April 8, 2024

Sovereign Computing with Matt Hill from Start9 - FFS #99

Matt Hill from Start9 joins us for a discussion on sovereign computing! 
Key Points Discussed:
🔹 Introduction to Start9
🔹 Misconceptions about cloud computing
🔹 Fighting for a sovereign future
And More!

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The Bitcoin Infinity Show

Matt Hill from Start9 joins us for a discussion on sovereign computing! 

Key Points Discussed:
🔹 Introduction to Start9
🔹 Misconceptions about cloud computing
🔹 Fighting for a sovereign future
And More! 

Connect with Matt and Start9: 
https://twitter.com/_MattHill_
https://twitter.com/start9labs
https://start9.com/

Connect with Us:

https://www.freedomfootprintshow.com/
https://twitter.com/FootprintShow
https://twitter.com/knutsvanholm
https://twitter.com/lukedewolf


Thanks to our sponsors - check out there websites for info:

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Support the Show:
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The Freedom Footprint Show is a Bitcoin podcast hosted by Knut Svanholm and Luke de Wolf.

In each episode, we explore everything from deep philosophy to practical tools to emit freedom dioxide to expand your freedom footprint!

Chapters

00:00 - Intro

01:40 - Welcoming Matt Hill

02:06 - Introducing Matt Hill and Start9

04:09 - Misconceptions About Cloud Computing

17:44 - Encryption

22:11 - Paying for the Product

24:10 - Nostr

35:53 - Intro to Start9

47:00 - Companies After Hyperbitcoinization

52:02 - Visions of the Future

01:00:14 - Intentions of Socialism

01:06:25 - Fighting For Freedom

01:12:45 - Wrapping Up

Transcript
1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,672
What are the actual problems
with cloud computing?

2
00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:04,020
number one is invasion of privacy.

3
00:00:04,124 --> 00:00:05,170
number two is censorship.

4
00:00:05,294 --> 00:00:06,875
number three is outright cost.

5
00:00:06,946 --> 00:00:09,744
And number four is one that most
people never think about, the

6
00:00:09,753 --> 00:00:14,548
inherent risk of honeypotting your
data along with everyone else's

7
00:00:14,831 --> 00:00:17,964
We should be fighting on the education
front, the cultural front, even

8
00:00:17,964 --> 00:00:19,864
the nutritional and health front.

9
00:00:19,891 --> 00:00:23,681
It's like, these are all valid fronts
and each person should fight on whatever

10
00:00:23,690 --> 00:00:26,264
front they are best suited to do so.

11
00:00:26,485 --> 00:00:30,018
I, because of my, personality
and tendencies and skill sets,

12
00:00:30,476 --> 00:00:31,567
fight on the technology front.

13
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Matt, welcome to the Freedom
Footprint show, thanks for joining us.

14
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Thanks for having me.

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Yeah, hi Matt, uh, you, you work for
Start9, or you started Start9, I guess,

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00:01:50,473 --> 00:01:51,783
Co started, and

17
00:01:51,963 --> 00:01:53,313
co started, yeah, yeah,

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Yeah.

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I continue to

20
00:01:54,843 --> 00:01:55,613
overwork there,

21
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we'll call it.

22
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so, so this is a company where, uh,
we're both very interested in, um, and

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00:02:01,363 --> 00:02:06,665
the, um, the concepts there, uh, but
first, um, a little Something about you.

24
00:02:06,665 --> 00:02:10,715
Maybe could you, could you give
us the TLDR on, uh, Matt Hill, who

25
00:02:10,715 --> 00:02:15,775
you are and, uh, why you started
start nine or CoStar start nine?

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who are you is always the hardest
question I've ever had to answer

27
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because, you know, where do you
start with something like that?

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Um, so I'm a, I'm a technologist, sort
of by spirit, uh, I'm a developer,

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a software developer by trade.

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I am a huge advocate for, um, libertarian
philosophy, On the extreme end of that,

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crypto anarchist, capitalist extreme, uh,
end of the philosophic spectrum, and, uh,

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I tried to use my, uh, My interests and
skills in technology and coding to try to

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implement products and technologies that
change incentives in order to bring about

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the kind of society that I want to see and
live in and want for my children as well.

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I'm also a father of two little
girls, and we're hoping for more.

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And so my wife and I are You know,
doing this journey together and

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trying to bring children into a better
world that we help partially create.

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So I know that sounds a little fluffy,
but it is very true in what I do.

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And, um, yeah, that's
the high level about me.

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That sounds fantastic.

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It's, uh, what we do too, I guess,
but maybe, maybe Our products

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are, uh, a little different.

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We do books and podcasts and stuff,
uh, which is different from computers.

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side, which is something I admire
and, you know, try to help with in

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any way that I can, uh, to those
who do it well, but it's not.

46
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Fully what I do.

47
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Yeah, and right back at you.

48
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We're impressed with whatever
actual technical people can do.

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What the actual magicians behind
things like, uh, magical internet

50
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money are doing behind the scenes.

51
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So, uh, so tell us like,
um, where to start this.

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Um, I'm thinking what is the
most common misconception about

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cloud computing that people have?

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Why, what, what's wrong today?

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And, uh, what, what
problems need to be fixed?

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I mean, I, I love the, the sort
of meme phrase, the cloud is

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just somebody else's computer.

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Uh, I'm very happy that that
phrase is becoming more widely,

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uh, propagated and understood.

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so the biggest misconception about
the cloud is that it is some sort

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of magical ephemeral place where
data goes to, to live safely.

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Um, the cloud is a computer.

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In somebody's building or warehouse,
um, that is owned and operated, uh,

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and fully controlled by somebody else.

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And so when you, transact through, and
I don't just mean monetary transactions.

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I mean, when you perform any sort of
information transaction, through a

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cloud or store data on a cloud, process
information through a cloud, uh, you

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are just temporarily, renting, leasing.

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Uh, somebody else's
computer to do those things.

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And so once you realize that, you
go, well, why are they doing that?

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Why are they giving me access to their
computer to do my computing needs?

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Well, the answer is they're
getting quite a bit out of it,

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probably a lot more than you think.

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and, um, there are inherent, risks
involved in, in that transaction,

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that most people are unaware of.

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So, you know, we, we very much view,
uh, cloud computing as it exists today,

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namely, people all over the world
transacting through processing data on,

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storing data on, third party servers
that are owned by an increasingly small

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number of, of companies, uh, as a, as a
viable threat To human society, we, we

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think that this is not some trivial, thing
that should be overlooked or dismissed

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00:06:12,153 --> 00:06:16,890
as an inconvenience or even, um, a
less cost effective way to do things.

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We believe that there are serious dangers
that have been so thoroughly swept

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under the rug and, and perpetuated for
so long that they are becoming, sort

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of structural in nature to these risks.

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that they are kind of.

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their, their failure, the failure
of cloud computing in any meaningful

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way would, would mean sort of have
disastrous consequences for society.

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So, so let me be more concrete about this.

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What are the actual problems
with cloud computing?

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Um, number one is this idea
of, uh, invasion of privacy.

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That cloud computing, um, inherently
is non private, un private.

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Uh, because you're using
somebody else's computer.

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When you do that, they have.

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A view of what you're doing, even
if there's encryption, they have an

95
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enormous amount of insight into your
activities, whether that's messaging

96
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or data or whatever it is, um, through
metadata analysis, through network

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graphing, and in most cases, it's not
encrypted anyway, and so they're just

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reading your raw data and messages.

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Now, do you matter?

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A lot of people take this concern,
invasion of privacy, and they're

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just like, well, I don't care.

102
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If Google reads my emails or
Dropbox can see my files, because

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I have nothing to hide and I'm
just nobody and they don't care.

104
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And there's some validity to that.

105
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Um, but those people are often kind
of missing the point, which is that

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you don't know what tomorrow holds.

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You have no idea, if you have
something to hide or not.

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You might not have something to hide
today because the things that you're

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doing today are perfectly acceptable,
legal, uh, and commonplace, but if

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tomorrow, uh, you and your activities
of yesterday are somehow stigmatized or

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made illegal, uh, all that data remains.

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So the things that you did in the past.

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can be held against you.

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furthermore, that information is
used, uh, even if not to sort of spy

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on you in any sort of like, you know,
deep state kind of authoritarian way.

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That data is absolutely used to perform
kind of like customer analytics on

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you and, and, and garner a profile.

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of you and your purchasing habits
and your lifestyle so that that can

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be sold to advertisers and you can
then be kind of manipulated, you

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know, because you've exposed so much
about yourself unwittingly to so many

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different parties and increasingly A.

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I.

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s and that is where it can get even
really weird is because they might

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misuse this information and come
to some conclusion about you that a

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human might not have and Who knows
what the consequences of this can be.

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So it's more of a better safe than sorry
type of approach when it comes to privacy.

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It's like private by default is good.

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And then when you choose to make something
public under your own kind of volition,

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and you know what the, what the trade
offs are, then you can choose to do that.

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But as it stands today, all of cloud
computing is actually public by default,

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and you have to go to extreme measures
to make things private, which is the

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opposite of how it should be, uh, for
just a general, you know, approach.

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So that's number one.

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Uh, number two is censorship.

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So when you, when you and everyone
else is using other people's computers,

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For your computing needs, those
people decide what gets through, what

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doesn't get through, what is allowed,
what is visible, what is invisible.

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And I'm not just talking about
the like first thing that comes

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to people's minds when you say
censorship, which is this person's

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been like silenced, de platformed.

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That's actually not what I mean.

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That's extremely rare.

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What I'm talking about is.

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The benign kind of terms and conditions
that everyone agrees to, right,

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which is like, I'm going to use your
computer, you present me with terms and

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conditions that are 80 pages long and
I'm never going to read, and I click OK.

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And if suddenly I do anything that
violates any of those terms and

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conditions, you can just cut me off from
the service, cut me off from my data.

149
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And this could have real consequences
for me, my family, or my business.

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00:10:21,303 --> 00:10:24,223
And so basically you're agreeing,
right, somebody else's house, their

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rules, their house, their rules.

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So if you're using somebody else's server,
it's on their terms and you are agreeing

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00:10:30,123 --> 00:10:32,163
to those terms blindly in most cases.

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And so therefore don't have any
assurance that those services will

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continue to be provided for you.

156
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So there's risk.

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Number two is algorithmic Amplification
and deamplification of messaging.

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That is how censorship
happens in the modern world.

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It is extremely rare for somebody
to be actually black bag silenced

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because that's too obvious.

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It's too overt.

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People notice that, but nobody
notices algorithmic amplification.

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For example, if there's some narrative
going around that is distasteful to

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the incumbent powers of the state,
they don't need to silence it.

165
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They just need to drown it out with
something much louder, right, so they just

166
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amplify some other piece of narrative or
information so that everyone's talking

167
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about that and nobody notices the
thing that's really important, combined

168
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with algorithmic deamplification of
the important thing Most people will

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never even see it, and nobody will
know that it had been censored, either,

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because there was no overt deletion.

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So that's number two.

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Uh, number three is outright cost.

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When you use somebody else's computer
for your computing needs is going to

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be more expensive than using your own
computer for your computing needs,

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00:11:51,295 --> 00:11:55,405
in the same reason that going out to
a restaurant is more expensive than

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cooking your own meal, because you
are outsourcing The effort and the

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capital necessary to produce that meal.

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00:12:02,705 --> 00:12:05,755
So when you do things
yourself, it is cheaper.

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00:12:05,855 --> 00:12:10,825
Sometimes it's harder, yes, but it
is almost always cheaper than paying

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00:12:10,825 --> 00:12:12,635
somebody else to do something for you.

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00:12:13,905 --> 00:12:20,095
costs that these cloud providers and
sats, software as a service providers,

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these are all your apps that run on
your phones, the costs that they are

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incurring are rising very rapidly.

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In large part due to, uh, more extreme
regulations, more extreme data practice,

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00:12:32,288 --> 00:12:36,758
uh, you know, data privacy, regulations
that are being imposed upon them, and

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00:12:36,758 --> 00:12:41,428
their own just costs of servers and
electricity and hiring employees and,

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00:12:41,428 --> 00:12:45,158
you know, And as their costs rise, those
costs get passed along to the consumer.

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00:12:45,158 --> 00:12:47,278
So this is not something that's
getting cheaper over time.

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It's something that's getting
more expensive and getting

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00:12:49,868 --> 00:12:51,098
there very quickly, right?

191
00:12:51,098 --> 00:12:56,908
If you've noticed in modern years, the
free tiers of SaaS products, the like,

192
00:12:56,928 --> 00:12:59,898
you know, entry level free tiers are
getting smaller and smaller and smaller

193
00:12:59,898 --> 00:13:04,238
and less featureful and the paid tiers
are getting more common and steeper.

194
00:13:05,475 --> 00:13:09,155
Part of that is because these
companies are less able to monetize.

195
00:13:09,480 --> 00:13:14,420
data than they were 10 years ago,
before all the consumers started,

196
00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:20,460
um, you know, uh, speaking up and
demanding data privacy, which then

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00:13:20,460 --> 00:13:25,330
causes politicians to step into the
spotlight and force companies to,

198
00:13:25,640 --> 00:13:28,810
you know, listen to the demands of
consumers and do the data privacy.

199
00:13:28,810 --> 00:13:32,500
Well, in the process, what has happened
is companies are no longer able to

200
00:13:32,510 --> 00:13:35,630
mine and monetize your data to the
same extent that they could before.

201
00:13:35,650 --> 00:13:37,240
And so they're leaning more and more.

202
00:13:37,380 --> 00:13:48,763
And so expect those costs to continue
to rise, as data privacy practices, uh,

203
00:13:48,783 --> 00:13:50,843
also continue to become more extreme.

204
00:13:51,703 --> 00:13:52,313
That's number three.

205
00:13:52,843 --> 00:13:57,053
Uh, and number four is one that most
people never think about, which is

206
00:13:57,113 --> 00:14:03,698
the inherent risk of honeypotting
your data along with everyone else's.

207
00:14:04,011 --> 00:14:07,091
This has nothing to do with
surveillance or privacy or costs.

208
00:14:07,481 --> 00:14:13,358
It's simply, inherent in, you know,
my data is worthless on its own, and

209
00:14:13,358 --> 00:14:14,818
your data is worthless on its own.

210
00:14:15,348 --> 00:14:20,758
But if we all put our data together
into a giant bank, now that data

211
00:14:20,778 --> 00:14:22,858
in aggregate is very valuable.

212
00:14:23,378 --> 00:14:27,178
And therefore, makes that bank,
or data honeypot, a target.

213
00:14:28,178 --> 00:14:31,678
And it's very, very
hard to secure a server.

214
00:14:32,321 --> 00:14:36,041
right, from an application security
standpoint, an encryption standpoint,

215
00:14:36,371 --> 00:14:38,531
it's fairly easy to secure a server.

216
00:14:39,411 --> 00:14:42,791
From an operational security
standpoint, and a personnel

217
00:14:42,791 --> 00:14:44,431
standpoint, it's almost impossible.

218
00:14:44,431 --> 00:14:47,871
In fact, it is impossible,
given the value of the server.

219
00:14:47,971 --> 00:14:52,031
If the server is valuable enough,
eventually it will be breached,

220
00:14:52,431 --> 00:14:56,396
because there's always Insiders
that have access to the server.

221
00:14:56,406 --> 00:14:59,516
They must, otherwise it's worthless
data if nobody has access to it.

222
00:14:59,946 --> 00:15:05,096
So somebody has access to it, and getting
to it is simply a matter of compromising

223
00:15:05,106 --> 00:15:09,736
that person, which can be done simply
through creative social engineering,

224
00:15:09,736 --> 00:15:12,126
blackmail, bribery, threats, you name it.

225
00:15:12,563 --> 00:15:15,873
and so I say any server worth
hacking will eventually be hacked.

226
00:15:16,393 --> 00:15:19,513
That server will have your data on it,
even though you were not the target, and

227
00:15:19,513 --> 00:15:24,013
your data will be leaked, even though,
that wasn't the intent of the hackers.

228
00:15:24,043 --> 00:15:25,343
They didn't even know who you were.

229
00:15:25,343 --> 00:15:30,463
You're just collateral damage in
a cyber war that you didn't know

230
00:15:30,473 --> 00:15:32,783
existed, or that you never opted into.

231
00:15:33,708 --> 00:15:37,978
Um, and so, if you were in a city under
siege, and that city was being, you

232
00:15:37,978 --> 00:15:39,708
know, attacked, you'd probably leave.

233
00:15:39,798 --> 00:15:44,498
Um, and so if Google servers are under
siege and being attacked on a daily basis,

234
00:15:44,548 --> 00:15:46,618
which they are, you should probably leave.

235
00:15:46,648 --> 00:15:50,558
You should probably get your stuff
off of that server before it gets

236
00:15:50,558 --> 00:15:53,038
breached and you get a ransomware email.

237
00:15:53,363 --> 00:15:56,323
that says, hey, we have
all of your photos.

238
00:15:56,542 --> 00:15:58,750
we also have all of your contacts.

239
00:15:58,750 --> 00:16:02,690
We also have all of the locations you
visit, and we're going to leak the photos

240
00:16:02,690 --> 00:16:05,450
to everyone you don't want us to unless
you send us Bitcoin to this address.

241
00:16:05,460 --> 00:16:09,370
Like I expect this to actually become a
commonplace thing in the next 10 years.

242
00:16:09,731 --> 00:16:14,286
stuff, but it's certainly something
that people should think of.

243
00:16:14,286 --> 00:16:19,966
A few things come to mind, like the
first thing about, you know, you have

244
00:16:19,966 --> 00:16:24,936
nothing to hide now, but you might
have something to hide in the future.

245
00:16:24,936 --> 00:16:29,096
What you do now might have different
legal consequences in the future.

246
00:16:29,756 --> 00:16:35,066
That's very much in line with
libertarian ideas about You know, not

247
00:16:35,116 --> 00:16:39,143
giving, politicians emergency powers
and stuff like this because you don't

248
00:16:39,143 --> 00:16:42,693
know who the next, president is,
or who the next prime minister is.

249
00:16:42,980 --> 00:16:46,976
The dictator for life of Kanada Stan is
currently doing some of these things, yes.

250
00:16:48,206 --> 00:16:53,396
yeah, yeah, Kanada stan is
experiencing that right now, yeah.

251
00:16:53,786 --> 00:16:58,426
so regardless of what you think about
The current policies, like, if you give

252
00:16:58,516 --> 00:17:03,670
politicians too much power, someone from
the opposite side may misuse it in the

253
00:17:03,670 --> 00:17:07,980
future, so that's The way to stop it
is, of course, as you say, to just not

254
00:17:07,990 --> 00:17:13,290
give them, give them the data, give them
the, give them something to, to wield.

255
00:17:13,830 --> 00:17:16,310
the second thing that comes to
mind with the terms and condition

256
00:17:16,310 --> 00:17:19,520
is the, have you seen the South
Park episode, Human Centipede?

257
00:17:20,170 --> 00:17:20,570
Oh yeah.

258
00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:21,760
Yeah.

259
00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:23,100
South Park always nails it, right?

260
00:17:23,225 --> 00:17:28,435
Yeah, that's a perfect metaphor
for what may or may not happen

261
00:17:28,435 --> 00:17:32,505
if you don't read the terms and
conditions before you sign something.

262
00:17:32,885 --> 00:17:35,055
And yeah, there were other stuff.

263
00:17:35,055 --> 00:17:40,615
I mean, I like this fourth point
a lot about the honeypot, because

264
00:17:40,615 --> 00:17:44,565
I really think it's something
that people don't think about.

265
00:17:44,565 --> 00:17:49,421
And how much does encryption, like
save you from, from that kind of.

266
00:17:50,211 --> 00:17:53,501
Blackmail scenario like if you're
all your data is encrypted when it

267
00:17:53,501 --> 00:17:58,291
goes up to the server, it's kind
of hard to sell it to someone else.

268
00:17:58,291 --> 00:17:58,571
Right.

269
00:17:58,790 --> 00:17:59,850
It helps a lot.

270
00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:06,260
Um, as I mentioned, there are still sort
of Metadata that gets through, right?

271
00:18:06,270 --> 00:18:09,400
So even if you're using an end
to end encrypted messenger like

272
00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:13,060
Signal, for example, Signal
still knows a lot about you.

273
00:18:13,820 --> 00:18:17,350
They still know who you're talking to,
when you're talking to them, how long

274
00:18:17,360 --> 00:18:19,890
the messages that you type are, right?

275
00:18:19,890 --> 00:18:21,990
And some inference can
be made off of that.

276
00:18:21,990 --> 00:18:27,385
For example, if you have a quick back
and forth message with somebody, And

277
00:18:27,385 --> 00:18:30,565
then you get in your car and drive
somewhere, you can infer through

278
00:18:30,565 --> 00:18:33,275
those messages that you were arranging
a meetup with someone, right?

279
00:18:33,295 --> 00:18:37,165
So, definitely not as bad as if
it's a honeypot of unencrypted

280
00:18:37,175 --> 00:18:42,465
data, but it's still not ideal, and
also, almost nothing is encrypted.

281
00:18:42,945 --> 00:18:43,335
At rest.

282
00:18:44,685 --> 00:18:46,095
Almost nothing, right?

283
00:18:46,095 --> 00:18:51,215
There's very, very few cloud or SaaS
products in the world where your

284
00:18:51,215 --> 00:18:55,435
data is actually sitting on a server
encrypted in such a way that you are

285
00:18:55,435 --> 00:18:57,005
the only person that can decrypt it.

286
00:18:57,005 --> 00:18:58,395
It's almost non existent.

287
00:18:58,801 --> 00:19:02,711
What about like encryption models
where you can't see the length of

288
00:19:02,711 --> 00:19:05,681
messages like SHA 256 it always.

289
00:19:06,421 --> 00:19:06,565
Turns

290
00:19:06,681 --> 00:19:07,341
not enough of an

291
00:19:07,341 --> 00:19:07,791
expert.

292
00:19:08,566 --> 00:19:10,796
Well, okay, actually,
I'll answer that one.

293
00:19:11,006 --> 00:19:14,676
That's not, SHA 256 isn't
encryption, it's a hash,

294
00:19:14,861 --> 00:19:15,461
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

295
00:19:15,491 --> 00:19:20,081
But , you know, uh, there, there are
encryption models that, that put out

296
00:19:20,081 --> 00:19:24,011
the, the same length of date digits,
regardless of what en encrypts.

297
00:19:24,126 --> 00:19:25,256
No, that's a hash.

298
00:19:25,266 --> 00:19:25,806
That's a hash.

299
00:19:25,826 --> 00:19:27,776
That's not, that's not the
same thing as encryption.

300
00:19:27,776 --> 00:19:30,156
So, so encryption, there's,
there's two types of encryption.

301
00:19:30,166 --> 00:19:34,156
There's public private key
encryption, and Bitcoin uses that.

302
00:19:34,556 --> 00:19:38,796
And, uh, well, it's, it's
used almost everywhere.

303
00:19:39,131 --> 00:19:43,981
On the internet, but, but, but that's,
and then, and then there's so called

304
00:19:43,981 --> 00:19:48,441
symmetrical encryption, and that's a lot
easier to do, and, and so this symmetrical

305
00:19:48,441 --> 00:19:52,661
encryption is what almost every kind of,
um, say, data on a hard drive or data

306
00:19:52,661 --> 00:19:56,541
on the cloud or something is going to be
encrypted with that, and then the public

307
00:19:56,541 --> 00:20:01,821
key cryptography is used for digital
signatures and, and other related things,

308
00:20:01,901 --> 00:20:06,861
order for, um, all of your messages
on Signal, for example, to appear to

309
00:20:06,861 --> 00:20:12,300
be the same length, Your client would
have to be, sort of coming up with an

310
00:20:12,300 --> 00:20:16,300
assumed maximum length of a message
that you can send, and then just filling

311
00:20:16,300 --> 00:20:20,290
all your other messages with gibberish
past some sort of like identifier byte,

312
00:20:20,540 --> 00:20:22,870
which would be a massive waste of space.

313
00:20:23,525 --> 00:20:24,935
And nobody would do.

314
00:20:25,075 --> 00:20:26,155
Like, Signal wouldn't do that.

315
00:20:26,165 --> 00:20:29,835
They'd just be intentionally storing
junk on their servers, and maybe

316
00:20:29,835 --> 00:20:31,415
they would do it, but they don't.

317
00:20:31,945 --> 00:20:36,425
And, um, yeah, I mean, again,
it's not a hash, as Luke said.

318
00:20:36,435 --> 00:20:41,375
It is the amount of bytes of
encrypted data will correlate

319
00:20:41,415 --> 00:20:44,035
to the amount of unencrypted
bytes of data that produced it.

320
00:20:44,418 --> 00:20:47,388
sorry, putting on my, putting
on my cyber hat, man, I,

321
00:20:47,568 --> 00:20:48,168
that's nice.

322
00:20:48,173 --> 00:20:52,158
I mean, uh, the, the notion of a
hash just, uh, popped in as a brain

323
00:20:52,163 --> 00:20:54,528
fart here, uh, because of like the,

324
00:20:55,373 --> 00:20:58,928
the, the, the thing you said about
knowing the length of messages.

325
00:20:59,228 --> 00:21:00,398
Anyway, so,

326
00:21:00,578 --> 00:21:02,258
point is that it's not encrypted.

327
00:21:02,628 --> 00:21:06,898
Almost nothing is encrypted because if
it were, right, let's say that you were

328
00:21:06,898 --> 00:21:12,748
using some SaaS or cloud provider where
everything was encrypted, encrypted client

329
00:21:12,748 --> 00:21:17,728
side and sent to the server and stored
that way, that would mean that if their

330
00:21:17,728 --> 00:21:22,548
servers ever rebooted, right, or you
ever logged out or whatever, that that

331
00:21:22,548 --> 00:21:25,888
data is completely garbage and useless.

332
00:21:26,258 --> 00:21:28,528
And, um, they don't do that.

333
00:21:29,328 --> 00:21:35,468
I think iCloud might have some kind
of opt in encryption capabilities now,

334
00:21:35,538 --> 00:21:41,418
but your assumption, unless you are
thoroughly proven otherwise, should be

335
00:21:41,418 --> 00:21:45,288
that every piece of data you store on any
cloud server is completely unencrypted.

336
00:21:45,788 --> 00:21:50,838
At least for you, they might store it
encrypted using their own keys, so that

337
00:21:50,838 --> 00:21:54,358
if a third party got physical access
to the server, they wouldn't They might

338
00:21:54,358 --> 00:22:00,098
not get something, but they have access,
which means somebody at the company

339
00:22:00,098 --> 00:22:03,328
has access, which means if that person
is compromised, so does the attacker.

340
00:22:03,328 --> 00:22:07,208
So it's like encryption only
matters if it's your encryption,

341
00:22:07,208 --> 00:22:08,398
if it's done client side.

342
00:22:08,408 --> 00:22:10,178
And I'm telling you,
that's extremely rare.

343
00:22:10,178 --> 00:22:11,368
It's almost non existent.

344
00:22:12,568 --> 00:22:12,898
yeah.

345
00:22:13,258 --> 00:22:13,893
Um, so.

346
00:22:14,833 --> 00:22:19,893
If we pretend that we're not libertarians
for a while here and we, we, uh, give

347
00:22:20,023 --> 00:22:26,451
these government regulations the benefits
of, the benefit of the does the, uh,

348
00:22:26,621 --> 00:22:32,141
this interference and, and, uh, you, you,
you talked about tiers, so, uh, the, the

349
00:22:32,341 --> 00:22:39,841
8 blue check on Twitter, for instance,
uh, should the consumer assume that, uh,

350
00:22:39,931 --> 00:22:48,371
Their data is more private or more secure
because they're not as much of the product

351
00:22:48,381 --> 00:22:50,091
since they're paying for the product.

352
00:22:51,221 --> 00:22:53,401
Assuming the answer no here, but anyway.

353
00:22:54,456 --> 00:22:56,706
Um, definitely not more secure.

354
00:22:56,786 --> 00:23:02,266
Um, you know, companies might
have policies again, according to

355
00:23:02,266 --> 00:23:07,046
their terms and conditions that
are like, if you pay us, we won't.

356
00:23:07,956 --> 00:23:10,666
Mine more of your data and
sell it to advertisers.

357
00:23:11,256 --> 00:23:13,746
I'm actually not aware of
any companies that say that.

358
00:23:13,756 --> 00:23:17,216
Usually what they say is, we
won't show you advertisements.

359
00:23:17,849 --> 00:23:24,159
Right, they say like, your experience
in X won't be filled with ads, they

360
00:23:24,159 --> 00:23:28,429
never said we won't collect your data
and sell it to advertisers so that

361
00:23:28,429 --> 00:23:29,849
they can show it to you on Google.

362
00:23:30,447 --> 00:23:31,987
Okay, so you may

363
00:23:32,147 --> 00:23:32,397
to produce

364
00:23:32,477 --> 00:23:35,467
a better user experience,
not better data protection.

365
00:23:36,157 --> 00:23:36,847
some more money.

366
00:23:37,732 --> 00:23:41,472
Yes, yeah, what they're saying
is that we're going to annoy you.

367
00:23:41,767 --> 00:23:45,057
Until you give us money and
then we'll stop annoying you.

368
00:23:45,647 --> 00:23:49,307
But the way that they collect and analyze
your data hasn't changed a drop and

369
00:23:49,307 --> 00:23:50,627
they've never claimed that it would.

370
00:23:51,475 --> 00:23:54,865
Yeah, so you're still part
of the human centipede.

371
00:23:54,865 --> 00:23:58,224
It's just that you don't
know that you're part

372
00:23:58,410 --> 00:23:58,980
Just is

373
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:00,700
expresses itself differently.

374
00:24:00,700 --> 00:24:04,968
There's different consequences, but yeah,
I mean, you use somebody else's computer,

375
00:24:04,978 --> 00:24:07,218
it's their house, it's their rules.

376
00:24:07,228 --> 00:24:09,678
You don't have a lot of say.

377
00:24:10,467 --> 00:24:12,517
To what extent does Nostr fix this?

378
00:24:12,577 --> 00:24:15,337
Like, um, are you a
great believer in Nostr?

379
00:24:15,377 --> 00:24:19,727
And like, uh, how, how much,
how much of these problems

380
00:24:19,727 --> 00:24:21,617
does a thing like Nostr fix?

381
00:24:22,244 --> 00:24:23,154
That's a great question.

382
00:24:23,184 --> 00:24:25,504
Nostr is a great example.

383
00:24:26,549 --> 00:24:31,329
A decentralized network, in
this case, one that is optimized

384
00:24:31,659 --> 00:24:34,389
for micro blogging, right?

385
00:24:34,419 --> 00:24:38,453
So, sharing, sharing
news and consuming news.

386
00:24:39,413 --> 00:24:44,263
Nostr can be used, uh, in theory
for other purposes, but it's

387
00:24:44,263 --> 00:24:47,383
really perfect for that use case.

388
00:24:47,887 --> 00:24:52,702
and so, you know, until now we've been
broadly talking about cloud computing and

389
00:24:52,702 --> 00:24:56,672
that's everything from like a calculator
that you use on somebody else's computer

390
00:24:57,022 --> 00:25:00,042
to a giant social network, right?

391
00:25:00,152 --> 00:25:02,062
Um, to a messaging app.

392
00:25:02,072 --> 00:25:05,312
Like, there's all sorts of
things that run on third party

393
00:25:05,312 --> 00:25:07,432
servers, aka cloud computers.

394
00:25:07,964 --> 00:25:13,534
and social media, the sort of
collaborative space is one type.

395
00:25:13,814 --> 00:25:19,434
It's like one vertical that we put into
the whole, like, of human computing needs.

396
00:25:20,284 --> 00:25:25,604
Nostr is arguably, and is my
contention, the best candidate.

397
00:25:26,134 --> 00:25:32,834
That we have ever seen for a
viable, scalable, uh, decentralized

398
00:25:33,004 --> 00:25:35,177
social media, platform.

399
00:25:35,793 --> 00:25:39,845
prior attempts, maybe
Mastodon was the best.

400
00:25:40,645 --> 00:25:44,555
Uh, Mastodon uses a federation model
where anyone can spin up a server.

401
00:25:45,260 --> 00:25:49,240
And then people can create accounts on
those servers, and then those servers

402
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:53,140
can connect to each other, such that
everyone ends up with the same feed.

403
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:55,390
Nostr does not work like that.

404
00:25:55,913 --> 00:26:03,048
it is a completely novel approach to, sort
of, Social media architecture, in that

405
00:26:03,148 --> 00:26:09,218
all the power is pushed to the clients,
all the power is pushed to the edges

406
00:26:09,278 --> 00:26:15,150
of the network, there are no servers
in Nostr, there are relays, and you can

407
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:19,990
those analogous to a server, I mean,
they technically are a server, they're up

408
00:26:19,990 --> 00:26:25,120
running 24 7, 365, and they're performing
back office operations, we'll call it.

409
00:26:25,910 --> 00:26:28,840
But there's no account structure
related to those servers.

410
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:30,570
The servers are really stupid.

411
00:26:30,650 --> 00:26:31,660
They're very dumb.

412
00:26:31,660 --> 00:26:33,630
They just sort of serve
a relaying purpose.

413
00:26:33,730 --> 00:26:37,850
They're there to store and relay
information, and you can circumvent

414
00:26:37,860 --> 00:26:44,840
any one of those relays at any time,
and as a User of Nostr, your goal to

415
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:50,950
increase your own censorship resistance
and to ensure that you receive, uh,

416
00:26:51,180 --> 00:26:56,030
as much raw data, uncensored raw data
as possible is to collect relays.

417
00:26:56,655 --> 00:27:01,467
Right, is to like, have as many relays
as possible, to be broadcasting your

418
00:27:01,467 --> 00:27:06,617
message to as many corners of the world as
possible, and to be receiving information

419
00:27:06,817 --> 00:27:11,507
from as many servers and relays as
possible, and then it's up to your client,

420
00:27:12,077 --> 00:27:17,297
local device, to To, uh, de duplicate that
information, right, to, if you get the

421
00:27:17,297 --> 00:27:20,977
same message from 30 different relays,
you don't want to see it 30 times, so the

422
00:27:20,977 --> 00:27:26,397
client is responsible for making sure you
only see it once, uh, your client is also

423
00:27:26,397 --> 00:27:31,677
responsible for deciding who receives your
messages that you publish, and so long

424
00:27:31,677 --> 00:27:36,567
as there are sufficient people running
quality relays, And that those relays

425
00:27:36,567 --> 00:27:43,646
are publicly, uh, available, Nostr will
remain decentralized, uh, and so it seems

426
00:27:43,646 --> 00:27:49,239
to be kind of infinitely scalable, without
compromising on its, on its promise.

427
00:27:49,349 --> 00:27:56,187
The challenge that Nostr is going to
have, is spam is going to be a very

428
00:27:56,187 --> 00:28:00,377
serious challenge, um, as it is with
all other social media platforms.

429
00:28:00,377 --> 00:28:02,077
And the way that X handles.

430
00:28:02,817 --> 00:28:09,157
Spam is through great central
power through identity verification

431
00:28:09,167 --> 00:28:13,227
and, you know, canceling of
accounts that it deems to be bots.

432
00:28:13,227 --> 00:28:17,057
And so there's this, like, it's
this, it's this theory of endow

433
00:28:17,737 --> 00:28:23,617
the central party with unlimited
power to fight spam and criminality.

434
00:28:24,097 --> 00:28:27,417
Um, and that doesn't
scale very well, right?

435
00:28:27,417 --> 00:28:30,047
It can work to a degree, but
it doesn't scale very well.

436
00:28:30,047 --> 00:28:30,747
And it has these.

437
00:28:31,372 --> 00:28:35,232
Uh, sort of unintended consequences
of good things getting banned

438
00:28:35,232 --> 00:28:36,702
and censored, et cetera.

439
00:28:37,242 --> 00:28:43,482
Um, so Nostr's challenge and what remains
to be determined about its survivability

440
00:28:44,072 --> 00:28:49,032
is when it becomes popular, which it
is not, there's like this tiny little

441
00:28:49,052 --> 00:28:52,332
corner of weirdos in the world using
Nostr right now, and I'm one of them,

442
00:28:52,342 --> 00:28:59,557
but it is not a popular platform and is
therefore not worth Attacking for either

443
00:28:59,557 --> 00:29:06,407
an opportunistic solo, you know, uh, just
troublemaker or for like a nation state.

444
00:29:06,487 --> 00:29:06,927
Okay.

445
00:29:07,027 --> 00:29:10,584
Like if a not even well resourced.

446
00:29:10,714 --> 00:29:17,203
Just if a motivated person or a group of
people wanted to like, take down Nostr.

447
00:29:17,843 --> 00:29:19,583
They could do it with ease right now.

448
00:29:19,973 --> 00:29:21,583
Nostr is an infant.

449
00:29:22,503 --> 00:29:26,903
It is not capable of defending
itself against any kind of

450
00:29:26,943 --> 00:29:31,363
coordinated denial of service
attack against known relays, right?

451
00:29:31,928 --> 00:29:35,118
Like, I'm talking about somebody's
weekend project here, okay?

452
00:29:35,118 --> 00:29:41,078
You could, in a weekend, take down the
Nostr network simply by taking every

453
00:29:41,118 --> 00:29:47,988
known popular relay and just slamming
it with a distributed denial of service

454
00:29:47,988 --> 00:29:50,858
attack, and the whole network would
just cease to function, basically.

455
00:29:50,868 --> 00:29:51,998
Now, it would recover.

456
00:29:52,378 --> 00:29:55,808
Because it's anti fragile and
would overcome that, but it is not

457
00:29:55,808 --> 00:29:59,508
capable of being a reliable source
of news right now under attack.

458
00:30:00,625 --> 00:30:03,635
Yeah, we actually have an experience
with that, me and Luke, from

459
00:30:04,295 --> 00:30:10,785
Madeira, we met the guy that makes
Primal, it's one of the Nostr

460
00:30:10,785 --> 00:30:18,455
clients, so, at a party, and he approaches
me and he said, dude, you're Knut, right?

461
00:30:18,495 --> 00:30:19,405
And I'm like, yeah.

462
00:30:19,855 --> 00:30:22,905
Uh, you broke, you broke
my Nostr, you broke Nostr.

463
00:30:23,685 --> 00:30:25,295
I'm like, what are you talking about?

464
00:30:25,835 --> 00:30:27,115
Or you broke my client.

465
00:30:27,405 --> 00:30:32,845
And he is, uh, apparently, because we
had the idea of just taking my first

466
00:30:32,855 --> 00:30:39,470
book and as a, as a txt file and just
Putting it on Nostr as one single post.

467
00:30:39,930 --> 00:30:41,990
And I had a back and
forth with Luke about it.

468
00:30:41,990 --> 00:30:42,980
Is this a good idea?

469
00:30:42,980 --> 00:30:44,030
Is this a stupid idea?

470
00:30:44,250 --> 00:30:45,380
But we decided to do it.

471
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:50,370
Fuck it, like, no one's probably done this
before, so, like, let's see what happens.

472
00:30:50,790 --> 00:30:55,160
So I posted the entire, the entirety of
Sovereignty Through Mathematics on Nostr.

473
00:30:56,970 --> 00:31:01,650
And apparently it broke his client,
because the post is so big, and it got

474
00:31:01,950 --> 00:31:04,430
quite popular, so that slowed it down.

475
00:31:04,460 --> 00:31:09,538
So, yeah, I see, there are some
concerns with these, uh, clients, and

476
00:31:09,548 --> 00:31:17,537
the relays, uh, That they have to be,
be, uh, behind paywalls in the future.

477
00:31:17,747 --> 00:31:20,567
Uh, simply because of the fact
of the, the spam prevention.

478
00:31:20,687 --> 00:31:23,837
Like that's the, that's the only
solution to that that you, you'll

479
00:31:23,837 --> 00:31:25,247
have to pay for the service.

480
00:31:25,337 --> 00:31:27,287
Uh, otherwise you have the spam issue.

481
00:31:27,287 --> 00:31:33,047
You can fire up a million noster, private
public key pairs, and, uh, just sap

482
00:31:33,137 --> 00:31:35,447
one of them from every other account.

483
00:31:35,942 --> 00:31:36,725
Yeah, ultimately,

484
00:31:37,212 --> 00:31:42,282
ultimately, as is the case with most
systems, there will be a centralization

485
00:31:42,292 --> 00:31:48,296
trend in Nostr, and that centralization
trend will come about through, Issues with

486
00:31:48,296 --> 00:31:53,296
user experience, issues with security,
um, and there will arise companies that

487
00:31:53,296 --> 00:31:56,796
do paid relays and they work wonderfully
so everyone moves to them and now that

488
00:31:56,796 --> 00:32:01,036
relay has a ton of power because 80
percent of network traffic is flowing

489
00:32:01,036 --> 00:32:04,346
through it and suddenly they come out
with the terms and conditions and, you

490
00:32:04,346 --> 00:32:07,346
know, and again, this is a natural trend.

491
00:32:08,003 --> 00:32:14,503
however, truly decentralized systems
with proper incentive structures can

492
00:32:14,783 --> 00:32:19,533
resist this trend, as we have seen
with Bitcoin, but it's still trying.

493
00:32:20,143 --> 00:32:23,313
Bitcoin is still trying
to centralize, right?

494
00:32:23,333 --> 00:32:28,285
Like, there are a lot of people
trying to, push that agenda, and

495
00:32:28,295 --> 00:32:32,815
it's still to be determined if it
withstands, um, and Nostr likewise.

496
00:32:32,875 --> 00:32:34,485
Nostr does not have as much.

497
00:32:35,025 --> 00:32:38,155
of a built in incentive,
though, as Bitcoin does, right?

498
00:32:38,155 --> 00:32:42,705
Bitcoin's decentralization is based on
a whole bunch of economic incentives,

499
00:32:43,315 --> 00:32:50,045
whereas Nostr's decentralization is,
in part, built on best practice and

500
00:32:50,055 --> 00:32:55,835
sort of, um, just everyone playing
ball, but we'll see, we'll see.

501
00:32:55,865 --> 00:32:58,295
I'm Nostr.

502
00:32:58,990 --> 00:33:01,810
But I'm not, uh, what was
your original phrasing?

503
00:33:01,830 --> 00:33:03,030
A believer, right?

504
00:33:03,030 --> 00:33:05,210
I don't believe any, in anything.

505
00:33:05,210 --> 00:33:09,980
I, I, uh, I have convictions and
I have, you know, scenarios and

506
00:33:09,980 --> 00:33:11,370
probabilities, but we'll see.

507
00:33:11,430 --> 00:33:19,460
I'm gonna do whatever I can from our angle
to help, uh, Nostr to flourish as intended

508
00:33:19,490 --> 00:33:21,530
as a decentralized social media platform.

509
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:24,860
And Start9, to be honest,
I Can help, right?

510
00:33:24,870 --> 00:33:26,900
That's where we come in.

511
00:33:26,910 --> 00:33:33,856
In fact, I mean, like, the whole reason
we exist is to promote self hosting, which

512
00:33:33,866 --> 00:33:41,259
in turn promotes self sovereignty, um,
and acts as the counterbalance To many of

513
00:33:41,259 --> 00:33:46,359
these centralization pressures that we see
throughout society, people taking personal

514
00:33:46,359 --> 00:33:50,889
responsibility for their own lives is
the counterbalance to authoritarianism.

515
00:33:50,909 --> 00:33:54,139
And oftentimes that's just too hard to do.

516
00:33:54,149 --> 00:33:57,839
It's too hard to take responsibility
for everything because you don't know

517
00:33:57,839 --> 00:34:01,179
how to do it and you don't have time
to learn it because you're a slave

518
00:34:01,179 --> 00:34:02,819
and you have to work 18 hours a day.

519
00:34:03,129 --> 00:34:03,629
And so.

520
00:34:04,674 --> 00:34:08,604
We are coming in and just trying
to lower the barrier to entry,

521
00:34:08,604 --> 00:34:14,514
lower the bar, make it easier so
that those who do care can opt out,

522
00:34:14,894 --> 00:34:16,654
take responsibility for themselves.

523
00:34:16,924 --> 00:34:21,869
And if enough people do that, the
entire system becomes Resilient.

524
00:34:22,309 --> 00:34:26,339
Even if not everyone does it, you just
need a critical mass of people to not

525
00:34:27,729 --> 00:34:33,659
join in, and the whole system gets
stuck at a level of, uh, we'll call

526
00:34:33,659 --> 00:34:37,592
it acceptable, non freedom, right?

527
00:34:37,592 --> 00:34:38,872
Like, tiny bits,

528
00:34:39,993 --> 00:34:42,103
This is how we view Bitcoin as well.

529
00:34:42,113 --> 00:34:45,363
Like, uh, we don't need like 50%.

530
00:34:45,423 --> 00:34:47,763
That's not the threshold
for a critical mass.

531
00:34:47,803 --> 00:34:52,303
The critical mass is probably a very
small percentile of the population before

532
00:34:52,303 --> 00:34:57,446
the old systems just crumble, because
you can't deny the power of this thing.

533
00:34:57,566 --> 00:34:59,276
Uh, that's what's so beautiful about it.

534
00:35:53,343 --> 00:35:56,123
let's, uh, explore a Start 9 then.

535
00:35:56,123 --> 00:36:01,623
What are, what is a Start 9, and,
uh, how does it solve these problems?

536
00:36:01,623 --> 00:36:05,033
It takes, it gives the, the
user, uh, the power back.

537
00:36:05,571 --> 00:36:08,431
But yeah, can you give us
the TLDR on the start 9?

538
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:09,090
sure thing.

539
00:36:09,343 --> 00:36:12,686
So, Start9 is, is an
organization, strictly speaking,

540
00:36:12,686 --> 00:36:14,416
it's a company, corporation.

541
00:36:14,756 --> 00:36:17,793
But in reality, it's a group
of individuals who got together

542
00:36:17,793 --> 00:36:19,533
and decided to build something.

543
00:36:19,553 --> 00:36:23,313
And a corporate structure is a
Reasonable way to do that, uh, to,

544
00:36:23,313 --> 00:36:27,403
to garner resources and make sure
everyone gets compensated appropriately

545
00:36:27,403 --> 00:36:28,633
and build something together.

546
00:36:28,763 --> 00:36:31,293
Uh, there are other approaches,
but this was right for us.

547
00:36:31,943 --> 00:36:38,660
So, what Start9 does is our primary,
activity is to build StartOS.

548
00:36:39,890 --> 00:36:46,418
This is a operating system, uh, Linux
based, that, uh, is different from

549
00:36:46,498 --> 00:36:51,068
all other operating systems, uh,
in ex in existence, uh, at least to

550
00:36:51,068 --> 00:36:55,488
date, in one very meaningful way.

551
00:36:56,778 --> 00:37:04,298
If you look at macOS, Windows, all your
Linux distros, from Debian to Ubuntu to

552
00:37:04,308 --> 00:37:10,131
Fedora to PopOS, and you look at Android
and iOS, these are mobile operating

553
00:37:10,131 --> 00:37:16,645
systems, uh, Graphene, like what I use,
all of these operating systems have

554
00:37:16,655 --> 00:37:21,615
user interfaces, like the way that users
are supposed to interact with them.

555
00:37:21,615 --> 00:37:24,435
Not necessarily other
computers or developers, but

556
00:37:24,445 --> 00:37:26,415
normal consumers and users.

557
00:37:27,175 --> 00:37:31,015
They have user interfaces that
are designed to administer, to

558
00:37:31,015 --> 00:37:37,135
empower you, the individual, to
administer that device as a client.

559
00:37:37,528 --> 00:37:37,948
Okay?

560
00:37:38,408 --> 00:37:40,728
Client is a very particular word here.

561
00:37:41,378 --> 00:37:43,818
Those devices are clients, a.

562
00:37:43,818 --> 00:37:44,078
k.

563
00:37:44,078 --> 00:37:44,088
a.

564
00:37:45,088 --> 00:37:46,078
remote controls.

565
00:37:46,763 --> 00:37:50,653
You can think of clients
as remote controls.

566
00:37:51,083 --> 00:37:57,073
They do more than just remote control, but
that is arguably their primary function,

567
00:37:57,633 --> 00:38:04,273
is to be a remote control for one or
more servers located behind the scenes.

568
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,793
And so your Android phone, your
iOS phone, your MacBook, your Linux

569
00:38:09,793 --> 00:38:14,763
laptop, your Windows desktop, these
are all primarily remote controls.

570
00:38:15,488 --> 00:38:18,678
And the operating systems that
are installed on these computers,

571
00:38:19,098 --> 00:38:22,198
enable you to use that remote
control effectively, right?

572
00:38:22,198 --> 00:38:25,078
They provide you with a GUI, with
a bunch of buttons, and all these

573
00:38:25,088 --> 00:38:29,118
things that make it super easy for
you to use this remote control.

574
00:38:29,501 --> 00:38:33,231
Those remote controls, these clients,
is the more kind of industry term

575
00:38:33,231 --> 00:38:38,320
for them, clients, These are remotely
controlling servers, and in almost

576
00:38:38,330 --> 00:38:41,740
all cases, as is the case with cloud
computing, these servers are not yours.

577
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:45,950
So all everyone is doing is walking
around with remote controls that operate

578
00:38:46,810 --> 00:38:50,050
somebody else's computer, which has
all the consequences we discussed.

579
00:38:51,116 --> 00:38:58,393
What StartOS is, is arguably the first
ever Mass market operating system that

580
00:38:58,393 --> 00:39:03,983
is designed purposefully, intentionally
for you, a normal user of computers,

581
00:39:03,993 --> 00:39:10,303
not a developer, not a technical person
to administer a server, not a client.

582
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:16,070
Previously, if you wanted to administer a
server, You had to go on the command line.

583
00:39:16,500 --> 00:39:18,830
You couldn't use the graphical interface.

584
00:39:18,870 --> 00:39:20,510
You had to go under the hood.

585
00:39:20,530 --> 00:39:24,920
You had to pop the hood of the car, get
on the Linux command line or in the Mac

586
00:39:25,070 --> 00:39:29,090
terminal and execute commands, right?

587
00:39:29,410 --> 00:39:34,070
And this is a skillset that is commonly
known as systems administration, right?

588
00:39:34,100 --> 00:39:39,470
Linux sysadmins have the ability
to get on a command line and run

589
00:39:39,550 --> 00:39:43,580
server software, server applications,
and then connect to those.

590
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:46,770
Applications from their remote controls.

591
00:39:47,260 --> 00:39:49,160
Almost nobody else has
the ability to do this.

592
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:51,050
You either are a Linux sysadmin.

593
00:39:51,378 --> 00:39:55,658
And DevOps Engineer is another
skill set that overlaps with,

594
00:39:55,798 --> 00:39:57,718
with Linux Systems Administration.

595
00:39:58,308 --> 00:40:04,418
You either have those skills and the
time and patience to use them, because

596
00:40:04,448 --> 00:40:06,228
just like cooking, it takes a while.

597
00:40:06,238 --> 00:40:09,375
It's not easy, even if you
have the skills, or you don't.

598
00:40:09,535 --> 00:40:12,591
And if you had those skills, you
could do this, but nobody does.

599
00:40:12,771 --> 00:40:15,881
The vast majority of the human
population does not have the skill set

600
00:40:16,181 --> 00:40:18,441
or the time or the energy to do it.

601
00:40:19,361 --> 00:40:21,091
to run their own servers.

602
00:40:21,591 --> 00:40:26,461
And the main reason for that was because
there has never been an operating

603
00:40:26,461 --> 00:40:34,611
system that made it simple enough, clear
enough, easy enough for a normal computer

604
00:40:34,611 --> 00:40:36,951
literate person to administer a server.

605
00:40:37,841 --> 00:40:41,831
So that's what we took on because we
thought, recognized, that that was

606
00:40:41,841 --> 00:40:47,481
the THE elephant in the room, that was
THE missing piece of the puzzle that

607
00:40:47,481 --> 00:40:54,105
was preventing the practice of self
hosting, which we believe is necessary

608
00:40:54,608 --> 00:41:00,218
for the decentralization and therefore
continued survival and freedom of

609
00:41:00,218 --> 00:41:02,533
the digital infrastructure of earth.

610
00:41:02,983 --> 00:41:05,043
We don't want centralized
computing systems.

611
00:41:05,043 --> 00:41:08,943
We want decentralized computing systems,
and we can talk about why that's super

612
00:41:08,943 --> 00:41:12,133
important, but I'm assuming that a lot
of people listening to this podcast

613
00:41:12,153 --> 00:41:16,253
already agree with that statement that
decentralized systems are preferable

614
00:41:16,253 --> 00:41:20,553
to centralized for all the problems we
see with the centralization of power.

615
00:41:21,035 --> 00:41:24,145
And in order for systems, computer
systems to be decentralized,

616
00:41:24,735 --> 00:41:26,435
people must run their own servers.

617
00:41:26,855 --> 00:41:27,705
There's no way around this.

618
00:41:28,135 --> 00:41:31,025
There's no other special magic solution.

619
00:41:31,035 --> 00:41:33,915
It's like if you want decentralized
farming, everyone needs to farm.

620
00:41:34,585 --> 00:41:37,115
Or not everyone, right, but
a lot of people need to farm.

621
00:41:37,435 --> 00:41:39,215
One person farms, it's centralized.

622
00:41:39,585 --> 00:41:41,195
If everyone's farming, it's decentralized.

623
00:41:41,215 --> 00:41:42,605
It's really that simple.

624
00:41:43,215 --> 00:41:47,300
And if you want decentralized Computing
systems, if you want a decentralized

625
00:41:47,310 --> 00:41:51,210
internet, if you want an information
society that isn't bottlenecked and

626
00:41:51,210 --> 00:41:54,860
choked by a single central authority,
people have to run their own servers.

627
00:41:54,860 --> 00:41:56,020
There's no other solution.

628
00:41:56,780 --> 00:42:00,650
Some people have proposed alternative
solutions, namely in the phrase,

629
00:42:00,770 --> 00:42:03,820
the gimmick phrase, of serverless.

630
00:42:04,810 --> 00:42:08,570
Okay, serverless is something
that people say usually when

631
00:42:08,570 --> 00:42:09,680
they're trying to raise money.

632
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:13,510
Serverless means clients
talking to clients.

633
00:42:13,510 --> 00:42:14,580
There are no servers.

634
00:42:14,590 --> 00:42:17,250
Let's just get rid of the servers
and create a completely peer

635
00:42:17,250 --> 00:42:18,810
to peer decentralized system.

636
00:42:19,510 --> 00:42:20,400
You can't do it.

637
00:42:20,530 --> 00:42:21,970
Servers are necessary.

638
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,860
Servers are the thing
that runs all the time.

639
00:42:25,860 --> 00:42:27,080
They need to be super powerful.

640
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:28,340
They won't fit in your pocket.

641
00:42:28,670 --> 00:42:30,120
If you drive through a tunnel.

642
00:42:30,545 --> 00:42:30,875
Right?

643
00:42:31,025 --> 00:42:32,535
Your cell signal goes out.

644
00:42:32,535 --> 00:42:34,205
It's no longer functioning as a server.

645
00:42:34,205 --> 00:42:41,845
So like servers need to be static,
powerful, 24 7 on, 24 7 connected.

646
00:42:42,505 --> 00:42:44,765
They require a totally different,
they're running totally

647
00:42:44,765 --> 00:42:46,595
different types of applications.

648
00:42:46,825 --> 00:42:51,645
So this idea of like combining what
servers do into clients is a pipe dream.

649
00:42:52,295 --> 00:42:55,615
Servers have a permanent place
in the future of computing.

650
00:42:56,235 --> 00:43:00,675
And once you admit that, even for Nostr,
relays, and Bitcoin nodes, these are

651
00:43:00,935 --> 00:43:05,805
servers, don't run a Bitcoin node on your
phone, that's not a good idea, right,

652
00:43:06,465 --> 00:43:10,355
that's come up a few times over the years,
and it's just like, no, there's no reason

653
00:43:10,355 --> 00:43:15,435
to do that, it's not a good idea, so once
you admit that servers are part of the

654
00:43:15,435 --> 00:43:23,200
permanent architecture, computers, you're
You come to the conclusion that we need

655
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:24,760
people to be running their own servers.

656
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:26,680
Otherwise, it's a totally
centralized system.

657
00:43:27,300 --> 00:43:28,960
And why weren't people
running their own servers?

658
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:30,170
Because they couldn't.

659
00:43:30,190 --> 00:43:31,740
Because it's too technically difficult.

660
00:43:32,130 --> 00:43:33,580
Why is it too technically difficult?

661
00:43:33,610 --> 00:43:36,560
Because there's no operating system
in existence that makes it easy.

662
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:38,440
Let's build the operating system.

663
00:43:38,650 --> 00:43:39,510
That was our logic.

664
00:43:40,473 --> 00:43:41,153
And so we did.

665
00:43:41,663 --> 00:43:42,243
We built it.

666
00:43:42,413 --> 00:43:43,043
We launched it.

667
00:43:43,303 --> 00:43:45,263
And we've been iterating it
for almost four years now.

668
00:43:45,598 --> 00:43:50,698
And it has undergone massive, massive
changes during those four years.

669
00:43:50,698 --> 00:43:54,498
We've essentially rewritten
it three times now, uh, from

670
00:43:54,498 --> 00:43:56,018
scratch, not just iterated it.

671
00:43:56,018 --> 00:44:00,211
Like, we've had to start over because
we were figuring it out as we went.

672
00:44:00,241 --> 00:44:01,611
Nobody's ever done this before.

673
00:44:02,211 --> 00:44:05,051
So, so we were like breaking ground here.

674
00:44:05,501 --> 00:44:08,111
And a lot of what we
learned along the way.

675
00:44:08,846 --> 00:44:15,426
was how very different a
server OS is from a client OS.

676
00:44:15,706 --> 00:44:17,666
They're like very different animals.

677
00:44:18,370 --> 00:44:22,573
all the way from how it
functions under the hood to the

678
00:44:22,573 --> 00:44:24,173
way, to the user experience.

679
00:44:24,173 --> 00:44:30,013
You can't just take Mac OS, copy it and
be like, okay, now it's a server OS.

680
00:44:30,043 --> 00:44:30,643
It's like, no, no, no.

681
00:44:30,643 --> 00:44:35,328
The users are You're, you're, you're
actually making it worse for people

682
00:44:35,448 --> 00:44:40,288
because what you're making them think
is that a server and a client are

683
00:44:40,288 --> 00:44:43,368
super similar because the operating
system makes them look super similar.

684
00:44:43,368 --> 00:44:48,818
Like, imagine if iOS, iOS was the
first, like, you know, mobile OS.

685
00:44:49,988 --> 00:44:55,478
Imagine if Apple had just taken
Mac OS and shrunk the screen size.

686
00:44:56,206 --> 00:45:01,876
It wouldn't have worked well,
because a mobile OS is different,

687
00:45:02,006 --> 00:45:06,586
it is a fundamentally different
animal, both in function and in

688
00:45:06,596 --> 00:45:09,446
experience, than a desktop OS.

689
00:45:10,896 --> 00:45:14,886
And Windows, at one point,
tried to create a unified one.

690
00:45:14,896 --> 00:45:16,486
Do you remember that?

691
00:45:16,496 --> 00:45:17,856
The Windows Phone?

692
00:45:18,496 --> 00:45:21,626
Where they basically just tried to
take their desktop operating system

693
00:45:21,626 --> 00:45:25,256
and crunch it down to mobile and be
like, Oh, it's all just the same.

694
00:45:25,826 --> 00:45:28,846
It's a nice idea, but it wasn't good.

695
00:45:29,266 --> 00:45:29,566
Right?

696
00:45:29,576 --> 00:45:31,016
The mobile OS sucked.

697
00:45:31,576 --> 00:45:37,606
Um, and so, for the same reasons,
you can't just make a server OS

698
00:45:38,036 --> 00:45:40,046
look and feel like some desktop OS.

699
00:45:40,106 --> 00:45:40,906
They are different.

700
00:45:40,946 --> 00:45:46,726
And we had to learn the hard way what
a lot of those differences were by

701
00:45:46,786 --> 00:45:50,915
putting it into the hands of people,
And seeing where they got confused and

702
00:45:50,915 --> 00:45:54,585
where they got tripped up and where
it broke, um, and then gradually being

703
00:45:54,585 --> 00:45:57,245
like, crap, our abstractions are wrong.

704
00:45:57,315 --> 00:45:58,765
Our approach is wrong.

705
00:45:59,035 --> 00:46:01,505
Well, good thing we're still
young and nobody knows about us.

706
00:46:01,505 --> 00:46:06,165
We can just blow it up and start
over again and we won't get, um,

707
00:46:06,775 --> 00:46:09,015
it won't destroy us as a company.

708
00:46:09,125 --> 00:46:11,765
And so, anyway, uh, that's what we do.

709
00:46:12,421 --> 00:46:15,101
we also sell devices, servers.

710
00:46:15,751 --> 00:46:20,541
With our operating system, uh, pre
installed for people who don't want

711
00:46:20,541 --> 00:46:25,131
to, uh, go through the DIY approach
of getting their own hardware and

712
00:46:25,131 --> 00:46:26,691
downloading it and installing it.

713
00:46:27,011 --> 00:46:28,851
So essentially we're
selling convenience, right?

714
00:46:28,861 --> 00:46:31,911
The operating system
is licensed under MIT.

715
00:46:31,911 --> 00:46:34,351
It's about as free as it can possibly be.

716
00:46:34,351 --> 00:46:36,631
It doesn't belong to us
in any way, shape or form.

717
00:46:37,261 --> 00:46:41,591
Um, but we know people will
pay, uh, for community.

718
00:46:42,046 --> 00:46:44,786
And convenience and customer support.

719
00:46:45,026 --> 00:46:47,416
And so that's really
what we do as a company.

720
00:46:47,416 --> 00:46:49,776
We build a free operating
system, then we give it away.

721
00:46:50,536 --> 00:46:53,976
Uh, and then we, we sell devices
with it pre installed and support

722
00:46:53,976 --> 00:46:56,056
it with our, with our people.

723
00:46:56,456 --> 00:46:59,756
And, um, we think that's a very viable
and scalable business model, to be honest.

724
00:47:00,655 --> 00:47:01,321
Fantastic.

725
00:47:01,511 --> 00:47:04,181
I love a thing you said in
the, in the very beginning of

726
00:47:04,181 --> 00:47:05,381
the answer to that question.

727
00:47:05,581 --> 00:47:09,211
And that was that you're a company,
and that's just one way for a

728
00:47:09,211 --> 00:47:11,051
group of people to do stuff.

729
00:47:11,311 --> 00:47:16,281
That's like a libertarian disclaimer
that this is something we did because

730
00:47:16,341 --> 00:47:19,461
this is how, how nation states work.

731
00:47:19,541 --> 00:47:20,801
You need to do this to do that.

732
00:47:21,021 --> 00:47:26,548
So, because it reminds me of like, uh,
ideas we have about, uh, uh, uh, What a

733
00:47:26,548 --> 00:47:31,728
company looks like on a Bitcoin standard
or a post hyperbitcoinization or whatever

734
00:47:32,018 --> 00:47:37,578
you may call it, like even now for a
Bitcoin company, it doesn't really have

735
00:47:37,608 --> 00:47:43,768
to be more than a telegram group or
I would say the equivalent on a start

736
00:47:43,798 --> 00:47:48,518
nine rather than a centralized telegram
group or a Nostr group or whatever.

737
00:47:48,931 --> 00:47:52,501
So it's just a group of people
being able to communicate and

738
00:47:52,511 --> 00:47:54,681
being able to pay one another.

739
00:47:54,791 --> 00:47:57,631
And all you need for that is
communication and Bitcoin, right?

740
00:47:57,631 --> 00:47:58,921
You don't need anything else.

741
00:47:58,931 --> 00:48:02,961
You don't really need permission and you
don't really need the company structure.

742
00:48:03,741 --> 00:48:04,721
Well, it depends.

743
00:48:04,921 --> 00:48:07,531
Uh, it depends on how big
you want that group to grow.

744
00:48:07,795 --> 00:48:10,615
you know, if it's a few people working
on something and sending each other

745
00:48:10,635 --> 00:48:14,115
bitcoin every once in a while, you
can probably fly under the radar.

746
00:48:14,575 --> 00:48:20,451
But, um, you know, if you're looking
to capitalize, like, raise money, uh,

747
00:48:20,741 --> 00:48:25,521
through people who want to contribute,
yes, you can accept donations, but,

748
00:48:25,641 --> 00:48:30,331
um, it's often Much more lucrative
to accept investments because those

749
00:48:30,331 --> 00:48:32,131
people are expecting a return, right?

750
00:48:32,181 --> 00:48:34,791
So you can get a lot more
donations, essentially, if you

751
00:48:34,791 --> 00:48:36,181
promise to give something back.

752
00:48:36,608 --> 00:48:39,938
and that all requires, that
all has legal structure to it.

753
00:48:40,251 --> 00:48:44,941
you know, in the US, if I were to,
if Start9 wasn't a company, and

754
00:48:44,991 --> 00:48:49,446
ignore the fundraising aspect of
it, if we weren't a company, And

755
00:48:49,446 --> 00:48:51,156
we, everyone needed to get paid.

756
00:48:51,656 --> 00:48:53,876
At some point, we're breaking the law.

757
00:48:53,886 --> 00:48:55,426
We are, we are breaking the law.

758
00:48:55,426 --> 00:49:00,796
You're like, not allowed to just
hire people indefinitely to, to work,

759
00:49:01,091 --> 00:49:05,300
without, like, classifying them as an
employee and paying for health benefits.

760
00:49:05,300 --> 00:49:10,290
And there's like, you know, You know, you
can get in trouble due to the nature of

761
00:49:10,290 --> 00:49:11,980
these, these systems that we've built.

762
00:49:12,050 --> 00:49:14,340
And I know that sounds a
little petty, like, ooh, get

763
00:49:14,340 --> 00:49:15,490
in trouble, but that's real.

764
00:49:15,500 --> 00:49:16,990
That's real consequences, right?

765
00:49:17,010 --> 00:49:18,430
Like, I don't want to go to jail.

766
00:49:18,430 --> 00:49:21,910
I don't want to be fined,
uh, into bankruptcy.

767
00:49:21,910 --> 00:49:26,710
Like, you know, you have to live
within the, the game, uh, that's being

768
00:49:26,710 --> 00:49:28,940
played while trying to change the game.

769
00:49:28,940 --> 00:49:32,660
But in, you know, it's, uh, it's hard.

770
00:49:32,720 --> 00:49:33,820
We, we debated.

771
00:49:33,970 --> 00:49:34,950
Going the like.

772
00:49:36,275 --> 00:49:38,605
official charitable route.

773
00:49:39,035 --> 00:49:41,395
Um, but even that's a filing.

774
00:49:41,595 --> 00:49:45,225
That's still a 501c3 corporate entity.

775
00:49:45,225 --> 00:49:46,505
It's just a different type.

776
00:49:46,505 --> 00:49:50,975
It's like doing nothing, filing
nothing, just living, breathing,

777
00:49:50,975 --> 00:49:54,605
and doing the things you want to
do is like kind of not allowed.

778
00:49:54,915 --> 00:49:57,315
past a certain scale,
you just get in trouble.

779
00:49:57,741 --> 00:49:58,411
Absolutely.

780
00:49:58,411 --> 00:50:01,751
But if there was a question in
there, it's sort of like, do you

781
00:50:01,781 --> 00:50:03,661
see this as a possible future?

782
00:50:03,661 --> 00:50:09,096
I know it's hard right now because
we still live in these Um, all the

783
00:50:09,166 --> 00:50:12,706
dinosaur institution run nations.

784
00:50:12,906 --> 00:50:18,106
Uh, but like, I mean, we are building
these freedom tools, uh, in order

785
00:50:18,106 --> 00:50:20,646
to get humanity to a better state.

786
00:50:20,686 --> 00:50:22,736
As you said in the beginning
for our kids, right?

787
00:50:22,806 --> 00:50:27,936
To live in a world where, where you
have more freedoms and more, more

788
00:50:27,946 --> 00:50:29,476
options and more opportunities.

789
00:50:29,476 --> 00:50:36,031
And so, so do you foresee like these,
Legal structures not being roadblocks

790
00:50:36,631 --> 00:50:41,141
to as big an extent as they are today.

791
00:50:41,541 --> 00:50:43,191
Convoluted sentence, but yeah.

792
00:52:00,082 --> 00:52:01,362
No, I understand completely.

793
00:52:01,412 --> 00:52:05,766
I'm, um, I'm hopeful
on various timelines.

794
00:52:06,666 --> 00:52:10,041
So the answer to your
question is, On what timeline?

795
00:52:10,871 --> 00:52:14,571
Uh, I'm not at all optimistic that
we'll see anything close to what you

796
00:52:14,571 --> 00:52:17,744
described, in the next two decades.

797
00:52:18,277 --> 00:52:23,647
I'm cautiously optimistic that we
could see some degree of meaningful

798
00:52:24,087 --> 00:52:27,107
reform slash political restructuring.

799
00:52:27,452 --> 00:52:28,542
In my lifetime.

800
00:52:30,449 --> 00:52:34,779
these systems take time to adjust.

801
00:52:34,779 --> 00:52:41,439
And this is something that a lot of
Bitcoiners and, you know, um, fellow

802
00:52:41,439 --> 00:52:47,249
freedom fighters and I disagree on is
the timeline for a lot of our ambitions.

803
00:52:47,349 --> 00:52:52,414
Um, I largely buy into the
thesis, the underlying thesis,

804
00:52:52,914 --> 00:52:54,204
of the sovereign individual.

805
00:52:54,837 --> 00:52:57,677
I don't know if you've read that,
but I largely agree with their

806
00:52:58,092 --> 00:52:59,352
Have, I love it.

807
00:52:59,562 --> 00:53:02,702
We, uh, we agree with it totally too.

808
00:53:02,732 --> 00:53:09,002
I'm speaking for Luke here, but like, I
love that book and I absolutely buy that.

809
00:53:09,602 --> 00:53:10,787
That's where we're headed.

810
00:53:11,267 --> 00:53:14,557
So the question is, is, you know,
what does that timeline look like?

811
00:53:14,757 --> 00:53:20,537
And even that book admits That
the process is very hazy, right?

812
00:53:20,537 --> 00:53:27,347
Like, Sovereign Individual takes
an extreme macro view of political

813
00:53:27,347 --> 00:53:29,437
history and technological history.

814
00:53:30,137 --> 00:53:34,357
It does not pretend to predict
specific events along the way.

815
00:53:34,897 --> 00:53:40,667
It did, in fact, predict some
specific events, but it also, in so

816
00:53:40,667 --> 00:53:42,427
doing, was like, this is a process.

817
00:53:42,787 --> 00:53:43,837
May or may not happen.

818
00:53:43,837 --> 00:53:50,327
It's based on decisions and chance and,
you know, unforeseen new technologies.

819
00:53:51,067 --> 00:53:55,747
And so I believe in where we're going.

820
00:53:55,947 --> 00:53:57,087
Like I am convinced.

821
00:53:57,927 --> 00:54:04,437
That we are gonna win, or that we
have a really good shot at winning.

822
00:54:04,567 --> 00:54:10,087
However, I don't know how
long it's going to take.

823
00:54:10,387 --> 00:54:14,077
I think it's going to take longer
than most in my circles do,

824
00:54:14,857 --> 00:54:19,477
and we don't know how turbulent
the transition is going to be.

825
00:54:20,757 --> 00:54:24,167
I think there's so many factors
at play that trying to predict the

826
00:54:24,167 --> 00:54:26,317
degree of turbulence is kind of.

827
00:54:27,097 --> 00:54:29,527
Um, an effort in futility.

828
00:54:30,107 --> 00:54:35,147
I think it's best to maybe be prepared
for various scenarios and have contingency

829
00:54:35,147 --> 00:54:40,037
plans and not buy in too much to a single
scenario because then you'll be taken

830
00:54:40,037 --> 00:54:42,177
by surprise when it doesn't come true.

831
00:54:43,137 --> 00:54:47,997
Um, so to try to keep the highest level
picture in mind as possible and then be

832
00:54:47,997 --> 00:54:56,532
flexible, uh, in terms of the path and if
we end up getting Where we want to be much

833
00:54:56,542 --> 00:55:03,362
faster than I have kind of internally,
uh, predicted, and it's super smooth

834
00:55:03,362 --> 00:55:07,732
and the state just folds and hands over
power and all the rest, then I will be

835
00:55:07,742 --> 00:55:13,232
very happy, and I won't complain at all,
but I'm definitely not expecting that.

836
00:55:13,232 --> 00:55:18,522
I'm expecting a prolonged, gritty
guerrilla war over the next century.

837
00:55:19,621 --> 00:55:25,151
where many, many people will fall through
the cracks and suffer, um, and others

838
00:55:25,151 --> 00:55:31,051
will sell out and flourish, and we'll
just kind of see where the, you know,

839
00:55:31,111 --> 00:55:35,581
when all the dust settles, um, who's
still standing, and I think it'll be us.

840
00:55:35,581 --> 00:55:44,091
Now, that said, I also, due to my s
Study of history and my understanding

841
00:55:44,091 --> 00:55:47,591
of just kind of philosophy and
to be honest, even metaphysics.

842
00:55:48,221 --> 00:55:49,181
I don't think it ever ends.

843
00:55:49,691 --> 00:55:49,911
Right?

844
00:55:49,911 --> 00:55:54,111
I believe that all of existence
and human history in particular are

845
00:55:54,471 --> 00:55:58,921
cyclical in nature and that it's one
giant never ending spiral with the

846
00:55:59,011 --> 00:56:01,491
rhythm repeating itself to infinity.

847
00:56:02,111 --> 00:56:04,116
And that as we quote, win, win.

848
00:56:04,666 --> 00:56:09,936
There will emerge some new form of
oppression and totalitarianism that will

849
00:56:09,936 --> 00:56:14,686
be the next, that will mark the next cycle
of freedom fighters and all the rest.

850
00:56:14,776 --> 00:56:19,855
So, I don't pretend that there's
like, Some permanent fix coming

851
00:56:19,915 --> 00:56:23,335
where all of humanity will flourish
for the end till the end of time.

852
00:56:24,119 --> 00:56:30,529
I just am trying to play my role in this
cycle to the best that I perceive it

853
00:56:30,529 --> 00:56:38,029
and can in hopes that maybe my children
or their children will experience one

854
00:56:38,069 --> 00:56:45,434
of those rare moments in history of
Prosperity and, and, and human flourishing

855
00:56:45,634 --> 00:56:50,684
and maybe even get us off this planet
and, and take it to the, to the stars.

856
00:56:50,684 --> 00:56:54,154
And it's like, so I'm not, again,
it depends on your timeline.

857
00:56:54,214 --> 00:56:59,954
I'm not optimistic or pessimistic at the
ultimate timeline because nature is nature

858
00:57:00,004 --> 00:57:02,904
and there is no, it just is what it is.

859
00:57:03,564 --> 00:57:05,644
On a short time, I'm
extremely pessimistic.

860
00:57:06,124 --> 00:57:11,854
I think that these people who are
currently in power are going to

861
00:57:12,544 --> 00:57:15,164
try to blow the house up before
they let anybody else in it.

862
00:57:15,743 --> 00:57:19,823
and then the medium term gets really gray
really fast, and I'm just trying to do

863
00:57:19,823 --> 00:57:24,323
my best to make it as good as possible
and to make the period of turbulence

864
00:57:24,323 --> 00:57:26,173
and darkness as short as possible.

865
00:57:26,773 --> 00:57:29,863
Have you read a book by Michael
Malice called the white pill?

866
00:57:31,853 --> 00:57:37,763
Because this reminds me of that because
it's basically the history of the Soviet

867
00:57:37,793 --> 00:57:45,363
Union and the East Block and how quickly
it just disappeared and everyone went to

868
00:57:45,363 --> 00:57:49,463
bed one day and everyone was a communist
and they woke up the next day and no one

869
00:57:49,463 --> 00:57:55,178
was a communist and how no one expected
that, like, and that there are Examples

870
00:57:55,178 --> 00:58:01,078
in history of, you know, the good
guys just winning at a certain point.

871
00:58:01,088 --> 00:58:04,841
Like when, when it looks the bleakest,

872
00:58:05,189 --> 00:58:05,889
so let me ask you something.

873
00:58:06,769 --> 00:58:09,069
Soviet bloc just up and vanished, right?

874
00:58:10,429 --> 00:58:16,869
Well, my understanding of how the world
functions is not that there was this all

875
00:58:16,879 --> 00:58:25,169
powerful Soviet communist government that
just sort of went bankrupt one day, and

876
00:58:25,169 --> 00:58:29,679
that there isn't this counterforce in
the United States that is an all powerful

877
00:58:29,949 --> 00:58:34,789
anti communist government that just
sort of won overnight in that Cold War.

878
00:58:35,089 --> 00:58:38,964
My understanding of it is that
underneath both of those countries, is

879
00:58:38,964 --> 00:58:44,614
an extremely powerful set of financiers
that were funding both sides of that

880
00:58:44,614 --> 00:58:52,674
war in order to keep everyone afraid
and increase, you know, totalitarian

881
00:58:52,694 --> 00:58:57,804
practices and bankrupt both countries by
printing infinite money on both sides.

882
00:58:58,574 --> 00:59:04,659
And so my view of the collapse of the
Soviet Union, Taking a step back from it

883
00:59:05,479 --> 00:59:11,622
is that it was actually kind of part of
a larger strategy of like, if you want

884
00:59:11,622 --> 00:59:13,832
to implement global socialism, right?

885
00:59:13,832 --> 00:59:21,032
If you want a global government that
has a global central bank that can

886
00:59:21,042 --> 00:59:28,332
print infinite money and effectively
enslave through a digital feudalism

887
00:59:28,342 --> 00:59:33,657
the entire world, It would be a
really good idea to get rid of the

888
00:59:33,847 --> 00:59:37,717
boogeyman in the room called communism,
because it's just distasteful.

889
00:59:37,727 --> 00:59:39,337
Nobody likes that word, right?

890
00:59:39,337 --> 00:59:42,707
Effectively, what you're trying
to implement is global socialism

891
00:59:42,707 --> 00:59:46,827
slash communism, but better to
let everyone think communism

892
00:59:46,827 --> 00:59:48,557
died and is no longer a threat.

893
00:59:48,567 --> 00:59:49,497
Like, oh, it's gone.

894
00:59:49,507 --> 00:59:50,077
It's gone.

895
00:59:50,227 --> 00:59:56,081
So all these socialist, kind of practices
that the West is now indulging in are

896
00:59:56,081 --> 00:59:58,041
perfectly fine because it's not communism.

897
00:59:58,041 --> 00:59:59,261
Communism died, remember?

898
01:00:00,016 --> 01:00:06,517
So I view it as like, it's still
going on, like we're, we are actively

899
01:00:06,527 --> 01:00:14,347
daily fighting the aggressive
emergence of a global communist order.

900
01:00:14,986 --> 01:00:18,746
Yeah, if the, if that was a
question, like, um, I have

901
01:00:18,746 --> 01:00:20,066
a slightly different view.

902
01:00:20,266 --> 01:00:26,096
I don't think this is being deliberately
planned out that way and that there's

903
01:00:26,116 --> 01:00:28,566
some grand master schemer somewhere.

904
01:00:29,026 --> 01:00:34,306
I just think that the very notion of
Central banks existing and the system

905
01:00:34,306 --> 01:00:39,796
we live in existing sort of makes that
happen regardless of what anyone wants.

906
01:00:40,156 --> 01:00:42,210
It leads to global socialism

907
01:00:42,416 --> 01:00:44,586
do you think the central
bankers understand that?

908
01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:48,230
Or are they naive to the
consequences of their own policies?

909
01:00:48,591 --> 01:00:50,961
I think that both are true, can be true.

910
01:00:50,961 --> 01:00:53,961
I don't think there's Mutual,
they are mutually exclusive.

911
01:00:53,961 --> 01:00:57,231
I don't think that the founders
of the Federal Reserve.

912
01:00:57,636 --> 01:01:00,216
Could foresee what would
happen a hundred years later.

913
01:01:00,346 --> 01:01:04,236
I think they were, you know, high
time preference people who just wanted

914
01:01:04,236 --> 01:01:06,206
to print money to enrich themselves.

915
01:01:06,236 --> 01:01:11,006
I don't think they had this, you
know, totalitarian, Oh, what, our

916
01:01:11,006 --> 01:01:14,316
children will live in this totalitarian
state and it would be awesome.

917
01:01:14,346 --> 01:01:17,386
I don't think they have that plan
in mind when they started the thing.

918
01:01:17,386 --> 01:01:20,326
It's just what happens when you run
that experiment for a long time.

919
01:01:21,176 --> 01:01:24,956
It's a very valid point and I
don't think that, maybe with a few

920
01:01:24,956 --> 01:01:30,266
exceptions, that anyone involved
with founding or perpetuating the

921
01:01:30,266 --> 01:01:35,621
Federal Reserve and essentially
central banking Uh, cartel and system.

922
01:01:36,141 --> 01:01:41,271
We're necessarily like doing this
and saying let's enslave humanity.

923
01:01:41,301 --> 01:01:49,398
I think that their psychology and
philosophy is such that they believe

924
01:01:50,348 --> 01:01:57,028
that the only way to maintain social
order is central planning and authority.

925
01:01:57,118 --> 01:01:59,438
It's not that they're
trying to enslave, enslave.

926
01:01:59,753 --> 01:02:02,083
They're trying to take care of, right?

927
01:02:02,083 --> 01:02:07,433
It's a paternal kind of, uh, uh, it goal.

928
01:02:07,543 --> 01:02:11,473
It's like, ultimately, you know, if
you're on the receiving side of that,

929
01:02:11,523 --> 01:02:14,513
you're not free and you see it as
slavery, but the people who are doing

930
01:02:14,513 --> 01:02:16,663
it are like, this is for your own good.

931
01:02:16,793 --> 01:02:18,763
If we weren't managing the economy.

932
01:02:18,773 --> 01:02:19,753
Oh, my God.

933
01:02:19,843 --> 01:02:23,961
Like, and yes, I believe that there
are some of them who realize that

934
01:02:23,961 --> 01:02:26,623
an economy is going to flourish.

935
01:02:27,473 --> 01:02:28,553
Unencumbered, right?

936
01:02:28,583 --> 01:02:33,663
A free market will always produce
maximum prosperity and minimum poverty.

937
01:02:34,413 --> 01:02:36,533
And there's definitely some who
understand this, but I actually

938
01:02:36,543 --> 01:02:38,093
think the majority do not.

939
01:02:38,093 --> 01:02:43,173
I think the majority have bought in
to the macroeconomic Keynesian BS

940
01:02:43,173 --> 01:02:46,853
that's taught in the higher education,
and they actually believe that

941
01:02:46,863 --> 01:02:51,223
central planning and authority is
necessary to run an effective economy.

942
01:02:51,223 --> 01:02:56,628
But I also believe that there are
people Who are, who have the levers of

943
01:02:56,628 --> 01:03:02,408
power at their disposal, who absolutely
understand that they are doing this on

944
01:03:02,408 --> 01:03:06,838
the backs of the rest of us, that they
are personally enriching themselves and

945
01:03:06,838 --> 01:03:10,638
empowering themselves at the expense of
the rest of the human race, I believe

946
01:03:10,638 --> 01:03:14,658
that those people do exist, and that they
do sit at levers of power, now I'm not

947
01:03:14,658 --> 01:03:20,463
talking about some sort of like grand,
This kind of pervasive conspiracy, I'm

948
01:03:20,463 --> 01:03:27,133
talking about powerful individuals who
find themselves in positions of power who

949
01:03:27,133 --> 01:03:32,734
are personally or with a small group of
friends, very intentionally Taking some

950
01:03:32,734 --> 01:03:34,544
of these actions and perpetuating them.

951
01:03:34,544 --> 01:03:39,064
And I believe that there's a good amount
of evidence to support that from the

952
01:03:39,064 --> 01:03:42,404
last hundred years that some of these
people knew exactly what they were doing.

953
01:03:43,240 --> 01:03:45,460
it's hard to know exactly what's
going on because we don't see it.

954
01:03:45,470 --> 01:03:46,280
We don't know.

955
01:03:46,330 --> 01:03:46,910
We don't know.

956
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:49,490
What we see is the actions
and the consequences.

957
01:03:49,510 --> 01:03:55,245
And so it's like, wow, is this a result
of, you know, Purely kind of, uh, you

958
01:03:55,245 --> 01:03:59,965
know, incentives and chance and chaos,
or is there somebody who really, uh,

959
01:03:59,965 --> 01:04:01,965
is trying to sort of plan this out?

960
01:04:02,005 --> 01:04:03,965
I think the answer is
somewhere in the middle.

961
01:04:04,175 --> 01:04:07,355
I think that there are planners, and
I think that there are bystanders.

962
01:04:07,355 --> 01:04:10,945
I think that there are opportunists,
and I think that there are, uh,

963
01:04:11,155 --> 01:04:16,755
you know, malicious people who want
to attack and enrich themselves

964
01:04:16,765 --> 01:04:17,975
at the expense of everybody else.

965
01:04:18,015 --> 01:04:22,665
I think it's all of it, but I think
there's probably more understanding.

966
01:04:23,295 --> 01:04:28,985
intelligence and planning
than most people believe.

967
01:04:29,785 --> 01:04:30,785
I don't think they're idiots.

968
01:04:31,095 --> 01:04:32,955
I really don't think
these people are idiots.

969
01:04:33,265 --> 01:04:34,885
I think that they're malicious.

970
01:04:35,695 --> 01:04:37,355
No, I agree on all points.

971
01:04:37,355 --> 01:04:43,195
And just to be clear here, I definitely
agree that like when communism quote

972
01:04:43,195 --> 01:04:46,085
unquote died, the problem didn't go away.

973
01:04:46,115 --> 01:04:47,925
And it is a perpetual fight.

974
01:04:47,955 --> 01:04:49,925
Every generation will have to fight it.

975
01:04:49,965 --> 01:04:54,805
Uh, I think that's a Reagan quote, like
every generation has to fight for freedom.

976
01:04:55,285 --> 01:05:01,990
Anyway, um, So having said that, I
do think like living in like Bulgaria

977
01:05:01,990 --> 01:05:07,800
or Czechoslovakia today is way, uh, a
person living there is way more free

978
01:05:07,830 --> 01:05:09,480
than they were back in the eighties.

979
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:12,020
Like the, there's just no doubt of that.

980
01:05:12,930 --> 01:05:18,300
And no, and, and, uh, um, that people
in the, in the, so-called West, the

981
01:05:18,300 --> 01:05:20,100
West is sort of like the New East.

982
01:05:20,100 --> 01:05:24,360
Now the pendulum has swing over to our
part of the world and the, these can

983
01:05:24,420 --> 01:05:27,030
Canada, Canada, Stan for instances.

984
01:05:27,520 --> 01:05:32,600
More intrusive than Czechoslovakia
is at this point, and very much so.

985
01:05:32,610 --> 01:05:35,370
So, so there's, there's going
to be ups and downs there.

986
01:05:35,620 --> 01:05:40,020
There are hopeful places though, like
Miele being elected in Argentina,

987
01:05:40,270 --> 01:05:44,540
just quoting Rothbard, uh, and
winning an election by doing that.

988
01:05:44,580 --> 01:05:49,130
That's to me, that's pretty amazing
that, that a politician that is basically

989
01:05:49,130 --> 01:05:54,225
just Quoting Rothbard over and over
again is winning with a majority.

990
01:05:54,225 --> 01:05:55,185
That gives me hope.

991
01:05:55,255 --> 01:05:59,805
Uh, I don't have much hope for
politicians and I don't trust him.

992
01:05:59,805 --> 01:06:01,205
I don't trust any politician.

993
01:06:01,777 --> 01:06:05,497
but still, I think if, if
we lose hope, then we'd lost

994
01:06:05,517 --> 01:06:07,447
the fight by, by definition.

995
01:06:07,457 --> 01:06:10,877
So, so like fighting for freedom
and trying to find the tools is

996
01:06:10,877 --> 01:06:12,967
always the noble thing to do.

997
01:06:13,602 --> 01:06:19,752
And maybe we can never get rid of taxes,
but I still think that regardless of how

998
01:06:19,762 --> 01:06:25,902
low the tax rate is, fighting for lowering
it even more is always the right move.

999
01:06:25,992 --> 01:06:28,952
Like, we should always try
to fight for less government.

1000
01:06:28,962 --> 01:06:32,107
Like, that's always the
correct fight to fight.

1001
01:06:32,807 --> 01:06:33,407
I agree.

1002
01:06:33,527 --> 01:06:35,827
And I think that all fronts are valid.

1003
01:06:36,267 --> 01:06:41,547
Um, you know, that it might not
be the most effective way to, uh,

1004
01:06:41,567 --> 01:06:46,237
fight, but even, you know, politics
is a, is a battleground, right?

1005
01:06:46,237 --> 01:06:51,477
Like we should strive to get, um,
liberty candidates in place, especially

1006
01:06:51,477 --> 01:06:53,057
at the local level of government.

1007
01:06:53,461 --> 01:06:55,431
sure, if you can get them at
the national level, that's

1008
01:06:55,451 --> 01:06:58,088
even better in, in many cases.

1009
01:06:58,088 --> 01:06:58,780
And.

1010
01:06:59,021 --> 01:07:03,861
We should be fighting on the education
front, the cultural front, um, you know,

1011
01:07:03,901 --> 01:07:07,261
um, even the nutritional and health front.

1012
01:07:07,291 --> 01:07:11,791
It's like, these are all valid fronts
and each person should fight on whatever

1013
01:07:11,801 --> 01:07:14,931
front they are best suited to do so.

1014
01:07:15,174 --> 01:07:19,384
I, because of my, you know,
personality and tendencies and skill

1015
01:07:19,384 --> 01:07:21,568
sets, fight on the technology front.

1016
01:07:21,648 --> 01:07:25,998
And I think that there's
real leverage there, right?

1017
01:07:26,018 --> 01:07:32,464
Because You don't really need, it's, it's,
it's in line with the sovereign individual

1018
01:07:32,474 --> 01:07:38,018
thesis, which is that technology in large
part determines politics, not the other

1019
01:07:38,018 --> 01:07:45,178
way around, that political structures
orient themselves around the techno, the

1020
01:07:45,178 --> 01:07:52,548
technology of the, of the day and it,
the incentives that it produces, which is

1021
01:07:52,548 --> 01:07:54,798
why we're, this is why we Bitcoin, right?

1022
01:07:54,808 --> 01:08:00,094
That's like the whole point is that
Bitcoin is this revolutionary We'll

1023
01:08:00,094 --> 01:08:07,054
call it networking technology that is
optimal for producing a monetary network

1024
01:08:07,074 --> 01:08:14,204
and technology that undermines arguably
the single greatest, um, mechanism of

1025
01:08:14,204 --> 01:08:21,064
totalitarianism, which is control over
the creation and distribution of money.

1026
01:08:22,594 --> 01:08:28,189
And so I have always viewed, at
least since starting Start9, Um,

1027
01:08:28,779 --> 01:08:34,099
Bitcoin as kind of the, um, the hero
of the army, so to speak, right?

1028
01:08:34,099 --> 01:08:40,219
Like Bitcoin is the, like our hero
is fighting their champion, right?

1029
01:08:40,224 --> 01:08:42,079
Like our champion is
fighting their champion.

1030
01:08:42,079 --> 01:08:47,529
And it's almost like these two,
these two incredibly powerful, um,

1031
01:08:47,559 --> 01:08:51,599
representatives of the two armies
are fighting in the, in the arena.

1032
01:08:51,629 --> 01:08:53,699
And Bitcoin is fighting
the central banks, right?

1033
01:08:53,699 --> 01:08:56,199
Like Bitcoin is fighting fiat money.

1034
01:08:57,244 --> 01:09:03,094
And, um, that is an important fight,
because if our champion and hero loses,

1035
01:09:04,034 --> 01:09:09,164
boy, it's gonna be demoralizing, and to
be honest, it's practically speaking,

1036
01:09:09,174 --> 01:09:10,974
almost a death blow to the entire army.

1037
01:09:11,394 --> 01:09:14,364
So it's really important
that Bitcoin win its battle.

1038
01:09:15,374 --> 01:09:21,134
Personal fight with, uh, the Federal
Reserve really is how, if you want

1039
01:09:21,134 --> 01:09:22,524
to really get specific about it.

1040
01:09:23,234 --> 01:09:28,554
Um, but there's still two armies
standing behind these people, right?

1041
01:09:28,564 --> 01:09:32,284
Like money is just a tool of oppression.

1042
01:09:32,284 --> 01:09:36,964
It is not the essential and
holistic nature of evil and

1043
01:09:36,964 --> 01:09:38,694
oppression and totalitarianism.

1044
01:09:38,694 --> 01:09:42,754
It's just a mechanism, a tool, but
there are other mechanisms and the

1045
01:09:42,754 --> 01:09:44,944
grittiest of which is physical force.

1046
01:09:45,729 --> 01:09:46,959
Oh, we can't control your money.

1047
01:09:46,959 --> 01:09:48,589
Well, we can control your body.

1048
01:09:48,989 --> 01:09:51,379
Um, and so there are other fronts.

1049
01:09:51,969 --> 01:09:57,299
So while we're cheering Bitcoin on, which
is a valid thing to do, it's also really

1050
01:09:57,299 --> 01:10:04,249
important to be fighting our own battles
against the other members of the opponent.

1051
01:10:04,999 --> 01:10:07,349
And so our role in this.

1052
01:10:08,389 --> 01:10:11,409
Huge battlefield, if you want
to stick with the analogy,

1053
01:10:12,119 --> 01:10:14,329
is communications, right?

1054
01:10:14,329 --> 01:10:22,309
We have taken on, the, the responsibility
and role of ensuring that our soldiers

1055
01:10:23,069 --> 01:10:31,299
and army can effectively communicate with
one another across time and space without

1056
01:10:31,389 --> 01:10:38,469
the enemy being able to stop it, surveil
it, um, or use it against us, right?

1057
01:10:38,469 --> 01:10:40,229
Comms, communications.

1058
01:10:41,079 --> 01:10:47,279
are an essential part of a,
uh, of, of winning a battle or

1059
01:10:47,279 --> 01:10:49,179
a war, and we don't have them.

1060
01:10:49,619 --> 01:10:51,359
We don't have comms right now.

1061
01:10:51,679 --> 01:10:52,989
We have horrible comms.

1062
01:10:53,764 --> 01:10:55,574
We can't communicate with each other.

1063
01:10:55,824 --> 01:11:01,048
It's almost impossible for me to form
a group text with the two of you and

1064
01:11:01,048 --> 01:11:08,638
talk from country to country day by
day, and it not be completely, uh, in

1065
01:11:08,828 --> 01:11:17,883
the open and And so, Start9's sort of
underlying mission, not just texting,

1066
01:11:17,983 --> 01:11:20,253
but data and comms in general, right?

1067
01:11:20,263 --> 01:11:24,243
Like, if you view this war as an
information war, right, like it's

1068
01:11:24,473 --> 01:11:30,493
social media propaganda, it is
surveillance, it is security, data

1069
01:11:30,523 --> 01:11:37,523
security, like, if you view this as
an information war, Overinformation

1070
01:11:37,523 --> 01:11:38,993
becomes the key to victory.

1071
01:11:39,003 --> 01:11:41,193
It becomes the crux.

1072
01:11:41,193 --> 01:11:43,773
It's like air superiority in WWII.

1073
01:11:43,773 --> 01:11:47,623
You need information superiority
in an information war.

1074
01:11:48,273 --> 01:11:53,863
And we're getting crushed on that
front right now because we're using our

1075
01:11:53,913 --> 01:11:57,493
enemies computers to talk to each other.

1076
01:11:57,503 --> 01:11:59,794
We have no chance.

1077
01:11:59,794 --> 01:12:02,113
Bitcoin honestly has no chance.

1078
01:12:02,503 --> 01:12:07,963
of surviving long term indefinitely
if every node in the world is

1079
01:12:07,963 --> 01:12:09,773
being run on an Amazon server.

1080
01:12:11,543 --> 01:12:16,153
It just dies because
Amazon is not on our side.

1081
01:12:17,189 --> 01:12:19,049
that's what we have
carved out for ourselves.

1082
01:12:19,059 --> 01:12:23,869
That niche is making sure
that the fighters, at least,

1083
01:12:24,279 --> 01:12:28,499
can coordinate effectively.

1084
01:12:29,433 --> 01:12:30,183
Beautiful.

1085
01:12:30,323 --> 01:12:31,623
Absolutely beautiful.

1086
01:12:31,733 --> 01:12:35,833
And, uh, that's how you're increasing
your freedom footprint, I guess.

1087
01:12:35,883 --> 01:12:41,953
And, uh, we urge everyone to, to
do, to play their part in, um, uh,

1088
01:12:42,393 --> 01:12:43,813
you know, liberating ourselves.

1089
01:12:43,993 --> 01:12:44,873
Emancipation.

1090
01:12:45,823 --> 01:12:49,193
Matt, this has been a,
a, a great conversation.

1091
01:12:49,233 --> 01:12:53,913
Um, we're so happy we had you on
and where can we send our listeners?

1092
01:12:53,913 --> 01:12:58,073
Where can we, where can they find
themselves a and where can they find

1093
01:12:58,073 --> 01:12:59,463
you online and so on and so forth?

1094
01:13:00,252 --> 01:13:01,092
Uh, yes.

1095
01:13:01,092 --> 01:13:03,092
So our website is startnine.

1096
01:13:03,092 --> 01:13:05,062
com, which will ultimately lead you.

1097
01:13:05,497 --> 01:13:06,347
To everything else.

1098
01:13:06,713 --> 01:13:10,193
but what I would like to emphasize is
that we have, um, and a lot of people

1099
01:13:10,193 --> 01:13:14,013
say this, but I don't, I don't think, uh,
everyone means the same thing when they

1100
01:13:14,013 --> 01:13:16,233
say it, we have a wonderful community.

1101
01:13:16,593 --> 01:13:20,313
Um, the people who are actively
engaged in the start nine community

1102
01:13:20,313 --> 01:13:21,623
are kind of the real deal.

1103
01:13:21,633 --> 01:13:26,033
Like we have a great, great group of
people, not only working within and

1104
01:13:26,033 --> 01:13:31,293
adjacent to the company, but also
just customers and users of start

1105
01:13:31,603 --> 01:13:33,903
OS, um, are really great people.

1106
01:13:34,023 --> 01:13:35,283
They're super helpful.

1107
01:13:35,713 --> 01:13:37,433
And like, really, really active.

1108
01:13:37,673 --> 01:13:44,143
So if you join our, um, Matrix server,
where we have a bunch of rooms, or our

1109
01:13:44,213 --> 01:13:48,893
Telegram chat, uh, which is obviously
hosted on Telegram servers, and eventually

1110
01:13:48,893 --> 01:13:51,703
we will cancel that chat, but for now
it's where people are, and so we're

1111
01:13:51,703 --> 01:13:58,306
willing to deal with it, you will find a
almost 24 7 kind of engagement with us.

1112
01:13:58,866 --> 01:14:03,796
And if you have any questions about
Start9, about StartOS, about how to

1113
01:14:03,796 --> 01:14:08,506
get started, about how to use it, any
issues with using it, you drop into

1114
01:14:08,506 --> 01:14:15,006
those channels, you ask questions,
you will get clear, welcome responses.

1115
01:14:15,626 --> 01:14:19,446
In a matter of minutes at the
most, whether it's from an official

1116
01:14:19,446 --> 01:14:23,396
Start9 support representative or
from a knowledgeable community

1117
01:14:23,396 --> 01:14:24,706
member, you will be welcome.

1118
01:14:24,986 --> 01:14:26,076
You will be assisted.

1119
01:14:26,576 --> 01:14:35,276
and we are, you know, kind of here to
help you on your journey to your own

1120
01:14:35,346 --> 01:14:40,076
personal digital liberation and journey.

1121
01:14:40,356 --> 01:14:46,881
And if enough people do this, it will
provide that critical mass And tipping

1122
01:14:46,881 --> 01:14:51,331
point for everyone else to just be
dragged into it, whether they like it or

1123
01:14:51,331 --> 01:14:52,961
not, you will be dragged into freedom.

1124
01:14:53,611 --> 01:14:56,161
Um, I shouldn't say dragged.

1125
01:14:56,341 --> 01:15:00,221
You will wander your way there,
whether you like it or not.

1126
01:15:00,301 --> 01:15:00,681
So,

1127
01:15:00,966 --> 01:15:02,066
You'll be pulled in.

1128
01:15:02,991 --> 01:15:05,201
yeah, I, I don't like the force aspect.

1129
01:15:05,201 --> 01:15:10,601
It's just, it's just the incentives will
naturally, uh, sort of expand to include

1130
01:15:10,611 --> 01:15:12,891
even those who didn't take the initiative.

1131
01:15:13,573 --> 01:15:14,693
to free themselves.

1132
01:15:15,003 --> 01:15:19,543
So anyway, um, join the
community, buy one of our servers.

1133
01:15:19,593 --> 01:15:23,313
That is the one of the best ways
you can contribute to our efforts.

1134
01:15:24,163 --> 01:15:27,623
Um, you're welcome to DIY
and you know, that's great.

1135
01:15:28,093 --> 01:15:33,613
Uh, if you do give us a shout out, maybe
throw us a donation, but if you want to

1136
01:15:33,613 --> 01:15:37,873
contribute, buy one of our devices, join
our community, ask how you can help.

1137
01:15:37,883 --> 01:15:38,893
We need a lot of help.

1138
01:15:39,013 --> 01:15:41,853
Um, and, uh, that's it.

1139
01:15:42,428 --> 01:15:42,968
Fantastic.

1140
01:15:42,998 --> 01:15:47,198
Matt, really appreciate you coming
on, telling us all about this,

1141
01:15:47,228 --> 01:15:48,668
everything that's going on with Start9.

1142
01:15:48,678 --> 01:15:53,928
We're, we're definitely big fans, uh,
just, yeah, based on everything, the,

1143
01:15:53,938 --> 01:15:55,888
the ethos where we're very aligned.

1144
01:15:55,888 --> 01:15:57,238
So thank you again.

1145
01:15:57,568 --> 01:15:58,948
This has been the Freedom Footprint Show.

1146
01:15:59,378 --> 01:16:00,148
Thanks for listening.

1147
01:16:00,593 --> 01:16:01,123
Talk soon guys.

1148
01:16:01,193 --> 01:16:01,413
Yeah.

1149
01:16:02,338 --> 01:16:02,658
Bye.