FFS067 - Jeff Booth

[00:00:00] Intro - Welcoming Jeff Booth

[00:00:00]

Jeff: it's the biggest discovery humans have ever found. it's so big that it doesn't feel like that to people that think it's a Ponzi scheme. It doesn't feel like that from their own belief system. But if it changes that belief, so all productivity forevermore flows to all of society and everyone in the world has an equal opportunity to actually allow that to happen and create more wealth for themselves as it flows to society... it's a pretty big deal.

Luke: Welcome back to the Freedom Footprint show with Knut Svanholm and me, Luke the Pseudo Finn. And today we're joined by Jeff Booth, author of The Price of Tomorrow and who otherwise needs no introduction. It's the second time on the podcast. So welcome back, Jeff. Thanks for joining us.

Jeff: Thanks, Luke. Great to be here.

Knut: Yeah, good to see you, Jeff. I mean, we've been seeing one another shortly on and off this year, every here and there and talking every once in a while, but this is the first time in a long time we've had a proper long format [00:01:00] conversation.

[00:01:00] Jeff's Past Year

Knut: So how has your past year been and what have you learned this year?

Jeff: I hope I'm always learning. So, uh, but what, I don't know if anything's really new except for just how, how much more is going on in this ecosystem, how much more, how much. How much fun I'm having. How are they, um, when you're spending your time in this ecosystem with all the entrepreneurs measuring from this, from, from Bitcoin, you don't see all the negative that's happening around the world, or you can see it.

Like you can, you can agonize, empathize with it. But it feels like I live a, just a totally different life. And partly why you want more people to see it, more people to spend more of their time in Bitcoin, because then they will, they will too.

Knut: I totally agree. It's, it's like, it's like this weird thing that the more you, the more of yourself you just give away to the community, uh, [00:02:00] the more you get back without, without even trying. It's, it's just a fantastic, a fantastic space to be in.

Jeff: Yeah, and if, and again, I also have empathy for people who think this is going to be stopped. You're not going to stop, people weren't meant to live in cages, right? The, uh, the, you're not going to stop a technology that frees them. Um, and, uh, the, uh. It is just, and I'm not saying that there's not going to be a whole bunch of wars against it and what's going to happen.

I expect a long battle. But You can just tune, you can almost tune it out the more time you spend working, advancing it, the faster it happens.

Knut: To me, it reminds me of, like, the story of the Soviet Union, uh, where, like, just up until the very last day of its existence, everyone took it for, like, that there was no hope and this was the way [00:03:00] things were. There was nothing to do about it. And then all of a sudden, everyone realizes that it doesn't have to be this way.

We could just not do this. And it just sort of dissipated very quickly. Um, yeah. Do, do you see the same thing playing out with Clown world and, and bitcoin

Jeff: But I think it happens one person at a time. Like the, the the point I'm trying to make there, uh, kind of, you are already living in the future, so am I right? We are already seeing the front edge of what's happening and we're not going back. Um, and, and, and, and so as more and more people join, uh, this, and you, you know this as well as I do, we talk about this over es deep into the night.

Um. But as people do that, they are nodes in this new system, and the new system gets stronger, and as the new system gets stronger, the existing system that had control over you and is capturing all of your thoughts [00:04:00] and actions gets weaker. And so, it's emergent, it happens over time, it's not like a light switch, and one day we have one system, and one day we have another.

It's, um, it, it's just emergent and we control that, uh, the speed of that through our actions.

Knut: Yeah, absolutely. So, so that's, that brings us to like, because I, I, I sort of wanted to take this conversation into the deep stuff, uh, as soon as possible, because I know we're, we're doing some fun things in, in Madeira this, this coming march. Uh, you are, uh, organizing half of the last day of the conference, if I'm correct.

Like

Jeff: Yeah, so, so the way we organized it is, so we put blocks together, um, that we could do deep dives, um, and the deep dive block I'm doing is, is, what does this look like after the transition? What does the future look like after this transition?

Knut: yes, because [00:05:00] there's so much to think about there and it's so weird, like, I don't think we've even scratched the surface of how weird the world looks like on a Bitcoin standard compared to now and how

Jeff: Weird, weird, or weird or beautiful.

Knut: I mean, weird in a beautiful way,

Jeff: Yeah, yeah,

Knut: like, uh, not, not crazy, weird, but, uh, good, weird.

[00:05:21] Investment After Hyperbitcoinization

Knut: just the, the thought of of when, when the, when the totals, when all bitcoins have been mined. There's no other way than like the, in my mind, most Bitcoin stacks will shrink over time. There's just no. No way around that. Uh, maybe a select few will go up, but it will be increasingly harder and harder to have black numbers on your balance sheet at all in Bitcoin terms.

But your purchasing power can still go up. So this is a thought I had like a couple of years back, but can you see a scenario where you start a company not to make profit in Bitcoin [00:06:00] terms, but to just Uh, you know, flatten the curve so that the decline of your stack is a bit slower. So your purchasing power is still going up because you started the business.

Uh, but, but your Bitcoin stack is never, never increasing. It's just decreasing at a slower rate.

Jeff: yeah. I think, I think the, that concept is so foreign to people, um, that, you'd have to walk them through a little bit closer, right? And so walk them through the steps that get there. And, and by the way, that, that concept isn't foreign to me at all, because otherwise I wouldn't have started a venture capital fund investing on top of Bitcoin companies.

That are actually doing what you just described, right? So, so let's, so let's walk through the why that's true. Um, and, uh, and, and prices. So in economics, prices fall to the marginal cost of production. the whole thesis of my book is, is that cannot be [00:07:00] stopped. Prices in a, in a free market, prices fall to the marginal cost of production.

Because of the free market and technology, and we wouldn't use things that are worse for us, right? So we choose the things that are better and entrepreneurs deliver us and companies deliver us better things than it was there previously. So you can see prices fall to the marginal cost of production.

Now, can I, so I'm just, um, Kind of breaking this out. Um, so could a government stop that? For a while they can. They can regulate an industry and they can say, we're not innovating here, right? And then costs go up to, to the population and you concentrate control. That's what our food systems look like today.

That's what our medical systems look like today. That's what a whole bunch of, that's what our money systems look like today. So you can slow it down, right? By, by doing that. But the competition still continues. And the competition still continues elsewhere in the world, [00:08:00] and then your regulated monopoly turns into a giant eyesore on your, on and gets killed from somewhere else.

Um, so, so again, over a long enough time horizon, prices fall to the marginal cost of production. Okay. So stay there. Now go to the next concept. We have exponentially rising productivity, productivity. And so what, what is the marginal cost of production of a line of code? Because you use it in your calculator, it's free.

Um, you used to pay for a calculator, now you don't, and that's why. Now what's the marginal cost of production for a line of code created by the other lines of code? Free. And that's why you'll see AI continuing to give you more and falling in price the entire time. The entire time explosion of giving more and more product productivity, and there's no moat.

Why do you think all the large companies are trying to create [00:09:00] regulation and fear around AI? Because it's the only way to give them a moat. And so the fear comes from, the fear comes from a whole bunch of people that are scared of losing their jobs. So you can create, Oh, we got to protect this for you.

So we can create a bigger monopoly, but they won't be able to because prices will continue to fall. And if you just, if you look at, um, in that free, uh, free market, if you, you could put all, most of the models on, on your own computer and not even use chat GPT and never use the internet again. Um, and have the world history on AI models right now, so you can see how powerful this is.

Now, as the next step, what about when that moves into machines, which it will in the next 2, 3, 5 years. And those machines are capable of having what you're seeing 10 times, 100 times, which HGPT can do today. In a machine that [00:10:00] can do everything. So you have to ask these questions, right? Marginal cost of production continues to fall exponentially.

Now, as a result of those two things, then prices should be falling to free everywhere. We wouldn't need all the, all the useless jobs and we wouldn't, if we'd, If we'd lost our job, we wouldn't need the government handouts to pay us more to keep prices higher, because things, just like you don't have to pay for oxygen today, prices would continue to fall by the, by the free market at an exponential rate.

Now, then you have to ask, what could measure that? And the only thing that could measure that. Bitcoin is a system outside of the existing system without counterparty risk that is 21 million capped and can't be centralized or controlled. So you come to a pretty easy thesis, right? You come to a pretty easy thing to [00:11:00] understand.

The thing that would be showing me prices falling to the marginal cost of production is Bitcoin and everything else that people are measuring in the world. is describing a manipulated world because it has to manipulate to make prices rise in the system we're talking about. Now you have to go to the next step.

Only, and so that's where I spent a ton of time, if Bitcoin stays decentralized and secure. What we just described is inevitable, no matter what will happen, no matter what. It might take a longer time horizon, people might be confused, people might price from a fiat, they might think their house is going up because they're measuring in fiat, they might think bitcoin is going up because they're measuring bitcoin in fiat, um, but what is actually happening is all prices are falling as I just described, everything, which means purchasing power is going up forever.

if you're measuring in Bitcoin and, and [00:12:00] so you, I spent a ton of time trying to disprove my thesis, what I just described there, how could you kill Bitcoin? What would it look like? And I know you did, you have to Knut, I know you have to Luke, um, and I know you Most hardcore bitcoiner maxis, the psychopaths they call us, would be psychopaths because they've already done the work that they understand this is not going to be centralized.

It's not going to be secure. There's no way that it's going to change over 21 million coins. And so So you'd have to expect in this, and as as I did, you'd have to expect a war of information coming at Bitcoin to try to kill what I just said. 'cause the system, it steals the power un it's the theft of the, of the productivity people.

'cause people sitting on top of the existing system are effectively stealing the [00:13:00] productivity of the world. And if you're a bigger co company, if you're an AI company. You're stealing it faster. You're, you're literally stealing out of the existing system that because inflation is theft, we don't vote for it.

There is no free market. And when you can't vote for things that are that important in your life, there is donor democracy. There is no democracy when you can't, uh, when you can't vote for things that are that important in your life. So it's based on a theft because inflation is wage deflation. It is literally.

And they're voting for more of it, because they don't know that money is so broken. It's concentrating in the biggest companies, biggest corporations in the world, and they're using regulation to make it, to make that happen faster. And they're combining with governments, technology companies are combining with governments to surveil everything and make it faster.

And so, what would a system that has that much power at the top say about a system that takes it away and gives it back to the [00:14:00] people? You'd have to expect every war on the planet, really. You'd have to expect, and you'd have to expect everything coming at Bitcoin, which I do, and which I realize There's nothing they're going to do, nothing that they can do, because we, because through our nodes, they would have to find all of us individually, and they might find me, they might find you, but they're not going to find hundreds of thousands of nodes spread around the world, connecting this thing and people in the free market driving it, plus the incentive that it gains now on the other side, forget the fear of it's Uh, what that would look like.

The incentive on the side, other side driving it drives a massive incentive in favor of that productivity flowing to society in the form of lower prices and a free market. And you're just not gonna stop that then now to the next step. That's why I started the ego death. Right. To your thesis, what you just, what you just said.[00:15:00]

Um, what would, what would the world look like and what would, um. If you're investing in companies that are creating more Bitcoin Bitcoin by, um, on top of a layer that was pricing everything else, the only thing in the world that could price everything else, then, then those companies creating Bitcoin returns by providing value would you have venture capital returns if you were good at that on top of Bitcoin, right?

Because the companies are actually delivering way more people through their, through the good, the things that they're delivering, they're delivering way more people to the network and they're getting paid in Bitcoin. and, and so then what would that look like? That would look like a lot of those companies over time would have to continually innovate because the first thing that they delivered.

Would then go to free, right? And then they would have to be in service of [00:16:00] the cut because other people would compete with them. Like, you look at wallets today, you can't get paid on a wallet. They're free. So you have to continually innovate. So, so then what would it look like if you're. Uh, uh, a venture capital in that type of company versus a venture capital in, in a fiat company.

In a fiat company, you can play all these stupid games and take control from the founder and everything else. in this type of system, You have to love the people you're working with because you're gonna be working with them for a long time. You, and they're, you're, they're gonna be changing their business.

They're gonna be, uh, it iterating on the next thing. And so you have to think totally different about being a venture capital company inside of this system. These are not well understood, uh, processes. These are not well understood by most of the market. I would say these aren't really well understood by even most Bitcoiners.

that they'll understand what would an honest system look like, right? They'll understand the high level [00:17:00] because it favors cooperation, but they wouldn't, they wouldn't go through all of the details of how it favors cooperation. And this is what I described as one of the details and how it favors cooperation.

And that leads us to what you, you already said, of course, it's going to distribute over time because the only way to gain more Bitcoin is to provide more value to society. And that more value to society over time is going to have its marginal cost of production go to zero.

Knut: yeah, it's, it's wonderful. I've been thinking of the along the same lines, but I can't express this, express it as eloquently as you, but, uh, but the, um, the thesis, like, like, I don't know if you saw that talk. I, I think I did back in Riga last, last year for the first time, but it's about, how, where.

[00:17:53] Bitcoiners Incentivized to Succeed

Knut: We Bitcoiners are incentivized to help one another succeed, because this is the simple [00:18:00] pumping our bags thesis, like we, we all want Bitcoin, we all want Bitcoin to succeed, how do we make that happen? We, we are awesome to other Bitcoiners, and we give them our time, our efforts, and our goods and services.

Just because we want to see them succeed for very egotistical reasons, because that helps pump our bags of like, if number go up, we all win. And we're also incentivized to help Bitcoin succeed in any way we can. and we're also on a, on a sound money standard with deflationary money. We, naturally adopt a lower time preference.

So

Jeff: Yeah, and just one, one thing I just wanted to tie in, because a lot of people say deflationary money, you know, it's true if you lose bitcoins, it's a deflationary money and so, there's this part of that that's true, but mostly it's just a neutral currency that's measuring, it's a neutral money that's measuring, that's measuring deflation in society.

Knut: yeah, yeah. Deflationary is the wrong term. Money with a [00:19:00] fixed supply. That's, that's what we're saying. So, um, uh, on top of this, like you, you incentivize saving rather than spending, which is quality over quantity, all of that stuff, which means that we have all the incentives in the world to, to help one another.

So I see, uh, Bitcoin companies like in the free market, you have, or in nature, you have catalytic biological competition, fang and claw, whoever grabs the most wins. And then you, uh, the free market is catalytic competition where the, the, the one who can provide most value to other people wins because they, they get into, uh, they get to, uh, on top of the market.

Like, uh, that's the free market process, but. What I see is on a Bitcoin standard, there's an even deeper layer where free market competition turns into just, hang on, we could just cooperate. We don't even need to compete.

Jeff: And I don't think we're going to [00:20:00] change humans overnight because there's going to be, people will want to do that, but you can see, uh, you can see over time that as you don't need all of these things to be able to live a good life. Because they all become closer and closer to free, then, then your time explodes for other things to be able to deliver value, right?

And that's, so that's that. I think that's that point. It just happens over a natural course.

Knut: Yeah, we're living through it. We're experiencing it right now. Exactly that. Yeah.

[00:20:37] Inflation in Fiat, Deflation in Bitcoin

Jeff: So my, um, again, I just used this example two weeks ago in a, in a, in a presentation, but my Lakehouse, um, uh, three and a half years ago was $1.4 million. Um, now it's $2.1 million. My lakehouse measured in Bitcoin. It was 300 Bitcoin three and a half years ago, and now it's, uh, 50 Bitcoin. Mind you, now it's 40, now it's [00:21:00] 35 Bitcoin

So, um, so you can see. Bitcoin is repricing everything. And then as, as you're in that system, you have more time. You'd literally like your time expands because you're working on, on things that are, are, are exciting. You're getting richer as a result. Your friends are deeper as a result because they're all working on this, uh, on on the same network.

Knut: Yeah. It's beautiful. I, I think a point to the, uh, the, uh, drop to the market, marginal cost of production for all goods and services, I think for all For most people, it's, it's easy to see that that is happening with software and anything on a mobile phone, but it's harder to see that that is also happening in every other industry and every other sector because of the technological progress we're making.

So people don't see how, how like carrots get cheaper.

Jeff: What is it? Yeah, I just want to pick up on that. One of my most hated charts [00:22:00] is when people measure inflation through that thing that says, cell phones going down, these things going down and the other things going up. And why do you think it's my most hated chart?

Knut: Because it misses the point because, because those things are also going down. The, the actual energy going into making them is going down. What is going up? It's just their fictitious fiat price.

Jeff: Amen. Amen. There. So, so think about this, in, in, you're in Europe, but in, um, in Sears in 1908, used to Del deliver a, a housing, a house, a full house to, to your, uh, to your land and all the lumber, windows, toilets, everything, the electrical, plumbing, the works. Um, the entire house package, um, costs $2,500. we've had technology in housing, we've had technology in lumber, we've had technology in, uh, in [00:23:00] all of these parts, component parts and the distribution to be able to deliver them.

We've had technology in energy, So how can that same package cost 300, 000 today? So, and it describes what we're talking about. It's describes the unnatural stealing of that productivity and transferring it up.

Knut: Yeah. The first feeling you get when you realize this is anger, of course, but because you realize how much they've stolen and from how many people it's just. It's just the worst crime ever committed. It stole everything from everyone.

[00:23:40] Breaking the Free Market

Knut: The, the, but the thing, the thing that, that the deep dive into praxeology and Austrian economics did for me was to increase my appreciation of, of just people because Somehow, the world works despite all this theft, like people figure things out and we [00:24:00] still have a somewhat functioning global free market.

Jeff: We, we, we, we, we don't, we don't, it doesn't look anything like that today. Unfortunately, it's not so, so at the end of these scales, here's one thing I don't even know if I knew when I wrote the book, um, and it came to me afterwards, um, when we look at the, um, what's the book that talks about the cycles, the 80 year cycles?

Knut: The fourth turning?

Jeff: Yeah, the fourth turning. If you look at the fourth turning as described by what I'm talking about, it would be natural that because if, if technology has always been deflationary and then banks could always make more money by, by driving an inflationary policy, right? Or in fractional reserve, reserving, then you would expect to.

At some sort of time, the free market to break because they would be in conflict with each other and the government would have to come in and [00:25:00] save the banks because people would demand that to happen, or they'd have to come in and save the market. So, the government would move the debt that should have been cleared at that time and the banks failing, they would, it would kick the debt upstairs.

It would go higher than the debt stack and then it would continue to happen. And so what we're describing right now through that lens would be the short term debt cycles leading to the long term debt cycles leading to the manipulation of money.

Knut: Yeah, you're describing central banking and the

Jeff: Yeah, yeah,

Knut: banking.

Jeff: we're describing, but yeah, because it's in conflict.

With the free market isn't because the free market, the natural state of a free market is deflation. That's the natural state. So anything stopping that, um, would, would be in conflict with the free free market. So we believe we live in a free market. We believe that that is true, but we don't. And so we'll fight [00:26:00] wars over that belief, we'll send more money to fight both sides of the war, to believe that our side is the right side, and if you looked at that zoomed out, country by country, then if you looked at the US, or Canada, or Europe, we're even the worst inside our countries, Are beneficiaries from the theft from Africa and South America at a greater level, right?

Even your, your lower, lower class here. And that's what, and that makes sense. So why, if you were in Africa and, and the cause of this pain in your, in your life. Well, you didn't know what was outside this and you had a dictator in your, in your country in Africa and, and misery and your, your currency was failing every, every five years and, and you couldn't save your labor and you couldn't feed your family.

You would get on a boat too, to go to Europe,[00:27:00] where, where they're the benefit, where they're the beneficiaries of stealing that productivity from other people. And so this flows around the world at a rate that we can't even comprehend. But we're within most, we're within the system and you and I are within the system that is stealing more of that, or I'd say I was until I started spending way more of my time in Bitcoin.

But, but, but I grew up in a system that was stealing that productivity from elsewhere on the planet.

Knut: Yeah. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. I was just trying to make the point that there's not total war everywhere.

Jeff: Yeah. But, but, but, but at the end of these cycles, Yeah, at the end of these cycles, there always is. At the end of these cycles, there always is. That's how you, because, because, because people would rather believe. Um, so think about what's happening today. Think about what the [00:28:00] majority of humans are doing today.

They're sticking their, their, um, their money in, in houses. Or tech companies, because they want to debased, be debased slower than everybody else. But those are also getting debased, right? But most people think that that's safe. And so they make it happen. And then prices rise of those companies, which, which, which which would then concentrate more, uh, more power.

So our own, incentives in the system that's destroying itself, make that system stronger.

Knut: it's so depressing,

Jeff: But it isn't, so again, you need to know it at a first principles level, because if you could say, okay, no, nothing Jeff said is true or parts are true, but if what I just described is true all over, and then you understand human beings, what they would do in systems like that, that are both true and their own incentives.[00:29:00]

They're trying to, so you, you can see what people will do, what the, what this rollout will look like and how a lot of people will be trapped in the system, not knowing how much strength they're giving it by either complaining at it or, or giving it more power through their actions or trying to save more money into that system.

They're making it worse, so you need to know it. But now once you know it, and you have this new, open, decentralized, secure system that's emerging on the other side, now once you know it, all you have to do is walk across to the new system and start building there, and you see the the polar opposite of what I'm talking about, the inversion of

Knut: 1 divided by clown world,

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah.

Knut: the inverse of clown world, that's, that's how I see it,

Luke: Alright, you might have noticed that we've recently partnered with AmberApp. After our episode with Izzy, their [00:30:00] CEO, and our close friend, we knew we would have to partner with them in some way, If you haven't seen our episode with Izzy, definitely go check it out, you'll see why it's such a great fit, and honestly, they're following the orange glowing light like Izzy always says, and that's exactly what we try to do here at the Freedom Footprint Show.

The big news about AmberApp is that on Jan 3, 2024, they're going to be launching their version 2. I've seen some of the screenshots and it looks fantastic. They're going to be including a non custodial on chain wallet, an anonymous lightning wallet, a fiat wallet, And finally, it's going to be an exchange, of course. it's going to be just this super app, They're also going to be launching globally.

Everyone's going to be able to use it. we're really excited about all that. Stay tuned with us and you'll hear all about it. And for now, check out their website, amber. app and the episode with Izzy to find out more.

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[00:31:34] Subjective and Objective Reality - Simulation Theory

Knut: so, yeah, this, this tempts me to lead us down a, uh, a different path here, because like, yeah, so, since, since we've established that we're We're, to some extent, doing it, doing this to ourselves by clinging on to the old system.

to which extent does the mind create reality, and is the [00:32:00] objective subjective dichotomy false? Like, that's, that's the stuff I want to go into over Pontius and Madeira.

Jeff: Yeah, I know. And by the way, we're going to have, we're going to have a panel on this topic in Madeira. So if anybody's listening to this, uh, come to that, uh, come to Madeira, because this is going to be an exceptional, uh, an exceptional topic. But, um, so yeah. Where do you start on a topic like this? Um, probably in a lot of ways in, but, um, so why don't we use simulation theory as a way, as a way in. You want to do that?

Knut: Absolutely.

Jeff: so Nick Bostrom's, um, I think 2004, uh, hypothesis that, that effectively if computers are moving at this rate of speed, uh, exponentially, and today we have these [00:33:00] graphics that, uh, that could fool you that you're POLITICAL that you're living in a simulation, then what will it look like 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years, 40 years from now?

What would that look like? Um, and would, you know, if you were living in a simple simulation, like, how would you, how would, you know, um, and, and, and so. If you, if you take that and, and I don't think there's actually a way to just to know if you are or not, like the clock speed of the simulation could be light speed.

That could be the supercomputer.

Knut: Sorry for interrupting, but I think I have an answer to that question.

Jeff: Good. Go.

Knut: Since you can't simulate proof of work, wouldn't Bitcoin eventually just slow down the speed of the simulation?

Jeff: Yeah, I, I, I, I'm not sure because that might be within our, what we're talking about, what we're talking about in this simulation, [00:34:00] right? That, um, but so, so. Okay. Three weeks ago, there's a, um, three weeks ago, there was a, um, it's, it's being worked on right now. You know, um, I can't remember the name of the company, but they've actually put, uh, brain cells into, uh, into a computer mechanism and feeding that computer mechanism to be able to speed up parallel processing in a crazy way because our brains do it differently than computers.

So, so they actually have feeding into brain cells, into a computer to be able to drive, drive to AI in a different way. So those brain cells, just like your own brain cells. Do your brain cells or just energy, right, that you're, what you're seeing right now, what you're hearing right now from energy, energy, that's firing neurons that are firing, um, synapses and neurons that are, that are holding memories [00:35:00] and, and, and such.

So your brain cells themselves. Don't see the world like you think they see. You see the world or hear the world. They're just, it's an electrical pulse that is seeing the world. So if you look at even right now where we are in technology, the brain cells in that box that are being fired by something else to be able to drive, do they know?

Knut: Okay. I'll attempt to answer that too, if I may.

[00:35:29] Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness

Knut: Like, I've been thinking a lot about AI, like, like everyone else in this space has. And like, I talked a lot to Alex Svetsky about this in, in both Amsterdam and Lugano, since he's, since he's working on this Spirit of Satoshi thing and actually developing an AI.

And I think like the word intelligence in artificial intelligence is very misleading because The one thing an AI lacks is agency, or free will, for lack of a better word. [00:36:00] It cannot feel uneasy, so it's never compelled to use means to reach ends. It's the perfect slave, but it can never be its own master, as long as it works like that.

Because all of these systems are built in that way. Uh, and can I feel uneasy? Uh, I don't see a general, like a Skynet type AI developing anytime soon, regardless of if you put brain cells on the chips or not.

Jeff: So again, why do you feel uneasy?

Knut: Um, right now I don't,

Jeff: Yeah. No, I know, but, but, but when you, when, when you keep, when you keep going down on that, right? So, so if your, if, if your brain is a computational, uh, is just a biological computer fired by a, by uh, uh, electrical impulse pulses, how does it get what we just described? By the way? I think I have an answer, which goes deeper, but, uh, but, but, but at that level, so when [00:37:00] people say that.

You're, you're creating a, a computer that can do it mechanically with, uh, with energy and you have a biological, uh, system that's, that's doing it. what is the difference? Like how do you get, how do you get your feeling of uneasy, or how do you get your feeling? How do you, how do you get that feeling?

Knut: I'll attempt to answer that too, because I had a very interesting, like four hour conversation with Volker Herminghaus about this like last week. So, uh, and the, he, he brought up some experiments that I, I I've been aware of, but never really been, I haven't been thinking deeply enough about the impacts of them.

And it's that consciousness is, uh, It's like a movie. It's playing out, uh, your, your impulses happen before your conscious decision to do something. So, so like when you decide to do something, it feels like you're making a conscious [00:38:00] decision, but you're really not because there's like a third of a second lag.

Uh, between the nervous system and what's actually going on. So his thesis was that, yes, you can have free will, but only if you, but only if you accept that something outside of your brain exists that, that actually does the pulling of the levers, but you can't have it within the brain because the brain is, you can't control what Thoughts fire, what neurons fire up inside it, that you have no control over which neurons are fired up and not.

So in that sense, the mind would be completely mechanical, as you say. And maybe it is, I don't have a good answer to this. I don't know if we have free will or

Jeff: And that's why I wanted to go through this first, kind of, because at this level, because that's what people do, they go, okay, well, it couldn't do this because we have consciousness, or they couldn't do this because we have empathy, or we couldn't do this because of any, then you have to ask why, [00:39:00] right? How do we get it? Where does it come from? Is it magical? And before you get to that, because if it's a biological computer versus another computer, what was the emergent complex behavior? What was emergent actions in this biological computer that created the thing that you're talking about? What you think is consciousness?

Knut: Well, this is where we get into the really nice, deep stuff, because maybe Yeah, because that's, that might be, that might be hinting at that the brain is actually creating the universe and objective, objective reality might be where our, uh, consciousness says conscious nigh, or whatever the plural word is.

I always miss

that, might be a consciousness horizon, just as there's a hash horizon for Bitcoin. Yeah.

Jeff: I just [00:40:00] wanted to get through that first, because to get to this next stage, right, it's such a leap, and it will be such a leap for people that it's just so hard to believe, but I'm going to try to give some, Not scientific concept, I'll go into a couple, but, but some, some examples where you might see that what we're talking about now, kind of is, is true.

[00:40:21] Quantum Physics and Human Action

Jeff: And so, I believe that. Uh, that essentially we are a mirror, right? That we create reality by our actions and we can't, we can't even measure those cause some of those actions are, and we don't know we do it a lot of times people don't know they do it, but every single thing you do. Touches everyone else, right, through your actions, through what you're doing.

It literally carries on. It makes waves. You can bend the universe, effectively, or it lets you bend the world into it. And so all of our actions matter, every one of them. And we can tell ourselves these stories that they don't, they won't hurt [00:41:00] somebody else, but they do, and you can see them. Cascade. Um, f uh, further.

So a couple of ways into this. Let's use, uh, first, uh, uh, the double solid experiment or Schrodinger's cat or so we, we know, or, um. The quantum world, right, doesn't right now have a, there's no unifying theory of quantum and, uh, um, and standard model physics, Einstein's physics, and the quantum world of physics.

So, Einstein even called it spooky at a distance, right? Some of the things that are interconnected. um, but if you looked at the quantum double slit experiment, You could say one photon, if you don't have an observer, will go, uh, will go through both slits at the same time. And how do you know? Because it creates a wave function on the other side, and you can measure the wave function and the interference pattern of the wave function.

so a [00:42:00] very tiny, um, tandem of the minus 28. power. So it's infinitesimally small, um, uh, pieces that world doesn't look like we think it looks, it looks like, one photon can go through two slits at the same time. But if you observe that, if any experimenter is watching what happens, it only goes through one slit.

So a lot of people in quantum kind of, a lot of people go, Oh, that's interesting. And how we're trying to think, um, Well, how can we understand that? Because it's almost impossible to understand, right? It breaks your brain, because how can the observer have an effect on the reality that they're creating, right?

But if our entire universe is quantum, and that builds into standard model, the model, then what that might mean is, We, as the observer, create the reality. We don't know [00:43:00] we create the reality, um, uh, through that observation and what we see. Now, what that might mean is the same thing that you just said before in, in that gap of a second before free will, that we see, we see something, that we make a decision on that, that then creates reality.

Because all of the things around us. are a construct. All of the things we build are a construct of people doing things on a reality that they're creating, right? And then it shows up and that construct has to emerge from somewhere. Um, I, I use a couple simple examples to try to, uh, to get at this. Um, one, and I'll use two separate ones, um, and, and one, um, you probably heard me say this before, but if, if somebody shows up as a victim, and everybody knows somebody who shows up a victim, as a victim, I, I believe for us, love and belonging is kind of the [00:44:00] highest order thing.

That's what we want most, but we tell ourselves something. So everything else is in service of love and belonging. And so what the victim is actually doing is trying to get, it's essentially trying to get people to come closer and say, because you matter. And so people would look at that and what ends up happening is they have a sign on their forehead pushing people away because it's harder and harder to be around somebody that's like that all the time.

And so they don't, they don't know that they're creating that reality, their own reality, by doing it. And nobody tells them. Everybody tells everybody tells everybody else how they're showing up, but nobody tells them. Right. And so what all those people are doing is essentially saying, I care more about what you think of me than you.

And then every once in a while, somebody will come out that really cares about them at a level and turn their sign around. And in turning their sign around, they say, I care about more you, more about you than what you think about me. [00:45:00] And it change, it can change that person, but generally that person doesn't change.

And more and more people move away and that person doubles down and creates more drama to try to get them to come back. And so they, they can't see that for their world in that per, in that person's world. Um, that person's world has a exact same abundance that I have. But they can't see it. So their version of reality is as true as my version of reality for them, for me.

We just see two totally different versions of reality. Is that fair?

Knut: Absolutely. I think that every human problem stems from the urge for there to be a free lunch.

Jeff: Yeah.

Knut: Like, there is no second breakfast. I mean, the, the, yeah, this is a search for a free lunch that isn't there. You have to put in the work, you have to, you have to change yourself.

Jeff: But again, that's your reality. Which is true for you, right, [00:46:00] um, and you'll see that everywhere because it's true for you, right, just like the victim will see the reality for that her him because they'll see it everywhere and they will describe it and it'll be your back. It'll be a perfect mirror reflection of that.

Just like yours will be right. You'll see it everywhere.

[00:46:18] Attention and Reality

Knut: I have a perfect example. My, my parents, uh, like this is, uh, 25 years ago maybe, or 30 years ago probably, they bought a dog, a Rhodesian Ridge back, which is a normal dog with a ridge on its back, like normal brown dog with a ridge on its back.

And I've never, never seen such a dog before and after they bought, bought it, I saw, I saw that type of dog everywhere. It's just that I didn't notice it before. before I knew that that was the type of dog like so and I think that's like what you put your attention where you put your attention sort of creates the world you live in because you don't notice what you were the things.

You don't put your attention to.

Jeff: So let's keep [00:47:00] going on this because it's such a deep, it's really critical. So in other words, that reality that was formed, that person reinforces the reality over and over and over, and it's true for them, right? And my reality is true for me, and your reality is true for you, and all different ideas that make it true.

and now we'll go to a different, um, a different idea that will connect to these. Um, so let's imagine, um, we're all at a party, there's a hundred people at a party, right? And a hundred people in a room, um, and we're, we're all chatting and everything else. And you and I are in a deep conversation, Knut, and then, and then somewhere across the room, somebody says, Knut, you will, you won't even look away, but you will tune into the other conversation and out of mine and they could whisper your name and that would still happen.[00:48:00]

So what does that mean? Right? What that means is. All of the conversations at all of the times are actually happening and you can hear them all, you know, they're, they're all hitting your, they're all just energy hitting your, hitting your brain, but you as the observer, as the double slit experiment.

are choosing, even whether you know it or not, by all of your previous actions, by all of your beliefs, are choosing which conversations to tune into. And concurrently, it also means, if you just do that simple, uh, strawman example, it also means that anyone in that room at any time could have changed your life forever.

Positively. But you can't hear them. And when you, when you go, when you start to think about that, when you think, and this is actually where I get to, and [00:49:00] I actually agree with you, I don't think computers can do what we can do, or, um, I think we are, we are we can do. In this animal kingdom, in this, we are unique in that way, in that, so if, if the world, if the universe is quantum, then we're quantum too.

Our brains are quantum. And the tiniest, tiniest things, those tiny little examples, we're choosing reality. And we're actually making reality. So our, um, our consciousness. Right. What we see in the world is a reflection of our consciousness back at us

Knut: That's a quote. That's the tweet right there. No, it's fantastic. Just when you said that about someone whispering my name, I thought of like what am I not hearing in this room now? And I instantly heard my, the fan from my [00:50:00] computer humming, which I haven't heard all throughout the conversation. It's the same thing, right?

Jeff: It's exactly the same thing. All of these things, they're there, they're, they're there all, all of the time. And so which ones are you tuned into? Which ones are you not tuned into and what, what abundance actually is there? What, what can't you see? Because, because your beliefs and, and, and what the, the story you're telling yourself is true for you.

Knut: so is this the difference between hearing and listening and the difference between seeing and observing? This is semantics, I know.

Jeff: Yeah, semantics.

[00:50:36] Changing Fundamental Reality

Jeff: I think, I actually think that this is, this ties into, actually, I think this ties into enlightenment. I think this ties into most religions. I think kind of the, the top of that consciousness ladder and enlightenment is this concept. That it just is, right? It, um, this is, [00:51:00] uh, it is, it's this way for everyone and everyone's describing their, their own unique actions within this entire uni.

That's all tied to energy, right? Even, even if you realize, uh, that, um, if you look today at, to what the, uh, I forgot the name of the, uh, the whatever web, uh, te, uh, telescope, at James Webb Te uh, telescope, what it seems to prove is there was no big bang. Yeah. Yeah. So go, go look that up. Like, so, so people are like, so right now our physics, the people that we've grown up believing, go look up what's happening right now through the James Webb. 'cause, 'cause the, the, the universe, the early universe shouldn't look like it does. Right now through, uh, through, uh, through that, it's too uniform.

It's too, there's galaxies that are too, too small. They shouldn't, uh, shouldn't look like that. So we're observing things right now that change fundamentally what [00:52:00] we believed for a long, uh, for, uh, for a long time. And those things, those things are hard for our minds to accept because we believe that it's that that look.

But that has pretty dramatic consequences that tie into the same type of things that we're talking about right now.

Knut: This is wonderful because this thing that you're describing now with the James Webb telescope and like we have to revive or all our models are destroyed to cite a friend of ours. Uh, like. Uh, that's, that's the part I love about empiricism and like, that's what the scientific method is, why it's good and why it's beautiful, right?

So did you read a Hoppe book called, um, Economic Science and the Austrian Method?

Jeff: no, I don't think I did.

Knut: It's one of my favorite Austrian economics books. I'm doing a series with Rob Breedlove about that specific book because we love it so much and in it he points out, Hoppe [00:53:00] points out the genius of Mises in this exact thing you're talking about that It's, it's through action that the subjective and the objective are tied like that.

That's, that's, that's what's, what creates the fabric of reality on, on a, this is, this is about economics. So it has nothing to do with this quantum theory and stuff, but from a, from a philosophical lens, if you will, action is the thing that ties the two worlds together because it was a false dichotomy all along.

Like there's. There's no objective and subjective. It's, it's, it's part of the same thing and it's bridged through action.

Jeff: Yeah. Because if you, if you just go back, go back to starting the base level to there, what creates the things that we, we call reality, like the table in your room or this, this, somebody had a thought at some point. That, [00:54:00] and preceding that thought, they were, the reason for that thought and preceding that was their belief system and everything else that then created some, that then turned into the things we experience.

Of course. Of course. That's, that's why, that's, that's. That's why I said we are all connected, whether we want to believe that or not, we are all connected and when you're, and this is where it ties to Bitcoin and rather strongly, um, when you're all connected on a layer like this, the, the the possibilities for human progress or what ends up happening is so, so staggering, so mind numbing that people stuck in the old, uh, old system can't even, um, They can't even begin to even think about why you're stuck into this old system that's stealing your life energy.

You can't even, you can't even get there. And, and that, and that's how, when I look at my life or when I look at what I'm doing and all [00:55:00] of these things, I understand. I empathize with those people that are stuck there, just like I empathize with other people who are stuck in different areas of their life.

I'm just not stuck.

Knut: yeah. When, when, when I think about the connectedness of everything, I, I imagine, uh, not a blockchain, but an umbilical cord chain back to all the way back to the first amoeba that, that I evolved from, you know, so. Even the impulses of the one celled organism led up to the table and the computer I'm talking to you through.

Jeff: And then, then think about, think, and think about this like in a, like a goose bumps there, like, like literally right now, just say and feel it. And, uh, and think about those actions, uh, touching other people and how much of a difference they can make in, in people's lives. Like you and I, Knut, we, um, I just called you while I was traveling up here [00:56:00] around Europe.

We'd known each other for years and in this, in this ecosystem and I came, visited your family and spent time, we played guitar. Incredible evening. It's turned into a beautiful friendship. Um, and, and, and to, to this conversation, then this type of conversation that then, then can go on and touch 10 people, a million people, a billion people.

And, um, And, and it can, and they might not even know, they might, it might be just the, the canoe to the party hearing, whispering a name, they might not even know that this conversation might have started them down the road of discovery that took them somewhere else. And then they touch way more people than we even had a chance to.

We can't know that, which is the most beautiful thing about, uh, about it, but our actions do matter.

Knut: Yeah, it's truly mind numbing, as you say, and goose bumpy. [00:57:00] Just the thought of anyone listening is goose bumpy in itself.

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[00:58:56] Bitcoin and the Pursuit of Meaning

Knut: you have anything specific on your mind after hearing [00:59:00] all of this?

Luke: Yeah, and I feel like you passed it over to me at this particular point for a reason here. Jeff, I'm going to give you a little bit of context on some of the ideas that Knut and I have been tossing around for a little while that I have been working on for a while here. Uh, the, the concept of How Bitcoin fixes the world has been a big, big question, I think, and what it's going to look like in the future is amazing.

And the facet of this that fascinates me to some extent here is that, I am still of the opinion that, that Bitcoin takes away the noise of the world, right? Signal, signal to noise, as in previous discussions. But the, the thing about this is, where do we still find the meaning? And just to calibrate that a little bit more, everything you're [01:00:00] talking about here and the actions of everyone affecting everyone else and the reality created within everyone here, this already sounds to me a little bit like there is a kernel of that Someone's actions matter.

Everyone's actions matter. But the trouble that I've experienced has been in the world as it exists today, it's really hard to feel like it's worth doing something meaningful, pursuing what is meaningful. And what are your thoughts on the pursuit of meaning? When Bitcoin has solved the problem of value.

Jeff: So go, yeah, okay, so, um, and again, because this is going to happen over a long time horizon, when you describe what everybody else gets meaning and [01:01:00] you mistakenly think this is what they're doing because you think you know their actions like that, we all live in our own movie, like we're, um, so we create our own movie, we're the star of our own movie.

Um, and we think about ourselves all the time, um, most people, and then we can't understand why somebody else doesn't think about us as much as we do. And, and, and so every one of their, their own movie, and then they're looking at everybody else thinking, why aren't those people acting like I am from the same, uh, same thing?

What I said before is I, I believe. That everything else, and I might be wrong here, but I believe everything else is in service of love and belonging. We want to matter, right? We wouldn't, we wouldn't be the center of our own movie if we didn't want to matter, right? And so, and which creates a whole bunch of other things.

Us trying to matter. Our ego. Driving [01:02:00] that we matter more than this person. This person is doing it this way, this person. And that also drives in group bias, out group bias, a whole bunch of other things, because we would never belong to a group that wasn't the better group, right? Because it would say something about us, right?

So all of these things are connected in service of love and belonging. And I don't think that changes at all. I don't think it changes one iota. I think this, this amplifies it. And as more and more of the noise falls away from the world over a long time, right? Because you don't have to give the existing world energy.

And I say that even without Bitcoin, even without Bitcoin, did Buddha give the rest of the world energy? Or did he rise above it? Right. If you, if you take kind of a religious type of concept and what that shows you is you can, through enlightenment, rise above everything else is [01:03:00] happening and you can just, this is the way and it can't touch you.

It can't phase you. That's not normal for most people. But could they? Yeah, they could. With Bitcoin, that allows more people to contribute into a system that's doing that for all people. So I think over the long, uh, long term, I think it's actually a rise of consciousness in the world that is precipitative.

precipitated from this. And it, and it starts, and it starts with operating on an honest chain, but that honest chain has, um, has implications for everything else in society and us. It has to because, because today to me, most of the world is, is on a dishonest ledger. And so you just have to ask the corollary.

That you're, that most of your actions today would look through, even, even though, you know, [01:04:00] Bitcoin, what gives you more, what gives the chain, the existing system more, uh, uh, power in your mind is all of this fear and everything else of everyone else and the people that it's going through. It's giving, because what would the emergent complex behavior look like? With all of our own actions, creating that emergent complex behavior look like on a dishonest ledger, and then how would that, how would your mind spend 90 percent of its time thinking about that rather than what would the emergent complex behavior look like on an honest ledger? So, and this is why, why this is such a fascinating topic and it's such a fascinating deep topic because we can't, most people can't even imagine that change, but I don't think there's a change at all.

I think it's just, we're, um, we'll continue to compete. We'll continue to, even the competition itself is [01:05:00] in service of love and belonging. We want to matter more for our family. We want to be, we want to bring home, we want to go on more vacations. We want to do, uh, because we want to matter. We want to, uh, we want to leave them a legacy.

So we matter, right? All of these things. The competition itself is in service of love and belonging, and so that doesn't change at all, it just, it just forces the productivity gains to us, so we have more time to be able to think about the things we're to describe, we're talking about right now on this podcast.

Luke: I love the optimism and the thing about this here that maybe just a little more concrete in my thinking here to make it a little more concrete is the lens of the way the 20th century played out in the sense of that The world became a lot more irreligious. It was, it was discarding belief systems and in, in doing so, it was, it was discarding the [01:06:00] framework that, that gave people meaning and purpose.

And, and so the idea that making the ledger honest, just. takes away a lot of the, a lot of the issues that get people stuck, uh, and, uh, away from, um, behaviors that are entirely self indulgent and self destructive. Uh, I love that idea. Is, is there anything more to it though? Is, is there anything more to that?

That, um, another layer that a bit like Bitcoin will, will, um, make the ledger honest, as you say, but is there anything else that, that the world collectively or individuals who figure this thing out need to do to, to do that? Help the rest of humanity understand this stuff and get over this meaning gap.

Jeff: So, so here's [01:07:00] the, here is the one thing I'd say, Luke, 90 percent of your time is this thinking what other people are doing and not, not, uh, we're not doing through the same filter that we're talking about. Then you're going to be suboptimal at doing that for people. So each of us has a role to move to a higher level, to explain, to have empathy for what they're going through.

And by the way, I don't care what anybody does, everybody in Bitcoin, like do whatever you want to, but we'll kind of, how I think about it is, it is very hard to meet somebody and fight with them or call them names and get them to change their mind. They believe their world. They believe it just as much as you believe your world, right?

They absolutely believe it. So the way, the way through is through questions and inquisition and what meeting them where they are and, and talking at about, um, some [01:08:00] somewhere where they can move to with hope because they're in fear. in their existing system, and they need to see hope to move. And so, so some of these things, and why I say that is why we all have a different, we all make a difference.

Most people today have a smartphone. If Steve Jobs wasn't around to make that difference. What would that look like? So one person can make a huge difference. One person and a team of people driving towards, and the smartphone would have come out eventually anyways, um, that would have, somebody would have created it if it wasn't Steve Jobs.

But we live in a reality. Somebody has an insight. Or some, and, and they actually bend reality. And then we all live in a new reality. That's what's happening right now. And the more and more of us that are moving to this new reality are bending reality in favor of human progress.

[01:08:57] Bitcoin as the Noise Remover

Knut: back to, uh, [01:09:00] something briefly touched on here in, in your first question, Luke, this is an idea that, uh, that Luke and I have been riffing on back and forth for a long time. We, we both love your article, the finding signal in a noisy world,

Jeff: Yeah,

Knut: the latest thoughts we've had around that is like, hang on a minute, Bitcoin is not the signal.

It's just. Code, it's just mathematics. It's just the greatest noise removal tool ever invented. So, what would you say to that?

Jeff: I, I totally agree. I, I, I, like, I totally agree. Play this, play this forward. And, and again, Mo uh, even Bitcoiners, the majority of Bitcoiners are, are pricing Bitcoin. And fiat instruments and think of what that's, it's actually reinforcing their view of the fiat in instrument, having more value. It actually looks like a trade.

You'd never, are you gonna [01:10:00] sell your, your Bitcoin for a fiat instrument? I know I'm not. Um, uh, the, uh, and so I'm going to, trade for other things that I want in that currency. Right? That is, um, and, and what, and, and that, that means that, that, like you said, that, like that layer reduces all the noise over time and, and society, because everything falls to its marginal cost of production.

We get richer, really simply, right? The, the productivity of the entire world moves into, in service of the entire world on Bitcoin, instead of getting, getting stolen from the world. So as those prices fall, everyone gets richer in the world. It can't, it can't, it can't stop that. That's what removes the noise and that's what it gives the rise in consciousness because you're not competing to [01:11:00] fit like, um, when I see that the horrible crime of what this does to people all over the world, and they don't know they do it, it does it, and that reinforces what their actions, so they have more people, more money against somebody else.

So they can feed their family. And I see that perverse nature of the system all over the globe. It, it makes you, it makes you sick if you actually spent any time in it. Now, then, then there's been in Bitcoin, a bunch of people get mad and yell at it and say those, those, those, uh, those people, and they actually make it stronger.

Or they, um, or, uh, and, or they'll hide all their money or they'll protect all their money in the tech companies and they make it stronger. And they're, or they'll, or they'll, there's no way that they would allow the market to collapse and their houses to collapse by 90%. So they vote for more, more spending, more manipulation of money to make it [01:12:00] stronger.

So, so the system from the system is going to get worse and worse and worse. And most people, including some Bitcoiners. are making it stronger as well, um, through, through their actions. And there is no escape from that system, making, making the world worse, but you don't have to live in it. You could spend more and more of your time in the new system and you're going to find all sorts of incredible talent, people building, just...

Just the new rails of a peer to peer economy on top of this, that the productivity, the productive force of all society moves to all society. And it doesn't care where you are, you could be in Ghana, you could be in Malawi, you could be anywhere. And you can create value on this new system without asking anyone.

Knut: Yeah, I mean, 100%, that's why we're here, [01:13:00] that's why we're having these conversations, to make this happen faster.

[01:13:03] The Work Isn't Done After Hyperbitcoinization

Luke: Well, yeah, maybe even just to kind of clarify the last point slightly, like the, the last thing that I still really, don't get past from, from Bitcoin as the noise remover at that level is that there are still other ideas that I, that I think. need to propagate in the, in the world other than, than Bitcoin, right?

And, and, uh, I guess, I guess the only point on that is more like, is more like, um, the work isn't done when, when Bitcoin, uh, when the future in the hyperbitcoinized world happens, the work isn't done, right? Uh,

Jeff: It's never done because we always are looking at the next step and the next step. The only, the difference is the productivity flows to us instead of away from us. And we free ourselves from the binds that chain us. Because the productivity flows through us, to us, that's the, that's the, but, but, but we'll constantly like [01:14:00] forever find new ideas, find new ideas, but you won't be forced on it.

You won't be on a treadmill that all of that is moving away from humanity. It'll be moving to you.

Knut: Look at it this way, Luke. Bitcoin is not a threat to civilized society. It is the beginning of civilized society.

Luke: Yeah. I didn't, I didn't mean to imply anything like that. It's just more like, it's just more like, uh, keeping in mind the, the, the way that society has, has moved forward, I guess the entire era of fiat money is a bit of a, a bit of a, a blip would be, would be putting it lightly, right? A real, a real bump in the road.

And,

Jeff: And it's not, it's not just that, that's why this is such a big, but for me too, as I went down this and essentially tried to disprove my theory, right, what, uh, why this would be such a, such a big deal because all of the history books we read, all of the books, like I read a lot of books, read a lot of history books, but they all have this [01:15:00] error code in them, not just fiat money, gold money, the error code is, If you could control money, if you are higher in money, you stole the productivity from everyone else, because the market forever is supposed to, the free market forever is deflationary.

So all of our history code, all of our history has this error in it. Because we would go to wars to be able to control money, right? We would go to wars to be able to steal money. And, and, and, and this, if it truly stays decentralized and secure, which I think is inevitable, if as long as we make that happen, it changes that error code.

And it's, it's, it's, it's the biggest, it's the biggest discovery humans have ever found. Because it, it, it, it changed. It's so big that, um, it, it doesn't feel like that to people that think it's a Ponzi scheme. It doesn't feel like that with, from their own belief system. But [01:16:00] if it changes that belief, so all productivity forevermore flows to all of society and everyone in the world.

Has an equal opportunity to actually allow that to happen and create more wealth for themselves as it flows to society. It's a pretty big deal.

[01:16:17] Checking One's Ego

Knut: So, back to this, um, ego death and being the protagonist of your own movie. And that everyone sees themselves as the protagonist. Like, how, how do you... How do you get away from that? Do you, do you, does it help to see yourself as a comic relief side character instead of the protagonist? Is that dropping your ego?

Jeff: Yeah. So I really try to, for myself and I try. To check my ego all the time. It's not about me, right? It really isn't. And a lot of these lessons, I described some, the [01:17:00] victim, the party example. Those are examples that I've come to in my own life. To be able to find the things in me that were holding back my, my world.

And so the, the, the truth is I'm just describing some of my own path to be able to get to lessons that went, because, because I, I used to think, okay, if the victim is doing this and they can't see it, um, and. The billionaire who has no time for his family is doing it and they can't see it. And this other person is doing it, you can't see it for their own reasons, whatever, and it was all in service of love and belonging.

Then I must be too, because I'm only human too, right? And what would that look like? And what I, what I, what I realized is I would take credit for everything that was good in my life. Just like they would. Um, and I would actually make it bigger. Right? And I [01:18:00] would, and anything that would bad was happening, who had to be somebody else's fault because it wasn't because I, because it couldn't be me.

And, and so I, I attacked all of those areas. Realizing it was me and changed me to be able to, to, to remove what I would say that ego and that blindness from what was happening in, uh, in, uh, in my life. And as I removed them, they were, they were huge kind of zero to one type moments for myself. Because everything got easier, everything got easier, and it continues to get easier.

So I, I, I, I'm constantly checking in on that very same thing, because if, if we're all bound to fall into these same traps, and I'm only human too, then I'm bound to fall into them too.

Knut: it sounds very familiar to what I've been going through the last couple of years here. I mean, [01:19:00] it's so powerful and it reminds me a lot of stoicism. Like, would you describe it as stoicism? Like, is, is this stoicism?

Jeff: And again, that's why I say stoicism, enlightenment, some of these different, I think some of these things, and I've read a lot on these various different topics, and I think they're all different descriptions of some of the same type of thing. Some, and if that, if that, if that word or that frame of reference is the frame of reference you want to use to be able to get here, then great.

But I think it's so, but I do believe that some of these things are, yes, they're, they're connected.

[01:19:42] Rejecting Labels

Knut: let's pull on that string a bit further, uh, would you describe yourself as, uh, uh, a consensualist or a libertarian, an anarcho capitalist, uh,

Jeff: None of none. None, none of these, none of these things. [01:20:00] So when, when, when somebody says, when, when somebody puts you in a label, they're, they're immediately describing, uh, you, you, you get put into a box and they, they, they're describing the, your view of, uh, or their view of you through their lens. Um, I hate boxes.

I'm an entrepreneur. Um, like you put me in a box, I want to, as soon as somebody is in this narrow box and trying to define a person by this narrow, this means you're this, um, I, I want to scream, right? I like the, I want to look elsewhere. In fact, same thing, same, same thing I did with my book. Same thing I did with Bitcoin.

I want to prove the other side. I want to take the other side and try to fight, fight to bank. And then once I understand it on both sides of the... Both issues. I want to come back to understand my own place in it. What do I want to do? [01:21:00] Uh, capitalism today when people talk about capitalism or socialism, they don't have a fucking clue, right?

Like they're, they're, and honestly, like these are, these words are so misused to, to describe, to drive people apart. Um, and so no, I, I, I can't stand labels.

Knut: no, I, I absolutely agree, like the word liberal and the word liberal. Progress, or literally have the opposite meaning of what they used to have, and it's true for many of these terms. So, that begs the question, would you call yourself a Bitcoiner, or is that boxing you in as well?

Jeff: Um, so I would call myself a bitcoiner and I would call it so, so, but probably

Knut: is that? Yeah,

Jeff: so. And again, a lot of what we just described is, is why do I come across as a bitcoiner, um, [01:22:00] in the way that I, I'm yelling at, because. Somebody else would have a different, uh, view of what a Bitcoin is. Right? So to to, to my friends, to, to my friends outside of Bitcoin.

A lot of them don't even know, right? They, they know, we'll chat about the, the other things. I'll meet them where they're, I could care less whether I, I want them to be here. I want them to understand. But, but I've had friends since, like, a lot of friends since four years old, and really good friends, uh, like incredible friends.

That still aren't all the way here yet. So I don't know what that means when you say, call yourself a Bitcoiner because I'm also this person. I'm also this person. I show up as this person, this same person all the time, but it's very, it's not one box.

Knut: Just, just messing. Well,

[01:22:56] Friends and Relationships

Knut: so have you given up on these old friends or?[01:23:00]

Jeff: No, that's kind of what I'm getting at. I love, I love them to death. They, uh, like the, um, like, why would I give up on, uh,

Knut: No, but I mean, I'm just trying to play the devil's advocate here. So, so like, the reason I asked that question is you sort of described given, given up on trying to make them bitcoiners themselves. And isn't that giving up?

Jeff: No, so, so if you see something in somebody else that they can't see, right, then my obligation from, from my, at least what I, what I think, I,

I, I would say almost never. I, I want to, don't, I don't want to say never because even sometimes I'll catch myself, but, uh, but So close to never. I was saying that never. Talk about people behind their back in a negative way. Never, almost never. The, um, and, and [01:24:00] when that happens, I just kind of tune out. I move, move, move away because, but I will always.

Tell somebody one on one and I'll turn their sign around. And as a result, I have a staggering amount of time. People, people think I must be busy all the time. I feel like I have the most time. I have the most time for, and because I only spend it with people I really care about, but my obligation. is not to make them change. My obligation is for my own integrity to tell them, so I don't talk behind it. But if they want to stay where they are, and I still like them, and they still, a whole bunch of other stuff that we, then, then, then they don't have to change for me. My obligation is I can't, I won't talk about them behind their back.

My [01:25:00] obligation is I need to tell them, right? Think about many conversations with you and I, right? Some of the deeper conversations, right? That's what it looks like to be a friend. That's what it looks like to care about somebody else. And that's what, and sometimes in that, it drives such a bond and they do the same thing for you.

And then when you're doing that, those people care about you too. And, and you end up having like a hundred X more time because you're spending it valuably.

Knut: Yeah, yeah, I can relate totally. But I do, like, I hang out with my quote unquote normie friends less and less just because, uh, there's... It's simply harder and harder to find common ground of subjects to talk about.

Jeff: Yeah. So I don't, I don't, um, I don't at all. And, uh, and, and I will say this, [01:26:00] there's some people though in the Bitcoin space that have become. I would say lifelong friends that and how fast that happens and like, just like a massive connection because we can talk about some of these things that have at a very deep level, like it's, it's been, it's, and I'm spending more time now in, in helping entrepreneurs create theirs on their, where, what they think they're going to change the world in their own regard and talk a bit coin.

And I'm loving it. So I'm spending more time. And in that, because I, uh, because I love that, but no, I don't feel, I don't have the same thing at all with my normie friends that you just said. Not a bit.

Knut: It could be that I'm spending most of the year abroad also, like I guess I would hang out with them more if I, if I had been back in Sweden and I, I try, I do try to meet them like twice a year. Like this is this close circle of close friends. [01:27:00] But I don't know. And, and I do care for them as much as I, uh, as much as I used to, uh, absolutely.

It's just that I find, I find it harder to talk to them since the more you move into the future yourself and the more you move into this completely different set of ideas and different set, different way of... viewing the world than what they're used to, uh, the harder it gets to, to like communicate on, on the same, on the same level, like finding something common to the, so you end up having more shallow conversations like about the weather and how, how's your car doing.

Jeff: But if you just replace a bun, if you take, take Bitcoin out, and you talk about some of the conversations we had on this podcast, right? Without, even without Bitcoin, they were deep conversations without Bitcoin, right? That could impact your and, and, and, and, and so, um, yeah, anyways, I don't, I don't find if it's just surface conversation all the time.[01:28:00]

If it's not, like, none of my friends look like that, right, they're just, none of the people I spend, now, some are tremendously fun and everything else, and they wouldn't go nearly as deep as this, and they know I would, and I, and, and, and, but, but again, they're still lifelong friends.

Knut: Yeah, I mean, every person is different and like most of my old friends, like the people you meet in your youth, you, you keep being friends because you have a lot of history together and they're fun to hang out with. And then, then people change over time, of course, but, but still,

Jeff: Here's what, here's what I think, here's what I think happens, um, and you can construct it, you can actually create a pro, I, I think in processes, I think first, what happens, how do I think in a process to be able to, to make this happen more often? So, I think what happens is, is Most relationships go through kind of [01:29:00] a vulnerability based trust, and at the top of that pyramid would look like this.

How are you doing it? Killing it, killing it, and nobody goes, and there's no depth, right? And people in social media, a lot of them are up here. Thinking they have millions of friends and it's no, nothing, it's no depth and for vulnerability based trust to exist, somebody has to go first, they have to show vulnerability.

Some of what we're doing in this podcast is showing vulnerability, right? Somebody has to go first. And then the other person on the other side of that agreement has to, or the relationship has to either fail They're insane. I'm going to eject or meet them and show vulnerability and go, go back and forth.

And then it goes down and then the bottom, as you go down there, you know, those people who would always be there for you forever. You didn't, you couldn't, if you didn't see them for 10 years, they were right back in deep. Everyone has those relationships. How did they form? [01:30:00] And they typically formed over an event, a time event.

Where you were, you and the other person were going through a hard time or, or compressed time school or any sort of, uh, any sort of group you were in that you were compressed going through things and it happened by chance. Right? That vulnerability based trust, you made a mistake, you found out who was there for you, and then you got to the bottom and you got those few people in your life.

What if, if that's how it happens, um, if that's how it happens, and it happens in these timeframes, and then those people stick forever, couldn't you make it happen all the time?

Knut: Yeah, I was just about to say, I think you know where you're going with this, like, that's the argument for being vulnerable to everyone and just showing yourself as you are.

Jeff: You can make it happen anywhere in your life, all the time, and you can just measure who sticks. And, and [01:31:00] so, um, and, and, and, and literally that's, that's, it, I, I just described this like, it's that easy. It is that easy. Um, and, and, and, and so, so what that looks like is if I, if that's what I do everywhere in every relation, uh, in every relationship and, and what you, what you do is, um, yes, sometimes along the way, some people will stab you in the back.

And then they, uh, um, but if you, if you fear and you don't do that, of that, most people are really generally great people, but most, you'll find more great people by doing, uh, by doing that. And your life will expand by those people.

Knut: Absolutely, I mean, that's, that describes this pod to a large extent, like, that's what we're trying to do here. We take great care in being sincere with who we are and what we do. Like, uh, we don't want to be, I think [01:32:00] someone said, I don't remember who the quote is from, but, but, uh, that honesty is the currency of the future, the real honesty, and that explains the phenomenon, like Joe Rogan, for instance, like you can't really, if you do hours and hours and hours of conversations, you can't really do that by.

Playing a role and being someone else than you actually are. And I truly believe that. And I, I think that's, uh, that's very important. And

Jeff: I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be here right now. We wouldn't be friends, right? They, like, that's, that's how the world, uh, that that's how the world works. Um, and, uh, out of these. These moments, then, then people, uh, people that make a difference in your life.

Knut: Absolutely beautiful. So, um, remember that kids, and don't forget to like, subscribe, and brush your fucking teeth.

[01:32:52] Closing Thoughts

Luke: I think I think with that, uh, we're yeah, definitely conscious of the time here a little bit. And [01:33:00] maybe the last thing to just hit on a little bit after the nice deep conversation. Maybe a little bit more about the fun event happening in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in March.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Bitcoin Atlantis, um, uh, get there. It's gonna, it's, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm not looking at it, not just because I'm helping organize a block there, but, uh, but it's, we have some surprises there and some events there that are just going to be. It's just incredible. It's one of those conferences that I'm really looking forward to.

I'm bringing my family and I know a bunch of others are too.

Knut: Yeah, for those of you who don't know, both me and Jeff are advisors to the Free Madeira organization. So we're, we're, we're helping out with this conference and with, with, uh, some stuff in Madeira. Uh, so, so we're. Absolutely. Look, looking forward to doing [01:34:00] this. I'll be on Madeira for like three weeks, a couple of weeks before and one week after.

And we're going to try to make it the best thing ever, which is easy on Madeira because Madeira is already a paradise. So you'll have a swell time regardless of there's a conference or not.

Luke: Absolutely. Fantastic. And, uh, Jeff, is there anything else you'd like to bring up or anywhere you'd like to direct our listeners to?

Jeff: Uh, no, I would just say the, um, probably just a carry on of what we were talking about before. I'm often asked. How do, uh, um, how do I spend more time in this? Um, and what do I do? I don't, I'm working a job. I don't want to, I'm not, I'm spending all my time up there. Um, just start, right? The, I, I gave this, uh, uh, uh, advice.

Two years ago to somebody that, uh, just asked me for coffee in Vancouver. I went for coffee and [01:35:00] she was stuck in her fiat job and everything else. And I just said, this is an open network. I said, start, start meeting people, go to, to create content, do whatever you want in the thing, find the thing that you love in this and find the people that you love and it'll vibrate to it.

So she started. Uh, doing that and she was just, uh, she was just hired by, uh, Alex Gladstein at the Human Rights Foundation and, uh, um, and she's over the top because of what she's created, created and her content that she's created. Now she's working exactly where she wants to. And so she sent me a note saying like, it's just.

That coffee precipitated a whole bunch of events that, uh, that, uh, then turned into, into this. And so, uh, there is a ton of opportunity in this space there. It's exploding. Um, the entrepreneurs that are building this, if you don't want to be an entrepreneur, go find a company that's, uh, that's building on into this, that you really like the [01:36:00] values of that company and what they're doing.

Um, You could look at our portfolio company in EgoDeath, most of those companies are hiring, um, and the opportunities are endless in this space.

Knut: absolutely. Just, just be there and follow the orange glowing light as our friend Izzy puts it. It's just focus on the orange glowing light and the rest will sort itself out. Jeff, it's been absolutely amazing to have this conversation with you. You're always welcome back to the show and looking forward a ton to seeing you in Madeira.

Uh, I, I treasure you, truly treasure your friendship and I appreciate you taking your time to do this with us a lot, so.

Jeff: Right back at you, buddy. You too, Luke. Thanks.

Luke: Thanks a lot, Jeff. This has been the Freedom Footprint Show. Thanks for listening.[01:37:00]