugs yourself in does the work that's expected go home watch the fucking garbage Sludge that makes you feel like shit about who you are so you wake up the next morning go
Yeah, like I fucking suck. I'm a dumb piece of shit and I deserve to be working at a job that I fucking hate for most of my life Because well, that's just who I am and that's what the system demands and there's no answers like
Fuck that. Fuck all of that like you're an An incredible angel of light and love that is forgotten about the power and dignity that you are supposed to have And this whole world took that away from you And if you take the choice and effort to really not only understand bitcoin, but how Utilizing these technologies to empower yourself can change your life There's a very new and different reality that you can have to achieve for yourself
And I just think that that's really important, you know and part of my story too is Being involved in bitcoin so early, you know, like I knew about the dark nets and I I started a lot with alcoholism when I was younger and when I had read about some of the experiments that were done with alcoholism and lsd And how it really helped people address those issues I did that and For me lsd was a really really powerful thing in showing me that like I knew so little about the world how it functioned and
my own spiritual beliefs and That was only welcome to me through bitcoin and through the dialogues I was seeing on bitcoin forms at that point in time that I don't think we're allowed anywhere else at the point in time and I just bring that point up is that like The world we want to build isn't interested in controlling you or telling you what to do or how to be Like all that we're interested in is seeing who you really are and that you want to operate in an ethical way that
Respects me as much as I respect you and I truly believe that if Everyone was to see and understand bitcoin as we did today like it would messianically change the world in the most radical of ways That's really actually just a small shift, you know Most of us actually live and exist in peace most of the time And so the fact that there is a despicable class of human beings that want to Export violence on others for economic means of their own achievement
Is disgusting and I hope that more and more people will realize that There's a very real ethical praxis to bitcoin first and foremost and that the economic achievements of it comes secondary to simply saying I won't participate in a system that utilizes systematic violence and war against other people who have never met A fucking man, man, and you know, I was gonna I was gonna ask you uh What you would say to to wake up somebody who has not yet down the bitcoin rabbit hole
But you've just answered that question And then some extremely Extremely well, and I think that that's an incredible message to people And perhaps what I would ask you instead and I want to be conscious of your scarce time So I I just have another little follow-up question after this But what's your what's your call to action to to bitcoiners? So to people whose eyes are already open uh
But maybe are wondering, you know, okay now my eyes are open. I I see the problem. I also see the solution Now what?
In all honesty, like this is something uh, I struggle a lot with because like I I think that The answer is is like it it's time to organize like it's time for us to actually collectivize ourselves start speaking Directly to politically what we want to start putting our money where our mouth is and to start Not only pressuring politicians, but actually really and we're already doing this in a lot of ways in terms of educating people but like it
We need to start creating federations and collectives of people So for our own economic exchange to make sure that people are holding their private keys and really this achievement of Knowing and meeting other bitcoiners knowing they're holding their own keys knowing they're using noster knowing that they're engaging in circular economic activities and educating other people about that and like be proud and open about being a bitcoiner don't like put it to the wayside and
I think we should all challenge ourselves to have really edgy conversations with people We normally wouldn't have and it's important to point out stuff that like look like Your red guy or your blue guy like they both represent the same systems of organizational violence that want to rob you of power And like we have a new system and means to achieve something different and we must do it If we do not do this
We will end up in a world with centralized digital currencies that are used to control everyone and everyone is going to suffer under that and There's a small window of possibility for us to fight that and it's going to require Resolution dedication and collaboration in a way that we've never done before and it's going to be scary and there may be very real threats to each of us and In that we need to double down
And understand that through our love and capacity to actually honor one another and help one another and create this together There's a very real possibility to radically alter our future so that our children can be free Because right now it looks dark like we're in line at the fucking concentration camps and it's very clear that you're going to get a fucking tattoo That's going to be used to track you forever If that's what you want, that's fine, but I'm not going to fucking do it
And I'm not going to put my kids in it And I'm going to help every single person struggle away from that as I can because it's fucking wrong
That's all it is. It is plain wrong It is despicable and deplorable that other human beings want to do that to you because they are terrified of what it means to have other people Empowered in this world so my call to action to other bitcoiners is speak about the real truth of bitcoin That says nothing to do with the economics means it has to do with the ethical means of what it means
When you have rogue warmongering violent heathens who control the economic means for the world and they use it to kill other human beings Like that that's my bottom line These pieces of shit who don't care about other humans utilize their position of power to make money to kill other people
That's why they do it. So if that's something that you don't want and I don't think you do You should really think hard about what we're trying to do here and help us achieve it Well, if I wasn't radicalized before I am now Redoubled thank you for that and I think that's a A really compelling call to action and I hope that it's heated by bitcoiners because again, we I don't think we can be passive here That's being passive doesn't change anything, you know
My my father-in-law who uh, carlos father escaped communism He always says, you know walker some people, you know make things happen Some people watch things happen and other people wonder what happened You don't want to be the person that wonders what happened as you're sitting in a totalitarian state You don't want to be the person watching it happen and doing nothing
You want to be the person who's making things happen. You want to be the person who is trying to change something because you know if not us who and if not now when and so I have hope in bitcoiners like genuinely bitcoiners give me hope uh, and because bitcoin as a technology is what it is and is this new form of immutable law that gives me even more hope because really good and ethical people working with a ethical system underpinning them That has the potential to actually change things
So that we don't continue to be perverted Uh, so that the law doesn't continue to be perverted so that we can establish new modes of organizing That fundamentally shift power dynamics in a way that will greatly benefit not only ourselves but our kids and our future grandkids and their kids and but I think we have a small a relatively small window for this like the for the boot of totalitarianism is is stomping down and we have to decide what we're going to do about that uh, but
Yeah, no the last note I'd just say like uh And I truly believe like this is about our souls Like this is about whether or not you want to participate in the world where you've seen ethical praxis and you insist on demanding that the actualized in the world Or if you want to live in the one that denies that you have a soul and that you're just a material being who will Be vanquished after this that has nothing and no association with the world I don't believe that that's true at all
and by us choosing to do this together and insisting on making this the world that we want We will achieve something for our children that will be remembered long into the future by all of posterity And frankly like and this is where it's fucking cool is like that's glorious There's like a real opportunity to achieve glory in a way that allows for us to live in the concourse of human history For a very long time and I really hope that people Want that because it's fucking cool Hey, man
Well Eric man, I've really enjoyed this and again want to be conscious of your scarce times the last thing I'll ask you which is I promise a short question is just First of all, I highly recommend because I've got this right here. Everybody check out your book crypto sovereignty Um, and but I'm curious. What are you reading right now? Or maybe something you read recently? Uh, that you would highly recommend because I'm always curious. What are authors reading when they're not writing?
uh, I've So like the philosophical book that I've been reading and I'll continue to read is this contributions to philosophy by martin heidegger It's probably the most difficult and convoluted and complex read that you could really find so I wouldn't recommend that to anybody And because like that's brutalizing my brain The other book I'm reading is just a brother's chasm are off right now because I know it's an incredible book
And I've really wanted to just kind of get my head out of deep philosophy So I recommend that too because you know, it's an incredible book and uh, everybody should have the opportunity to read such thoughtful and well-written novels Amen, well Eric again, thank you so much for sharing your scarce time with me I have truly enjoyed this and uh, you know bitcoin is scarce But bitcoin podcasts are abundant So I want to thank you for sharing your scarce time on this fucking podcast
Uh, and looking forward to seeing you in the flash hopefully soon
Thank you. I've greatly enjoyed it as well, and I appreciate your time as well And that's a wrap on this bitcoin talk episode of the bitcoin podcast If you're a bitcoin only company interested in sponsoring another fucking bitcoin podcast head to bitcoinpodcast.net slash sponsor if you're enjoying the bitcoin podcast Consider giving a five star review wherever you listen or sharing this show with your network or don't bitcoin doesn't care
You can find me on noster by going to primal.net slash walker And if you want to follow the bitcoin podcast on twitter go to at tit coin podcast and at walker america You can also find the video version of this podcast at youtube.com slash at walker america And at walker america on rumble bitcoin is scarce. There will only ever be 21 million But bitcoin podcasts are abundant So thank you for spending your scarce time to listen to another fucking bitcoin podcast Until next time stay free