Tomorrow - Episode 6: Joshuah Bearman Heads Down the Silk Road

Episode Date: May 15, 2015

Two Joshes sink deep into a discussion about libertarianism, the art of longform, the dark web, and making movies. One Josh is the host of Tomorrow, Joshua Topolsky. The other Josh is Joshuah Bearman, famed writer (he penned the story that became the film Argo) and sensitive human being. We have recorded the experience and now share it with you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of Tomorrow with Joshua Topolsky is brought to you by Nadex, binary options trading. Say you think the markets are going up, you can go to nadex.com and make a trade on that. You're not buying stock, you're trading on where you think the price will be by a certain time. Trade the most popular financial markets with thousands of short-term contracts listed daily. Go to nadex.com and get started trading binary options. That's n-a-d-e-x.com. Futures options and swaps trading involves risk and may not be appropriate for all investors. Hey, and welcome to Tomorrow. I'm your host, Josh Wittipulski. Today on the podcast, we'll discuss the mashed potato, George Washington Flossing, and Cipher punks. But first, a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace.

Squarespace is the easiest way to create a beautiful website blog for online store for you and your ideas. Squarespace features an elegant interface, beautiful templates, an incredible 24-7 customer support. Try Squarespace at squarespace.com and enter offer code Joshua at checkout to get 10% off. Squarespace builds a beautiful. My guest today is Joshua Baramon. He is a writer. He is a sensitive human being. Josh, Josh, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Is there another, would you say there's another thing that you would put on to the, he's a writer and

my business card says writer comma sensitive human being. That's right. So I got it. You produced, you produced things. I have, well, yes. Eighth. I mean, I, I didn't produce that movie, but I'm sorry. But I have been a producer and other things that have yet to get made. You have to get made.

I have in my notes here, there's a documentary called The King of Cons. Oh, yes. I was a producer on King of Cons. Contributing producer. That's me. Okay, so you did produce that movie? Yes.

Okay. I thought you were talking about Argo. No, but why don't we just get into it? Clearly you want to talk about Argo. If you don't know Josh's work, you probably have seen his work. He is the man. He wrote the story that the film Argo was based on. He's also done some great feature right in Coronado High was a piece that he did for GQ

and the Adavist think what about a year ago? Two years ago. Two was it that has been the long? It makes me feel very old. And most recently, you published a piece in Wired about the backstory of the inside story of Silk Road, the creation of Silk Road and beyond, which I have read most of the first part.

Oh, it's very long. You know, you haven't even gotten to the cliffhanger? I haven't gotten to the cliffhanger yet, but it's a two part. I was wondering why you're not on the actual edge of your seat. I've actually pretty close. The seat is frankly, I don't like leaning back in it, but anyhow, it's a crazy,

I mean, it's a, the Silk Road story, which I do want to talk about. I mean, it's intense and it's detailed. And I was reading it and I was thinking, presumably if you're listening to this, you know what Silk Road is. If you don't, I shouldn't have to explain it. But why don't you, Josh, since you just wrote the definitive piece on Silk Road is. If you don't, I shouldn't have to explain it, but why don't you, Josh, since you just wrote the definitive piece on Silk Road and the birth of Silk Road, how would you describe it to somebody? If you were just, you know, while in the street, somebody was like,

hey, I've heard about Silk Road. Yeah, since I sort of have to describe it a lot now, right? Cause I've been working on it for three, four, five, six months, whatever. It's like a PhD student where you're like, you just have like a business car, where you have the thesis printed on it, so you don't have to explain it to everybody.

Rider, Sanskrit human, and then the explanation of what's so correct. Yeah, exactly. Oh, it was a Klan Destin Amazon for criminal goods and services. That's pretty good. It was basically what it was. So right, it was a, you know, user vendor marketplace

that was using the tour protocol. And so what the creator Silk Road did was figure out, well, okay, listen, so now we can have a marketplace that's entirely outside of the jurisdiction, not jurisdiction, let's say, but the control of the government, and we can have anonymity with the marketplace, the site itself, and then with the transactions using Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency, and or digital currency, I suppose, if you don't want to be pejorative about it.

Yeah, please. Can you keep your pejorative bullshit out of this? Well, the thing is, it's not so crypto that currency because in fact, Bitcoin has the blockchain where you can see all the transactions. But I mean, that's actually part of the design of Bitcoin. But in any case, so it allows, so combining Bitcoin with Tor allowed for the creation of this sort of Amazon for criminal goods and services.

And there were vendors with vendor profiles. And just like on Amazon, there was like ratings and stars. And there were vendors with vendor profiles. And just like on Amazon, there was ratings and stars. And there were five stars, great MDMA. Or like fine whisp of smoke on this kind butt or whatever. And you could see what you were ordering. And you would order it. It would show up in the mail. And it was very efficient system.

And actually worked very well. Did you ever use it? No. I didn't know about it till it was done. I actually remember right before the story started, right before this thing became a thing, it had been, I can't remember what happened, but it had been raised as a topic of conversation.

And we were like, oh, we gotta do it, I was at the verge. And we were like, we gotta do a feature. We gotta do a story on this. And like a week later, dude gets busted and like, I think it was like, you know, maybe, I don't know if Adrian, Adrian wrote a, Adrian Chin wrote a piece.

Oh, well his first gocker piece, he knew that kind of blew it up. I think that was, we was like a week before that. Oh yeah. So it was still a beat you guys, man. I know. Just one of many, many horrible defeats we suffered at the hands of gocker media.

Of Adrian, particularly. I think I got Adrian. Yeah. But, but, so this thing was, I mean, it was, it was very, very like, it was whispered, it was very underground, and obviously it was very illegal. I mean, or was it, think about it, man. No, it was illegal.

I guess by your laws, you know, but what are those? Just some words on a piece of paper. Right, yeah, by decree. Not by a piece of paper. Right, yeah. By decree. Not by the use of humanity. Right, okay. Yeah, by decree with your fiat currency. But the, well, I mean, this was part of the animating idea of Silk Road, which we're

being very glib about, which is a little bit more serious. Yeah. Which is that. So the creator of Silk Road, which was for some time was unknown, but there was a system administrator who was kind of the leading voice, who then took on a handle, you know, named Dred, which was Dred Pirate Roberts, and there was sort of some fanfare around that, and then there, so then essentially Dred. Robert Roberts, who went by the sort of shortened moniker, DPR, was the leader. And it was clear that he was the proprietor of the site, or this handle was, and had created the site. And so part of the idea was sort

of a libertarian like political polemic where the site was just— The site was just— The site was just— The site was also, in a way, was just a product doctrinaire libertarianism. The site was also in a way was just a product of the, of that doctrine. It was sort of meant to represent. Right. It was like, well, it was kind of a statement against the

war on drugs from the liberal libertarian perspective, which is, you know, the government is a sort of coercive monopoly on violence, right? And that any economic transaction outside of the system is a, you know, step towards freedom. Right. And, you know, that was the vocabulary of the site. And so, I don't know if all the users were that into it, you know, some of them were.

I think a lot of them were probably just trying to get some acid. Yeah. Like, I really need access to the rate I'm going to this week. Yeah. it. Yeah, I really need access to for the rate I'm going to this week. Yeah, they had a page through it, presumably, there's some sort of political monologue or what I've just screwed. Yeah, they were very lengthy, very articulate, pretty well-weasant and argued and stuff. But yeah, I mean, in fact, a lot of people, I knew people who, after the fact, then I would talk a lot of work on the story and I'm like, oh, lot of people, I knew people who, after the fact, then I would tell people, I'm working on the story. And they're like, oh, yeah, man, I got some good, you know,

MDMA from that. Anybody you'd like to name? Now, they'll be, they'll be arrested eventually. Like, you think they're gonna round up all the people who also use, so. No, I mean, they have been, you know, since, well, this is getting ahead of ourselves, but they, you know, go, law enforcement, got a hold of the server.

And so you can start to piece, got a hold of the server. Spoiler alert, you can start to piece together who a lot of the big vendors are. So they've been, there's a lot of the vendors have gotten busted. And so, and at some point we discover, I mean, in the real world who Dread Pirate Roberts is, can you talk about this character at all? I get, I have a red part too.

I have followed the case. Yeah. I mean, it's out there, right? Yeah. I think it's convicted. Although the I have followed the case. Yeah, so I mean it's out there right? I think it's convicted. All the send things coming up. Yeah, really soon you'll get death like But they're doing the electric chair for the for the proprietor of so-cred. No, I think they're just be giving like a whole lot of MDMA They like it's like when you get such a rainbow tribe three hats, okay? You get there like your parents put you in the closet. They're like, it's like when you get that's broken. That's broken. You get, like, your parents put you in the closet. They're like, smoke this whole pack.

I don't know if this actually happens. This is like a urban legend about, I think, parenting. Yeah, right. I don't know if it actually happens. Anyhow, so we were talking about the identity of the dread pirate robber. Right.

Okay, so maybe I'll back up and just lay out the whole thing. Please do. So you've got the Silk Road. It is this sort of hidden but also public site. It's hidden in the sense that it's public in the sense, let's say, that anybody can go there. It's out in the open. Everybody knows about it. Law enforcement knows about it. But it's hidden because it's using Tor. And so the site itself can't be identified. Users can't be identified. So it's using TORR and so the site itself can't be identified, users can't be identified.

So it's operating with impunity for several years, right? It's lifespan was almost three years. And sorry, go ahead. Well, okay, yeah. So TORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR I want our listeners to understand we just have it. Magnus, my producer, who's from Sweden, interrupted the conversation with a question. The question was, can you explain tour? Yeah, go on. Hold on, just drinking this. Just have it.

Dr. Pepa and Jameson. How is the Dr. Pepa and Jameson? They mean the outpatient? Yeah, the out. Josh also just randomly coined a new drink. He created a new drink here, which is Dr. Pepper and Jameson, which is whiskey. Yeah.

Is that, it's not rye. No, it's not, it's Scotch whiskey. Scotch whiskey, is that right? I don't know. Magnus, do you know? Irish whiskey. Irish whiskey, that's good. I remember.

But and you caught it the outpacing, which is a great name. It's for you to know why you caught the outpacing. You know, well, because of Dr. Pepper, it's like the doctor is gonna see you. The doctor is out great name. Do you know why you called the outpacing? No, well, because of Dr. Pepper. It's like the doctor is gonna see you. The doctor is out. Yeah. Right, okay. That's good.

That's really good. It's too good for its own good. Yeah, that's right. We should, well, we'll still start a menu. The Tomorrowland. Wait, what's the podcast called? Tomorrow. Just tomorrow.

I'm not in the movie. I'm so excited. I know, I know that you know George Clooney. So you're probably just thinking about him a lot. Yeah, but it's not what you up to. He's like, oh, texting me like, you text, do you text with Clooney? No.

No. I should say, I should say, I should take a break now and say that Josh and I have known each other for a little while. And actually, I did a pilot for TV for an FX, an FX show that never happened. No. But Josh was my guest on the show.

And we talked about, I don't want to go back into this, but nobody's seen it. So I feel like I should talk about it. Josh introduced me to something I'd never heard of before, which is cluntang. Oh, I know. Which is, oh God, it's so insanely. It's insanely, and it's back to the fact that,

it's like I shouldn't have talked about that. I bring it up again because I thought it was a very, but what it was is it's... All it is is here's a, so I wrote the story in Wired in 2007, which is about the CIA mission that is depicted in Argo, where Tony Mendez, who was in the forgery and authentication department of the CIA, which means disguise, and deception operations, snuck these guys who had escaped from the embassy, they've hosted the escapees from the embassy out of the country. And so I wrote the story and I was like, you know what, this would be pretty cool if it could be a movie with George Clooney. And I thought that I had set it out loud actually to my friend.

I was like, this would be great for old Clooney. And then the next day, Clooney called and was like, I love this. Yeah. And that is usually how it happens. And so, yeah, I was like one of a thousand people probably saying like in a coffee shop in LA. Did Clooney actually, so first off,

is there any truth to the thing that you just said that you were like, this would be a great movie with George Clude and then he called the next day yeah but had you heard that he was interested prior to that well I'm Aliding of detail yeah that's which is why I'm curious because it seems for to which is which is bizarre that you would just I mean it's not it's not so dramatic a detail so that I had that I had... But Clooney was sniffing around. No, I have... No, I just... As he's wanted to do sniffing around. Yeah, it's like a bloodhound.

No, I mean, look, I, at that time, I had worked on King of Khan, the documentary, which had resulted in me having an agent, which at the time did't follow it with the agent. So, but you know, like a book, like a book, like a book to film type of person. Right. So, when I finished the story, this story, and wired,

I had the proof. The ARGO story. Yeah, at that time it wasn't called ARGO. No, it wasn't. What was the name? Which is kind of a dumb title, it was called like, the great escape from Tehran or something. I

had to think about how easily that could have been ignored. I had a better title. I don't remember. I don't remember. We could have been that good. I think it was called like Washington as Hollywood for ugly people. That's very good. It's abstract. It's extremely abstract. Well, it's all about symmetry. I think I know why they passed. Not that the other headline is better, but I can understand why the first one wouldn't have fled. I've got to say, I like that they chose Argo, which is a confusing title for the marketing people. But there were like, maybe people will think it's a science fiction film. Right. Hold different audience. Yeah. Anyhow.

So I had an agent because I had worked on King of Kong and you have to conclude contracts, which was worth no money, but it was definitely fun making King of Kong. And so then I wrote the story, I sent it to my agent and she was like, oh, it's just like a real agent, right? So she could send it to Clooney, etc. I'll get this. So she did. And then he responded immediately. And so that's why he loved it. He loved it. He read it and his partner, Grant Heslov, who's a produces with him, they wrote together a good night in Galuk, they're creative team. They read it and flight it immediately.

So then that's about your clue in tang. Yeah, all right. So then when that happened, you know, this is all I mean, this is gripping. This is great inside inside the behind the music stuff. But yeah, so then I like missed my agent's call, but I called her back. No, so I just we just spent an hour and a half

on the just the getting to the actual meeting. So a friend of mine, I don't even remember who this was, but then I was like, you know, all excited to talk about like, man, you know, George Clooney. And like, man's, you know George Clooney and Somebody's like, oh, you're gonna get so much glue Actually, I don't even think it was directed at me because it was just in general It's all about the clue tank the way right. It's all about the clue tank the way I which is an offensive term Can we just say that it's a, it's a show

to everybody. It's a fantasy of George Clooney. To man, to women, to George Clooney. Yeah. But the idea is the way you describe it to me is that like when it comes to, when it comes to George Clooney, who's a very handsome man, and very successful. Yeah. It's all mood now because he's married.

So this is all not applicable. But in this at this time, unmarried, the unmarried George Clooney, who is a... Let's sell the actual bachelor alive. Yeah. Most eligible bachelor in the universe and, and, you know, I think got around. Yeah. The idea is that women would, women would throw themselves at George Clooney. Right. We'll sell. I mean,, listen, I don't I swear to God, I don't know who said this. I saw it. I'm sorry. Now I feel like I put you on the spot. No, it's fine. I just it's we're not going to, but we could. Uh, I imagine in retrospect as I'm thinking about how I heard about this or who said it,

that it was just like those dudes from the Kevin Smith movies. Oh, see, I was thinking I was thinking it was, uh, it was like the guys from the Kevin Smith movies. Oh, see, I was thinking. The stoner dudes. I was thinking it was like the guys from the parking lot in, say, anything. Right. Similar idea. Right. Yeah, but it's somebody like that. Right.

Yeah. So whoever it was said, oh, so, oh, man, it's all about the clown tang. I was like, what's the clown tang? And he was like, well, it's when, so you're hanging out with George Clooney. And then, you know, all the ladies are gravitating over towards you, like, Cheerios the clue in tang? And he was like, well, it's when, so you're hanging out with George Clooney, and then, you know, all the ladies are gravitating over towards you, like Cheerios,

because he's still handsome, and, you know, but he's only one man, so he can only field one incoming, you know, lady, and then there's all the leftovers. Or two. Maybe two, I don't know. I'm not gonna comment on this. That's how much you're paying the class you got.

And I'm actually genuinely saying that. And I'm sure gonna comment on this. That's how much you hate a classy guy. And I'm actually genuinely saying that. And I'm sure that's true. And so, you know, so but the joke, whatever, is that so then whoever there's like, they, you know, they're all, they get the runoff. Yeah, they're all amped up for Clooney, but he's kind of taken so then they're just like, well, who's this guy?

But you're hanging out with him. Right. Yeah, you're like, well, who's this guy? But you're hanging out with him. Right. Yeah, you're like in his- So a little bit of the halo. Yeah. Kind of just is shiny. Yeah. You get bathed in the light of the halo essentially.

I'm sorry, this is completely off topic. We were talking about dread pirate ropers and his identity. Oh, Tore, I'm sorry. You were in it. Jesus. So Tore, what is Tore? All right. So Tore is a cryptographic, I mean, software protocol, which I'm saying, because I don't know exactly what that means. The onion router. Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. It's short for, it's an acronym for the onion router. The onion refers to layers and peeling and whatever. And so somehow via layers and some technological wizardry that I don't understand, it allows you to, it basically masks IP and computer communication.

So you can tell there's like, we're getting into the into the place where you're technological. Yeah, no, it's like you're like you're like walking into the pool and you're getting into the place where it's starting to get to your chin. Yeah, I mean, I know no one really knows that. It's well, it's the wizardry. No people do know. But it has to work. It's all about the package. Tor plays a central role in this story. It is a method by words. Tor was developed by the Navy that much I know, and it was meant for clandestine communication so that it couldn't be tracked by foreign governments, whatever.

And so then it became public and open source and available to all. Who's that? I don't know, actually. But you can be sure that they profited from Silk Road. In the way we can't begin to understand. Right, yeah, it was all spotted by the 33rd day. Right, yes. I don't think we can, I don't think you can argue

that this is all part of a massive global conspiracy. Well, the symbol for Tor is an eye with like light shooting out of it. Is that true? No. That is of the dollar bill. All right. Yeah. So, um, technology. So listen, here's the deal. Tor, So listen, here's the deal. Tor, the secret protocol, well, public protocol for secret communications allows you to create a site like Silk Road so that a million, you know, eventually there were a million registered users

and vendors and they're transacting and communicating and having, creating this global marketplace for mostly drugs. So it was actually, there was all these different categories. What are some things? Were there things that were just legal on Silk Road? Yeah, you know what's kind of funny is they would, there also some people would just sell like some old clothes,

like it was eBay. Or like an iFDex box game, try to get rid of it. Exactly. Yeah, and then there was some prepper stuff. It's like, who wants, you know, like a case of hard tack and some distilled water. There were categories and there was some lingerie, there was a friend of mine.

As a weird art project, I discovered later, she was like, oh, I'd been sort of cataloging weird ordinary items on Silk Road. That's amazing. Wouldn't it amazing? See, that to me, I just popped into my head, but I thought, surely there are people who love the ideal of Silk Road, the concept around it. This libertarian ideal of, we can kind of fuck the system by going around the system.

I'm sure that there were sort of like straight edge silk rotors, right, who were people that weren't necessarily interested in the drug trade or even personal drug use. I mean, some obviously a lot of the users are just random people who are like, I want some mushrooms, but I think there were probably people who were just committed to the idea conceptually. Yeah, I feel like now in like 10 or 20 years, silk road will return as kind of like it'll be like a cartoon version of Silk Road where it's like a widget on your TV.

Yes, and it's like for buying and selling stuff, but it's this kind of like funny soft version of Silk Road. There are sort of successors to the Silk Road which will shut down. Yeah, they've been Silk Road 2.0's. Yeah, well that was shut down. That was kind of a joker scene. Yeah. And then I think there was like I don't respect you don't respect So I'm not into to yeah two point oh was like now those were those guys were kind of half-assing it right

I don't know if you saw the picture of the dude. I mean I feel bad. I mean this guy's going to prison going I mean Did you see it's like a Blake Ben thal's the guy's name anybody see the picture just look it up Whoever's listening just Google Google that guy Blake Ben thal I the guy's name. Anybody see the picture? Just look it up. Whoever's listening. Just Google that guy. Blake Benthal. I think that's his name. It's not Google's. It's like a made-up day. He's like the third, he's like

Dreadpied Roberts three essentially. Right. That didn't work out. I mean, that whole scheme didn't work out because the idea was that you could pass this anonymous identity. You could, anybody could occupy the identity of Dreadpied Roberts, which which was the which is how it is in

Prince of Pride, right, which is that's the origin of that character, correct? Yeah As far as I know that movie. Yeah, is that a male Brooks film? No, that's who did Rob Reiner? Rob Reiner, is it? I don't know. I'm looking for these. Do you guys know? They have no idea. Actually, I have no idea who made that move. We should find out. I don't know why I said Rob Reiner. There's no internet in this room.

They made us put our phones on airplane mode. Yeah. So we don't know. This is like, actually when I think about it, what we're doing in this space, we're gonna hold, we're gonna kind of a sphere. It's like, well, it's like a time machine. Whatever happens to the internet.

But whatever happens in here. Like we're doing radio like the shadow. Yeah. Like the shadow. Like my grandfather listening to the World's Broadcast, she did. The shadow was, that's the, who knows what lurks in the hearts of men.

Is it the shadow side line? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now we know they want to sell drugs on using tour. Well, this was an inadvertent, thematic digression, but I will say that that is essentially the story of the Silk Road is kind of this idealistic sort of entrepreneurial venture, which was enabled by technology and worked very well and was very successful. I mean, there were over a very short amount of time, a lot of transactions.

It's hard, people sort of tried to place a number on it. The thing that you would see in the press was a billion dollars in sales, but that's based on a Bitcoin valuation very high. Well, that can't be trusted. Well, it's not even that it's just like at what point are you valuing? Like the day he was arrested, it was worth, I'd say, all the transactions would have been worth, you know, maybe $200 million.

But then after he was arrested, it was much higher because Bitcoin fluctuates. Right. But it was like, rapidly. Significant, right? Right. And so it was very successful. And but what happened was rather quickly the idealist behind it who turned out to be a guy named Ross Ulbrich, who was a 29 at the time, year old physics,

PhD kind of a talented science, uh, uh, uh, whiz kid from he was grew up in Austin, uh, and he had gone to Penn, I think, or Penn Penn State. Oh Jesus Christ. I forget always which one you wrote it. I wrote no I mean I just read the article on wire.com to learn more. Yeah, but I had got I just always forget which college is which but it's so he was he well he went to I think he was in Dallas for underground and he went to Penn for grad school and then he kind of dropped out because he's like, I wanna just create something myself sort of as, you know, we're in the second internet boom, the entrepreneurial era,

all the scientists are dropping out to create some kind of like, you know, their own startup or whatever. It's so weird. I mean, he could have made anything. I mean, he might have made like Snapchat. Well, what's interesting is, so he moves back to Austin and he created a couple of other businesses which failed

and which were not big visionary ideas, but he had this idea and it started off kind of small, I mean, it was like this homemade thing. He wasn't a programmer, he just kind of made it himself but he's smart enough. He's very smart. So he knew sort of even via his like auto-diedact programming ability, how to set this thing up. And then it grew very fast.

And it basically grew so fast and seemed to validate the idea and the power. And he was probably, you know, he was somewhat of a, he's tall, handsome, built kid, like charming, whatever, could get the ladies, you know, was like, so kind of a clue in kind of clue in tank situation with him. I mean, I don't know, he didn't even need cloney. He's like, he's got his own tank.

Yeah, he's the Ross tank. Ross tank. Yeah. Wow, perfect. Okay, Eddie, yeah. So, so he, what happened was he basically, the site started, Right. Right. Well, perfect. Okay. Anyhow. So, what happened was, the site started. There was no official leader, although he had created the site, which was the system administrator,

which was kind of perfect because it was sort of like the system where there's a basic set of rules that you just administer the system is kind of like the libertarian ideal, right? There's no government, there's a basic set of rules that you just administer the system is kind of like the libertarian ideal, right? There's no government. There's no. And so the this kind of digital marketplace turned out to be a really good representation of this sort of distillation of a libertarian idea. But then when happened was, I mean, this is the flaw in libertarianism is it's like, if we all just did our own thing, it'll be perfect. Yeah, except until there's the first guy who's like, no, I'm the leader. It's like it all works until somebody's like, actually I've got the guns and I'm in charge

or right in real life. Right. You're something you learn what laws are for. Right. You want like some libertarian paradise, like you go to Mugadishu where there's no government. And you're like, oh, it's great until the warlord shows up and is like, I'm the guy.

Hey, you know what I'm, that's just how it is in a free and open space. Yeah. It's perfect. It's like, everybody's got guns and there's no laws. It's a libertarian. It's nothing. It's nothing. It's a dream. But no, but so then online, like this idea is like the libertarian idea is like, there's a system that's the ideal. And then it's, but actually, there really is somebody who's making the rules and is running the thing. And at a certain point, he's sort of said, no, this idea needs a leader, and I'm the leader, and he sort of christened himself, Dreadpipe Roberts. And at that point, Silk Road had a kind of, you know, call to personality, and this, you know, evangelist and this leader. And so it was good

to build the community, but it also sort of so the seeds of the destruction of the community because at that point, the system became his system and then that was, you know, led to the demise of the system because he became sort of the despotic type of ruler that it was all articulated against. He's like, I want to, you know, create a world outside of government and this tyrannical leadership and then he became a tyrannical leader himself. Right. I'm going to, I want to take a break and then what? No. I want this is a good pot point to pause.

All right. Kind of an amazing point. I'm going to take a break and then we'll be back to talk more about this. All right. All right. Wait, so can I sign up for Squarespace with a code name that is my name? Joshua? You have no age on the end. Oh right, you spell it.

It's about traditional. The traditional biblical way. Yeah. And you've got an extra age for no reason that we know. I know why it is. Why? Why? Because my mother was like still high from the epidural and just filled out my birth certificate

wrong. Just for the third age on that. I don't know. It works. It works. I think it's a challenge to know if there's an extra, there's an extra. Makes it Googleable. Is there something a syllable there that I need to?

My mother was really interested in SEO, advanced theories in 1971. Right. She was like, how could I ensure that my child who has the same name as millions and millions of other children from the seven days, because it was a very popular name for like 10 years, it just had a run. How can I make him distinct?

And she added an age on the end of your name. It was very smart. You know what else is smart? Squarespace. It's simple,. You know what else is smart? Squarespace. It's simple, it's powerful, it's beautiful. They have 24, seven support via live chat and email, but not telephone support. So don't try calling.

Don't even think about it. I wonder I can't get through. That's right. I use Squarespace. There you go. I mean, there you have it. Josh Barerman, famed author. Let's drag and drop.

Lizzy Wig. That's great. No, I mean it's really handy. Yeah, it is handy. It's only $8 a month. And you get a free domain if you buy Squarespace for the year. They have responsive designs, or your website scales look great on any device.

And, you know, it's fantastic. I mean, look, it literally, this is not, you are unprompted praising Squarespace. I think that is evidence that it's a wonderful product. And it is. You can start a trial with no credit card right now and start building your website today. When you decide to sign up for Squarespace,

make sure to use the offer code Joshua, no H on the end, just JOSHUA, old, the old regular style Joshua. Vidilla. Vidilla. Vidilla Joshua. To get 10% off your first purchase and to show your support for our podcast, thanks Squarespace for your support. If tomorrow, Squarespace, build it beautiful.

You do whatever it takes to make sure your business runs efficiently like my guest, Josh Bareman. But concentrips at the post office can get in the way with stamps.com. You'll be able to spend less time at the post office and more time growing your business stamp.com makes mailing and shipping easy use your own computer printer to buy and print official US postage for any letter and Any package stamps.com does all the thinking for you. It's like a it's like a robot an artificially intelligent robot inside of your computer on the website.

With the digital scale, it will calculate the exact postage needed and it helps you decide the best class of mail based on your needs. Join over 500,000 small businesses, Josh Baramans included. So that's what that scale is. Yeah, that you stamps.com and never go to the post office again. Once last time you were at the post office.

Not for a while. That's right. My assistant has stamp. We use this. There's a scale measures things. You finally know now what the scale is. Yeah, I was always wondering. Where did that scale come from? Yeah, I'm always trying to put it away.

You try to get rid of the scale. It puts it back. I like putting it in a closet. What she means to get to weigh them post. I'm realizing. Well, listen, maybe she is sending me something right now with stamps.com. Well, right now you can use my name Joshua, my first name, not no age, unlike Joshua's

name, which has an age. For this special offer, it's a no-risk trial and you get a $110 bonus offer, which includes a digital scale, as we've just heard about. And up to $55 a free postage. So don't wait, go to stamps.com and before you do anything else, click on the microphone at the top of the home page and type in Joshua. But stamps.com and enter Joshua. So we were talking about the tyranny of dread pirate Roberts as he took on sort of a

a leadership solidified his leadership role across the Silk Road community. So what was this on do? Talk about us undoing a little bit. I mean, I don't want to ruin part two. Is it out yet? It's on out yet. It's coming out tomorrow from today recording, which we'll see. Oh, well, so actually this will be, this will air on Monday. So it'll be out by now. It will be out. And you could read the whole thing. Yeah.

And you made available an early version to me to check out, which I have not read. Yeah. We can edit that out if you want us to. That's why. No, your press. Oh, yeah, that's right. Press preview. Yeah. Anyhow, but I didn't finish the first part,

so it worked out perfectly. What strikes me about your writing on this, and I don't know how you do this, because I have never written a piece like this. I'm not a guy who writes features. I've written some very long articles, but I wouldn't describe them as feature stories or cover stories or enterprises, I'm people who might describe them.

But you sort of assume what the character in your story is thinking. And maybe this is really pedestrian and stupid to ask, but like I don't know how you do that. I mean, as a, as a person who's edited a lot of people, like I certainly have edited things along those lines, but, but how do you get into a state where you're writing about this and you feel intimate enough with the subject matter and with the characters in it that you can kind of put yourself in the mindset of the characters in sort of real-time events

like as things are happening? Does that question make any sense to you? No, no, I know exactly what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, that just comes from like a super intense detailed reporting. So in any case where the voice of the story is essentially internal voice of a character, which happens a lot in that story.

Yeah, it's very personal. I mean, because the characters are very strong and this is a very complicated story and sort of a lot of times a lot of things more effective than dialogue the Voice in the characters had a lot of times. That's something they just said, right? So it's like I'm not sure what you're referring to but you know the story opens with this guy Curtis Green. Yeah, who was a Silk Road user and then forum moderator. He created the health and wellness forum.

Which is, you gotta read the story, cause that's amazing. And you know, you'd feel all these inquiries, people like, should I shoot heroin in my eyeball? And you're like, no, don't do that. I think that's one you could probably figure out. But the other one is like, can I inject a peanut butter? That one he said. Okay. The answer is no. I don't want any liabilities here. I think just generally speaking, if it's a food item, don't inject it.

I think that's true to the end of your face. I think probably the answer, that entire form, the answer just no. You have to imagine. What about Jam though? I think any butters go good, but jelly? Yeah, right. Probably okay. Probably okay. So Curtis started that, and then he got elevated, and he was hired by DPR to deal with sort of customer service stuff, and reciting passwords passwords and I think some, you know, dealing with customer support tickets and stuff like that, right?

I mean, it was like, works like any other commerce. The best thing about these kinds of businesses at the end of the day is actually a business. Yeah. I mean, the guy sitting there for like, somebody's like, I got to unlock it. And he's like, Barka Langer in Spanish for Utah. He lived, he was Mormon and grew up in this Mormon little town

outside of Provo, which is outside of Salt Lake. And, but he had been a, he was a very, very dedicated opiophile. And. That's pain killers. Yeah, I mean, he had been on disability so he knew pills. So Curtis gets arrested eventually. Yeah.

And dramatic as a gambit. I mean, the sort of opening of the story is around that. Yeah, that was a fun lead. Yeah. In the biz we call that the lead. You know, it's hard to figure out exactly how to start that story, and that's in the middle of the action, right? That's not the beginning of the narrative.

But it kind of sets everything up because you've got Curtis who's this sort of unlikely figure using, he's a big user of the Silk Road and he's like this Mormon grandpa in Spanish folk Utah. So he's sort of like in the middle of middle America and all this stuff. So you kind of see that it could be anybody on Silk Road. The DA and this whole task force bust in his house. So you kind of see the government, you know, trying to get him. And then he gets arrested at the end. So he has taken delivery of about a kilo of cocaine, which he claimed

he didn't know was in there. It's bit confusing whatever. And then he eventually winds up cooperating, which is part of the story. But you know, we talked to, and I say we because the story, I wrote the piece and reported a lot of it, but I also worked with Josh Davis, who is my partner in Epic magazine. Yeah, which I want to talk about. Who is a great, you know, he's a 10-year-long wired contributing editor and great reporter and writer. And then also Steve Vinc Leckart, who was also a wired alum and documentarian and does all this stuff. So, there's a enormous story. So, we were all kind of reporting different parts of it. And then Curtis, first of all, he loves talking. So he, I mean, it's like 40 hours of tape with that dude. He's talking so much, it's all transcribed.

And so you kind of distill it down and after you spend enough time with him and the material, you know, you get a sense of the character and you can say, you can kind of speak on his behalf in the words that he's used. It's just like writing technique to make it feel like, I wanted this to feel like a nonfiction novella as opposed to like a nonfiction novella as opposed to

like a magazine feature. Well it moves it moves it moves like that. It just is action packed. I mean every bit of it even the backstory is feels like it's just got like a tremendous amount of movement. I think that's true for a lot of your writing but they don't and I think that's why they translate. I think that's why Argo makes so much sense as a film because it translates really well. But what I was what I thought was interesting is so it's basically you're just absorbing this, you're talking to this guy, you're looking at, you're talking to the people around these moments and you're kind of just feeling out like what would have been in his mind at that moment. Or even what he said. He said and also you get a sense of him and you spend so much time,

I mean, I put this story together on and off was when we started a year and a half ago, I started really outlining and seriously writing six months ago. So about six months, you know, and then I was reporting with the FBI and the D.A. in particular, which were sort of those of the big components for about a year on and off. So it's like, you spend so much time, you can only do what that, what is in that story, the way it's written after spending so much time that you can kind of feel it.

Otherwise, like, you're immersed in it. Yeah, exactly. So let's talk a little bit about Epic Magazine. Sure. And your idea about it. And just sort of in general, I mean, we're both in really different places, but we're in a similar, we're in the same industry, right?

Which is the sort of the news industry, the media industry. I tend to be on the more breaking sort of minute to minute day to day stuff. And at the verge, you know, a big sort of our big, one of our big parts of the mission was doing big long form features that became sort of the order of the day a couple of years ago where everybody was like long form stories are really important. But you're, you're a long form. Hashtag long form.

But, you know, in long form is really just another word for a feature story or a cover story. Just like, you know, this is existed in magazines forever. It is the lifeblood of the best magazines, but you know, it was a new idea on the web a few years ago that people were like, wait a second, maybe people wanna read a 5,000 or 10,000 or 25,000 word story.

But there's a lot of noise, and there are very few writers who can carry off, who can make you sit in front of your computer or on your phone or on a tablet or in a magazine for that matter and read the 20,000 words or the 10,000 words or whatever. I think you're obviously one of them. But explain Epic because you're sort of coming at that from a different little bit of a different angle. Sure. If you wanted, if you don't have to talk about it.

I mean, all Epic is, it's pretty, I mean, there's a lot, well, it's many things, I suppose. It's a lot like, it's a lot like so good. Yeah, it's an idea. That's all things, all people. Yeah, it's already curdled into tyranny. Epic is a digital publishing, so it's like curdled into tyranny. Epic is a Digital publishing so it's like all right. Yeah, like online

Longform became a I don't know not a trend, but just like there was there was a realization that Counter to the conventional wisdom which is that like everything's getting shorter Twitter 140 characters But blah blah and like content is dead. It's all about the platforms Then those platforms started becoming these enormous, you know user bases that were then Acting as Vectors to content right so all of a sudden like you're looking at Twitter and everybody's pointing towards like here's this great story and The Atlantic monthly or So all of a sudden, like, you're looking at Twitter and everybody's pointing towards like, here's this great story in the Atlantic monthly or whatever. All of a sudden, people, the contract, like, again,

a contract expectation, those platforms created a new market, like reader market as it were for all these types of stories. So people started saying, let's create some, you know, like, obviously, the New Yorker and the Atlantic and the Times Magazine and Mother Jones and Washington whatever, all these kind of existing magazines are still making their stories that are online and people are reading those.

But places like the Verge, places like outfits like the Adavists, Amazon, Kindle, singles, all these things. Grandlanners was like, let's, you know, we can do this type of reporting and writing, you know, originally online. And so Epic was just that same idea, except focusing really specifically on super narrative nonfiction, which, as I've described in the Silk Road case, is like, takes a long fucking time. It sounds like really challenging. So, but that's basically the idea. And then, you know, I think, I mean, we've only published the minutes like the third story because we have a lot of stories in the works.

We've been sort of at it for a while and also doing all this other, we're like working on documentaries and film and TV stuff, whatever, there's always kind of like ancillary. Well, that was kind of a ancillary kind of market. When Epic sort of appeared, the part of the idea was and tell me if this is not still part of the idea, but it was that you would provide a home

in a proper presentation of these stories in sort of like the digital realm. But there would be a sort of vehicle to take them because the logical and what really happens quite a bit and in fact, I mean if you look at most popular film and television, not all of it but a lot of it, it's based on magazine stories. magazine stories and I mean it's a preshawking number of like the films that you know are Oscar-winning films and you know aren't those a great example but

the ideas that you guys will provide a vehicle for. Saturday night fever. Saturday night fever based on a true story. Based on a magazine story. That's right. So there's a there's a there's a history of this but also there's in recent years. There's a. Like fiction fiction is truly is truly yeah. The stories are richer and deeper and weirder than anything that fiction could actually produce and that people are producing in some ways. And so it's become a real pool to dive into for these people making frankly entertainment entertainment for the masses. To such a degree that the New York Times is represented for its editorial content by ICM. So when they have a crazy story, ICM is like, this is a cool, sharp, as a movie? Right. The Kanye Nass now has kind of a in-house sort of department, Kanye Nass entertainment.

Yeah. I think. Fox has a deal with WME. Yeah. So this is kind of what's happening. There's a stuff. It's very, it's a very sort of common thought now that there's a clear path to this. But Epic, I think relatively early, there was sort of saying,

this is obviously this is going to happen. Right. Well, I mean, that's how I had Vazirider. I had done a lot of narrative stories for the most part since Argo, there after. That was my first real big kind of national magazine story. I had done, I had written already the story that kind of led the way into King of Kong, which was a Harper's piece about Billy Mitchell, the are the beloved villain from King of Kong. But it actually had not run at that time. But so Argo was that that was that first story and then I started doing all of them. That's the kind of thing I like. It's just these weird unusual stories, big characters, like unusual settings, whatever it is. And then I realized that those, the things that I was interested in and the way that I was writing them were both, you know, rewarding for me to write in print

or now online also, and also were the types of things that Hollywood was interested in. So I started working both sides and I was, you know, sort of have one foot in each world, basically. And then that's what enabled me to do magazine writing, because it's not, you know, a real lucrative business writing magazine stories. That's right. And the Silk Road story, which I would say, starts months solid. I would say, I started the take to half a year or a year to actually do. No, if it was just a magazine fee, even if you're getting paid some like Michael Lewis,

Malcolm Gladwell money, it's kind of, it some like Michael Lewis, Malcolm Gladwell money, is kind of, it's like, oh, it's kind of worth it. Right. It's only really worth the time if, you know, there's movie money, which is like an order of my- The church cloning calls here. Yeah, of cloning calls. And then even then, still, it's like kind of hit-driven and you've got to get lucky every

so often. Right. So I was doing that and, you know, having a, like having an okay time at it. And then Josh Davis is another writer, similar big narrative stories, doing the similar thing. And so then after our goal, we're like, oh, let's put this outfit together because of this digital, you know, sort of like nonfiction craze. It was, people don't remember. It was, you know, two years ago, everybody was long- was the you know two years ago. Yeah.

Everybody was long form this long form that. Yeah. It was like everybody's like super into like the twist. Yeah. And then the mashed potato that log for and then long form right after that. And so we're like, oh, let's do that. And then also kind of make an institutionalized version of this idea where we can do magazine stories and then movie stuff. And so that's basically the idea and that's still going. We have a deal, the Epic has a deal with Fox for film and Fox 21 and 20th, which are TV versions at the same in the Fox family.

And then we are, we also are doing some documentary stuff and whatnot. But it sort of has paid off. I mean, a good example, I think would be the Silk Road story because I wrote that story before we sold it to Wired, right? So it was like kind of on spec, which is just like does not happen the magazine world, which I did actually my last story too, which also was 25,000 words long. That's the Coronado High Story. The Coronado High Story. And like, you write it, that's not a story

that would ever get assigned in a magazine. They'd be like, yeah, sure, go write 25,000 words about this 60s, the most awesome magazine ever. And also the longest. Yeah, so I mean, it would have at one time, you know, the New Yorker used to run whatever 40,000 word stories every week. But in multiple parts.

But so I was able to, with the Silk Road story, write this piece, would also be very unconventional format. It's like there's like kind of chapters and different character perspectives and there's tense changes in it and it ends on a short story by a girl in Poe, which you don't know because you haven't gotten to the end yet.

But like, it's poilin' her, I guess. That's nice, thanks a lot. It's like, it's like, pleasure. It was like a nice literary grace now on the frame. No, never know. I'll never know what it feels like to experience it for the first time now. It's still going to get you. Well, we'll see. It's still going to sneak up on you.

You're going to be like, oh my god, how did he do that? Yeah, all right. I'm ready to experience that. No, but it's like, it was a really fun thing to write and I would be, it would have been hard in an assignment scenario where you're kind of being guided. In this case, I was like, oh no, here's this thing and we could sort of present it. My idea had been to run it in two parts.

Once I realized the scope of it. That's what you're doing. And that is what's running in two parts. It's like a cliffhanger. You drew the dream realized. Well, I didn't realize that right away. But you, but so you wrote it before you sold it to wired. Is that right? And then, but, but prior to, yes. Is that correct? Yes. Did I just hear you say that? Yes. Okay. But then prior to that, you did a movie deal. Is that correct? The moot. Well, it's an, uh, this is an

odd scenario because we already had our deal at Fox and Fox was like, hey man, the Silk Road story is cool. You guys should do a thing on it. We're like, okay, sure. And so the moot, the suggestion of a film predates the actual writing of the story itself. Well, it's like all in the same day. It was like literally the day got arrested.

Yeah. The day Ross got arrested, every magazine in the country was like, and magazine writer of that kind was like, got to do a story. Every film studio had some producer on their lot that was like, got to do a movie about this. And so we happened to be a magazine outfit with Josh Davis, who is, you know, the star writer, a wired, and his last piece was the big, that big story about Maccafy losing his mind and in the jungle. So, and we had this deal of Fox, so it sort of really made sense.

And in fact, the story originally began kind of centered around the fact that Josh had this, you know, that was like that type of writer. I don't normally do this type of writing. And then over time, it became more my story because I started, I sort of wound up with this breakthrough in the reporting, and but so it originated that way. And actually, I would not wanna do that again, although I'm very happy that the story turned out this way,

and I'm happy with the story, and it really pushed my creative boundaries, and it's exciting to publish. But I wouldn't have wanted to be stuck trying to write, I've always like written a piece and then sold it, but it's not like, let's say we hadn't gotten the reporting breakthrough, right? And we hadn't actually had the story entirely. We would have been kind of screwed. So I don't, I'm on like, you have to make some stuff on. Yeah, I mean, it would have been not a pleasant position, exactly. So it's a odd scenario that I wouldn't repeat,

but it actually worked out because we just got completely inside the story. The story turned out really good. The story turned out good, but also in the reporting. I mean, it was completely lucky that I was able to get in the perspective of the law enforcement agencies that had been trying to track down the red part of Roberts because this was before the trial. This is another pending indictment.

I mean, it's like law enforcement is not in the habit of talking to the police. Right. No, I mean, because the timing of this is actually, it's sort of, did you have to hold it until the trial had wrapped? Yes. Okay. No, I mean, we didn't hold it. Yes. Yes. And while the divergent answers, just so you know.

But I mean, this story came following. What I mean is, I, we, yes, in the sense that we, I knew that I couldn't publish the story before the trial, but I didn't really start writing until right before the trial. So I didn't matter anyhow. No, the reason I didn't, I mean, I had it all, I did an outline, I had a little characters,

I had a little less research, a hundred hours of tape, whatever it was, but I knew that the trial would probably change kind of the public perception of the narrative. 100 hours of tape, whatever it was. But I knew that the trial would probably change kind of the public perception of the narrative. So like going into the trial, there's like government is saying, here's the guy and the defense and the sort of an uncle libertarian hacker, cypher punk,

I guess cypher punk is kind of a data term. That's cool. It sounds cool, but I just recently discovered that it means something specific that doesn't exist anymore. But any that community, and the free Ross crew and the defense, which was making sort of, it was kind of a public case,

had built a big sort of, you know, like a conspiratorial idea around like, well, who is DPR? The handle could be anybody. And like, so there was a mystery, right? And I knew that there was no mystery because I had already seen all the evidence and I knew.

You didn't need to be, you were a jury of one indeed. The verdict was guilty as charged. I mean, look, man, just so I understand. I mean, it's kind of all there. Black and white. Well, not to be glib about it, it's kind of all there. Black and white. Well, not to be glib about it, it is very serious. And the, you know, a guy's gonna go to prison. He's gonna get in the sentence soon.

But, you know, and I had to really think about your fault. No, it's not my fault. She should put him there. I didn't, he did it all himself. And it is very, very, it means like the evidence was like completely overwhelming. I mean, in law enforcement and the prosecutors like, you don't get a case where it's like

the originator of the criminal conspiracy recorded every single decision. Right. Because it's all in the server. There's a thing. It's a enormous naivete about that whole, but the whole thing. I mean, his whole, his, the belief that he was sort of in this,

well, he believed in his own mythology right that the Jedi Robert's own supply he got I did I mean his like his like his like intellectual libertarian Ideational supply is like he right, you know, he got lost in it I mean it I feel like there's there's a there's a secondary layer of this story, and I think you touch on it in what I've read thus far, but that there is this criminal mastermind of the internet was sort of done in by the same bullshit that is destructive in many other parts of the internet,

which is sort of this almost immature ideology that, you know, like a kind of underdeveloped ideology that is brandished in a way that's so, it's taken so seriously in fact I was so meaningful, but in the real world, in the internet to the people who are buying into it it feels very meaningful, but in the real world, somebody figured out your IP

and you're just a guy who's selling drugs or like helping people sell drugs. And your ideology was not a protection at all and would never be a protection from that. I mean, and it got so far that at the end, the guy is saying, this is Silk Road represents the next stage of evolution of mankind. I mean, it's like really,

what I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really zone free from government and it's going to be, you know, I mean, a lot of the Bitcoin enthusiasts still believe like, oh, in the future, there's going to be no territorial

jurisdictional fiat currency, blah, blah, blah. So, and, right, just what the devil wanted. Read your scripture. Check it out. It's in the revelation. That's right. That's right after the horny, I'm not horny. I haven't had it. Seven headed. The horny had a dream. Seven headed. Seven headed. Maybe 14 horns, whatever. Success. So, what the fuck are you doing? I don't know.

I don't know. It's a ratchet. Okay, yeah. Now look, so this guy will be continued to part two. I'll just say. I'll be at a review, obviously. You know, and it's in the story, this is important, because I think you're right, though, that there's a key thing here, which is like,

and the story's in two parts kind of for this reason, both because the narrative trajectory has this cliffhanger, and it's like a rise in fall story. And in the rise, it's like, here's this idea, it gets traction, it takes hold, it gets bigger, it's exciting, dude, it's like, look what I did with my one computer, and I don't even know programming.

That turned out to be a problem one computer and I don't even know programming. Right. That turned out to be a problem later. And you don't say. So then, you know, at the height, he's like, oh, well, look at this, like my, it's as validates everything I said, like, and so the narcissism of, you know, a person who believes they're gonna change the world

suddenly turns into, you know, the despotism of somebody who thinks they have changed the world. I mean, it's like with the classic revolutionary parable where like the idolist becomes an idolog, and then they're like, oh man, my idea is so good that I gotta shoot this guy. You know? Next thing you know, you're a horrible dictator.

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of how all of the all the great revolutions ended in sort of like a dictatorship. Well, it's in it. I mean, I really thought about it because I like it's like I was trying to think about a revolution besides ours. America is America. The best country. Tip over. Sorry, the US. And you know, I think there are some. Yeah, not yet. Give us some time. I know, but it's a couple more a dread a couple more a dread pirate robberts in the myth and are myths and who knows what'll happen. They're gonna like the, like the fire that burns down the whole thing. Well, no, but the thing is that the revolution

of eats itself. So it's like it would have been like George Washington is like, all right, man, it's time to build some gulags, you know, but that didn't happen, right? And I think that bears out the quality of the ideas, like the high quality ideas that were put forth during that particular revolution. Yeah, that's true.

We found a couple of good, there were a couple of really solid ideas that were not focused on a dictatorial, and in fact, they were sort of an affront to dictatorship. Right, right. One, you could argue. And Joe Washington did not get high on his own supply, although he did farm hemp. I think. Yeah, right. That really, I really sure. I think it was flossing is wouldn't he? That's right. That's right. So he's, I think

he did get high. Yeah. Probably did. Probably got a little high. But you could argue and I think some people do. And I would, to some degree, that like actually those ideals are being somewhat undermined by the surveillance state and you know all these things you know as a modern sort of like the NSA and the torture and all the stuff that are actually contrary to those ideals that I would agree with. Washington held and so a lot of the silk road ideologies like articulated against that the problem is that they're like we don't like your system so we're gonna make our own system it It's like, the problem is like one system just replace another system.

And you know, it's like, you're always like, oh, we'll just like, it's like a, but their system was way, way less thought out than the current system. Well, right, and it was also completely vulnerable to be taken over by one person, which it was by Ross, the creator, who became, you know, at a certain point, the visionary leader,

and then was the dictator, and was like, this is the problem with any system based on a technology that can be appropriated, right? I mean, it's your risk always. That has an administrator account. Right. You're at risk always of somebody getting the admin account and just like deleting stuff, right? Or whatever, changing the rules or changing the system. And I think that's a good place to leave it. Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. All right.

Thank you. That is the podcast for this week. We'll be back next week. And as always, I wish you and your family the very best. The dark times are ahead. So take shelter. you you