The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast - Bitcoin News With a Canadian Spin - Episode Orange

Episode Date: April 20, 2024

Happy Halving.

Friends and enemies, welcome to episode orange. Something that a few podcasts are doing, I think, I hope. Jeff from the Why Bitcoin podcast turned me on to this idea. For halving day, what is your orange pill spiel, speech, conversation starter? I don't know, something. And I don't know how long these supposed to be. So I'll try and keep this pretty short. First of all,

congratulations on making it through having, this is my second one. And, um, a lot of stuff happens in these epochs. You know, you have the ICO craze between 2016 and 2020. You have COVID between 20 and now.

And, uh, this, you know, 50 pack is going to be, it's going to be something, man. It's going to be a lot of stuff going on. And this, you know, fifth epoch is going to be, it's going to be something, man. It's going to be a lot of stuff going on, a lot of innovation, and I'm sure some friction as well between us and TradFi and people who are coming on board. And maybe that's a good place to start. You know, how do you, how do you get people on board? I think this is the whole point of this episode orange so for me oftentimes you know these things kind of come suddenly and without warning these

opportunities to orange pill somebody so i thought about writing this down doing a script rehearsing all that whatever but i decided not to it's a friday afternoon here i'm just recording freestyle the thing that i like to lead with for people who are new to Bitcoin or pre-Bitcoin is almost always the same. It's you understand implicitly or explicitly that there's a problem with the value of your time that didn't exist four years ago. Certainly not before COVID, although some people were probably feeling it then too. But there's a problem with the value of your time. You value your time significantly differently than the employer, the government, all these different entities value your time. And it causes friction. There's a clear disconnect between what you think you should be experiencing

and what you're experiencing actually. The thing that I like to say to people, maybe just as frequently or as a sidebar to that, is everyone understands that there is a certain cost of living. There's this defined term, cost of living. Everyone talks about it. What is the cost of living? What is the cost of being alive these days? Most of the time when people answer that question, they say, you know, it's whatever my, it's my rent plus my car, plus my insurance, plus my healthcare, blah, blah, blah.

Okay. I get that. What I like to say is, you know, you want better for yourself, right? All your friends want better for yourself, for themselves. How are you living now? is what you're doing actually living by any measure for me and I've said this before on the show I've said this to my friends I'm lucky I don't have a lot of friends in this situation but I have some you know for living for me is a house where my wife and I can build a family and be proud of a community that we're a part of and support each other and support our neighbors and support schools and initiatives to make the community better, to build a real nest here, not in isolation, but with like-minded people who ended up here too. Have time for things like charity

and volunteering, have extra resources to give to causes we think deserve them and support those causes other ways as well. Being able to have a family where you're proud when you talk to your kids about the things you've done in your life and the way you can support them and are supporting them. Maybe having a wife that can stay home when your child is young. You know, we plan on doing that. Lots of things, right? You know, working a reasonable set of hours every day, you know, eight to four, nine to five, whatever. Having a schedule that's predictable and the expectation, of course, on your part

is that the schedule remains that way so you can fill the life and sleep properly, eat properly, you know, take care of your body, your vessel on this earth. That's what living is for me. That's where I decide what my costs are. That's what my cost of living is, to make sure I can keep that lifestyle for my wife and I. But for a lot of people, when I have this conversation and ask them what living is, I get a different answer. What's living for you? It's grinding at a job that has difficult hours, difficult work for an employer that even if they did value my time on a conceptual level, they're not remunerating me for it

in a way that makes a difference to me. I'm living in a apartment or condo or shared house. I'm not building any equity. I don't own the property. I have no stability. I can't start a family for that reason. But also I can't start a family because life is too expensive. My wage hasn't kept up with the price of the goods that I need to survive and thrive. And instead I find myself stressed out. My body's not working the way it should. I don't sleep enough because I'm worried about finances. I don't eat properly because I can't afford to buy that good food.

Eat something that's nutritious all the time. I don't always have time to do it because my work hours are irregular. I can't lose my job because there's nothing out there. So I'm basically a slave to the corporation that employs me. A whole other story. On top of that, while you're thinking about volunteerism and building a family, I'm thinking about, you know, getting a six pack on the way home, putting a little marijuana in my vape pen or THC, whatever it is. And, you know, watching Netflix or going on Twitch or playing

video games and going to sleep. There's nothing wrong with these things in moderation. Everyone plays video games or does this kind of stuff. I know I do. The problem is that when living becomes occupying a tiny space that you can call your own, barely, with very little privacy, very little sense of community, and stimulating yourself with the fake pleasures of the modern day, Netflix, pornography, drugs, and alcohol, rolling over, farting, and going to sleep before you do it all again the next day in an attempt to just keep food on the table, to keep breathing, to keep your head barely above water. That's not living. People don't thrive in that situation. And when they don't thrive, they don't become people who

are community contributors, who are helping build the next generation, who are pushing ideas forward, who are giving their mental capacity to things that really matter, to things they have a passion for. And when you can't give your mental capacity to things you have a passion for, you're not happy. And worse, you're not doing your community any great services either. It's almost impossible for someone to maintain their frame of mind or their frame of reference when you give them that story. Because oftentimes people who are not in Bitcoin are struggling with these things. It's a direct, I think, correlation. The understanding that Bitcoin is an important

technology and the long-term thinking that allows you to live with some stability. And a lot of young people don't have it. I mean, I'm not a boomer or anything. I'm 36, but a lot of people younger than me don't seem to understand this. They're living for the moment. And why not? There's no chance they're going to be able to afford a house. There's no chance they're going to be able to retire. There's no chance that there's going to be some government program that gets them out of this.

I mean, we've seen in Canada this new budget allowing a doubling or suggesting a doubling of eligible retirement savings to buy a home. Strip your retirement to zero, Anon, and be a slave to debt forever, since you're not going to be able to enjoy your golden years anyway. You'll just work until your fingers fall off, until your heart stops beating. That's what Bitcoin tries to push back against. And I think everyone, regardless of their status in life, their understanding of money, their willingness to take risks, everyone understands that that's the life they deserve. That's what you're on this earth for. And you don't have to be spiritual to think that you deserve a life that's fulfilling. At the very least, a life that you can be proud

of. Everyone works hard and does things they don't like, but there's something fulfilling about that too. When you can enjoy the fruits of that labor and you're rewarded for the good decisions you make and putting things off in terms of quick pleasures benefits you long-term and allows you to build a family and take care of yourself and be part of a community. Bitcoin wants all those things for you, for all of us. The fiat system just doesn't. And I hope that if you've been in Bitcoin for a while, obviously, like I said, we're at the halving. These are important events because it's a reminder and it's a unifier.

This is what we do as Bitcoiners. We push for better. We strive to make living something to be proud of, not something that keeps you up at night. Hope you enjoyed that. Happy having.