Bitcoin Times Austrian Edition

Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics, brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. Now today, I'm speaking again with Alex Svetsky, who has been on the show before, but today we're talking about his new product, the Bitcoin Times, and this is a special one for us because it's an Austrian themed edition. So of course, as you know, I'm a big fan of Austrian economics. Austrian economics, so I had to get him on to chat about it. Now, as we come up to the holiday season, it's time to think about gifting. Swan fixes this. Swan has a gifting product available, so you can use this to gift Bitcoin to your family or friends. It's swan dot com slash gift. Now, the product works this way: you sign up with the platform, you assign an amount of fiat, you send that to your friends and family, they get notified through an email, and then they sign up and then they convert that fiat into Bitcoin. Now

The gift of Swan's ongoing customer service and support, it's world class. Some of the testimonials are fantastic, so I'm just gonna read some. "Very good and fast as usual." Another one is "Solid answers from real people, gotta love it." And thirdly, Swan support is awesome, very responsive. So if you want to give the gift of Bitcoin and the gift of education about Bitcoin, go to swan dot com slash gift. When it comes to Bitcoin security and hardware, coinkite dot com is the website to go visit. Now, they have a really cool product product called the TapSigner. This is just like a credit card, but it's actually a Bitcoin hardware device, and it has NFC enabled, meaning you can use it to tap with your phone and on wallets such as Nunchuk. So it's very easy to use. It comes in at a cheaper price point, it's about forty-four dollars. This can be part of your multi-signature or maybe a smaller hot wallet or potentially for somebody in the developing world who needs a cheaper device. TapSigner is a fantastic option to consider, or of course, if you want the top of the line device, the Coldcard MK4, you can get all of this over at quaintkite dot com. Use code Livera for a discount on your cold cards. Now, if you're in the market for a Bitcoin and Liquid wallet, Green is Bloksreams' industry-leading phone and desktop wallet. Gain access to powerful features such as multi-signature security, full node verification, and Tor support. So with the multi-signature shield, you hold one key on your device, another is held on On Blockstream's servers as the two-factor authentication, and you can have a time lock or a third backup key to ensure you retain full ownership of your funds. You can also use this wallet in single-signature mode if that's what you prefer, and it has integrations with hardware wallets such as Blockstream, JADE, Ledger, and Trezor. So if you're interested in this, it's available for iOS, Android, or desktop. Go to blockstream.com/green. And now onto the show with Svetsky. Svetsky, welcome back to the show.

Lovera, good to see you again, buddy. It's, it's been a while.

Yeah, it has, it has, since you've been on the show, of course, we've been, seeing each other at some various Bitcoin conferences and events around Australian refugees. That's right, on, on, on the run. Just finding each other in every other country. But yeah, I mean, it's funny 'cause, I guess, there's these networks, right, of like Aussie Bitcoiners out there, and you sort of end up running into each other out, out and about. I ran into some, down at, in El Salvador as well, actually, and some at Pacific Bitcoin also. but anyway, let's get into- I think we, yeah, caught up. I was just gonna say, I think we've, I think we've actually caught

up more overseas than we did ever in

but

yeah, let's get into it. Let's get into this. I, I know you've got, the Bitcoin Times, which has been running for some time, and we've got the Austrian edition, obviously. As a long-time fan of Austrian economics, we had to chat about this one. so, yep. Let's start with a little bit about, you know, why, why start the Bitcoin Times? Like, what is this? Why, and why start it?

Yeah,

cool.

So the, the original, w-how, how it sort of In Sydney, actually, if you, do, do you remember, what are they called? Wholesale Investor, if, if you remember those guys.

I don't know them.

But yeah, go on. Yeah, so, so they're kind of like a capital raising forum, and they put on, you know, like events for people to basically come and raise money. And, and anyway, in, in twenty seventeen, they, like, I, I went there because I, I was founding Amber, and I needed to raise some money. And it was funny, I was the only Like there was ICOs for toasters, ICOs for, for everything, and I was like the only Bitcoin company, like, and we had no token, no nothing, we're just raising equity, you know, novel, novel concept here. And I, I got on stage and I, and I buried the notion of ICOs as like the biggest scam ever. And I remember what happened, there was like everyone, like I bifurcated the room basically, like half the room was like, "We're gonna kill you," and the other half of the room was like, I got up and said something that made sense. I don't know what the hell these people have been talking for, about for the last two days. Like, why am I buying tokens? Why can't I buy the company, right? So anyway, like the, the event organizers, like, he was watching me in the back of the room and I saw he, like, his face went white and afterwards he was like, "Look, you know, please never come to our event again, right?" So anyway, a, a year later was when, you know, obviously all the ICO stuff blew up

Some bad things last time, but it turned out you were right about ICOs, you know, and thank you for saying what you did. We've had a lot of, you know, really good feedback. So look, this year we're doing another conference, but don't worry, there's no ICOs. This year it's about blockchain. I'm sure you understand that that's gonna change the world. I was like, oh, you gotta be kidding me. So I went to this conference and, and, you know, again, my talk was, you know, blockchain is dead, the future is on lightning, and that was the whole premise of the talk. But I didn't tell him what I was gonna talk about. I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I'm gonna talk about how, you know, the Bitcoin blockchain is the most important." He's like, "Oh, that'll be good, you know, we've, we've got all these other blockchains there, and it'll be good to give people a

So I took all of it and I packed it into like a PDF that we gave out, on the, on the day, and it was this kind of like thirty pages worth of just why blockchain is, you know, wrong. You know, kind of broke it down into the three broken promises of a blockchain, which, you know, the whole point is like security, but, you know, you remove the proof of work, then you don't have security. You, you know, like I don't have to explain to this audience why blockchain is stupid. So anyway, I did all

It was the same thing, like I put the first slide, I said, "So everyone thinks I'm gonna be talking about why the Bitcoin, Bitcoin blockchain is better, but the reality is I'm gonna tell you why blockchain is the next biggest scam after ICOs." It just went white in the background again. And anyway, that's kind of how the Bitcoin Times started, and we had this pamphlet, and we just couldn't, we just came up with a name for the day, we just called it the Bitcoin Times, we handed it out, and the feedback was incredible. And I don't know, after that, we sat down, we're like, look, maybe we can design this into something nice, and give it away as a free PDF. So we did that. And then later that year, so end of, I think it was Yeah, little collection of, essays. So I reached out to, to Breedlove, to Gigi, to, who else was in that first one? Nick Carter, Connor Brown, who I haven't seen Connor Brown around for a long time. there was Rory was in there, Haas was in there actually. so this, so that was eight essays, it was really good. That was Edition two, it's called the Sovereignty Edition. We released that in twenty nineteen. Then I did Edition three, that was with Jeff Booth and Giacomo and Parker Lewis, that was, that was a solid one. That was probably the most, famous one. That one kind of like, you know, made Bitcoin Times relatively well known. Then last year I did, Edition Four, that was the "A New Hope," with, Toma, Brandon Quiter, Alan Farrington, Peter Sonangi, and, and Craig Warneke, and that was kind of, like a forward pacing one. And yeah, and the, the plan was always to do like a, And really make it limited edition and, you know, design every edition nicely. So it was just I was always too busy with Amber, and then, earlier this year I packed up and finished up sort of my, my last ties with Australia and with Amber and everything, and I've gone, you know, double down full content, and, yeah, I'm gonna make something of the Bitcoin Times where it's, it's an annual, once a year publication. We'll do twenty-one editions over twenty-one years. each one will come with like a theme where we bring the best Look at the theme through the lens of Bitcoin and Bitcoin through the lens of the theme, which is effectively what this year is, is Austrian, the Austrian edition. And yeah, it'll be twenty-one hundred, so two thousand one hundred of each edition will ever be printed, and they'll be uniquely numbered on the back, and they're printed as a really high quality, thick, matte finish collectible, like it's-- they're heavy, you can feel it in the, in the quality, and they're all uniquely numbered, and there's like six numbers that we're gonna One of twenty-one hundred, twenty-one hundred of twenty-one hundred, of course, ten thirty-one of twenty-one hundred, copy twenty-one of twenty-one hundred. So of each edition, you know, those unique copies will be, will be auctioned off and, and yeah, people can get in there and buy the collectibles and we'll do it on Amazon. So, so there's this whole plan now which is to, yeah, timeless content, printed beautifully and available online as a PDF.

Great. And so let's talk a little bit about Austrian economics. Now, I A bit about how you got into Austrian economics and, you know, what is it about Austrian economics that appeals to you?

Yeah, so my, my early journey was, I kind of had some sprinkling of Austrian economics back in two thousand and nine, two thousand and ten, which was post obviously GFC. I may, maybe even as early as two thousand and eight actually, with like, you know, I mean, you know, pseudo-Austrian economics, so like Mike Maloney and, you know, the Goldbugs and all of that sort of stuff, real, like Keynesian, oh sorry, Keynesian Jesus, Misesian or any of that sort of Austrian economics. So I had been, while I was at university, I was studying civil engineering, and I couldn't sit still, so I took my scholarship money and I placed it on the stock market to try and, you know, make a lot of money, right? And two thousand and seven, I did well. Two thousand and eight, I got wiped. Actually, no, sorry, two thousand, early two thousand and seven, I did well. Late two thousand and seven, I But in the end, anyway, like it basically turned into a gambling addiction, and I took, you know, all my scholarship money, and everything I'd made and leveraged and all of this stuff, and I found myself at the age of twenty-one about a quarter of a million dollars in debt, and that's sort of where my entrepreneurial journey kicked off, but also where I first, I was like reading, I was like, "What the hell did I do wrong?" You know? And then I learnt about QE and money printing and the gold standard and, you know, that sort of stuff

Austrian rabbit hole at that point, like it was, I kind of, I just related to it, it made sense, like, I, I just sort of had this intuition that, yeah, well, you just can't print money, like, that doesn't make any sense because if, you know, the, the productivity's not increasing, like, what the hell does the money mean? So, like, all, all this sort of stuff kind of made sense to me, but, you know, life took me on a different set of journeys. I went and started different businesses, you know

down that rabbit hole. you know, initially, as we-- I mean, I don't know if we all do this, but definitely for me, the story was I found Bitcoin, thought I was gonna make millions of dollars, but the more I dug, the more I found something interesting and important here, and it was that that rekindled the Austrian econ stuff for me. And, you know, I'd say probably between listening to your podcasts, reading Saefes book again, and then really in- 2019, probably 2020, was when I really moved into like actually reading some stuff. So I read my first, bit of Rothbard. And yeah, like wh-when I read Rothbard, it was like, you know, that meme, like, "Poohh," it was, it was that kind of moment for me. I was like, "What the hell is-- What the hell have I been missing? What have I been doing?" And, yeah, like, if, if it's funny, if you look at my Audible, And personal development and psychology and thinking, and then all of a sudden you see like the first bit of Austrian economics come in, like, you know, Rothbard, and then all of a sudden everything's like Austrian economics, like the whole library just changes, and then, you know, it's like sovereign individual, the, you know, when money dies, like, you know, basically extremist.

So yeah. And it's funny in a way, I mean, what's seen as quote-unquote extreme nowadays, I mean, of course, I mean, this point has been made before, this idea that the window shifts so far that even a normal person from a hundred years ago or, you know, a hundred and fifty years ago, you know, the views of that person are just seen as like some crazy radical extremist person, but the reality is that many people did believe some of these things, and, and we'll get into some of this around, you know, why certain ideas and schools of thought Mainstream system as opposed to, let's say, the Austrian ideas that you and I would like to see propagated around there. So I guess the next question I've got is, why do an Austrian edition?

Yeah, well, I mean, I think there's, it was funny when I was thinking about what we're gonna do for this year's theme. I, I just thought, look, this is the first year I'm really taking the Bitcoin Times seriously. What is integral to Bitcoin? And, I, I don't think there is anything, I mean, other than the, the obvious Computer science component, but I don't think anyone wants to sit there and read about cryptography equations, you know, in seventy pages of a, you know, nicely designed thing. So, I mean, may, maybe there is, but maybe there's a market for that, you know? I

think, I think maybe.

Maybe. But I, I just thought, you know, there, there is Austrian economics is like embedded within Bitcoin and, and Bitcoin in many ways, as is argued in the, in this edition, is, is a manifestation, is a practical application of the Austrian school. thought. And, yeah, I just thought, who, who, what, what better topic to relaunch effectively the, the Bitcoin Times, and what better group of individuals than people like, you know, Seifaddine and, you know, Pierre and Bitsine, et cetera, to like really fountainhead this edition, you know? And, you know, I obviously wish I had you in there, but, you know, time, time was a little bit tough and, you know, we, we couldn't get you squeezed in, but we'll do an Austrian edition part two, or DJ Konz or something. But, yeah, I think it, it was just the, the topic just felt right, and I'm so happy with how the essays turned out, like we've got such a beautiful spread of ideas in here, and, yeah, I can't, I can't wait to share it with everyone.

Yeah, no, that's great, and I've, obviously I've had a chance to read it, so for listeners, so you're aware, so we can talk about some of them, and pull out some of the key ideas and piece about making time preference low again in this one. And so those of us who are fans of Austrian economics or call ourselves Austro-libertarians, we like a lot of Hopper's thinking in how time preference has this relationship with civilization and that actually people being able to accumulate capital is actually what creates what we now know as, as a nice peaceful civilization as opposed to the, you know, horrible, brutish, short life without- These nice things that we all enjoy.

Yeah, I mean, the, the whole basis of the time preference argument is the basis of the Bitcoin fixes this meme, right? And this is sort of what a lot of Bitcoiners kind of intuitively understand, even if they can't articulate it. And, you know, people like Hopper, et cetera, have, I think, been the best in the world to articulate the central importance of time preference for civilization. Like, if, if an individual, you know, the, the-- who is the constituent of a civilization cannot- In some way, shape, or form, like store, you know, the, the excess product of their, you know, labor or the value that they create, they can't save effectively, and without saving, you don't have civilization. You can't sort of build a bedrock or a foundation, you can't move forward, and, and, and saving is the thing that allows you to plan for the future, to, to effectively lower your time preference, because you know you have something, moving forward. And if you, you've-- Like these things are so interrelated, You get that, light bulb moment with Bitcoin where it's, you know, it's not a thing that you're doing to make money or to trade or, or to any of that sort of stuff. It's like, it's not just about payments and things like that. You see, this sort of, this light bulb moment switches for you when you're sort of going down that Bitcoin rabbit hole where you're like, "Holy crap, Bitcoin fixes saving." And by fixing saving downstream, it fixes all of civilization, because now you can lower your time preference, you can think for the future, you can orient yourself towards longer term planning so that you don't have to just react like a animal everyday. You can actually be a human, you can actually think of things that are of higher order. And that is, yeah, I, I think of all things, and, and I touch on this, I think, in my essay as well, like where the Keynesians kind of wanna-- I don't, I don't know if you want me to jump on that But like the Keynesians were, have basically de-civilized us by heightening time preference to such a degree that nobody thinks about the future anymore, nobody thinks about any of that sort of stuff anymore, and it's kind of like- Animalistic and easy versus, I, I don't know,

like the hard path, yeah. And I think, I think you're right, I think there's something to that. Now, it's a question of whether that's deliberate or is it more like a mistake or maybe it's more like the incentives of the system drove it that way, right? Now, we could also talk about this question of Austrian economics, as we know it, used to be just economics, economics. If you went back like a hundred, you know, maybe in the, in the 1900s or something It just was economics. It, it just shifted over time. So what we now, what, what people get typically taught at schools and universities is this kind of neoclassical Keynesian idea, or the alternative is the monetarism idea. So that's kind of all you get shown at university and high school economics, or that's typically what you get taught. And so it raises that question, why was it, why was this stuff the one that got promoted in the mainstream, so-called mainstream schools and universities? And partly- It could be that it gives an excuse to politicians and people in power to intervene more, whereas obviously the Austrian school and Austrian school economists tend to be more free market in nature, and they tend to be saying, "No, you shouldn't do government intervention." So I'm curious your thoughts on that, on this idea of why is it that if Austrian economics is correct, how come it didn't intellectually remain in command?

As you said, it's, I, I don't think it's as clear Clear cut to say that, hey, this is all one big conspiracy by the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers and the Lizards to impose totalitarian rule on all the world, right? Like that's just, in my view, you know, Alex Jones was right about things on the surface, but, you know, the raison d'être behind it, I think, is, is a little bit naive to just think that, you know, that this is all a grand plan. I think what happens, as you said, is the incentives orient in such a way In the near term, that, you know, eve-everyone is effectively looking out for themselves, and, you know, Austrian Economics is very aware of that, it says that, and that's why it says, you know, not to try and play with the dials too much, because when you do, people then reorient and everyone is kind of like trying to, you know, get out for themselves. And, and I think the problem that sort of emerged, and this is, this is interesting, like I spoke with Raheem about this, who's, you know One of the writers in this, edition, and he, he said something about, he said modernity is a combination of, basically, what did he call it? Like, not merchant banking, but he, he called it like sort of industrial banking or, you know, modern finance, effectively with the industrial age, like that sort of stuff came together, and effectively you had the, the emergence of the, the modern state, right? This sort of republican kind of ideal democratic state, and what that, like- It flourished in a period of increasing centralization, and in that increasing centralization, what you ended up having was this, the emergence of these power centers who believed that, you know, it, it was their duty in some degree to do everything. And, and I would-- I was thinking about this actually the other day, like, you know, I even think a person like Bismarck, you know, and a lot of people say that, you know, you know, he's sort of like one of the, the fountainheads of the, you know, the, the centralization of

I think if you took him from back then and kind of brought him to here, he'd be embarrassed about sort of the way the world went. He'd be like, "Jesus Christ, what the hell did-- what the hell happened?" Or, or Napoleon, for example, or, or even any of those sort of early figures who were sort of forces towards centralization. I don't think they really knew what was happening. I think they were naive enough to think that, "Hey, I've managed to amass a lot of..." Power, whether you know, politically, militarily, or economically, and particularly with the rise of the industrial age, like that transformed everything, you know, the, the world moved from a feudal age into, into the kind of the, the bourgeoisie age, for, for, for lack of a better term, and, and that created massive, massive, disruption to, you know, the, the social strata that was existed before and, you know, the, the, the amount of money people had, you know, unlocked wealth, all this sort of stuff, and it And I think we as a species, maybe if we sort of step back on a long enough timeframe, you know, maybe we'll look back on this a thousand years from now and say, "Look, that's what we had to go through," because during that phase of centralization, we basically civilization like outpaced the capacity for gold to solve the problems of exchange, like so, so we had-- and, and Goldstein writes about this, in, in his piece, is that With gold lacking in its properties, you know, to be used as, broadly available money, fiat had to step in to solve a few things. But, you know, as we said at the beginning of sort of this point, is that step by step, you end up making these decisions which force you down a path that you don't really know you're going down. And take that out ten steps, fifty steps, a hundred steps, two hundred steps, then the logical decision seems to be, you know, well, look, we've come this far, let's, you know, let's And organize it, and the very thing that you're trying to do sends you in the wrong direction. So I think in many ways, you've got that. And then I think also, like, I've, in my article, I've got this, the USDA food pyramid, right? I say that, you know, I, I'm gonna quote something from the, from the article says, "You may be thinking, if Austrian economics is so good, just, and functional, why on earth haven't I heard about this, and why is it so obscure?" And then

The base of your, diet should be, bread and pasta and carbs, and the thing you should have the least of is, you know, butter and red meat. I, in fact, I think in their thing they, they have like, alcohol, plant oils is more important apparently than eating red meat. So, so it's kind of like this, this derangement of thinking that emerges from, from, you know, scientism, from centralization, centralizing forces, from naivete, like it's all sort of mixed in there, and, and I think this This has sort of been the, the era of that, the era of peak fiat, and that's, I would argue, why the Keynesians have won the, the recent battles. But, you know, you can only lie to yourself for so long until everything breaks, and then you need to sort of have an awakening, and I think that's sort of the moment that we're in now with Bitcoin.

Yeah, I think you're right, and I think it, it's, it's driving, it's coming to a point where The consequences are now being shown to all of us, right? Whether that is energy crisis in various parts around the world, whether that is high inflation and people are now sadly struggling to afford things in terms of food and the life standard. So a lot of people, unfortunately, because of the craziness of the last few years and just the buildup of bad decision making over decades, people are taking a step backwards in living standards, which is unfortunate and also in recent Decades, that's unprecedented, because up until this point, you could sort of argue that, okay, for the most part, living standards were going up, but now it's like we're, we're, we're going in reverse right now, which is unfortunate, and I think we need Bitcoin as a corrective. and also that reminds me as well the point that, Sefiin makes in his essay in, in, in this edition of the Bitcoin Times, he talks about how Bitcoin changes our behavior. More people start to save, people start having a family. People start giving up drug addiction and dealing drugs instead, and now they're actually thinking more about how, how can they save, right? And so I'm curious, have you seen that in either yourself or in other people in Bitcoin?

It's funny how you just pulled on that thread because I was literally gonna wanna pull on the same thread around like, well, you said our material, basically living standards have been, increasing, but what's interesting is during the fiat age, I would argue that a lot of our, moral standards- Have actually been decreasing in the background. So we've had this sort of increasing, material standards, but decreasing moral standard now. With the, like, we, we-- there's sort of been this like gap between the two that's been, you know, emerge-- like, growing and growing and growing and growing. And now, because there's nothing substantiating the level of material standard that we've created, and all of the consequences are now catching up, now it's like the material standard's gonna start dropping, and in the process, it's actually, I think, gonna accelerate The moral standards going down because people are gonna start to get desperate. So, so you sort of have this downward spiraling negative feedback loop effectively.

Yeah. And I mean, that reminds me of even like when you see, when in like poorer countries where there's just more crime, right? There's just more theft. Yeah, totally. Like, and I mean, I have, like, probably, I could probably even think of real examples that I'm hearing from some of my family in Sri Lanka where, you know, when things are going down economically, they were literally seeing more people stealing just because, What else are they gonna do?

Yeah, people get desperate, people get desperate, and that's, and that's super sad. So like, you know, I, I said negative feedback loop before, but it's actually, you know, more accurately put, it's a negative positive feedback loop in the sense that it's a bad thing, but it feeds on itself. And You know, to, to, to Seiferting's point and, and what you just said there is like, I mean, you know, Bitcoin is kind of like a emergent reaction to the moral decay that has been sort of, setting into civilization and in fixing, In, in giving people a mechanism through which they can sort of save and start thinking a little bit long term, it actually helps maybe turn that moral decay around, and in fixing that piece Then we have a chance to turn this ship around in a material decay standpoint. you know, the, the thing is, and, and this is probably gonna be the challenging part, and I've said this in the past, is that we are simultaneously the, the luckiest generation, but also the generation that drew the short straw from the bundle in that we're gonna have to endure clown world because as much as, you know, Bitcoin's gonna fix a whole lot of things, there's a, there's a delay, right? Like It's not, you know, and, and this is where all the, all the shitcoiners and all the, you know, people who think you can just like fix something by pressing a button, they don't understand. They're like, "Yo, Bitcoin's been around for fourteen years, but look, the world is still fucked up." It's like, bro, you, you can't turn the Titanic around, you know, with a single turn of the wheel. Like, it takes time. Like, so, so I think as, as I just sort of said, is we're gonna Innovation is, but we're also gonna have to go through, you know, maybe crashing into five or six icebergs along the way and hope we don't sink the Titanic and come out the other side, in a better direction.

Back to the show in a moment. Now, with all of the chaos in the quote-unquote crypto markets and the exchanges, Unchained Capital is essential for you to consider. They can help you secure your big hodl stack, your main stash of coins, using multi-signature. Now, they are really big on removing single points of failure, and you should be too. It's honestly an important thing that can give you that peace of mind knowing that you can make one or two small mistakes here and there. Without losing all of your coins, depending on your setup. So with Unchained Capital, you can use a two of three multi-signature setup. They can teach you how to do this. They've got a concierge onboarding program where you pay upfront, they ship you the hardware if you need it, they do a video call, they teach you how to do it, even if you've never done this before. So Unchained dot com slash Concierge, use the code Livera, and you get a discount on your concierge onboarding program, improve to multi-signature security today. And Bitcoin and Lightning, an essential tool is a block explorer, and Mempool.space is my favorite one. They show the multiple layers of the Bitcoin ecosystem in a comprehensive way. You can see the mempool, you can see the blockchain, you can see second layer networks such as Lightning, you can use the Lightning Explorer to see the channels, the fees that are associated with those channels, and the UTXOs even associated with those channels. It's a fantastic explorer. You can also sell- Self-host it using the various full node distributions such as Umbrel, Raspowallets, and others. Now, if you're with an enterprise, Mempool.Space offers custom mempool instances with your company's branding, you get increased API limits and more. Go learn more at mempool.space/enterprise. And now back to the show. Yeah, and it reminds me as well when, let's say somebody has been eating very poorly and they've got a very bad diet and they get fat. But here's the thing, they didn't just get fat overnight. So like sometimes you'll see that person who's like going on the diet or trying to change their dietary, you know, habits and their lifestyle. But they expect everything to come back in a day. It's like, mate, you didn't get fat in a day, you're not gonna get like healthy in a day either. Like it's gonna take time. Because, and the other really insidious thing is, you know, and we-- I think Austrian economists can explain and understand this better, is this idea that capital accumulation takes time, and that what happens in periods of high time preference is people end up eating the seed corn, or they end up doing the equivalent of, you know, taking that nice wooden chair and throwing it in the Because they need warmth right now, right? It just, it ends up destroying a lot of the productive infrastructure of society, and it's not just physical things, it's also even labor skills. Like, what labor skills are there out there that people have, quote unquote, forgotten how to do? Like, if we lose the ability for people to, let's say, quickly build up nuclear power, you know, maybe, maybe that's something that we've lost over time or we're, we're thought of losing over time because of the constant efforts against productivity and reliable energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah

That's a, that's a huge problem as well, and then, then there's, there's, there's the more subtle ones, which is craftsmen are disappearing, right? Like everyone is, racing to become a, you know, a, a financial- person or, you know, a trader or, you know, or an influencer nowadays, right? An influencer, exactly. Like all, all this crap, right? And what's happening is we, like, we've got a, a massive gap of like skilled workers who can do, you know, the, the things that keep the world moving, you know, like sorting out the electricity or, you know, building a house or, you know, using your hands for something. It's like, a-and you see it in like modern architecture, like, like I've been traveling Europe for, You know, going into the, the old churches and like, you know, we went to Milan, for example, and seeing the level of detail in those buildings, like, I don't actually think with all the modern technology that we have, I don't think we could actually recreate any of that stuff, because those craftsmen are gone. Like, we were in, in Florence, and you look at the detail on the, on the doors of the, what was it? Not, not the, not the actual Duomo itself, but the, where the, where Man, like, the, the, the level of artistic dedication and devotion and beauty is like, that's all being eroded because as you said, people are getting desperate. Like, you, you have to have some level of, wealth and savings, and Raheem and I actually spoke about this in the podcast that we just did, is like, if you don't have that level of wealth and savings, you don't have the space to think about higher order stuff. Like, you're not gonna sit there and learn how to design something really nice. When you're desperate to eat, like, you know, or, or you're not gonna figure out a, an ergonomic chair when you just need to sit down, so you're just gonna chop a stump and sit down on the stump. So like, beauty and complexity and all of that nice stuff emerges after we have the, you know, the base settled. And what we've sort of done in the last, you know, hundred, two hundred years as a civilization is we've kind of dug up all the foundations and thrown them away as like, evil patriarchy, and everything else is crumbling on And, you know, it's the fault of you radical thinkers for pointing out that we screwed everything up.

Yeah, and I, I think this is also a point that Ron Paul has made, which is to say that it's no coincidence that the century of central banking was also coinciding with a century of almost total war. So there's just been massive destruction, massive wealth destruction, massive just moral decay over that hundred years or so, and, you know, a lot of it comes back to the creation of the Federal Reserve. It comes back to monetary intervention, it comes back to mindsets around regulation, licensing, things that stop, you know, just bureaucracy. And it's funny in a way, we're seeing that now, even with Twitter, right? We're seeing Elon apparently, you know, either fired or basically induced a large percentage of Twitter to leave. And, you know, maybe there's something to that that, he was able to achieve something by basically trying to return sound engineering principles and thinking to the company as opposed to- Having just a bunch of, you know, overpriced hall monitors who- I know, right? With,

with, what, what was the,

the

annual

bill for food again, or something? Or like, what was it like? Oh, I can't remember. It was like four hundred dollars per person. I think basically based on calculating the total amount allocated, as opposed to the marginal amount, and when to factor in how many people were actually going into the office, I think that's, that was the number that he came up with. Wild, wild. I

mean, I Timeline we're on, right? It's like a, it's, it's a strange, strange world because, like, you know, Elon, I'll, I'll give him credit where credit's due, like, he's an entrepreneur, he's a problem solver, but he's, he's very much a, a fiat problem solver, you know, like, so, so, sort of, he's got these kind of beliefs and ideas that are very, like, current worldish, you know, so, so he's not sort of, he's not a paradigmatically

Mars next to a Peter Thiel, right? Peter Thiel thinks about like what the world, you know, could be, and he, he really thinks like from a paradigmatically different way, right? Whereas Elon, in some ways, he does that, but I think his, ideas are kind of like ridiculous, like, who the hell's gonna go to Mars when we've got all this land here and we have a little thing called oxygen, you know, and water like everywhere? I'm, I'm pretty sure we need to clean our room first before we, you know, go and Putting the cart before the horse, right? Totally, totally. So, so I think, you know, there's, there's some strange things like that, but just seeing all of this play out, like he becomes, you know, by far the richest man in the world and, like, you know, is basically a troll and takes over the, the, the public square, right? You know, I was, hanging out with Jack a couple weeks ago and just, and just picking his brain on, like, you know, what his early thoughts were on Twitter and, you know That wasn't what we were originally thinking, he said. I just was fascinated by the internet and how you could let people know, what you're doing and create this sort of way to tell the world, like, "This is what's happening here." and then he said, "They kind of then turned into, you know, these sort of conversations," he said, "The timeline came afterwards." So, so Twitter's just sort of this fascinating story, and it, it's an example of like what happens in the world, like, Jack Dorsey didn't set out to create Twitter In that way, and, and that kind of is a, is a microcosm of what we said earlier. It's like the, the world just sort of ended up down this path because you can never know where you're gonna end up, like it, it just, there's, you know, these sort of series of iterations. And anyway, to sort of tie off the thought, it's like it's a strange timeline that we're on that an individual like Elon, who is clearly a, a talented problem solver and a strong leader, but with a fiat sort of vision of the world, is The, the, the, the public square where all the communication happens, it's, it's so funny, man. It's so strange. Like, I'm, nothing surprises me at this point.

Yeah. So bringing back to, you know, some of the articles, I think the other aspect that was interesting to me is just explaining exactly how and why Bitcoin achieves what it does, because I, I think to people who are outsiders or, you know, no coiners, they look at Bitcoiners and think, "Oh, just these crazy internet..." Bitcoin people or whatever, but really when you actually look at, like, if you actually dig into it and you understand, so for example, Conrad's article where he's explaining and he's contrasting these different theories of money, right? There's this David Graeber credit theory or debt as money idea, there's the state theory, the charlatanist theory, this idea that, okay, the, the state or the king just dictates what the money is, and then there's this idea that, oh, the commodity theory of money, that it has to form from being a metal like gold historically,

And I think this is a really interesting point. So he says, "What has formerly been done..." So I'm quoting here, "What has formerly been done with metallurgy, certification, centralized record-keeping, legal power and threats, and cartel coordination is now done with an open-source protocol for a peer-to-peer network engaged in cryptographic verification using proof of work." Now I understand that's like a lot of words, right? But the point-- but the basic point is, we're using Bitcoin software and the internet to coordinate in a way where previous- Obviously, you needed all these other things. You need metallurgy, you need certification, you needed a lot of humans involved in that process.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, th-this is sort of, he-- Conrad put in Austrian terms what, you know, many Bitcoiners have tried to, you know, basically describe in either memes or bumbling tweets or, you know, Disjointed, you know, conversations, right? Like he, he, he's put some structure and rigor around that point, which is, you know, when, when people say, "Oh, you know, Bitcoin wastes a lot of electricity," right? And, you know, the-- what, what I've always said to people is that, "Well, hold on, let's, let's think about what needs to exist for you and I to go down to the local cafe and buy a coffee." You know, we, we need to, we need to pull out our card,

There's a tap, you know, you just think that we take that for granted, but what do you need? You need the point of sale, mechanism. You need the, the, you know, between that and the bank, there's like three intermediaries that need to exist. So like the, the bin issuer, the, you know, the, the, the rails that enable that, you need the Visa and Mastercard network, and then you need the banking, the, the bank itself, and the bank needs to be plugged into a banking system, and Think about all the people and the infrastructure and all the crap that needs to be built just to maintain that stuff, and then you need like a judicial system, you need a state to make sure you kind of, let, let's just give them the benefit of the doubt that, you know, the state exists to keep them honest. Like, you need all of that stuff, and then you need the military-industrial complex around that to make sure that, you know, there is a monopoly enforced in order to deliver all this. It's like, how much energy does that use so that you and I can go Sort of when I frame it like that to people, like, "Holy crap, that, that's a lot." It's like, "Yeah, it's like everything. Like, the, the-- we've kind of caked on system over system over system over system to enable us to do what we necessarily have to do, which is human beings need to trade, and we need to measure that sort of language of value somehow, and that, that's sort of the two-- that's the, what the technology of money sort of, you know, enables. But because, you know, we've sort To this point in stages throughout history, like it's this really like Rube Goldberg machine version of, you know, money that is holding civilization together, and it's broken, it's, it's breaking at the seams. Like we've got, we've got a, you know, the, the Tower of Babel of money effectively, and, you know, Bitcoin kind of just does away with all of that, does away with the military-industrial complex, does away with the state, does away with, you know, the, the payment networks, the banking, like the intermediaries, like does away It with, you know, this Raspberry Pi level node that can plug into the internet that anybody can run and proof-of-work ASICs that convert electricity directly, effectively into, into money. And I know that's an abstraction, like it's not exactly how it happens, but that is like not an order of magnitude, but it's like multiple, multiple orders of magnitude more efficient, and you get a superior money that is more effective at doing the job, that is Sound that is fixed in supply and that is unsensory. Like, holy crap, you have a, a thousand x improvement on money with a thousand x improvement on, efficiency and efficacy. Like, how is that not, like- Yeah, just a

massive improvement, right? Yeah,

it's, yeah.

Yeah. And I think one other point that we're touching on here as well is arguably, a point that Bitstein made in his article where he was explaining that it's only through trusted third parties that gold could even become saleable. Right? Because on its own, it's not saleable, right? Like you would have to verify that piece of gold, you would need to transport it, and you might need to have armed guards, you might need a truck to move that much gold if it's a large amount that you're transferring, it might take a long time. Like there are all these trusted third parties that were required, as you spelled out, right? This banking system, the military-industrial complex, the state, the, the courts, the law, all, all of these aspects that are required as infrastructure to even allow this was the gold standard to operate, and of course, in a sense, that's what we're trying to get away from. Of course, it's not gonna fully obviate all of that, but I think moving into a Bitcoin system and showing, you know, seeing is believing, right? I was in El Salvador and I was spending Lightning at, you know, cafes and restaurants and things, and I was trying to show videos of that so people could see, actually, look, this is real world, I'm spending at a Starbucks and it's, it's going straight to them. So, you

It's difficult to explain how Bitcoin achieves what it does, and maybe that's part of our challenge, right? Is when we're out there trying to teach it to people, and of course, our tendency, and you know, maybe listeners of my show as well, can be into-- go into technicals, right? But we have to be skillful enough to explain it to people in a simple way. So, the, the analogy I've, I've often used is this idea that we don't need to be-- you don't need to teach everyone to be a mechanic or an aerodynamic

Adults can do, in the Western world, that's what most adults can do. They, they know how to drive a car. That's all we're asking them to do. I mean, totally, totally.

And, and it's funny, I, speaking of El Salvador, I was, w-w-when we first went there, I think I was there with like Mark Moss and everything before it became legal tender, it was in, in July of twenty twenty-one, I think. And we were there and, I think there was a Clubhouse running, so I think Spaces

Brecky, a couple of the Swan guys were there, and, and there was a question, it's like, you know, something about like, what's different about this generation of bitcoiners and stuff like that, that, you know, really became hodlers, particularly through the, you know, sort of the twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty bear market, and I said, "There's something interesting about this era of bitcoiners, and I don't know if this kind of archetype of person is going to last long. Like, we're at a stage of Bitcoin where the kind Wanna be, you know, the aeronautical engineer and figure it all out and everything like that, but this kind of proves to me that we're still, not even in the early adopter stage, we're still in the tinkering stage of Bitcoin as a, as a revolution. Because the kind of, yeah, exactly, we're still in the innovator stage because that's the sort of people it's attracting. Like, it's attracting maniacs like you and me who are sitting here talking about Austrian economics and how we're gonna fix the, like, the average person doesn't give a Family here, it's like, it's so foreign to them, it's like, so they're like, okay, so can I, can I buy some food with it, right? So, so they're the, they're the people who are looking to drive the car. And I think this era of, of Bitcoin is probably gonna be another cycle, maybe two, of people who are that interested in stuff. But at some point, it's gonna be like, people just don't care, it's like they'll, they'll take for granted that it's money, and that's what they're

Doing over at Synonym, you know, just trying to change the language, and really taking a really interesting product approach for like how people will use this Bitcoin thing, and kind of trying to abstract away from Bitcoin and go to like, hey, this is just money, and this is a better wallet, it's a better way to spend, it's a better way to buy things, it's a better way to store your identity, and, you know, there you go. And, and I think we've still got a way to go to get there, because I still, you know, believe we need

We are with Bitcoin, but, you know, yeah, as you said, like at some point we've got to stop, or, or, or maybe not, you know, it's not up to us to choose when to start or stop this, but at some point we've got to sort of, the language will need to evolve to, "Here's how to drive, not here's how to build the car," or "Here's why the car works," you know, or "Here's the mechanic thing."

Yeah, and I think part of that even, if we look at lightning wallets

Going on in the background. Oh, okay, I've got this cha- this in- I've got this channel, but I don't have any inbound. Okay, let me spend some out of this channel, now I've got inbound capacity to receive. Oh, and, okay, is my node down? Oh, I need to run this other thing, and I need to, you know, there's just all these little aspects. And nowadays there are nice wallets like Breeze and Phoenix and Moon Wallet that handle all this stuff in the background, and you can just use it without really thinking too

needed, and perhaps some level of social normalization too. This idea that, oh, hey, we went out to dinner, and let me pay you back my thirty dollars for my share of the dinner. Okay, here, hit me with a lightning invoice, or maybe in the, let's call it the slash tags context with, synonym. It's this idea that I have, you know, Svetsky as a contact in my BitKit or whatever, and, I send you my share for the, for the dinner or whatever. So, you know, maybe that's, that Similar, it's not that different from, let's say, in the US, people using the likes of Venmo or Cash App to send to each other. So, you know, it's, it's gonna get there eventually, I think. I, it's just harder to build, in the non-custodial way, which is what we want to see. But I think part of it then is, yeah, so even taking away the kind of technical, how do you use it, I think part of it is also how do we explain the uniqueness of what we're doing here? Because

Was buying coffee at Starbucks using my Zos wallet, like connected to my own lightning node with my own channels. And so some of the commenters were saying, "Well, hang on, how is this different from Apple Pay? Or how is this different from India's UPI system?" And you can understand how superficially, if you didn't understand what was happening in the background, "Oh, whatever, we already have this." You know, if you're in Australia, you've already got PayID, or you've already got NPP, National Payments Platform. So I think that's part of our

This is actually a separate monetary system, and it was self-sovereign from the sender's point of view, right? Like that's-- and it's hard to, how do you convey that, right?

Yeah, that's tricky. I mean, this is, you know, we, we are all grappling, I think. In these podcasts, on Twitter, you know, writing these articles, producing these publications to try and answer that question in a more eloquent way. And yeah, to, to your point, I don't know if we've, if we've answered it in a way that is compelling enough, because if, if we had, I think we'd have- The world will be on a Bitcoin standard, right? So, so, you know, maybe the day that question is answered is the day that, you know, we finally have hit that tipping point where the usage implies that that answer has been found. so, you know, I, I, I think there's, we've still got, you know, a lot of work to do, but, you know, the, the, the funny thing is I mean, if we look at all the, the FTX crap that's happened and all of that sort of stuff, it's, you know, the, the existing status quo keeps, in some part, doing the job for us by proving why, you know, the, the existing- Shitstorm is broken and like why it doesn't work and like, you know, losing everyone's money. And, and this is where, you know, Bitcoin's consistent narrative and, and what, what I think Bitcoin has really done well, probably better than any other previous movement that I've seen, is like we've managed to distill, you know, complex ideas in, into these sort of simple memes that Are so consistent about Bitcoin, like they, they just don't change, a-and that kind of over time trust, I think has a, has a deep psychological impact on people's ability to start to move You know, their wealth onto this, because we're, we're asking a big thing, really. Like, you know, I, you know, once again, if I use my family here as an example, like, they're not financially literate, you know? They, they're sort of, you know, it's a arse backwards village in the corner of a country which is basically broken, you know, ex communist place and all that sort of stuff, that they don't get it. But, you know, they, they basically live paycheck to paycheck every month because, you know, the

For them, like, you know, the, the more subtle, you know, differences behind Bitcoin, as you said, like, for them, you know, they, they, it's a cash economy as well here. I think it's a seventy, eighty percent cash economy. Everyone just uses cash, they get paid cash, and like for them, they're not even, they don't even trust putting their money in the bank here, let alone like putting their wealth into this Bitcoin thing. Like, that's even another step foreign to them. So I think it's gonna take us time,

Logical change or, you know, UX/UI change, it's, it's a cultural shift that needs to sort of happen, and, and that by definition is gonna take a generation or two. And, you know, we just happen to be in front of it. So it's a, I don't know, it's, it's sometimes, you know, we, we all get caught up, and we definitely got caught up in this, you know, recent bull run. We're like, oh yeah, you know, two hundred and fifty k Bitcoin and this and that and like, you know, Sense like we got carried away when it's like, hold on, bro, like this thing is gonna take a while. You know, the world ain't jumping on putting their life savings into cold storage tomorrow, okay? Like, hold your horses. And, and I think, you know, if anything, this is sort of a good wake-up call for us to sort of remind us that, you know, we're not all king shit, we don't know everything, you know, we're not gonna on a Bitcoin standard tomorrow. It's gonna take a time, take some time, and we Bitcoin, which is we need to orient ourselves in a low time preference manner and just like, you know, plug away. We just need to do the, the small things consistently every single day in the same way as Bitcoin does the small things consistently every single ten minutes. We, we need to do that, and I think we will slowly, by slowly, just, you know, become the trusted thing, and that's how we win.

Yeah, I think you put it well there, because we fundamentally have to stay humble and keep working, right? We can't just rest on our laurels and think, It's all done and we can just, no, like we have to get out there and find ways to help teach people why they're being scammed right now by the fiat money system, the fiat currency system, and hopefully help them onboard in a non-custodial way. I think that's really-- That is the game, that is what we're trying to do here. And in the ideal case, what, what I would like to see is more people, more and more people treat Bitcoin just like, hey, it's the cash economy, right? Bitcoin should be the cash economy, right? They Back and forth, right? If you, you know, I go and work in your restaurant as the waiter or whatever, and you pay me in sats, and then I go and buy my food with sats, and, you know, that could be how this advances if only we could show people the way.

Yeah, I mean, that's a-- that cash piece is very interesting because as, as much as we're conditioned to have moved away from cash in the West, like whether Australia or Sweden or America and all that sort of stuff, like a big proportion of the world is still a cash economy

Lightning Bitcoin is cash. Like, here we go, we're back to the white paper. I'm gonna sound like Roger Vernal. Bitcoin is electronic cash.

Well, with Lightning, it really is, you know? So- It

really is. But, you know, I mean, ca-ca-cash is, you know, the definition of cash is a bearer instrument. That doesn't, you know, it's got nothing to do with just like payments, and, and that's effectively what Bitcoin is. It's the, the best bearer instrument. And if we can sort of teach people that it It, it's, it's tricky because it's, you know, cash has become so psychologically, associated to a physical object that, you know, we've gotta somehow find a way to cross that chasm. And, you know, I mean, I don't know, maybe what do we do? Do we print, you know, private keys on a, on a piece of paper and, you know, give that

to people? Well, you know, there's like the Sats card and stuff like this, you know, it's kind of like the new version of the open dime.

Pretty cheap, and you can like do branded ones. You could have like a, you know, Svetsky branded or like a The Bitcoin Times branded sats cards and stuff like this. I don't know, that's maybe that's one idea, but yeah, look, I think part of it is just, it's just gonna take time, you know? And I think the other aspect is focusing on the young generation, right? Because they are more tech savvy, they're used-- they're just natively using phones and tablets and things, so maybe for them it's an easier bridge for them.

Simultaneously easier and simultaneously not, because it's, it's easier where, they'll get the technical piece, but maybe they won't have the understanding why cash is important, whereas the older generation gets why cash is important. But yeah, so, so it's kind of like a, you know, we, we are, and then this, this is the challenge, like this is why I think it's, you know, when, when people think that you're gonna get global adoption of Bitcoin tomorrow, it's like, they're genuinely naive. It's like, this is a

Cultures where each one is, you know, appreciates elements of Bitcoin for different reasons, and we actually give them the best of what they both want. But, you know, they're, they're sort of, they're not all the way there, and this is where I, you know, may, maybe in many ways like our generation, 'cause you and I are similar age, it's like, you know, we, we kind of grew up just before the tech boom, you know, and we sort of, you know, we're in school. M-maybe that's why also You know, old and bold enough to, you know, get the, get the, like, the cash piece, and it's like, sort of comes together for us. It's like, this is obvious. And yeah, I mean, m-maybe we need to, like, do a, a Bitcoin Times Gen- What, what are we a Millennial edition? We need to do the Bitcoin Times Millennial edition where, you know, people like us write why it makes sense.

Yeah, but I think that's the other thing as well, because a lot of our-- Well X, maybe some boomers, but it's probably mostly a millennial and Gen X cohort is probably what I would say. But I mean, it comes back to what is our job? The job that you and I and other Bitcoiners have is to try and help normalize this in whatever way we can, whether that's, you know, investing in Bitcoin companies, in, helping, you know, contribute in Bitcoin software or hardware, trying to teach people, whatever we can do to help normalize this thing is going to help advance our process and help, you know, speed the process of hyperbitcoinization We have to be humble and say, "Look, it's not gonna happen tomorrow. It's not just gonna happen, it, it's gonna take work. We're gonna have to all put in that work." So just to, to

finish that thought, I was just gonna say like the-- We are literally building those cathedrals that took hundreds of years to build, where, you know, you're starting it and you know you're never gonna see it to fruition. Like I think we're doing that in, in a modern sense, is like, we're gonna build, we're Fruits of, I mean, maybe we will be, you know, we might be lucky enough that this will happen so fast that we'll get to see it. But yeah, in many ways, like our time is gonna be spent laying these foundations and that, and that's, you know, i-if there's something that is like kind of brings some chills down my spine and makes me, you know, think of there is still hope for humanity, that, you know, the, the essence of greatness still exists, it's,

it's that. Yeah, well, I think that's a great Hey, where can I get it and where can I follow you? Yep,

so bitcoin times dot io, they'll notice that it'll redirect to bitcoin times dot com dot au, 'cause I had an Australian, URL for it. But the, the shop is now live, they can buy edition three, edition four collectibles, they're available for shipping right now. Edition five collectibles, they can pre-order them for, Christmas delivery, they're in the process of being printed now. edition one and two collectibles aren't ready yet Printed early next year, so people who want the whole collection, you know, they can sort of pick them up then. There is a, a, an early bird, sorry, not an early bird, a, a pre-sale on edition five right now, so people can pick that up. It's ten percent off. there's something unique I'm doing this, I'm tying the success of the Bitcoin Times to the success of Bitcoin. So when I launch it, I launch it at about fifty, sixty dollars per copy of a collectible, but the price is fixed in

It's cheap, if the price of Bitcoin goes up, it gets more expensive. So, you know, the, the, I, I launched, edition three and four, back in August, when Bitcoin was still around, you know, the twenty, twenty K mark or whatever it was or twenty five K, so, you know, they're now nice and cheap, you know, at the rate of Bitcoin. So, anyway, it's, it's a Bitcoin only shop, they can go and support it. We've integrated MASH

If, if you want the PDF for free, you can give us your email. If you don't wanna give us your email, you can tip some Sats, and you can get a high-res copy of the PDF. And yeah, it's, it's, on Twitter at TimelessBitcoin, so you can jump on and, you know, share threads there on not just the articles, but sort of broader ideas. So like the other day, I shared a thread which was inspired by Raheem's article about the Scholastics, who are the

There was, there were kind of like a proto-Austrian. Yeah, proto-Austrian. So, so there's some really interesting stuff in there if people wanna sort of learn more about like history and, you know, broader thoughts. that Twitter account is pretty cool. And, and yeah, I'm on Svetsky Writes if you wanna, you know, follow any of my stuff. sometimes abrasive. You know, my, my, my New Year's resolution for twenty twenty-three is to stop or minimize trolling, so it's gonna be less personal opinions, more threads

Thanks, brother. Get the show notes over at stephanlivera dot com slash four three five, and I will see you in the citadels.