FFS070 - Dominic Frisby

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Intro - Funny Conspiracy Theories

Dominic: how many ounces in a pound,

Knut: I don't know. You are the one that refused the metric system.

Dominic: I'll have this argument with you, because this is what's blighted Europe, and the metric system is a form of tyranny, and it bears no relevance to the real world.

Luke: Yes,

Knut: probably invented by lizards. Yeah. No, we,

Luke: Welcome back to the Freedom Footprint show, the Bitcoin philosophy show with Knut Svanholm and me, Luke the Pseudo Finn. And today we're very excited for our guest, Dominic Frisby, author, comedian, musician, and he's been in the Bitcoin space for a really long time.

he's, uh, the author of the Bitcoin, the future of money from way back in 2014. also, Daylight Robbery. I really enjoyed that book personally, all about tax. It sounds boring, but it isn't. And, uh, so we're really excited to have him here. So Dominic, welcome to the Freedom Footprint show.

Dominic: Uh, my pleasure and thank you very much. And I see your name is Pseudo [00:01:00] Finn. So I've been, uh, given a book on conspiracy theories by my son and one of the conspiracy theories is that Finland does not exist.

Luke: Yeah, it's one of my favorites.

Knut: I buy that.

Dominic: Yeah, so is this, is this, is this got something to do with your name?

Luke: Well, if it doesn't exist, I'm sitting somewhere that doesn't exist, coming right at you from Helsinki, Finland. But my name is from, that I am from Canada originally, and then there was this guy, Justin Trudeau, and so then I went and moved to Finland, which is much better.

Dominic: Uh, okay. Well, so, Justin Trudeau, as we know, if we're talking conspiracies, we all know what his provenance is.

Knut: Castro. Well, uh,

Dominic: Well, Castro, or possibly Knut Svanholm himself. Bitcoin's answer to Fidel Castro.

Knut: Do I look that old? Uh, it must be the beard. Anyway, here's the thing about Finland not [00:02:00] existing though. No countries exist. It's all in our heads.

Dominic: Well, that's a different, that's a different argument, but yeah, that's a different argument and one which I buy. But yeah, I've been writing a song about conspiracy theories and it's got the line, Jay Z's a Satanist, Finland does not exist.

Knut: JC exist?

Dominic: Jay Z, you know Jay Z, whatever he is, a rapper or whatever he is.

Knut: Yeah, a

Dominic:

Apparently he's a satanist.

Knut: Oh, really? Good for him. Well, No, there was a South Park episode about Slash not existing, you know, Slash from Guns N Roses. And that is actually, yeah, it was in, in the episode, it's based on an old Dutch tale of Ubersluis or something where, where this is the old folklore tale about this guitarist with the top hat that is too good to be true.

Yeah. David

Dominic: My favorite is that the royal family, the English royal, British royal family, [00:03:00] are in fact shapeshifting lizards.

Knut: Wasn't that David Icke's thing? No, he thought the Jews were lizards, didn't he? For a while.

Dominic: there's, there's definitely, the Illuminati are definitely lizards but specific, specific to the, um, specific to the Finnish royal family, the English British royal family, is they were killed. towards the end of World War II by the Luftwaffe, and an alien spaceship that was observing mankind saw this happen and decided to, take over their bodies because that would be a good position from which to observe humanity, but they're not very good shape shifting lizards.

And so at night, they have to revert to their alien form, and this is why Prince Charles, now King Charles, didn't want to sleep in the same bed as Lady Diana, because he was going back to his, his alien form, [00:04:00] and that's why he insisted on sleeping in separate bedrooms. But then one night... Lady Diana came to visit him in the middle of the night and she discovered the truth, about his lizard form and that is why Lady Diana had to be bumped off.

Knut: Oh, okay. So if, so technically, if you chop off select parts of the royal body, they will grow out again. Is that the case?

Dominic: I guess so, if lizards do that. Yeah. We should try. We should. Give it a go.

Knut: Maybe someone did.

Dominic: And it's because they're not very good shape shifting lizards that the royal family aren't very good looking and they've all got like big ears and they all look a bit weird because they're just not very good shape shifting lizards.

Knut: Oh, yeah, yeah. It sounds plausible to

Dominic: Yeah, they're the shitcoins of shape shifting losers.

Knut: This is fantastic. This, this takes me back to Miami with these conversations were just straight into the stupidity and [00:05:00] instantly between me and Dominic there as well. So, so let's get on with this.

[00:05:05] Taxation and Control

Knut: First question I have for you, Dominic, is why do, why do people in the public sector pay taxes?

Dominic: I don't know, I've never thought about that, and I'm, I'm, I'm gonna give you two reasons. One is that, so that the playing field is level for everyone. That would be one given reason. The other given reason, and the more likely given reason, is to maintain the facade.

Knut: That's the answer I was fishing for, I guess.

Dominic: Yeah because if they didn't, then, questions would be asked. And also, I'll tell you, I'll give you the third reason. It's, been quite a long time since I wrote the book, by the way, so the material's not that fresh in my mind. But one of the arguments is that tax is a system of control. We use taxes to control people.

And so you can't have [00:06:00] one group of people who are outside the net of control.

Knut: Even though they're part of the controlling mechanism.

Dominic: Yeah, but they're just worker ants. They're not the lizards.

Knut: yeah. I love the question though about taxes in the public sector, because I think it's something that Everyone should ask themselves, like, even if you're pro taxes in general, then that makes absolutely no sense. Like if you're paying taxes to your employer and your employer pays you back, what, why are you paying?

Dominic: It, the whole thing is, it's just such a, it's such, it's circular and it's a total waste of paper and effort and, it's a total waste. It's, it's a, it's not a, it's similar to the argument, if you're, if you can print money, why do we need to pay taxes?

Knut: Yeah, that's, that's like the followup question, but that's too deep for most people. because

[00:06:54] Money Printing and Fiat Currency

Knut: I don't think most people have any clue how money printing works, [00:07:00] including myself.

Dominic: I've written about, I've written a film and three books and a weekly blog about it and I'm still not sure I understand how it works. That's, that's the thing, I was reading a, there's a really good guy on Substack called John Carter of Mars which is named after a science fiction character and he writes the most brilliant stuff and he was writing something today, I haven't got to the end of the

He used the example of a house. He was basically moaning, he was trying to work out who's in charge. Because so many of the things that we have in our western economies are just, they're just there. And nobody planned them, nobody voted for them, they're just there. And he used the example of a house. And when you're building a house, there are all sorts of building regulations that you have to comply with.

And somebody, at some point, in an office [00:08:00] somewhere decided on those building regulations, you know, the walls need to be this thick and the supports need to be this and then somebody else signed off on it and then those became mandatory and every house that's built in the country then has to conform to these building regulations even though You know, there might be a house in a certain situation that, whether hills in a certain way or whatever, that it doesn't make sense to build to those regulations.

And those regulations might not even be that good. There might be better ways of building as, as building evolved and so on. But somebody decided them, they're now set in stone and you can't build anything unless you comply with these regulations. And the person that made those regulations, we don't know who he is, nobody knows who he is.

And. Or she is, or they are, and um, they've, long since disappeared, and they're totally unaccountable for those regulations, and yet the whole [00:09:00] country has to abide by those regulations, and then what happens is the next door country is deciding its regulations, and it doesn't know what to do, and you're in Belgium, and Belgium's got, well, Holland's using these regulations, we may as well just use the ones the Dutch use, and they copy them, and it goes forward from there.

And it's that, but with everything in the world, in the, in the system, and what I want to write to this guy, and this guy is going, how did it happen? Nobody planned this, and it's right down to like, uncontrolled mass migration, it's just kind of happening, and nobody's voted for it, nobody's been given a choice, and, but the whole thing is in, and what I want to want, what I want to explain to him, the whole thing is enabled by fiat, without fiat, none of this stuff would have the oxygen, because governments would have to live within their means, and they would inevitably have to do less, and so they would have to devolve to the free market, almost all the time, and then, you know, people wonder why architecture is so bland and [00:10:00] uniform, well it's probably because of these, it's partly because of metric, but it's also because of these stupid, regulations that exist that everyone's building to, and, you know, for me, A building is a work of art, and you wouldn't give, like say Van Gogh was painting a picture, you wouldn't give final sign off on the picture to a regulator.

You wouldn't go, yeah, well, the, thickness of the paint has to be this, and you're only allowed to use seven different colors and whatever, it has to be an artistic choice. And so that's why, so when people go, why is architecture so shit? It's fiat. And why is, you know, why do we have these stupid planning laws?

Why does this happen? Why does that happen? Almost all of the time, it goes back to patient zero, which is fiat.

Knut: Absolutely. It's like the saying goes, the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy, right? So, when you told that story, I have a similar story that a friend told me in [00:11:00] Amsterdam about a friend of his that was tired of applying and getting denied. Applying for stuff for his house and for his company and getting denied all the time.

That's his tackling. Portuguese bureaucracy, which is the same as everywhere else, but in a different shape.

Dominic: But worse. But with a Latin accent.

Knut: a window on the upper floor of his house. but he was absolutely 100 percent sure that his application would be denied. So he sent in an application for removing a window instead, which was of course denied. So, and then he installed the window, which I think is genius.

Dominic: And they didn't, they never checked to see, they never checked to see if the window actually existed.

Knut: Of course not. That would have cost them money and time and effort. Like they, uh, why would they?

Dominic: Oh my

Knut: the application is denied, he said, uh, he sent an angry email back or something. Oh, okay. Then[00:12:00]

Dominic: So, if you follow that logic, let's say you've got some land. And it doesn't have planning permission, and you applied to have the planning permission removed, and they denied it, then you've got planning permission.

Knut: yeah, you could build a golf course or

Dominic: Yeah, and then you go, then you go, I want to take down that house. And they go, no, it's a thing of beauty or whatever.

And then, uh, and they go, no, you can't take it down, so then you've got to put it back up again.

Knut: Yeah, yeah, I love the idea.

Dominic: should get AI to do pictures of the house. that you want to take down.

Knut: This could actually be a movement, you know, if we could get people in every country to start doing this, just applying for the exact opposite of what you're actually trying to achieve, getting it denied, and then doing it anyway.

Dominic: I love it. I love it.

[00:12:52] Hyperinflation and Economic Collapse

Dominic: So like, let me ask you two gents a question, So I discovered what fiat [00:13:00] money meant and the evils of fiat in about 2005, 2006. and the answer to fiat at the time was gold. And so that's why I've always had this very soft spot for gold, which most Bitcoiners haven't got time for.

But one thing I've learnt is that, you know, as Cain said, the system can remain, irrational. Well, a lot longer than you can remain solvent, I've been listening to predictions of hyperinflation since forever, but it never actually materializes. But then, you know the pound has lost a third of its value since 2020, just in three years.

We've had cumulative inflation of 32. 5 percent or something. So that's a third loss of purchasing power in three years. In the pound,

Knut: They should call it, they should call it the compound.

Dominic:

well, the, the inverted compound, but the, but where does, where does [00:14:00] Like, what do you, what's your views of, of collapse and hyperinflation and all the rest of it?

Knut: Well, it is happening, it's just not happening in currencies that are that closely tied to the dollar. So, the same thing happened to both the Swedish and the Norwegian krona. Like the Swedish krona has lost 40 percent against the Euro in 10 years, and the last 7 percent in 6 months.

Dominic: The Swedish Kona?

Knut: The Swedish krona.

Dominic: Why's that?

Knut: Because they've been printing like mad. The Swedish Riksbank, which is the oldest central bank in the world, they've been printing like mad. Even before COVID. The negative interest rates, Sweden were right on top of that. Uh, well,

Dominic: Or sorry, to pay for the welfare which supports the immigration?

Knut: I think it's hard to see that parallel directly for people, [00:15:00] but of course it plays a role. I mean, yeah, why wouldn't it? If you need to, if you need the state to buy, to, to build houses and pay for them, then of course that money is...

Dominic: Yeah, well the state's gotta, and the schools and the hospitals and the blah blah and the welfare and blah blah blah.

Knut: Yeah, but what I'm saying is that all the other currencies, like there's a lot of smaller currencies around Europe and even worse in Africa and South America, they're hyperinflating all the time, right? It's just that we outsource the hyperinflation to, to other countries.

Dominic: Turkey and Argentina, but they're always hyperinflating, there's nothing new.

Knut: No, but I'm saying like, if you take the dollar, which is also inflated, I mean, the way I see it is the productivity in the world is going up and productivity is increasing all the time. Like it's sort of exponential, sort of exponential is a weird word, but, uh, [00:16:00] and the money printing has to keep up with that in order to, uh, uphold the illusion of stable prices.

And a bit more in order to have some inflation, the 3%. And then when something like the lockdowns happen, then they need to print like mad for a couple of years. And then inflation is all of a sudden, then productivity does not accelerate at the same rate as it used to. But I see it as like, yeah, people have been predicting hyperinflation since at least 2005, as you say.

But there's always a new technology to help fuel the increasing productivity of absolutely everything. I mean, in 2005, people didn't have smartphones, right? Which have, yeah, helped everyone be better at everything, to a remarkable rate. So I think this AI revolution might save the central bankers for another 10 years, like, because, because it's, it's making everything, the marginal cost of production of [00:17:00] everything so much cheaper.

So they can, they can kick the can down the road or, uh, I think a more suitable metaphor is roll the snowball down the hill for, for, for quite long before it crashes.

Dominic: So, um, the, the, the increased gains from improved technology, offset the money printing basically. Offset the hyperinflation.

Knut: Yeah, that's the way I see it. I think that's the way that's similar to an answer you'd get from many of my friends.

[00:17:32] Fiat Food

Dominic: just come back from the States, it, it, it felt really expensive. Like in 2007, it was two dollars to the pound. Now it's a dollar twenty, you know, so that's, what is that, forty percent?

Knut: Yeah. It's awful.

Dominic: and then on top of that, you've got the fact that food is expensive in America.

I don't know how they all get so fat because food is not cheap.[00:18:00]

Knut: Well, they're, they have, they've doubled their wealth in comparison to us in 10 years,

right?

Dominic: Yeah. I tell you what, they, it's not so bad in California, but I was in Louisiana for a bit and you know, when you go to places like the airports and stuff like that and you just see folk from everywhere. That nation is being poisoned by its food

Knut: Yep.

Dominic: on an enormous scale. It's like, if I was writing a sort of Lord of the Rings, allegory of everything that's going on, one of the things would be all the people in the free lands have been poisoned. Because that's, that would be one of the, like, Everywhere you look, there is barely, like you go, in Europe, there's quite a few fat people, you know, overweight people. but, there's also some, you know, very slim people as well.

And I think generally speaking, the food is less poisonous in Europe than it is in [00:19:00] America. It's less processed, but I've, been reading a lot about seed oils and it's, all those oils they put in it, in the food.

Knut: Yeah. This is an interesting topic as well. I think this is such a hard one though, because there's so many factors playing in, it's kind of hard to see clearly on this. I mean. The fact that there, there, you need a car to get anywhere in America, there's like, there's no sidewalks or pavements, to use a more British term, that's, uh, that must factor in, but I saw some, I don't remember where I saw this, but it was an interesting thread about, you know, uh, obesity in general across the world, and it's, it's getting higher in most places, but nobody really knows why, because they're, Uh, cities on higher altitudes, it doesn't, it doesn't matter if it's on a plateau and doesn't have any hills or anything in them, but, but cities on, uh, in higher altitudes, on a higher [00:20:00] altitudes apparently have, uh, way, way lower obesity levels.

Dominic: Yeah. Metabolisms. The metabolism's faster at altitude.

Knut: Yeah, that might be it, or it might have to do something with the water, who knows, like, I don't know what it is, but, but, uh, it's a very strange epidemic, like the obesity, because Americans didn't used to be this fat, like, uh, not to this

Dominic: You look at pictures in the 70s, they were not this fat.

Knut: I mean, they were fatter than us.

Dominic: Yeah, but, like, it's, it became a thing in the mid to late 70s. Uh, it started to happen. And, I don't, I don't believe people are greedier now. than they were 30 or 40 years ago. We're just, we're the same people that we were. So something in the diet has changed and I'm sure it's those industrial oils.

But yeah, altitude is, like, I, I proposed a TV program once, which was a load of overweight celebrities, uh, go trekking in the Himalayas. [00:21:00] And, um, watch the weight fall off them, and watch how they deal with walking in the Himalayas, and it's, it's partly because they wouldn't be eating shitty Western food, it's partly because they'd be eating healthy, unprocessed, uh, Nepalese food, and it's partly being at altitude.

and taking exercise.

Knut: Nah, that sounds like a costly program to make though, because you'd have to bribe them, I guess.

Dominic: No, you, you would be cheap because, you'd be filming outdoors in Nepal

Luke: And the overweight celebrities are probably desperate for attention.

Dominic: Yeah,

Knut: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dominic: And they're also desperate to lose weight.

Knut: Not all of them.

Dominic: Well, most of them are. but it was just a casual observation of America is one, it's not cheap, it felt really expensive. Like it's very hard to go and have a meal with a couple of drinks and pay less than 100 a head, or no, less than 75 a head. And,

Knut: [00:22:00] that's weird.

Dominic: and it was, it was expensive and the people have been poisoned.

Knut: they sure have. And you say it happened somewhere in the years after 71? That's when it

Dominic: Well, there you go.

Knut: Might be a connection there. Yeah.

Dominic: Yeah, as Safe Dean says, it's fiat food,

Knut: Absolutely.

Dominic: and it's when, it's, it's a classic example, when we were talking before about planning regulation, building, building stipulations, it's the same with the regulation of the food industry, like somebody makes decisions, like, if I run a restaurant, Okay, and I want to run a successful restaurant. It's not in my interest to poison people.

It's in my interest to feed them really well. But yet we have to have these food regulations to make sure that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the food regulations come in and then, you know, the industrial oil companies, the seed oil companies lobby the [00:23:00] food regulation people. And then suddenly, You know, industrial oils are good for you, and animal fats are bad for you.

Even though we've been eating animal fats perfectly well, thousands of years, probably since even before we were humans we've been eating animal fats.

Knut: Absolutely. I'm so glad you brought up restaurants because I have a fantastic story from the, my, my, my brother is the head chef at the restaurant and near where we grew up. and, uh, they had the, um, health authority visit them. And it was like eight people to check one restaurant, all government employees, you know, with filling out forms and, they didn't pass the test.

So they had a couple of things they needed to fix before they could get the okay stamp from this authority. but the next day they booked a table for all eight of them. And I find that so hilarious, so it was good enough for them, but not good enough for the rest of the population. And I suspect that's not the first [00:24:00] instance that something like that has happened with health authorities.

Dominic: That's like the Nazis closing your restaurant down, but before they close it down they're gonna have dinner.

Knut: Same thing. I usually tell, like, the word Nazi is being thrown around a lot,

Dominic: I actually meant Germans in World War II. I

Knut: uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dominic: about Germans in World War II.

Knut: Yeah. And to me, it's pretty simple. Like if you don't want to be a Nazi, don't be a nationalist and don't be a socialist. And then you're fine. That's...

Dominic: Yeah, but socialists don't like it when you call Nazis socialists.

Knut: No, even though it's in the name. Yeah. All right. We're talking about taxes. Yeah.

[00:24:46] Daylight Robbery

Knut: Daylight robbery is interesting. Can you explain the title? Because I think there's a story about an actual actual thing. How taxes do stuff to people which was not the original [00:25:00] intent of the tax.

Dominic: Yeah, so, around about the time the Bank of England was formed, uh, after the, um, Swedish Reiss Bank, We had just had a thing called the Glorious Revolution, where the king had been deposed and we had this new king, William of Orange, and in order to ingratiate himself with the people, he got rid of the most despised tax in the country, which was a hearth tax, which was basically a tax of fireplaces, so you would have tax inspectors come round to your house, and count the number of fireplaces you had, and then you would have to pay a tax figures.

on each fireplace and it was considered an invasion of the Englishman's sacred privacy. And so they abolished the tax to make themselves popular. Then of course they had no money and he had wars to fight. So somebody came up with this idea, but they had the infrastructure in place to collect the hearth tax.

So somebody came up with this [00:26:00] idea, instead of taxing fireplaces, they would tax windows. And the same people who went into your house to count the number of fireplaces you had, they could just walk past your house and count the number of windows. It's obviously a very hard tax to avoid because the windows are there in plain sight.

it's kind of a fair tax because the more windows you have, the richer you are. So it's considered a, uh, you know, a progressive tax. The wealthier you are, the more you pay. But of course, it's not that simple and people in the countryside tended to have more windows than people in cities.

And, uh, And so it was unfair on people from the countryside. And then they started building new homes with fewer windows. And in the cities, at this point, a lot of people were moving to the cities for the Industrial Revolution. They were moving from the countryside to the cities. And unscrupulous landlords, on whom the tax fell, would [00:27:00] build these huge tenement blocks with no windows at all.

And so, thus did they avoid paying the tax. and this was considered, this made all the illnesses in the industrial revolution in the cities, cholera, typhoid, all the rest of it, much, much worse, because they were made worse by these damp, cramp, windowless dwellings. And there were campaigns to get rid of this tax for decades.

And there were scientific studies were done that proved that the tax would make you, made you people sick. And it was contributing to the illness of the nation for decades. eventually in, 1850 something or 1840 something, 150 years, over 150 years since the tax was first imposed, they finally got rid of it.

But when they got rid of it and they were having their debates in parliament, they would cry, [00:28:00] daylight robbery, daylight robbery. And that's because in blocking up their windows, people were being robbed of their daylight. And that's, so that's where that expression is said to come from.

Knut: That's beautiful and tragic at the same time, of course, they should have just broken the windows because that's good for the economy I hear.

Dominic: I don't think they had glass windows at that point. But yeah, you're absolutely right, that's a reference to Bastiat.

Knut: Yeah, exactly. Uh, look it up, people, and like, subscribe, and brush your teeth.

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

The big news about AmberApp is that [00:29:00] on Jan 3, 2024, they're going to be launching their version 2. I've seen some of the screenshots and it looks fantastic. They're going to be including a non custodial on chain wallet, an anonymous lightning wallet, a fiat wallet, And finally, it's going to be an exchange, of course. it's going to be just this super app, They're also going to be launching globally.

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

Next up WasabiWallet. The privacy by default, open source, non custodial Bitcoin wallet with CoinJoin built in. It's the easy to use, comprehensive, affordable way to make your coins private. And the best part is, they've been making huge improvements to the app.

They're really focusing on the user experience, adding advanced features for power users, they just keep getting better. You send your coins to your Wasabi wallet, and they get combined with loads of other [00:30:00] coins using the Wabi Sabi protocol, so they're private on the other end. Your tracks are covered so you can work on expanding your Freedom Footprint without worrying about your privacy.

So, check out wasabiwallet. io and download Wasabi today.

[00:30:14] The Most Stupid (and Harmful) Tax

Knut: yeah, what else can we say about taxes? Like, what is, in your mind, what's the most stupid tax that is being extracted from people? At the moment, well, in the UK to begin with, but in general also, what's the stupidest tax, the one that does the most harm?

Dominic: Well, the one that does the most harm is income tax. and that's responsible for about 50 of government revenue worldwide. Income tax. Because, if you're young, and you're starting out with nothing, all you have is your labour. And... We're taxing you. Over the course of your life, roughly 50 of everything you ever earn will be [00:31:00] taken from you by the government in taxes, excluding inflation.

It's more if you include inflation. 50%. 50 of everything you ever earn is taken from you. Now the life of the medieval serf was that he gave half his working week to his lord and the other half of the working week he was allowed to till his own land, till, till soil himself, or he was given land to till.

So in terms of time allocated 50 percent to your lord and 50 percent you keep yourself. It's exactly the same. Obviously, the working conditions are somewhat better because of technology and all the rest of it. But nevertheless, 50 percent of your labour is owned. And if you're a slave, then 100 percent of your labour is owned.

In fact, you don't even own your own body. And if you're a, you live in a totally anarchist society, then none of your labor is owned. And we're at 50 percent [00:32:00] in, in the developed world, give or take. But anyway, because of inflation, obviously assets, we live, we live in a, in a society where capital is much more valuable, assets are much more valuable than labor.

You know, with mass migration and all sorts of other things, the price of labour has been kept down and assets, meanwhile, have inflated in price. And I think since 1971 in the UK, house prices have gone up 70 times, whereas, salaries have only gone up 22 times, so say 20 times. So house prices have gone up three and a half times as much as salaries have.

In the UK. And that's because there's all sorts of reasons for that, but you know, globalization and all the rest of it. But if you import lots of cheap labor, then it's, then you're, you're... You're going to keep labor costs down. Whereas, you [00:33:00] know, you, we create money through debt. You know, when you, when you issue debt, debt gets created.

We invented the mortgage. Loads of money gets created. It goes straight into the housing market. The more, money there is in a market, the higher prices go. Uh, and so house prices can inflate. And then what further inflates house prices is that there's a limit on what can get built because of planning regulations.

So we've created this world where. Houses go up at three and a half times the rate of salaries, and we wonder why there's such inequality between generations. And we wonder why the younger generation is so nihilistic. Well, they can't start a family because they can't afford a fucking house. But it's not just that.

Not only Have we got this society that's geared around asset ownership? We tax people on their labour heavily and constantly. Just constantly, your money, that half of your [00:34:00] labour's being taken. So not only are asset prices rising, You're working to get an asset and it's just getting further and further out of reach because the money you're paid in is being taken from you.

And then on top of that, the money you're being paid in loses value anyway to inflation because it's fiat. And so it's just like a triple whammy. Like it, totally fucks the young and we wonder why we've created this culture where kids just want to go around and into an art gallery and you know, throw oil at paintings and, stop capitalism and all the rest of it.

can you blame them for having such a nihilistic view when they've literally got no stake in society because they can't buy a house.

Knut: No, they never experienced capitalism, and neither has anyone else. Uh, so that wasn't real capitalism. That should be a slogan. I mean, I I'd say like, uh, so. So, capital gains taxes, [00:35:00] or taxes on profits, like the example I love to give is, uh, if you have, like, what is profit? It's that you provide your good or service to more people and therefore you earn more.

So like, if you have an apple farmer who has one apple tree, he can sell apples to X amount of people. If, if the business is successful, he can afford to buy a second apple tree the second year to to feed the double amount of people. The third year, four apple trees and the fourth year, eight apple trees.

So it's exponential growth, which simply cannot happen If you tax people 50 percent because they never get to the second tree. So I think that's, that's, uh, and people think like taxing the rich is always okay. But this is what that does in my, uh, in my mind, at least you you're missing out on this all.

compound effects and exponential growth that could have happened. And that's impossible to [00:36:00] see because you're living in the, in the timeline you're living in. So you never see the alternative cost. And that's, I think that the fact that you can't see what isn't there is, is what makes people fall for it over and over again.

Dominic: you have to tax capital and labour equally. And if you don't, then one will acquire greater value than the other. And we don't tax wealth. I'm not saying we should tax wealth, by the way. We don't tax wealth, but we do tax labour. And so it's inevitable that you have an, uh, uh, uh, inequality as a result.

It just, like, the tax system causes wealth inequality. That's what people don't understand. It's supposed to be there to equalize life chances. It has the reverse effect. It causes wealth inequality. Yeah,

Knut: this ties in so well to a very interesting observation I heard about blockchain statistics, like the Glassnode data, which is showing that [00:37:00] Bitcoin addresses with one Bitcoin or less in them. are growing in numbers, while bitcoin addresses with 10, 000 bitcoins or more in them are shrinking in numbers.

and if you do the quite plausible assumption that many of these addresses are just people trying to accumulate a whole bitcoin, like many people have, there's like a million addresses with one bitcoin in them. And there probably can never be two million addresses with one Bitcoin in them because it's just not enough Bitcoins.

But the thing that it's doing is that it's actually redistributing wealth by doing the very opposite of what those claiming to be redistributing wealth are doing. So by doing the exact... Inverse of what a wealth redistribution scheme would do. You actually redistribute the wealth. And I find that insanely fascinating. [00:38:00] I don't know, but we, uh, we could look it up somehow. Uh, well, most of the wealth are in this big whale addresses. So... That's still the thing. But the thing with Bitcoin is that there's no other way of getting any usage out of those Bitcoins than to spend them and buy stuff from other people. Like you can't leverage the system in any other way, maybe in this transitional phase that you can, you know, uh, manipulate the market a bit and sell off and buy at a cheaper price, but that gets harder and harder every time you try it.

Because the market won't fall for it next time, uh, as hard. So, so it's, it's very interesting to see how like a very pure free market with sound money is just doing, it's getting the results that the socialists claim they want by doing the exact opposite.

Dominic: Yeah, I heard an argument the other day. Somebody was saying Bitcoin causes inflation because the price keeps going up. [00:39:00] So people keep, so people are, so people are taking on debt or whatever to, to buy it and they're creating money and therefore it is causing inflation.

Knut: Well, yeah, I hope it keeps on doing that. So people, more and more people wake up.

[00:39:15] The Identity of Satoshi Nakamoto

Dominic: So, in my book, Bitcoin the Future of Money, which I wrote in 2013 2014, I wanted to be the guy who discovered who Satoshi was, and I devoted probably almost half the book to figuring out who he was. you know. I spent hours reading the cypherpunk, mailing list from the late 90s through to about 2005, trying to find signs and clues, and, you know, it was really hard to figure out, there's only a handful of people that it can have been, because of the extraordinary knowledge that's required.

It's not just, you need an extraordinary breadth of knowledge. [00:40:00] But it's also an extraordinarily specific knowledge at the heart of mathematics, cryptography, monetary history, law, even things like databases, c plus plus coding. You know, there's just this bizarrely specific knowledge, but you all, and PR like Satoshi must be, if nothing else, he's the greatest PR genius ever.

And so I was trying to figure out. Who it was. And, and so I love just sitting around with Bitcoiners, talking into the early hours about who it, who it might've been and why it might've been this guy and why it might've been that guy. In fact, I was just in New Orleans last week and I was having this, I was sat there with Lynn Alden and we both had a few glasses of wine and we were just sat there, you know, discussing who Satoshi might've been.

Anyway, I was having the same conversation at Michael Saylor's house in Miami. Do you remember that evening, Knut, when we went to Michael

Knut: Yeah, [00:41:00] yeah. We, we, uh, we had a Wagyu Tomahawks and talked about who Satoshi was. It was great fun.

Dominic: And there was this dude sat on my right, and I still, I've forgotten his name. I exchanged emails with him. at one point we were going, you know, I think it was Nick Szabo because of there, and I think it's Hal Finnegan because of there, and I think it's this guy because of there. And, and he just went, Well...

It might have been put there by aliens. and I was like, what? And he said, yeah, maybe it was from God or from another planet. And, and I was like,

Yeah, it's like the most plausible explanation as to, as, nobody could have done, there just wasn't anyone who was clever enough to invent something that brilliant that's had this impact and got this potential. And he was saying aliens put it there to give mankind a chance of saving itself. And I was literally like, that's the best explanation I've heard.

And I wish I'd thought of that when I was writing the book.

Knut: Correct [00:42:00] me if I'm wrong, but you're alluding to Satoshi being a lizard here, aren't you?

Dominic: Uh, no, no, he, uh, he wasn't Illuminati, Satoshi wasn't Illuminati because the Illuminati are all evil. So. So Satoshi was, yeah, Satoshi was, no, there's no such thing as a good lizard.

Knut: You know what my favorite, favorite, like, like, favorite thing to imagine Satoshi was? Uh, just to pop a hole in all this, uh, uh, devout, devout Christian view of who it was. So, uh, the, uh, American conservatives want to paint this picture of Satoshi as this, uh, messianic figure and the second coming of Christ and whatnot.

So, what if it's a guy in Finland who loves death metal and had eight abortions? Like, that would be something, I think.

Dominic: what's his name? Martti Martti Malmo whatever his

Knut: Uh, yeah,

Luke: That is a deep [00:43:00] reference. Yes, shout out Martti (

Knut: no, but I, I kind of love the thought of Satoshi being someone completely different than we think it is, like, because, because of the, the wonderful irony and, but imagine, and I do think

Dominic: Yeah.

Knut: Like, I think it's very, I think it's very plausible that he's dead.

Dominic: he's, he's, he's drinking, he's taken to the streets and he's drunk because he's got several billion dollars worth of. Bitcoins, and he can't get his hands on them because he's lost his seed phrase, and he's just sat there screaming at people who walk past him, I'm Satoshi Nakamoto, and nobody believes him. I think he's dead.

Knut: Yeah, because like that level of commitment for that many years, well, uh, and I think this is also, uh, uh, uh, an interesting subject because I see a risk with painting this picture of Satoshi as this messianic [00:44:00] figure and this superhero, this superhuman, like putting him on a pedestal, Has the risk of, you know, making him into this, like people could use that in the future that could lead to another Prince Charles or King Charles at some point, you know, there's, you see what I mean, like this, when people think that other human beings are So excellent.

So they're worthy of something like it becomes the Dalai Lama. And then he can go and, uh, um, you know, make out with 14 year old boys without people noticing until too late. And then like, or the Pope or whatever, like these, these figureheads of organizations that aren't necessarily good for humanity.

Like, I think no one should be put on a pedestal like that.

Dominic: I take your point, but it's slightly different with him because he's faceless.

Knut: [00:45:00] yeah, yeah.

Dominic: Is more holy ghosts than Jesus Christ. I

Knut: Yeah, yeah, I buy that. I just think that's a, it's probably not a lizard or an alien or God or anything like that. It's probably a guy in a basement somewhere. and that guy may not agree with anything that the people who put him on a pedestal are saying about him. So, so that's, that's what I, that's what I find.

Like, I see a risk there that I never, I never hear people talk about that.

Dominic: get,

[00:45:33] Invention vs Discovery

Dominic: I think there's often a lot of crossover between invention and discovery and a lot of the time when you discover something, people say you invented it and you're like, no, like, did, did somebody invent the wheel? Or did they discover the wheel? Did somebody, you know, you could say the same about antibiotics or the engine or anything.

Now, [00:46:00] did wheat, did mankind invent wheat? Did mankind invent paper? Or did we discover it?

Knut: Well, we domesticated us and not the other way around.

Dominic: Well, exactly, but I mean, it's still, whatever it is, that grass, we, is, is, it's been important to our evolution. But, you know, a lot of, a lot of invention happens quite accidentally. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin because he didn't clear up his desk properly.

Knut: Yeah, he would have never done so if he had listened to Jordan Peterson, in

Dominic: Yeah, exactly. There you go. Um, you know, Christopher Columbus discovered America, but he wasn't looking for it. He was looking for a route to India and China, wasn't he? You know, America happened by accident.

Knut: That's a quote.

Dominic: yeah,

Knut: happened by accident.

Dominic: the, the, the Basque, [00:47:00] the Basque fishermen knew about America because they were going up, they were going, they were catching a wind at a certain time of year and going up there and fishing for cod and bringing back the cod and selling it into European markets and they knew it was there and they were, it was, they kept it a secret because it was their business.

And, um, so yeah, the, uh, Columbus should have done the same. It would have been much better for the history of the world. But anyway, that was it. but in any case, so much of invention is, is accidental. I think the guy who invented plastic was a Danish, hobby inventor. And he was trying to find a way that, because at the time they, to insulate wire, they would use...

Crushed beetles. They would use something made out of crushed beetles and it was a certain type of crushed beetle you could only get it in China or something stupid like that. And so he was looking for a way to insulate wires that was cheaper than these crushed beetles and that's how [00:48:00] We got plastic, the uses of plastic way exceed insulating electric wire.

And it might be that with Bitcoin, you know, so many things have just fallen into place with, with Bitcoin, even like what you were describing with the distribution of the coins from the Wales to the, the increasing one Bitcoin addresses and the falling 10, 000 Bitcoin addresses. so maybe, A lot of what's happened with Bitcoin is not invention, it's discovery,

Knut: Yeah,

Dominic: a lot of it wasn't planned, it's just worked out that way because of the bandwagon that the invention has created and the number of geniuses that have been, like, one of the reasons I advocate owning Bitcoin is that you are leveraging the combined IQ of the Bitcoin community.

And it's a very high combined IQ. There's a lot of [00:49:00] very clever people in Bitcoin.

Knut: at least 80. Yeah.

Dominic: But do you know what I mean? Whereas, you know, if I compare Bitcoin to mining or something, the IQ levels, just, they're not the same. There are some very clever people in mining and there's some brilliant promoters and there are some brilliant geologists and so on. They're not like super computer technical geniuses like you find in, in crypto, in Bitcoin.

and, and, you know, but that combined IQ is. is helped make things work and just guided it in a certain way. So yeah, so maybe he just stumbled across something, uh, worked out, you know, solved the Byzantine Generals problem, solved the problem of double spending with, with the blockchain, and then everything just literally snowballed from there, and it wasn't planned, it's just...

He, he opened the portal, he opened the Pandora's box, and everything else has just happened because it was going to happen as soon as that portal was opened.

Knut: I think this is [00:50:00] very plausible. Like, something like that. And it's, it's, I wrote about it in one of my books, like, it's one of the most quoted passages from it, like, uh, absolute mathematical scarcity and a, uh, sufficiently distributed decentralized network was a discovery rather than an invention.

It could only be discovered once, since, the very thing discovered was resistance to replicability itself. So, uh, what I'm trying to say with that is that it was more akin to the discovery of the Americas than, or the discovery of the wheel, since you can only do that once, it, you can't repeat the, the thing and another, another point about

Dominic: yeah, like the guys who invented the wheel, they didn't know we were going to have these four wheeled Formula One cars that can drive at 300 miles per hour and, and, you know, will be using wheels to take off and fly around the world and stuff. They didn't know that. They were just trying to find a way of getting their, [00:51:00] you know, their, their, whatever it was, their, their plants from the field to the house or whatever it was.

Knut: Yeah. And, uh, first time I was in Mexico, we, we went And to see, uh, some of these old Maya, cities like Uxmal for, for instance. And the funny thing I learned about the Maya culture is that they had rotating tables. So they had the circular shape was everywhere, but they never for thousands of years figured out that they could put them vertically instead of horizontally and thereby roll stuff on.

So, so they had sleds just carrying a fucking sushi table, a big, big granite rock for a sushi table. So they knew how to spin it around. They knew how to make circular things, but they never put them vertically for thousands of years. And that's, that's just mind blowing to me. So like, what, what are we doing today?

What are we missing that is [00:52:00] absolutely obvious in hindsight? Like, that's what, that's the thought that, uh, um. Wakes in me.

Dominic: Yeah, I had a, I heard a good conversation about something similar. They were saying, um, you know, for years we carried bags, we carried our suitcases, and then somebody occurred to somebody to stick wheels on the bottom, and we all started wheeling our suitcases. And then suddenly every suitcase now has got wheels on it.

And you're like... What were we doing before? Why did it take us so long to put a wheel on a suitcase? And, and the question is, what are the, what's something blindingly obvious that needs to be done that nobody's doing? I can think of loads of things at the government level.

Knut: Absolutely. Like why are we with Texas? It's a

Dominic: Yeah, well, there you go. But, but in terms of practical levels of things around us and ways of doing things. Yeah, I'm not sure.

The show is also sponsored by Orange Pill App,

the Bitcoin only social network where you can stack friends who stack sats. [00:53:00] You can connect with your favorite Bitcoiners on the app, make local connections, and even connect with Bitcoiners around the world. You can see what's going on in your local area and connect with Bitcoiners around you.

I've been to multiple events organized on Orange Pill App, and they brought Bitcoiners together from all over. And now with group chat, it's easier than ever to stay in touch with all of your Bitcoin friends. The best part is that you know it's high signal, there's no spam on OrangePillApp because everyone pays to be there.

So download OrangePillApp on Apple or Android, send me or Knut a DM, and start building your local network of Bitcoiners today.

 Next up, The Bitcoin Way. Their mission is to onboard, educate, and remove barriers to taking self custody of your bitcoin. They cover everything from cold wallets to nodes, no KYC bitcoin purchases, inheritance planning, payments, and more. Whether you're new to bitcoin or you're an experienced bitcoiner looking to expand your freedom footprint, Or you know someone who this sounds perfect for?

The Bitcoin Way has something for you. They have a skilled team, well versed in the Bitcoin space, and their goal [00:54:00] is to make all the complexities of Bitcoin as straightforward as possible for everyone. And the best part is you can get started with a free 30 minute call with their team. Go to thebitcoinway.

com slash contact for more info.

Our newest sponsor is Geyser. They are the portal to the creator economy on Bitcoin. On Geyser, creators can monetize their work through their communities in a social and engaging way. And supporters can send sats to their favorite projects. Geyser has also recently integrated with Zapps and Podcasting 2.

1. So every Zapp sent to a Geyser address shows up on the Geyser page. We have a Geyser fund ourselves. It's the best way to support our show directly with Bitcoin. So whether you're a creator or a supporter, check out geyser at geyser. fund today.

[00:54:45] Gold and Silver vs Bitcoin

Dominic: I just bought a load of silver Britannias and uh, they're sitting on my desk. I haven't opened them yet. Do you want to see a silver Britannia?

Knut: absolutely. What is that a shit coin?

Dominic: The reason why gold and silver bugs hate Bitcoin so [00:55:00] much is that it did everything that silver was supposed to do. You know,

that's why, you know, they, they had the, they had the right argument, but the wrong vehicle,

Luke: Why were they convinced that silver would do that?

Dominic: because silver had a, has a history of money. It's incredibly undervalued relative to gold. Oh, I've got King Charles. I've got King Charles Silver Britannias.

Knut: Pound sterling.

Dominic: there you go, I'm going to hold it up to the camera, and there you can see King Charles Britannia's,

Knut: All right. It looks a bit like the Swedish Krona.

Dominic: yeah, and that's the silver, that's the silver ounce, that would have been um, there's Britannia, the goddess Britannia who rules the waves, and there's King Charles, he is such a knobhead, but anyway. I'm neither a monarchist nor an anti monarchist, but I know a knobhead when I see one.

Knut: Do you know, how many, how [00:56:00] many, uh, pounds would you have to pay for a pound of sterling silver today?

Dominic: Uh, how many ounces in a pound,

Knut: I don't know. You are the one that refused the metric system.

Dominic: I'll have this argument with you, because this is what's blighted Europe, and the metric system is a form of tyranny, and it bears no relevance to the real world.

Luke: Yes,

Knut: probably invented by lizards. Yeah. No, we,

Luke: explain,

Knut: we know, we know what the French have worse

Dominic: Hey Siri, how many ounces in a pound? There's

16 ounces in a pound.

Knut: Makes perfect sense.

Dominic: Hey Siri, how much is an ounce of silver in pounds? Is what I found. So

an [00:57:00] ounce of silver is about 20 quid. So it's not that bad. 160, 16 times 20,

Knut: 3, 200.

Dominic: yeah, 3, 200, not 320.

Luke: Knut is good at math. It's 320.

Knut: Uh, 320, of course. Sorry.

Dominic: Yeah, so 320 is, a pound of sterling silver would be 320 pounds, so that's not that bad really when you think about it, but, but that's because silver's just so undervalued.

Luke: how did that happen exactly? Let's get back to the metric thing, but why is silver so undervalued exactly? Is it the relation of the supply of silver and the supply of gold, something like that?

Dominic: Well, once silver used to be money, so it was very desirable because it was money, and it's lost that role. I think the words silver and money are interchangeable in like a hundred different languages, argent in French, plata in Spanish, silver, sterling silver. Um, Um, and [00:58:00] there's 15 times as much silver in the Earth's crust as there is gold.

Knut: Yeah. So it's a stock to flow ratio.

Dominic: Yeah, and the historic ratio, one, one, uh, you could get one gold coin for 15 silver coins and that was throughout history. But now the ratio between the two is like 90, 80 or 90. And um, It's mainly because silver's now produced as a by product of zinc and lead mining mostly, and it's just sold, they just sell it without trying to get the best price for it, and there's also a lot of rumour about the silver price being manipulated down, I'm not sure if that's true or not, but um, yeah, it's, that's, that's historically why.

[00:58:46] History of Inflation

Knut: Okay. So let's unpack this. So, so silver is worse than gold because of the, uh, stock to flow ratio. Uh, and you say that, uh, a pound of sterling silver today would cost you 32 pounds. [00:59:00] Uh, 320. Uh, yeah, yeah. Uh, yes, this is why I wrote a book with mathematics in the title. Anyway, um, that means that's the money printing since the term pound sterling was invented or discovered.

Like, I think a pound sterling, it's one of the oldest, if not the oldest currency in the world, right?

Dominic: Yeah, still in use, yeah.

Knut: Yeah, uh, but was it a pound of sterling silver you could, you could exchange it for in the

Dominic: One Libra. It, it wasn't, it wasn't that you could exchange it, it was a pound of sterling silver.

Knut: Oh yeah. Yeah. So, and that was like, how many years ago? 500?

Dominic: Uh, until, uh, Isaac Newton.

Knut: Okay. So, so yeah, but, but when was this,

Dominic: till, till about 1700.

Knut: you could, it was a pound of silver, an actual pound of silver. So from that point on, [01:00:00] from the days of Isaac Newton to now, uh, the guys with the money Whoever they were at the time, have been able to steal three hundred and thirty, okay, let's do the math correctly, three hundred and nineteen, three hundred and twenties of everyone's everything for that amount of time.

Dominic: Well, it's worse than that.

Knut: yeah, they've stolen like 99. 7 percent of everything then, since then.

Dominic: Yeah, but it's worse than that, Knut, because,

Knut: Of course it is.

Dominic: because look, here, this is, um,

I know that's not a real one, that's a fake one.

Knut: Is that a pound? Pound cash

Dominic: So this,

Knut: osh?

Dominic: is a gold sovereign that I'm holding up, Victorian gold sovereign. And that would be a bit less than a quarter of an [01:01:00] ounce of gold. And it's about the weight of a, of a two piece or maybe a 20 centime or whatever. I can't remember what money you use, but, but it would, it would be way, way about a, it'd be a way about a quarter, a bit less than a US quarter.

And that was the pound coin. Uh, from 1816 through till 1914, the sovereign was the pound coin, and to buy one of these now costs you about 420 pounds, so

Knut: Yeah.

Dominic: you about 420 pounds to buy the old pound coin.

Knut: Yes. There you have it. People, you've been robbed.

Luke: And they wonder what happened in 1914, hey?

Knut: Nah. Yeah.

Dominic: It's, they, the French, the Germans and the [01:02:00] English all came off the gold standard to print the money to pay for the First World War, as I'm sure you know.

Knut: Yeah.

Dominic: And the expression was, the war will be over by Christmas. Everyone thought the war would be over by Christmas. And it would have been over by Christmas if they'd stayed on the gold standard because there was not the gold to pay for that war to go on for the extent that it did.

It was only coming off the gold standard and then issuing shitloads of debt and printing loads of money that enabled that war to go on. And, like, if you look at the beginning of the end of Europe, it was basically then, maybe a couple of years earlier.

Knut: Yep.

Dominic: That's when... Like we were the greatest place in the world.

Western Europe was the greatest place in the world until about 1910, 1911, you know, the center of innovation, invention, everything. And like that war killed us and I, we've never recovered from it basically. And it was a [01:03:00] purely creation of fear.

Knut: In your mind, is that war still ongoing? The great war? Is it a war between the governments and the people? Is is it as simple as that?

Dominic: Okay, I hadn't thought of that, but I guess you could look at it like that. I mean, Europe, Europeans have always been fighting each other, but what's so funny is when we're at war with each other, we're all still trading with each other at the same time. Like, you know, often the two armies are trading stuff with each other.

And, um, but... Yeah, I guess so. I think we've got, you know, Christians and Muslims have been fighting since the invention of Islam, and we're still at it. You know, that's an ongoing war. But um,

[01:03:44] The Stupid Metric System

Dominic: let's come back to metric, because this is far more

Knut: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back to metric,

Dominic: So, you know, the old measurements of the body are all based around the human body. Okay.

Knut: Which is different from person to [01:04:00] person.

Dominic: An inch would be a thumb. Uh, a hand would be four inches, four thumbs. You'd get three hands. In a foot, and a foot is a shoe with a boot on, and even though they vary from person to person, they actually don't vary that much.

And the reason, like a pound is a handful, like if you, like the most you can carry in your hand is a, is a pound of apples. It's just like. The right amount. And the reason is, we didn't have tape measures and all that years and years ago, so if you're quickly measuring something, and a lot of the time, you don't need a definite measure, you just need a rule of thumb.

And, and if I'm building a house, and I know, I know that this thing needs to be four hands long, it doesn't matter what your hand's length is, all that matters is what my hand's width is. And um, And it's just so practical, and like bricks, for example, all bricks are a hand's width, and the reason they're a hand's [01:05:00] width is so that a brickie, a worker, can lift the brick.

And so all bricks, even today, they're still a hand's width, and that's defined how buildings look. in, obviously, the measurements were a tool of taxation, especially because you would be, you would measure your... whatever it is, your goods, and you would be taxed on a portion of that measure.

And so in France, in the lead up to the revolution, you had every town had its own pint, its own, they all had their own... Different measures from town to town to town. And it was partly a way of defrauding the tax system. And it was partly a way of imposing the tax system. But it's why you get so much regional diversity in architecture, because every region has its own measurements.

And time is, the time is the same because, you know, we would [01:06:00] think in terms of dawn and dusk, sunrise and sunset. We wouldn't think in terms of 8 o'clock, and it's only the leaders who are imposing national control who want to centre, who want to, centralise everything and have one system across the board, because it's easier to levy taxes, and, so anyway, after the French, revolution, there was a bunch of French scientists, and they decided that instead of measuring Things around the human body, they were going to measure, uh, create a system of measurements based around the world itself.

Knut: The circumference of the Earth.

Dominic: Yeah, exactly. So it would be a universal system of measurements for the whole world. And so they, these two guys. Uh, we're set, we're given the task of, um, measuring the width of the world, and, but they couldn't go from the North [01:07:00] Pole to the South Pole, so they decided to go from, one guy went from Paris to, I think, Dunkirk, and then they were going to extrapolate it from there, and the other guy went from Paris to Barcelona, and he was going to extrapolate it from there.

Knut: And the Earth is not a perfect sphere, so it's...

Dominic: Exactly, they thought the earth was a perfect sphere, but straight away it's not, so the system is flawed, but, uh,

I think, I can't remember the exact numbers, but one meter was going to be one exact division of, the, the, the, radius of the earth. But anyway, the guy who had to go from Barcelona to Paris, He had all sorts of problems. He had this device for measuring distances. You would measure it between two heights.

And, uh, and they thought he was a tax collector. So he was lynched and he was put in prison. Then they thought he was some kind of witch and he had a nightmare. And so he ended, he ended up faking the data, [01:08:00] uh, to make it out like it was, uh, what he expected it to be, and they only discovered afterwards that he'd faked the data, and they hit, they hid it, but they, so they actually got the measurement of the, of the circumference of the earth wrong, and they were out by about a mile and a half, and, um, so the, the, the meter is a fundamentally flawed measure.

It's based on a flawed measurement, and that's how metric came around, but it's a, basically metric is a tool of control and a tool of taxation.

Knut: Yeah, but nowadays it's not, it's not defined as anything that has to do with the Earth's circumference. It's just how, how fast something travel, how

Dominic: Yeah, it's based on some ludicrously, but they've kept the old meter.

Knut: Yeah, yeah.

Dominic: So the meter is the same, but now they've said, they've worked out the speed of light, and, and, and, and they've said it's 1 240 millionth of whatever it is. And there's some sort of ludicrously precise, incomprehensible figure that defines a [01:09:00] meter.

Knut: All right. Uh, well, good arguments. I only have one question.

Dominic: I, I have to say, if, if, I did a lecture, it's, it's not fresh in my mind, but I did a lecture about this, um, and if you go... On YouTube, and you type in, uh, Dominic Frisby Weights and Measures, you'll find my lecture, and it lasts about an hour, but it's, it's really, really interesting, and it, of course, like a lot of the stuff I put on the internet, it's criminally under recognized, and hasn't had nearly the amount of views that it should have, but it's a really, really interesting,

Knut: We suffer from the same problem.

Dominic: But yeah, but the, but it's really, really interesting.

And I urge you, if you're interested in this subject of measurements and the history of measurements, watch the lecture and it's a good way of spending an hour.

Knut: Yeah. So, so only one question about this, uh, Dominic and that is, do you know why a penis can never get longer than 12 inches? It becomes a foot. At that point, right? [01:10:00] Yeah,

Dominic: Is that, is that the joke?

Knut: yeah, yeah.

Dominic: Oh, okay. Okay. Because then it, then it becomes a foot. Okay. I'll catch you. I'll catch you. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I'm not very good audience.

Knut: laugh. This

Dominic: becomes a foot. Okay. Fair enough.

Knut: is a good point to give the mic to Luke, I

Luke: Oh, God. So, yeah, right after the joke. So, the French couldn't figure out the circumference of the Earth, but the Egyptians could make it so that the Great Pyramid was exactly 143, 200 exactly of the circumference of the Earth. It's mind boggling that the French fell so far from the ancient Egyptians.

Dominic: Well, yeah, and I think light travels at one foot per nanosecond. So actually, and it turned out that the imperial system was actually much more accurate. And in America, they don't call it imperial. In America, they [01:11:00] call it English weights and measures, but if you look at traditional weights and measures as a system, it makes no sense because it's not, it's not a system.

It's all ad hoc. It's a, it's a constantly evolving market process. That's a, you know, you're just building on the wisdom of your forefathers and as stuff becomes irrelevant, it gets discarded. So, once you try to analyze it through the prism of a town, of a planner, and a system, it makes no sense.

And you have to realize it's not a system, it's an ongoing process.

Luke: Makes sense. Yeah. So, so maybe they take us in a slightly different direction because I think, uh, well, yeah, I guess maybe even just one comment on this is it's got a lot of parallels, right? That it's, it's bottom up versus top down, right? Central planned versus just let the market do its thing. Yeah, there's a lot of argument to that.

Is there, is there, uh, maybe a devil's advocate argument there that, that, uh, [01:12:00] metric has, has simplified, uh, some things like, for example, that the, the kilometer makes calculating distances, uh, simpler if you, if you have it in

Knut: Can I add to that, Luke? Because it's not the metric system, it's the SI system that, that binds all of the units together. That's, that's the real benefit of, of, uh, conforming units. So it's the kilo and it's, you know, lumen and it's all, all of these other units that, that have a system together.

Dominic: Yeah, except that in the SI system they've abandoned the liter, because it was inaccurate as well, and they've just quietly dropped it out of the SI system.

Knut: So what is it? Now you

Dominic: I don't know, I think they do it in, a litre was supposed to be, um, one tenth of a cubic metre, or something like that, and it just isn't. So anyway, they've abandoned it. But, um, the, there, there is a [01:13:00] beauty to, it, it, it, like, you'll have to look it up, Knut, because I can't remember the details, I just know it's flawed and they've dropped it.

Um, um, metric is a beautifully simple system, dividing everything by ten. And decimal, um, mathematics only really came into being maybe fifty or a hundred years before the metric system. And we, we're so used to thinking in tens and decimals now, and especially with computers and so on. You know, computers decimalize everything.

Knut: But they don't think in decimals, they think binary.

Dominic: Okay, but you know what I mean. And whereas before, we would think in 12s, and, you know, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1, they were all ways of quickly dividing things. Um, if you've got a piece of cake, if you imagine a piece of cake, uh, it's hard to divide a piece of cake into 10, but it's easy to divide a piece of cake into 16, because you halve it, you halve it, and you halve it again, and you've got...

16 equal pieces,

Knut: Yeah, that's a piece of cake. All [01:14:00] right.

Dominic: but the, the, the other, the, the other beauty of Metric, it is a, it is a, it is a, well, the, even though the fundamental measure was flawed and I was being just slightly contrarian because I was, the actual, it is actually a beautifully simple system Metric and it extrapolates. Uh, so that you, you know, you, you, you can't use the human body to measure light years, for example, or nanoparticles.

Um, whereas metric you can, because it, it, it extrapolates down and it extrapolates up. So, and, and you do need one. Universal system of measurement for science. And, um, you know, there have been cases where, like there was a famous incident where a plane crashed because, uh, one, they filled it up using, thinking they were using gallons and they were only using litres or something like that.

And so the plane didn't have enough fuel and it crashed.

Knut: There was a spaceship [01:15:00] too, like one of the NASA spacecraft. Yeah.

Dominic: That's true too.

Knut: So the thing is that if you go into even deeper on this, like mathematics itself could have been simpler if we had 12 in the base. So, so if the zeros were added after 12, so sort of like, so, so we counted from zero to 12 instead of zero to 10, because, because.

12 is divisible by both 2 and 3, which 10 is not, so that would have made more sense. Uh, uh, yeah, anyway, and this is also to say it's like, it's sort of like HTTP 4, which became the standard of the internet. Uh, even though it was not perfect, it's good enough. So people, and then you get the network effect and then people start using it.

And I guess it's the same with the metric system, after it was introduced. So it was flawed, but it was good enough to replace the old system.

Dominic: Well, everywhere [01:16:00] that adopted the metric system did so after some kind of political revolution.

Knut: Yeah.

Dominic: The, the change of measurement system was always preceded by some kind of political event and, and it's thought that, you know, the new regime wants a new beginning so they change the system of measurements.

But the only countries in the world with strong enough national cultures to resist the onslaught of metric, uh, are the U. S. And I think Burma and the, uh, the, what do you call it, Myanmar, and I think it's the Philippines or somewhere else. There's like three countries in the world that still use the old system and good for them.

Knut: Yeah. And of course we should all be driving on the left side of the road as well. Right.

Dominic: Uh, probably.

Knut: and ban blenders in bathrooms so that you have one for cold and one for warm. I mean, blending them together makes absolutely no sense. Isn't that the

Dominic: The world, the world was a better place when the [01:17:00] British ran it. That's all I'm saying.

[01:17:02] Wrapping Up

Dominic: Um, guys, I'm, I'm going to have to go cause I'm, I'm running out of steam and I've just got off this plane and I've got to unpack and do all that shit.

Knut: Well, thank you very much for doing this, Dominic. We we're going to round it off here somewhere around here anyway, and we appreciate you coming on a lot. Uh, looking forward to seeing you in, uh, uh, in, uh, away from keyboard next time. Uh, and, uh, are you coming to Madera?

Dominic: What's going on? I don't even know what, what it is. What is it?

Knut: Bitcoin Atlantis, that's like the conference to go to this year. Look it up, bitcoinatlantis. com, uh, 1st

Dominic: When is it?

Knut: 3rd of March.

Dominic: Oh, I'm not gonna be able to go. Oh, that's a shame. Bitcoin Atlantis sounds great though.

Knut: Yeah, it's, it's, it's going to be big. Sailor's coming.

Dominic: my dear. You really have nothing to fear. thanks very much guys. I'll see you soon. And can you, will you, if anyone, uh, likes me, can they sign up for my, [01:18:00] um, Like, I have, I have a comedy newsletter, which is frisbees. news, frisbees. news, and I have a sort of serious financial newsletter, flyingfrisbee.

com.

Luke: Well, Dominic, thank you so much for your time. And we'll have to bring you on another time to talk about some of the things you've been doing more recently. We've kept you on the task and the metric stuff, but it was a pleasure. Thank you for joining us and take care until next time.

Dominic: Good, good luck, and good luck finding Finland.

Luke: Thank you so much. I do my best every day.

Knut: All the best man.

Dominic: Cheers folks.