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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Mark Mos Show,

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Speaker 1: where we talk about the decentralized revolution each and every week,

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Speaker 1: talking about the way the world is changing, of course

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Speaker 1: as we look at it through the lens of politics, finance,

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Speaker 1: and technology, and of course that technology is Bitcoin, the

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Speaker 1: decentralized technology that's.

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Speaker 2: Changing the world.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: I try to bring to you, you know.

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Speaker 1: Some education, some late breaking headlines here always, and up

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Speaker 1: to data on what's going on, and of course some

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Speaker 1: interesting people so you don't have to listen to me

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Speaker 1: talk all the time. And that's what we have for

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Speaker 1: you today. I'm happy to have Natalie Smolensky joined me

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Speaker 1: in the studio today.

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Speaker 2: Natalie, thanks so much for joining me.

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Speaker 3: My pleasure. Great to be here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, man, so many good things to talk about with you.

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Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you sitting down with me today.

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Speaker 1: You know, trying to create content in this environment has

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Speaker 1: been pretty easy because there's never indian amount of stuff

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Speaker 1: to talk about. It's insane, right, you know. I know,

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Speaker 1: you know, I've read some of your stuff and I

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Speaker 1: love your take on just kind of the way that

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Speaker 1: the world is changing, politics and things like that. App

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Speaker 1: I know you're involved in bitcoin and mining and things

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Speaker 1: like that. So let's kind of let's kind of start

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Speaker 1: with that. It all wraps up in together into one, right.

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Speaker 1: It's like that's why I said I like to look

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Speaker 1: at politics, finance, and technology together to get things in context.

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Speaker 1: But we have like this time where we kind of

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Speaker 1: have this aging empire that typically kind of goes in

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Speaker 1: the same kind of course of action where they're trying

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Speaker 1: to grasp for control. We have the banking system collapsing

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Speaker 1: and then trying to grab any kind of control they can.

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Speaker 1: It seems like they're kind of starting to seal off

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Speaker 1: the exits, right, trying to close down potentially exits into

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Speaker 1: bitcoin things like that. And so we've see an attack

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Speaker 1: coming from every angle, including this week even regarding probably

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Speaker 1: what could control bitcoin through both the restrict Act, and

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Speaker 1: then I know in Texas specifically, which has been very

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Speaker 1: pro bitcoin mining, seems to even kind of becoming under

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Speaker 1: attack maybe kind of frame up a couple of those

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Speaker 1: taxs for it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, so, I mean we're definitely in the

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Speaker 3: then they fight us stage regarding bitcoin adoption. There's unmistakably

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Speaker 3: a influential and growing failings of policymakers including elected officials

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Speaker 3: who are openly hostile to bitcoin and who are enemies

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Speaker 3: to bitcoin. And you know, I think a lot of

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Speaker 3: people in the community have made good faith efforts to

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Speaker 3: reach out to these folks and to educate them and

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Speaker 3: to engage in good faith dialogue, but they're not interested

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Speaker 3: in that. And so the thing about enemies is that,

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Speaker 3: you know, for the most part, the most effective way

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Speaker 3: to deal with them is simply to keep building and

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Speaker 3: ignore them, sort of create the alternatives that are inevitable

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Speaker 3: to the point where they become irrelevant. But if they

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Speaker 3: bring the fight to bitcoiners, I think bitcoiners are going

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Speaker 3: to have to bring the fight back.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.

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Speaker 1: Actually, I was in Jackson Hole recently for the Bitcoin

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Speaker 1: Ski Week and I came home when I kind of

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Speaker 1: made a post where it's like, you know, buying bitcoin

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Speaker 1: is a defensive move, right. I can go defend myself,

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Speaker 1: defend my savings, my property, et cetera. But it's time

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Speaker 1: to be offensive. We can't just be defensive. And I'm

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Speaker 1: not talking about storming the capitol, but building is exactly

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Speaker 1: what I was talking about. Time for entrepreneurs to step up.

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Speaker 1: So I love that.

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Speaker 2: Love that.

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Speaker 1: Do you think are they hostile to bitcoin, are they

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Speaker 1: hostile to cryptocurrencies, or are they just hostile.

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Speaker 2: To technology and period. That's yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of overlap between those circles

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Speaker 3: on the Ven diagram. And what's interesting is.

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Speaker 1: That the.

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Speaker 3: Particularly the esg kerfuffle over bitcoin, has raised the question

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Speaker 3: of whether electricity usage itself will be politically restricted. You know,

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Speaker 3: the singling out of bitcoin mining as an undesirable use

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Speaker 3: of computational power is I mean, obviously politically ludicrous. But

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Speaker 3: in an era where technology is accelerating exponentially, compute power

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Speaker 3: is also accelerating, and so there is there is no

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Speaker 3: future in which the world loses uses less compute. There's

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Speaker 3: a world in which computational operations become more and more

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Speaker 3: energy efficient, but the amount of of those operations will

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Speaker 3: continue to increase if civilization continues to advance. You know,

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Speaker 3: a world in which we use less computational power over

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Speaker 3: time is a world in which human civilization is collapsing.

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Speaker 3: And that's not a happy or good world or a

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Speaker 3: politically progressive world for anyone. And so I think there

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Speaker 3: is a basic set of principles that policy makers and

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Speaker 3: public intellectuals need to be educated in around technology having

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Speaker 3: a material basis in energy and resources that is unliable.

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Speaker 3: You can't legislate that away.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's there's a lot to unpack there. There's

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Speaker 1: I guess kind of to the point that you're making.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's a tax coming from multiple different angles here,

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Speaker 1: and so there's there's obviously the attack on energy, but

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Speaker 1: that's not a game technology. That's just against humanity, right,

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Speaker 1: that's against human flourishing, as Alex Epstein would say, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's against energy use. Then they could claim that, well,

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Speaker 1: bitcoin's bad because it uses energy, but to the point

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Speaker 1: you're making all computing power use energy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And then we have you know.

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren going on this rampage today trying to build

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Speaker 1: a campaign basically against crypto specifically.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which is very rich for her.

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Speaker 1: I saw Prince he posted, yea, her net worth is

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Speaker 1: sixty seven million dollars, just forty five million dollars in

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Speaker 1: assets on a two hundred and eighty thousand dollars salary.

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Speaker 1: So she's enriched herself in this fiat system. I suppose

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Speaker 1: that's one reason why you might be mad about another system.

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Speaker 2: But the insanity I think it was Lynn Alden.

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Speaker 1: She said, you know, if you break down what is

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Speaker 1: what is you know, bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, it's, you know,

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Speaker 1: like a decentralized ledger, it's a databases achieving consensus. So

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Speaker 1: we're gonna make a stance again against databases that can

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Speaker 1: achieve consensus.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right.

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Speaker 1: I feel like we're kind of getting to this point

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Speaker 1: where technology, well I don't feel that. I believe strongly

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Speaker 1: that we're getting to this point where technology is making

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Speaker 1: governments obsolete and incompetent. Yeah. I just recently read this

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Speaker 1: book called The Revolt of the Public.

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Speaker 2: It was a really good book.

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Speaker 1: I interviewed the author as well, and he basically makes

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Speaker 1: the case that now because we have access to information

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Speaker 1: because of the smartphones, or not smartphones, but because of

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Speaker 1: the Internet. And really just like in the Protestant Reformation,

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Speaker 1: when the printing press released information, the governments, the church

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Speaker 1: and state couldn't control that flow of information. And today

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Speaker 1: with the same thing, same phenomena, where the Internet is

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Speaker 1: the same thing and they can't control that flow of information.

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Speaker 1: And he talked about how in the Industrial Age, basically

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Speaker 1: you know, Henry Ford kind of had some and everybody

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Speaker 1: moved the masses moved into these factories, and they were

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Speaker 1: able to create management techniques to manage the masses in

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Speaker 1: this assembly line, and everybody was kind of the same.

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Speaker 1: And how government basically took the same kind of formation.

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Speaker 1: Just like these mass factories could control the masses as digits,

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Speaker 1: then government did. But we don't live in that anymore.

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Speaker 1: Now we're in the information age. And he argues that

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Speaker 1: the form of government that we have today is not

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Speaker 1: compatible with the world that we live in, right because

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Speaker 1: now we have this freeful information. We don't have these

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Speaker 1: central authorities anymore coming down and giving us this decree.

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Speaker 1: And that's sort of kind of like what we have here.

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Speaker 1: I want to get into that. I also I like

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Speaker 1: this I was reading. I went back and read this article.

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Speaker 1: You talked about the American Republic and democratic revolutions, which

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Speaker 1: kind of seemed to fit into that a little bit.

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Speaker 1: I want to dig into that a little bit and

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Speaker 1: some more. I got to take a quick break. If

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Speaker 1: you're just tuned in, you're listening to the Mark Moss Show,

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Speaker 1: of course, talking about the decentralized Revolution. Each week, I'm

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Speaker 1: sitting down with Natalie Smolensky and we are discussing policy, bitcoin, cryptocurrency, technology,

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Speaker 1: government overreach. I want to get into this restrict Act

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Speaker 1: that's going through that might be the most dangerous piece

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Speaker 1: of legislation I've ever seen, and a whole lot more.

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to take a quick break and be

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Speaker 1: back with all that and more in a minute. All right,

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Speaker 1: welcome back. If you just tune in, you're listening to

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Speaker 1: the Mark Mass Show. We're talking about the Decentralized Revolution,

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Speaker 1: and I am joined by guest Natalie Smolensky. You can

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Speaker 1: find her on Twitter at in Smolensky, and she is

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Speaker 1: here talking about some of these policies. I know you've

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Speaker 1: been kind of arguing for some of these policies that

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Speaker 1: they're trying to put against bitcoin. We were talking about

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Speaker 1: bitcoin and crypto, and I was saying, before I had

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Speaker 1: take a break, sort of it's sort of making these

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Speaker 1: governments look incompetent. I kind of want to go back

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Speaker 1: just to the question I'd asked, is it bitcoin that

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Speaker 1: they're going against.

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Speaker 2: Like with this energy use thing?

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Speaker 1: Is it crypto because of the sinking ship of the

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Speaker 1: financial system, or is it technology overall? And I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure what your answer was, Is it like all of that,

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Speaker 1: and it's all a bunch of different factions.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, so there you know, there are factions that

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Speaker 3: focus on, you know, more on each one of those categories,

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Speaker 3: but there's a lot of overlap. There's a lot of technophobia.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot of you know, sort of phobia or

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Speaker 3: hatred of corporations that are ostensibly you know, destroying the

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Speaker 3: environment through all the all of this energy usage. And

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Speaker 3: it's really remarkable for me to watch the the cultural

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Speaker 3: production that's happening around this. There's there's a new show

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Speaker 3: and I'm struggling to remember the title now that I watched.

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Speaker 3: It's like it starts with an E, but it deals

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Speaker 3: with It's sort of a near future sci fi that

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Speaker 3: deals with the effects of climate change in the imagining

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Speaker 3: of the author. It has a star studded cast, including

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Speaker 3: like Meryl Streep and Ed Norton and all these people,

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Speaker 3: and watching it is like it's like watching religious television,

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Speaker 3: like the Like, you immediately know who you're supposed to like,

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Speaker 3: who you're supposed to hate, the good guys, the bad guys,

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Speaker 3: Like the There is a kind of apocalyptic worldview that's

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Speaker 3: on display. A righteous minority that's fighting it, you know,

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Speaker 3: it's very good versus evil. And you know this, this

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Speaker 3: kind of polarized view of the world has become more

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Speaker 3: and more frequent, even among you know, really thoughtful people,

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Speaker 3: really well educated people, I think in large part because

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Speaker 3: the the problems that we're facing as a species seem

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Speaker 3: to be so intractable and complex that people don't know

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Speaker 3: where to even begin in in solving them. And so

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Speaker 3: you have, you know, ludicrous suggestions like one of the

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Speaker 3: ones that came out of one of the recent cop

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Speaker 3: meetings where Prince Charles suggested that, you know, we needed

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Speaker 3: to spend three times the world's GDP to solve climate change.

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Speaker 3: But okay, that presumes that we already know what the

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Speaker 3: solution to this problem is. We just need money. But

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Speaker 3: that's that's truly not the case, Like money is not

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Speaker 3: a lack of money is not the problem here. It's

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Speaker 3: that we're dealing with something with something that is an

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Speaker 3: emergent complex, not just natural system, but social system, human

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Speaker 3: economics system, and there are there are real effects to

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Speaker 3: whatever policy direction you take, and you know, governments are

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Speaker 3: proving that they are in fact not the venue that

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Speaker 3: is capable of solving these problems. And so then the

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Speaker 3: question becomes what are the alternatives to action by the state,

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Speaker 3: And we're seeing that in these orthogonal movements, of which

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Speaker 3: bitcoin is just one example.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: We have all these different complex systems that all interact

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Speaker 1: with each other, which make it even a bigger complex system.

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Speaker 1: And to think that you can fix something with one

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Speaker 1: button push without affecting all.

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Speaker 2: These other things.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I commented on Preston Pitch put out a tweet earlier

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Speaker 1: this morning and he was talking about how with the

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Speaker 1: banking collapse, a lot of these smaller banks going down

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Speaker 1: is now affecting the LNG and the energy market. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so I was like, I commented, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: so to fight inflation, we raise rates. To raise rates,

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Speaker 1: we crush the banking sector, right, have to beil them out,

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Speaker 1: that's inflation area.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: Then we damage the industry, energy industry, which is inflationary.

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Speaker 2: So by by.

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Speaker 1: Thinking there's one single metric or one single trigger of

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Speaker 1: of interest rates, but then we cause all these other problems.

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Speaker 1: And it's sort of like them thinking we can control

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Speaker 1: the entire world that we don't even understand with a

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Speaker 1: single metric like carbon or carbon emission yep.

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Speaker 2: So what do you think is the is the proper

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Speaker 2: way to do it? Uh?

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Speaker 1: And I would just say, for me, I think that

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Speaker 1: complex systems have to be free and let them sort

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Speaker 1: of figure it out. I think a lot of it

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Speaker 1: comes from a worldview where these people have like a

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Speaker 1: godlike complex. They think they're God and they have to

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Speaker 1: go figure this out. It's up to them. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: don't know what what's your take on that?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely So. Any bottom up theory of change, you know,

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Speaker 3: whether we're talking about Austrian economics or you know, certain

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Speaker 3: versions of socialism or you know anarcho syndicalism or whatever

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Speaker 3: you know, is premised on the idea that human individual

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Speaker 3: agents acting in their own interest will over time coalesce

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Speaker 3: into social formations that give us more accurate information, for example,

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Speaker 3: about price, better living conditions for everyone, because we don't

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Speaker 3: have these like over leveraged social actors imposing their will

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Speaker 3: on others and create sort of de risk change. So

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Speaker 3: the system will include both the ability to exit and

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Speaker 3: the ability to influence a system through voice, which are

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Speaker 3: both necessary mechanisms of adaptation and reform. The problem with UH,

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Speaker 3: the way that governments are currently constellated. Is that they

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Speaker 3: you know, they have a few tools in their toolkit.

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Speaker 3: They like to cut off the exits. They like to

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Speaker 3: cut off voice, so in effect render voice ineffective. And

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Speaker 3: then they like to pick winners. And so when you.

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Speaker 1: When you say they, in this instance, you're talking about

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Speaker 1: like the powers that be right, right.

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Speaker 3: So, representatives of the state government agencies, heads of those agencies,

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Speaker 3: the executive branch, even in some cases powerful legislators or

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Speaker 3: judicial actors. They have a tendency to put their thumbs

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Speaker 3: on the scale to such an extent that they render

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Speaker 3: the system as a whole more fragile. And so what

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Speaker 3: happens is that, you know, social pressure for change builds up,

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Speaker 3: it has nowhere to go, and it then gets released

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Speaker 3: either in like big acts of coordinated revolution or in

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Speaker 3: smaller acts of sort of stochastic violence, you know, which

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Speaker 3: like we've been seeing in the United States and like

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Speaker 3: the mass shooting phenomenon, Like why is that? Why is

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Speaker 3: that phenomenon accelerating? And it's it's not just people won

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Speaker 3: ideological orientation, it's people.

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Speaker 1: It's a good question that should be should be asked.

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Speaker 1: For sure, we should definitely stop. I got to take

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Speaker 1: a quick break. If you just tune in, you're listening

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Speaker 1: to the Mark mass Show. We're talking about the decentralized Revolution,

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Speaker 1: but we're talking about so much more, joined by guests

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Speaker 1: at Natalie Smolenski, and digging into these complex systems and

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Speaker 1: figuring out maybe where it's going wrong. I want to

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Speaker 1: dig into that last part you talked about, and then

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Speaker 1: I want to get into thinking about it from a

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Speaker 1: hopeful perspective. What can we do maybe to make things

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Speaker 1: a little bit better. So we'll talk about all that

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Speaker 1: and more. We're going to take a quick break back

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Speaker 1: in a minute. Don't go away, We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1: All right, Welcome back. If you're just tune in, you're

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Speaker 1: listening to the markmas Show. We're talking about the decentralized Revolution.

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Speaker 1: I'm in the studio with Natalie Smolensky. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: complex systems and democratic governments and of course money and technology.

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Speaker 1: You know, Natalie, you were talking about these systems. One

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Speaker 1: of the things that you said a couple of times

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Speaker 1: was we have to have the ability to exit the system.

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Speaker 1: So when I think about that, when I think about

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Speaker 1: exiting the system, I think about much smaller systems sort

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Speaker 1: of like the United States government was set up as

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Speaker 1: a republic, and by being able to exit one system

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Speaker 1: and enter another system, then it allows those systems to

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Speaker 1: test different operating systems, if you will, as well as

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Speaker 1: we get to see what competition can do to outcompete

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Speaker 1: each other. Is that one of the things that you're

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Speaker 1: kind of thinking about in the ability to exit the system.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so. One of the one of the interesting

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Speaker 3: things about the formation of the American Republic is, you know,

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Speaker 3: the earliest Americans didn't come to America to fight a

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Speaker 3: revolution against the British crown. That was not that was

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Speaker 3: not their goal. They came for other reasons. They were

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Speaker 3: exiting in order to trade more freely, worship more freely,

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Speaker 3: escape the lifelong burden of debt. That was just an

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Speaker 3: ingrained practice in the old world to you know, live

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Speaker 3: without the inherited burden of aristocratic power, which defined the

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Speaker 3: horizon of class possibility in Europe. And so, you know,

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Speaker 3: people people exit in order to pursue specific goals, and

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Speaker 3: then if the reasons for exit become unattainable, well then

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Speaker 3: the only other option is voice. And then if you

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Speaker 3: can't use voice either to achieve your goals. Well that

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Speaker 3: at that point you've sort of the social system is

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Speaker 3: set up for violence to be really the only only

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Speaker 3: path forward. And so the reason that you know, democratic

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Speaker 3: governments are so compelling politically is because they're ostensibly, in theories,

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Speaker 3: structured to facilitate peaceful transitions of power. If you don't

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Speaker 3: like one government, you can vote a different one in

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Speaker 3: that you like better, and that makes your life better,

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Speaker 3: and so you can use voice, and then if you

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Speaker 3: still don't like that government, you're free to emigrate elsewhere.

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Speaker 3: You're free to go elsewhere. What what we've seen in

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Speaker 3: the past few decades is a sort of capture of

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Speaker 3: the democratic process by the political parties who are themselves

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Speaker 3: not democratic institutions and are very open about that.

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Speaker 4: And but it's a threat to our democracy, right and

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Speaker 4: so in effect, like we we can't exit as easily

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Speaker 4: as we used to, and our voice is less impactful

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Speaker 4: than ever before.

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Speaker 3: And so then what is the remedy, Well, it's it's

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Speaker 3: a little bleak.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, especially when the last the last option that you

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Speaker 1: gave us, which there's other options we'll get to, but

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Speaker 1: as you just laid that out, which is the democratic process,

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Speaker 1: which I view as the tyranny of the minority by

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Speaker 1: the majority. So there's that we could we could unpack that,

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Speaker 1: especially if the democratic process doesn't work.

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Speaker 2: But but specifically.

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Speaker 1: Then if you if they limit your voice, and so

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Speaker 1: you know, I've been kind of framing this up as

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Speaker 1: kind of this war of information really where we're going.

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Speaker 1: I had a great conversation with doctor Robert Malone talking

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Speaker 1: about what he he framed up as the fifth generation

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Speaker 1: of warfare, which is what he says that we're in,

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Speaker 1: which is sort of this like psychological warfare, information warfare.

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Speaker 1: And so the way that you win an information a

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Speaker 1: war of information is by controlling the information. If I

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Speaker 1: believe truth would win, but if they don't have truth

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Speaker 1: on their side, then they have to censor that. And

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Speaker 1: so I think that's sort of what we're seeing. So

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Speaker 1: now they've taken they've captured the democratic process, Now they

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Speaker 1: have to capture the ability to voice our opinions. And

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Speaker 1: that's I've seen this coming. I'm sure you've seen it coming,

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Speaker 1: and it really seems like it's coming to a head with.

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Speaker 2: This restrict Act.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is potentially I told my wife and

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Speaker 1: my producer here it might have been six months ago

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Speaker 1: a year ago, and I said, there's probably a good

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Speaker 1: chance in the next two years, I won't be able

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Speaker 1: to do what I'm doing here in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and meaning speaking out publicly criticizing the government.

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Speaker 2: And I said, in the next two.

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Speaker 1: Years here we are with this restrict Act that potentially

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Speaker 1: could like put that in check, like right way, would

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Speaker 1: you say that's one big piece of them trying to

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Speaker 1: kind of grasp on and control us from being able

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Speaker 1: to speak out.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I mean the restrict Act is quite possibly

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Speaker 3: the most totalitarian piece of legislation I've ever seen in

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Speaker 3: the in the United States. And it's you know, it's

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Speaker 3: adherents or authors rather have responded to me on Twitter

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Speaker 3: and said, this is, you know, you're spreading misinformation, You're

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Speaker 3: misunderstanding the intent of the law. It's really nothing particularly you.

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Speaker 3: It's drawing on you know this other you know, legislation

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Speaker 3: on foreign investments and the Patriot Act and blah blah.

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Speaker 3: I would suggest though, that the status quo already is

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Speaker 3: quite draconian, and most people are just not aware of

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Speaker 3: the extent to which the federal government has become capable

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Speaker 3: of policing speech. And now the sort of you know,

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Speaker 3: there's generally by the time something is proposed as a

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Speaker 3: bill for Congress, it's already been going on for a

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Speaker 3: very long time, and the congressional authorization is sort of

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Speaker 3: the fig leaf legitimizing practices that are already well underway.

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Speaker 3: And so, you know, for decades the the the government

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Speaker 3: of both both parties, a Democrat and Republican, has had

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Speaker 3: the point of view that the Secretary of Commerce and

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Speaker 3: the Secretary of Defense should be able to regulate information technologies,

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Speaker 3: including encryption technologies, including the Internet, you know, the broadest

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Speaker 3: possible authority over telecommunications because these things constitute potential national

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Speaker 3: security threats.

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Speaker 2: Always it's always for your security.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's a couple of pieces in there that

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Speaker 1: were extremely troubling. I think one first of all, to

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Speaker 1: the point that you kind of said first, where some

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Speaker 1: of them have kind of out come on Twitter and said, hey,

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Speaker 1: you're kind of misinterpreting this or you're misconstruing this. A lot

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Speaker 1: of this is intentionally broad and vague, so it can

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Speaker 1: be interpreted in the way they want.

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Speaker 2: So that's that's a big that's a big problem.

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Speaker 1: Yep. A couple of a couple of things that I saw.

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Speaker 1: I mean it seemed worse than what I might expect

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Speaker 1: living in North Korea. I mean, if you violate this,

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Speaker 1: your subject to twenty years in prison, a million dollar fine,

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Speaker 1: and loss of all your property. So I say something

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Speaker 1: or do something they don't like, and I lose all

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Speaker 1: my property? Right, twenty years in prison the diffront, and

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Speaker 1: with no due process? Yep, ye, like what no due process?

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Speaker 1: That's mouslate greatly forward. And then even more troubling, well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know about more, but equally as troubling was

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Speaker 1: the unlimited hiring power to positions of enforcement and unlimited

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Speaker 1: funds with little or no review and immunity to fouer requests.

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Speaker 2: What I mean, that's worth it? I mean, that's that

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Speaker 2: that that's.

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Speaker 1: Like trying to one up I put a Twitter thread

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Speaker 1: out and I said, if you can't beat China, join them, right,

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Speaker 1: and it's like, I mean we're trying to one up them.

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Speaker 3: And oh my god, yeah ten xum Like in China.

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Speaker 3: You know, if you if you access a band app

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Speaker 3: through a VPN, like, the most likely thing that's going

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Speaker 3: to happen is that your phone is going to stop

437
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 3: functioning in certain ways until you delete the VPN or

438
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:38,679
Speaker 3: until you delete the app, you may get fined, you know,

439
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 3: like less than one hundred bucks in extreme cases if

440
00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 3: they if they choose to come after you, they could

441
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 3: put you in prison for a few months or a

442
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 3: few years. But it's nothing like this.

443
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:55,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, nothing, nothing like this. I mean, it's just yeah,

444
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 1: it's just insane. And again it's equally broad and vague

445
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:01,400
Speaker 1: so that it can hand be applied, and it also

446
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:04,239
Speaker 1: allows them some deflection like, oh, that's not really what

447
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: it says, which means it's open to interpretation, which means

448
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: that they could they could interpret however they want. You're

449
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 1: listening to the Mark Maas Show. We're talking about the

450
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: decentralized Revolution, talking about right now some of these laws

451
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: that are coming against technology and our ability to protect

452
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 1: ourselves with cryptocurrencies and bitcoin.

453
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 2: I'm in this.

454
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:25,919
Speaker 1: Studio with Natalie Smolensky. We're going to be back with

455
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: more in a minute. Don't go away, I'm going to

456
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 1: be right back.

457
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back.

458
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: If you just tune in, you're listening to the Mark

459
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:35,120
Speaker 1: mass Show. I'm talking with Natalie Smolensky. We're talking about

460
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 1: a lot of things. We're talking about the restrict Act,

461
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 1: which is potentially the most restrictive act we've ever seen

462
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 1: come forward.

463
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 2: Natalie, you know, this is really scary.

464
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: The one thing that scares me about this is there's

465
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 1: a lot of big name, you know, representatives signed onto

466
00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: this bill. This isn't like some little obscure freshmen put

467
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 1: this bill forward.

468
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 2: Like we see that happen all the time, and you know,

469
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 2: they don't stand a chance.

470
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 1: This has a lot of very prominent people on this bill.

471
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: I can't imagine it would go through like this, but

472
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: because of all the big names that are on there,

473
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: it makes me think maybe it could. What's your take

474
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: on that, You think this gets trashed and then probably

475
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: comes back a little bit lighter or what are you thinking?

476
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:22,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's it's evidence of the accelerating consolidation

477
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 3: of power in the imperial presidency that has been underway

478
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 3: for decades now. So every presidential administration pushes that trend

479
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 3: further and further, and then often, you know, the next

480
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:42,479
Speaker 3: administration gets elected on a platform of rolling back some

481
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 3: of that consolidation of executive power, but they then they

482
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 3: end up just doing it. More so in the case

483
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 3: of the Biden administration, the restrict Act was actually born

484
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 3: out of the Democratic Party's opposition to President Trump's executive

485
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 3: order to ban TikTok, which was challenged in the courts

486
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 3: and never implemented. And you know, Biden ran in part

487
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 3: on you know, not taking these kind of unilateral executive actions,

488
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 3: but instead he issued an executive order to research the

489
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 3: problem of TikTok and apps. And so now it's been researched,

490
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 3: and this bill is a product of that research, and

491
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 3: lo and behold, it's even worse than President Trump's executive order.

492
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 3: And so what happens is the new normal just becomes

493
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 3: worse and worse and worse with every administration until the

494
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 3: point where we no longer have a republic.

495
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.

496
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: I try to always remind people to keep that in mind.

497
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 1: You know, laws, whether you like them or not. When

498
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: I turned eighteen, my dad told me, remember, Mark, when

499
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 1: you go to vote, every law, whether you like it

500
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 1: or not, is less freedom.

501
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 2: That was the one thing he kind of instilled in me.

502
00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:58,960
Speaker 1: And I think I look at like Ron DeSantis, what

503
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: he's doing in Florida, and while I generally like what

504
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: he's doing, and I would almost want to move to Florida,

505
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 1: to go support him. A lot of times, I actually

506
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: look at it from both sides and I'm like, wait

507
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: a minute, though, that's an authoritarian move, and that could

508
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: easily be Just because I agree with it doesn't make

509
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 1: it right, because that could easily be used against me.

510
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: And so he's also doing very authoritarian moves. I just

511
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: happen to agree with him, so it doesn't offend me

512
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: as much, But you have to be able to look

513
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: at it from both sides. Now, the way this is going,

514
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 1: and to your point, it's an escalation, it just continues

515
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:31,960
Speaker 1: to build on top of its next although this I

516
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 1: call it the Obama Biden administration has taken things to a.

517
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 2: Whole other level. Now.

518
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 1: I saw John Kerrey's talking about how Biden's now going

519
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: to release a bunch of executive orders for climate change now,

520
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:46,600
Speaker 1: including regulating cars and trucks and all these things. Now

521
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: it looks sort of bleak. To your point, you've said,

522
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: you know, they've kind of co opted the democratic process.

523
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 2: Our vote doesn't matter so much anymore.

524
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: Now they're doing lots of things to try to restrict

525
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: our voice. That's pretty scary, you know. With I'm very

526
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 1: bullish on these decentralized tools, obviously Bitcoin, the decentralized monetary network,

527
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: and then like Noster, like a decentralized communication network super

528
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:14,880
Speaker 1: bolish on that. And so I know this state can't

529
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: shut those down, but they could threaten to kill you, right,

530
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: which is sort of almost what this is. This is

531
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: like almost death right. And so like they know they

532
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: can't shut the Joe Rogan's down or a million little means,

533
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: but if they could just say, hey, we'll put you

534
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 1: in prison forever, then they sort of do.

535
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 2: So you had said earlier.

536
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 1: You know, talking about kind of exiting system, and we

537
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: kind of started about I said, it's time to go

538
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 1: on the offensive. What do you think of, like, what's

539
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: our best course of action if we can't If we

540
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:47,040
Speaker 1: can't you know, we can't vote, Our vote doesn't count

541
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: as much, our voice can't really be heard. I mean,

542
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: do we try to change things to the economic means?

543
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, you know, bitcoin is a fantastic example of

544
00:31:57,040 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 3: not using the political process at all, a bottom up

545
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:07,280
Speaker 3: theory of change through user adoption of a superior money.

546
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 3: And so it's just you know, superior technology. Once it's

547
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 3: out of the bag, doesn't matter if you like it.

548
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 3: Or hate it, it's it's gonna win. And so I

549
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 3: actually am very optimistic and very bullish on the bitcoin front.

550
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 3: But a world in which bitcoin wins isn't necessarily a

551
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 3: good world, Like when we're when we're talking about the

552
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 3: demise of confidence in the American Empire, deed allarization. I mean,

553
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 3: that's a world in which billions of people suffer, like

554
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 3: really really suffer, and and a.

555
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: Lot of in the transitional periods.

556
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 3: And this is why, interestingly, a lot of people refuse

557
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 3: to entertain the bitcoin thesis and are just like viscerally

558
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 3: emotionally opposed to it because they're like, well, you know,

559
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 3: bitcoin only wins if everything falls apart, and you people

560
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 3: are psychopaths to want that. Well, it's not that we

561
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 3: want it. It's that you cannot trust structures of authority

562
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 3: over the long term, any authority, even the ones that

563
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:16,960
Speaker 3: start out nice and good and and that you like,

564
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 3: because power corrupts always no exception if it if it

565
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 3: can do something over a long enough period of time,

566
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 3: it will. That's the whole premise of the Enlightenment theory

567
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 3: of governance.

568
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 1: And I would I would I would want to just

569
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,959
Speaker 1: maybe see if I could push back on that for so, yeah, uh,

570
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: to your point, a transition is going to be very difficult,

571
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 1: And to the point, I would also agree, if the

572
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 1: dollar system comes crashing down anytime soon, it's going to be.

573
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 2: A world to hurt for a lot of people. Yeah.

574
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: However, you know, I saw Lynn Alden posted this earlier

575
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: today on Twitter and she said, I showed the charts below.

576
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: Dollar homogeny and its current form is synonymous with anti

577
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:02,720
Speaker 1: mercalist policy, meaning that it hollows out to must domestic

578
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: industrial capacity in exchange for widening the external reach of

579
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 1: political military influence of the country. So basically you've seen

580
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,319
Speaker 1: all the charts on like wtf happened nineteen seventy one.

581
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 1: Since we've gone into this system, this dollar homogeny, this

582
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 1: fiat money system, inflation has ravaged everybody in the US.

583
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:22,799
Speaker 1: It's hallowed out the middle class, It's driven all types

584
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 1: of societal conflicts. It's you know, as charts show on

585
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 1: the website, led to you know, incarceration rate going up,

586
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 1: divorce rates going up, health obesity rates going up, and

587
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 1: what we've done to the rest of the world. I mean,

588
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 1: we live with this inflation and some of us get

589
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: by okay, a lot of people are not doing okay,

590
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:42,880
Speaker 1: but the rest of the world has been completely ravaged,

591
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 1: and we're causing one revolution after another after another because

592
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: they can't afford to eat. What we've seen in Lebanon

593
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 1: and Turkey and Argentina and Venezuela, and a.

594
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 2: Lot of that's because of the dollars.

595
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like it's sort of like, you know,

596
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 1: these anti energy people saying, hey, this apocalyptic future, and

597
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 1: Alex Epstein's like, it's apocalyptic today for a lot of people.

598
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 1: And so when we think about this dollar demise, what

599
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 1: is it really doing. It allows us to sanction anyone,

600
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:10,760
Speaker 1: allows us to keep military bases all over the world,

601
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: But what is it doing to increase the quality of

602
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 1: life of anybody in the United States and even more

603
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: spifly the world.

604
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:20,359
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, absolutely, you know, it was very very much

605
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 3: like Lynn said earlier today. You know what's good for

606
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:28,720
Speaker 3: America the empire isn't necessary, isn't necessarily good for America

607
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 3: the country, But uh, exactly, yeah, And so I'm I'm

608
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 3: in full agreement. I mean, we need to reshore our

609
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:44,319
Speaker 3: manufacturing capabilities, we need to invest in domestic talent, in

610
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 3: you know, our education sector, Like, these are things that

611
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 3: we've we've we've just increasingly outsourced at all levels of

612
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 3: the socioeconomic ladder to foreign talent outside of the United States. Well,

613
00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 3: you know, we should be incentivizing people to come here

614
00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 3: and build in America literally, you know, making America great

615
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 3: again in the world's talent capital.

616
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,399
Speaker 2: We're very Are you one of those magas you want

617
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 2: to make a.

618
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:19,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but no, you're You're absolutely right. And this

619
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:23,879
Speaker 3: is the thing about structural transitions. They may be necessary,

620
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 3: they may absolutely be the healthier thing over the long run.

621
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 3: But the longer a problem has sort of festered, and

622
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 3: the more the more bags people are holding in the

623
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 3: old system, the more painful that transition is going to be.

624
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, good point.

625
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: Man, That's so much good information, so much food for thought.

626
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: If you're just tuning in, you listen to the Mark

627
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 1: Mas Show Sitting Down with Natalie Smolensky. You can find

628
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 1: her on Twitter at in Smolensky. We'll leave it in

629
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: the show notes down below. Man, we covered a lot

630
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 1: of ground, and Natalie, thanks so much for taking the time,

631
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:02,399
Speaker 1: and with that we got to go. Thanks so much

632
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:02,800
Speaker 1: for listening.

633
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 3: My pleasure,