We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. Hey everyone, welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. So anyone that knows me personally knows that I despise politics and find that anyone that's highly polarized in one camp or the other often demonstrates what they don't know more than what they do know. But more recently, there's been a few elected officials on the progressive or liberal side of the political spectrum that have come out and said Bitcoin is bad for the environment and a few other arguments. that are just highly misinformed in my personal opinion. So instead of attacking anyone politically, I have a guest that dispels these myths with sound reasoning and data and analysis,

Starting point is 00:00:41 and here's the best part. He comes from the progressive side of the aisle to make the case. Regardless of what your political affiliation is, the one thing I care about is highlighting deep, critical thinking and facts behind how Bitcoin is actually good for the environment and from numerous different vantage points of why it's good. So my guest today, Mr. Jason Mayer, is the author of a book called A Progressive Case for Bitcoin, and he does an exemplary job explaining why some of these ill-informed talking points need much deeper analysis and consideration.

Starting point is 00:01:13 So with that, I hope you guys enjoy this episode. You're listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network. Now for your host, Preston Pish. Hey, everyone, welcome to the show. I'm here with Jason Mayer. Jason, I'm excited to get into this. You have some really interesting perspectives and some amazing points that you've made in your book, which I've got right here, the progressive case for Bitcoin for people that are interested in checking that out.

Starting point is 00:01:55 But welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm super excited to talk to you about it. Jason, you start off the book and you're talking about a poster that you hung in your office. And you're a teacher. And you talk about how the poster was, I don't know if. provocative is the right word, but you were trying to generate a conversation and you got it pretty quickly with a lot of the folks that you were working alongside. Talk to us about that

Starting point is 00:02:22 process. Talk to us about the process leading up to having the courage or the intestinal fortitude to like pin that thing on the wall. What led to that moment? So as you said, I'm a high school math teacher. That's been my dream since I was a little kid. So I'm currently like my Fiat job is sort of my dream job from when I was little. But like, as you might imagine, like being in the education business, a lot of my coworkers like me, they're left leaning, left of center, liberal progressive. I had been into Bitcoin for a while. I sort of gotten into it through a mathematical lens and sort of understood a little bit of the computer science behind it, was really excited about it. And there was this moment where I had a couple of people I knew in real

Starting point is 00:03:05 life that were into Bitcoin, but not many. And I had found this poster online and And I liked it, so I printed it off and I said, you know, I'll put this up in my office at work. And I talk about this in the book. I did not know really what to expect. I kind of expected people to sort of dismiss it or kind of claim that I was an idiot or falling for a Ponzi scheme. You know, that's kind of what I expected. But what I got was the teacher who sits next to me in the office saw it almost immediately and just essentially gasped.

Starting point is 00:03:34 Like her mouth had just dropped open. And she was like, what are you doing? I don't want my kids' future, like, ruin for this fake money. You're ruining the environment. Like, this is just, you know, but Bitcoin is obviously bad. Like, I can't believe somebody that I respected would be into it. Like, this whole, like, sort of monologue. And I honestly did not expect that.

Starting point is 00:03:56 Like, I honestly was like, oh, people kind of give me a hard time about, like, being into Bitcoin. But certainly, they're not going to, like, attack fundamentally, like, the value proposition or something in that way. And so I didn't know what to expect. I didn't expect that. I didn't know how to respond. And I think that I opened the book by saying, like, I did not have a good response. Like I sort of answered the questions and had the conversation, but I was not anticipating the animosity, you know, for Bitcoin that that I got.

Starting point is 00:04:25 So that first conversation did not go as well as I wanted it to. And sort of since then, I've gotten on this, you know, kick that was sort of the kick off to say, hey, it's fun to explain Bitcoin to people. It's fun to answer, like, well-intentioned questions about it. It's fun to sort of help people see the value in it. And that got me on this path that eventually led to the book that I wrote. And, you know, it's been history since. That was, like, sort of one of the defining moments on the journey.

Starting point is 00:04:53 You bring up the energy part. And I think that this for a lot of progressives or really anybody that looks at Bitcoin And the first thing that they'll say is just, well, it's just consuming all of this energy. It's going to consume the world's energy by two years from now or whatever. Some of those dates that people were saying have already passed and clearly it hasn't. But in your third chapter of the book, you really do a deep dive on this one to cover it in depth. Walk us through this chapter, kind of the architecture of it and then some of the finer points that you were really kind of making in the book. and just in general, like when you're talking to somebody on this particular point of energy use.

Starting point is 00:05:36 Yeah, it's interesting. Like the, like you said, it's chapter three, which is in a sense, like the real first chapter, right? There's sort of like, why the book and then why Bitcoin? And then like I dive into like the issues. Like the energy issue is probably number one. As you said, for a lot of people who find themselves knowing very little about Bitcoin. If they've only heard one thing, it's probably that it's like a waste of energy or it uses is too much energy, especially if they're left gleaning.

Starting point is 00:06:02 I found it was important to get that conversation out front pretty early in the book. And it's the longest chapter of the book. And it's the most, you know, the public, like the editors cut the one and break it up. I was like, no, I like it. It's like it's supposed to be the longest chapter. It's the most important one, especially for the target audience. And I think it's, you know, I break it up into a couple of different sort of themes through, you know, having the conversation about energy use and the environmental impact.

Starting point is 00:06:28 one is just trying to steer people away from this knee-jerk reaction, which is like energy use equals bad. That's just as a starting place, like that's where a lot of progressive people might just think, right? That's maybe layer one thinking about it. Like, oh, if you're using energy, then you're wasting it or you're not, you know, you're doing harm to the environment. In order to really combat that, you have to get at it from the angle of what's the energy being used for? Like, what's the use case for this energy? Why is it important to use it? And therefore, like, if we have a reason to use the energy, then we can actually have a more

Starting point is 00:07:03 meaningful debate about, like, is it worth it? Like, is what you're saying is providing actually worth that energy or not? And do you need to use it? That's sort of the starting point, right? Like, what's the energy being used for? And then you can get into say, all right, well, there's no reason that we can't be more efficient when we use the energy or we can't use more green energy or sustainable energy if we want to mine Bitcoin or do anything else, right? Like, this is an important part of it. Like, there's no path that I see to, like, increasing sustainable green energy without Bitcoin playing a major role, right, to sort of build out that infrastructure and to support the build out of sustainable green energy. So these are things that perfectly

Starting point is 00:07:42 align with, like, progressive values, so things that people care about. And they have never viewed it through this lens. They've absolutely only viewed it sort of through, like, the, you should feel guilty about using energy lens, which is very powerful as sort of a political message, but it's not accurate. So you just have to find it, kind of get people to that point where they're willing to consider the nuances of like, not all energy use is bad. This energy use for Bitcoin is important because of all the things that it provides us. And it also has opportunities to do the things that you want to do, right? Like if you're a progressive person, you want it more like green electricity out there. Like this is a method to

Starting point is 00:08:19 actually achieve that goal. That's sort of like broad overview of the chapter. I go into a lot of specifics, trying to explain things that most, you know, the book is targeted towards a lay audience, right? So they haven't really thought about like what, what does it mean to balance the energy, you know, grid? What does it mean to build out infrastructure? What does it mean that, like, the energy produced has to equal the demand at all times? Like, those are novel concepts to people. So I try to just explain that in the best way that I can to, to that target audience. You know, one of the struggles that I have personally when I get in an engagement with somebody on this particular topic is I'll say, well, you know, you might not find it valuable. When you even mention this in your book, you say most people who criticize Bitcoin's energy use are assuming it's worthless from the start. Once you get past that and you convince them that maybe there is value here, the next pivot that they go to is, well, there's other cryptocurrencies that don't require as much energy. And so, like, why aren't we using those? Right, right.

Starting point is 00:09:21 Which then gets down a whole other rabbit hole of deep complexity of trying to explain to them why you have to tether, you know, this virtual coins to physical reality through energy use, which is really difficult to do. So, yeah. Yeah. And that's, I mean, I think that's, that's sort of a consistent theme, right? Whenever you're talking to somebody who's completely new to the Bitcoin sort of realm, like it takes hours and hours and hours to learn about Bitcoin, right? And so for a lot of people, I would imagine this book might be their first touch to actually think about it deeply. But what you're saying is right, like every conversation you have, like they'll ask a question and then it puts you in this whole other direction, right? Like, oh, now I need to explain proof of stake versus proof of work and why like this system isn't sustainable and why it doesn't actually help people and all of that.

Starting point is 00:10:10 It's hard, right? You have to have bite-sized pieces and you have to sort of meet people where they are and you can't try to teach them all of it at once, right? And these are sort of lessons that you learn as a, like, you know, I've been teaching for 20 years, teenagers, trigonometry against their will, right? So you learn these tricks. Like, all right, I can't teach you all the Bitcoin at once. We need to break it up a little bit. So, yeah. Talk to us a little bit more about demand response systems for folks that heard you say that phrase. You have an example in your book where you talk about the July 9th, 2020 event where a thousand megawatts came back online during an event where they were running out of, there was too

Starting point is 00:10:47 much demand on the network because on the energy network because of very hot conditions. And this thousand megawatts that came online from Bitcoin miners actually helped cool 66,000 homes. So talk to people about like what's happening here, how that's even possible, why it's different than other energy consumers. Yeah. I mean, I think demand response is a is a critical component to sort of what makes Bitcoin valuable in sort of the electrical grid sphere, right? Because as I said before, every ounce of energy,

Starting point is 00:11:22 every little bit of electricity you produce has to be consumed immediately, right? Like it's transported to a consumer, a light bulb turns on, a toaster turns on, like that's immediate. You can't really store it. The battery technology isn't like sufficient for that scale. And so what you end up having is, you know, in a situation like you described where you have this heat wave and a lot of people are turning on their air conditioners, and it might actually be a matter of life and death, like if you can get into air conditioning and be comfortable and be safe, that uses a lot of energy like all at once, that possibly the people operating the grid didn't anticipate or they don't actually have enough potential to create that much electricity as it's needed.

Starting point is 00:12:03 And so the demand response is when that demand for electricity goes up, then Bitcoin miners can instantaneously, and in a dynamic way, power down and provide the energy that. that they were using back to the grid so that people who need it can use it. It's really like a fundamentally like a dynamic system, right, where a Bitcoin miner can power up or power down like almost instantly. And it's not unique to Bitcoin mining. There's other industries that use a lot of electricity that provide demand response, like aluminum smelting and iron, you know, all of these other examples, but they're just not as good as Bitcoin, right? Because Bitcoin can power down immediately in almost like instant response

Starting point is 00:12:41 to a spike in demand, they can stay off as long as they need to sort of satisfy that demand and then power back up when they're needed. So this is critical because, well, for lots of reasons, right? Like you have just general electricity and people need it. Then Bitcoin miners, like, have been using it, but they can give it back. But in particular, like, if you want to build out, like, green energy sources, those are usually wind and solar, those are intermittent, right? So you have peaks in producing electricity that don't always match the peaks in the demand. And so what can happen is the Bitcoin miners can come in, use that electricity as being produced by the green source, monetize that energy, right?

Starting point is 00:13:20 They're paying for that electricity. And then when that energy production levels off or goes down, they can power down as needed. And it's super helpful because, like I said, you can't imagine a world in which solar and wind and all of that is being used at scale without some sort of stabilizing force. In preparation for the book, this actually isn't in the book. But I had an interesting conversation with somebody, like the CEO of an energy company, like an actual person who like runs a company that provides energy to consumers. And also in that meeting was the person who ran sort of the Bitcoin mining contracts for that company.

Starting point is 00:13:59 And it was an interesting exchange because the CEO was sort of like standoffish about Bitcoin. Like she didn't like it. She was a little skeptical of it. And the person who runs those contracts was in the meeting too. was also sort of playing that game and say, like, yeah, like, we're not like thrilled. I don't know, but I had a follow-up meeting with just the guy who runs the contracts. And he told me when the CEO wasn't in the room, like, this is absolutely what we need. Like, we need a large, like, really?

Starting point is 00:14:26 Absolutely. And so, like, when he would buy himself with me, he was saying, like, this is exactly what energy companies need. They need a large, flexible demand that we need absolutely to be able to sell a lot of electricity to, like, Bitcoin miners who are willing to give a back. when we need it. Like, it helps us. It helps them. Like, this is exactly what's needed. He also brought up this issue. Like, right now, there's such a race for electricity companies to buy land that's going to be good for renewables, whether it's solar or wind. And so those electricity

Starting point is 00:14:58 companies that are like producing electricity are buying up that land and that real estate right now without much demand to support it. Because they know in the future they're going to need sort of socially they're going to need to be able to provide like green electricity. but there's not enough demand in the locations where they are. And he was saying absolutely, like, you know, location agnostic Bitcoin miners are going to be perfect for that use case. We buy a bunch of land. We want to build out infrastructure for solar.

Starting point is 00:15:25 There's not enough demand yet. We're going to put in Bitcoin miners for a couple of years until there is demand, like locally, in terms of residential, commercial need for it. And that sort of Bitcoin mining provides the bridge for that company. And it said all of the electricity companies are competing for the same. real estate right now. And so they're buying up this land and they don't, like, they need this tool to be able to use it and make use of it. One of the other sections you talk about in chapter three is this embedded incentives for efficiency. Explain what you're getting at with this.

Starting point is 00:15:57 Yeah, I think the example I use is like, you know, we all have a refrigerator in our house and how many of us have like the most up-to-date efficient refrigerator, you know, like that uses like energy the most efficiently. Like not many, right? Like, if you bought your, refrigerator more than six months ago, there's a better version out there that does the same job, but is more efficient. And I think it's just a description because a lot of people who are new to Bitcoin might not understand that like the technology Bitcoin miners, like the actual computers that are doing this work, is improving constantly. And so I go through a little bit of the history to say like when, you know, we first started using graphics cards or we first started using an

Starting point is 00:16:36 ASEC compared to now, like just the efficiency, not like how much what's the hash rate, but like what's the hash rate per kilowatt, you know, it's actually improved tremendously, like, you know, orders of magnitude. And so just sort of speaking to this idea that like, we shouldn't demonize the electricity use, but we should be open to saying like, hey, can I do the same job more efficiently? Can I use less electricity to do the same job, for example? And if people are willing to say, oh, I should be able to do that with my car or my TV or my refrigerator, that's already happening with Bitcoin miners. And it's not a matter of like some government regulation to say your car needs to be this efficient. And so does your Bitcoin miner.

Starting point is 00:17:19 It's actually built in. The incentives are built in because Bitcoin mining is a really low margin proposition. Right. So like it doesn't help you to have not the most efficient machine. I think that that section is important just to help people understand, like, this is going to trend more efficient over time and also paired with this idea that it's like a non-rival use of energy, right? So like if energy prices go up because demand is up, then we're powering down. So exactly what we're talking about before. So in conjunction, those are pretty powerful arguments, I think, for people who are just starting to grapple with this idea of like, wow, I thought that energy use was bad because that's what the politicians were telling me.

Starting point is 00:17:57 and I always felt guilty about it. And now I'm thinking about it in a more nuanced way. I think it's just all part of the same conversation. I think this one is so lost on most people. Even people that have been in Bitcoin for a while, I think they just really don't understand how there's a natural incentive structure to become more efficient. And you're dealing with Moore's law that you give it four years.

Starting point is 00:18:22 Like there is a tremendous change in mining rigs that were out four years ago as far as their efficiency to plow through the computations or the guesses in the energy that they're consuming to supply the number of guesses that they're providing relative to four years earlier or any period earlier. And I think what most people understand is that the hash rates going up, right? Like anybody who's ever bought a miner knows like, oh, six months, like, oh, I could have had 140 tarah hash per second. That's not the issue, right?

Starting point is 00:18:53 The issue is like what's the like what is the hash rate per jewel of energy use? That's improving tremendously. Like I forget what the numbers are, but they're in the book. Like 50-fold, 50 million fold like, you know, improvement over the energy efficiency to do the same number of hashes. I think it's critically important to just sort of highlight that for people who haven't really thought about it a lot. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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Starting point is 00:23:34 Yeah, I mean, that's sort of the, there's a big overlap in the target audience of people like who, oh, I'm a liberal, progressive, left-to-center person. And also, I'm really disgusted by the amount of consumerism that's going on in the world and people are just buying cheap stuff all and people have a problem with that, right? For lots of good reasons. I don't think a lot of people on the left who have really fought through sort of how fiat money in an inflationary monetary environment contributes to that consumerism.

Starting point is 00:24:04 It's not just that people are greedy or impatient or always want more. It's like your money is melting away, right? You're actually like incentivized to keep buying more and keep buying different things. and companies are incentivized to sell you something that's going to break in a couple of years, so you have to buy a new one. And so all of these things, like, really great against most people that sit down to think about them for a little bit because it doesn't feel right. Like, it feels like one of the things that's broken in the world.

Starting point is 00:24:30 But not a lot of people are thinking about it through sort of like, what's the financial system that incentivizes this behavior? What's incentivizing companies to do this? What's incentivizing consumers to do this? And so, you know, for a lot of people, this might be the first sort of like touch point. to say like, oh, well, like, I was always taught in economics class that we need inflation, but like look at some of the like second order effects of that, right? People are just buying a bunch of plastic stuff.

Starting point is 00:24:57 Things are breaking all the time. This is doing untold damage to the environment, right? I put it in the environment chapter because that's exactly what it is, right? Like we're just consuming things and we're incentivized to do so. Now, that's not the whole picture, but it's a pretty important part of it. So I think that that's for me personally, like, once I got in a Bitcoin, I changed completely my consuming patterns. I'm thinking about every purchase differently.

Starting point is 00:25:23 I'm thinking about, like, does this need to happen? Do I need to replace this? Is this version that I have good enough? Like, all of those things that I don't think I was thinking about with the same intentionality before I got in a Bitcoin. And I'm hoping for other people to have that same sort of epiphany. When I look at consumerism and I'm saying why, why have people been cognitively conditioned to spend as soon as it gets into their wallet.

Starting point is 00:25:49 And I think that Sailor does such a great job talking about like inflation is a vector. It really kind of depends where it nests itself. But if we were going to really zoom out, like way out and just say, well, how much, how many monetary units are being added into the system, regardless of where they kind of nest themselves, whether it goes into this really finite thing and the price explodes 100% up in three years or it's not going into this one area where there's only like 1% inflation. But if we zoom out and literally just look at the monetary units from like an M2 standpoint, and we would do a compound annual growth rate over a long period of time, call it 20 years,

Starting point is 00:26:27 that number's between like 7 to 8%. When we look at just because a person doesn't know that that's really kind of the inflation rate doesn't mean that they don't intuitively experience it and feel it in the way that they're making everyday decisions in the free, in the quote unquote free and open market. I'm going to. And so I guess all I'm saying is when I, well, I guess when I personally think of consumerism, it's like people are losing their buying power to the tune of seven or eight percent annually. And when you compound it, it's really aggressive. And so they almost feel like they've got to go out and spend the money as soon as it hits their their pocket. Because if they don't, they know it's

Starting point is 00:27:11 just going to be worth less the day after. It's just crazy to see it kind of unfold. And it seems to almost be accelerating now versus like when we were younger. I don't know. But well, I think you're right because I think what you said was that the person feels like they have to spend it. Because this is not like, you know, the average consumer is not running the equations and saying like, oh, I better go buy the new thing. Right. This is just something that you feel in the ether. Right. And I think it's great because the opposite is also true, right? Like people don't need to understand every nuance about Bitcoin to understand that it's better money, right? They'll just feel that it preserves their purchasing power over time better.

Starting point is 00:27:52 And it allows them to interact with people as adoption grows. It allows that to happen more efficiently. So people, like just the same way, people don't need to understand like the mathematical equations behind inflation for that to influence their behavior. the same is true on the other end, right? People don't need to understand every single thing about Bitcoin to just understand that it's better money. And I think that's like really a boon to my, like, you know, my outlook on the world,

Starting point is 00:28:18 which is like Bitcoin adoption will grow because people will sort of feel and understand that it's better money, even if they haven't sort of sat down and like read all the books or understand all of the background information. And that's the hope, right? The same thing that's driving them to say, oh, I need to buy the new TV or I need to like get a new car right now instead of thinking about that differently, the opposite will happen too as people started adopting Bitcoin. I'm excited about that. Something I've thought about for many years at this point with respect to Bitcoin, that you actually bring this up in your book.

Starting point is 00:28:53 And I kind of smiled when I saw you bring this up because I've been saying for a few years that the Occupy Wall Street movement that happened after the 2008 crisis, everybody in New York city crowded into the park. They set up their tents and everybody was singing their folk songs and like really upset with what had played out with how the banks were rescued in the 2008-2009 crisis. There was just no meat behind. There was no action behind the protest. And I've been telling people, I think Bitcoin is an extension of the core of like what the Occupy Wall Street movement was all about, but there's actually an engineered solution and action that is now being supplied into that cultural movement. And I don't know, philosophy is the right word or just, really just a

Starting point is 00:29:50 cultural movement, right? You start off one of your chapters with this Occupy Wall Street. I'm just kind of curious if, A, you agree with that. And B, just kind of, is it even more profound than that or does that really kind of encapsulate how you view this? No, I think that you're dead on, right? Like, there's no way for me to not think of Occupy Wall Street and Bitcoin as just mission aligned, right? They're doing, they're trying to do the same thing except, you know, one is more effective. And I think that it's particularly for my audience, right? Like, my audience is skeptical of big banks, right?

Starting point is 00:30:27 And they're maybe a little bit less skeptical about their relationship between big banks and government, but they don't like that either. And so, like, this is not like, this is not a rocket science. Like, if you are like down with Occupy Wall Street, you think the system is rigged and unfair. You think the rich people are getting favorable treatment and you're okay sitting and a tent in Wall Street and occupying Wall Street. Then you're really going to like Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:30:49 And I think like that, what you just described is absolutely right. Like those two things are mission aligned. And what I describe in the book is actually a little bit like more detail, which is say like Bitcoin is a flat open like protocol where all of people are peers and you're interacting in a voluntary basis. There's a lot of aspects about Occupy Wall Street that were the same, right? It was sort of a leaderless thing. There wasn't somebody in charge of it. There was no centralized entity. It was sort of people getting together on a peer to peer basis like protesting. And so I draw an analog between that and the Bitcoin network in a way to illustrate it.

Starting point is 00:31:25 But, you know, what's fascinating is that, you know, we all saw Occupy Wall Street happened, and we probably saw that before we heard about Bitcoin for most people. And as the book went out, I got more than one person reach out to me and say that they were, like, I wasn't at the Occupy Wall Street protests, but there's plenty of people who reached out to me and say they were. And when they read the book and they read that chapter that you're talking about, you know, there's one person who wrote to me and said, like, just the way you described it brought me to tears because it brought me back to that moment. And not only is it sort of mission aligned, as I said, but like Bitcoin provides an actual, like, efficient, like, effective

Starting point is 00:32:03 tool to do some of the things that Occupy Wall Street was trying to do. That's super good feedback, right? If somebody who's actually there and like the description and the analog speaks to them, that's high praise. One of my personal pet peeves, like, you know, if my wife was in here, she'd really get a kick out of me admitting this. But like, I have a pet peeve when people, I guess I have a saying, there's a ton of problem identifiers and very few problem solvers, like that are actually solving the problem and saying, here's the solution that will do it.

Starting point is 00:32:38 Most people just want to go. And I saw the Occupy Wall Street as being much more of a problem identification movement of like, hey, there's something wrong here. I don't have a solution to solve it. but I'm really angry about it, right? And I just want the whole world to know how upset I am. And I think there's so many people in the world like that. And there's so few that say, I agree, there is a problem.

Starting point is 00:33:04 And here's an engineered turnkey solution that actually is better, is truly better than that system over there. And that's where I think Bitcoin is that latter part. I think there's there's some value in sort of the the expression that I'm angry about this problem that I see in the world, right? If you if you feel like maybe not everybody sees that problem, like I get that. But I think what you're saying is right, then what are the solutions? Like what are the effective solutions? And, you know, in my mind, you know, I'm biased, but I don't think that there's a person who really believes in sort of the fundamental issues behind Occupy Wall Street that shouldn't be supporting Bitcoin because it's like I said, it's. the effective way to accomplish some of the same things that you're trying to accomplish.

Starting point is 00:33:51 And Bitcoin, one of the themes throughout the book is Bitcoin provides a new lens on the problems because there's plenty of people, left of center, progressive people, look at the world, they see lots of problems, they see things going wrong. You know, that's true for everybody, right? But like, that's certainly true for people on the left. But like Bitcoin provides a new lens to look at those problems and a new lens to look at the solutions, right? Bitcoin provides solutions that a lot of people on the left side of the political

Starting point is 00:34:16 special haven't really thought deeply about. And that's why I'm excited to share it with people. And just to be fair, like, you can't engineer a solution without first complaining and having a reason for having a problem. Yeah. There's a pretty substantial amount of discussion in your book about too big to fail banks. For somebody who doesn't even realize that term or they've heard the term, but they really just don't understand the implications, lay this out for them. There's a lot of angst and sort of umbrage taken, especially on the left, but probably with a lot of people about this idea that the banks were bailed out in the 2008 financial crisis. Nobody really heard of too big to fail at that point.

Starting point is 00:35:00 But it's really just a matter of the counterparty risk and sort of like when one bank fails, then a bunch of others are going to fail. We saw it starting and happen. The government stepped in as a backstop back during that financial crisis. And, you know, like just from a political standpoint, like people were upset by this, right? Like they're bailing out these banks to make sure that the banks are solvent, but these people are losing their homes.

Starting point is 00:35:24 Obviously, it's a little bit more complicated, right? Like if the banks fail, then the whole economy crashes and you end up with like a much worse situation. And the whole idea is like, well, how do we get to that point? Like, how do we get to the point where the banks had that much power, that much interconnectedness, that much sort of counterparty risks so that if one of them goes down, then it causes trouble for everybody in the world? like that doesn't seem like a good system.

Starting point is 00:35:49 So really what I tried to do in the book is just outline for a novice who hasn't thought about it a lot. Like Bitcoin provides an option for like becoming your own bank. Like the things that you have like in your bank account right now, like a savings account and a checking account and a credit card, like Bitcoin replaces all of those things in different ways, we can not only reduce our reliance on these huge institutions that sort of control way more than they probably should. but we can also sort of change the dynamic between the banks and the government in a way

Starting point is 00:36:20 by taking the power away, taking the monetary energy away from those institutions and putting them in the hands of people is all sort of a step in the right direction. So I think that, you know, the intention behind that is to, again, like, there's a target audience from my book out there that thinks, like, you know, is very skeptical of big banks and doesn't think that they're serving people that need to be served or that they're favoring wealthy clients or connected individuals. And all of that is true. And I'm just offering them to look at it through like a lens of Bitcoin instead of the lens of maybe some of the other left-wing politicians that they're listening to normally. You know, I'm glad you presented that the way you did,

Starting point is 00:37:01 because if we had a time machine and we went back to 2008 and were served the exact same environmental conditions that they were dealing with back then, you would have had to have made the exact same decisions or you would literally have freezed up all exchange between all market participants if they didn't act the way that they did. You know, it's funny because as we know, like a lot of people

Starting point is 00:37:24 give Jerome how a lot of like a hard time about the decisions that he's making. You know, like I don't know, you know, people have said this. Like, I don't know what decision you do make, right? Like question is like, what's the system in place that's creating this problem? And you know, in that moment in 2008,

Starting point is 00:37:40 we had to solve the symptoms, right? We had to take care of what we saw on the surface and we weren't able to say, hey, what's the underlying systemic issues happening here that's allowing this problem to be created in the first place? So maybe, you know, like, you know, my view is like gradually over time, Bitcoin adoption goes up, understanding of Bitcoin goes up, understanding of the legacy financial system goes up, and we gradually transition to a new system that is built with more intention and sort of has an eye out for these problems.

Starting point is 00:38:10 but you can't, well, you could or you could advocate for it. Like, I'm not advocating for like a snap of the fingers overhaul of the whole system. It's not going to be good for people. And just like you said, like in that moment in 2008, you're not solving the underlying issue. Like, there's no way you could. You need to just solve the problem that's presented in front of you. Just the way Jerome Powell is making decisions right now. And he's like, yeah, there's no good decisions.

Starting point is 00:38:33 So, you know, there's nothing Jerome Powell's going to say that a Bitcoin is not going to like criticize him for. So he kind of picks the problems that he has in front of him. And it's a systems problem. It's not a symptom thing. Yeah. And it's so exciting to know that this Bitcoin system, this network, has been engineered over the last decade since that moment where there wasn't an option to move to another way of conducting exchange.

Starting point is 00:39:01 But in the meantime, there's been a whole lot of work and a whole lot of brilliant people that have dedicated their lives to engineering the solution. to actually have a place to pivot to as they continue to go down this destructive bath that's required for fractional reserve banking and too big to fail banks. So, yeah, fascinating. In the eighth chapter, I have to just tell you, as a former military person, there's nothing more important to me personally than the points that you raise in this chapter about Bitcoin potentially offering less war, less deadly conflicts between nation states. And I really enjoyed

Starting point is 00:39:44 the way that you kind of lay out how here in particular the United States has really pivoted a way in Congress as far as like them actually declaring war and going through the act of like, well, how are we going to fund this war? And it's just moved and gravitated away from like, well, we're not even going to have that conversation anymore. We're just not. going to go do kinetic force anywhere we want and nobody's even going to vote on it. Walk the dog for the listener. Take them on the layout of this because it was so well done in your book. Again, like this is an issue that's near and dear to a lot of people's hearts, right? Like they really care a lot about it. And I think that, you know, one of the points that I try to

Starting point is 00:40:28 make in that chapter is, like you said, the gradual shift away from sort of an armed conflict being tethered to a voting populace that's engaged in like civic discourse. So, you know, I provide this example, you know, of World War II, where not only do you have Congress voting to declare war, which is like the representatives of the people actually saying, this is a war we need to fight in, we will fight it. But you also have the populace engaged in tax increases and rationing and buying war bonds and all of the things that you could do. And actually fighting in the war, right? of draft and people are like, you know, actually being drafted to fight in the war, volunteering to fight in the war, et cetera. And, you know, it seems very quaint when you think,

Starting point is 00:41:15 okay, this is what happened in World War II and we've all seen the movies and we've read the books and we kind of know what that, you know, must have felt like or we kind of can imagine it. And it's literally the opposite end of the spectrum from what's happening now, right? Like there are no votes in Congress to actually declare war. The World War II was the last War that was declared by the United States Congress. There's no conversations about how we pay for the war. There's no conversations about, you know, like, is this something that the populace wants? And the only way, and this is one of the points that I make in the book, that you can have

Starting point is 00:41:47 a 20-year war that is unpopular is because they're printing the money to pay for it, right? There is no way that, you know, in a liberal Western democracy, you can fight a war for 20 years that nobody wants to be fighting or is it very unpopular without paying for it with printed, you know, made up money. And so the premise here is that, you know, by adopting a Bitcoin standard or some version where like a dollar is backed by a Bitcoin or something like that, there's no way for you to actually fight a war that like the without engaging with the populace in a way that's meaningful, like have a discussion. How are we going to pay for it? We can't just print the money so we have to borrow it and pay it back or we have to tax you

Starting point is 00:42:31 for it or we have to make sacrifices somewhere else. Like, it's not saying that war can't happen. And it's not saying that a country couldn't defend itself if it needed to. It's just saying, like, it needs to be really important. And like, really, like the populace has to be behind it. And I think that's moving us in that direction has to be good. Having more buy-in from people about whether or not you fight a war. How long is it?

Starting point is 00:42:53 How are you paying for? All of that stuff in the democracy should be stuff. The voting population has a say in. And we just haven't. So, you know, Afghanistan and Iraq are examples where, you know, the people weren't forced to make sacrifices back home for either one of those conflicts. Nobody's standard of living went down. Nobody had a rationed their butter. Nobody's taxes went up.

Starting point is 00:43:13 In fact, taxes went down. So the war just seemed detached. It happened someplace else. My representative didn't vote for it. My taxes aren't going up to pay for it. That doesn't seem like a healthy system. So Bitcoin offers at least an opportunity to rethink that and potentially improve it. So that's the premise, at least some of the premises behind the chapter.

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Starting point is 00:47:46 working deep in that chapter because you're not just talking about like, okay, you have the dollar and then these other currencies aren't as good and they're like they have really bad inflation or something. What you're talking about is a system where the United States is in a position of privilege because they have the World Reserve currency and they can manipulate, lean on, take advantage of other nations usually that are poor for the benefit of the United States, the benefit of maintaining dollar hegemony.

Starting point is 00:48:16 So it's not just like, oh, we're going to fight a war or we're going to like assassinated a person, you know, elected government official to make more money. It's actually to preserve the definition of money, right? Like the dollar is the global dominant reserve currency. You need it for all trade that happens all over the world and we're going to preserve that status. What it provides is an opportunity for people to be using money that's not controlled by any one government. It levels of playing field. So it's not just sort of like, oh, my money is being debased so I'm going to use Bitcoin. But if everybody's using Bitcoin, then it levels the playing field. And it doesn't give one nation sort of the ability to print for free, the World Reserve

Starting point is 00:48:58 currency when every other nation has to work, provide services, provide some sort of good to gain those dollars. Like it just sort of makes everything fair. Like if you're in no matter what country you're from, no matter where you're born, you get to use Bitcoin and everybody else does too. It's a lot of privilege to be born as an American and say, oh, I get to use a dollar, right? It seems weird to say like where you're born dictates what kind of money you can use and most forms of money are really bad. Like the dollar's bad, but like it's the best dirty, you know, it's cleanest dirty shirt.

Starting point is 00:49:30 And so Bitcoin offers a different lens through that, right? Like no matter where you're born, you get to use this. And a nation, no matter how economically or militarily powerful they are, like the United States can't change the Bitcoin protocol and everybody's operating on an equal footing, that provides a lot of promise. It's hard to imagine what the world would look like after 20 years of that. I can't even try to imagine what it looks like, but I would imagine that's something that's an ambition worth striving for. One of the challenges that I think we have on both political spectrums, whether you're talking conservative or progressive, is this idea that on the hill, they've grown accustomed

Starting point is 00:50:10 to being net consumers and doing it through the debasement of the currency. On the conservative side, I would say that where it's difficult is through just the defense industrial complex with the acquisition process of military acquisition of these really expensive multi-billion dollar programs and the incentive for elected officials to vote the money and the work into their district. On the progressive side, I would say it's the social programs that they've become addicted to consuming way more. than what they actually bring in in order to get votes of, hey, well, we'll give you this program,

Starting point is 00:50:52 we'll give you that program. So both sides of the aisle, like has this addiction to being a net consumer. And Bitcoin's, you know, as we're talking to politicians about Bitcoin and we're saying, hey, this is better form of money. Deep down inside, both sides of the aisle have to be saying, yeah, but I can't get elected if I'm not like vote basically stepping in front. of the flow of money and getting this money to flow into these districts that I'm being elected into through these programs or through like this defense industrial complex. How do you broach that subject? Because it doesn't seem like that's something people are willing to openly discuss or even

Starting point is 00:51:36 admit is the case. But like, it's very obvious that that's the incentive structure. Yeah. And, you know, I talk about this in the book where, you know, the political. physically feasible thing to do is just sort of inflate the money so you don't need to raise taxes and you can just sort of go into debt. And obviously, if you get to print the money that you're using, then that's an advantage point of view to have. So what's interesting about what you said, too, is like in sort of standard political culture out in the, in America, like people think,

Starting point is 00:52:06 oh, Democrats tax and spend and Republicans are fiscally concerned. This is not by true by any stretch. You know, and I think like, oh, when Democrats do it, it's called tax and spend. And when Republicans do it, it's called something else. But really, nobody's taxing. They're just spending, right? They're just, like, they're staying down. Nobody's raising taxes. It's just their spending.

Starting point is 00:52:26 So I think it's important because this is, it's to the fundamental issue about like a person's relationship with their government and their government's ability to print money to do certain things or not. And I think that the stance that I'm taking is essentially that an adoption of Bitcoin, and it won't come from the policy. It has to come from the people from the ground up because, as you said, there's no incentive from politicians to change their mind about this. But they might be forced to, right? Like if enough people get behind it and we're self-custcing and we're imposing like our views, not imposing our views, but explaining our views about how this is better.

Starting point is 00:53:01 Like it will catch on. But the net benefit of that is to make government, it might make government smaller. That's fine. There's plenty of areas in which a government can be smaller, but it will more importantly make it more efficient and transparent. So it doesn't, in my view, like Bitcoin doesn't spell the end of taxation or the government. It just means that the government will have to communicate more clearly about this is why we're taxing you. This is why what we're spending the money on, be able to prove that they're spending the money on that, and then be able to be transparent about these are the goods and services that we usually used to provide and we're no longer doing that.

Starting point is 00:53:36 And I think that there's things on both sides of the political spectrum that people aren't willing to get rid of. but that's why we're in a democracy. So we get to decide what gets cut, like how high are tax is going to go before we elect you out? What are you spending the taxes on? Does that align with my priorities or not? And I think that there's a lot of room to sort of reimagine like the relationship that a person has with the government or with taxation or with spending at the government level without saying that, okay, well, Bitcoin exists, therefore the government is going to cease to exist. I think that there's a lot of sort of options between those two options. I've got a pretty pessimistic point of view on how this is going to resolve itself in just that,

Starting point is 00:54:20 like the tax is going to be paid. It's just how it's manifested itself, right? And the tax is being paid through the basement at this point because we've maxed out the debt load and you're starting to see just the interest expense alone that's starting to creep up to the revenues that are generated through taxes. we're getting there very closely. So I just think that the general populace, when we would take 100 people, they're saying, I know it doesn't intuitively feel right that I should just get a check, a UBI check or whatever you want to call it.

Starting point is 00:54:52 I know that there's something that doesn't add up about that, but I really don't care. Just give me the check. Right. And just give me the check because, like, I have no disposable income, which is a function of, And you have a quote in your book that I think is, let's see here, you say in your book that the wealth inequality we see in our society is a systemic issue created by the type of money we use, which I completely agree with. And I think that the only thing that's going to actually that's going to force people to come to the realization that they shouldn't want the check is just sheer pain. It's just, I don't think that we can rationalize through academic arguments and explain to them, well, actually, what this turns into is a flat tax across everybody in the population, regardless of what your income is. So if you make $10,000 a year or you make a million a year, that tax rate is exactly the same for both of those two people by choosing debasement.

Starting point is 00:55:55 No, I think it's great. It's an opportunity to educate people too, right? because as you're sort of implying, any inflation rate hurts poor people or people who are struggling to make ends meet are going to feel that much more than somebody who's more well off. And that just compounds over time. Yeah. Yeah. The inflation rate, we say like a lot of people, it's all about derivatives, right? Like the inflation rate might be going back down, but it's still higher, right? The prices don't go back down. The prices still stay high. They're just increasing at a slower rate. That's all that means. And so that's hurting poor people, working people, like people who are

Starting point is 00:56:28 struggling to make ends meet. And I think that there is an opportunity to educate people about like, right, when we decide not to tax people and we're just going to pay for it through inflation, like, who are the winners and who are the losers? Who are the losers and who are the bigger losers? And then have like a dialogue about that. And maybe you're right. Maybe we don't get to educate everybody in time or that we don't get that sort of tipping point into Bitcoin as sort of a savings technology. And we have to rely on the pain. I'm hoping that doesn't happen. I don't want that to happen, but it might. Jason, as I'm thinking through this as we're talking, it's just if I have to try to

Starting point is 00:57:03 defend the person that's saying, just give me the check, I don't, I don't want, hey, nerd, shut up, right? Because as a person would be saying all this and making the intellectual argument, be like, hey, nerd, shut up, just give me the check. That person, if you have a choice between the federal government doing more QE or handing out a UBI check, right, like, they're going to take the UBI check because it actually benefits them more as opposed to the QE that's just bidding equity prices to oblivion and benefiting that person who's saying, give me the check, doesn't have ownership of equity. They're just

Starting point is 00:57:39 working paycheck to paycheck. So it's actually beneficial for them to make that argument to say, just give me the check because the UBI thing, like they've been doing that for a decade and it hasn't helped me out at all. Yeah, in the short term, they're absolutely right, right? Like the sort of the, it goes to the can'taline effect, right? You're not the people. If you do it the other way, then certainly the people who don't need any help are getting the help. And certainly there's something to be said about like, all right, during the pandemic, we're going to send out checks. Like, why don't we be a little bit more discriminatory about like, who's getting these

Starting point is 00:58:10 checks like instead of sending them to everybody? Because, you know, like you said, that person who says, just give me the check, like, they're a human being who needs to feed kids and needs to keep the lights on. And they don't see a way out of that, right? Like, this is healthy they need. And it's hard to tell somebody who, doesn't have food on the table, like you need to be thinking two or three steps ahead, Bitcoin is a better option. You know, like forget, just, you know, like, bow out of the system

Starting point is 00:58:36 because it's rigged against you. Like, people can't do that, right? So we just need to keep educating. And then hopefully, like I said, the transition is gradual. I do think, like, an abrupt transition to Bitcoin seems devastating to a lot of people on the planet. But a gradual one seems like we end up in a better spot for everybody. So keep on educating. And then, you know, if people really need it, then you can help them. But you have to be really thoughtful about how you do that. You can't just send a check to everybody in the country and not expect prices to go up 12 months later. It doesn't make any sense. It's interesting because I was on a panel one time where we were talking about UBI and Jack Dorsey was like, well, you know, I think

Starting point is 00:59:16 we're running out options. And my point was if you're truly talking about a system that is dying, like it's unrecoverable. You have to balance. a Q-E-U-I-liquidity flow into the population as you're transitioning to a new system that can be stood up that's fair and balanced and equitable and you can't be manipulated, right? If you think the existing legacy system can be salvaged, you have to stop doing both of those things immediately. And I guess in a fractional reserve system, I just don't even know that that's possible. I think that history has taught us at nauseam that a fractional reserve system always fails with enough time.

Starting point is 01:00:02 It's just a matter of like how long, whether it's 40 years or 50 years or 20 years or whatever it is. It's not that I'm personally promoting, and I don't think you are either, Jason, that I'm promoting UBI or I'm promoting QE. I'm saying, if we're going to bridge to a new system, there has to be liquidity in that system. You just can't put your hands up in the air and let something that's completely. completely based on debt and completely impair itself down to zero because literally it's going to be apocalyptic in society if that's what we choose, right? Right. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:00:34 I mean, you can see pretty quickly, like, when people work really hard and they still can't feed their family, like how quickly society deteriorates. Yeah. Like civilization goes out the window pretty quickly. So I think that you're right. And it reminds me of this other point, which is, I think is important, which is like there's a lot of people who are incentivizing. keep us fighting, like, left-right issues, like blue and red, like, hey, this shouldn't,

Starting point is 01:00:59 this UBI shouldn't happen, this sort of welfare state shouldn't happen, whatever. But the truth is, like, politics, some people are coming up with solutions because the world is broken in a fiat system. And if they don't understand Bitcoin or they're not really fully clued into how the system works, they just know it's broken. They're coming up with, in some cases, good faith, like solution attempts, right? Like, we can't just let people starve to death. like we need to do something and kind of what you're saying.

Starting point is 01:01:25 Like if you know the system is broken, we need to transition to a new one. And what do you do in the interim is really important because I don't think that you can let society unravel. I don't think that you can sort of like, like you said, apocalyptic economic outcomes. I think that you need to keep it float, keep it floating for long enough to transition out of it. And I think you're right. Like just saying, okay, well, we're going to save the system by just removing both of those things. No more QE, no more UBI. What that means is like the whole thing just deteriorates.

Starting point is 01:01:57 There's too much debt in the system for that to be sustainable. It just can't happen. So there's not really any good options, right, except to just keep people, educating people about Bitcoin and hope that we get a smooth transition to a new system. It all comes down to education. Yeah. Just back to my concern. I'm just concerned about the person yelling, nerd, give me my money. Right. Right. Right. Shut up. Exactly. I mean, I've been called worse than nerd. So I'll take it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:02:23 We'll keep it G-rated here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, in your book, you talk a little bit about Bitcoin being bipartisan. You talk about Lummus and Gillibrand working together since writing the book. I'm curious if that opinion has changed or you still kind of hold true to what you were talking about. I think, you know, I tried to describe it in the book as sort of aspirational. I wrote the book as quickly as I could in good conscience because I know that this is a thing, right? Like I think that my biggest fear is that Bitcoin becomes this political football that both sides are just using to fight against each other.

Starting point is 01:03:01 And you see plenty of that right now, especially the loudest voices in Congress are doing this. And one of the hopes behind the book is to say this might be one of the very few things where we don't need it to be a political wedge issue. We don't need to divide people on this. We can actually have people coming together with this issue. I think that the intention behind what I wrote and sort of my thinking now is sort of as aspirational. Like the book is not written to change politicians minds. It's written to educate voters.

Starting point is 01:03:33 And so there's plenty of people like the addressable market of people who vote Democrat because they don't see any good option. They're just going to vote for Democrats. And they don't know a lot about Bitcoin is pretty big. So I'm thinking like I'm hoping that it. if we get enough voters educated, that pushes the politicians to a point where it actually is truly bipartisan. It's not a political wedge issue.

Starting point is 01:03:55 It's not just used to divide or score political points. And I do think that there's still hope. I think that a lot of the people who are against Bitcoin are democratic people, but they're also older. And so I do think that there's an opportunity to sort of educate people about Bitcoin and its benefits before it reaches that tipping point. of, you know, like a lot of the other political issues we have where you're never going to change your mind, right? Like, there's just no way you're going to admit defeat on like, oh, I was wrong about abortion for the last 30 years. It's not going to happen. So, like, I don't want that to happen with Bitcoin. And that's why I wrote the book. That's one of the main reasons I wrote

Starting point is 01:04:31 the book. Let's get us away from that tipping point. Let's see this is a place where people can come together and actually have conversations and talk about, like you said, solutions and that is just problems, there's a lot of potential for that to happen. I guess the short answer is it's an as, like, bipartisan approach of Bitcoin is an aspiration and it continues to be. I love that response. What is something you believe very deeply that you think very few people understand or appreciate?

Starting point is 01:04:59 That's a good, I mean, like the obvious answer is Bitcoin. But I think that. Yeah, beyond Bitcoin. Yeah, no, of course. There's a lot of different directions I can go with that and trying to not. to get canceled. So maybe we should. I think that, you know, in the general populace,

Starting point is 01:05:17 just the definition of money and what it means is a huge hurdle for a lot of people just starting. I think that that's probably like number one conversation. Like you don't know what money is and that's okay. Let's learn about it. I think within the Bitcoin community, what I get a lot is there's three kinds of people, people who agree with me politically and they're also in a Bitcoin.

Starting point is 01:05:39 people who disagree with me politically, but they like what I'm doing because it means more people will learn about Bitcoin and they're supportive of my idea. And then people who disagree with me politically and just absolutely are rabid about like fighting me on Twitter or whatever. And what I get most often is sort of people defining for me what they think progressive means in this very extreme echo chamber way. And it paints me in a way that says, oh, well, that's an easy argument to argue against. So that's how I'm going to define what your view is. So I just think that within the community, Bitcoin offers, at least for me, a lot of opportunities to talk to people I don't agree with politically and then find common ground. And what I found fascinating about that is that if you

Starting point is 01:06:25 have two people who are bitquiners, then they can have a conversation about even political issues, even touchy political issues, and that you can almost trust that the other person is going to come at it with good faith, that you're going to have a real meaningful conversation. And even if they say something you disagree with, they're not trying to score a point with you or try to make fun of you or call your names. They're actually just trying to engage and understand better. And I've had countless conversations with people who don't agree with me politically. They agree with me on Bitcoin. And here's another thing. I don't like how Democrats say this. And we actually have a conversation that actually gets somewhere. And people understand maybe both

Starting point is 01:07:05 sides a little bit better. That's a beautiful thing. I don't think there's, there's hardly any of that going on now in our society. So I think Bitcoin offers that option for us just have better conversations with one another. That doesn't really answer your question. But that's something that I feel strongly about in terms of like the opportunity Bitcoin provides for us, even within our community, even if you're on boarded to Bitcoin, go and talk to somebody you don't agree with politically. You're going to have a better conversation than out in the rest of the world. It's so, so important to focus on the ideas and not the individuals and separate that when you're having discussions into just, I guess, have a deep appreciation for critical thinking

Starting point is 01:07:48 and picking apart ideas as deep as you possibly can to come at a truth because I think both people want to arrive at the truth. But I think especially nowadays, so many people just have this emotional baggage that really gets in the way of their ability to continue to stay focused on the idea and to critically dissect it. Like their insecurities are manifesting themselves in the way of that pursuit. And I agree. And I'll just add to it where in the best case, both people are having this conversation. and they want to arrive to the truth or better understand, even if there is no truth, you know, capital T truth,

Starting point is 01:08:32 trying to understand. In the worst case, you just have two people who both want to win, right? And that's why people, like, they just want to win an argument, right? Yeah. And that's not helpful.

Starting point is 01:08:42 And that's why you get people just sort of going to their own corners, right? Like, I'm just going to talk to people that agree with me about this because I don't want to have to, like, you know, fight with this other person about it. And so just in my own experience, like I said,

Starting point is 01:08:54 I didn't, I haven't, like, removed myself from, like, I've just sort of added another one and just kind of, I don't say unique, but it's a pretty like rare experience for me to sort of be in like a liberal politics echo chamber and then also Bitcoin echo chamber and see like take a step back like, wow, you guys are all like sometimes you guys are saying the same thing and you're just fighting over anyway. So it's just been an

Starting point is 01:09:18 interesting sort of vantage point to say like I never expected myself to dive into the Bitcoin rabbit hole or be part of like Bitcoin Twitter. But, you know, that. echo chambers is a different echo chamber than the one I'm used to. And it's interesting to see the dynamic relationship between those two things. The way you describe that of a person having the desire or the need to win, in tying that to insecurity, and tying that to just, I'm going to take this a step here. I hope I don't lose people. When a person doesn't have any disposable income, it's really hard for them to feel like they're actually progressing in society or able to move forward. In fact, when you're a net consumer of society because you just can't progress, you're actually feeling like you're falling back.

Starting point is 01:10:06 I think you actually developed this insecurity of, well, I'm just not going to lose next time I have an engagement with anybody, regardless of whatever the topic is. I'm tired of losing. I'm tired of falling back and feeling like I, you know, if you're playing a video game, I used to get to level three. Now I'm only getting to level two. And now I'm only getting to level one. I am not going to lose. And it's that insecurity of feeling like maybe you're falling behind.

Starting point is 01:10:33 And I think that's why it's so prevalent throughout society that the engagements that we're seeing online are just immediately turning to, well, I'm not going to lose no matter what. and it's not even about the discussion point or the idea. It's about not losing. Yeah. And I had this conversation with a colleague the other day where, like, I don't think I ever would have been able to see this without like Bitcoin, right? Like it seems world, right?

Starting point is 01:11:02 But it's almost like so clear to me that that fear sells, getting people afraid is going to get you more clicks, get you more views, get you more viewership, like whatever. And so this is what we're seeing from the mainstream media. And right now, at least in America, you just get to pick what flavor of fear do you want, right? Like the left has their own media that they're going to make you afraid of these things and the right's going to make you afraid of these things. And really all you get to do is pick the flavor of what you're scared of. And so to your point, like when you're fearful of the other side or like, you know, fearful of your situation and like feeling hopeless that you can't win no matter what and the game is rigged against you, then people, like, they're not the best selves, right?

Starting point is 01:11:46 They're going to not engage in that conversation in good faith. They're going to try to win. They're not going to lose. And so it's just not a healthy place to, you know, I don't have any solutions to fixing the whole like media empire or how we manipulate people to be fearful, but at least recognizing that that's happening is really important. And it's not just one side, right? Like it's both sides happening at the same time, just different flavors of it.

Starting point is 01:12:11 Jason, I've thoroughly. enjoyed this conversation with you for people that want to learn more. Here's the book, A Progressive Case for Bitcoin. Anything else that you want to highlight or that you want us to put in the show notes when we wrap it up? No, yeah. I mean, I appreciate the chance to talk. I mean, it was great. I think that if you're looking for the book, you can find it on Bitcoinprogressive.com is the website I set up for the book. And you can follow me on Twitter. See Jason Mayer is the, is a Twitter handle. And just appreciate the time in the, and the, and I just appreciate the time in the support. Thank you, Preston. Yeah, love to having you on. Do you have any trig questions that we can put in

Starting point is 01:12:47 the show notes for all these hardcore math Bitcoin people? I'll spare people the double angle formula. I'm already having trouble making friends of the Bitcoin space. I think you dig in Trigg homework. Thank you for making time and coming on the show. Jason, appreciate it. Thank you. If you guys enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow the show on whatever podcast application you use, just search for We Study Billionaires. The Bitcoin-specific shows come out every Wednesday, and I'd love to have you as a regular listener. If you enjoyed the show or you learned something new or you found it valuable, if you can leave a review, we would really appreciate that. And it's something that helps others find the interview in the search algorithm. So anything you can do to

Starting point is 01:13:33 help out with a review, we would just greatly appreciate. And with that, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you again next week. Thank you for listening to TIP. To access our show notes, courses or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - BTC138: A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin w/ Jason Maier (Bitcoin Podast)

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