Bankless - 201 - Garry Kasparov on Why Freedom Always Wins

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

✨ DEBRIEF | Ryan & David unpacking the episode: https://www.bankless.com/debrief-garry-kasparov  ----- Chess Legend and Freedom Fighter Garry Kasparov on AI, Geopolitics, and Crypto. One of the first people to experience machine intelligence in a profound way–greatest chess player in the world when he lost a match to IBM computer program Deep Blue in 1997—since then, humans have never been able to beat machines in a game of chess. The theme of this episode is Freedom. Garry’s optimism shines through on this topic. With experience in Geopolitics, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Rights, Garry Kasparov might just be the perfect guest to guide us through some very challenging topics that will likely define the rest of this decade, and beyond.  ----- 🏹 Airdrop Hunter is HERE, join your first HUNT today https://bankless.cc/JoinYourFirstHUNT   ----- 🌐 Layer Zero V2 Launch https://bankless.cc/LayerZeroLabs   ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE ⁠https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2 🦊METAMASK PORTFOLIO | MANAGE YOUR WEB3 EVERYTHING ⁠https://bankless.cc/MetaMask ⚖️ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM ⁠https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 🔗CELO | CEL2 COMING SOON https://bankless.cc/Celo   🗣️TOKU | CRYPTO EMPLOYMENT SOLUTION https://bankless.cc/Toku   ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 9:00 Gary’s Background  20:45 Chess & AI  24:38 e/acc vs. d/acc 28:53 AI & Human History 37:40 Russia & Freedom 49:25 Can Democracy Win?  56:32 Defining Evil 59:31 Garry on Crypto 1:03:00 Leadership  1:08:50 Biggest Threat to Freedom? 1:17:53 Crypto & Human Rights 1:21:01 Garry’s Human Rights Fight 1:29:15 Garry’s Advice  1:33:05 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Garry Kasparov https://twitter.com/Kasparov63   Human Rights Foundation https://hrf.org/   ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://bankless.com/disclosures 

What do you think is the biggest threat to freedom right now? Is it China? Is it Russia? Actually, I want to throw a third candidate in there. The United States. I mean, is that a threat to freedom? Welcome to bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance. This is Ryan Sean Adams.

I'm here with David Hoffman, and we're here to help you become more bankless. Guys, we have chess legend and freedom fighter Gary Kasparov. He talks about AI, geopolitics, and crypto. Gary was one of the first people to experience machine intelligence in a profound way. He was the greatest chess player of all time when he lost his first match to an IBM computer. It's called Deep Blue. This happened in 1997. And since then, human beings, that's us, have never been able to beat machines in a game of chess.

So, naturally, David and I start the conversation there. Number one, what does Gary think about ChatGBT, this new era of AI? What does he think about the threats? How about the promises of AI? Then we get to geopolitics. Why did the Soviet Union fail? But we still have totalitarianism in Russia. We talk about that for a while. We also talk about what countries are the biggest threats to freedom. And how do we combat this growing authoritarianism that seems to be sweeping the world? Also, of course, is a crypto podcast. So we asked him what role crypto has to play in all of this. And finally, we end with his advice for us as we enter the next decades of these

tumultuous times. I think the theme of this episode was really freedom. And to me, Gary's optimism was probably the brightest part of this particular episode. David, why was this significant to you? Other than, I know, Gary is like one of your all-time favorite people, like an idol for you. You're a chess player yourself, are you not? Hero, a hero, for sure. A chess player, which is how this podcast really came to be in the first place. Yeah, it's just like Gary comes from many different walks of life. Narrow skill set and chess that was trounced by a computer, but then also just working around the hard problem of Vladimir Putin. That is a hard one. And evil out of Russia. He's had so many different walks of life that all only increased in their relevancy as the decades

went on. He seems to be a person whose skill set and experiences seem to be really attuned to have developed a sense of wisdom about how to navigate them moving forward into the future, which is really the theme of this podcast at large. It's like, hmm, the future, ooh, future is scary. Gary, tell us about the life lessons that you've had so that we can absorb some of your knowledge. And Ryan, of course, one of the big themes that this episode was the importance of freedom. But really, he made this call to action for more leadership because where do we get freedom from? It's from strong leadership. And so maybe just accepting that into listeners' brains as we navigate through these conversations

with Gary, this air of leadership that we need to have strong leadership, good leadership, is something I think that we need to have in order to navigate through these chaotic decades that I think everyone understands that we do have ahead of us. And David, I can't wait to record the debrief with you, which is our episode after the episode. And I want to talk specifically about how this episode came to be because my memory is a little bit foggy, but I think there's a really cool story there. If you are a bankless citizen, you of course, you have access to that right now. It's on the premium RSS feed you get when you subscribe.

If you are not yet a citizen, click the link in the show notes and you can find out more about that. All right, guys, we're going to get right to the conversation with Gary. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible, including our number one destination to go purchase your freedom coins. Your freedom assets. You like that? That is Cracken. Go create an account. Cracken knows crypto. Cracken's been in the crypto game for over a decade. And as one is the largest and most trusted exchanges in the industry, Cracken is on the journey with all of us to see what crypto can be. Human history is a story of progress. It's part of us, hardwired. We're designed to seek change everywhere, to improve, to strive. And if anything can be improved, why not finance?

Crypto is a financial system designed with the modern world in mind. Instant, permissionless, and 24-7. It's not perfect, and nothing ever will be perfect. But crypto is a world-changing technology at a time when the world needs it the most. That's the Crackad Mission, to accelerate the global adoption of cryptocurrency, so that you and the rest of the world can achieve, financial freedom and inclusion. Head on over to cracken.com slash bankless to see what crypto can be. Not investment advice, crypto trading involves risk of loss. Cryptocurrency services are provided to US and US territory customers by Payward Ventures Eek. PVI doing business as Cracken. Metamask Portfolio doing business as Crackin. Metamask Portfolio to chain. Using popular layer one and layer two

networks, and all you have to do is select a network you want to bridge from and where you want your tokens to go. From there, Metamask vets and curates the different bridging platforms to find the most decentralized, accessible, and reliable bridges for you. To tap into the hottest opportunities in crypto, you need to be able to plug into a variety of networks, and nobody makes that easier than Metamask portfolio. Instead of searching endlessly through the world of bridge options, click the bridge button on your Metamask extension or head over to metamask.io slash portfolio to get started. Arbitrum is the leading Ethereum scaling solution that is home to hundreds of decentralized

applications. Arbitrum's technology allows you to interact with Ethereum at scale with low fees and faster transactions. Arbitrum has the leading defy ecosystem, strong infrastructure options, flourishing NFTs, and is quickly becoming the Web3 gaming hub. Explore the ecosystem at portal.arbitrum.io. Are you looking to permissionlessly launch your own Arbitrum orbit chain? Arbitrum orbit allows anyone to utilize Arbitrum's secure scaling

technology to build your own orbit chain, giving you access to interoperable, customizable permissions with dedicated throughput. Whether you're a developer, an enterprise, or a user, Arbitrum orbit lets you take your project to new heights. All of these technologies leverage the security and decentralization of Ethereum. Experience Web3 development the way it was always meant to be. Secure, fast, cheap, and friction-free. Visit arbitram.io and get your journey started in one of the largest Ethereum communities. Bankless Nation, I'm delighted to introduce you to Gary Kasparov, a celebrated chess champion, author, and human rights advocate. Famously, the first human to lose a game of chess to a computer after losing to IBM's Deep Blue in 1997, marking a significant

history in AI. Gary also, after standing up to the human rights violation of Vladimir Putin, had to flee Russia fearing persecution in 2013 and has been an outspoken critic ever since. He is also the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation working to promote freedom in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes. So, with experience, experience in relation to geopolitics, artificial intelligence, and human rights. Gary Kasparov might just be the perfect guide to guide us through some very challenging topics that will likely define the rest of the decade and beyond. Gary, welcome to Bankless. Thank you inviting me. Just a few corrections about the introduction. Sure. It's just to clarify a few things. You know, this is one is that, yes, it was the first match that a world champion lost to a machine.

But as for the games, single games or tournament games, machines were on the rise from the late 80s. So I think the first game that machine won against the Grandmaster was 1988. So it was a process. So clearly, you know, the match brought most of attention. And again, for the record, I have to say that the first year, 1996, the first match I won. Thank you. That's plus one for the humans. Yes.

So as for AI, it's just, you know, we can talk about it just in in-depth, but I mean, Deep Blue was anything but intelligent, and it didn't have to be intelligent because it was just about, you know, brute force. And then the reason machines were and are now superior to humans in all the games is because they make few mistakes. They cannot resolve, you know, all the problems. They cannot calculate to the end, you know. You cannot exhaust the game of chess that according to Claude Shannon has 46 zeros in the number

of legal moves. But again, making few mistakes. Even the best of us, the best humans, we are still humans, we are vulnerable and just we are poised to make mistakes. And yeah, you correctly stated that, you know, I left Russia in 2013 more than 10 years ago. It's a February, nearly 11 years ago. But one more correction. I have been criticizing Vladimir Putin, you know, way before I had to leave my country. And it's not, you know, it's not being a Monday morning quarterback. So my first article warning about Putin's threat dated January 4, 2001 the Wallstrand. So again, everything is recorded. Well, Gary, the background that you have, and again, the chess computer conversation,

it's a narrow intelligence, right? It's not like the AI that we are experiencing in the year 2023, which is a little bit more general. To me, it's like a canary in the coal mine. And then we also have the geopolitics conversation with Russia and also just more broadly at large. there seems to be many different paths that we could go down that are all relevant, things that we've talked about bank lists and prior episodes and things that the globe is talking about as a whole.

It's just that your history, your background seems to touch on so many things that have only increased in relevancy as time has gone on. Computer intelligence has increased in relevancy. Global geopolitics has kind of increased in chaos. Your background and experience seems to just be very apt for the year 2023, the decade of the 2020s. Would you agree with that reflection? And how has your experiences kind of guided your thoughts as a lot of the events of the globe has unfolded in the last few years? I'm flattered. So, yes, it was all the comments.

So, yes, I can say that my experience, my knowledge, though it's fairly limited, you know, when you just look at all walks of life, it's very relevant these days. So, and what also helped me is that it's my ability to be self-critical and also to recognize the limits of my knowledge. I know what I know, but it's more important. I know what I don't know. And I know how not to cross the border between those two domains. And, yes, geopolitics is important because many of the things I mentioned, so, for instance, in my book, Winter is Coming, while Vladimir Putin and enemies of the world must be stopped, published back in 2015.

You know, it tragically came into reality. And many of the things I described in my book, Deep Thinking, when machine intelligence ends and human-created begins in 2000. They also were relevant these days. And as you pointed out, so I was the first human who had his job threatened by a machine. And while back in 1997, so I thought it would be a curse, you know, that would follow me for the rest of my life. Now I think it was more like a blessing because I had an experience that is so relevant now and I can share it. And it's not just to terrorize people's minds, you know, by telling them that's the end of the world that's around the corner.

but to the contrary to tell them that it's not the end of the world. It's something that, you know, we can deal with if we recognize our limitations again, where our knowledge is limited and where we should rely on machines, but where we are indispensable. So tons of things that, you know, that's happened in my life, you know, though not every time I was happy about it, now are just, you know, help me to create kind of a mosaic that is very useful to analyze the very complex picture of the modern world. In more recent years, we've watched ChatGBTGBT BT explode onto the scene and really dominate the conversation in society. And this has caused a lot of people's reactions to ChatGBT, also be a part of that conversation. We had this episode with Eliezer Yudkowski, who's famously an AI Dumer. He's like, oh, AI is going to not just come take our jobs.

It's going to come and take over the world, and we're all going to die as a result. And that was very, very shocking. Sobering, I would say. Very sobering, yeah. And we've seen society at large have this conversation with itself about is AI good, is AI bad, what will it do to us? What will it do to society? And we seem to be going through this process of understanding and acceptance about the way

AI is going to interact with us. Would you say that society is kind of following the same pattern you went through when you had your reflections about playing chess versus IBM deep blue and or just computers at large? Are we, is society at large, going through a same process of understanding and reflection about AI that you went through? Is there similarities there? There are still there it is, but I had personal experience. And again, in chess, we could see the machines rise, you know, rise to dominance, but also machines are limitations. So it's also accidental that the scalp of the chess world champion was the kind of sand grail for computer experts because for a long time, you know, top scientists believed that chess was the, it's like a nexus of human creativity, intelligence. And this is, you know, that could be a key to reveal the secrets of human intelligence. It goes back to Alfred Binaire, you know, the father of IQ tests back at the end of the 19th century, who was fascinated by chess players, especially those who could play blind chess. And he wanted to actually open the brains and just to find out how these magic moves being made.

And he was under impression that that's, you know, the shortest cut to the secrets of human intelligence, general intelligence. And this belief, you know, has been inherited by great minds like Alan Turing, Claude Shannon, Norbert Winner. So it's the widespread believe that chess is an answer. Again, it's happening in our part of the world because there are many other versions of chess, like Shogi in Japan and other versions. But the European version of chess, you know, was always like an ultimate test in the eyes of the scientists of human machine encounter.

And its machines kept improving the performance. And as I already mentioned by then the ages, we had something, you know, a tangible force. So deep thought, actually, it was the prototype of. the blue because it was this team from Carnegieville University that was eventually, you know, went to IBM, IBM purchased the project. But they had the machine that had the first success back in 1988. So in 1988, I faced this computer, played two rapid chess games. It's, I think, an hour and a half, 90 minutes for a game. And I won quite handling it. So back in 1980s. But we could see the progress. And I have to say that, you know, we were fascinated, but we didn't even

understand, you know, this is how serious the threat was. Because we, we, we were. We we already suffered some painful losses in bleach chairs, five minutes shares, or in a rapid chairs, 25, 30 minutes shares. But we were under impression that it's not, it's not just because machines, you know, would be better, you know, eventually would be better than us, but because we had little time. If we had more time, you know, we could think, you know, just and avoid some stupid mistakes, not understanding that if we have more time, machine has more time. It's amazing that it's many grandmasters made this mistake. I lost to one of the computer programs. In 1994, the rapid chess match.

So there was two games in London. So then I played again. I beat this computer. But we thought it was, yeah, it's something that, you know, it's good for exercise. You know, it's good for preparation. But it should not, you know, threaten our dominance in classical chess. So that's why the 1997 match was such a big shock. Though I have to say that for me, the first call was, you may call it's the watershed moment,

was in 1996. I mentioned I won the match, but I lost game one. So that was the first game where computer could be sitting world champion in what we call classical chess, six hours chess. And though I just fought back, I won three games, and so won the match. But it's already somewhere in the back of my mind and knew that we are just, you know, on the losing track. So after 1997, so I had to just, you know, I had to think, you know, what would come next to my beloved game. So whether, you know, just we have to do something else, but not to play the game, which is doomed. And then I realized that, look, the machines could do a better job, and it would happen.

Though we still competed for, I would say, about seven and eight years. I played two matches, not, of course, as public as as IBM matches back in 2003. Two matches against German program and against the Israeli program. It's Deep Fritz and Deep Junior. Both matches ended as a tie, but I knew the end was near. It was a clear track, like it was right over the wall. And that's why I came up with an idea of advanced chess that was a combination. of human and machine. So that's how we can play together to get the best of two worlds.

And I had time to ruminate about my games, my failures, so my accomplishments, and also looking at the machines. And I just recognize that while machines would keep improving, there's still limitations. And again, we can talk in more details about it, but these limitations, I don't believe, can be removed, even if machines could be as powerful as chat GPT. So even if you about AI. Because I still think that there's a certain elements of human nature, like creativity that cannot be replicated for a very simple reason. Creativity means that you accept the notion of failure. This is not the way machines work. So machine always looks for bottom line. And again, that's all the tiny things. What is very important for us to understand that if you

look at the decision-making process as 100% and recognizing that there's no perfection of universe, no 100% can be achieved. It's about us finding our spot and stomping on our pride and saying, okay, we belong to last few decimal places. We have to find exactly so where we can add something unique, unique contribution to a machine that will make a combination of human and machine most productive. So that's why I think it's the future is not, you know, machines dominance. The future is us working with machines. And for those who are just trying to use only dark paint to show the future. I mean, my answer is, look, it's not a magic wand, but it's not a terminator. It's not a free ticket to heaven, but it's not the key to unlock the doors of hell.

It's human invention. And again, while it could outperform us in many areas, we still have this theme. It's not a control, but we still occupy a place that I don't think machines can take away from us. And it's so tempting, you know, to follow the path of the Terminator movies and Matrixes. But actually, while I was a big fan of the Terminator back in the 80s and early 90s, I still didn't understand why machine wanted to kill people. It's a whole question. It wasn't answered. So what's for?

I mean, some in the community just basically say as a byproduct of consuming resources, they will crush and destroy all of humanity. So a little less like the Terminator, a vision, and more like a, you know, us squashing an ant because we're, you know, building a house or, you know, an ant colony. And this is why I want to ask the question, because you've observed this before when Deep Blue came on the scene, I'm sure people were making comparisons to Terminator, right? And they were saying, oh, is this the end? Are humans kind of over? And something similar has happened, I would say in the last year, in terms of the public conversation.

But it has felt like this new technology, chat GPT, has been sort of a massive order of magnitude advance. And I'm wondering if you still, at its core, if you've had time to mess around with chat GPT, if you still see it as, yes, I'm still seeing deep blue here. It's still doing the brute force. It's still not a human. It was interesting, I just asked while we were having this conversation, can chat GPT play chess well? So according to chat GPT, I asked chat GPT this question. It says, I can analyze chess positions and suggest moves, but my capabilities are not on par with

specialized chess engines like stockfish or alpha zero. And then I asked it to answer the same question, but as Gary Kasparov, and it said, this is what you would say. While chat GPD demonstrates a remarkable ability to process and generate language, its skills in chess are not comparable to those of a grandmaster or a specialized chat engine. I don't know if that's something that you would say, but this kind of intelligence, the ability to have a conversation with a computer, this feels so new to us. Yeah, I mean, look, probably everything depends on the angle of observation. You know, this is the glasses half, you know, empty or half full. So that's the, actually, I view it from the other side. I think it's phenomenal because I think that machines, you know, will unleash, you know, more of human creativity.

Because there's so many things can be done by machines if we know how to balance it. So we can start, you know, inventing things because this is some of the wild dreams can be reached. So they're within our reach, you know, I mean, when we look at machines, so there's so many mysteries of nature. whether it's, you know, in deep oceans or in outer space, that we cannot unlock without computers. I'm not holding a crystal ball and not pretending with an Ostradamus to tell you everything will be perfect in the future. I think that, again, it's a new challenge. But as every challenge, it has threats, there are risks, but I think the benefits, the benefits could be phenomenal. We just have to stop debating, you know, whether it's a mortal threat to us or not.

Look, you know, people have been debating about, you know, machine threat to our civilization for quite a long time. So it says, you remember the Luddites in the UK, so 200 years ago, and I can tell you, you know, what, you know, who made actually the first speech, you know, against the machines? Again, we talked about, you know, this is the primitive machines that, you know, that could remove many people, you know, from their workplace. Back in 1812, it was the maintenance speech of Lord Byron in British Parliament. Yeah, very eloquently arguing that's against machines that could throw so many people into poverty. Of course, it's a stretch. But still, I think, you know, certain things, you know, we should probably, you can't abandon the discussion,

but I don't think we should give too much emphasis. It's called progress. And progress, you know, brings various things. You know, yes, it's always easy to talk about destruction because it's much easier to create nuclear bomb and nuclear reactor. So, yes, and of course, first thing we think, oh, how, this is what happens, you know, the machines will go after us. I see it, you know, just a totally different angle.

It's fantastic, you know, so now time, you know, so many things we can do because a lot of work, you know, this is the rot war, can go to the machines. So it's just I tell people that that if machines can do your work, so probably you can see it not about machine, but about the work you're doing. We're presently watching Silicon Valley have a very similar conversation about itself and its relationship to AI. Mark Endry recently wrote this very long blog post talking all about accelerationism and how we need to, you know, accelerate technology because that is where we get, you know, wealth generation and we, the rising tide lift all boats. The alternative. The ultimate alternative side of this, we saw OpenAI have this drama where a board, which was more decelerationist,

try and steer the ship of Open AI in a decelerationist way, which led to all of that drama that we saw recently. Fataluk Bouturin just put out a blog post talking about his flavor of this, where he is a fan of this thing called defensive acceleration, where he promotes defensive technology. And it's all about just like perceptions of the future in our relationship with technology. Have you been tapped into these conversations? And do you have like a stance on accelerationism and technology? as it relates to these conversations? Look, you know, I follow up these conversations, you know. I believe I have something to say.

And my view is, again, you can say whatever you want, but it's happening. So it says, yeah, you can talk about defensive, but some people will do the opposite. This technology, you know, reveals human potential. It offers great opportunities, you know, just for individuals. You don't need, you know, billions of dollars of investment and secret plans and locations like Los Alamos, you know, to have a Manhattan project. You have one or few individuals that could, you know, literally change the world. Is it dangerous?

Yes, it is dangerous, but it could be beneficial. You know, I'm incorrigible optimist by nature. I just believe that, you know, we have new tools, and these new tools can help us to upgrade our knowledge. You know, again, going back to the mysteries for our planet. So this is, I think it's just the our knowledge of oceans. It's under 5%, something, 4% or just say, we don't know our planet. How about, you know, finding out what we leave and how about, you know, improving our knowledge of the outer space? There's so many great things happening, you know, this is a couple of months ago.

So there was a first successful attack in the asteroid. Those things are just, you know, part of this development. And just ignoring the fact that so many great things happening now, you know, with generally improvement of living standards. So with us leaving longer, so it's the, with our ability to invent things that, you know, were way beyond our reach. and concentrating on dangers, it makes this discussion, A, I don't think it's not practical, and B, again, it's like, you know,

speeding hands the wind. As we say, oh, let's make sure that we understand exactly how it works. You know, the Europeans, bureaucrats, are very much concerned about, you know, the machines, you know, the black box. So we need GDPR. We need all the regulations.

I mean, question is, in business, do we care about understanding of the machine or about the bottom line? What do you prefer? And also, you can impose all regulations, but the world is not run by, you know, by one world government. And if, you know, you have regulations here in America or in Europe, China doesn't care. Putin doesn't care. So that's why we should recognize that there are limitations of our ability to control the progress. We can monitor it.

The idea that we can put it under control, bureaucratic control, so this is, it could be only defensive. You should stop here. No, it doesn't. Since, you know, it's one individual can actually make history. So I think we should, you know, instead of trying to stay on the way of this flood, we should, I think, open the floodgates. I'm extremists. Okay. So, Gary, opening the floodgates, and if this is our future and if it's kind of unstoppable, you know, maybe there is the glass half full view and we should be optimistic about this. But it also means that many listeners, including maybe podcast, interviews like David, myself and crypto investors like David myself, we might be out of a job soon or we might have to find a different line of work because chat GPT might be able to do it better

than us. And so as someone who's been in that position before, where, you know, suddenly a machine can play chess better than all of the human beings, was chess any different for you after Deep Blue? Give us some guidance because I feel like you've been playing, you know, 20 years ahead of the rest of society. Let's us examine human history. So let's look at the last couple of hundred years. So where we had machines intervening in all walks of life. So the society of the 18th century was agricultural. So the 19th century, we saw the replacement of human labor, but machines getting in. So by the end of the 19th century, beginning of 20th century, they developed countries, they had a very different balance, proportion of urban population versus countryside. So today, how many people

doing agriculture in America? 12%. So then we had, this is the manufacturing era. So we had this industrial era. What's happened with these blue-collar jobs? The problem is that now machines are reading white-collar jobs. And the difference is that unlike countryside folks of the 18th century or 9th century fox, you know, from big factories, I mean, white-collar jobs, you know, are just typically taken by people who have their Twitter accounts, you know, and who have access to mass media, social media.

And that's why we are so concerned. It's a natural process. I don't want to sound callous, but yes, it's just, you know, if this job, you know, just is no longer, you know, offers you a chance to compete with a machine. So move on. So now, as for chess, there's a slightly different because it's a sport. And we're still watching track and field.

But, you know, say, bold or just, you know, the best, you know, athletes, they cannot compete with, you know, in Ferrari, with any car. The same is here. So it's, yes, we know that chess engine now will beat any grandmaster. Chess engine on this device is stronger than the blue. It's a little bit unpleasant. So actually, to be honest, you know, I have to admit, I'm not very happy about it. But again, just, you know, change the angle of observation.

When I played carpal 30, 35 years ago, everything we did on stage, it was like, you know, magic, something, you know, that happened in the temple. So even if we made mistakes, grandmasters who followed the game and just make commentaries, they were scared, you know, they were shy to criticize because there are two, you know, high priests, you know, in the temple of Keshio, of the goddess of chess, and you can't, you know, you mean, maybe it's an accuracy, but you can't go after ability to to provide us miracles. Today, every amateur, you know, having access to computer screen, can I say, ah, Magnus Carlson made a blunder and one million people alive? So, again, as a former

world chess champion, I don't feel very comfortable about it, but imagine how many more people now are watching chess. Now, we have a chess popularity that beat all the records. Why? One of the reasons, because people actually can learn. They just, you know, they feel that they understand what's happening. They're following the game. They don't need, you know, Garrick's spot. or Yasasera, one already commented to tell them what's happening, they just look at the screen. Ah, machine knows everything. So there's always a balance. And as long as the balance is positive, and in my view, it's just, again, popularity of chess is more important than her feelings of some top players.

So we are on the right track. Are you satisfied or just, I'm not sure. Or you're even more now concerned about you. I am for myself. I am satisfied. I mean, to the point of like this being like the Industrial Revolution, there's no chance, Gary. I would change what I do now with the life of kind of a, you know, a farmer. I would not be very good at that skill set, you know, in the 1700s or something like that.

So I see a lot of the benefits, although it does feel like we're entering a new era, a chaotic time, you know, the decades to come as an era of change. And that always makes, I think, people feel uncomfortable, including myself. Like, we just don't know what to expect. How is the world around us going to change? Like, I'm feeling comfortable now, but will I feel that way in, you? you know, 10 years. So it's probably a fear of the unknown that is a kind of natural. And I think that's part of the climate right now. How old are you? I'm 38. David, how old are you? I'm 30. I'm 60. I'm 60. And I was born in the Soviet Union. You know, it's on the other side of Iron Corby.

And, you know, what was the biggest challenge in the country where I was born and raised is everything was the same. You know, there was no change. People were clamoring for change. So, yes, change is challenging, but it's necessary. And, yeah, we have to cope with that. So, yeah, at 60, I still feel you and I'm relevant because I'm willing, I'm willing, I'm willing to accept the change. So I'm willing, not just accept. I know it's happening. And by the way, this is the way to improve lives, you know, of ordinary people of, you know, of a big conglomerates.

We have different challenges, you know. This is, 100 years ago, nobody cared about climate change. 50 years ago, nobody cared about climate change. So we have new challenges. So what? It's a new challenge. Let's think how we can handle it. And while, you know, we have this the rise of the machine, so just let's use the Terminator, Terminator, Terminology. So I think that we just have to recognize that, you know, it may, you know, it's also made sense as signals that we just have to do some scales. Again, I'm great enthusiasts of exploration. And we stop exploring. I think this is one of the problems, you know, of the baby boomers. They were first generation in the history of civilization that never experienced any danger

of, you know, extermination or hunger. And they got complacent. I grew up in the Soviet Union, but in the 60s, late 60s, I was 6, 7, and I was a voracious reader, and I had all these magazines, you know, by exploring, you know, Mars, Venera, so this is, yeah, Venus, so I use the Russian name for the planet, so apology. So in 1966, you know, you go back to this as the, yeah, the first Star Trek. So they talked about, you know, the plasma engines in 1996. So what do we got, you know, this is credit default swaps.

It's in 1996. So it's a very, I think we just, you know, concentrated too much on just other things. They're great, fantastic. We made phenomenal improvements, you know, in healthcare, you know, in remedying our social eels. But, you know, at the expense of less exploration. So the last man walked on the moon, you know, what, Eugene Cernan in 1972. So it's this, people believe we would be immersed, you know, in the 80s. So I think it's time now to actually start concentrating on exploration because that's what made us successful.

You know, when people talk about flying to Mars, they say, it's too far. I said, look, you know, our chances of exploring Mars are just much better than Columbus. Because, you know, at least we have the map. We know where we're heading. We know exactly the distance. So let's start, you know, upgrading our challenges because we have such powerful allies as computers. When I've been reading your book, Gary, the winter is coming, the one that focuses on Russia, of course. You get the sense that there's a lot of talk about just like there's a humanist angle to it.

Humans have this creativity they desire to express. They have frontiers they love to explore. And when you suppress that ability, like eventually that bruise and that eventually explodes if it's contained for too long. And I think this is something that me and Ryan here on bank lists do try to get across on the podcast is we are. species of explorers. We are looking for new frontiers. Something that I really got out of your book was in the first few chapters where you discuss when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the West perceived this future of Western liberal values coming to permeate through the communist bloc. Democracy would flourish. The massive Russian market would enter the fold. It would spawn a new era

of human liberty. But then 10 years later, Vladimir Putin would take over leadership of Russia, a position that he still has 20 years later to this day. Russia has invaded Georgia, Crimea, and more recently Ukraine for the second time. And so we go back to the thing that you were saying, like you felt behind the iron curtain, which is like everyone was clamoring for change. And then we had this window of time in which, oh, we get to invoke change behind the iron curtain. Yet now we look forward to where we are today. And there's another dictator that has been leading Russia. And it's doing the same thing that it did before the iron curtain fell, invade its neighboring countries. What went wrong? Why did we revert back to a time in which we were

trying to end? Why didn't democracy flourish? Yeah, yes, you reminded me and the audience about this great moments of 91, 1992, it's actually 89, the collapse of World War, you know, the opening in the era, the end of the evil empire, so the emergence of new states out of the Soviet Union. I remember that the bestselling book in 1992 was Francis Fukuyama, the end of history. And I have to admit, I also believe that the future would be bright. Of course, it's over, you know, the Soviet Union's gone. So this is just, let's turn Russia into wild east. So that's just land of opportunities.

Yeah, I think we made few mistakes. One of them is, yes, we haven't recognized a simple fact that evil doesn't die. It can be buried in the rubble of a wall for a while. the moment we lose our vigilance, the moment we'll become complacent, it sprouts out. But also the most important thing, though I don't want just to pretend that, you know, there was no blame, you know, on the Russian side, on us in Russia that, you know, we just, I was 28 when it happened. So that's probably, though I was engaged in some political activities, but still I was a kid.

I think the burden of leadership was on the United States. And America had to come up with a plan. because when you have the end of history, not a history, but end of chapter in history. You have to come up with a new plan. So why the free world was successful in the Cold War? It's not just because, you know, it had better system. Yes, of course, it's economically, it's based on freedom. But it also had a plan.

The strategy designed by Truman administration back in 1946, 1947, that has been followed with some modifications by both Democrats and Republicans, by presidents. For 40 years, America followed. the plan. It was not, it was a bumpy road, but it was a plan. So to stop communism and eventually to demonstrate the advantages of the free system, of the free world. In 1991, 1992, we needed to come up with a new plan. So just to draw a picture of this bright future. So what's next? One of the challenges for me that was not answered was United Nations. The United Nations was designed as the best vehicle to prevent the next war, which you can, you may compare it to the freezer. You have to freeze conflicts.

In 1991, we were at a unique moment in history where America was powerful enough to start solving problems. So that's why you did a new organization. That's what I laid Santa McCaenka League of Democracy. And again, many other things could be addressed, but I think, you know, we just lost the sense of urgency. And going back to my child experience and teenage experience back in the Soviet Union, I remember that everybody knew America was there, like immobile object.

So it's hate or love, but it's... was America. Whoever is in the White House, America is there. Yes, it could move a little bit left, right, but it was there. Today, we live in a world where America as a factor. It's America. It depends who's in the White House. It's like a pendulum. And of course, you know, by losing this immobile object that could hold the world, so we have a lot of vacuum created. And who feels the vacuum? Putin, Xi Jinping, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Iran and Ayatollahs, his Bula, Hamas. His Bula, Mahat, Maduro, Chavez, whatever. So it's easy because, again,

they have a plan. They have plans very simple. Grab. So this is whatever. They're Portuguese. The advantage of, I use chess language now, the advantage of dictatorship over democracy is practical. They can always, you know, grab, you know, something that is available. Because they don't have problems with the parliament, you know, debate, free press.

It's just, I decide, period. We move. What is the advantage of democracy strategy? continuity. We needed a plan. And we see that, you know, it's every time we compete, we've been there. So this is the free world is always advantages when it comes to innovations, when it comes to new ideas. So those who are panicking now, look at China. So yeah, look at China. China gave us virus. America answered was a vaccine. And China couldn't even develop a problem vaccine, though they had six months head start on COVID. So we still see that, you know, the freedom is an

indistensible component of success, whether it's a business success or social success. But it's an advantage that we don't know how to use. And, you know, we definitely, you know, reach the point where we need this change. You are 38, I'm 60, but, you know, I don't feel that I'm, you know, I can dictate your generation or younger or younger kids how to leave. But we live in a country where next year, the choice will be between, you know, two guys that, you know, 160 or more years old, so combined. And definitely not in the best, for various reasons. not in the best conditions to be leaders of the free world. So we need change.

So that's why going back to this, we have to come up with new concepts for the development. That's why I say exploration. Exploration is so important because there's so much energy now in the world that is just, you know, just doesn't go anywhere. So that's why I want us to fly to Mars. By the way, it's not just about flying to Mars. It's not just about, you know, just having, you know, boots of our space explorers, you know, stepping on the red dust of the planet.

It's about the process. Because what we know is that the process of exploration, has unexpected turns. I bet you that something will happen, maybe one of the asteroids on the way to Mars will discover something that will help us to solve climate problem. And statistically, something will happen.

It was not just Columbus to cross the Atlantic. It's about so many things happen. You know, they have to develop new instruments. You know, this is better sheep. It's exploration always has its cost. By the way, it's quite risky. But it also has side effects. And by the side effects,

are becoming even more important. So that's why it's very important for us to secure the perimeter of the free world. That's why I think we need more decisive response to Putin's and Xi Jinping's and Ayatollahs. But it's not just, you know, using force, but it's also just offering future. And I think that's the fundamental problem. The free world failed to present a vision of the future. We talk too much about this, you know, the darkness that is inevitable, you know.

That's why I want to change the conversation. It's all about darkness. It's about optimism. Look at what we invented. We have a chat GPT now. Fantastic. So let's see how we can use it to improve our lives. and to get to other planets, for instance.

SELO is the mobile-first, EVM-compatible, carbon-negative blockchain built for the real world. And now, something big is happening. Introducing the SELO Layer 2. It's a game-changing proposal that's going to bring Sello's rapidly growing ecosystem home to Ethereum. Vitalik has shared its excitement for the SELO layer 2 on the SLO Forum. So has Ben Jones from optimism. But why? The Sello Layer 2 will bring huge advantages, like a decentralized sequencer,

off-chain data availability, and one block finality. What does all that mean? Rock solid security, a trustless bridge to Ethereum, and more real-world use cases for Ethereum without compromise. And real-world adoption is happening. Active addresses on SELO have grown over 500% in the last six months. With the SELO layer two, gas fees will stay low and you can even pay for gas using ERC-20 tokens. But SELO is a community-governed protocol. This means that SELO needs you to weigh in and make your voice heard. Join the conversation in the SELO Forum. Follow at SELOorg on Twitter and visit cello.org to shape the future of Ethereum.

Introducing GMX, the deepest on-chain futures market to trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, and leading alt coins. GMX is a permissionless decentralized exchange that offers perpetual futures and spot trading. Lightning fast trade execution and competitive pricing with the security and self-custody of a decentralized exchange. GMX is live now with V2, bringing new optimizations to on-chain leverage trading. And even more than an improved trading experience, GMX will reward you for just participating. All GMX users can easily set up a referral link and with $12 million of Arbitron grant being distributed as incentives and over $150 billion in trading volume today all settled on chain, GMX is leading the charge in terms of opportunities for defy liquidity

providers. The future is on chain with your wallets, with your trades, and with your money in your own hands. Try it out now at app.gmx.io. You know Uniswap as one of the largest decentralized protocols with over $1.7 trillion of trading volume, but Uniswap is becoming so much more. Uniswap X is the newest product from Uniswap Labs, which aggregates liquidity across the ecosystem to give you the best defy trading experience. The best part, it's gas-free and M-EV-Pprotected.

The best prices, zero gas, and M-EV protection all rolled into one app. So head over to app.uniswop.org. Click the gear icon on the swap page and make sure that UniswopX is toggled on. And if Zero Gas trading on Uniswap wasn't enough for you, the Uniswap app is now available on both iOS and Android. Start swapping seamlessly with products from the most trusted team in D5.

Visit app.uniswap.org to get started today. The equilibrium that you illustrate, that I perceive that you illustrate between, like, evil that grabs versus long-term democracy that plays a long-term game, right? Strategy versus tactics. To me, that's a difference of short-term versus long-term, right? democracy is playing the longest-term game at the cost of short-term clarity. Like, what is democracy's next moves?

That's a little bit more foggy. But, I mean, you know, with dictatorships and with evil, like the next step is obvious. Like you said, it grabs. And there's like an equilibrium there that settles between these two forces that doesn't allow one to really ever trump the other, right? Like, as democracy looks into the longest of terms, it creates room for evil to execute some tactics. you are such an advocate for human rights, of course. But like, what do you think in the fullness of time that goal actually looks like? Can, you know, democracy, quote unquote, win, right? Can we actually stamp out evil? Or is evil something that we are just destined to live with until the end of time? Like, how do we discover a more suitable equilibrium between these two things?

Look, as I said, evil doesn't die. So we know evil always comes back because it's human nature. You have good and evil. I think what is very important for us to actually identify is this is absolute evil. Because there's no absolute good. So I'm a big fan of the Rings. And generally, the Fantasy Books. And Lord of the Rings is a great story where you have absolute evil.

But on the good side, you have many quarreling factions. And the normal circumstances, they don't like each other. sometimes we fight each other, else at wars, for instance. And even humans, you know, they have tons of, you know, disagreements. But facing absolute evil, you know, they had to unite. And the same is in this world. So, yeah, we will have tons of disagreements. And there will be, you know, various forms of evils.

But right now we're facing out of a challenge. Vladimir Putin, Ayatollah, so this is the access of evil that is not just that exists somewhere. It has been actively threatening our way of life. And we have to fight back. We were not going to see any peace in Ukraine or in the Middle East before the regime changed in Moscow and the era. It's going back to the 30s and the 40s. And it's not accidental that Roosevelt Churchill back in January in 1943 just went again. It was not an easy moment. I just remind you that in 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad was not yet over. It was January. It ended in beginning of February. The German, the Vermacht stood on the banks of Volga all the way to the Schroast Atlantic.

Japan was still running strong. And Italy was still in the way. war. And they said unconditional surrender. That's leadership. Unconditional surrender. Because they knew that we're facing absolute evil, we have to act. And, you know, they understood that you had to deal with Stalin, which was also terrible evil. But at that time, we had no other choice. So then it was another, again, history does end. Hitler was gone. Then we had Stalin. We had Soviet. The communism threat. But again, it's just one challenge at a time. Today, unlike in the 40s, the free will has overwhelming advantage economically, you know, in innovation, are politically or militarily. And what we're missing, political will and also vision of the future and recognition that, you know, there are values that,

you know, you cannot compromise with. And we always, we have not real leadership, but more like managers. So there's people that are not willing to take responsibility for the future. That's those of the great leaders of the past. They made big decisions and nobody knew whether decisions would be right or wrong. But, you know, in 2015, I had a speech in Berlin, it's for Aspen, Germany, Aspen Institute in Germany. And I titled the speech four words. So the idea was that, you know, it's saying very little, you know, the leader, true leader can change the world. And of course, first thing people remember about four words is it's infamous Neville Chamberlens coming back from Munich deal with Hitler. So saying, peace for all time. That's bad news. But we had

other things. Tear down this wall. That's right. Ronald Reagan. Or J.F. Kennedy. I've been a Berliner. And kind of anecdotal, that's the Truman response to the Pentagon's analysis that West Berlin cannot be defended back in 1948 when Stalin blocked the city. So we shall stay, period. So those were the signs of leadership. And again, this is Harry Truman faced Joseph Stalin. JFK faced Soviet Union in 1962, 63 years. Trust me, much more formidable enemy than Putin's army today. And Ronald Reagan again still faced the Soviet Union, called an evil empire. So they was a sign of leadership because these great leaders believed in values. This is important. I watched many times actually I watched. I loved it. It's the first televised debate

between Kennedy and Nixon. I mean, even set aside the fact that it was very civilized, you know, vice president, senator, you know what's the most striking about this debate back in 1960? Debate was about means, not about ends. They agreed. They knew America was there. They did similar vision of the future. Very different means, how we should get there. But today, we live in a world where just people in America or in Europe debate the ends. We're still questioning, despite obvious facts, that the free world offers better conditions.

As I said, you know, just look at even healthcare. I look at many other things that, you know, where we easily beat the competition on the other side. But we still don't recognize that it's how, you know, valuable is the freedom because so many things we take for granted. You know, I always, you know, just arguing with some friends here. So say, look, guys, you know, you're right, pointing out at social illes in America. Yes, you have police brutality. But it's a problem in America. I come from the world.

I grew up in the world. Well, it was and still is the system. So we just have to recognize that, you know, the free world offers phenomenal opportunities for individuals. And again, I think that the future is to revealing this more potential of human creativity, human resolve that is. is yet being untacked. I think part of the challenge with all of this, Gary, is like there's not consensus on what evil is anymore, at least in some of the culture.

And I want to ask you, you've used the term evil and you've talked about absolute evil. And I think you'll find many bankless listeners will find common cause with you bringing Lord of the Rings into the picture. I'm sure that we have many fans, many readers of those books. And in Lord of the Rings, depiction of evil is this lidless eye on a tower that was constantly surveilling everything. So, you know, this world of complete global surveillance and this world of dominance where the darkness would kind of spread out from Mordor and, you know, conquer the kingdoms of valves and the kingdoms of men and dwarers like sort of one by one. And then you had the free lands of Middle Earth kind of trying to resist this. And so I'm wondering, is that what you mean when you say evil? Is that your depiction? Is it this idea of authoritarianism? And of course, there are many different blends of good, let's call it. And they look, different, but is good freedom, essentially? Is it the free peoples of Earth? How do you see evil? How do you

define it? Yeah, it's a very good description of this Lord of the Rings. Thank you. I am a fan, Gary. I love Lord of the Rings. It's nearly 30 years ago, so I would ask the Russian radio just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And the book was little unknown. They had a special program, you know, that's in 30 minutes. You had to tell to the teenagers, something about the book. And I picked up Lord of the Rings. In 30 minutes, I should explain. You know, and 30 years ago, I had to come up with one idea. Just, you know, what's the main idea? I used the idea as absolute power corrupts absolutely. For me, it was more about the ring.

The ring of power. It's no one can resist. Even the good can't resist absolute power. So that's the idea that I presented. So that's the, and again, of course, the coalition. But again, even this coalition that fought absolute evil had to destroy the weapon of evil because absolute power belongs to evil. So absolute power is the central evil in your world?

absolute power, you know, this is if you have absolute power that's uncontrolled, yes, that's what I believe. It always, you know, serves the evil at the end. That because it's absolute power means that, you know, it will infringe our freedom. So I'm a great believer in the individual freedom. So that's why anything that stands on the way of us, you know, of our self-expression, of our ability to live our lives according to our beliefs and live in a world where, you know, we're all equal before the law. That's freedom. And that's full power somehow will always conflict things that I've described. It's fascinating because I think very much the reason that David and I came to this kind of industry and started this podcast was in pursuit of this ethos of freedom,

really. And quite famously in cryptocurrency circles, the great enemy is really centralization, concentration of power. And sort of the savior technology is individual freedom in the form of encryption. You can own your own private keys. You can own your own assets, you know, Bitcoin, ether, all of these things. And so I think there's a lot of common cause with what you're saying and what many of our listeners probably believe. Oh, absolutely. It's for me, the Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency as a concept is a very important step towards the same direction.

So it's the, again, thanks to technology, thanks to computers. And for those who say that, oh, cryptocurrency, you know, can help bad guys to, it's money laundering. That's most popular argument. My answer is, yeah, so money laundering. I thought about it just before giving Bitcoin. It did exist. From the moment we invented money, there was a money laundering.

laundering. It's there. But who could do that? Only guys with power. The banks, let's on the Swiss, Luxembourg, Lexington. These banks, you know, have been collecting funds from all over the world and this, and they offered this kind of protection and money laundering instruments. So this is not all of the business of that. But again, people with money always had a way to make secret transactions. Now, this opportunity is presented to the masses. So you can do it. Yeah. Again, we already have. had it, you know, just this conversation just a few times over the last hour. It's nothing comes for free. There's definitely the price to pay.

And I've no doubt that there are zero downsides. But again, look at the balance. Yes, there are problems with crypto cards, say Bitcoin. But we know exactly how many bitcoins can be printed. There's a limited amount because we have a math on our side. Do you know how much money the feds can print? I don't know. I don't know if they know.

We don't know. Do you know what is the overall debt? in the world now because you have so many financial instruments that are murky. Even the guys were trading them, I'm not sure they know exactly what it's there. So we're talking about overall debt, you know, probably, you know, just it's 20, 30 times the size of the global GDP.

You're talking about quadrillions now because there's so many debts are just, you know, this is cross-pollinated. And we still have to rely on a currency called US dollars and we have zero control of the way this currency being devalued as we speak, you know, this is something is probably happening.

So I don't like, again, I understand we have to live in this world, but why not to use the power of technology, the power of science, the power of, you know, this global communication to fight back and to guarantee that, you know, that's what I earned, honestly earned, so it could be protected by the law of mathematics, not by the goodwill of feds. Part of the ethos of this industry comes from the fact that we can leverage math and cryptography to have maximum, like, freedom is a word that we frequently use. But since we're talking about leadership so much in this podcast, I think we can reorient the conversation in that lens as well, where it gives us individual tools to give us a platform to all be

individual leaders. When we can own our own assets, manage our own finances, control our own identity. These are some of the topics that we talk about in crypto. These are all tools to become the best leader individually that we can be. And it's one of the psychological elements that I think has always drawn me into this space. And also, since we're talking about Lord of the Rings, too, I think one of the reasons why Frodo is the protagonist in that story is that he was the least dangerous because he was the Hobbit, but he was also the one that was corrupted the least by the ring. And so he was the leader in that respect that he resisted the temptations of power the most. And Gary, as you were talking about the fall of Russia and the opportunity that we

had that we did not take, you accounted it to a lack of leadership, or at least, a lack of having a plan. And you also have mentioned the lack of leadership that we feel in this day and age, at least in America. It's something that I feel our political system is not elevating the best leaders that could be elevated. Is that a core fundamental problem that you see that needs to be addressed in this day and age for humanity to improve? Like, we don't have a supply of strong leaders that we once did. Speaking about the Lord of the Rings, so just we should remember that even fraud had a problem of resisting the temptation. Sure. And we needed evil actually. push you. We need gullum, David. We needed gullum. This is a very important question. And some say it's a chicken and egg. Because do we have leaders because, you know, the people want them or we have, do we have leaders and they show the way to people? But I think that's connected. It's naturally we have the population that looks for more for security, safety, more just for other things, you know,

strong leadership is not required. So this is because we, back to the 191. Cold War was over. Why do we need strong leadership? So let's, you know, we can just do other things. So this is the leaders, they do something else. Now we reach the point where, you know, the problem of the political leadership, let's talk about this country. Again, we can look at Europe, but let's look at this country. I think a political system just doesn't work anymore. Just for a simple reason, you know, any political system needs some, call it, it's not just redecoration. It's just you have to rebuild it. You have to adjust. Let's say, we have founding principles. Thanks to founding fathers. So this is this.

you have to adjust them to the demand of the time. And there's always a crisis. And sometimes you can solve the crisis, you know, by political means. Sometimes, you know, it ends up, you know, tragically, but necessary as a civil war. So this is, God forbid. But let's remember what's happened before a civil war, you know, the American political system had to undergo dramatic change. So it was always two-party system. But, you know, then you had a collapse of the Democrats for thousand and northern Democrats, and then you had a collapse of the weak party into know-nothing, but we're familiar, you know, nothing, gay, immigrants, and Republicans. So in the fateful lectures of 1960, or 1860, so we had four candidates.

So when you look today at American political map, you know, there are no two parties. It would meet at least four candidates to represent, you know, sizable chunks of American society, at least four. The problem is, you know, since he has only two parties, and it totally dominated everything, everything. They control everything. Most grassroots. So that's why you cannot get through. So you end up with one candidate because, you know, the party wants to hold firm control of the process. And very often, you know, those who are noisier and those who are just more radical, they seize the momentum. Yeah, it's this, you just look at current American political situation. So you have, you know,

this is very likely you have a criminal elected just in a momentage on one side. And you have somebody who just has to retire some time ago, so we'll be on another side. But why? Because political system doesn't function well. It doesn't reflect the different trends. Because we have so many debates. Going back to what, you know, we spent more than hour now, we talked about future. Do we believe that these two candidates, if you have to choose between, they can actually talk about the future? They have an idea about the future. I know, I disqualify myself, though I think about the future, and I believe I'm much better qualified to debate future than these two individuals. But we need totally different framework of the political debate.

And again, it's always crisis. It's where the political system is behind the demand of time. And I think it will work it out. Democracy is just always, you know, the self-correcting mechanism. But the price will pay might be high. The price we pay might be high. Gary, I want to ask you a question maybe if we've established freedom as kind of a great good. We're still on this topic of geopolitics.

And as you look at all of the geopolitical chess players, what do you think is the biggest threat to freedom right now? Is it China? Is it Russia? Actually, I want to throw a third candidate in there. The United States. I mean, is that a threat to freedom? Germany didn't start out as Nazi Germany.

What's your take on this? No, let's separate the United States with Russia and China. The threat comes from the countries that are fighting our way of life. It's not no longer just access to evil. It's much larger coalition. Obviously, Russia, China, playing leading role. You have Iran and Atollos. You have North Korea.

You have Venezuela here. And we have many others that might follow. And of course, you have, you know, the quasi-state institutions like, you know, Hizbollah, for instance, and terrorist groups. Somehow we can look at this, at the global map today, geopolitical map, as a chess game. It's black and white. It doesn't mean that, you know, the forces on our side. They are just, you know, the perfect. They're far from being perfect.

But again, that's democracy. Speaking about America, it's a never-ending quest for perfection. But again, you look at American history, America always answered challenges. Maybe later than that we wanted, but still, you know, always had an inner strength to address the challenges, even the most evil ones, unlike most of other countries. Because when you look at the European history, there was a much bumper road in America. So every country went through the process of reconsidering its past and also recognizing that nothing was perfect, but it's going back to what I said already a few times today, balance.

So are we doing better today than 50 years ago, 100 years ago? Of course. Just look at the its overall environment. 100 years ago in America, exactly 100 years ago. So there was the universal suffrage. Though we still knew that, yeah, it was in theory universal suffrage, but until mid-60s, considerable part of the population in America, technically had the rights, but couldn't exercise them. So, have we made progress from the moment when the Civil Rights Act was introduced? Yes, of course. It's just, again, is it perfect? No. But if you compare America to the rest of even the developed world, the democracies, it's still a free country in the world, trust me. So, Gary, you are still very bullish on America. Dollar is a very weak currency. It is the strongest

because others are weak. America is still a free-scaner, not because it's perfect, but because others, you know, have more problems. Trust me, as you look around the world, And you recognize that that's why people are trying to get to America. Why you have so many people trying to get to America? Yes, because America offers opportunities, far from being perfect. But we don't live, you know, in the world that, you know, is come close to perfection. And I don't think we should measure America or just compare America to some kind of henelous standards. We live on Earth.

The Earth is full of sins. What do you think? So you are bullish on America's ability to resist the ring of power and not collapse to sort of authoritarianism and to continue. Actually, it's challenging now. It is. I want to ask you why you think the experiment of America has sustained, you know, the freedoms it has as long as it has. Is it something unique about the protocol that we set up, this constitution, the freedoms, the way it was founded. Is it something cultural? What do you think? That's probably requires it in a second podcast. Oh, we're open to that, Gary. Some other times. I think it's important. America, you know, it's the country that was built not on the blood and soil. It was more like an idea. And it gradually developed in the society that believed in equality before the law. the United Kingdom was closed, but still, you know,

as every European country, even the UK had history that sometimes had a negative effect. Because when you look at the ancient history or just, you know, medieval times, yeah, I always have a little discomfort that, you know, it's written by those who won. So that's why, and America doesn't have this kind of historical liabilities.

It's just, you know, from Poconoda to Joe Biden, so it's a straight line. So we can argue about our evaluations. But we don't argue by the facts. So unlike in Europe, very often, we're not so sure. So there's certain advantages that America had from the very beginning. And up to now, it was always, you know, resisting against challenges that could come from radicals. The problem is now, I think, as I say, it's too many, several generations already lived

the world of great comfort. And I think just, yeah, taking it for granted, it's always dangerous. And that's why, you know, we have extreme positions. Democracy is in danger when it's attacked from both sides. It's not as a total. Very important to remember, you cannot destroy democracy from one side. You need two antagonists that, by the way, need each other. So who is the best fundraiser for AOC, Donald Trump and vice versa. We should remember that. So in Germany, when people say Hitler won elections, no, he hasn't won elections. The best result Nazi had in November 1932 was just over 37%. But the communist made nearly 16. So which meant that more than half of German population rejected democracy as an institution. So, and then it's a pass to dictatorship, whether it's going to one side or another. So it's what's happening now in America is just it's aggressive attacks on various foundations,

you know, on one side, on liberal freedom, another one of the market economy, but they need each other. And the center has been decimated. So I still believe that the center will recover. But again, it's a problem. You know, the reason Joe Biden was elected in 2020 is, you know, because he represents a hope of normal thing. Again, not perfect choice, but clearly, you know, people wanted just to.

find some kind of a balance. Look at Donald Trump and potentially at Bernie Sanders. But now we need to move on. So that's why, again, if you're following my article, so I argue that, you know, Joe Biden should, you know, recognize that his place in history depends on carrying the torch and passing it to the right person. So my suggestion is that he should, you know, step down at one point, can just nominate Lloyd Austin, I think the most capable member of the cabinet to continue, which, by the way, will solve the problem with Donald Trump. So that's who cannot beat even generic Democrat, but still tragically can beat Joe Biden. So again, there's so many things that can happen.

And I think that the changes is inevitable. That's why I'm not sure that, you know, we will see this horrible choice, you know, between Biden and Trump, you know, back a year from now in November. But there's a risk. There's a risk. And we have all to work on it. So that's why I hope Nikki Haley can beat Trump. Looks, it's a long shot.

So let's say now. So American system proved to be resilient. But we reached a point where the conflict in the society is between radical factions, the side is too deep. And majority in the center, which again, could be center, right, central left. I mean, it doesn't have a strong leadership to actually fight. That's why I think the political system that caused us this problem has to be redesigned. Gary, from our perspective inside of the crypto industry,

crypto is becoming an increasing conversation in at least pockets of the political sphere. You're seeing candidates on both sides of the aisle come up with their crypto policy in trying to get some sort of support around the crypto industry. And then you have like the Warren and Biden camp or kind of like anti-crypto. I know that at times, crypto as an industry, Bitcoin, property rights from crypto has entered into the world of human rights across many of the authoritarian regimes that we find across the world. And you're exposed to a lot of the stories coming out of the Human Rights Foundation that do and do not have crypto in them.

I'm wondering if there are any stories that do have crypto in them from the Human Rights Foundation that you can share. Because me and Ryan, we're kind of inundated. We have like tunnel vision about like tribal warfare in crypto and SBF and FTX. And sometimes we forget to zoom out and look at crypto through the human rights lens.

Are there any stories that you can share about how crypto has improved people's lives across the globe to fight authoritarian regimes? Endless stories. So again, I suggest we do a separate podcast on that because the problem is I'm not sure whether I could reveal some of the stories for a simple reason. For instance, you know, support for some of the underground women organizations, Afghanistan. So there's many things that happening.

We couldn't do without crypto. Again, for those who are saying money laundering, so I'm thinking about people who are trying to fight dictators in Russia, in Belarus, in Venezuela, of course, Afghanistan, even Iran. So this thing, crypto is a chance. It doesn't solve all the problems, but it offers new opportunities. Could be a weapon, you know, by bad guys, by the governments to actually attack our democracy. Yes, absolutely. But, you know, it's balance in our favor. Because I think, you know, it offers millions of people a chance to fight back and just, you know, to defy government in the financial sphere because very often government can win the battle by simply, you know, cutting all the funding.

With crypto, good luck. So getting into the specifics of stories, I understand, can be like, you know, there are wars to be fought here. But like, what about the properties of crypto would you say is advantageous to people who are fighting against oppression and totalitarianism? What do you mean? Like, how has it been used? They have to function. For instance, they have the schools for girls. So this is you have to pay somehow.

This is, again, there's so many small projects, you know, that help individuals. Again, I doubt very much you can fund a revolution on that. But you can fund so many small projects. the civil society projects that help, you know, just to keep the flakers of the flake, not to let it be too extinguished by the totalitarian machine. So what are your efforts currently working on in the Human Rights Foundation at large? There's a lot of places to advocate for human rights. Where are your energies being focused on today?

Human Rights Foundation is, I don't know, you know, whether your audience is familiar. So it's the organization that has been created by Tor Haulson back in 2005. And I joined the organization in 2009. So as a member of the board, the first president, chairman of the board, was Vatsv Haville. It's one of my great heroes, you know, the Czech dissident and the first president of Czechoslovakia free of communism and then following, you know, the collapse of Czech and Czech Republic and Czech Republic. And when he passed away, Tor and the rest of the board suggested that would be chairman. So I chair the organization for 11 years now.

And the idea of the organization was very much to actually have the first-hand evidence. Not, you know, the conference, you know, violation of human rights. It's happened here. It's about stories. It's more like a show. You have people who testify first hand what's happened to them in Russia, in Belarus, in Zimbabwe, God knows where it is, from Nicaragua on the west to North Korea, on the far east. If an individual who was subject to this prosecution could do it on his own or her own. So then you had people close to him or her.

Sometimes we even had activists who have been killed by the regime. And then we had the relatives or friends who spoke for them. That's a concept proof to be very successful because it helped us to move beyond Norway. Originally it was Oslo Freedom Forum. Now it's a trademark of that is being used in New York, in Taipei, in Johannesburg, in Costa Rica, God knows where just around the world. So it's probably the most lucrative dissident event because it was also very flashy. It's very high class. So it's very important to demonstrate that people who gather in Oslo in other cities, they are

are not just respected. They represent most important values of our society. And also it creates a sense of family. So many dissidents, so many human rights activists who came from countries around the world, they left this event energized because they could see that they were not alone. Creating the sense of loneliness is one of the dictators' most powerful weapons. You are against the country. You are against people. I'm the big dictator because everybody wants me to stay in power. And who are you? You know, just you have a bunch of, you know, just squandrels. You know, how can you challenge me?

They understand. We are a majority. That's what, you know, what helped the organization to grow. And, you know, we keep moving on. So that's just by having more events. But lately, you know, we had a new organization that actually was very much inspired by Humans Foundation. And I was one of the founders with Masieana Jad from Iran and Leopold Loves from Venezuela,

World Liberty Congress. That we just had our founding Congress in Lijuania, a few weeks ago, and a Masse Leni judge who was elected president. That's more like an aggressive entity because it's about political change. It's a structure that has, you know, this is leadership. You know, Massey is a president, now as president. Leopold is the executive secretary. And we have people from all over the world electing their representatives,

regions that, you know, that's, again, creating a network. So the idea of while the British Congress was dictators getting united. This is a dictators international. You look at all of them working together. Iran sending drones to Russia. China is definitely sitting behind, but pulling all the strings. North Korea, I guess it's probably Chinese. Shells also move to Russia.

So they all work together. So why don't we? This is the key now. We have to get together. And we have to use the power of mass media. They have the power of technology. So that's why we will always look for crypto. We'll look for modern communications.

Because we believe this is the way to be dictators. They could be successful temporarily because they have more resources. but we have numbers on our side. So that's why, again, I could see this, how we can bring these projects together and to fight. So as the other than Freedom Forum being a human rights foundation, working on more than the technology is glorifying

the cause of human rights fight. But World Liberty Congress basically carrying the fight back to dictators. Yeah, I mean, that's fantastic. And certainly crypto is an ally of that. You know, we feel very much that what we're doing here is this is a freedom technology for the

world. And we think that we've talked about that the whole context of this discussion has been about technical change. And we are moving from the analog into the digital. And it is therefore essential that we have a bill of digital rights as well. And I think the right to encryption, the right to own your own private keys, the right to own crypto is part of that and is common cause with the Human Rights Foundation, what you guys are doing. I'm curious, like, in the day-to-day of the Human Rights Foundation, though, what is the most effective way to push for human freedoms? Is it education? Is it interface? with world governments? Like, your dollar for dollar, what's the most effective spend in this

space to propagate human rights? Look, education is very important. The projects like Freedom Academy, so by just, you know, educating people. By the way, also educating them on crypto, educating them using, you know, modern technology, also helping them to protect their devices. That's again, this is just, you know, gets attacked. So this is making sure that, you know, you can identify whether Pegasso is sitting on your phone or not. So, or how to protect your computer. So that's this, again, Those are small things, but are very important for people who are under constant pressure from oppressive regimes. And also there are certain crucial moments who will have to campaign putting pressure on the world governments

because somebody is arrested or just even worse. Also, just to keep this momentum because there's so many compromises made by the free world with dictators. Because you need oil, you need gas, you did that. Look, Jamaka Shoggi, last performance, last speech was at Oslo Freedom Forum. So we funded the movie called The Dissident. So that's the story about this tragic heinous crime. And as we are pointing out that still, you know, the calls for justice have been announced. And so many things happening in the world now that's where you're in the geopolitics, real politics, is standing on the way of human values.

We believe that, you know, that this is the human rights should be given priority. And it's not just a leap service, as President Biden said, you know, this is democracy versus autocracy. Fine, perfect. So show me. Again, put your money next to you, what your words are. And that's, we believe it's our mission to make sure that, you know, even if we cannot succeed today, but we'll still push the governance of the free world to do the right things, sometimes even at the expense of immediate economic benefits.

Well, that's fantastic work, and we'll certainly put some links in the show notes where folks can get involved and find out a little bit more. And as we wrap this up, we've explored so many topics today. and from touching on AI and, you know, geopolitics, I want to get back to sort of one thing. So our listeners in crypto, they kind of skew younger, right? And I think we've all felt going to the 2020s. I mean, it started with COVID, didn't it? It has felt so tumultuous. It has felt so chaotic. It has felt so disorienting. And I'm wondering if you could offer us some words of wisdom as we close. So, like, as we look into the future, I think you have a...

a very optimistic outlook for humanity. Can you lend us some of that optimism? Why are you optimistic? What parting advice would you have for us to weather the decades ahead that might be full of all sorts of changes, some of which might be very uncomfortable? Yeah, some of them very uncomfortable. Almost my mother to COVID on the Christmas Day on 2020, and she was in Moscow and I couldn't see her because I was out of the country. So there's a price to pay. But one of the lessons I learned from my mother when I was rising to the global fame is that it's not just about winning. Of course, you have to win the game to climb to the top of the ladder, but it's about making a difference. And as long as, you know, you feel that you can make a contribution,

make a difference, even a small difference. You're relevant. That's what keeps me going. You know, I still can make a difference. Even just we talk now, I share my experience. That's my contribution. I'm not sure I'm right to never say I'm saying to the contrary. I believe that many things I said, you know, they may not be tested by time. They will not age well. But it's very important that, you know, we debate. And we try to make the difference, always to move the needle. You know, I'm a good scholar of history.

I read many books. And I always analyzed it. And I saw that, you know, this is the freedom always wins. There were darkest moments in history. Don't just think about 1940. The moment was just everything was lost. The Britain just was standing as Nazi Germany, but by the Stalin was Hitler's ally. America was dominated by this debate about, you know, just this isolationism, you know, America first, the original America first.

So just try to take America away from the global stage. Japan was just, you know, taking already part of China and dominating the Asian. So you had an Italy, of course, you know, just had, you know, free hands in Mediterranean and North Africa. So it looked at everything was lost still. We have to respect our history and we have to recognize the value of freedom and we have to be guardians, freedom. and it could come and make many different forms. One thing is, though, there's freedom and democracy related to freedom. They don't offer all the solutions.

They are challenging. You know, this Don Quixote, the Freedom Sancho, is the greatest gift that nature ever bestowed upon man. That's the book I read, and that's a formula that I believe, you know, is a guarantee of success. Though success does mean that you succeed, I succeed, he succeeds, or we all succeed. No, there's a cost. And it says we cannot be all winners. The win-win, it's not the way the history works. But the balance, the balance is the most important.

I think the balance will be always in our favor because we're on the side of freedom. What a fantastic way to end. Freedom always wins. And crypto certainly is a journey and a technology in pursuit of that. Gary, it's been fantastic to have you on bank lists. Thank you so much for spending this time with us. Thank you very much. Until next time.

Hopefully we'll continue the conversation. Yeah, we've got a few other conversations to have. Freedom requires, you know, debates. We appreciate you. Thanks so much. Thank you. Take care. Thanks, Gary.