What Happens When Money Becomes Morality? With Mike Brock

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
So this idea that like we shouldhave like immutable algorithms
that like define the contours ofour economy or define the
contours of law or they become these like things that like
nobody can change. That's like, that's like, to me,
I'm like that. I think that's like
epistemically authoritarianism because it's like taking
certain, it's basically saying there's certain conversations
that are off the table that liketechnology has its own logic.

(00:23):
They're like, what if we're wrong?
We were wrong about the neoliberal project?
What if we're wrong about 21 million bitcoins?
Like what? That like, fucks everything up
and then we can't change it. Hello, I am Cody Allingham and
this is the Transformation of Value, a place for asking
questions about freedom, money, and creativity.
My guest today is Mike Brock. Mike writes extensively on his

(00:46):
sub Stack Notes from the Circus about democracy, liberalism, and
what he sees as the decline of the American Republic.
Mike has an extensive tech background, formerly working as
an executive at Cash App as wellas being involved with the
various open source projects. Mike, welcome to the show.

(01:06):
Thanks for having me. You recently wrote we're living
through a moment when the old frameworks for meaning making
are collapsing and new ones haven't yet stabilized.
This creates both danger and opportunity.
Danger that people will retreat into authoritarian simplicity or
nihilistic despair. An opportunity to create

(01:28):
something better than what came before.
This seems to be a nod to something similar that Marxist
theorist Antonio Gramsci wrote in his prison notebooks in the
1930s on the eve of the rise of fascism in Italy.
MM What events or experiences have brought you to this place
of questioning? I mean, I mean, I've had a

(01:50):
lifelong affliction which has, which has been an obsession with
trying to understand the world. I mean, it, you know, it's
served me in my business pursuits, you know, in my, in my
previous capacity, you know, it took me into, into software
engineering in and out of politics.

(02:12):
You know, I was a, it was a business executive.
And now I'm, I'm a writer, but like fundamentally, yeah, I
mean, I've had a I've had a, a life that's been really focused
on, on trying to understand the world and, and I and, and, and
one where I've been in search oflike purpose and, and meaning
and, and trying to find some sort of like way to contribute

(02:34):
right? To the, to the, to the story as
as Walt Whitman said that we canall contribute in a verse,
right? That's that's what I'm trying to
do. And, and and I'm trying to
understand that that story that I'm contributing to.
Yeah. If I might just going back a
little bit, Mike, where are you originally from?
I'm a, you know, I was born in Canada, so I'm, I guess because

(02:58):
you could say that I'm an American Canadian.
I, I've spent most of my adult existence here South of of the
Canadian US border. But so I've but I've but I've
been AI guess you could say I'm a I'm a North American native.
Did you find that growing up in Canada, I mean, how how long did

(03:22):
you spend there? Did it sort of affect your
outlook on politics? Well, it's interesting, right?
I mean, growing up in growing upin Canada is, you know, you
know, very obvious. You know, I'm a somewhat pretty
much identified, I guess now as an American political
commentator. But I mean, if we're going back,
if we're going, if we're going to put back that far into my

(03:42):
history, yeah. I mean, it's, it's interesting
growing up in the shadow of a superpower right right across
the border. It's, it's, it's impossible to
not, not notice the, the cultural, political and economic
influence of, of a, of a creature such as the United
States, which, you know, is my, my adopted home.

(04:06):
I'm, you know, I'm a citizen here as well and a proud citizen
of this country. I fell in love with this country
actually, and, and, and became acitizen and I'm and a patriotic,
patriotic one. I have an American flag right
there, right behind me. And, and, and so and so, yeah, I
mean, it's, it's an interesting,it's an interesting experience
actually seeing the United States from the outside.

(04:29):
It gives you a different perspective, obviously.
I mean, you're, you're outside the United States yourself.
And, you know, when we can get into conversations about US
foreign policy adventures and misadventures and, and you know,
the, the, the, the moral storiesthat we all tell about the, you
know, the 20th century and like before that.

(04:49):
And we can go go back further and, you know, and, and, and
talk about like, you know, the, the, the, the foundations of,
of, of this country. And some people would, would say
that I'm remiss if I don't mention the history of slavery
in this country. But yet, I mean, this, this
project of America is something that I, yeah, I mean, I, I

(05:12):
don't, I don't, I don't, I don'tknow when I fell in love with
America. Maybe I did as a, as a, as a, as
a kid. And the promise of it, the
promise of, of something that, that has a capacity to literally
reach for the stars through this, this experiment of self
government, and which obviously like brings us to, to, to, to

(05:34):
today, you know, and, and, and, and, and the, and the despair
that I'm fighting against in my,in my writings.
Yeah, well, I'm keen to explore that a little bit more.
And I think this is something wemight share in common, Mike,
because, you know, I'm originally from New Zealand,
which is a tiny country, South Pacific.
Again, people often don't know where it is and it sort of gets

(05:55):
confused with somewhere like Australia.
And again, there's a geopolitical fold where New
Zealand's only got 1 ally, whichhappens to be Australia
formerly. We've sort of distanced
ourselves from the United States, but we're also very much
within that sphere of influence.And so from the outside, I guess
we get to look at this thing very from an interesting
perspective, right? And coming to this point of

(06:17):
despair that you mentioned, certainly you're writing on
Notes from the Circus since late2024, seems to increasingly be
focusing on what's happening in the United States government,
some challenges that you see to the democracy itself, to the
Republic itself. And I wonder maybe just tell me
a bit more about where your thinking is at with that?

(06:38):
Where, where my thinking is at with the with the state of, with
the state of democracy. Yeah, man.
I mean, I mean, I mean, like, I mean, if, well, if in here in
the United States, I mean, we're, we're in a crisis.
I mean, I, I believe that what we are seeing is an attempted
slow motion coup that is being being perpetrated by the current

(07:00):
occupant of, of the executive branch, the Article 2 branch of,
of the United States federal government, which is currently
headed by Donald J Trump and, and his Vice President, JD Vance
and, and assorted oligarchs around them.
I, I would, would look at this current situation, such as it

(07:20):
is, and I would, I would say that that this represents and
these people represent an existential threat to that thing
that I was telling you about earlier that I love so much.
Yeah, so there's this idea of America, right?
And this, perhaps you could say founding myth, the Founding
fathers, these innovations and governance.

(07:43):
Yet here we are today, you know,you're writing about this stuff.
You you seem to certainly have the tone of crisis of concern in
your writing. It seems like you are surely
speaking to this. But on on the other hand, you
know, I've just spent a little bit of time with the works of
Adam Svovsky, who I'm not sure if you're familiar with, but a
couple of years ago wrote Crisisof Democracy.

(08:05):
And you know, looking through that, his outlook on the state
of democracy in the United States was a little bit less
concerned than you are to given the state of the economy, the
the long history of democracy and and successful transitions
of power. He seemed to think that it was
more like 1 in 1.8 million country years chance that

(08:28):
democracy would fail in the United States.
So what? What has changed since he came?
That book came out 2019, but what has?
Changed about this a little bit.I mean like so you know, I'm,
I'm, you know, I, I, I'm somebody who has actually been
very much involved actually for some time in pro democracy
activism, not just in the UnitedStates and but but around the

(08:49):
world. And this has been a long time
passion of mine, not a not a newthing from when I started notes
from the circus. What I what you know, what I
would say is is that yes, I meanthe United States has a very
deep democratic culture and there's a lot of reasons for
hope. There's a lot of reasons to

(09:09):
believe that democracy will persist in the United States.
Now, you know, we should be precise here, though, when, when
I say that, right, I mean, there's a very strong cultural
current people expect to be ableto vote for their politicians.
They expect their votes to be counted, the results of those
elections to be respected and, and, and, and ratified and

(09:32):
ratified in, in, in, in composing the representatives in
the, in the legislatures and, and offices to which those those
elections are held for. And, and I think, yes, I think,
I think it will be, it would be very, very difficult for, for
Donald Trump and his, his merry band of, of corrupt oligarchs.

(09:55):
And they are corrupt oligarchs, by the way, to completely undo
the cultural and institutional inertia that makes that true.
However, we have to understand something though.
I mean, the authoritarians understand this.

(10:15):
They do, they do understand that, that removing the
expectation of, of free and fairelections is not something that
they're going to be able to do in any short period of time.
Viktor Orban and his Fadiz partyin Hungary understands this too.
You know, Erdogan in Turkey understands this.
Modi in India understands this, you know, the, I mean, they

(10:37):
people aren't paying much attention, but like Scheinbaum
and and her, you know, you know,left wing reactionary populist
post truth forces in Mexico understand this.
There's, there's a new class of authoritarianism that comes in
both, you know, as we see in Mexico of sort of, you know,
left reactionary and right reactionary varieties in the

(10:59):
United States, it's very much onthe right side of that equation
where they have sort of figured something out.
They've, they've figured out, asVladimir Putin and Viktor Orban
have demonstrated to the world, that the, that the way that you
can establish A dictatorship inside a democracy is by
fundamentally chipping away at the, you know, the, the process

(11:24):
like not, not not necessarily like the process of voting, but
everything around that, the eligibility to run for election,
the way things are counted, likewhy they're counted, who can
stand for election, capturing the courts so they can make
determinations on what votes to count and which ones not to.
These are the ways in which likethe modern, more sophisticated

(11:47):
authoritarian goes about consolidating control.
And this is exactly what Donald Trump and, and, and the people
around him and, you know, peoplelike, you know, this, this
Vought guy who runs the, you know, Office of Management and
Budget is laser focused on thosesorts of things, thinking about
ways in which to not get rid of the ritual of voting.

(12:08):
Like in that in that strict sense, because obviously that's
deeply ingrained in our sense ofwhat political legitimacy means
in in the modern world. But they do want to strip it of
liberal values and any kind of any kind of concept of like
universal rule of law, they wantrule by the powerful with

(12:31):
performative elections. And so that's like, that's like
so, so, so yes, like there's, there's this, this, this tension
there this truth that people culturally are very attached to
that that sort of procedural democracy.
And that's good. That gives us something to work
with. But doesn't change the fact that
there's like a formula that these that these fascists, these

(12:54):
modern fascists have for wrestling the, the, the, the
democracy to the ground by hollowing it of its content
rather than actually destroying the actual process by which we
by, by which we legitimate our leaders.
And that's, that's, that's theirgame and that's what they're
doing. And, and so I, I get people, I,

(13:17):
I get the perspective that says that, that, that, that they're
not going to be able to eliminate elections, but I don't
think they're going to try to eliminate elections.
I think they're going to try to make the elections not matter.
That's, that's, that's, that's, that's the nuanced point that
has to be understood. And I think.
And so I kind of think it's like, you know, kind of a sense

(13:37):
it's, it's sort of this like, I mean, I'm, I'm not saying that
the academic that you cited there and I'm not familiar with
his work, but you know, I, you know, I am familiar with like
the work of other people, you know, like I, you know, like
that, that, that, that focus on,on democratic decline.
And I would say that that I meanI would say that the most of

(13:58):
most of those people in that world are very alarmed and
probably more aligned with what I'm saying than than the figure
that you cited. Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting. I mean, again, this was was
2019, so sort of from Trump one era, but just pulling on that
thread. So something else I believe
you've you've written about hereis that the fascist propagandist

(14:19):
understands that human attentionis finite.
We can only focus on so many things at once.
By creating constant noise around peripheral issues, they
ensure the central crime, the actual seizure of power, goes
relatively unscrutinized. And I think this speaks to
something I want to get onto, which is this idea of
epistemology. What is knowledge?
What is truth? What is, what do things even

(14:40):
mean? And this seems to be one of the
central issues today. What is even happening like?
Yeah, I mean, there's a big question, right?
What is knowledge? What is truth, right?
I mean, I mean, the yeah, epistemology obviously is the,
the, the word that we sort of, you know, use in, in, in
philosophy and, and, you know, and the sciences to sort of like

(15:03):
categorize that, that, that, that, that sort of object that
that you're raising here. Yeah.
I mean it's, it's, it's, it's something we don't think about,
but it's it's very fundamental to us actually, right.
I mean, the nature of our consciousness lives there,
right. I mean, in, in, in the world of
the sort of like thought and information and, and

(15:24):
communication. And, you know, you need,
there's, there's, you know, the,there's a, there's a theory of
consciousness, which I'm partialto, right?
This, this idea of like the social self, right?
That, that we actually exist sort of consciously and, and
what, what you might think of asan intersubjective realm, right?

(15:47):
Because which, which doesn't really come intuitively to us,
because we want to think of ourselves as autonomous agents.
I have a brain. You have a brain.
We're not like, we're not, you know, I'm not suggesting that we
like communicate to each other through, you know, you know,
telepathy or anything. But when we talk to each other,
we, you know, we, we sort of exchange like fragments of

(16:08):
consciousness. And when we're not talking to
each other, we're absorbing cultural artifacts and words and
meanings and all of these idiomsand, and all of these things
around us that sort of become part of our shared context that
sort of exists outside us, that we exist in relation to.
And then, you know, you know, you get even like more deeper

(16:31):
into this and you think about like, you know, the the theories
of Gerard and like mimetic theory and like how, I mean,
and, and how and how sort of like the the things that we care
about are based on sort of imitating things that exist in
that space. And so I mean, so, yeah, like
epistemology, is that right? It's sort of the, you know,
maybe the most important word, if you ask me in the age of AI

(16:54):
at sort of the sort of the thing, the sort of, you know,
knowledge and science that like more people should really
understand. Because when you're thinking
about questions like how will wesurvive the age of AI?
Like how will humans stay human?I mean, that's like really those
are epistemological challenges really, right?

(17:16):
Like both in like how you designthe AI and how you understand
how the AI works and like the nature of the communication
between the AI and the humans. We, we obviously worry about the
threat of manipulation and, and like the highly effective
propaganda that AI will be able to to, you know, met out, you

(17:37):
know, against us and manipulate us and subjugate us.
Those are all epistemological challenges and understanding how
like knowledge and, and, and information and truth and, and
communication actually actually works is really crucial to at
least having an intuitive understanding about like what
the risks are and like what we should care about.
And like how we should go about designing safe technology that

(18:02):
serves humans rather than humansbeing enslaved by machines.
Which is of course the thing that we all worry about as we
talk about the coming AI age that we are heading, you know,
head first into. Yeah, interesting.
Well, look, I mean, I appreciateyou, you, you haven't
encountered this work by Adam Svorsky.

(18:23):
But I did want to reference it because again, that opening
quote that I I mentioned, he actually says the very similar
thing that Gramsci had had talked about in in the opening
chapter. And he's very well known, Adam
Svorsky, for this idea that democracy is simply a system in
which the incumbents lose elections and they leave when
they lose. And he's done again, a lot of

(18:45):
study in this space and his reflections on Trump won at
least was that something is happening.
Anti establishment, anti system,anti elite, this kind of
populist sentiment, which is exploding and and mature
democracies globally. And I, I do feel, Mike, that
there is some kind of connectionhere with this relationship with
truth and reality because it seems like everything's upside

(19:08):
down. You know, what was historically
the, the bourgeoisie has become the, the party of the
proletariat, the Republicans andconservatives.
And on the other hand, the partyof the working man, the working
person, the labour parties, the left wing parties of the world
have become in a sense, the bourgeoisie and the laptop
class. And so there's kind of some sort
of populist sentiment going on. And in a sense, is it that

(19:31):
that's been led by someone such as Trump, or is that they are
simply feeding on this broader sentiment that's emerging?
It well, yeah, good question. And I write a lot about this as
as well. Yeah, I mean, so I mean, when we
think about the situation that we're, I mean, your ABS, I mean,
I, I agree with the analysis that that there's, you know, the

(19:52):
obviously the loss of faith and in the establishment, the, the
populist moment, the sort of collapse of, of confidence in,
in, in institutions and trust ininstitutions.
Is, is, is a real phenomenon andit is a phenomenon that is, that
is, that is a that is a product of convergent factors.

(20:14):
Really, you know, there are criticism like, you know, we can
talk about, say the, the liberalestablishment, right?
The the, that, this sort of that, you know, you know, I
mean, it's still kind of hangingon in places.
I'd say that like Keir Starmer in the United Kingdom is like
part of the old guard liberal establishment Macron, like

(20:37):
people, you know, like, like surprisingly, you know, they
have we we now Mark Carney in inCanada who just who just became
Prime Minister, former Bank of England and Bank of Canada
governor, you know, is, is clearly like liberal
establishment type figure. And that group of people, right,

(20:59):
the, you know, the Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Barack Obama,
Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, that, that that liberal
establishment, I mean, has lost trust.
I mean, the, the trust has been lost in that establishment.
And, and then obviously I, you know, I, I would, I would
actually like extend that to, you know, the, the sort of what

(21:22):
some people sometimes refer to as like the neoconservatives,
you know, the sorts of the, the sort of people who were, you
know, were in power of the Republican establishment before
the rise of Trump. I would consider them part of
the liberal establishment. Small a liberal, I use liberal
in the classical sense. Like I would say that like, you

(21:43):
know, Ronald Reagan was a liberal, Bill Clinton was a
liberal, George W Bush was a liberal, Obama was a liberal.
There was different types of liberals, right.
Reagan was more, you know, Reagan was a, was a, was like a
right leaning liberal. And, and, and, and Bill Clinton
was actually actually kind of a right leaning liberal too.
In the 90s. He was kind of like an
aberration who had, you know, some sort of like left
left-leaning views. And then you had, you know,

(22:05):
Bush, who was kind of like a weird sort of like, you know,
mix. It was like this compassionate
conservative conservatism. And Obama was like, you know,
like pretty much a as vanilla establishment liberal as, you
know, packaged in a, you know, Ithink a really, really amazing
politician in Barack Obama who was able to sort of like, you
know, command a, you know, a soaring message.

(22:29):
I mean, I don't think he was as effective as a president as, as
his as his, as he, as he promised, unfortunately, but an
amazing politician and inspiringleader.
But that that, that that group of people represented represent,
I think, you know, in the, the cultural ethos, right?
A a sort of a failed promise, right?

(22:50):
And, and you get into these, these issues that people have
with globalization, deindustrialization of the US
Midwest. Is, is, is often like discussed,
is like being connected, you know, connected to this, like
the China shock in the early 2000s after China was invited,
invited into the World Trade Organization.
And, and this whole sort of like, you know, architecture of,

(23:14):
of, of sort of political coherence has been brought into
disrepute, you know, for many reasons.
The, the 2008 financial crisis was a, was a, was a major
catalyst for the collapse of confidence in this, in this
what, what sometimes people callthis, this neoliberal project
which arguably started with Reagan in the 80s and ended and

(23:38):
ended with the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
And that, that, that, yes, I mean, the people have lost trust
in that on, on both the left andthe right, actually right.
I mean, the Bernie, the Bernie coalition and, and like sort of
the, the progressive left has been trying to reject that from

(23:58):
the left for a while. And that has now been completely
rejected by the right in the United States.
You've seen, you know, you, you see the sort of the right wing
liberals and the left wing liberals have sort of kind of
come together. You know, the Liz Cheney's of
the world and the, you know, the, the Bill Kristol's of the
world have sort of like, you know, you know, basically joined

(24:20):
forces with the with the left wing liberals.
And so you do have these like this sort of like new kind of
like liberal coalition that's sort of like holding together.
But yeah, I mean that the, the broader public has lost complete
faith in in that project. And obviously I'm an apologist
for that project because I am a liberal like philosopher.

(24:41):
And so I and I, and I, and I am very much trying to re enchant
liberalism in the eyes of people.
And I, and I recognize that I'm representing an ideology that
most people think has failed. People believe liberalism has
failed. I think that's a mistaken
conclusion based on some things that I think liberals need to

(25:01):
take account of. Like, I think liberals need to
admit, like certain failures of,of the neoliberal project, for
example, they have to admit thatthere were cost to
globalization, that, that, that cultural cost to globalization,
even if not, you know, purely, you know, you know, in sort of
in aggregate, like, you know, irrational economically, there

(25:24):
was sort of a, a, a, there was a, there was something there
that, that, that liberal sort ofmissed.
And, and one of the things that,that, that happened over the
last 2020 years was that liberalestablishment because it was so
successful, right? Like, you know, Francis
Fukuyama, you know, you know, talked, you know, called it the

(25:46):
end of history, right? The, the, the sort of the
triumph right, of, of liberalismin the world after the fall of
this, of the Soviet Union, when the Berlin Wall came down, it
was just like up until 2016, right?
It was, it was almost impossibleif you sort of were in that

(26:07):
world, in that establishment, part of that elite, to imagine
that anyone would ever vote to bring this system down.
And in 2016 and Brexit and Brexit and you know, right right
before Trump's election and then, and then Trump's election
revealed something that I don't think people really accepted

(26:29):
actually until now, until this moment.
Actually, I think it, I think Donald Trump's re election, I
think has been really the first time.
I don't, I think in 2016 people still thought Trump was an
aberration. I think now there's serious
conversations happening now, like among people who kind of
recognize that like liberalism is not considered, like most

(26:51):
people don't, don't, don't sort of think of it as a, as an
ideology that that really shouldbe governing the world anymore
for different reasons. The left thinks that liberalism
failed because of globalization and, and, and, and capitalism
run amok. The right thinks liberalism

(27:12):
failed because of like cultural issues, cultural excess and in
the form of like hyper identity politics.
Some people call it woke ISM. And so there's a sort of like 2
front like attack, right, that basically said the, the right
wing reactionaries are saying liberalism failed for cultural
reasons. And the left is saying that,

(27:33):
that, and, and actually also foreconomic reasons.
And the left, obviously the socialist left and the
progressive left is saying liberalism failed for, for
economic reasons. And, and also because it, it,
you know, it obviously failed tostand up to this, this fascist
threat that we now stand. And and so that's to me like
that's sort of the how I would sort of broad brush, like talk

(27:56):
about like what I think sort of in, in broad scopes pro.
And you know, you can talk aboutother parts of the world as
well. But in the United States, I
would say that that's that's where we find ourselves.
That's our kind of quick historyof of, of sort of the political
currents. Yeah, thank you for that.
And it's interesting again that just referencing Trump one and

(28:18):
Adam Svalsky, he had he said this crisis is not just
political, it has deep roots in the economy and in society,
which I think encompasses what you just said sort of
dissatisfaction on all sides. And it's interesting though for
me. I want to just clarify here.
You you, you identify as a liberal, but you're also
embracing the neoliberal project, which in a sense, I

(28:40):
mean, I share a name, but there is kind of critique that those
are sort of quite different things when.
You say embrace the neoliberal project.
Can you like maybe like be precise about why?
Why you say that? Oh, it's so you're, you said
you're, you're, you're holding up the liberal ideology.
And then you go on to sort of talk about neoliberalism as if
it's a continuation of the classical liberalism.

(29:01):
And I just want to clarify that,like, is that what you mean?
Look here. So like, I mean, we need to be
clear, right? Like, so when I say I'm a
liberal, right, I'm talking about a very, very deep
philosophical political tradition.
That is not like, that is, that is fundamentally based on the

(29:25):
idea of, of human dignity and, and, and, and self government
and, and universal rights, universal suffrage.
These like basic concepts of the, the basic concept that,
that, that nobody, that nobody is more valuable than anyone
else. And so to the extent that we

(29:46):
structure our societies, we should build institutions that,
that protect that those, those sort of core inviolable ethical
principles, right? This is sort of the, the liberal
idea, the the Enlightenment classical liberal idea.
And there, and there is, is where I say I, I am a liberal

(30:07):
Now from there, there is a bunchof projects within the, the
liberal tradition. You mentioned neoliberalism,
right? This is, you know, there's other
ways that you can describe this aspect of liberalism.
Someone might call it market fundamentalism and it's more
extreme form like anarcho capitalism, which like my, my

(30:31):
philosopher friend Vlad Vexler would, would say is hyper
neoliberalism. And, and, and there's, you know,
there's, you know, those, those ideas are built upon that sort
of like corset of like Sumambonam notions of, of, of
liberalism. But like within liberalism,
right, there's like obviously disagreements, right?

(30:53):
Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a liberal, you know, it was
a Democratic liberal believed that, you know, the believed
capitalism should exist, but it should be regulated by the
state. And, you know, competition laws
should exist And, and the, the, the, you know, the, the market
isn't an end unto itself. And those liberals are, are

(31:15):
liberals too. And they disagree with other
liberals. It's, it's the so the views on
like how much, how much you should regulate the market or
not are, are not things that allliberals agree upon.
Like I say, like Reagan was a liberal in that classical sense.
Everything he said is consistentwith liberal values.
That makes him a liberal. Margaret Thatcher was classical

(31:38):
liberal as well, but, and they took a particular view that, you
know, socialism and central planning was like a disaster in,
in, in the 20th century, which it was.
It was a disaster. I mean, in the case of like the
United Kingdom and you know, sort of the nationalized
industries there that were superinefficient and the economy was

(31:59):
like stagnant. You know, there was this sort of
realization that like the marketwould do a much better job at,
at, at allocating resources through price discovery in a
free market. And so we, we saw the
deregulation of the 80s and 90s,which which led to, you know, a
massive, massive economic boom both in the West and around the
world. And that, you know, now there's

(32:22):
this, this, this sort of what people think was sort of an
over, you know, an overreach there.
And, and so like, I mean, I'm, I'm like, in the, like, I would
say like, I'm in the middle of this actual argument.
Like, I think that I actually think that most of the
regulatory reforms that happenedin the 80s, like in the UK, for

(32:43):
example, like in Thatcher's project were probably necessary.
Like the, the, the, the government run companies were
like super fucking inefficient and like the, the country was
like economically stagnant. But then, you know, then there's
that. But what we've realized, right,
is that I don't think that that there is that like that.

(33:04):
The fact that the deregulation proved that markets are better
than governments at running industries didn't prove that we
should get rid of all regulations.
It just proved that like, you know, we should, we shouldn't
have the government like monopolizing sectors.
That made sense. So Thatcher brought an end to
that. I mean, I think there are some

(33:24):
sectors that the government can probably monopolize.
That's probably like, good. Like, you know, I think like,
you know, like basic utilities, like I live here in Los Angeles
and the city of Los Angeles is responsible for all power and
water here. So, I mean, this is all, you
know, socialist power here in Los Angeles.
And I mean, I think that's fine,you know, But I think, yeah.

(33:47):
I mean, do we want governments, like, making like, our clothing
for us and our cars? I think, no.
I think that I think the neoliberals were right in the
80s that that's like stupid. Don't fucking do that.
Make us all poor and like and then and poorly allocate
resources. But I think there's like, you
know, but then I think there's like other like as the 2008
financial crisis showed us, is that like, well, I mean, you
don't shouldn't like necessarilylet market actors do where the

(34:09):
fuck they want either. I mean, if they're going to
create like 10 layers deep, like, you know, crazy dark
financial instruments that are all linked to each other in a
way that nobody even knows what the total picture looks like,
you might blow up the entire fucking economy and maybe don't
let banks do that. Maybe have some regulations
against that. I mean, so I mean, like I so I
like, I'm kind of like, you may be a little bit like between the

(34:32):
neoliberals and the and the moresort of like, you know, left,
left sort of economic views within liberal coalition where
I'm kind of like you're, you know, you guys are like both
right about some things that like maybe maybe the real answer
is here is that we should regulate things that have
uncaptured externalities by the market.
We should just do that. Like makes sense.

(34:53):
We shouldn't, we shouldn't regulate things that don't have
those conditions because that's stupid.
Just let the market do its job. We should like, you know, we
should potentially ban the market from doing certain things
that could get us all killed. You know, I mean, I don't think
it should be legal to create a super virus, you know, now with

(35:14):
off of a gene printer. I think if you do that and we
catch you doing that, we should throw you in jail.
Don't do that. So I mean, I, I think that I
kind of come back to this sort of conversation around how to
think about liberalism in a somewhat pragmatic way there,
right? I think we need to acknowledge
the criticisms of the neoliberalproject of of sort of the the

(35:37):
downsides of globalization, which we can talk about, which I
think like have really distortedour political economy and have
actually imperiled our democratic project, which I
don't think the neoliberals everreally wanted to do.
By the way, I don't think this is the main thing.
I mean, if Milton Friedman were alive today, actually, I think
he would be quite like horrifiedactually, because I think he
would have, I think he would have been pretty anti Trump from

(36:00):
what I from what you know, from what I read about him.
So, yeah. So I mean that, that I think
that it needs to just, it just like needs to be understood that
there's a, there's a conversation there with within
the, within the liberal project that, that from which there's
disagreement and, and from whereI think that like we can learn
and, and move forward without throwing the baby out with the

(36:20):
bathwater. Yeah.
No, thank you for that. And conversation, dialogues
obviously very important here because there is a lot of nuance
and, and it's not super well known, but Thatcher and Reagan
were sort of the two key figuresthat people think of when it
comes to neoliberalism. But actually in New Zealand as
well in the 1980s, it was a realexperimental place.

(36:42):
And we had our finance minister,Roger Douglas effectively upend
the entire economy with hyper accelerated, accelerated
neoliberalism. And, you know, arguably for the
better. My grandmother tells me about,
you know, there was one place where you could buy televisions,
and it was a government department.
And now New Zealand's a very open, prosperous economy for the
most part. And so there was certainly, you

(37:04):
know, good outcomes for that, but there was also a lot of
pain. It was everywhere.
It was actually everywhere in the world, right?
I mean, Tony Blair was basicallylike a neoliberal.
That's like a third way socialism was basically, it was
like, it was basically like socialists like rebranding
neoliberalism for the left. And so that's how you get like
Tony Blair and, and, and and andGordon Brown and, and in Canada,

(37:27):
you know, you have, you know, you, you get like John Kretschen
and, and Paul Martin, you know, you know, in, in, in actually
kind of in China too, right? Like, I mean, you get like Dao
Jinping, right? And he likes basically, you
know, creates the economic, the special economic zone in
Shenzhen and, and you know, the rest is like history there.
And so, yeah, there was like a the, the, the neoliberal moment

(37:50):
in the 80s was kind of like all over the world.
Yeah, Zeitgeist, I just want to come back though to 2008 in
particular because you previously worked for Cash App
as a tech executive, you helped set up the Spiral open source
grant program and you've been deeply involved with Bitcoin in
this regard, but you've also repeatedly made public

(38:10):
announcements of Bitcoin and crypto.
And so I just. Want to actually denounce
Bitcoin? I want to be clear about this.
I want to like, sorry, I'm like I, I have made I've been very
clear about this. I haven't like attacked like
Bitcoin as a technology. I mean, if you can read all my
tweets and everything I said. In fact, I think if you read the

(38:31):
essays that I wrote, I I was pretty clear that I was at least
in both of them, at least had a few sentences there making clear
that I wasn't actually talking about the technology itself, but
but the the cultural aesthetics around it with with a lot of
people who, who work in the industry Now with the crypto
though, you know, I mean, like, yeah, I mean as as sort of like

(38:53):
a general sort of sense I've been, I'm pretty, pretty
critical of the industry and very skeptical that it's not all
just like. Fraud.
OK, well, let's talk about that and thank you for that
clarification. So you were working with Cash
App, you were a tech person. What happened, man?
Like you, you got close to the beast and you saw it for what it

(39:15):
was. Like, how did you come to this
place where you're asking questions about what this stuff
really means? Got money saying I got close to
the beast. What do you mean by that?
Like the? I don't know.
And like, you know, order the the, the power brokers of the
crypto world, the the the. Yeah, I mean, look, I mean
there's like, look, I mean, I like there's like a lot of good
people. I mean that.

(39:36):
I mean, I don't like like everyone in like like who works
with Bitcoin is not fascist. I mean, they'd be very clear.
Like I know plenty of people like I talk to them all the
time, right, That are they're not fascists, but I mean, a lot
of the I mean a lot of the the loud voices in the Bitcoin.
I mean like Seifidine is a fascist, right?
Like he he is right. Like he's a fat.

(39:57):
I mean, I mean, if you like, if you read the last like half of
like the Bitcoin standard, it's like.
It's like, you know, he's talking about like degenerate
art and shit. Like, I mean, like, I mean like
this, like if you've read Mein Kampf, Hitler talks about
degenerate art too. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's
and, and actually like people who've like read the German
translation of it will tell you that it's kind of a bit

(40:18):
disturbing. So I mean, and, and you know,
and he's obviously anti democracy.
You know, he, he, he promotes the, the, the view of Hans
Hermann Hape, which I, which is fascist and he's a, and you
know, the, the, a lot of people in sort of that Austrian
economics world are fascists andhe's a fascist.

(40:40):
No one seems to like believe this or know this.
But like, if you're actually like educated in political
ideologies and histories and stuff like that, and you read
the last half of the Bitcoin standard, you're like, what the
fuck is this guy talking about? Like like he's talking about
like cultural aesthetics and stuff like, and and sort of this
kind of like getting back to sort of like these sort of like
classical sort of like traditions and restoring these

(41:03):
this sort of lost age. Do you know who talks like that?
Fascists. So I mean, so, yeah, I mean, I
just bring that up because everyone, I mean, I'm and
actually like a lot of people inBitcoin know this.
Like I talked to, I mean, I've been and I, you know, I went to

(41:24):
the Bitcoin conferences and I'vetalked to people and people will
like privately agree with you. They'll be, yeah, he's a
fascist. He's like crazy, like blocks
everyone on Twitter who like disagrees with him.
But like, but like you, no one will say it publicly.
No one like there's a lot of people like that will work and
it will agree with me, but they won't say what I'm saying.
Like I'm saying right now, like speaking truth.
And and so there's this sort of like, you know, decorum within

(41:47):
Bitcoin that like you don't justlike actually like call out like
the obvious fucking like realitythat there's a bunch of fucking
fat. I mean, you see how excited like
Bitcoin Magazine and the Bitcoinconference got like when Donald
Trump came last night, they, they basically like pulled up
all the stuff. He basically like they basically
became part of his election campaign.
I mean, that was disturbing. Like they should be ashamed of

(42:10):
themselves. So yeah, I mean, that that's
like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm very critical of this and, and I'm,
and it made people very uncomfortable that I said all
these things. And I'm sure someone will hear
this and they'll be very upset that I'm saying these things.
But like, I mean, it's just the reality.
I mean, just own it. Like there's a lot of people who
think that like, democracy sucks, that we should live in

(42:31):
fucking anarcho capitalist world, which is really just a
feudalist world. It's really just a, it's a form
of fascism really. Like, you know, most of them
think that we should probably have a dictator, a king.
That's what Safety Dean believes.
That's what Hans Herman Hape believes, which all these like,
you know, Austrian motherfuckersbelieve.
It's like, it's like, and you want me to like believe that
you're like a fucking like libertarian.

(42:52):
Like when you like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
it's, it's absurd. It's absurd on its face.
And, and honestly, yeah, like even a lot of like the liberal
or sort of like, you know, more progressive, like Bitcoiners,
like, yeah, they like, just ignore it.
They know it's there. Like, they can admit to it.
They admit to it when you, like,talk to them about it in
private. But everyone keeps their fucking
head down, just like the Republicans keep their head down

(43:13):
about Trump. It's kind of embarrassing,
really. Yeah, that's fascinating, man.
I mean, I mean, I've still got aking on paper.
You know, we just had our new 10cent coins come out with
Charles's face on them, you know, but not a lot.
But pull me on there, man. Because look, I mean, what
you're saying is true. I mean, there's there's the
pictures of Joseph Goebbles and Hitler walking around looking at
the degenerate art and saying, no, this isn't going to going to

(43:36):
going to fly. And as you say, I mean, modern
architecture, modern art, the criticisms of that.
I mean, there's a the cultural aestheticism is it's interesting
that that's coming out now. And I wonder if we can loop this
back in to maybe the broader situation that we're saying, you
know, this may be this and franchisement with the way the

(43:56):
world is working, a sense of utopianism that there's maybe a
bit away declining kind of industrial base etcetera.
So, you know, is there a broaderzeitgeist that these concepts
are feeding into, do you think or?
Yeah, I mean, like, I mean, like, I get it, right.
Like people are upset and they're, you know, they've

(44:18):
rejected liberalism. They've, they've bought into
this, this, this lie that you know, that, you know, they've
been lied to about everything. And so, you know, the answer to
that is to go and find politicalinfluencers like on the right
and in Bitcoin and all these other communities as sort of

(44:39):
like their alternative sources of information, alternative
truth oracles. And they've sort of and, and,
but they, they, when they do that, though, they just like go
and export their critical thinking to people who make more
money if they adopt the product that they're selling.

(45:00):
So there's like automatic, I mean, look, I mean, I'm not
like, look, I'm not trying to like say that everyone works in
like Bitcoin is just like, you know, like that doesn't like
actually like believe in, in sort of the mission.
But like when, you know, when you're fucking Michael Saylor
and you know, you're, you're talking telling everyone to buy
Bitcoin was, well, you know, youown billions of dollars of
Bitcoin on, on, you know, the, the balance, the balance sheet

(45:22):
of, of, of, of your company. So there is a, there is a
conflict of interest there. You can, you can say this has
nothing to do with you getting rich and you're just taking
advantage of something that you just happen to believe is good
for humanity. And you would just, and if and
if and if this thing which is good for humanity were to come
to fruition, you would just happen to be the richest person

(45:43):
to ever exist. And one of these things has
nothing to do with the other. I mean, it's I mean, it's like,
I mean there, there, there does come there does come like a
point where you're like, wait a second here, like maybe maybe we
need to have a conversation about this.
These are these interests are very suspicious.
If you're going to tell me that like you're you won't, you're
mad at the fucking establishmentbecause they make all this

(46:05):
fucking money off of like everyone playing their game.
Well, it turns out if everyone comes and plays your game,
you're going to be the richest person in the fucking world.
So I mean like, I mean, so like,I mean this is just like a it's
just like a like I, I, I don't, I don't know why this doesn't
occur to people that that there's this like like very
obvious like question mark thereon on sort of like the fact that

(46:27):
like, like it's not like it, it,it, it's not like you're just
sort of like neutrally supporting this technology for
the good of humanity. You're going to become the
richest person in the fucking world.
If you're right. I mean like, like that's that's
that's, that's I mean that that is at least the appearance of a
conflict of interest. I think I think, right.
I mean, I don't think that that's a is that that

(46:49):
controversial? I don't think so.
Yeah. Well, it's interesting as well
because again, I began to talk about, you know, your experience
working in this world, working with with Jack Dorsey and that
because it seems as if there's also a couple of sections within
Bitcoin where you've got, you know, what would call themselves
OG. But, you know, cypherpunks,
people who say, look, we went through 2008, we've gone through

(47:10):
debasement, we've gone through inflation.
We don't like their separate money and state.
And then there's also this, you know, Michael Saylor phenomena,
which is effectively the state cloaked as, you know, market
operators. And then, yeah, the sort of
political classes now come in and a lot of people have raised
their eyebrows at that. So I mean, how do you see some
of the nuance of sort of where Bitcoin came from and where it

(47:32):
is at today? Look, I mean, look, I mean, I
think like bitcoins like probably like here to stay.
Like, you know, I just want to be like clear, like I think that
it's like found a a sort of likea place and we can kind of like
talk about like how big of a place it it might find in the

(47:53):
world. I continue to believe it will
not replace state currencies fora whole series of reasons, like
related to the realities of political economy in the world.
But like, you know, and I've talked about that.
I had a whole conversation with with Peter McCormick on what
Bitcoin did on like, like it's amulti hour episode where I get

(48:13):
kind of deep into my thoughts onthat.
You can kind of go there and check that out.
So I don't have to rehash that whole argument here.
But but I mean, like, I think I think that, yeah, I mean, look,
I mean there there is, I mean, we we live in a fragmented
world, right? And, and there are like, there
are people that are using Bitcoin for like good, right?
Like the Russian opposition uses, uses Bitcoin because like

(48:37):
it's their only like real way tokind of get around the Russian
banking system. Because obviously the Kremlin
doesn't allow political opposition to sort of like
function within the, within the Russian banking system.
Like they, they just like steal the money right at other bank
accounts, basically just like set their balances to zero.
And this actually happens to like political activists in

(48:58):
Russia. And so like, you know, I, I, I
have like, and I know people personally that are like,
literally like in the fight because of Bitcoin in, in
Russia. And I acknowledge that.
I think that's like, you know, it's, it's like, you know, I,
I'm, I'm, I'm glad, I'm happy that Bitcoin's keeping them in

(49:18):
the fight. Of course, I'm a liberal, right?
I want those fucking people to win.
But I mean, like, does does thatmean that that Bitcoin should
subsume our entire like financial system?
Does that make sense? Should we do?
Do we need like politically neutral money?
That's the question. It's an interesting question.

(49:39):
I think, you know, to a lot of people in the Bitcoin world, the
answer to that question is yes, obviously money should be
neutral. Well, you know, I'm not sure
that is true, right? It's not clear to me that it
should be politically neutral. I mean, it's OK, I think at

(50:00):
least in an abstract sense, unless you're an anarchist to
agree with the idea that government should be part of
trying to set up the conditions for flourishing.
And if you believe that that structuring money in a way, even
through legal fiction or or through regulations or, or
through forming market structures in a way that that

(50:22):
disincentivize things that that that one could reasonably argue
would, would be Contra to the interests of human flourishing,
then like, I don't see like the moral objection there in
principle to that. So it's not so that kind of, you
know, comes to obviously the arguments that people in Bitcoin
have about Fiat currency. You mentioned like currency

(50:44):
debasement. Everyone in this world likes to,
you know, send the website. You know what the fuck happened
in 1971 across and we look at all of these charts.
Those charts, by the way, are kind of a bit confused.
We should just like be clear. One of the things that is not
mentioned about the one of the reasons why we we saw inflation

(51:09):
take off. It really took off in 1973
nineteen, not 1971. If you zoom in on those charts,
do you know what happened in 1973?
We had the oil embargo, you know, after the, after the, you
know, the Iranian revolution, which led to the oil shock.
There was massive oil shortages around the world.
Then we had the formation of OPEC, which basically cartelized

(51:30):
like the global oil supply. And we never had cheap energy
again after that. I mean, gasoline was like 1/7
the price like literally at the end of the 60s than it was like
by the mid 70s as the result of this.
And that fundamentally made the entire global economy, like it
slowed the global economy down. It led to a lot of the malaise

(51:52):
that we saw from the 1970s. This is why you get like the
rise of Japanese cars and their fuel efficient engines and
people stopped buying big cars. There was people had to
economize. Energy bills went through the
fucking roof, electricity bills.That was actually the cause of a
lot of the inflation. People like no one in the

(52:13):
Bitcoin world ever fucking talksabout that.
They just they, they basically just want you to think what
ended up happening in 1971 is after Nixon, you know, blocked
the, the redempt, the the gold redemptions right under under
the the Bretton Woods agreement,which obviously was threatened
to potential like run on the bank.

(52:34):
You know, that what ended up happening was the US just turned
the fucking money printer on andall that inflation we saw was,
was a result of, of, of newly printed money, you know, chasing
constant or, you know, or, or slower growing supply.
That's not what the data actually shows.
If you actually back out, if youactually back out the, the, the,

(52:57):
the impact on consumer prices from the oil shock and the rise
of OPEC, you actually like eraselike like at least in the 70s,
like through in into the 80s, like like 9, like 90% plus of
that inflation just goes away. So, so there's this like, I

(53:18):
mean, the, the fact that the fucking Middle East like formed
an oil cartel was the big reasonwe had inflation in the 1970s,
not the end of Bretton Woods. That's a like just AI mean you
can go and check me in my math on that.
Anybody like go and Google it and look through it.
You can like do this. But like I noticed that like for

(53:41):
all of like the economy, the Bitcoin economists in this space
that like talk about, you know, macroeconomics and like the
evolution of consumer prices. You never hear that mentioned.
I mean, if they were if they were actually like, well, like
like good reliable macro economist, you think that that
factor would have at least occurred to them as to not just

(54:02):
a assume that a, you know, a constant basket of goods at
constant prices across time, which is like, you know,
basically the way that they theyback into these like weird
theories around like how inflation's actually higher than
they say, because look what happens if you plug the 1979
back at basket in here. Inflation is actually much

(54:22):
higher than they said was. What they don't tell you is that
a lot of the things that are a lot more expensive today than
they were in 1979, like adjustedfor the average industrial wage,
is because people don't buy those things anymore because
technology changed, right? And you know, like it's, it's a

(54:43):
lot more expensive today to buy a, to buy a car with a manual
transmission in the United States than it is with an
automatic because of like economies of scale.
It's like a specialty car. If you were tracking that as
inflation, that would, that wouldn't, that wouldn't be the,
the, the inflation in that pricewouldn't primarily be driven by

(55:03):
the the presence of of extra liquidity on the buyer side.
It's a function of the fact thatit's a smaller market now
because consumer preferences have changed.
And then people say, well, the CPI is unreliable because they
use consumer survey data to basically renormalize the CPI.
What the fuck else are you supposed to do?

(55:24):
Like there's no, like, there's no objective standard on like
what people should buy. Like I, you know, I bought
macaroni and cheese yesterday. Tomorrow I might buy, I might
buy potatoes. Maybe I'll decide I don't like
those things at all anymore and I won't want them.
And maybe everyone will agree with me and then no one will
care what those things cost. This is what this is.

(55:44):
This is why we do the consumer surveys for the CPI adjustment,
which is why we hedonically weight the, the, these, these
values. That's not, that's not a fucking
conspiracy. It's the only thing that makes
sense that they're going to measure inflation.
So like, honestly, like a lot ofthis shit that gets talked about
by these Bitcoin economists is just fucking bullshit.

(56:06):
It's bullshit that like leads out all this nuance of like
that, that anybody who's like spent like half a semester in,
in, in an actual an economics program, an economics, you know,
economic macroeconomics, like one O 1 would just like
immediately like see that they're just like they're,
they're, they're selling their book and they're, they're

(56:26):
telling a dishonest story. Now, does that mean that that
inflation, you know, the, the 2352 to 5% inflation that we see
sort of across the CPI, across the, across the, the, the, the
renormalized inflation rate isn't caused by money printing.

(56:47):
No, it is, it is caused by moneyprinting.
Milton Friedman was right about that.
I'm not disputing that. But the argument that like that
the reason why the middle class stopped advancing for 20 years
starting in 1990, ending sometime around like 2014,
before, you know, like productivity rates started
rising again and we started seeing middle class wealth rise

(57:09):
again is like not obviously because of money printing.
Like it's not. That's like actually, I don't
think people really understand why that happened.
You know, various theories existas to sort of like, you know,
the like, you know, the, the, the way you know, productivity,
like service sector productivity, like lagged for
like a long time. Some people think that that was
like the main driver. But I mean, like, I'm not even a

(57:30):
fucking economist. I have no right to fucking be
like, don't consider me an authority on economics.
By the way. I know it sounds like I'm an
economist, but it's just that I've like taken the fucking time
to try and understand this. And I, and I'm not an authority
on this, but I, I know enough toknow that these Bitcoin
economists don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
Okay, thank you for that. Zooming out a little bit, I, I

(57:51):
think it's interesting as well. The, if I'm going to be
charitable about it, I think the1971 thing is a very useful
story for people and it's a story that has been worked with.
I mean, I did a deep dive into Angela Reddish, who wrote
extensively about this, the connection with gold and how
1971 didn't really matter in thescheme of things.

(58:13):
She wrote a great essay, Anchorsaway.
You know, the the gold chain is the the anchor to gold has
always been this kind of flexible thing.
And the, the closing of the window was only just the final
piece of that. It didn't really matter in the
scheme of things, according to her.
And the other charitable piece is looking at the role of
central banking, which, you know, there was high 1015%

(58:33):
inflation in the 1970s, but, youknow, they kind of fixed it in
the 80s. And even my own country of New
Zealand, we parted. Volcker shot Volcker.
Volcker. Yeah.
And we're going to chase it down.
Yeah. Yeah.
And even in my own country in New Zealand where they came out
with a 2% target and we nailed it.
And so arguably there was kind of an innovation there.

(58:54):
But I think if I'm going to be charitable, this kind of
ideological. Bolivia too.
Bolivia had the massive. I see.
But these ideological artifacts,something like the Bitcoin
standard, you know, uses 1971 asa useful story, as a kind of a
simplified narrative for the Bitcoin project, I think.
And as you say, I mean, if you go into it, there is so much

(59:15):
nuance there that you can't fit that all into into a book that's
kind of easily digestible. And so there's necessarily a
political component here, I feel, Mike, which is that
whether it's right or wrong in ahistorical sense, it's pushing
the Bitcoin bandwagon. What do you call it?
You know, it's making people geton on board with this.
And the reality is, you know, The thing is monetizing and it's

(59:38):
doing something we haven't seen before with this kind of neutral
money and this, yeah, this outside of the reach of the
state. And so, yeah, I guess if we
situate those two, that there's maybe an ideology that's being
pushed by these people and then there's the reality of what
Bitcoin's actually doing. I mean, how do we, how do we see
between those? Well, I mean, like, I mean, my,

(01:00:02):
my view is like has always been like even when I was like
working on Bitcoin. Is that like I take an
instrumentalist view of Bitcoin,right.
You know, it's it's technology. I think Bitcoin is technology
and I think technology is, is a tool.
It's not, it's not telos, right,it's not, it's on an ends.
And we never want technology to be an ends.

(01:00:22):
We we only, we want, we want, you know, ends to be human
directed like based on our values, you know, like, you
know, one of the one of the one of the things that that that I
mean, like do do, can you, can you convince me that like
neutral, politically neutral money is good?
Yeah, I've made that argument. You know, I gave like AI gave a,

(01:00:43):
you know, a speech at, at the, at the, you know, the Bitcoin
policy conference, like last year in Washington, DC where I
kind of gave my view on this. It's on YouTube.
You can like find it and I listed out like the ways in
which I think like Bitcoin can be useful in the world.
But I'm like, I've always been just like really suspicious of
these sort of like what philosophers might call sort of

(01:01:07):
like totalizing notions that like, once you sort of glom on
to, you know, this, this like new thing you, you tend to, you
know, some, you might, some people might call it mission
creep or feature creep, but there's sort of this ideological
creep. It's sort of it, it, it and
it's, I think it's actually the same mistake that the

(01:01:28):
neoliberals made in a sense, which was like to think that
like, wow, like all this deregulation in the 80s, like
massively juiced the economy andraised wealth and, and, and, and
created all this prosperity. And so then the, the theory was,
well, maybe we should just deregulate everything else,
right? And then, and then, and then you

(01:01:51):
get the 2008 financial crisis, right?
Because like, which was, you know, largely attributed to say,
you know, the, the, the deregulation, the repeal of
glass Steagall in 1997 under theClinton administration.
And I think like with the with within Bitcoin, like when you're
like, wow, like this is like stateless money or, or this
money, you know, you can't charge this, you can't have

(01:02:12):
chargebacks. It's you know, it's it's like
truly private. It's it, it's, it's, you know,
you don't necessarily it's censorship resistant.
And that, you know, and we mentioned like, you know, my
friends in Russia who are fighting for, for their freedom
right under the the, you know, press regime of, of Vladimir
Putin. And like, yeah, that, that's

(01:02:32):
like, yeah, that's, that's good,right.
Like, like, I mean, that, that, that, that censorship
resistance, that political neutrality there is, is like
it's serving, it's serving the interests of like human
flourishing. And I can get on board with
that. But like I kind of get off the
the boat when people are like, yes.
But actually, actually what we really need to do is what

(01:02:52):
Bitcoin tells us is that like, you know, we now have like the
ultimate property. And if you don't know, and if
you don't know my key phrase in my head, then there's no way you
can tax me. I don't have to pay taxes.
I don't have to do anything. I'm a sovereign individual.
And that's when I'm kind of like, what the fuck are you
talking about? Like what, Like what?

(01:03:14):
Like what? Like what?
Like what? Like it, it's it's like it's
like it's like wait like why whythat why that like what you no,
no, I don't I like I, I, I personally, I don't know just as
like a matter of being lazy. I don't know, but like I'm I'm
joking, but when I say that, butlike I don't want to be
responsible for contracting withmy own police and my own fire

(01:03:34):
service and like basically like living in covenant communities
where like I have to fucking sign contracts and like like
everything in my relationship and everything in my world is a
commercial relationship. Like what?
What like what? Like why do I want that?
I don't I don't know, I don't want that.
Like that's the most ridiculous thing in the world.
In fact, I think our society is over financialized, quite

(01:03:55):
frankly. So I mean, this is this sort of
thinking in the Bitcoin world I just think is weird.
It's like totalitarianism of a kind, right?
I call it epistemic authoritarianism because it's
like, it creates a sort of like fatalistic notion that like the
code is law. I'm like, OK, well, like, I

(01:04:16):
mean, but like humans should be the ones that control the laws,
right? Like we should be able to like
control them, right? Like in in theory, right?
Like I don't, I don't want a human being a dictator and I
don't want a programmer who likedecided on 21 million bitcoins
being my fucking dictator either, quite frankly.
Like I want the possibility to always exist that we can evolve

(01:04:38):
our institutions, including our institutions of money, which I
think is like fundamental to this liberal idea of like, of
like self government. So this idea that like we should
have like immutable algorithms that like define the contours of
our economy or define the contours of law or they become
these like things that like nobody can change.

(01:04:59):
That's like that's like to me, I'm like that.
I think that's like epistemically authoritarianism
because it's like taking certain, it's basically saying
there's certain conversations that are off the table, that
like technology has its own logic and that society should
shape itself and evolve like according to the logic of
technology. And that's, that's, that's a,
that's a, that's a form of, that's a form of political
determinism. That's illiberal in a, in a sort

(01:05:21):
of like basic abstract sense. And so like my immediate
response is like, no, like, fuckthat, let's not do that.
Let's not let, no, let's not, let's not, let's not, let's not
commit ourselves to that world. They're like, what if we're
wrong? We were wrong about the
neoliberal project. What if we're wrong about 21
million bitcoins? Like, what if that like fucks
everything up and then we can't change it Like like that.
Like I, I think that, like, I, Ithink that there's a certain

(01:05:45):
like arrogance. There's a certain this idea that
that this idea is eternal, that this is an eternal truth here.
That's always dangerous thinking.
It's always, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's dogmatic, it's
fanatical. And, and all, and at all points
in history, whenever we've like fallen, whenever we've like
fallen into that trap, it's never turned out well.

(01:06:06):
And so I mean, I write, you know, you mentioned my blog
Notes from the Circus and I and I and I talk about this idea of
like embracing tensions. Like sometimes, like, sometimes
like, like things exist in tension, right?
Like I think collective rights and individual rights exist in
tension. Libertarians will say there's no
such thing as collective rights.I mean, I don't know what
they're talking. But if you believe, if you
believe in the rule of law, thenyou believe in a collective

(01:06:29):
right. You believe we have a little
collective right to, to enjoy both the benefits and protection
of the law. That's a collective right.
Like surely collective rights exist.
What the fuck are you talking about?
If you say like, I mean, so, so I mean I, I and I and I think
that all of these things are, are, are, are tensions that we
have to negotiate and we want tohave the space.

(01:06:51):
And, and the liberal like me thinks that the proper space for
that is democratic deliberation,democratic participation,
democratic elections, democraticinstitutions in order to sort of
like mediate our ability to haveagency over our path through,
through, through time and space in this like technological and

(01:07:12):
scientific tech civilization that we've built for ourselves.
And so like I, I don't, I don't like, I don't like these notions
of totalizing ideologies for that reason, it, it doesn't pass
my sniff test. And so I I reject it.
Yeah, thank you for that. So this is interesting.
So I guess I'm part of this project.

(01:07:34):
This podcast for me is is a truth seeking exercise, you
know, and you're speaking about things which are very
interesting to me. You know, you mentioned this
idea of the sovereign individualand it's a very famous book by
the same name that yes. Mr. Davidson Yeah.
Yeah, you know, 2 very iconic orconservatives, I guess you could
call them from the UK and looking at this role of

(01:07:58):
technology and society and this idea that somehow politics is
downstream from technology. And I mean, I think it's, it's
interesting coming certainly theway it's outlined in that book
and others have talked about it.You know, it seems that there is
an effect. You know, technology does change
the way we organise and the way we do things.
And I wonder whether kind of charitably we look at Bitcoin,

(01:08:18):
as, you know, from an instrumentalist point of view,
as a technology that changes thelogic of money, arguably changes
the logic of violence. You know, you can't take it if
you don't have access to it. And I wonder whether there's
actually a positive here becausecoming back to sort of this
opening quote of yours, looking at, you know, this decline and
this kind of perhaps dangerous path, What is the optimistic

(01:08:41):
path? Because I certainly see
democratic aspects to Bitcoin. I mean, you've worked in free
and open source software. Anyone can build on it.
You know, there is sort of maybea glimmer there for me, and
that's part of why I'm interested in Bitcoin, that this
actually is a better way. And so in that sense, is that
more than technology, Can it actually be a social project
that we all get behind increasingly?

(01:09:02):
Well, I mean, Bitcoin is a social project.
All of our projects are social projects.
By definition. A Fiat currency is a social
project. Bitcoin is a social project.
You can't escape the fact that anything that usually involves
more than one human being in ourworld, that involves humans

(01:09:22):
following patterns, adhering to rules is by its very nature
social. Is Bitcoin democratic?
I mean, no, no, I mean, it's notinherently democratic or
undemocratic, right. If you take the instrumentalist
view, right. I mean, that's, that's putting
it sort of outside of, of of sort of like the the sort of a

(01:09:44):
normative like frame. Can I imagine like Bitcoin
existing like within a democratic world?
Yeah. Like, of course, like can
Bitcoin serve democratic means? Like, yeah, of course.
I gave an example of that with like the, you know, the Russian
opposition, you know, so then, then, then the question.
But then like, you know, a lot of people, libertarians might

(01:10:05):
not like then what I have to say.
Like, yeah, I mean, I think we should regulate it.
I think we should regulate the, the, the use of, of Bitcoin.
I don't think that we should letpeople run rampant with and like
buy and sell like humans like using Bitcoin on the dark web.
I think governments should try to stop that from fucking
happening. Like I like, you know, people
hate like chain analysis and these like, you know, blockchain

(01:10:28):
surveillance systems systems. Well, you know, I mean, I do
think we need to be able to investigate crime, right?
I don't think we should allow antisocial behavior to go
unchecked. Like we see what happened.
Look what's happening right now.Like what happens when you have
antisocial behavior going unchecked in the fucking White
House right now. And actually crypto is like a
big part of that. I mean, Trump coin.
Are you like fucking kidding me?Like, like, I mean, it's it's

(01:10:50):
basically just like you people just like buy Trump coin to like
bribe the president in full public view.
I mean, he could use Bitcoin forthat, I guess.
Right. And like, do I think that, like,
we should, like, undertake the, should governments feel like,
empowered to, like, you know, have the force of law come down

(01:11:11):
against those activities and throw people in jail?
Yeah, Like, absolutely. We should totally do that.
And anybody who says that like that, that, that those financial
transactions sort of exist in the ether beyond the reach of
law, like I don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
Like that's like, that's like kind of like my stance.
It's like, fine. And it's like, I, you can, you
can tell me like a compelling story.

(01:11:31):
Like especially like, you know, I with with say, I don't know,
like international remittances and, and like, you know, human
rights, like people using Bitcoin as like a politically
neutral money. But do I think that like we
should like make it a legal tender in the United States?
No, I think that'd be fucking insane.
Don't no, no, we shouldn't do that.
Absolutely not. Interesting.
Why not? I mean, because, like, I mean

(01:11:56):
like the, I mean the, the, I, I mean, I think that I, I, I don't
think that having a credit basedmoney system is bad.
Like why? Like, I mean, I understand,
like, I understand that like that, that this is like the
Austrian view and this and you get this like weird, like kind
of like quasi like mystical political like fucking stance
around like time preference thatlike Austrians like always talk

(01:12:18):
about. But like they're like, well, I
mean, like is everyone, everyone's just going to have
have really, really like, you know, low time preference.
We're going to have low time preference behavior.
Everyone's going to consume lessand be more discerning.
It's going to be about quality, not quantity.
It's like, what the fuck are youtalking about?
I mean, these are, these are fascist aesthetics, by the way.
Like this is what this is what I'm saying.

(01:12:38):
This is this is like, and and this is the fascist aesthetic
like right now that like Bitcoiners don't realize that
they're like saying you're literally, you're literally
basically making a cultural argument around like how people
should consume, how they should live, how they should think
about value, how they should putoff purchases until the future
and that they should delay gratification.

(01:12:59):
This is like, this is like fucking this is like fascist
virtue ethics. Like, I mean, like, I mean, I,
I, I so like, I mean, like, and,and the fact that like, like
Austrians sort of like use that as sort of like the way in which
they like get around like, you know, Keynes's like arguments
around like liquidity traps and demand destruction spirals,

(01:13:20):
right? The, you know, the paradox of
thrift, which are like real likeissues.
We mean, we saw this happen in the Great Depression and they're
like, well, you don't have to worry about that because
everyone will have low time preference.
So we won't find ourselves in those like economic conditions.
Like have you met fucking humans?
Like, you think that that's how they're going to act?
Like, what are you talking about?
Like you're like, you're like, you're like making this like

(01:13:41):
weird sort of like, like, like virtue ethics argument.
And you're trying to pretend that it's like objective
economics. It's not.
It's like a fascist ethic like mixed in with some like math.
So look again charitably, I mean, I understand what you're
saying. Like I think when you look at

(01:14:01):
the actual Austrian economics understanding and conception of
money, I mean, a fixed base money and a flexible credit
money layer is what they always come back to.
And in a roundabout way, I wonder whether that's not what
we're seeing take place with these ETFs and someone like
Sailor effectively creating a backstop for the US Fed and kind

(01:14:21):
of Fiat nothingness. And in that sense, you know,
you've got the digital gold narrative.
And so I think applying kind of a, a political judgement on
there and saying it's fascist ismaybe a little bit problematic.
There's sort of certainly key people, you know, raising their
voices and talking about this stuff.
But I mean I I see. But Cody, like, I mean, like,

(01:14:42):
here's the thing, right? Like, I mean, look, I'm like
there's, there's like always like shades of truth, right?
Like there's like obviously the criticism of the Cantelin effect
and the way in which like certain market participants,
like participants who can sort of participate in like primary
markets, you know, primary debt markets and stuff.

(01:15:03):
Sort of like are able in a senseto like arbitrage inflation
across time. You know, like and and and sort
of like front run the Fed and you always like kind of
criticisms of that. And like, is there like, is
there like truth to that? Yes, there is some truth there.
And, and that's all. And it's always powerful to have
a grain of truth that you can sort of build on, right?

(01:15:25):
But like, you know, the story kind of gets murkier though,
when you like, go to the broadereconomy, right?
Like it is true, like we, we created a lot of money in the
financial crisis. You know, Ben Bernanke dropped
money from helicopters, like metaphorically and injected in a
massive amount of money into thebanking system.
Some people think he didn't actually inject enough actually

(01:15:47):
that actually the, the, the, therecession, the recovery would
have been somewhat faster if, if, if, if they had printed more
money. And it's worth noting that, you
know, Ron Paul and, and Peter Schiff and all these people who
were kind of basically saying that like the United States
dollar was going to collapse within years of, of all, you

(01:16:08):
know, these trillions of dollarsof, of money being injected into
the banking system, You know, liquidity.
We didn't really see, we didn't see high inflation for 10 years.
Like CPI was like pretty fuckingstable right from like 2010 to
COVID. Basically, we didn't, we didn't

(01:16:29):
see any of the inflationary effects that the Austrians
predicted in, in 2018-2019. Their, their models were not
validated by evidence. You know, we have Japan, right?
As like another, as, as, like another experiment, like they
had fucking deflation for nearlya decade.
They, they, they, they took their interest rates negative

(01:16:49):
and prices kept falling. Why did that happen?
Because they have an aging population, right?
And, and they had, and, and so they're the you, you get and
they have very, very efficient production.
Their manufacturing industry is like really, really efficient.
There a lot of robotization. And so they have like falling
consumer demand on one side, butlike a lot of production active
capacity on the other side, made-up with automation.

(01:17:11):
And like, even with all that money printing, they couldn't
stimulate enough demand, right. And so you, you get into, you
like, and this is like what Austrians just never talk about.
They never talk about the fact that, you know, and obviously
the rise of, of, of just in timemanufacturing the, the, the, the
integrated, you know, manufacturing supply chains in
Shenzhen, which like the whole world was able to use to

(01:17:34):
basically create like, you know,elastic, you know, elastic
production, like you could like,you know, go from zero to like
1,000,000 units in like fucking like 2 weeks.
Like with these like modern manufacturing methods that,
that, that have been developed in the Shenzhen manufacturing
supercluster there. And so you're just like, you can
absorb a lot of liquidity in that world.

(01:17:54):
And So what we actually saw was like a massive increase in
global living standards on the back of all that, like money
creation. And so that like really begs the
question like, was that immoral?Was that an immoral thing to do?
I mean, like we millions of people left poverty in that
period, particularly like in China and, and in and in Asia.
And, you know, I think, you know, I know that after COVID,

(01:18:16):
things started to get worse and we've lost some ground.
And that's true, but things wererecovering again until we
decided to blow the world up in a fit of like right wing rage.
So like we haven't seen, we haven't seen, we didn't see the
dollar collapse. Now, obviously there's like
complexities there. The, the, the artificially low

(01:18:39):
interest rates have have led to the government being able to
potentially like borrow beyond its means or there's, there's
obviously the risk of, of sovereign debt issues like in
front of us here in the United States.
It's, it's a big, it's a big worry.
The 7% GDP deficit is a big fucking worry.
And like, you know, like, like that, that that part's true.

(01:19:03):
And there's like a relationship there.
But like the Austrians weren't right.
They weren't right. Like they like, they like the,
like the, the whole thing was like supposed to, like the
dollar was supposed, like inflation was supposed to go to
thousands of percent or something by like 2012, 2013,
like based on like everything the Austrians were saying.

(01:19:24):
And that didn't happen. So then you have to be like,
well, if the Austrian economic theory is like the objectively
correct theory, then why isn't it predictive of anything?
Why hasn't it successfully predicted anything?
This is like, this is like basic, basic shit.
I mean, if you're going to claimthat like as Safedeen says, like
Austrian economics is the true economics, well, surely it
should have some predictive power then.

(01:19:45):
I mean, like it does that. It doesn't appear to be true
based on sort of the macroeconomic history.
So I mean, I, I don't like, I don't like, I understand that
like that like people are like really committed to it and they
think the, you know, Austrian economics is like the end all
and be all. But like, I mean, these are,
these are things that like theseAustrian economists should
answer for. They should have good response.
They, I mean, they won't debate me.

(01:20:06):
I've challenged Saifuddin to a debate.
I've wanted to debate him on allthese things, but he's, he's too
much of A wimp to do it. But like, I mean like, I like
they, they, they, they don't, they don't want to debate me
because they don't have an answer to any of these
questions. Fascinating.
Yeah. Oh, look, man, I guess there's
a, a cultural moral lens that we're looking at this through.

(01:20:28):
There's a technology lens. I guess what I'm seeing around
me, I mean, certainly, you know,there is a lot of smart people
who are working on this and who have looked at it closely, who
maybe brush away the more simplestories that have been told.
You know, it's, it's kind of thefairy tale of 1971 is useful for
a lot of people. And a lot of people read that
book and they got onto Bitcoin and I've seen that Bitcoin go up

(01:20:50):
in value. And so there's kind of like a
sub project there, which I, I think maybe in itself isn't
fully factual necessarily, but it's still useful to the
project. At the same time.
I mean, there are people very unhappy with the system and
that's got to a social memetics to it, you know, like this anti
establishment populism that thatyou're writing about.

(01:21:10):
And I wonder where does this go to?
Because look, I'm trying to workout what's going on as well,
Mike. And I think, you know, this is
certainly capturing a lot of people's attention.
And they say, hey, man, I can't buy a house.
I can't even buy groceries this week.
My money's worth less. I'm going to blame the
government. I think that's, you know, there
is a grain of truth to that. But you know what does that mean

(01:21:31):
moving forward? Look, I mean, you know, people
are right to be angry, right? I mean, there's been serious
failures of governance. You know, it has to be said that
technocratic liberalism has sortof like failed as a project.

(01:21:51):
I acknowledge that I've written really scathing pieces about
technocratic liberalism. You know, on my piece, like some
of my earliest pieces on Notes from the Circus was actually
criticizing neoliberal and technocratic liberalism.
And I, and I agree with those notions.
I, I, I understand why people are angry and, and those

(01:22:13):
criticisms, they carry weight. I share a lot of those
criticisms. Where I get off the bus is like,
you know, to your point, people are really angry.
They're mad at the system. I mean, I, I think that they
should be mad at the failures such as they are, right?
I mean, the reason why no one can afford to buy a house is

(01:22:33):
because we don't build houses like we, you know, supply in the
United States. I mean, I don't know about New
Zealand or, or, or Australia. I although I know that like
Sydney is a very housing restrictive city, they don't
allow much building there. You know, if, and actually
anyone wants to like know a lot about this, like best book on
like understanding this is a guynamed Edward Glazer.

(01:22:54):
It's a book called Triumph of the city.
You should totally read this book.
And it actually a big part of that book actually is on Sydney,
Australia actually, and kind of going into like some of the
problems there. And you know, and, and we've
seen, we've seen this, right, like, like Seattle is like
probably the most affordable, like urban housing market now in

(01:23:18):
the United States. Why?
Because the city went the city, the city kind of just like went
radical and just started like approving zoning permits.
And they build, they've built like, you know, dozens and
dozens and hundreds of of condo towers in Seattle over the last
like five to seven years. And rents have come down.
Surprise, surprise, even though people are moving there, the
population's going up and rents are going down.

(01:23:39):
Why is that happening? Supply is coming on the market.
I mean, the main problem, the main problem is, is, is the fact
that, you know, I'm here in likeCalifornia and California's
like, you know, pretty much the worst in the United States.
Like when it comes to the, the, the, the political economy
around, around land, land use. You know, we have this like

(01:24:02):
thing here called like Prop 13. It was like passed in the 1970s
as part of the tax revolt back when Reagan was governor.
And like basically did this insane thing here, which
basically it locks property taxes at the moment that you
take title of a property. So the, whatever the property
taxes are, the day that you buy a house in California, those
will be your property taxes forever.

(01:24:24):
And So what ends up happening isas, as real estate prices, asset
prices increase, you know, basically the, the, the delta
between your like home equity and the, and the, and the tax,
the tax servicing costs becomes like really advantageous to
basically bank the house to land, what some people call like
land bank or real estate banking.

(01:24:46):
And just basically getting rich off of the, the, the restriction
of supply without having kind ofthe, the sort of the
countervailing force of, of, of,of having to pay higher
interest, I mean, higher property taxes, you know,
against the asset appreciation, as happens in most of the rest
of the country, right? You know, most, most
jurisdictions reassess property values every few years.

(01:25:07):
Some do it every few years. You don't do that in California.
Prop 13 made that illegal. And they made it also really
hard to change the law. You need 60% + 1 or 66% + 1 or
something, you know, votes in a referendum to overturn it.
It needs a 2/3 majority to, to, to remove it.
And it's just created a landowner, a giant landowner

(01:25:28):
cartel in California. And that's why, that's why no
one can afford to fucking live here.
It has nothing to do with like the, with the Fiat currency.
Like if, if it did, then why areprices going down in Seattle
even, even as its propriation goes up?
It's because they, it's because they, they got radical about
building a lot of housing and allowing developers to build
housing. And so that's the problem.

(01:25:50):
It's, it's actually that simple.And, and so like, that's the,
that's like the issue there, this idea that if we just like
we're on the Bitcoin standard, that that wouldn't be a problem.
I mean, if you hadn't, if you had a rising population and a
static housing supply, this is basic supply and demand 101.
Eventually people are going to get priced out of that market.

(01:26:12):
And, and that's, that's what we've seen happen across the
Western world. That is not something that's a
feature of the monetary system that is a feature of
artificially restricted supply at the, you know, at least here
in the United States and, and most, most of the rest of the
world at the local planning level.
And there's like this like insidious, like relationship

(01:26:34):
between homeowners and the, the politicians in, in, in local
jurisdictions. That's the very biased towards
protecting incumbency so people can use their houses as piggy
banks. That's, that's, that's the
problem. I mean, that's, that's not a,
that's not a problem of our money.
That's a problem. That's a, that's a, that's a,
that's a market failure of like a market.

(01:26:57):
It's market capture, it's regulatory capture by homeowners
basically. Interesting, and arguably the
Piggy Bank of the house those because the money isn't able to
be saved in the bank. But that aside, I am interested
in just sort of wrapping up Mikeand kind of coming back to this
idea of hope and the opportunitybecause I think we certainly

(01:27:19):
explored a few things. There's a little bit of darkness
that we didn't go into today looking at Curtis Yavin, the
cathedral, these ideas which areproblematic.
We don't need to go there today.But what gives you hope?
Because when I look at Bitcoin, I look at something like the
foundation of the United States project.
I look at some of the ideas of self sovereignty in that sense,

(01:27:40):
what it means to have at least some degree of autonomy from the
state and to be able to live andprosper and, and, and these
kinds of things that makes it a very American idea, I think.
And there's certainly a lot of good in there that I can see and
it's certainly been good to me. So I guess being hopeful doesn't
have to be about Bitcoin, but what are you hopeful about,
Mike? What are you looking forward to?
Well, I mean, I'm not, I mean, so, I mean, when you ask me

(01:28:01):
like, what gives me hope, right?I mean, I want to just like
maybe like explore the, the, thestance, right, of like, I don't
have despair. I don't despair about this like
current moment. And I would say that like, I
have eternal hope, you know, I, you know, I mean, you know, to,

(01:28:23):
you know, to, you know, to quoteCamus, right, you know, at, at,
at the end of the, the myth of Siphophis that one must imagine
Sisyphus happy, right? That like, I mean, look, I mean,
you know, we live, you know, we live in, we live in the tragic
dimension, you know, you know, we, we, we live in this sort of

(01:28:44):
like liminal place, right, between, you know, heat and, and
cold and hot and cold and alive and dead, you know, full and
empty. You know, we, we're, we, we live
in, in a sort of a thermodynamicdance right, between, you know,
coherence and entropy. And we live in this like really,

(01:29:08):
really delicate, really delicateplace right at, at the, at the,
at the top of, of this like really complicated tapestry of
reality. There's really like, sort of
like beautiful place that like, you know, by all accounts should
collapse into noise and yet it doesn't.
And yet we sit here and we existand there's something beautiful
about that. And you can like just sit

(01:29:29):
yourself there and, and, and, and realize that like, you know,
reality is beautiful and, and, and, and, and the world is
filled with, with, with so many beautiful things.
Like, like even with, even with all these things that are
happening around us, even even as we have to face the, the
manifest stupidity of of of ourselves, which which is on

(01:29:50):
full display every fucking day in this country out of
Washington, DC. We can still like recognize,
right, That that, you know, thatmeaning is meaning is possible
that our lives could be meaningful.
That that not, you know, that everything that's meaningful
doesn't have to be some like massive grand gesture that like
changes history. You know, I mean, I, I think, I

(01:30:13):
think AI mean something as simple as a hug, you know, of a
friend that you haven't seen in a long period of time.
And that moment, right, is like,you know, this, this, that,
that, that sort of a warm momentof like human connection, like
think about like when you haven't seen someone for a long
time and you hug them and you feel that physical contact and
realize that they're there and you feel your chests up against

(01:30:34):
each other. I mean, like that, like sort of
like, just sort of like that beautiful, sort of like
reminder, right? That like we're not alone, that
we're like here, like together. You know, that's where I live.
You know, it's I'm not I'm not out there looking for hope, you
know, as it pertains to these conversations.
I'm just like trying to like be my like authentic self.
I'm just like, at this point, like, you know, I mean, I don't

(01:30:55):
know what the fuck I'm doing right now.
Am I writing on this like blog and all I'm doing is just
telling people what I happen to think is like the capital T
truth and I and what I think andlike and what and what my
position is with like no bullshit and not I'm not trying
to be like malicious. I think, you know, I'd like I'd
like to be able to keep hugging people in the future.
I'd prefer that this experiment not end.

(01:31:18):
This is human experiment. I, I think and I and I'd like to
live in a free world, one where human dignity isn't something
that we negotiate. It's not something that we that
we, that we argue about who has it and who doesn't, that we
just, we accept that human dignity is a universal thing.
And, and for that reason, like, I continue to attach myself to

(01:31:38):
this, this idea of, of, of liberalism and, and, and
democratic institutions within, within that.
And I and I continue to, to fight for and try to enchant the
idea that that, that maintaininga liberal polity and basic
liberal values is, is the way that like, we'll, we'll keep
living in a world where we can hug our friends and, and, and,

(01:32:00):
and really appreciate the, the, the truth of, of, of love and,
and, and companionship. That's so, yeah.
I mean, that's how I view it. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm
not, I'm not sitting on a landscape of despair looking for
hope. I'm glad to hear that.
I think being in a place where you can feel what you've just

(01:32:22):
described, you can look at the world with clear eyes.
I mean, it's a, it's a beautifulplace to be.
And it can also be a bit lonely.You know, you can see things
happening around you. Movements take place, masses
form, people get swept up into things that you know, that you
can see are not going to be goodfor them, yet they still do it.
And this is kind of the great cycle of history.

(01:32:44):
And it's not the first time thatwe've been bound up in this this
sense of populism. We live in history.
A sense of righteousness, turns out.
We live in history. The history did not end.
We did not. The Fukuyama moment was a lie,
it turns out. History did not end well.
Look, Mike, I really appreciate your time now.

(01:33:05):
It's been an excellent conversation.
I I've enjoyed reading your yourwork and certainly thought
provoking. I think we need to be having
more conversations. Yeah, anytime.
So yeah, very much appreciated. If people want to follow notes
from the circus, they want to follow you.
Where? Where do you want to send them?
At me you go notes from the circus.com it's it's my sub

(01:33:28):
stack. All my stuff is free.
Some of my stuff gets paid for my like sort of like bigger
essays that I spend more time on.
They get paywalled for five days, but everything of
ultimately becomes free after five days.
And so I, I'm trying to, trying to get the word out there, but
also, you know, make the work a little bit sustainable.
So everyone's welcome. And, you know, I appreciate

(01:33:53):
people's comments And I'm always, I'm always, I'm always
open to, I mean, I'm always opento discuss people.
People will see that when I get,you know, good questions and
stuff. And I, I usually take the time
to, to respond in the comments thoughtfully and stuff.
So I'm always, always looking toengage in an intellectual
conversation with people interested.
Cool. All right.
Thank you very much. Thanks.

(01:34:14):
I am Cody Allingham, and that was the transformation of value.
If you would like to support this show, please consider
making a donation either throughmy website or by directly
tipping to the show's Bitcoin wallet.
Or just pass this episode on to a friend who you think may enjoy
it. And you can always e-mail me at
hello@thetransformationofvalue.com.

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