In this episode, we dive deep into the world of Bitcoin and its potential to revolutionize our financial systems and conservation efforts. Our guest, Bryan Solstin, an author and aerospace engineer, shares his journey from working in aerospace to becoming a passionate advocate for Bitcoin. He discusses his books "Zenimal" and "Bitcoin and Nash Equilibrium" and how his interest in cryptography and minimalism led him to Bitcoin in 2017.
Bryan explains the challenges of conservation in a fiat system and why Bitcoin offers a more sustainable solution. He draws parallels between Bitcoin and Zen principles, emphasizing the importance of quality and efficiency over artificial growth. We explore the concept of the Nash equilibrium and its relevance to Bitcoin, highlighting how a stable measurement of value can lead to better economic outcomes.
The conversation also touches on the potential pitfalls of tokenizing nature and the importance of maintaining a decentralized system. Brian shares his concerns about the centralization of power and wealth in a fiat system and the role of Bitcoin in creating a more equitable financial landscape.
We discuss the implications of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and the importance of privacy in financial transactions. Bryan emphasizes the need for a return to a commodity-based monetary system to escape hyperconsumption and build generational wealth.
Throughout the episode, we explore the philosophical and practical aspects of Bitcoin as a tool for peace, conservation, and fairness. Bryan's insights provide a compelling case for why Bitcoin is the apex environmental solution and how it can lead to a more sustainable and equitable future.
https://x.com/BryanBSolstin
https://www.solstin.com/about
🔥 LISTEN TO EPISODE HERE
https://serve.podhome.fm/episodepage/djvalerieblove/from-aerospace-to-bitcoin-bryan-solstins-journey
(00:01:02) Introduction to Brian Solstin
(00:01:44) Brian's Journey to Bitcoin and Conservation
(00:03:09) Zen and Minimalism in Bitcoin
(00:05:13) Fiat System and Artificial Growth
(00:08:21) Tokenizing Nature: A Critical View
(00:12:40) Bitcoin as a Medium of Exchange
(00:16:52) Financialization and Centralization Concerns
(00:20:34) Political and Economic Systems: A Critique
(00:26:40) Privacy, Surveillance, and Monetary Control
(00:30:41) Educating on Monetary Policies
(00:39:02) Understanding Nash Equilibrium and Bitcoin
(00:52:19) Bitcoin's Role in Environmental Solutions
(00:56:30) Consumption Models and Conservation
(01:02:54) Exiting Hyperconsumption
(01:06:35) Strategic Reserves and Global Economics
(01:11:43) Bitcoin as Hope and Action
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[00:00:46]
Unknown:
Hey, aloha. Get ready for an epic episode. And if you love it, please share it. You know why? Because you got the love. Enjoy, my friends. Hey. Aloha, love tribe. Welcome to the podcast. I have somebody here with me who is an author and aerospace engineer. He was a former, running on a senate platform of 0 tax for Bitcoin. And I really am so excited to welcome Brian Solstin. Hi. Thanks for coming here on the show. Very pleased to be here, Valerie. Thank you. Yeah. Totally. Well, let's talk about, let's let the audience know who you are, and we're gonna talk about both of you know, all of your work and the books that you've got going on. And obviously, you know, my audience is very passionate about changing the world. They're activists, they're coaches, they're creators, they're changemakers, they're environmentalists, they're, investors, you know, and impact investors and impact entrepreneurs.
Let's talk about who you are and how the heck did you get here to Bitcoin, and why is conservation efforts hard to work in a fiat system? Yeah. What's my rabbit,
[00:01:54] Unknown:
rabbit hole, so to speak? Yeah. Yeah. I I I wrote Zenimal about that to try to capture, you know, my experience. And, and, really, I I was looking at it from a a minimalistic perspective. I mean, one of the hooks that really grabbed me was cryptography. I I was a long, you know, privacy advocate, long time interest in in that topic. Follower of Phil Zimmerman. You know, he hired Hal Finney. I mean, these guys were doing great cryptography work, building foundation, fundamental foundation for for Bitcoin. And, and so I didn't really discover Bitcoin until 2017. I mean, truth is I was just too busy. You know, when you're working in aerospace, you can get lost in your work. And so it was one of those times when I came up for air that I discovered Bitcoin in 2017, and it spoke to me. Spoke to me in terms of cryptography. It's like, wow. Privacy, proven on money, a network. You you know, there's no way there's gonna be a backdoor on this one if it's money. I mean, it it it's this one's this one's for real.
And so that that brought me into it. And then conservation and minimalism, you know, let's let's call it Zen. Bitcoin spoke to me on those levels.
[00:03:09] Unknown:
And so let's talk about that a little bit because I I was I told you before we hit hit play, I was listening to you talking about Zen and the art motorcycle maintenance and meditation. And you know, how does that fit into your worldview and your daily practice as a human and as an engineer, obviously, as a Bitcoiner and as a a writer?
[00:03:32] Unknown:
Well, I I'm a minimalist. And and what I mean by that is, you know, anything I don't use for 2 years, I get rid of it. You know? Yeah. Cool. I mean, people walk through my house. It's it's not cluttered. It's it's pretty open. I I I idealize the time of my life when I could put all of my possessions into my my Volkswagen Passat and drive anywhere. Those days are gone, but I still think about that. Life has gotten a little more complicated. But, yeah, as Zen, I I was influenced by Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance at a young age and and this concept of quality, which was a little bit, hard for me to grasp, but this this pursuit of quality.
Mhmm. And and how does that relate to Bitcoin early on? Well, Bitcoin if you if you compare fiat, which is the root of all evil, and Bitcoin, which is the root of all good because it creates efficiency as opposed to this, let's call it artificial, you know, growth. And and let's call it a miss misallocated growth. Or what did Hayek call it? His his great, phrase is, passing my passing my mind. It'll come come to me. But more or less is artificial growth is misallocated growth, is you cannot have conservation in in a fiat system because fiat is dependent on growth. And so whatever you do in terms of conservation, it's ultimately futile because this fiat artificial growth, this second rate everything is going to just overwhelm it in the long run.
So so, yeah, Zen and minimalism, conservation, they they have a lot of alignment.
[00:05:19] Unknown:
Can you unpack that a little bit more, like, when when you're saying artificial growth and, you know, how why conservation can't live at in at the same time, like, long term conservation, obviously, which is what we're seeking, you know, to to conserve all of our natural resources for, you know, hopefully, tens of 1000 of years to come. And so why is that futile or, you know, not really gonna be able to be accomplished in a fiat system? It just like, for for my little 4th grade brain.
[00:05:50] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, let's let's go back to 1971 when we when we got off a commodity based monetary system, gold. In 1971, we we went full on fiat Mhmm. And so did all the other currencies around the world at that time. And so, since then, every time we we juice the economy by by expanding the monetary system, you know, debasing it Mhmm. It's like taking a drug. It feels good. Mhmm. The problem is is that we have to keep on taking that drug. Every time we get into a recession, we have to take more. And, you compare, you know, the bailouts as over over each major recession, it's much bigger. Remember the tarp back in 2008, 2009?
700,000,000,000. You know this time when we go into a recession, it's gonna be in the trillions. And after that, what's gonna happen after that? Well, it it's going to be unimaginable how centralized the economy is going to become. And and, you know, they're gonna be desperate for any kind of growth. And these these central planners and who are said that they can stabilize everything and they are centralizing capital through the expansion of our monetary system. You know, they're what are they gonna do? They're going to print more, and that takes care of this. You know, central banks and their shareholders are going to be the beneficiaries of that. And, again, it's going to centralize, centralize capital.
[00:07:14] Unknown:
And and so what do you think about, I've there's gonna be 3 questions out of this this little nugget here. You know, I've been hearing different things in the environmental movement about, Oh, we're gonna, you know, tokenize nature and we're gonna turn nature into this, okay, we can all, you know, put nature on the blockchain. And so I hear a lot of this and it makes my skin crawl, you know, because I think people don't understand this this concept. And so can you help unpack a little bit why that is
[00:07:45] Unknown:
is not really the best idea in the world? Yeah. I'm gonna I'm actually gonna defer to John Nash on this one. Okay. John Nash, you know, he he was in that, biography documentary, the one best picture of beautiful mind. Mhmm. And, he won Nobel Prize in Economics. And, he was the discoverer and, you know, he he was of of the Nash equilibrium, which he wrote back in the 19 fifties. And, and so what was the question again? I'm sorry. I got
[00:08:20] Unknown:
Just about, tokenizing nature. You know? Because there's a lot of people that think, oh, we're gonna conserve nature if we tokenize it. And then to me, I just I see this turning into the biggest nightmare and, you know, putting it on the blockchain and all this stuff. Yeah. So his his equilibrium concept, it's an economic concept.
[00:08:36] Unknown:
It's very important. A relationship to that equilibrium is a standard measurement of value. The quality of money is will the will that standard measurement of of quality standard measurement of value, will it emerge? And when it does, it's a good thing. You you you have stability. And and that that really is the, you know, the narrative of what Bitcoin has the potential of becoming. It really becomes the potential of a Bitcoin equilibrium. It's that that ability to enable quality money to be able to enable a standard measurement of value is is the main narrative, and we're we're fast moving towards that. Now tokenizing things, you know, John Nash, if you look back in his history, you know, he would he would dismiss that as saying, well, you can write contracts verbally. That's what the judicial court system is for.
Really, that's a secondary issue. And so tokenizing is really a deviation from from the principal narrative of what the what Bitcoin brings to to humanity and this world. The idea we can go back to this 1971 where where we had a commodity based monetary system that allowed honest trade and stability. And you you see all the problems that come out of instability. You know, that is a much bigger issue than any of this tokenization. I mean, what what is the value out of it of a of a token? It's already being handled with titles. It's already being handled with contracts. What's the delta? What's the what's the advantage of putting it on a very expensive blockchain?
I'd I'd like to hear that from anybody.
[00:10:28] Unknown:
Yeah. Me too. Again, I think is it fancy marketing? Is it misguided regulators trying to pull this together? It seems like it could be kind of a combination of both of those things. I mean and I think about, you know, we think about fishing. Right? And it's like, okay. Cool. You can get your fishing license, and you can go fish anywhere, you know, in this region, you know, if you're a commercial fisherman. But, you know, is there benefit to saying, cool. You're stewarding this area. You're stewarding this area. You're stewarding this area, and then people are actually caring about those areas a little bit more? Is there something that can be beneficial from that lens, you know, for stewarding certain parts of the rainforest or stewarding, you know, versus just like, cool. We're gonna go in and rape and pillage and just extract, extract, extract value out of any of these natural resource areas.
[00:11:16] Unknown:
Well, the tokenization is marketing nonsense. Yeah. Blockchain was I I think blockchain is really, it was an immune response by the communist Chinese party saying, you know, okay. This this Bitcoin is decentralizing. That's a threat to us. We have to somehow get rid of it. And so they came up with this other narrative. It's blockchain, not Bitcoin. Well, no. It it's Bitcoin. Blockchain is not tokenization is not not not the the innovation here. If you look at the white paper, Satoshi very clearly identifies what what the innovation was there. It was a a digital transaction without a third party, which, oh, by the way, that's disintermediating. You know? That's decentralizing. That was the innovation. Oh, there's a second innovation in there that he's he's written about. That was the innovation. Oh, there's a second innovation in there that he's he's written about, and that was decentralizing governance.
Oh, that that hurts. You know? CCP, you know, communist party. They don't like that. So what do they have to do? Throw out this immune system and say, we we gotta bring up this other narrative, tokenization, blockchain, whatever. It's not decentralizing. Well, it is all about decentralizing. The transaction of value from one person to another, you don't need a third person. You know? Yeah. You need just 2. A third a third is a crowd. Right? 3 is a crowd. John Nash words, by the way.
[00:12:40] Unknown:
Okay. Cool. Let's let's I wanna dive into that a little bit more, but beef I I wanna come back to, obviously, John Nash in just a couple of minutes. But two things have recently happened. You know, Larry Fink from BlackRock, just went on and he's finally, you know, after 5 years of, you know, pooh poohing Bitcoin, he's like, oh, this is a great alternative asset. And so I'm concerned about people like him or Donald Trump, you know, which I'm grateful that he went and bought a hamburger yesterday up at Pubkey. Yay. It's super duper cool that they're showing how Bitcoin can be a medium of exchange.
But do you feel like now that these guys who are, you know and, obviously, who knows if Trump is just, you know, pandering so that he can get votes because I know he's doing some crypto bullshit too. So with Larry Fink, you know, obviously, he's managing, you know, a little bit of capital here. Right? And so when he starts, you know, giving his stamp of approval, is is this gonna turn more do you feel like more capital is just gonna turn into store of value Bitcoin, and then it's only gonna be for, you know, the really, really rich people. And then, eventually, we're not gonna be able to have this medium of exchange that we really need in certain countries and places where, you know, they are, you know, under horrible, oppressive regimes, and they're they're having hyperinflation go on. What do you think about what's going on with those two things with the Singapore the narrative before where Bitcoin is for rich people. And I remember I was I was actually at a RFK rally
[00:14:08] Unknown:
here in Seattle, and I was and to to my surprise, a lot of them weren't were not Bitcoiners. And I was talking to to Bitcoin, and one of the guys says, yeah. Bitcoin is for rich people. I'm like, wow. You know? And I I I didn't get into deep discussion on this, but, fundamentally, fiat is about extracting wealth from poor people. You know? Because you can Mhmm. Anytime you you're doing inflation, anybody who's holding that dollar, they're it's being debased. It's evaporating away. And who does that hurt the most? Well, the poor people. Wealthy people, they they use that to evaporate their debt on holding real capital. So it's to their advantage. So Bitcoin is really about, making it, let's say, a level playing field and not taking advantage of of these emerging economies.
[00:14:58] Unknown:
And but what do you think about okay. So a couple of things. So to me, my I have a you know, I'm always been trying to poke holes and make sure that I'm protecting myself and my children in the future and whatnot. And I think of, you know, if we start getting this, you know, big consolidation of capital from these big players and if they start influencing policy, you know, as far as, like, oh, you can't transact or you've you know, like, we're we're seeing what's going on with the samurai case right now with the the, all the KYC and AML stuff. And so I feel very, like, the more that these little guys who are developers and coders start getting pushed to the side and these big guys who've got all this influence and money and the ability to start saying, nope, You you can't have this on your phone. Obviously, X just got, banned in Brazil. And so all this kind of nonsense of our privacy and our, you know, our ability to transact freely with each other across borders using Bitcoin, I'm I have a really big concern for, you know, the future if, you know, we get rah rah rah that Larry Fink and Trump or whoever is excited about Bitcoin. But is that gonna lead to some other effects down the road that are detrimental to those of us who who, again, wanna have that private ability to transact?
[00:16:15] Unknown:
You know, I'm really not worried about Larry Fink and and these others that are cons consolidating Bitcoin. What I'm more concerned about is we're already financialized. I mean, the United States more or less is like the Soviet Union. I mean, we we we this is a centralized power now, thanks to financialization. All the too bigs to to fail, you know, now they call them significantly important banks. They changed the name. They keep on their wealth. The wealth gap is accelerating. That's the bigger problem. It's it's the fiat game that is accelerating the centralization of wealth power capital.
And and let let me just talk about personal experience. I mean, right now, I I I work at Boeing, and as you know, things are not good there right now. We're we're having the the machinists are are striking. Machinists are more or less the people that are working in the factory. I'm part of a different union. I'm an engine I'm an engineer, and so I'm part of the aerospace engineer, SPIA, whatever it stands for. I'm not I'm really not a big union guy. You know, I don't think it fixes problems. The bigger problem and and right now, the, you know, the the the negotiations are pretty tough right now because the the machinists want a 40% increase in their wages and some other things. Wow.
[00:17:37] Unknown:
And, yeah, most of us would go, what? 40% increase? I know. 40%. But that's actually a realistic number based on all the inflation that we've had with all this money printing, probably even more. But it's it's difficult to go up and ask for a 40% rate. So, yeah, keep going.
[00:17:51] Unknown:
So, you know, the the people are working in in you know, the machinists, they're they're they're pointing fingers at management, and management is pointing fingers at them. Mhmm. And we're not getting this resolved. And so, yeah, we aren't building planes. They shut down the Seattle, production of airplanes, and that's bad. So so the point is is that as a Bitcoiner, I look at this differently. And and also, by the way, John Nash would also look at this differently. He he looks at it from the quality of money to be able to make long term contracts. Well, when you have a debt based system, an inflationary system, and prices are going up for people because they're debasing the money, that's making life more expensive for all the machinists, and they're blaming Boeing. Well, it's not it's not Boeing that Yeah. Created this instability in the long term contract.
It's our debt based fiat system that's causing the problem. So this is John Nash would say, you know, you can measure the quality of money by looking at the ability to create long term contracts, and we can't do that anymore in this inflationary system. Oh, wow. Oh, let me give you some other examples. You know, like, what in 2 20 2023, Silvergate went down. That's because, you know, this is like a washing machine. The Fed raises rates. They they drop rates. You know? And this is good for, the wealthy that are it's like a washing machine.
But for, let's say, Silvergate, that wasn't a good thing. If you take a look at, like, this, what was it? This LNG, this liquid nitrate actually, liquid natural gas terminal, $10,000,000,000 that they were building went bankrupt because of inflation. So, you know, they get these long term contracts with these ultra artificially low interest rates, and then it gets unstable. And they do the only thing they can do, pull the debasement lever and start printing money effectively, and, it creates instability for these long term contracts. So the point is is that we've if we're looking at the Boeing situation, I I really don't like the idea of pointing fingers at management or pointing fingers at the machinist.
It's really the it's our fiat based system that has raised the the cost of living for all these machinists that has created this very bad situation for Boeing. And what does that mean, for the rest of us? Well, it's we're we're we're exporting US treasuries. We're not exporting airplanes. And who does that who's getting wealthy from that? Again, it's it's the SIBs, the sent the what what does SIB stand for? In
[00:20:30] Unknown:
in important banks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. And that's insane. I so yesterday, I was listening to I was so excited to see that, 2 of my favorite people were doing a podcast, Rick Rubin and Jack Mallers, and, which is great because, I mean Mhmm. Okay. Cool. You know, Rick's obviously getting an extra good schooling on Bitcoin. You can tell he's curious, and anybody who knows Rick is gonna listen to what Rick says. He's a guru. Right? And so that's a really cool I call it orange dominoes when these big guys who've got big followers and a lot of influence when they can start talking about, you know, why Bitcoin is a tool for peace, why Bitcoin is a tool for conservation, why Bitcoin is a tool for fairness and equality in in the world. And so, of course, we were talking about violence and how we can only keep the wars, these forever wars going. You know, Alex Gladstein talks about that a lot because of this money printer. You know? And, obviously, Boeing, I would imagine, has a government contract or 2.
So so it's just like this, oh my gosh. How do we how do we get out of the giant mess? You know? I know you quote Jeff Booth quite a bit, who I adore. You know, and we think of bucky Buckminster Fuller and, you know, building the alternative economy and the alternative system and letting the old one starve and die. How can we you know, let's talk about, you know, you and John Nash and this book, and how can we build this new system? Like, how can we really truly get ourselves out of it, and how long do you think it could take if we took action?
[00:22:03] Unknown:
Oh, how long is it gonna take? I I don't think I can answer that. I I know that we're ratcheting up every time they start printing money, so I have no doubt what direction and and what's gonna happen in the long run, how fast that's gonna happen. You know, I'm not really worried about that. I I'm pretty comfortable with how things are progressing. You look over the past 15 past 15 years, and the growth of Bitcoin has been spectacular. Mhmm. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm happy. What about all these control systems? They have to control things so that we they have they're, you know, they're they're dependent on expanding the monetary system to maintain stability. Right? They have to expand to maintain stability.
That's not stable, when you have to expand it. So so, you know, they need they need more and more control to make that. They need more, KYC, which is know your customer, customer, or AML, anti
[00:23:04] Unknown:
Money laundering.
[00:23:06] Unknown:
There you go. Thank you. Yeah. So they need more and more information. They need more and more surveillance. Well, I'm a privacy advocate. No. No. You don't. I don't I I don't need the 3rd party. Okay? I I don't need everyone to know about how I spend my money, but they wanna know, why. You know? Whatever whatever happened to these these constitutional rights that we have here in the United States about, you know, right to property and and, implied privacy in in the bill of rights and so on.
[00:23:38] Unknown:
Yeah. What let's talk about that a little bit because what we see going on right now, I think governor Newsom just is trying to pass something where memes are illegal, which is obviously free speech. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And but you can go shoplift for almost $1,000 and no penalties, but now we wanna make memes illegal. And to me, that is such a you know, I used to identify as a a a a Democrat for a long time, and I'm I goodbye. No. Thank you. Like, I'm completely abandoned it. I'm all independent now, and I've really reckon I mean, I've never I've never been like, oh, I'm a hardcore Democrat, but I've always been more like, I want freedom of choice. I want people to care about each other. I want everybody to have an equal opportunity. And then when I really started learning more about money and Bitcoin and policy, I was just like, okay.
Again, politics, you know, you obviously god bless you for running for senate and trying to get in there into the swamp and make some change, but it's about policy. And it's these people are all these egos and everything going on. I'm like, what happened to the people who had common sense policies that would keep our constitution in place? Like, why why are we seeing such a disintegration of of, you know, the civil liberties and whatnot in this this world, especially with I see the Democrats being ridiculous. I just I don't even understand what's going on.
[00:24:59] Unknown:
Yeah. I I used to be a dev democrat myself, but, recently, the way the DNC has treated RFK, it's like, okay. No more. Nope. You know, they they were even bringing lawsuits against him so that he wouldn't be on the ballot. Yep. I I thought, wow. Okay. This this is not this is you know, I I I'm a Democrat because or I used to be. I'm no long I'm an independent now. Yep. Me too. But I fundamentally, I'm I'm socially liberal, and I'm fiscally conservative.
[00:25:28] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:25:29] Unknown:
And and so, you you know, yeah, I I'm done done with that kind of, anti and what I mean by by, social liberal you know, or or classical liberalism, I'm really talking about separation of of money and state, separation of of media and state, media and state, separation of, the judiciary. I mean, these are these are our constitutional ideals. Yeah. And and this is this is classical liberalism. I mean, this is these are ideals that after World War 2, were spread around the world with the intent of we will never do that again. Well, we are going to do that again because we're giving up on these these fundamental rights.
And the democrats, the d n I shouldn't say democrats. I should say the DNC has given up on these values. Yeah. They want more and more control. They want more surveillance. And, you know, this is like any other, centralized organization or people that are focused on growing their hierarchy, to at at the loss of people's property rights.
[00:26:40] Unknown:
And and it's just because to me, it's insidious in all categories because we think about health care and bodily rights. Right? We wanna have sovereign minds. We wanna have sovereign our bodies, our choices, you know, don't make me get a shot or, you know, if if I need to, God forbid, terminate a pregnancy, hopefully early enough that it's, you know, you catch it, you should have that choice, in my opinion, you know? And so I I feel like it's hypocritical in some of these areas where it's like they want to have this, you know, freedom, but then they want to start smooshing it down in these other areas and pulling it back. And so I'm just I don't know what what is going on. And I've been since I became Bitcoiner, I've gotten a lot more I mean, I've always been very interested in, you know, alternative ways of thinking and alternative concepts and, you know, are there aliens? Did the CIA kill JFK? All that stuff. Like, I it all seems more logical to me now than anything, and it's just like do you know who Whitney Webb is?
No. Oh, dude. Oh my gosh. Unlimited hangout. Whitney Whitney Webb wrote, 1 Nation Under Blackmail. I mean, she wrote 2 books. They're literally, like, they're this this thick. They're insane. But her her investigative journalism is so powerful in how she's uncovering, you know, historically all of these blackmail ties from, you know, from the CIA, from the Mossad, from Epstein's Island and everything. And I'm just after reading some of it, I mean, she's just an encyclopedic, journalist and writer. And, you know, my little brain, I'm like, shit. I can only listen to this for a little bit because I gotta assemble the dots. Right? But Mhmm. It makes me question just the system at large.
Like, how does every single player in the system have some type of a blackmail link that whoever these powers that be are able to push a button at any time and go, yeah. Your your your wife is deleted now or, you know, anything that they can control you if you're in these positions of political power. And so that's a big, big concern for me,
[00:28:48] Unknown:
and and I would just be curious what your thoughts are the on that. Well, I I don't know about that topic. I I'm not read on on that, but I I do know that the ultimate control is is debasing money. You know, when you when you are the beneficiary Mhmm. When you can print money, there's that that is the superordinate power. Yeah. And, everything else is secondary at that point.
[00:29:11] Unknown:
But but control of information, though. You know? We think about what's going on with Noster. We think about what's going on with censorship of, you know, x down in in, Brazil right now. And so, you know, the first thing I think people you know, we understand, take away people's ability to communicate. You know, obviously, money is a form of communication. Right? I'm gonna give this value to you, and we're communicating, and we should be able to do so without, you know, prying eyes all the time. It just feels like there's there's little prongs of these these, I don't know, the governments, institutions, these powers that be that are just slowly, you know, pulling these things away. And we're like, oh, well, I guess it doesn't really affect me that much. It's over there.
It's over there in that country. It's down here. And it's just like we're accept we're getting normalized, and this is getting accustomed into our brain that, well, it's for our own good. Right? That is that's the common line that they they like to spew to us. And so how do you know, without being crazy sounding like, my family thinks I'm insane with all the stuff that I research and talk about, and and, you know, like I said, I'm I'm, you know, I'm I'm not an aerospace engineer or a hedge fund manager, but it's like, I feel like, how do we help the the the folks who are listening and the the the normal people who aren't in the Bitcoin world start to understand these things from a lens of of love and compassion and freedom?
[00:30:42] Unknown:
Yeah. I, you know, I used to try to orange peel people and, and I, you know, with close friends, close family, and, you know, I'm I was really excited about it because I I studied it a lot, like, 2 hours a day for years. Yeah. And then I share it with other people, and and they just you know, I could see their eyes were kinda glazing over. You you know? And, like, even my most recent book, when I was doing a second draft, I was reading it to my mother. Right? And and she was falling asleep at times. But when I talked about, you know, John Nash and, you know, this when he was arrested for this bisexual experience down in Santa Monica, you know, oh, bisexual? You know, she was, like, all over that. And so I I I realized people are into different things Yeah. But they really aren't into monetary policies. No. And I remember when I was young, and I'd hang out with these gold bugs, you know, when I was 16.
And and I just thought, you know, gosh, they're kinda different or, you know, that's not my thing. I, you know, I was into at 16 years old, I just wasn't into the gold bug narrative that that wasn't I was into cryptography and narrative and and privacy. That was interesting to me. But but really understanding the the monetary system, how how so your question was, how do I help other people really understand that? Mhmm. I I've had a hard time. So I write I've written 3 books now, and I think the fact that I'm writing a biography and talking about these concepts, I think that's far more approachable than what I've done in the past, which kinda tends to be a little bit more encyclopedic.
[00:32:24] Unknown:
Let's talk about so let's talk about Bitcoin and the Nash equilibrium and, like, you know, let's kinda dissect this so that people can understand. Because to me, the the minute it says Nash equilibrium, my mind is like, uh-oh. That's gonna be too smart for me. I'm that I'm gonna not that scares me. So let's talk about why that's not a scary thing to look at appropriately.
[00:32:44] Unknown:
Because because, really, he had an amazing life of genius when he was 21 years old. And then 25 years I think it was 29 he was 29 when he got schizophrenia, paranoia Mhmm. Mentally I mean, illness that was debilitating for about 25 years of his life. Wow. And then he recovered and continued his work. And it was really about trying to make the Nash equilibrium immortal, and he started programming. And so these these things align with the creation of Bitcoin.
[00:33:22] Unknown:
And Okay. So, yeah, let's talk about this. So I'm I'm just showing folks a table of content. So do you wanna go into any of this, like, a little bit for people so that you can dive in a little and and just understand his world and and whatnot?
[00:33:35] Unknown:
Yeah. The first part is really a a a chronological, history of of John Nash. And I know a lot of people know about John Nash through the movie A Beautiful Mind, which won best picture. But that was more that was looking at John's, let's say, his his genius and and his illness and his recovery from a that's more or less from a medical perspective, whereas I'm more interested in his accomplishments. And so I went through his chronology that you can see at the beginning there Mhmm. That really talk about his accomplishments and in mathematics, in in cryptography, in parallel computing, which, by the way, is a distributed network, which is, you know, decentralized computing.
He was doing that back in 1955. You You know, 1954 for the parallel computing, 1955 for cryptography. He was hanging out with some of the best cryptographer cryptographers in the world there at Prince University. That was a hotbed for World War 2 development, and and he showed up after that scene and was rubbing shoulders with with the best. And, he was very much into factoring prime numbers, which are actually parameterized within the elliptical method for Bitcoin. So there's just a lot of history that a history his history that crept into Bitcoin. So I cover that history, but then after I go through oh, a a big milestone for him was was, his 2002 publication, Ideal Money, but he immediately started, lecturing all over the world on something called asymptotically ideal money.
So ideal money was kind of a revolutionary way of doing things. You know, you have a a centralized way of managing some index. And then asymptotically ideal money is more of a evolutionary or emergent or that sly roundabout way of doing things. Right? What does a what does asymptotically mean? Well, asymptotically is a mathematical term, and it's it's like you have a pile of sand. Let's say you have 21,000,000 grains. Right? And every 4 years, you you you take half of that sand away. And then 4 years later, you come and take another half away. That's asymptotic. And so you you were so that number is approaching 0, but it never gets there. And what's really interesting is in the white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto snips that asymptotic tail off, cuts it off, and, that will happen about a 140 years from now.
[00:36:21] Unknown:
So is this the having? Is this what the having is every year with with the BOC rewards?
[00:36:27] Unknown:
Every every 4 years, we we we we do a having, and that asymptotically
[00:36:32] Unknown:
moves us closer to 0. Got it. Okay. So that's what that mean. Okay.
[00:36:36] Unknown:
Cool. Cool. Cool. And so we're approaching 0, which means we're gonna approach 0 inflation, and it becomes increasingly better quality money than our fiat system. So that that's what asymptotically or asymptotic means. And and that's something he talked about, but his his publication in 2002 was about ideal money, more of a central planning, you know, maintain the index. But in his personal writings, he he found politics and and even religion as being ineffectual, and so he really, turned to technology, to programming. This was his secret world.
[00:37:18] Unknown:
That sounds it's beautiful. Let's talk about the the the Nash Nakamoto signature attributes. You're talking about 18 of these. So, you know, we don't have to go through each one of them, but what does what does this mean exactly for people listening?
[00:37:30] Unknown:
Well, the you know, John Nash was was the the lone genius, beautiful mind, and then, Satoshi Nakamoto was the programmer, the creator, the principal, inventor of Bitcoin. And, the the hypothesis of this book is, you know, is John Nash, was he did he have influence for trading Bitcoin? And then the second, thesis or sub thesis is, are these are they the same person? And it doesn't really matter if they're the same or not. That's that's not really the value add of this book. What's what's what's the true value of this book is when you read through that and you see the connections, you get an easy narrative of what Bitcoin is, why Bitcoin.
And, normally, you'd have to study, say, a 100 hours to get there. You know, it took me a lot longer than that to really understand it. Mhmm. But in this book, if you study Nash and Nakamoto, I think within 2 hours, anybody will be able to really talk about the the the value statements for Bitcoin and clearly identify when you're deviating from those, you know, from the the standard measurement of value, for example. Okay. Let's talk about that down here. I wanted
[00:38:48] Unknown:
to go into what that is.
[00:38:50] Unknown:
Oh, the the well, if we go into
[00:38:55] Unknown:
I gotta find it. Like, the Bitcoin equilibrium is a standard measurement of value. What I I'm how what does that mean exactly?
[00:39:02] Unknown:
Let's go back to the Nash equilibrium. Let's go back to the first
[00:39:06] Unknown:
Let's do it.
[00:39:08] Unknown:
You know, Adam Adam Back. Wrote no. Adam Smith. He wrote he he was a one of the the first recognized economists, published a book in 17/76. He was Scottish, not American, And, it was called The Wealth of Nations. It's longer than that, but I can't remember the entire title. The Wealth of Nations, and he talked about the law of supply and demand. And what the relationship between those 2 is something he called the invisible hand. Now John Nash came along and built a theory that more or less mathematically defined that invisible hand, the Nash equilibrium.
And he define he wrote that during, when he's 21 years old at Princeton, and he got his PhD when he was 21 years old. This guy was a genius. And that Nash equilibrium is really about, doing trade with another person. You know, you you you take numbers and you and you attribute value and you make an exchange. And doing that mathematically, it became very valuable for doing auctions and being able to predict prices. And in war games, you know, Rand used it for, you know, fighter jets coming at each other and knowing when you needed a fire missile before turning away. And so game theory was something that John Nash won a no Nobel Prize in, and mathematically, he replaced what Adam Smith defined as the invisible hand in the law of supply and demand. And this is the reason why he won a Nobel Prize in economics. But the Nash equilibrium, it wasn't until his recovery that he started talking about and only with friends, by the way.
He wanted to make the Nash equilibrium immortal. And so I I Wow. I add the language of calling it the Bitcoin equilibrium because it's emergent. We're going to return to a commodity based monetary system eventually. And, and so that's that's the phrase that I came up with that, parallels the Nash equilibrium.
[00:41:13] Unknown:
Wow. This is so fascinating. I it's it's like a puzzle. Right? All of this is just this really interesting puzzle of of of life and how things fit together. And, again, I don't feel like a lot of us know, and I may have said this before we hit record, but just about why this money system that we currently have is so toxic and we you know, this fiat system, I call it, like, poisonous soil. And we all have to eat. We all have to have some food that's grown from the soil and having water and nature, and it's like we all have to have some form of money to exchange because we don't live in villages with 10 people where I can give you the chickens and you give me the apples and then I give this guy the, you know, the corn and all.
And so in order for us to flourish as humans, you know, we need to understand that, like, a sound, hard many is is so important, you know. And and I wonder, you know, how do we continue to to move in this direction? Is it is it something do you like, I wanna talk about CBDCs and surveillance, and, obviously, we talk about privacy. Then I feel like, you know, there's a lot of attitudes out there for folks who are like, oh, Bitcoin's gonna win no matter what. We're gonna be fine, la la la. And I'm like, you know, I'm not confident of anything just because of the way life can throw all these surprises at us. Like, none of us expected this ridiculous pandemic that happened a few years back, you know? And so, you know, for those of you listening, CBDC is a central bank digital currency, and it's basically surveillance money and it's behavior control money. And it it's something that I think they're gonna have another pandemic, and I think they're gonna issue these. And I think it's gonna be the excuse to get off the dollar in its current form and get into a cashless society, which would be the worst thing ever.
And, you know, people don't understand, like, we we we are I think we're in a race. I mean, do you feel energetically like we need to hustle and get this the sky is falling. Like, we need Bitcoin.
[00:43:18] Unknown:
Yeah. And and, also, to answer your previous question about, you know, I finally found that departures from standard measurement of value. What I covered there, it it answers both questions. First of all, I I I addressed fake katoshi. You know? No. Correct. Yeah. You know, I put in I put in the legal thing that he had to post on his I mean, the guy lied. Oh my god. Yeah. He was convicted, and and so yeah. Why why would somebody lie about me, Satoshi Nakamoto? But but there's also other debunkers from the standard measurement of value because he didn't understand what Bitcoin was. Clearly, his narrative is like, what are you talking if you compare Craig Wright to John Nash, I mean, it's 2 different things. Yeah. And, likewise, if you look at Vitalik's work, it's the same what what did I write? Departure from a standard measurement of value. So, I mean, again, you could equate Ethereum to a CBDC because it is a departure from a standard measurement of value. It's not Bitcoin's narrative.
So I think I clearly understand clearly defines it, as, you know, the and and let me let me just add one more concept here. It it's not just a standard measurement of value that that's really the key narrative here. It's the equilibrium. You know? That equilibrium where you have a relationship between the buyer and the seller, it's mathematical. It's just money. It's just a transaction.
[00:44:44] Unknown:
It's just a transaction. Yeah. And and oh, sorry. Keep going. But that standard measurement of value
[00:44:51] Unknown:
is related to that equilibrium. So it's the same narrative.
[00:44:55] Unknown:
And and let's talk about the I wanna come back to privacy in in the CBDCs and and, you know, obviously starting to think about the KYC and AML stuff with, you know, what they're trying to implement for Bitcoin users around the world. Like, you know, CBDCs for folks who, you know, again, who are listening who don't know what they are, you know, imagine, you know, you have whatever x units of your CBDCs in your account and, you know, somebody wants to decide that, oh, climate change is a thing and you can only have, you know, one hamburger a week. You know? Or maybe you made the meme post from governor Newsom, you know, or any of these things that if these powers that be don't like the way that you're behaving or if you're associating with Craig Wright or whoever, you know, in Yeah. Social circles. You know, what they do over in in China, it's like, oh, you can't ride the bus today, or you can't go buy milk, or you can't, you know, do different things. Like, they can start limiting your ability to go be out there in the world unless you change your behavior according to their whims.
And so I feel like that's gonna start getting people will they'll they'll market it as this really great thing, you know, like, not our skinny techs. Yeah. And so privacy. I want a transaction
[00:46:13] Unknown:
of my value between 2 people. I I don't want a threesome. I I don't wanna do a threesome with Jerome Powell. No. That's a CBDC.
[00:46:22] Unknown:
I don't want that. But some would argue, you know, right now, we're already in that realm if we're using Fiat. Right? Because everybody you know, if I use a credit card, everybody knows what I've purchased and my my you know, I they can go get access to all of that information. They can't necessarily go control it and say you can only use your credit card today here, and so this is more from a current you know, a a currency unit account accounting, perspective. But I feel like, you know, people need to start being proactive and understanding, like, if you value your freedom, if you value your your ability to speak freely, and if you value your ability to make your own choice of what type of, medicine you would like to have or food you would like to have or where you would like to go and not be stuck in a 15 minute city, Having currency that you can use, having Bitcoin that they can't censor and say, nope. You can't go spend it here is extremely, extremely important.
I I just feel like
[00:47:22] Unknown:
we're on a race, Brian. Like We are. And it's it's all about a CBDC's fiat, it's about it's a system of control that didn't start that out that way in 9 1971. It says, oh, we just need to expand the monetary system a little bit. But now it is expanded really big now, and they want to expand it a lot bigger in the future because they know another crisis is going to happen. Yeah. So it's turned into a system of control, and it's the ultimate system of control, especially the CBDC. Nothing can compete with that. Nothing. So it's it's the biggest, you know, gangster on the block.
We we do not wanna go down that path even though we already have gone down that path with fiat.
[00:48:10] Unknown:
Yeah. And I and you think about, you know, programmable money and, oh, it's it's gonna expire. Like, you have to go spend it at a certain period, you know, by Friday or you don't have your money anymore. You know? And that's something that is again, it's like, how can you save for your future if you're being forced to save in this currency that now you have to go spend and you don't actually get to save and accumulate, you know, wealth for your you know, like a squirrel. Cool. I wanna get my little nuts for the winter. If those nuts expire and they're more like a piece of white bread, you're not gonna get through the winter.
You know? And I it so I I feel like people need to understand why it's important to have a money that will hold its value over time. And CBDCs, you know, will get manipulated depending on how, you know, the the button pushers wanna manipulate us.
[00:49:00] Unknown:
Yeah. Again, we gotta get back to a standard measurement of value. That's the fundamental thing going on. And this this goes back all the way to 1950. This is John John Nash observed this. He he rolled in there with Von Neumann. This Von Neumann guy was a, you know, big time game game theory guy. He he he he built the lens for for or designed the lens for atomic weapons. Von Neumann was well known. Okay? And here comes young John Nash, rolls in there, and he says, nope. We don't need all these complicated contracts. We just need an equilibrium. And, and Neumann says, what? That's too simple.
And, and he says, I disagree with you. Wrote his papers and won a Nobel Prize for it. So, again, we're having the same conversation that goes all the way back to 1950 right now, and it's just over and over again. Oh, we gotta make it more complicate complicated. No. We don't. Keep it simple.
[00:49:59] Unknown:
Keep it simple. KISS the KISS principle. Right? Absolutely.
[00:50:04] Unknown:
Oh my god. And that brings up a cool concept. I Occam's razor. Have you ever heard of Occam's razor? I have. Why don't you repeat it? Because it's it's I always butcher it, but I love it so much. Okay. Cool. Occam's razor is here's the butchery. It's just basically the simplest idea wins. Yeah. If it And so when you're writing your narratives for whatever business reason you're doing or for engineering, try to make it as simple as possible. And I think that's something that John Nash was really any good scientist is pursuing. You know? How do you make this theory as simple as possible without losing, you know, its functionality.
And there's some people out out there that we all know, we all have friends that just make everything complicated, and they think they're so smart because they make things complicated. And you're listening to them, and they're going any topic, they just go off for, like, 5 minutes. And it's like, okay. Come back come back in, you know, to the conversation. Keeping things simple, Occam's razor is really about the simplest idea wins. I don't I know that's not always the case, but I think it's often the case. And Bitcoin is Occam's razor.
[00:51:10] Unknown:
It is. It's the simplest solution. And I and I think it's you know, it does speak to the human spirit sometimes and certainly to the human ego. So there's, you know, a double edged, you know, conversation there when people get excited and they get complex, and I know my brain likes to go do that again. And I'm I'm, you know, I'm not an aerospace engineer, but I do think in terms of, like, big long term visions and how does this go here and how's the holistic thing and how does this connect here and how does this go here if you push the button. It's it's, the Rube Goldberg machine kind of thing. And, so to me, it's fun and creative to think that way. So I'm not doing it from a a from an ego standpoint, but then there's obviously some folks like you, you know, who do that from the, like, look at me. I can go spout off all this stuff, and you don't know what I'm talking about. And so so I think there's a a fine dance between that, you know, to allow for that creative play and then also to understand, like, okay. Bring it back. Give me the nugget of how this is going to be an actionable thing that's going to make a difference for the world. And, you know, and so that that's kind of the fun, synthesis synthesizing something complex into something simple and actionable,
[00:52:20] Unknown:
not just a concept. Right? Yeah. Make making it simple is the hard part. Once you're Yeah. Make making it simple is the hard part. Once it's simple, then we can have fun now.
[00:52:28] Unknown:
Oh my gosh. And so alright. So let's do you have any, any final things? Do you wanna talk about Apex Environmental Solution, just your other book really quick? Because, obviously, we were talking originally about conservation efforts, and I think this is you know, I told you I was listening to this book, as I was shoveling snow several months back, and, you know, I noticed you were you know, obviously, you're quoting Jeff Booth a lot, who's one of my heroes, of course. And, Yeah. Jeff, I got where is Jeff? Yeah. I call him Oh, he's right above my head. There he is. Right next to Prince in my my belly cast with my baby.
[00:53:00] Unknown:
Yeah. Jeff Booth and and Greg Foss, they're my 2 favorite Bitcoiners by far. I love these guys. Love. But, yeah, I think Apex Environmental Solution, it's it's, you know, like, 400 page book. I why don't we do this? Why why don't we go to the the prize in Nash in in Nash equilibrium or Bitcoin in Nash equilibrium? Okay. The prize is at the very end, and I I just wrote 6 of them in in the table of contents. Yep. I hear you. You know, Bitcoin eliminates insidious inflation, velocity of value accelerates, international peace dividend, cost of living cost of living decreases, obviously.
Debt jubilee, that's a little more difficult concept, but it's very valid. Now this is something that John Nash wrote, political corruption diminishes. I I love that. And, so those those six benefits that will come out of the emerging Bitcoin e equilibrium. You know, this is gonna take time Mhmm. Asymptotically. Right? It's it's asymptotic. We're we're only taking away half of the sandpile at at a time, and it and we're only doing that every 4 years. So we're gonna get there. So, you know, if we're if you're if you know where we're gonna end up in the long run, where are you going to store your wealth? I mean, clearly, don't trust fiat. You know, that's the main thing.
[00:54:24] Unknown:
Definitely don't trust fiat. And and so for all the environmentalists out there, you know, who who may be listening to us, what would you say to them other than go get some Bitcoin? Like, should they start thinking in terms of putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet, starting to fund their projects overseas in different areas with Bitcoin, you know, so that maybe they can pay some indigenous folks, as long as there's a circular economy to some level where they can transact in Bitcoin and not just be stuck with, you know, quote, unquote airline points, that aren't transactable for them? How can how can folks in the environmental movement start to take action today?
[00:55:04] Unknown:
Well, I I think I think to understand why Bitcoin is the Apex environmental solution, there's lots of ways to look at that. We've already discussed how any conservation effort in the fiat system is futile. Another way to look at it is from a Hayek perspective, who is an economist. By the way, John Nash said that his views were similar to Hayek. Right? This is from the connect and, clearly, Bitcoin is that slight roundabout way. Mhmm. Bitcoin is something that Hayek prophesied about. And and so the point is if if we can have efficient growth instead of sec everything second rate growth, that is conservation.
And so the point is is if we take that that Frederick Hayek approach where we are not relying on expanding the monetary system and and having forcing artificial growth, then then we can have conservation efforts that are no longer futile, that are that we can build truly generational wealth at that point instead of it just being wiped out by this artificially low interest rates, artificial growth, and second rate, everything.
[00:56:24] Unknown:
So do you have a couple more minutes? Because I that just brought up a couple questions for me. Is this okay? Great. Thank you so much. So okay. Let's think about our consumption models. Right? And we think about our consumption consciousness. And I think about right now, you know, and I've talked about this a lot, you know, obviously, as Bitcoiners, we have low time preference. We think in terms of, okay, the more that we understand now, wow, okay, do I need to go buy that chocolate bar, or do I need this extra plastic widget or whatever? So I think for a lot of us Bitcoiners, our consumption models and our consumption mindset and consciousness has shifted greatly. I know it has for me for sure because I'm like, Okay, I can go get, you know, a manicure and that's gonna cost me $60 or I cannot do that and I can paint my nails for free, you know, or for $4 for my nail polish, and then I can put $56 into Bitcoin. And so my mind is constantly thinking in terms of that way now because I'm like, you know, that $56 manicure in 5 years is gonna be worth $1,000.
And, you know, so that's kind of that's how I'm thinking, you know, with with consumption. And so I think about, you know, with conservation, you know, and savings savings of money and, obviously, conservation of the Earth. I wonder, you know, again, like, you know, we've obviously got our 1st world nations and countries that we've got electricity. We're good to go. We're we're we're fine for the most part. We can have medicine. We can have transportation. We've got all these developing places who don't have access to that. Right? And so it's not about, oh, let's just go make a bunch of throwaway stuff for them, but we need to get them at least up to here's your you have electricity, you know, and you have running water, and you can refrigerate your medicine.
How do you think is there is there an opportunity for us to continue, like, getting out of the overconsumption throwaway mindset that we have as first world, citizens? Because everything's like, oh, don't worry. Just I'll get a new one. Throw it away. It's fine. It's only 3 doll you know? And, like, our younger generation has that mindset. You know? They don't they don't value, you know, like, the quality of the products and goods and services. They're they're just more into, like, cool. It's cheap. I can go to the dollar store, or I can get this cheap thing. And so how can we address, our consumption mindset and consciousness so that we can support, you know, other people getting at least up to some level of of, you know, health and and prosperity in these developing countries?
[00:58:50] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I think, fundamentally, what we're asking is is how do we exit hyperconsumption? Mhmm. And and, the the fiat world, you know, debt, debt based assets increase GDP and increases consumption, and we're becoming financialized. Everything's too big to fail now. It's being centralized. It's that kind of dependency to pay off that debt that that requires more consumption. So that's why we're we're trapped in this hyperconsumption world. And, really, the the only exit is is really, is a monetary system that is not debt based and returning back to a commodity based monetary system.
So how do we exit? You know? That's that's why that's why Bitcoin is the Apex environmental solution is we can exit hyperconsumption. We we we don't have to borrow a lot of money and go into debt so that we can take advantage of this artificially low interest rate. We can things will be at their utility price, and they they won't be distorted. And like, you know, Hayek, said, we won't be doing this malinvestment, this artificial growth. So, yeah, it's it's all interrelated for escaping hyper consumption and and really returning to the simple life rather than being dependent on a third party to tell us how to live our lives and and giving us, you know, free whatever to incentivize us to spend our time, our value.
[01:00:30] Unknown:
Yeah. I and I agree. I I feel like it's gonna take some time to get out of that because, you know, when when you see things in your mind, you know, as a human being and it's like, Wow, I can have this. It's easy. It's free money or it's cheap money, you know, buy now, pay later kind of thing. You know, my family grew up, you know, not with a lot of money with but 2 people in my family had to file bankruptcy and, of course, just destroyed their lives, but they had the mindset of, like, credit card, credit card, credit card, credit card, credit card later, later, later. And so they didn't have the consciousness around, you know, live within your means, you know, and and and whatnot. And so I do think that there's something to be said about, you know, financial literacy and education for our young people, and I know you're a big STEM advocate.
You know, the thing with STEM and STEAM is there's no financial literacy in those programs, you know, and like we're not talking about how are we I mean, that's fundamental inside of any educational, you know, world. And so I I feel like how can we make sure that we're educating the young folks, you know,
[01:01:42] Unknown:
as much as possible on on these things. And so what are you what are you seeing out there with that for young people? Well, I I I And then I'll and then we'll wrap up. I don't wanna take up too much time. Listening to you, I'm thinking, okay. We're we're only showing one side of the coin. Mhmm. If you look on the other side of the coin, you know, they're the creditors. They're the sieves. They're the banks. They they're they're all this debt that's growing, it's their asset. It's it's good for I mean, you I was just listening to an economist talking about how, you know, they're they're growing their balance sheet. They're you know? But that's our debt. And so when we say, hey. We're $35,000,000,000,000 in debt. That's a bad thing. That's one side of the coin. On the other side of the coin, the grifters are making 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars off of this, you know, to the tune of $1,000,000,000,000 per year, for our debt. And if you look at the world debt, you know, perhaps that's 300,000,000,000,000, 900,000,000,000,000,000,000, 900,000,000,000,000, depending on how you look at it. Mhmm. And it's accelerating.
So so our what we're trying to do is reduce that. And the significantly important banks, they have an immune system, and they're gonna do everything they can to stop us from getting out of debt. That's the big picture. So what can we do? Well, one thing is we can exit, but at the same time, we need to somehow stop these these powers from expanding that debt. You know, let me that brings up another topic. You know, when I was running for US senate, I I had a big winner ask a question, and this is a a question that kinda I didn't know how to answer.
He said, well, knowing what Bitcoin is and knowing what the fees fiat system, would you be a fiscal conservative, or or or would you just go out there and spend it and use the fiat for what it is and, play the fiat game? Because we live in a fiat world. Right? And I'm thinking, as a fiscal conservative, well, I I I would be a kind of a one you know, I'd I'd I'd I'd stay hyper focused on Bitcoin as as a senator. That'd be there's nothing more important than fixing our monetary system. But I think, now that I've been away from that, I think as if I was a US senator, I think you have to play the fiat game. You you have to spend. It's it's in our interest.
And so into yeah. Just go ahead and spend fiat like crazy and and try to not do malinvestment, but do good investment instead of the the crazy stuff that a lot of politicians do. But at the same time, both of these monetary systems are gonna coexist, and the one will continue to grow asymptotically or it will be emergent. And so I I think we just need to be a little bit patient with all the crazy fiat and and know that the deficit spending is gonna continue. That's just the that's our fiat reality.
[01:04:37] Unknown:
Do you ever think that, like, they're gonna get Bitcoin as a, as a reserve like they had gold and then all of a sudden we have a 6102 thing that happens?
[01:04:46] Unknown:
Yeah. I think as as it becomes a a com common understanding of what Bitcoin is, what is the the narrative of Bitcoin, the true narrative, not not, you know, people that are really talking about tokens or blockchain, but actually talking about, standard measurements of value and long term contracts that are stable. And, and, you know, these these are the the main value. Yeah. They're gonna clearly go, okay. We need that. We need that kind of investment instead of malinvestment. We we need real market rates, not, you know, artificial everything. So we're I think as as people come to understand that, yeah, I think we're gonna go to a strategic reserve for the United States.
Other countries will do it first, of course, but but the United States will will catch on as it becomes common sense.
[01:05:44] Unknown:
Do you think, like again, and I'm not an economist, and I'm still obviously, I do this podcast so I can learn and obviously share people's stories and wisdom like yourself. So So if we have a strategic reserve or if we have now if we start issuing, let's say, any type of currency on top of Bitcoin from governments, if governments start doing the same game that they did with, you know, issuing gold and so each government, let's say, has their own reserve, and they're like, cool. This is the the Russia Bitcoin token. This is the US Bitcoin token, blah, blah, blah. Do you think that, you know, circling back to Larry Fink and Trump earlier, like, do you I'm concerned about the governments all of a sudden being like, it's in our, you know, military interests that we have all of this, you know, Bitcoin, and so we're we're gonna come find you if you have Bitcoin, like, with like, again, that 6102. Do you are you worried that that it's all of a sudden just gonna turn into this thing where all the governments just gobble it up, and then they utilize it to to, you know, be stronger than each other? And, obviously, you can verify who's got what.
I'm not worried about that. Is that is that a silly idea, or am I am I paranoid?
[01:06:54] Unknown:
No. It's it's good to think that way. It it is only the paranoid survive. Right? But, it's true. The censorship, resistance is gonna protect us. So I I think that, that because of the technology, I'm not worried. It's it's safer than than gold. But it is I wanna get back to this idea of a strategic reserve. It's so easy and common sense. I know people go, oh, we're not gonna do that. Yeah. We will because it's so easy to print money and just buy it. And and if you wanna compare if you wanna take compare m compare m MMT to, you know, modern monetary theory, which is you you you you should print money to do these government things.
I I want to make the statement that there's no difference between and MMT. No difference at all because both of them are expanding the monetary system. One is just doing a little bit, and the other one is doing it a lot. It's the same thing. Bitcoin fixes that. You know, debasement, expanding the monetary system causes inflation. That's that's where inflation comes from. That's the principal cause of inflation. There are other causes, but nothing is more principal than expanding the monetary sit system, the debasement of the currency. And so if MMT and Keynesianism are the same, if it's easy to just print, why wouldn't we when we realize that all of a sudden, 21,000,000 is a scarce asset? Why wouldn't we just start printing and buying it? It's in our interest, and it's common sense. So, yeah, United States, eventually other countries will do it, but, eventually, the the United States will do it too.
[01:08:35] Unknown:
And and but do you worry about any, you know let's talk about bricks really quick. I mean, I know I keep asking all these questions, but, like, with what's going on with the, with BRICS? Do you feel like that's gonna be any kind of an issue that we're gonna be competing with these other, you know, these groups of of countries that are trying to issue currencies?
[01:08:54] Unknown:
Well, I you know, I'm not an expert in that area, but this is just my opinion. You know, the the Saudis, I think back in July, they they said that they're you know, they they were let's say, they would consider a a Petro yuan. So, you you know, do I believe that? I don't. Not at this moment. No. No. No. They have too many capital controls in China for the yuan to for the yuan to become a a global reserve, currency. I I just don't I I don't believe it, but I'm not an expert in this area. I I think that, they'll they'll be selling oil in Bitcoin before they sell it in yuan. That's just my opinion.
[01:09:34] Unknown:
Oh, that all would be interesting one. Oh oh my gosh. Alright. So where everybody can obviously find you at solstin.com, s o l s t I n, for those of you listening and not watching,
[01:09:50] Unknown:
and then following you over on X. Is X the best way to to, like, follow your work and like, why do you like to follow me. I'm trying to learn Noester right now and trying to get in involved in that. But, yeah, you and go to silson.com, and there's a there's a tab, John Nash, and that's that's where you can find more information about about Nash. And this, you know, Apex Environmental Solution is the home page. So yeah. Amazing. Oh, and, also, I got Zenimal. That's I I put that out, for me. You can just follow the audio link and listen to that if you want to. Okay. Cool. Yeah. So 3 amazing books. I've got 2 of 3. I've I've gotta get through that the whole the book,
[01:10:28] Unknown:
the the Bitcoin and Nash equilibrium. I wasn't able to read the whole thing. So, but I'm excited. I want to, just keep learning, you know, and being a little curious student. And I'm so appreciative of people like you who are taking all these concepts and getting them organized for those of us so we can learn a little bit more and get interested in history, get interested in math, get interested in peace, and how Bitcoin can hopefully create a more peaceful world for everybody. Yeah. Any final thoughts that you wanna share with the audience? I just wanna say I I love your vibe. I love your frequency. It's
[01:11:04] Unknown:
I want I wanna I wanna get up
[01:11:06] Unknown:
to that level. Thanks. Well, I mean, I don't know. And you were saying this, you know, on, the the Progressive Bitcoiners podcast about, you know, Bitcoin being hope. Right? And I think a lot of us Bitcoiners talk about Bitcoin as hope. You know, and I'll take it a step further. I always say Bitcoin is hope in action. It's not just this little philosophical, oh, la la la, let's go meditate and turn on and tune out or whatever, turn out, whatever the old, you know, thing that Tim Leary used to say. But it's just like Bitcoin is this thing that is it's even though it's digital, it's real, and it's impacting all of us. It's like this this that is a frequency. It is a vibration that's getting in a lot of us. And I I know I talk to a lot of folks. Like, I can't imagine how dire my mindset would be if I didn't know about Bitcoin with looking at what's going on in this world today.
And and so I just feel like Bitcoin does help me raise my vibration as a woman and as an entrepreneur and as a change maker and somebody who cares about leaving the world better for my children and everyone's children. You know? And so I'm just so grateful for whoever however many, you know, minds beautiful minds got together to create Bitcoin for the rest of us so that we can have these higher vibrations and we can have these opportunities. Like, you and I never would have gotten to meet if it weren't for Bitcoin. Right? Like, how cool is that? Yeah. I mean, it keeps bringing people from all walks of life together, and we're, like, cross pollinating our our ideas. And and it's like we're it's just it's magic to me. It is it's like a giant, beautiful magic trick, and I love it.
[01:12:46] Unknown:
Yeah. It Bitcoin is hope. It's, it gives me more hope than anything out there. It's like I said, fixing the monetary system is the most important thing we can do. Yeah. We can't fix it in a revolution, I don't think, but I think we can fix it with an evolution. And Yeah. And that takes a little bit of time and patience. And,
[01:13:07] Unknown:
I think the the Bitcoiners are very patient to make this happen. Yeah. Our low time preference is it's it's been a great shift for sure in in my consciousness as as a woman, so I'm grateful. So thank you so much, Brian, and thanks for everything you're doing out there in the future. And you guys, everyone listening, like, make sure you guys go get all 3 of his books, go follow Brian, and, you know, share this podcast with other people. If there's environmentalists, if there's young people, whoever you think would benefit from this podcast, make sure that you guys, share this. And then, and I'm gonna just do a quick plug, Brian. We're having a podcast, a Bitcoin for Podcasters Virtual Summit, on September 28th.
And so I'm gonna be hosting a lot of different virtual summits whether it's Bitcoin for environmentalists, Bitcoin for coaches, Bitcoin for families. And so we're gonna have Adam Curry. Remember Adam Curry who was from MTV? So he's gonna, he was a VJ on MTV. He's the Podfather. He's got No Agenda podcast. And then we've got a bunch of other great guys who are gonna be, there from Get Alby, from Fountain, from Ellen Bits, and so and from Podholme. And so these 5 gentlemen are taking time to, you know, talk about Bitcoin and help podcasters understand how to use Lightning, how we're gonna use Splits, how we can, you know, have censorship free podcasts hopefully with our money. And so I'm really excited about that. And, yeah. So it's gonna be super cool. So tune in and check it out. Alright, Brian. And everybody listening, thanks you guys so much and wishing you so much love today. I know things are a little crazy out there, but, you know, remember to breathe, and we're gonna get through this together.
Yeah. Thank you, Marie. Alright. Thanks, Brian. And thanks, every
Hey, aloha. Get ready for an epic episode. And if you love it, please share it. You know why? Because you got the love. Enjoy, my friends. Hey. Aloha, love tribe. Welcome to the podcast. I have somebody here with me who is an author and aerospace engineer. He was a former, running on a senate platform of 0 tax for Bitcoin. And I really am so excited to welcome Brian Solstin. Hi. Thanks for coming here on the show. Very pleased to be here, Valerie. Thank you. Yeah. Totally. Well, let's talk about, let's let the audience know who you are, and we're gonna talk about both of you know, all of your work and the books that you've got going on. And obviously, you know, my audience is very passionate about changing the world. They're activists, they're coaches, they're creators, they're changemakers, they're environmentalists, they're, investors, you know, and impact investors and impact entrepreneurs.
Let's talk about who you are and how the heck did you get here to Bitcoin, and why is conservation efforts hard to work in a fiat system? Yeah. What's my rabbit,
[00:01:54] Unknown:
rabbit hole, so to speak? Yeah. Yeah. I I I wrote Zenimal about that to try to capture, you know, my experience. And, and, really, I I was looking at it from a a minimalistic perspective. I mean, one of the hooks that really grabbed me was cryptography. I I was a long, you know, privacy advocate, long time interest in in that topic. Follower of Phil Zimmerman. You know, he hired Hal Finney. I mean, these guys were doing great cryptography work, building foundation, fundamental foundation for for Bitcoin. And, and so I didn't really discover Bitcoin until 2017. I mean, truth is I was just too busy. You know, when you're working in aerospace, you can get lost in your work. And so it was one of those times when I came up for air that I discovered Bitcoin in 2017, and it spoke to me. Spoke to me in terms of cryptography. It's like, wow. Privacy, proven on money, a network. You you know, there's no way there's gonna be a backdoor on this one if it's money. I mean, it it it's this one's this one's for real.
And so that that brought me into it. And then conservation and minimalism, you know, let's let's call it Zen. Bitcoin spoke to me on those levels.
[00:03:09] Unknown:
And so let's talk about that a little bit because I I was I told you before we hit hit play, I was listening to you talking about Zen and the art motorcycle maintenance and meditation. And you know, how does that fit into your worldview and your daily practice as a human and as an engineer, obviously, as a Bitcoiner and as a a writer?
[00:03:32] Unknown:
Well, I I'm a minimalist. And and what I mean by that is, you know, anything I don't use for 2 years, I get rid of it. You know? Yeah. Cool. I mean, people walk through my house. It's it's not cluttered. It's it's pretty open. I I I idealize the time of my life when I could put all of my possessions into my my Volkswagen Passat and drive anywhere. Those days are gone, but I still think about that. Life has gotten a little more complicated. But, yeah, as Zen, I I was influenced by Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance at a young age and and this concept of quality, which was a little bit, hard for me to grasp, but this this pursuit of quality.
Mhmm. And and how does that relate to Bitcoin early on? Well, Bitcoin if you if you compare fiat, which is the root of all evil, and Bitcoin, which is the root of all good because it creates efficiency as opposed to this, let's call it artificial, you know, growth. And and let's call it a miss misallocated growth. Or what did Hayek call it? His his great, phrase is, passing my passing my mind. It'll come come to me. But more or less is artificial growth is misallocated growth, is you cannot have conservation in in a fiat system because fiat is dependent on growth. And so whatever you do in terms of conservation, it's ultimately futile because this fiat artificial growth, this second rate everything is going to just overwhelm it in the long run.
So so, yeah, Zen and minimalism, conservation, they they have a lot of alignment.
[00:05:19] Unknown:
Can you unpack that a little bit more, like, when when you're saying artificial growth and, you know, how why conservation can't live at in at the same time, like, long term conservation, obviously, which is what we're seeking, you know, to to conserve all of our natural resources for, you know, hopefully, tens of 1000 of years to come. And so why is that futile or, you know, not really gonna be able to be accomplished in a fiat system? It just like, for for my little 4th grade brain.
[00:05:50] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, let's let's go back to 1971 when we when we got off a commodity based monetary system, gold. In 1971, we we went full on fiat Mhmm. And so did all the other currencies around the world at that time. And so, since then, every time we we juice the economy by by expanding the monetary system, you know, debasing it Mhmm. It's like taking a drug. It feels good. Mhmm. The problem is is that we have to keep on taking that drug. Every time we get into a recession, we have to take more. And, you compare, you know, the bailouts as over over each major recession, it's much bigger. Remember the tarp back in 2008, 2009?
700,000,000,000. You know this time when we go into a recession, it's gonna be in the trillions. And after that, what's gonna happen after that? Well, it it's going to be unimaginable how centralized the economy is going to become. And and, you know, they're gonna be desperate for any kind of growth. And these these central planners and who are said that they can stabilize everything and they are centralizing capital through the expansion of our monetary system. You know, they're what are they gonna do? They're going to print more, and that takes care of this. You know, central banks and their shareholders are going to be the beneficiaries of that. And, again, it's going to centralize, centralize capital.
[00:07:14] Unknown:
And and so what do you think about, I've there's gonna be 3 questions out of this this little nugget here. You know, I've been hearing different things in the environmental movement about, Oh, we're gonna, you know, tokenize nature and we're gonna turn nature into this, okay, we can all, you know, put nature on the blockchain. And so I hear a lot of this and it makes my skin crawl, you know, because I think people don't understand this this concept. And so can you help unpack a little bit why that is
[00:07:45] Unknown:
is not really the best idea in the world? Yeah. I'm gonna I'm actually gonna defer to John Nash on this one. Okay. John Nash, you know, he he was in that, biography documentary, the one best picture of beautiful mind. Mhmm. And, he won Nobel Prize in Economics. And, he was the discoverer and, you know, he he was of of the Nash equilibrium, which he wrote back in the 19 fifties. And, and so what was the question again? I'm sorry. I got
[00:08:20] Unknown:
Just about, tokenizing nature. You know? Because there's a lot of people that think, oh, we're gonna conserve nature if we tokenize it. And then to me, I just I see this turning into the biggest nightmare and, you know, putting it on the blockchain and all this stuff. Yeah. So his his equilibrium concept, it's an economic concept.
[00:08:36] Unknown:
It's very important. A relationship to that equilibrium is a standard measurement of value. The quality of money is will the will that standard measurement of of quality standard measurement of value, will it emerge? And when it does, it's a good thing. You you you have stability. And and that that really is the, you know, the narrative of what Bitcoin has the potential of becoming. It really becomes the potential of a Bitcoin equilibrium. It's that that ability to enable quality money to be able to enable a standard measurement of value is is the main narrative, and we're we're fast moving towards that. Now tokenizing things, you know, John Nash, if you look back in his history, you know, he would he would dismiss that as saying, well, you can write contracts verbally. That's what the judicial court system is for.
Really, that's a secondary issue. And so tokenizing is really a deviation from from the principal narrative of what the what Bitcoin brings to to humanity and this world. The idea we can go back to this 1971 where where we had a commodity based monetary system that allowed honest trade and stability. And you you see all the problems that come out of instability. You know, that is a much bigger issue than any of this tokenization. I mean, what what is the value out of it of a of a token? It's already being handled with titles. It's already being handled with contracts. What's the delta? What's the what's the advantage of putting it on a very expensive blockchain?
I'd I'd like to hear that from anybody.
[00:10:28] Unknown:
Yeah. Me too. Again, I think is it fancy marketing? Is it misguided regulators trying to pull this together? It seems like it could be kind of a combination of both of those things. I mean and I think about, you know, we think about fishing. Right? And it's like, okay. Cool. You can get your fishing license, and you can go fish anywhere, you know, in this region, you know, if you're a commercial fisherman. But, you know, is there benefit to saying, cool. You're stewarding this area. You're stewarding this area. You're stewarding this area, and then people are actually caring about those areas a little bit more? Is there something that can be beneficial from that lens, you know, for stewarding certain parts of the rainforest or stewarding, you know, versus just like, cool. We're gonna go in and rape and pillage and just extract, extract, extract value out of any of these natural resource areas.
[00:11:16] Unknown:
Well, the tokenization is marketing nonsense. Yeah. Blockchain was I I think blockchain is really, it was an immune response by the communist Chinese party saying, you know, okay. This this Bitcoin is decentralizing. That's a threat to us. We have to somehow get rid of it. And so they came up with this other narrative. It's blockchain, not Bitcoin. Well, no. It it's Bitcoin. Blockchain is not tokenization is not not not the the innovation here. If you look at the white paper, Satoshi very clearly identifies what what the innovation was there. It was a a digital transaction without a third party, which, oh, by the way, that's disintermediating. You know? That's decentralizing. That was the innovation. Oh, there's a second innovation in there that he's he's written about. That was the innovation. Oh, there's a second innovation in there that he's he's written about, and that was decentralizing governance.
Oh, that that hurts. You know? CCP, you know, communist party. They don't like that. So what do they have to do? Throw out this immune system and say, we we gotta bring up this other narrative, tokenization, blockchain, whatever. It's not decentralizing. Well, it is all about decentralizing. The transaction of value from one person to another, you don't need a third person. You know? Yeah. You need just 2. A third a third is a crowd. Right? 3 is a crowd. John Nash words, by the way.
[00:12:40] Unknown:
Okay. Cool. Let's let's I wanna dive into that a little bit more, but beef I I wanna come back to, obviously, John Nash in just a couple of minutes. But two things have recently happened. You know, Larry Fink from BlackRock, just went on and he's finally, you know, after 5 years of, you know, pooh poohing Bitcoin, he's like, oh, this is a great alternative asset. And so I'm concerned about people like him or Donald Trump, you know, which I'm grateful that he went and bought a hamburger yesterday up at Pubkey. Yay. It's super duper cool that they're showing how Bitcoin can be a medium of exchange.
But do you feel like now that these guys who are, you know and, obviously, who knows if Trump is just, you know, pandering so that he can get votes because I know he's doing some crypto bullshit too. So with Larry Fink, you know, obviously, he's managing, you know, a little bit of capital here. Right? And so when he starts, you know, giving his stamp of approval, is is this gonna turn more do you feel like more capital is just gonna turn into store of value Bitcoin, and then it's only gonna be for, you know, the really, really rich people. And then, eventually, we're not gonna be able to have this medium of exchange that we really need in certain countries and places where, you know, they are, you know, under horrible, oppressive regimes, and they're they're having hyperinflation go on. What do you think about what's going on with those two things with the Singapore the narrative before where Bitcoin is for rich people. And I remember I was I was actually at a RFK rally
[00:14:08] Unknown:
here in Seattle, and I was and to to my surprise, a lot of them weren't were not Bitcoiners. And I was talking to to Bitcoin, and one of the guys says, yeah. Bitcoin is for rich people. I'm like, wow. You know? And I I I didn't get into deep discussion on this, but, fundamentally, fiat is about extracting wealth from poor people. You know? Because you can Mhmm. Anytime you you're doing inflation, anybody who's holding that dollar, they're it's being debased. It's evaporating away. And who does that hurt the most? Well, the poor people. Wealthy people, they they use that to evaporate their debt on holding real capital. So it's to their advantage. So Bitcoin is really about, making it, let's say, a level playing field and not taking advantage of of these emerging economies.
[00:14:58] Unknown:
And but what do you think about okay. So a couple of things. So to me, my I have a you know, I'm always been trying to poke holes and make sure that I'm protecting myself and my children in the future and whatnot. And I think of, you know, if we start getting this, you know, big consolidation of capital from these big players and if they start influencing policy, you know, as far as, like, oh, you can't transact or you've you know, like, we're we're seeing what's going on with the samurai case right now with the the, all the KYC and AML stuff. And so I feel very, like, the more that these little guys who are developers and coders start getting pushed to the side and these big guys who've got all this influence and money and the ability to start saying, nope, You you can't have this on your phone. Obviously, X just got, banned in Brazil. And so all this kind of nonsense of our privacy and our, you know, our ability to transact freely with each other across borders using Bitcoin, I'm I have a really big concern for, you know, the future if, you know, we get rah rah rah that Larry Fink and Trump or whoever is excited about Bitcoin. But is that gonna lead to some other effects down the road that are detrimental to those of us who who, again, wanna have that private ability to transact?
[00:16:15] Unknown:
You know, I'm really not worried about Larry Fink and and these others that are cons consolidating Bitcoin. What I'm more concerned about is we're already financialized. I mean, the United States more or less is like the Soviet Union. I mean, we we we this is a centralized power now, thanks to financialization. All the too bigs to to fail, you know, now they call them significantly important banks. They changed the name. They keep on their wealth. The wealth gap is accelerating. That's the bigger problem. It's it's the fiat game that is accelerating the centralization of wealth power capital.
And and let let me just talk about personal experience. I mean, right now, I I I work at Boeing, and as you know, things are not good there right now. We're we're having the the machinists are are striking. Machinists are more or less the people that are working in the factory. I'm part of a different union. I'm an engine I'm an engineer, and so I'm part of the aerospace engineer, SPIA, whatever it stands for. I'm not I'm really not a big union guy. You know, I don't think it fixes problems. The bigger problem and and right now, the, you know, the the the negotiations are pretty tough right now because the the machinists want a 40% increase in their wages and some other things. Wow.
[00:17:37] Unknown:
And, yeah, most of us would go, what? 40% increase? I know. 40%. But that's actually a realistic number based on all the inflation that we've had with all this money printing, probably even more. But it's it's difficult to go up and ask for a 40% rate. So, yeah, keep going.
[00:17:51] Unknown:
So, you know, the the people are working in in you know, the machinists, they're they're they're pointing fingers at management, and management is pointing fingers at them. Mhmm. And we're not getting this resolved. And so, yeah, we aren't building planes. They shut down the Seattle, production of airplanes, and that's bad. So so the point is is that as a Bitcoiner, I look at this differently. And and also, by the way, John Nash would also look at this differently. He he looks at it from the quality of money to be able to make long term contracts. Well, when you have a debt based system, an inflationary system, and prices are going up for people because they're debasing the money, that's making life more expensive for all the machinists, and they're blaming Boeing. Well, it's not it's not Boeing that Yeah. Created this instability in the long term contract.
It's our debt based fiat system that's causing the problem. So this is John Nash would say, you know, you can measure the quality of money by looking at the ability to create long term contracts, and we can't do that anymore in this inflationary system. Oh, wow. Oh, let me give you some other examples. You know, like, what in 2 20 2023, Silvergate went down. That's because, you know, this is like a washing machine. The Fed raises rates. They they drop rates. You know? And this is good for, the wealthy that are it's like a washing machine.
But for, let's say, Silvergate, that wasn't a good thing. If you take a look at, like, this, what was it? This LNG, this liquid nitrate actually, liquid natural gas terminal, $10,000,000,000 that they were building went bankrupt because of inflation. So, you know, they get these long term contracts with these ultra artificially low interest rates, and then it gets unstable. And they do the only thing they can do, pull the debasement lever and start printing money effectively, and, it creates instability for these long term contracts. So the point is is that we've if we're looking at the Boeing situation, I I really don't like the idea of pointing fingers at management or pointing fingers at the machinist.
It's really the it's our fiat based system that has raised the the cost of living for all these machinists that has created this very bad situation for Boeing. And what does that mean, for the rest of us? Well, it's we're we're we're exporting US treasuries. We're not exporting airplanes. And who does that who's getting wealthy from that? Again, it's it's the SIBs, the sent the what what does SIB stand for? In
[00:20:30] Unknown:
in important banks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. And that's insane. I so yesterday, I was listening to I was so excited to see that, 2 of my favorite people were doing a podcast, Rick Rubin and Jack Mallers, and, which is great because, I mean Mhmm. Okay. Cool. You know, Rick's obviously getting an extra good schooling on Bitcoin. You can tell he's curious, and anybody who knows Rick is gonna listen to what Rick says. He's a guru. Right? And so that's a really cool I call it orange dominoes when these big guys who've got big followers and a lot of influence when they can start talking about, you know, why Bitcoin is a tool for peace, why Bitcoin is a tool for conservation, why Bitcoin is a tool for fairness and equality in in the world. And so, of course, we were talking about violence and how we can only keep the wars, these forever wars going. You know, Alex Gladstein talks about that a lot because of this money printer. You know? And, obviously, Boeing, I would imagine, has a government contract or 2.
So so it's just like this, oh my gosh. How do we how do we get out of the giant mess? You know? I know you quote Jeff Booth quite a bit, who I adore. You know, and we think of bucky Buckminster Fuller and, you know, building the alternative economy and the alternative system and letting the old one starve and die. How can we you know, let's talk about, you know, you and John Nash and this book, and how can we build this new system? Like, how can we really truly get ourselves out of it, and how long do you think it could take if we took action?
[00:22:03] Unknown:
Oh, how long is it gonna take? I I don't think I can answer that. I I know that we're ratcheting up every time they start printing money, so I have no doubt what direction and and what's gonna happen in the long run, how fast that's gonna happen. You know, I'm not really worried about that. I I'm pretty comfortable with how things are progressing. You look over the past 15 past 15 years, and the growth of Bitcoin has been spectacular. Mhmm. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm happy. What about all these control systems? They have to control things so that we they have they're, you know, they're they're dependent on expanding the monetary system to maintain stability. Right? They have to expand to maintain stability.
That's not stable, when you have to expand it. So so, you know, they need they need more and more control to make that. They need more, KYC, which is know your customer, customer, or AML, anti
[00:23:04] Unknown:
Money laundering.
[00:23:06] Unknown:
There you go. Thank you. Yeah. So they need more and more information. They need more and more surveillance. Well, I'm a privacy advocate. No. No. You don't. I don't I I don't need the 3rd party. Okay? I I don't need everyone to know about how I spend my money, but they wanna know, why. You know? Whatever whatever happened to these these constitutional rights that we have here in the United States about, you know, right to property and and, implied privacy in in the bill of rights and so on.
[00:23:38] Unknown:
Yeah. What let's talk about that a little bit because what we see going on right now, I think governor Newsom just is trying to pass something where memes are illegal, which is obviously free speech. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And but you can go shoplift for almost $1,000 and no penalties, but now we wanna make memes illegal. And to me, that is such a you know, I used to identify as a a a a Democrat for a long time, and I'm I goodbye. No. Thank you. Like, I'm completely abandoned it. I'm all independent now, and I've really reckon I mean, I've never I've never been like, oh, I'm a hardcore Democrat, but I've always been more like, I want freedom of choice. I want people to care about each other. I want everybody to have an equal opportunity. And then when I really started learning more about money and Bitcoin and policy, I was just like, okay.
Again, politics, you know, you obviously god bless you for running for senate and trying to get in there into the swamp and make some change, but it's about policy. And it's these people are all these egos and everything going on. I'm like, what happened to the people who had common sense policies that would keep our constitution in place? Like, why why are we seeing such a disintegration of of, you know, the civil liberties and whatnot in this this world, especially with I see the Democrats being ridiculous. I just I don't even understand what's going on.
[00:24:59] Unknown:
Yeah. I I used to be a dev democrat myself, but, recently, the way the DNC has treated RFK, it's like, okay. No more. Nope. You know, they they were even bringing lawsuits against him so that he wouldn't be on the ballot. Yep. I I thought, wow. Okay. This this is not this is you know, I I I'm a Democrat because or I used to be. I'm no long I'm an independent now. Yep. Me too. But I fundamentally, I'm I'm socially liberal, and I'm fiscally conservative.
[00:25:28] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:25:29] Unknown:
And and so, you you know, yeah, I I'm done done with that kind of, anti and what I mean by by, social liberal you know, or or classical liberalism, I'm really talking about separation of of money and state, separation of of media and state, media and state, separation of, the judiciary. I mean, these are these are our constitutional ideals. Yeah. And and this is this is classical liberalism. I mean, this is these are ideals that after World War 2, were spread around the world with the intent of we will never do that again. Well, we are going to do that again because we're giving up on these these fundamental rights.
And the democrats, the d n I shouldn't say democrats. I should say the DNC has given up on these values. Yeah. They want more and more control. They want more surveillance. And, you know, this is like any other, centralized organization or people that are focused on growing their hierarchy, to at at the loss of people's property rights.
[00:26:40] Unknown:
And and it's just because to me, it's insidious in all categories because we think about health care and bodily rights. Right? We wanna have sovereign minds. We wanna have sovereign our bodies, our choices, you know, don't make me get a shot or, you know, if if I need to, God forbid, terminate a pregnancy, hopefully early enough that it's, you know, you catch it, you should have that choice, in my opinion, you know? And so I I feel like it's hypocritical in some of these areas where it's like they want to have this, you know, freedom, but then they want to start smooshing it down in these other areas and pulling it back. And so I'm just I don't know what what is going on. And I've been since I became Bitcoiner, I've gotten a lot more I mean, I've always been very interested in, you know, alternative ways of thinking and alternative concepts and, you know, are there aliens? Did the CIA kill JFK? All that stuff. Like, I it all seems more logical to me now than anything, and it's just like do you know who Whitney Webb is?
No. Oh, dude. Oh my gosh. Unlimited hangout. Whitney Whitney Webb wrote, 1 Nation Under Blackmail. I mean, she wrote 2 books. They're literally, like, they're this this thick. They're insane. But her her investigative journalism is so powerful in how she's uncovering, you know, historically all of these blackmail ties from, you know, from the CIA, from the Mossad, from Epstein's Island and everything. And I'm just after reading some of it, I mean, she's just an encyclopedic, journalist and writer. And, you know, my little brain, I'm like, shit. I can only listen to this for a little bit because I gotta assemble the dots. Right? But Mhmm. It makes me question just the system at large.
Like, how does every single player in the system have some type of a blackmail link that whoever these powers that be are able to push a button at any time and go, yeah. Your your your wife is deleted now or, you know, anything that they can control you if you're in these positions of political power. And so that's a big, big concern for me,
[00:28:48] Unknown:
and and I would just be curious what your thoughts are the on that. Well, I I don't know about that topic. I I'm not read on on that, but I I do know that the ultimate control is is debasing money. You know, when you when you are the beneficiary Mhmm. When you can print money, there's that that is the superordinate power. Yeah. And, everything else is secondary at that point.
[00:29:11] Unknown:
But but control of information, though. You know? We think about what's going on with Noster. We think about what's going on with censorship of, you know, x down in in, Brazil right now. And so, you know, the first thing I think people you know, we understand, take away people's ability to communicate. You know, obviously, money is a form of communication. Right? I'm gonna give this value to you, and we're communicating, and we should be able to do so without, you know, prying eyes all the time. It just feels like there's there's little prongs of these these, I don't know, the governments, institutions, these powers that be that are just slowly, you know, pulling these things away. And we're like, oh, well, I guess it doesn't really affect me that much. It's over there.
It's over there in that country. It's down here. And it's just like we're accept we're getting normalized, and this is getting accustomed into our brain that, well, it's for our own good. Right? That is that's the common line that they they like to spew to us. And so how do you know, without being crazy sounding like, my family thinks I'm insane with all the stuff that I research and talk about, and and, you know, like I said, I'm I'm, you know, I'm I'm not an aerospace engineer or a hedge fund manager, but it's like, I feel like, how do we help the the the folks who are listening and the the the normal people who aren't in the Bitcoin world start to understand these things from a lens of of love and compassion and freedom?
[00:30:42] Unknown:
Yeah. I, you know, I used to try to orange peel people and, and I, you know, with close friends, close family, and, you know, I'm I was really excited about it because I I studied it a lot, like, 2 hours a day for years. Yeah. And then I share it with other people, and and they just you know, I could see their eyes were kinda glazing over. You you know? And, like, even my most recent book, when I was doing a second draft, I was reading it to my mother. Right? And and she was falling asleep at times. But when I talked about, you know, John Nash and, you know, this when he was arrested for this bisexual experience down in Santa Monica, you know, oh, bisexual? You know, she was, like, all over that. And so I I I realized people are into different things Yeah. But they really aren't into monetary policies. No. And I remember when I was young, and I'd hang out with these gold bugs, you know, when I was 16.
And and I just thought, you know, gosh, they're kinda different or, you know, that's not my thing. I, you know, I was into at 16 years old, I just wasn't into the gold bug narrative that that wasn't I was into cryptography and narrative and and privacy. That was interesting to me. But but really understanding the the monetary system, how how so your question was, how do I help other people really understand that? Mhmm. I I've had a hard time. So I write I've written 3 books now, and I think the fact that I'm writing a biography and talking about these concepts, I think that's far more approachable than what I've done in the past, which kinda tends to be a little bit more encyclopedic.
[00:32:24] Unknown:
Let's talk about so let's talk about Bitcoin and the Nash equilibrium and, like, you know, let's kinda dissect this so that people can understand. Because to me, the the minute it says Nash equilibrium, my mind is like, uh-oh. That's gonna be too smart for me. I'm that I'm gonna not that scares me. So let's talk about why that's not a scary thing to look at appropriately.
[00:32:44] Unknown:
Because because, really, he had an amazing life of genius when he was 21 years old. And then 25 years I think it was 29 he was 29 when he got schizophrenia, paranoia Mhmm. Mentally I mean, illness that was debilitating for about 25 years of his life. Wow. And then he recovered and continued his work. And it was really about trying to make the Nash equilibrium immortal, and he started programming. And so these these things align with the creation of Bitcoin.
[00:33:22] Unknown:
And Okay. So, yeah, let's talk about this. So I'm I'm just showing folks a table of content. So do you wanna go into any of this, like, a little bit for people so that you can dive in a little and and just understand his world and and whatnot?
[00:33:35] Unknown:
Yeah. The first part is really a a a chronological, history of of John Nash. And I know a lot of people know about John Nash through the movie A Beautiful Mind, which won best picture. But that was more that was looking at John's, let's say, his his genius and and his illness and his recovery from a that's more or less from a medical perspective, whereas I'm more interested in his accomplishments. And so I went through his chronology that you can see at the beginning there Mhmm. That really talk about his accomplishments and in mathematics, in in cryptography, in parallel computing, which, by the way, is a distributed network, which is, you know, decentralized computing.
He was doing that back in 1955. You You know, 1954 for the parallel computing, 1955 for cryptography. He was hanging out with some of the best cryptographer cryptographers in the world there at Prince University. That was a hotbed for World War 2 development, and and he showed up after that scene and was rubbing shoulders with with the best. And, he was very much into factoring prime numbers, which are actually parameterized within the elliptical method for Bitcoin. So there's just a lot of history that a history his history that crept into Bitcoin. So I cover that history, but then after I go through oh, a a big milestone for him was was, his 2002 publication, Ideal Money, but he immediately started, lecturing all over the world on something called asymptotically ideal money.
So ideal money was kind of a revolutionary way of doing things. You know, you have a a centralized way of managing some index. And then asymptotically ideal money is more of a evolutionary or emergent or that sly roundabout way of doing things. Right? What does a what does asymptotically mean? Well, asymptotically is a mathematical term, and it's it's like you have a pile of sand. Let's say you have 21,000,000 grains. Right? And every 4 years, you you you take half of that sand away. And then 4 years later, you come and take another half away. That's asymptotic. And so you you were so that number is approaching 0, but it never gets there. And what's really interesting is in the white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto snips that asymptotic tail off, cuts it off, and, that will happen about a 140 years from now.
[00:36:21] Unknown:
So is this the having? Is this what the having is every year with with the BOC rewards?
[00:36:27] Unknown:
Every every 4 years, we we we we do a having, and that asymptotically
[00:36:32] Unknown:
moves us closer to 0. Got it. Okay. So that's what that mean. Okay.
[00:36:36] Unknown:
Cool. Cool. Cool. And so we're approaching 0, which means we're gonna approach 0 inflation, and it becomes increasingly better quality money than our fiat system. So that that's what asymptotically or asymptotic means. And and that's something he talked about, but his his publication in 2002 was about ideal money, more of a central planning, you know, maintain the index. But in his personal writings, he he found politics and and even religion as being ineffectual, and so he really, turned to technology, to programming. This was his secret world.
[00:37:18] Unknown:
That sounds it's beautiful. Let's talk about the the the Nash Nakamoto signature attributes. You're talking about 18 of these. So, you know, we don't have to go through each one of them, but what does what does this mean exactly for people listening?
[00:37:30] Unknown:
Well, the you know, John Nash was was the the lone genius, beautiful mind, and then, Satoshi Nakamoto was the programmer, the creator, the principal, inventor of Bitcoin. And, the the hypothesis of this book is, you know, is John Nash, was he did he have influence for trading Bitcoin? And then the second, thesis or sub thesis is, are these are they the same person? And it doesn't really matter if they're the same or not. That's that's not really the value add of this book. What's what's what's the true value of this book is when you read through that and you see the connections, you get an easy narrative of what Bitcoin is, why Bitcoin.
And, normally, you'd have to study, say, a 100 hours to get there. You know, it took me a lot longer than that to really understand it. Mhmm. But in this book, if you study Nash and Nakamoto, I think within 2 hours, anybody will be able to really talk about the the the value statements for Bitcoin and clearly identify when you're deviating from those, you know, from the the standard measurement of value, for example. Okay. Let's talk about that down here. I wanted
[00:38:48] Unknown:
to go into what that is.
[00:38:50] Unknown:
Oh, the the well, if we go into
[00:38:55] Unknown:
I gotta find it. Like, the Bitcoin equilibrium is a standard measurement of value. What I I'm how what does that mean exactly?
[00:39:02] Unknown:
Let's go back to the Nash equilibrium. Let's go back to the first
[00:39:06] Unknown:
Let's do it.
[00:39:08] Unknown:
You know, Adam Adam Back. Wrote no. Adam Smith. He wrote he he was a one of the the first recognized economists, published a book in 17/76. He was Scottish, not American, And, it was called The Wealth of Nations. It's longer than that, but I can't remember the entire title. The Wealth of Nations, and he talked about the law of supply and demand. And what the relationship between those 2 is something he called the invisible hand. Now John Nash came along and built a theory that more or less mathematically defined that invisible hand, the Nash equilibrium.
And he define he wrote that during, when he's 21 years old at Princeton, and he got his PhD when he was 21 years old. This guy was a genius. And that Nash equilibrium is really about, doing trade with another person. You know, you you you take numbers and you and you attribute value and you make an exchange. And doing that mathematically, it became very valuable for doing auctions and being able to predict prices. And in war games, you know, Rand used it for, you know, fighter jets coming at each other and knowing when you needed a fire missile before turning away. And so game theory was something that John Nash won a no Nobel Prize in, and mathematically, he replaced what Adam Smith defined as the invisible hand in the law of supply and demand. And this is the reason why he won a Nobel Prize in economics. But the Nash equilibrium, it wasn't until his recovery that he started talking about and only with friends, by the way.
He wanted to make the Nash equilibrium immortal. And so I I Wow. I add the language of calling it the Bitcoin equilibrium because it's emergent. We're going to return to a commodity based monetary system eventually. And, and so that's that's the phrase that I came up with that, parallels the Nash equilibrium.
[00:41:13] Unknown:
Wow. This is so fascinating. I it's it's like a puzzle. Right? All of this is just this really interesting puzzle of of of life and how things fit together. And, again, I don't feel like a lot of us know, and I may have said this before we hit record, but just about why this money system that we currently have is so toxic and we you know, this fiat system, I call it, like, poisonous soil. And we all have to eat. We all have to have some food that's grown from the soil and having water and nature, and it's like we all have to have some form of money to exchange because we don't live in villages with 10 people where I can give you the chickens and you give me the apples and then I give this guy the, you know, the corn and all.
And so in order for us to flourish as humans, you know, we need to understand that, like, a sound, hard many is is so important, you know. And and I wonder, you know, how do we continue to to move in this direction? Is it is it something do you like, I wanna talk about CBDCs and surveillance, and, obviously, we talk about privacy. Then I feel like, you know, there's a lot of attitudes out there for folks who are like, oh, Bitcoin's gonna win no matter what. We're gonna be fine, la la la. And I'm like, you know, I'm not confident of anything just because of the way life can throw all these surprises at us. Like, none of us expected this ridiculous pandemic that happened a few years back, you know? And so, you know, for those of you listening, CBDC is a central bank digital currency, and it's basically surveillance money and it's behavior control money. And it it's something that I think they're gonna have another pandemic, and I think they're gonna issue these. And I think it's gonna be the excuse to get off the dollar in its current form and get into a cashless society, which would be the worst thing ever.
And, you know, people don't understand, like, we we we are I think we're in a race. I mean, do you feel energetically like we need to hustle and get this the sky is falling. Like, we need Bitcoin.
[00:43:18] Unknown:
Yeah. And and, also, to answer your previous question about, you know, I finally found that departures from standard measurement of value. What I covered there, it it answers both questions. First of all, I I I addressed fake katoshi. You know? No. Correct. Yeah. You know, I put in I put in the legal thing that he had to post on his I mean, the guy lied. Oh my god. Yeah. He was convicted, and and so yeah. Why why would somebody lie about me, Satoshi Nakamoto? But but there's also other debunkers from the standard measurement of value because he didn't understand what Bitcoin was. Clearly, his narrative is like, what are you talking if you compare Craig Wright to John Nash, I mean, it's 2 different things. Yeah. And, likewise, if you look at Vitalik's work, it's the same what what did I write? Departure from a standard measurement of value. So, I mean, again, you could equate Ethereum to a CBDC because it is a departure from a standard measurement of value. It's not Bitcoin's narrative.
So I think I clearly understand clearly defines it, as, you know, the and and let me let me just add one more concept here. It it's not just a standard measurement of value that that's really the key narrative here. It's the equilibrium. You know? That equilibrium where you have a relationship between the buyer and the seller, it's mathematical. It's just money. It's just a transaction.
[00:44:44] Unknown:
It's just a transaction. Yeah. And and oh, sorry. Keep going. But that standard measurement of value
[00:44:51] Unknown:
is related to that equilibrium. So it's the same narrative.
[00:44:55] Unknown:
And and let's talk about the I wanna come back to privacy in in the CBDCs and and, you know, obviously starting to think about the KYC and AML stuff with, you know, what they're trying to implement for Bitcoin users around the world. Like, you know, CBDCs for folks who, you know, again, who are listening who don't know what they are, you know, imagine, you know, you have whatever x units of your CBDCs in your account and, you know, somebody wants to decide that, oh, climate change is a thing and you can only have, you know, one hamburger a week. You know? Or maybe you made the meme post from governor Newsom, you know, or any of these things that if these powers that be don't like the way that you're behaving or if you're associating with Craig Wright or whoever, you know, in Yeah. Social circles. You know, what they do over in in China, it's like, oh, you can't ride the bus today, or you can't go buy milk, or you can't, you know, do different things. Like, they can start limiting your ability to go be out there in the world unless you change your behavior according to their whims.
And so I feel like that's gonna start getting people will they'll they'll market it as this really great thing, you know, like, not our skinny techs. Yeah. And so privacy. I want a transaction
[00:46:13] Unknown:
of my value between 2 people. I I don't want a threesome. I I don't wanna do a threesome with Jerome Powell. No. That's a CBDC.
[00:46:22] Unknown:
I don't want that. But some would argue, you know, right now, we're already in that realm if we're using Fiat. Right? Because everybody you know, if I use a credit card, everybody knows what I've purchased and my my you know, I they can go get access to all of that information. They can't necessarily go control it and say you can only use your credit card today here, and so this is more from a current you know, a a currency unit account accounting, perspective. But I feel like, you know, people need to start being proactive and understanding, like, if you value your freedom, if you value your your ability to speak freely, and if you value your ability to make your own choice of what type of, medicine you would like to have or food you would like to have or where you would like to go and not be stuck in a 15 minute city, Having currency that you can use, having Bitcoin that they can't censor and say, nope. You can't go spend it here is extremely, extremely important.
I I just feel like
[00:47:22] Unknown:
we're on a race, Brian. Like We are. And it's it's all about a CBDC's fiat, it's about it's a system of control that didn't start that out that way in 9 1971. It says, oh, we just need to expand the monetary system a little bit. But now it is expanded really big now, and they want to expand it a lot bigger in the future because they know another crisis is going to happen. Yeah. So it's turned into a system of control, and it's the ultimate system of control, especially the CBDC. Nothing can compete with that. Nothing. So it's it's the biggest, you know, gangster on the block.
We we do not wanna go down that path even though we already have gone down that path with fiat.
[00:48:10] Unknown:
Yeah. And I and you think about, you know, programmable money and, oh, it's it's gonna expire. Like, you have to go spend it at a certain period, you know, by Friday or you don't have your money anymore. You know? And that's something that is again, it's like, how can you save for your future if you're being forced to save in this currency that now you have to go spend and you don't actually get to save and accumulate, you know, wealth for your you know, like a squirrel. Cool. I wanna get my little nuts for the winter. If those nuts expire and they're more like a piece of white bread, you're not gonna get through the winter.
You know? And I it so I I feel like people need to understand why it's important to have a money that will hold its value over time. And CBDCs, you know, will get manipulated depending on how, you know, the the button pushers wanna manipulate us.
[00:49:00] Unknown:
Yeah. Again, we gotta get back to a standard measurement of value. That's the fundamental thing going on. And this this goes back all the way to 1950. This is John John Nash observed this. He he rolled in there with Von Neumann. This Von Neumann guy was a, you know, big time game game theory guy. He he he he built the lens for for or designed the lens for atomic weapons. Von Neumann was well known. Okay? And here comes young John Nash, rolls in there, and he says, nope. We don't need all these complicated contracts. We just need an equilibrium. And, and Neumann says, what? That's too simple.
And, and he says, I disagree with you. Wrote his papers and won a Nobel Prize for it. So, again, we're having the same conversation that goes all the way back to 1950 right now, and it's just over and over again. Oh, we gotta make it more complicate complicated. No. We don't. Keep it simple.
[00:49:59] Unknown:
Keep it simple. KISS the KISS principle. Right? Absolutely.
[00:50:04] Unknown:
Oh my god. And that brings up a cool concept. I Occam's razor. Have you ever heard of Occam's razor? I have. Why don't you repeat it? Because it's it's I always butcher it, but I love it so much. Okay. Cool. Occam's razor is here's the butchery. It's just basically the simplest idea wins. Yeah. If it And so when you're writing your narratives for whatever business reason you're doing or for engineering, try to make it as simple as possible. And I think that's something that John Nash was really any good scientist is pursuing. You know? How do you make this theory as simple as possible without losing, you know, its functionality.
And there's some people out out there that we all know, we all have friends that just make everything complicated, and they think they're so smart because they make things complicated. And you're listening to them, and they're going any topic, they just go off for, like, 5 minutes. And it's like, okay. Come back come back in, you know, to the conversation. Keeping things simple, Occam's razor is really about the simplest idea wins. I don't I know that's not always the case, but I think it's often the case. And Bitcoin is Occam's razor.
[00:51:10] Unknown:
It is. It's the simplest solution. And I and I think it's you know, it does speak to the human spirit sometimes and certainly to the human ego. So there's, you know, a double edged, you know, conversation there when people get excited and they get complex, and I know my brain likes to go do that again. And I'm I'm, you know, I'm not an aerospace engineer, but I do think in terms of, like, big long term visions and how does this go here and how's the holistic thing and how does this connect here and how does this go here if you push the button. It's it's, the Rube Goldberg machine kind of thing. And, so to me, it's fun and creative to think that way. So I'm not doing it from a a from an ego standpoint, but then there's obviously some folks like you, you know, who do that from the, like, look at me. I can go spout off all this stuff, and you don't know what I'm talking about. And so so I think there's a a fine dance between that, you know, to allow for that creative play and then also to understand, like, okay. Bring it back. Give me the nugget of how this is going to be an actionable thing that's going to make a difference for the world. And, you know, and so that that's kind of the fun, synthesis synthesizing something complex into something simple and actionable,
[00:52:20] Unknown:
not just a concept. Right? Yeah. Make making it simple is the hard part. Once you're Yeah. Make making it simple is the hard part. Once it's simple, then we can have fun now.
[00:52:28] Unknown:
Oh my gosh. And so alright. So let's do you have any, any final things? Do you wanna talk about Apex Environmental Solution, just your other book really quick? Because, obviously, we were talking originally about conservation efforts, and I think this is you know, I told you I was listening to this book, as I was shoveling snow several months back, and, you know, I noticed you were you know, obviously, you're quoting Jeff Booth a lot, who's one of my heroes, of course. And, Yeah. Jeff, I got where is Jeff? Yeah. I call him Oh, he's right above my head. There he is. Right next to Prince in my my belly cast with my baby.
[00:53:00] Unknown:
Yeah. Jeff Booth and and Greg Foss, they're my 2 favorite Bitcoiners by far. I love these guys. Love. But, yeah, I think Apex Environmental Solution, it's it's, you know, like, 400 page book. I why don't we do this? Why why don't we go to the the prize in Nash in in Nash equilibrium or Bitcoin in Nash equilibrium? Okay. The prize is at the very end, and I I just wrote 6 of them in in the table of contents. Yep. I hear you. You know, Bitcoin eliminates insidious inflation, velocity of value accelerates, international peace dividend, cost of living cost of living decreases, obviously.
Debt jubilee, that's a little more difficult concept, but it's very valid. Now this is something that John Nash wrote, political corruption diminishes. I I love that. And, so those those six benefits that will come out of the emerging Bitcoin e equilibrium. You know, this is gonna take time Mhmm. Asymptotically. Right? It's it's asymptotic. We're we're only taking away half of the sandpile at at a time, and it and we're only doing that every 4 years. So we're gonna get there. So, you know, if we're if you're if you know where we're gonna end up in the long run, where are you going to store your wealth? I mean, clearly, don't trust fiat. You know, that's the main thing.
[00:54:24] Unknown:
Definitely don't trust fiat. And and so for all the environmentalists out there, you know, who who may be listening to us, what would you say to them other than go get some Bitcoin? Like, should they start thinking in terms of putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet, starting to fund their projects overseas in different areas with Bitcoin, you know, so that maybe they can pay some indigenous folks, as long as there's a circular economy to some level where they can transact in Bitcoin and not just be stuck with, you know, quote, unquote airline points, that aren't transactable for them? How can how can folks in the environmental movement start to take action today?
[00:55:04] Unknown:
Well, I I think I think to understand why Bitcoin is the Apex environmental solution, there's lots of ways to look at that. We've already discussed how any conservation effort in the fiat system is futile. Another way to look at it is from a Hayek perspective, who is an economist. By the way, John Nash said that his views were similar to Hayek. Right? This is from the connect and, clearly, Bitcoin is that slight roundabout way. Mhmm. Bitcoin is something that Hayek prophesied about. And and so the point is if if we can have efficient growth instead of sec everything second rate growth, that is conservation.
And so the point is is if we take that that Frederick Hayek approach where we are not relying on expanding the monetary system and and having forcing artificial growth, then then we can have conservation efforts that are no longer futile, that are that we can build truly generational wealth at that point instead of it just being wiped out by this artificially low interest rates, artificial growth, and second rate, everything.
[00:56:24] Unknown:
So do you have a couple more minutes? Because I that just brought up a couple questions for me. Is this okay? Great. Thank you so much. So okay. Let's think about our consumption models. Right? And we think about our consumption consciousness. And I think about right now, you know, and I've talked about this a lot, you know, obviously, as Bitcoiners, we have low time preference. We think in terms of, okay, the more that we understand now, wow, okay, do I need to go buy that chocolate bar, or do I need this extra plastic widget or whatever? So I think for a lot of us Bitcoiners, our consumption models and our consumption mindset and consciousness has shifted greatly. I know it has for me for sure because I'm like, Okay, I can go get, you know, a manicure and that's gonna cost me $60 or I cannot do that and I can paint my nails for free, you know, or for $4 for my nail polish, and then I can put $56 into Bitcoin. And so my mind is constantly thinking in terms of that way now because I'm like, you know, that $56 manicure in 5 years is gonna be worth $1,000.
And, you know, so that's kind of that's how I'm thinking, you know, with with consumption. And so I think about, you know, with conservation, you know, and savings savings of money and, obviously, conservation of the Earth. I wonder, you know, again, like, you know, we've obviously got our 1st world nations and countries that we've got electricity. We're good to go. We're we're we're fine for the most part. We can have medicine. We can have transportation. We've got all these developing places who don't have access to that. Right? And so it's not about, oh, let's just go make a bunch of throwaway stuff for them, but we need to get them at least up to here's your you have electricity, you know, and you have running water, and you can refrigerate your medicine.
How do you think is there is there an opportunity for us to continue, like, getting out of the overconsumption throwaway mindset that we have as first world, citizens? Because everything's like, oh, don't worry. Just I'll get a new one. Throw it away. It's fine. It's only 3 doll you know? And, like, our younger generation has that mindset. You know? They don't they don't value, you know, like, the quality of the products and goods and services. They're they're just more into, like, cool. It's cheap. I can go to the dollar store, or I can get this cheap thing. And so how can we address, our consumption mindset and consciousness so that we can support, you know, other people getting at least up to some level of of, you know, health and and prosperity in these developing countries?
[00:58:50] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I think, fundamentally, what we're asking is is how do we exit hyperconsumption? Mhmm. And and, the the fiat world, you know, debt, debt based assets increase GDP and increases consumption, and we're becoming financialized. Everything's too big to fail now. It's being centralized. It's that kind of dependency to pay off that debt that that requires more consumption. So that's why we're we're trapped in this hyperconsumption world. And, really, the the only exit is is really, is a monetary system that is not debt based and returning back to a commodity based monetary system.
So how do we exit? You know? That's that's why that's why Bitcoin is the Apex environmental solution is we can exit hyperconsumption. We we we don't have to borrow a lot of money and go into debt so that we can take advantage of this artificially low interest rate. We can things will be at their utility price, and they they won't be distorted. And like, you know, Hayek, said, we won't be doing this malinvestment, this artificial growth. So, yeah, it's it's all interrelated for escaping hyper consumption and and really returning to the simple life rather than being dependent on a third party to tell us how to live our lives and and giving us, you know, free whatever to incentivize us to spend our time, our value.
[01:00:30] Unknown:
Yeah. I and I agree. I I feel like it's gonna take some time to get out of that because, you know, when when you see things in your mind, you know, as a human being and it's like, Wow, I can have this. It's easy. It's free money or it's cheap money, you know, buy now, pay later kind of thing. You know, my family grew up, you know, not with a lot of money with but 2 people in my family had to file bankruptcy and, of course, just destroyed their lives, but they had the mindset of, like, credit card, credit card, credit card, credit card, credit card later, later, later. And so they didn't have the consciousness around, you know, live within your means, you know, and and and whatnot. And so I do think that there's something to be said about, you know, financial literacy and education for our young people, and I know you're a big STEM advocate.
You know, the thing with STEM and STEAM is there's no financial literacy in those programs, you know, and like we're not talking about how are we I mean, that's fundamental inside of any educational, you know, world. And so I I feel like how can we make sure that we're educating the young folks, you know,
[01:01:42] Unknown:
as much as possible on on these things. And so what are you what are you seeing out there with that for young people? Well, I I I And then I'll and then we'll wrap up. I don't wanna take up too much time. Listening to you, I'm thinking, okay. We're we're only showing one side of the coin. Mhmm. If you look on the other side of the coin, you know, they're the creditors. They're the sieves. They're the banks. They they're they're all this debt that's growing, it's their asset. It's it's good for I mean, you I was just listening to an economist talking about how, you know, they're they're growing their balance sheet. They're you know? But that's our debt. And so when we say, hey. We're $35,000,000,000,000 in debt. That's a bad thing. That's one side of the coin. On the other side of the coin, the grifters are making 1,000,000,000,000 of dollars off of this, you know, to the tune of $1,000,000,000,000 per year, for our debt. And if you look at the world debt, you know, perhaps that's 300,000,000,000,000, 900,000,000,000,000,000,000, 900,000,000,000,000, depending on how you look at it. Mhmm. And it's accelerating.
So so our what we're trying to do is reduce that. And the significantly important banks, they have an immune system, and they're gonna do everything they can to stop us from getting out of debt. That's the big picture. So what can we do? Well, one thing is we can exit, but at the same time, we need to somehow stop these these powers from expanding that debt. You know, let me that brings up another topic. You know, when I was running for US senate, I I had a big winner ask a question, and this is a a question that kinda I didn't know how to answer.
He said, well, knowing what Bitcoin is and knowing what the fees fiat system, would you be a fiscal conservative, or or or would you just go out there and spend it and use the fiat for what it is and, play the fiat game? Because we live in a fiat world. Right? And I'm thinking, as a fiscal conservative, well, I I I would be a kind of a one you know, I'd I'd I'd I'd stay hyper focused on Bitcoin as as a senator. That'd be there's nothing more important than fixing our monetary system. But I think, now that I've been away from that, I think as if I was a US senator, I think you have to play the fiat game. You you have to spend. It's it's in our interest.
And so into yeah. Just go ahead and spend fiat like crazy and and try to not do malinvestment, but do good investment instead of the the crazy stuff that a lot of politicians do. But at the same time, both of these monetary systems are gonna coexist, and the one will continue to grow asymptotically or it will be emergent. And so I I think we just need to be a little bit patient with all the crazy fiat and and know that the deficit spending is gonna continue. That's just the that's our fiat reality.
[01:04:37] Unknown:
Do you ever think that, like, they're gonna get Bitcoin as a, as a reserve like they had gold and then all of a sudden we have a 6102 thing that happens?
[01:04:46] Unknown:
Yeah. I think as as it becomes a a com common understanding of what Bitcoin is, what is the the narrative of Bitcoin, the true narrative, not not, you know, people that are really talking about tokens or blockchain, but actually talking about, standard measurements of value and long term contracts that are stable. And, and, you know, these these are the the main value. Yeah. They're gonna clearly go, okay. We need that. We need that kind of investment instead of malinvestment. We we need real market rates, not, you know, artificial everything. So we're I think as as people come to understand that, yeah, I think we're gonna go to a strategic reserve for the United States.
Other countries will do it first, of course, but but the United States will will catch on as it becomes common sense.
[01:05:44] Unknown:
Do you think, like again, and I'm not an economist, and I'm still obviously, I do this podcast so I can learn and obviously share people's stories and wisdom like yourself. So So if we have a strategic reserve or if we have now if we start issuing, let's say, any type of currency on top of Bitcoin from governments, if governments start doing the same game that they did with, you know, issuing gold and so each government, let's say, has their own reserve, and they're like, cool. This is the the Russia Bitcoin token. This is the US Bitcoin token, blah, blah, blah. Do you think that, you know, circling back to Larry Fink and Trump earlier, like, do you I'm concerned about the governments all of a sudden being like, it's in our, you know, military interests that we have all of this, you know, Bitcoin, and so we're we're gonna come find you if you have Bitcoin, like, with like, again, that 6102. Do you are you worried that that it's all of a sudden just gonna turn into this thing where all the governments just gobble it up, and then they utilize it to to, you know, be stronger than each other? And, obviously, you can verify who's got what.
I'm not worried about that. Is that is that a silly idea, or am I am I paranoid?
[01:06:54] Unknown:
No. It's it's good to think that way. It it is only the paranoid survive. Right? But, it's true. The censorship, resistance is gonna protect us. So I I think that, that because of the technology, I'm not worried. It's it's safer than than gold. But it is I wanna get back to this idea of a strategic reserve. It's so easy and common sense. I know people go, oh, we're not gonna do that. Yeah. We will because it's so easy to print money and just buy it. And and if you wanna compare if you wanna take compare m compare m MMT to, you know, modern monetary theory, which is you you you you should print money to do these government things.
I I want to make the statement that there's no difference between and MMT. No difference at all because both of them are expanding the monetary system. One is just doing a little bit, and the other one is doing it a lot. It's the same thing. Bitcoin fixes that. You know, debasement, expanding the monetary system causes inflation. That's that's where inflation comes from. That's the principal cause of inflation. There are other causes, but nothing is more principal than expanding the monetary sit system, the debasement of the currency. And so if MMT and Keynesianism are the same, if it's easy to just print, why wouldn't we when we realize that all of a sudden, 21,000,000 is a scarce asset? Why wouldn't we just start printing and buying it? It's in our interest, and it's common sense. So, yeah, United States, eventually other countries will do it, but, eventually, the the United States will do it too.
[01:08:35] Unknown:
And and but do you worry about any, you know let's talk about bricks really quick. I mean, I know I keep asking all these questions, but, like, with what's going on with the, with BRICS? Do you feel like that's gonna be any kind of an issue that we're gonna be competing with these other, you know, these groups of of countries that are trying to issue currencies?
[01:08:54] Unknown:
Well, I you know, I'm not an expert in that area, but this is just my opinion. You know, the the Saudis, I think back in July, they they said that they're you know, they they were let's say, they would consider a a Petro yuan. So, you you know, do I believe that? I don't. Not at this moment. No. No. No. They have too many capital controls in China for the yuan to for the yuan to become a a global reserve, currency. I I just don't I I don't believe it, but I'm not an expert in this area. I I think that, they'll they'll be selling oil in Bitcoin before they sell it in yuan. That's just my opinion.
[01:09:34] Unknown:
Oh, that all would be interesting one. Oh oh my gosh. Alright. So where everybody can obviously find you at solstin.com, s o l s t I n, for those of you listening and not watching,
[01:09:50] Unknown:
and then following you over on X. Is X the best way to to, like, follow your work and like, why do you like to follow me. I'm trying to learn Noester right now and trying to get in involved in that. But, yeah, you and go to silson.com, and there's a there's a tab, John Nash, and that's that's where you can find more information about about Nash. And this, you know, Apex Environmental Solution is the home page. So yeah. Amazing. Oh, and, also, I got Zenimal. That's I I put that out, for me. You can just follow the audio link and listen to that if you want to. Okay. Cool. Yeah. So 3 amazing books. I've got 2 of 3. I've I've gotta get through that the whole the book,
[01:10:28] Unknown:
the the Bitcoin and Nash equilibrium. I wasn't able to read the whole thing. So, but I'm excited. I want to, just keep learning, you know, and being a little curious student. And I'm so appreciative of people like you who are taking all these concepts and getting them organized for those of us so we can learn a little bit more and get interested in history, get interested in math, get interested in peace, and how Bitcoin can hopefully create a more peaceful world for everybody. Yeah. Any final thoughts that you wanna share with the audience? I just wanna say I I love your vibe. I love your frequency. It's
[01:11:04] Unknown:
I want I wanna I wanna get up
[01:11:06] Unknown:
to that level. Thanks. Well, I mean, I don't know. And you were saying this, you know, on, the the Progressive Bitcoiners podcast about, you know, Bitcoin being hope. Right? And I think a lot of us Bitcoiners talk about Bitcoin as hope. You know, and I'll take it a step further. I always say Bitcoin is hope in action. It's not just this little philosophical, oh, la la la, let's go meditate and turn on and tune out or whatever, turn out, whatever the old, you know, thing that Tim Leary used to say. But it's just like Bitcoin is this thing that is it's even though it's digital, it's real, and it's impacting all of us. It's like this this that is a frequency. It is a vibration that's getting in a lot of us. And I I know I talk to a lot of folks. Like, I can't imagine how dire my mindset would be if I didn't know about Bitcoin with looking at what's going on in this world today.
And and so I just feel like Bitcoin does help me raise my vibration as a woman and as an entrepreneur and as a change maker and somebody who cares about leaving the world better for my children and everyone's children. You know? And so I'm just so grateful for whoever however many, you know, minds beautiful minds got together to create Bitcoin for the rest of us so that we can have these higher vibrations and we can have these opportunities. Like, you and I never would have gotten to meet if it weren't for Bitcoin. Right? Like, how cool is that? Yeah. I mean, it keeps bringing people from all walks of life together, and we're, like, cross pollinating our our ideas. And and it's like we're it's just it's magic to me. It is it's like a giant, beautiful magic trick, and I love it.
[01:12:46] Unknown:
Yeah. It Bitcoin is hope. It's, it gives me more hope than anything out there. It's like I said, fixing the monetary system is the most important thing we can do. Yeah. We can't fix it in a revolution, I don't think, but I think we can fix it with an evolution. And Yeah. And that takes a little bit of time and patience. And,
[01:13:07] Unknown:
I think the the Bitcoiners are very patient to make this happen. Yeah. Our low time preference is it's it's been a great shift for sure in in my consciousness as as a woman, so I'm grateful. So thank you so much, Brian, and thanks for everything you're doing out there in the future. And you guys, everyone listening, like, make sure you guys go get all 3 of his books, go follow Brian, and, you know, share this podcast with other people. If there's environmentalists, if there's young people, whoever you think would benefit from this podcast, make sure that you guys, share this. And then, and I'm gonna just do a quick plug, Brian. We're having a podcast, a Bitcoin for Podcasters Virtual Summit, on September 28th.
And so I'm gonna be hosting a lot of different virtual summits whether it's Bitcoin for environmentalists, Bitcoin for coaches, Bitcoin for families. And so we're gonna have Adam Curry. Remember Adam Curry who was from MTV? So he's gonna, he was a VJ on MTV. He's the Podfather. He's got No Agenda podcast. And then we've got a bunch of other great guys who are gonna be, there from Get Alby, from Fountain, from Ellen Bits, and so and from Podholme. And so these 5 gentlemen are taking time to, you know, talk about Bitcoin and help podcasters understand how to use Lightning, how we're gonna use Splits, how we can, you know, have censorship free podcasts hopefully with our money. And so I'm really excited about that. And, yeah. So it's gonna be super cool. So tune in and check it out. Alright, Brian. And everybody listening, thanks you guys so much and wishing you so much love today. I know things are a little crazy out there, but, you know, remember to breathe, and we're gonna get through this together.
Yeah. Thank you, Marie. Alright. Thanks, Brian. And thanks, every
Introduction to Brian Solstin
Brian's Journey to Bitcoin and Conservation
Zen and Minimalism in Bitcoin
Fiat System and Artificial Growth
Tokenizing Nature: A Critical View
Bitcoin as a Medium of Exchange
Financialization and Centralization Concerns
Political and Economic Systems: A Critique
Privacy, Surveillance, and Monetary Control
Educating on Monetary Policies
Understanding Nash Equilibrium and Bitcoin
Bitcoin's Role in Environmental Solutions
Consumption Models and Conservation
Exiting Hyperconsumption
Strategic Reserves and Global Economics
Bitcoin as Hope and Action
