FFS102 - Seb Bunney

Seb: [00:00:00] four years ago, there was very little content that really spoke to the layperson, the working individual that removed a lot of the jargon.

And so Looking Glass was our attempt at trying to create something which the content was not behind a paywall. Anybody, no matter who you are, Wherever you are in the world can access it. And we have a range of courses. We have long, deep dives, you name it. And we just wanted to be able to speak to the layperson, remove the jargon and support them in their educational journey.

I believe that there is always going to be some form of state because people, how would I word this? I believe that there's always going to be some form of state, but I think that Bitcoin massively limits and impedes the overreach and the boundaries of that state. The challenge that we face today is naturally that we have a monetary system that is governed by the state. And so when we have a monetary system that is governed by the state, the tax system doesn't even, it doesn't even need to be there because they can simply just print money to be able to fund operations, which is what they are doing.

 If we are able to separate money from state, all of a sudden it realigns a lot of the incentives in society.

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Introducing Seb Bunney

Luke: Seb, welcome to the Freedom Footprint show. Thanks for joining us.

Knut:

Fantastic. Uh, the bunny, it's a, it's a curious name. Uh, I have a bunny. Where does the name bunny come from?

Seb: You know what? For me personally, [00:03:00] I've spent a lot of time down rabbit holes, so I feel like the name is very fitting, but I would say that when it comes to, I think the history of it, I think it's a British name, and I think we can trace it back. There used to be the Bunny family home that was in the UK, somewhere in the UK, and up until a few years ago, it still existed, even though it wasn't within my bunny family.

It was way back when, but we used to own bike shops, you name it.

Knut: Alright, so it has nothing to do with O'Hare.

Oh, yeah, yeah, oh, this is too silly. Um, okay, um, yeah, rabbit hole, bunny, where are we going with this? Yeah, we

Luke: How about you start with the normal first question. That's a good, that's a good start.

Knut: Yes. Okay. Uh, so for our listeners who don't know who you are, it's a, could you give us a TLDR on Zeb Bunny, please?

Seb: Hmm. You know what? This is always the tough one. People are like What do you do? And it's a really hard one to answer, but I would say that I'm an individual that absolutely loves being curious and [00:04:00] questioning the world around me. And I think that started very, very young. And so I started off as a mountain bike instructor.

I was just obsessed with the mountains, being out there, being involved in nature, and that kind of evolved into, you know, Naturally, teaching mountain biking, coaching mountain biking, but I realized quickly very early on that if I wanted to be able to pursue these things that interested me, I needed to have passive income streams.

So then I started looking at the financial world and you name it, uh, macroeconomics. Uh, options, derivatives, all these kind of things. And that quickly got me to questioning the world around me, which led me to where we are today, which is ultimately where I think that a lot of the issues we face stem from a broken monetary system. And my, my goal is given that I love teaching, given that I love educating and distilling things down into their simplest form. I've kind of found myself in this role of kind of supporting people in their journey to understand macroeconomics, the world around us, Bitcoin, and how we show up in the world.

And I love it. I fricking love it. And so that's kind of where I'm at right now in a very, very short version. [00:05:00]

Collaboration with Daz Bea and Looking Glass Education

Seb: We, as always, it's a frigging internet relationship, met on a dating app, no, met through the Bitcoin community. And, uh, naturally it kind of just evolved from there. I would say. We met, when was it? Four years ago now, around four years ago, we were kind of connected through FOSS and we founded Looking Glass Education, and so for those who are not familiar, Looking Glass Education is just an educational platform that kind of breaks things down into their simplest form, kind of removes a lot of the [00:06:00] jargon, talks about macroeconomics, Bitcoin, kind of the stuff that I was just talking about, and uh, we started working together, started writing together, and started communicating pretty much every single day, and so I'd say DAZ is Arguably my best friend, one of my best friends, and up until Madeira recently, which we were all at, uh, at the start of March, we had never met before.

And I think, Knut, you and I met back in Prague in 2022, that was the first time I think we met, and then

Knut: Free Cities thing, right? Yeah.

Seb: and then I think you and Daz met at Bitcoin Alive last year.

I

Knut: In Sydney. . And when you say FOSS, you mean Greg Foss, right?

Seb: I mean, Greg Foss.

Knut: All right. All right.

Seb: Greg Foss is, he's a connector. You know what? Like I ended up, given that my, my background is man by constructing. I love teaching. I like distilling things down. And when I, when the pandemic hit, I, All of a sudden I was like, you know what? I love teaching mountain biking. I love supporting people in their educational journey. But I feel like I want to make a bigger difference than just supporting people in a fun little hobby of theirs. I want to try and [00:07:00] help maybe explain some of the challenges that we're facing globally, given that I have a lot of friends coming to me to ask me, how do I see the world? What has Bitcoin got to do with all of these macroeconomic issues that we're facing? And so from there, I started to write, and at the time, I think, honestly, I had about seven followers on Twitter. I'd never written anything in my life. I dropped out of school when I was 14, dropped out of English when I was 12. It did not interest me in the slightest, but given that it was a pandemic, and I didn't have a camera, I didn't know how to express myself, I just started to write.

And The first article I wrote when more, when more isn't better, inflation in the 21st century, and it's kind of discussing how our monetary environment is creating wealth inequality. At the time, I just put it out there, I think it was on Medium or Substack, and Greg managed to find it. And Greg reshared it and from there it's just kind of snowballed and I've just, I've honestly, I felt so humbled by the opportunities that was presented.

Knut: we have very similar journeys. I guess you hadn't done the, uh, uh, Austrian economics deep dive [00:08:00] before you started writing either, right? Uh, or had you?

Seb: you know, it's a tough one. I would say that in my late teens, I realized very quickly as a mountain bike instructor that a lot of my idols, a lot of these individuals that at one time or another have been the Top of their game globally. They've been in all of the biggest movies. These professional athletes, a lot of them were struggling. They had credit card debt up to their necks. They were, most of them were renting. Most of them were not able to pursue the things outside of just riding. And so it made me realize very early on that I needed to have passive income streams. I needed to invest because the world we live in is a very hard world given our monetary environment. So that led me down the rabbit hole of real estate. And then from there, I was like, well, I'm still pretty young. Long term real estate is a little slower, one second is quicker. So I started looking into the financial markets and I started day trading, trading options, trading futures. And then from there, what I quickly realized is that I was looking at the world through the lens of a free market.

I was taking these positions, assuming we were in a free market. And all of a sudden, many of these positions would blow up. When I didn't [00:09:00] expect the Fed to come in and hike rates or cut rates or, or do very interventionistic practices. And so it made me start to question the system doesn't feel like a free market.

What is happening underneath this? And so that led me down the quickly down the rabbit hole of gold. And then I realized, well, we've already gone off a gold standard. What's going to change if we were to move back onto a gold standard? And that led me to Bitcoin.

Knut: similar to my journey. I, I, uh, uh, I never, uh, I was never, uh, Trading guy, but I was on a tall ship working for a long time and I saw quite a lot of countries and it always intrigued me, how these, that, that um, Different countries had different economies and why was that and why wasn't it all interconnected and what was wrong and the political systems and how, how does this, how does this work?

And whatever they taught me in school was obviously wrong. So like, how can I connect the dots and see the bigger picture here? And it's only in, in when you start to question money [00:10:00] printing. that you sort of do, that you see that, oh, holy shit, it's all bullshit. And yeah, there's, there's no way back after that.

Seb: Absolutely. And when I was going to add something, which is, What I think is so fascinating about Bitcoiners or many, many Bitcoiners out there is that I think we have stumbled into this journey as opposed to approached it from like an academic lens. And so many, many of us have tried to just express ourselves through our own lens of how we see the world.

And what is interesting is many of us have. Kind of started to express a lot of these like Austrian, uh, Austrian kind of approaches without ever actually even understanding that this thing called Austrian economics. And so I think that's what's really, really interesting. And then you start diving down the rabbit hole and you're like, Oh my God, there's already hundreds, if not thousands of people writing about this. And I've just approached it from my own perspective because I've realized something is wrong and tried to backwards engineer what would a system look like in order to be able to resolve something like this.

Knut: exactly. And, and, um, I mean, Austrian economics is repressed by the system, like, [00:11:00] you don't, it's still mind blowing to me that you never hear the word, the name Ludwig von Mises in school anywhere, because to me, he's obviously one of the most important thinkers of the last century, if not the most, like, he's right up there with, like, Einstein and Maxwell and, All sorts of people.

So, so like, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's mind blowing to me that so few people have heard, even heard the name.

More on Looking Glass Education

Luke: Seb, yeah, can, can you tell us more about, about Lookingglass education? Um, dig into that a little more for, uh, our our listeners who might not be familiar. What are you doing there?

Seb: For sure. So very early on, um, when I released this article, Greg kind of started to connect me with Daz and a few others because he realized that we have this passion for educating and especially educating for the layperson. We realized that there's incredible content. If you want to dive into the philosophy of things, you can go and read Breedlove.

If you want to dive into corporate Bitcoin, you can go dive in Summer [00:12:00] Sailor's stuff. If you want to dive into the technicality of Bitcoin, you can dive into Antonopoulos. But what we. started to recognize, and this is changing now, but four years ago, there was very little content that really spoke to the layperson, the working individual that removed a lot of the jargon.

And so Looking Glass was our attempt at trying to create something which the content was not behind a paywall. Anybody, no matter who you are, Wherever you are in the world can access it. And we have a range of courses. We have long, deep dives, you name it. And we just wanted to be able to speak to the layperson, remove the jargon and support them in their educational journey.

And it really has just snowballed from there. And now we, we kind of, we focus a lot on the educational component, but then we also have a custody component where we support people in their custody journey, whether that's taking pure self custody or collaborative custody through something like the Bitcoin Advisor.

Knut: I remember, um, when we started the Freemadera organization that we, we sort of wanted to collaborate with you guys and, like, the, the, this. Obviously, a lot of networking and a lot of links between all these [00:13:00] projects. So what are the connections between Looking Glass and other educational efforts, such as Plan B Network and this, like, and the El Salvador stuff,

Seb: you know what? It's living in Whistler. Whistler is such a small place. Like Whistler, the little ski resort of Whistler, there's about, I think there's a population in the summertime of around 5, 000, expands to 10, 000. And so whenever you start dating, you realize that very quickly that, oh, my best friend has dated this person.

And then two, two other friends have also dated this person and everyone is kind of interwoven. And I feel like the Bitcoin community is very similar. You go start working with someone and you realize that there's kind of an incestuous pit where everyone has worked with one another in some function or another. And so for even us, like we have one of, uh, one of our kind of, um, co founders or someone who came on a little later is Dahlia and Dahlia works a lot with, she wrote the, what is it called? The diploma for ME Premier Bitcoin or MyFirstBitcoin down in El Salvador. So we've worked very closely with John from ME Premier Bitcoin. On top of that, we have worked with [00:14:00] Tether and the Plan B guys. Those guys, we helped write a big, kind of long form course for them. And Giacomo helped alongside that, which has just been absolutely phenomenal. And then we're also working alongside AmityAge with Doosan as well, and Doosan and his project down in Honduras trying to help with Bitcoin education. And so that's where what I think is just so phenomenal about this community is that when you think about the U. S. dollar, I don't know anyone who's dedicating their life to trying to push forward the US dollar, whereas I know thousands of people who are just giving up everything and tripping head over heels to be able to just work in the Bitcoin space, give up their time for something that's bigger than them, for something that is trying to help move the world forward and try and support those that are struggling, trying to support those around them.

Because I think that more and more what I'm starting to realize, and we can get touch on this in a moment, is that money really does. We've its influence into every single aspect of our being, how we show up, uh, the environment, the people around us, the business practices, the politic, [00:15:00] political kind of the scene.

I think that it's so important for us to be able to understand Bitcoin, money and macroeconomics.

Knut: the term macroeconomics, uh, can we dive into that a bit more? Because like to, to an Austrian, there is no such thing, like, uh, everything starts and ends with the individual. So what, what defines macroeconomics in, in, uh, in your words? All right. And

Seb: So I wholeheartedly agree. I think that ultimately what matters is the individual. Everything is made up of The collective efforts of the individual. And I think that when I think about macroeconomics from a personal, uh, kind of description, I would say that I tend to think about things obviously on a macro, on a large scale, how countries interact with one another in their own way, even though obviously that country is made up of individuals, that country is made up of people that are seeking their own self interest, but it's just kind of that, that inter exchange between larger nation states, uh, jurisdictions, you name it.

Separating Money from State

Knut: [00:16:00] Obsolete the nation states in the long run. This is a big question I know, but how do you see that playing out? Like what role does Bitcoin play in the evolution of the nation states over the next thousand years

Seb: Straight into the question of

what is the purpose of life that's inside.

Knut: uh, you signed up for this? Yeah.

Seb: And you know what, I think when we were in Prague, we had a conversation about like anarchy versus like democracy versus all of these kind of various different structures. It's interesting. I think that we may look at the world slightly differently, but I think we come at things from very similar viewpoints. I believe that there is always going to be some form of state because people, how would I word this? I believe that there's always going to be some form of state, but I think that Bitcoin massively limits and impedes the overreach and the boundaries of that state. I think [00:17:00] that first off, the challenge that we face today. And this is obviously from my perspective, and you guys can push back as much as you want. The challenge that we face today is naturally that we have a monetary system that is governed by the state. And so when we have a monetary system that is governed by the state, the tax system doesn't even, it doesn't even need to be there because they can simply just print money to be able to fund operations, which is what they are doing.

They're running huge deficits at the expense of the currency holders, whether it's debasement, creating inflation, you name it, which is impacting us. And then they're putting in capital controls, restrictions on where we can spend our money, and all of that is impacting us as individuals. Thank you. I think that if we are able to separate money from state, all of a sudden it realigns a lot of the incentives in society.

I think that the state almost becomes, just like Free Cities talks about, it becomes an entity just like any other corporate entity that has to offer value. It has to be able to exchange something of service, and people have to voluntarily want to hand over capital. in exchange for whatever service they are offering. And so I think that there may still be a tax [00:18:00] system, but that tax system becomes a lot more voluntary and based upon value creation. And what that does is hugely limit the role of the state. And not only that, but it means that the state in itself, given that it now has to balance its books, it has to be fiscally responsible. It has to think very carefully and consciously about where it directs capital. And so an example that I would kind of give is, at the moment, the challenge we face with our current system is that whenever we come on, whenever we hit an issue, whether it is a welfare issue, whether it's a health issue, the state simply just runs massive deficits and we've got a very interventionistic, impulsive state. Whereas I think that the moment you have to force fiscal responsibility, they have to budget, and the moment you force budgeting, they have to think very carefully about where they direct that capital. And so if you've got an unhealthy society where a lot of capital is going towards, let's say, the healthcare industry because we have high rates of obesity, We've got to start thinking long term.

If I've got a budget and I've got to balance that budget, well, how do I minimize my health care expenses? Well, I've got to think about how do I actually [00:19:00] improve the health of my country? So why don't we actually start educating about actual nutrition rather than just pharmaceuticals? And so it starts to realign those incentives towards that longer term thinking, uh, whether the state will disappear completely. I'm not 100 percent sure. I think that we transition more to a free cities model where the state itself is more of a corporate entity than it is a, uh, state system, a government run system that we're currently operating by.

Knut: Yeah, it also depends on how you define the term state. But, yeah, my, my definition would be like the entity who has the monopoly on violence in a geographical area.

Seb: But it's, but it's interesting in that. And that's where I think that what Bitcoin does is given the, and I think we actually, I remember the conversation that we had in Prague when we were kind of sat at that dinner on the last night, because I think we even had this exact conversation and we were kind of discussing this idea that The challenge with every other asset ever in history is that either it's physical in nature, which means it can be taken by force, or it is digital in nature, like stocks, [00:20:00] bonds, you name it, but the problem is that those are held by third parties.

They're held by institutions, and therefore the state can seize them very easily. And so because of this, We have very little sovereignty and control over our assets, whereas Bitcoin, for the first time ever in history, we have a digital asset that is non jurisdictional. It's not based anywhere, and we can take self custody.

It's like having cash in your pocket without someone ever being able to see. You can walk around naked with cash in your pocket. And so, the profound aspect of this is the fact that Given that you can no longer take it by force, you can no longer seize that asset. The only way to obtain that asset is through offering value. And it's a voluntary exchange of that asset. And I think that what that does is all of a sudden it's going to minimize war significantly because a lot of war is fought over assets and value and power. And on top of that, it's going to mean that if an individual does not agree with their nation or their state and whatever the state is doing, then they're able to Flea and capital flow to where value is being created.

And so, therefore, it incentivizes [00:21:00] those nations that are seeing capital flooding out of their country uncontrollably. It incentivizes them to look at themselves and look at, well, how do we want to show up in a way that maybe is going to draw capital? And I think that ultimately, again, it goes back to a free market.

It goes back to value creation being whoever is able to offer the most value, the most service to someone, individuals, their populace, the more capital is going to flow their way. So, it realigns those incentives.

Knut: Absolutely. I, yeah, we totally align on this. When, when there's no way, easy way to take your stuff, then, uh, the, the, the more profitable option becomes, uh, offering you something of value back instead of attacking.

So it's a really turns the turns that the, the, the, The model, the perpetrator has in his head before attacking someone, regardless of the perpetrator is, you know, a state or a mafia or a criminal or some other, or a cartel or whatever, whoever the attacker is, before deciding [00:22:00] whether to attack or not, The calculation is made like, is this worth the risk?

And with Bitcoin, it's almost obviously not because the Bitcoins aren't, they don't even belong to the Bitcoiner. The only thing the Bitcoiner has is the secret of how to unlock them. So the Bitcoins never, they're never in anyone's pocket. They're all over the world all the time. And that's, I think this is a crucial difference that it's, it's still, uh, uh, such an under, Appreciated concepts that money is now nothing but information, uh, the information about how to unlock it, the 12 magic words are actually magic, like there's, you, when the EU wants to ban, uh, unhosted wallets, well, you're an unhosted wallet, I'm an unhosted wallet, so is everyone else.

Anyone who can, who knows 12 words in English from a certain dictionary, sure. But you know, [00:23:00] if I know the number one and zero, I'm theoretically an unhosted wallet because I combined those 256 times. And there you go. You can send money to me, like literally to my brain. Uh, so I think that this changes everything.

And most people don't of course, don't see Bitcoin that way, uh, because it's so abstract and so hard to get wrap your head around that it's just information now. Do you understand? It's just information. Oh, it's information. So it's everything else on a computer. No,

What is Money?

Seb: Well, and you make a really, really good point. And I was just going to, I was just going to build on that quickly, which I think is really, really profound. And this is where, when I started asking this question of like, what is money? It really got my gears turning because I started to realize that when you're talking about money as information, the way that I view money is information.

Money is a form of expression. It's an expression of what it is that we value. It's information about what it is that we value. And you can see this. If you go into a, uh, let's say a grocery store [00:24:00] and you see someone buying grass fed meat and organic vegetables, and then someone else buying microwave meals and cigarettes, you can see what it is they value by what it is that they're purchasing.

And so money gives us an idea about how someone wants to show up, what it is that they value. And on a societal level, where money flows in society highlights societally What it is that we value, but the challenge is that it can also be censored. And so you've got things like inflation. Well, inflation, as we're seeing debasement and rising prices, that is the theft of purchasing power from us, the individual, our ability to be able to express what we value, and it's being taken and expressed elsewhere in society.

And so to give an example, I may, as an individual, be very against war. I may be a conscientious objector. I do not want to Uh, kind of pursue any form of violence, but if we have a government that can print at our expense, they're taking my purchasing power. They can spend that on war, so it actually doesn't matter what it is that I believe.

I'm not able to express myself how I believe, but my purchasing power is going towards funding war. So on a holistic, uh, on a, on a grand [00:25:00] scale, it looks as if society supports war, capital is flooding towards war, when in reality, it is a few small actors who have control over the monetary printer, directing it to what it is that they're interested in.

And this is where I think that. On a grand scale, when we have a money printer that can be governed by a centralized entity, we get a very distorted view as to what it is that society values. Because we don't actually see where the real flow of capital in society is going to trend towards. Would it head towards war?

I'm going to bet that it's probably not going to head towards war and it's probably going to head towards small businesses. It's going to head towards value creation and collaboration, but instead we're seeing it trend towards war.

Knut: totally. It should be an expression of the total sum of the fruits of your labor, minus the total sum of all your expenses during your life. Which is, which people, people are scared of that, I think, because they think that's almost inevitably a negative number, because that's, but that's just because they don't understand the power of the division of labor, [00:26:00] especially in the era of the internet, when there's 8 billion people.

Your efforts, no matter how minuscule you yourself think they are and how, how worthless they are to others, you have 8 billion people to sell your effort to. And this is the power of the division of labor. Someone will appreciate you. If, if, if there weren't hinders in the way, it wouldn't be hard to make ends meet when you got, when you got a, such a well oiled machine as a global economy of 8 billion people, without friction.

And this is, this is like, I think this is something that Bitcoiners see, but that other people just don't have the truth goggles for it yet. Like they, they, they, they don't see the world this way, uh, because we're so used to, you know, money being corrupt. So we're so used to prices going up. So we think that's a force of nature or even prices being stable when they ought to actually be.

They actually ought to go down, so we don't see we're getting robbed [00:27:00] by prices just being stable over time, but like ask yourself the simplest questions. If I practice doing something, do I, in general, do I get better or worse at that thing? And most people would say you get better. Yeah. So why are prices going up?

Like, or why aren't prices going down? It's as simple as that. If you. You can just assume that people get better at doing stuff. And if that is the case, and if we have a free market, then all prices must go down. It's just inevitable. And if you're denominated in Bitcoin, they do. So it's just a lens to view the world by, which is more truthful.

Seb: Now, and you make a really, you make a fascinating point, which is the fact that when I look at a free market, and I'm sure you do too, it is a system built upon trial and error. If I want to come out and I want to start a business, but that business does not offer value, I'm going to quickly realize that zero capital is flowing towards me and I'm going to have to pivot gears.

I'm going to have to figure [00:28:00] out something which offers value to society. So ultimately humanity. As a whole, trend towards growth, a trend towards actually creating value, whereas the challenge that we are facing right now is that we have a system whereby the government needs, feels they have to intervene, they have to cut interest rates, they have to stimulate, because otherwise we're going to see a large collapse of the economy, given that how much debt we have, given how many fiscally irresponsible companies we have.

But the problem is by intervening, all we're doing is we're propping up businesses that are not offering value. And when you look at like the Russell 2000, which is 2000 of the small cap companies in the U. S., 40 percent of them are zombie companies, which basically means that they are not earning enough money to be able to service the interest and the debt obligations that they have, let alone be able to kind of support growth and research and development. So if basically two out of every five companies shouldn't even exist. Then this is artificial capital that is going towards these companies, propping them up. And all that capital could be used in a free market elsewhere to create value, where people would [00:29:00] be using that capital productively. And so I think the challenge that we face in our current system is we continually intervene, we continually prop up these fiscally irresponsible entities, these entities that are not offering value.

And that's hugely expensive to us as individuals. It's hugely expensive to humanity trending towards kind of security and prosperity.

Knut: Yeah, I think this is, this is, uh, since you're, you can only see the timeline you live in and the results of that. Uh, so you, you never see what could have been, and when things are getting gradually better, even at the slow pace, people think they're living in the best possible timeline they could live in.

And they don't see that by doing things differently, and not intervening, things could have gotten way better, way faster, at a way faster pace. Like, uh, and, we don't see it.

Yeah. And when you say we intervene, I mean, this is the thing. Is it a we, or is it a they? And what Jeff Booth says, there is no, [00:30:00] there is no they, there is only we.

And there's some truth to that. I think like the expression, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think that's wrong. I think absolute power attracts those already absolutely corrupted. I think that's what's going on. Because I don't think people who have a high moral standard get corrupted very easily.

I don't think I could bribe you with a million dollars to, to, uh, to promote Dogecoin, for instance. Like, uh, I just don't think that will work.

Seb: It's, you know what, I would say, I'll push back slightly and I'll push back in the

I agree that there are people that naturally have a propensity to lean towards giving in and corruption. That said, I also believe that the environment in which we live in supports certain behavior. I believe we are a product of our environment.

And so, if certain incentives in society incentivize corruption, then ultimately, I think we're going to trend towards that. And the analogy I'll give is, you're, let's [00:31:00] take India or some developing country where you, no matter what, you're always going to see some people like Gandhi or All these very incredibly spiritually enlightened individuals rise above the challenge at which they're in. But for the majority, the majority are kind of stuck in the system and it's very hard for them to get out of that system.

The Hidden Cost of Money

Seb: And when I think about money, I tend to think about how does money actually impact behavior? And so there's kind of like three main aspects which I talk about in the book, The Hidden Cost of Money.

The first one is time preference, and Bitcoiners are probably pretty familiar with this. Do we think about the future? Do we have a low time preference? Do we think about building security and prosperity? Or do we have a high time preference, where we're focused on meeting our immediate impulsive needs?

We're very short term thinking. And the reality is that when we have a money that is losing purchasing power over time, that's very unpredictable, we're incentivized to consume in the present moment, given that money is worth its most in this present moment. The flip side is with something like Bitcoin, when you have a money where there is a fixed supply, where purchasing power over time trend, tends to trend upwards, [00:32:00] all of a sudden we're incentivized to save given that we have greater propensity to the market. So, all of a sudden our money is altering how we're showing up in the world. And then the second one, it's like meaninglessness and apathy. I think the challenge that we face in our current society is that because property prices are rising so quickly, the cost of living is becoming outrageous very fast. It becomes very hard for the average working individual to be able to plan ahead. Well, I want to save for a property. But all of a sudden, that property is growing quicker than I can actually save. So because of this, we're falling very quickly into this, this apathy, this kind of, this nihilism, because people aren't able to plan, and we've got the highest rates of suicide, we've got the highest rates of depression, you name it.

And then last is just kind of, um, uh, what is it called? Uh, compassion and altruism. Which is where people have probably heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, where you've got this five tier pyramid, and on the base of that, you've got your basic survival needs, food and shelter. And until we achieve food and shelter, it's very hard for us to think about relationships, love life, and then self actualization, you name it.

And so, [00:33:00] what I think is that our current monetary system, because it is so hard to get by, it's so hard to be able to even just support ourselves, Many people are stuck on this bottom layer. And because people are stuck on this bottom layer, I think that the environment in which we live in is also having a major role in shaping and incentivizing certain behavior, which is extractive behavior.

Can I get what I can to be able to support myself? The political environment is, I need to stay as a politician, so I'm going to do what I can to stay as a politician simply to be able to support myself. And so I think that that's where. We're trending towards a world that is slowly eating itself from the inside out because of the incentives within the system.

But that's not to say that in every situation you're always going to get people that stay true to their values and you're always going to get people that also are very easily swayed. I don't know what your thoughts are on that.

Knut: No, I, I totally agree. There's a, you have, you have your biological inclination to, to be a certain way, but then there's also the social layer on top of that. And we can debate to which extent one influences. [00:34:00] More than the other, but yeah, it's a mix of both at some point, absolutely. And time preference, uh, being a product of broken money, I think definitely plays in.

And if you, if you, if you do the flip side of that coin and explore that and explore, like now we have perfectly sound money or perfectly scarce money that will deflate over time because people will lose their sats. Like then, then you have something that is. Almost guaranteed to go up in purchasing power over time, which sort of eliminates consumerism.

I think about this a lot because I think that that world where that is the dominant form of media of exchange, then it's such a different world, which it would just begin, begun to scratch the surface of what that means. Because first and foremost, when, when you prioritize, uh, if you, if you think like, Uh, what's the lowest time preference I can have?

It's just a [00:35:00] hodler of last resort. Like, I just sit on my bitcoin stack and I never do anything, and I become a Buddhist monk and I don't spend any. So, so what do you do instead? Because, like, most people want to have a life and not just sit and consume as little as possible. Well, would you start just being nicer to people?

Um Fewer transactions, but more transactions in terms of love and, uh, you know, altruism. Value for value, this movement within Bitcoin is, is sort of a product of that. Like, instead of shooting sats to one another, I find Bitcoiners To be very generous with their time and reputational capital. And they're like, like we're engaged in a trade now and we're not shooting sats to one another, but we do, uh, you value your time with me and, uh, or I presume you do.

And I definitely value my time with you in doing this. Uh, so, so I think we're going to see a lot more of that in [00:36:00] the future that people just automatically help one another with stuff. Because no one wants to touch their stacks, and I think it's just beautiful. It's, it's this, uh, that which you can do without your own.

Sell all your, sell all your chairs, uh, or at least all the ones you don't need. That's, there's a lot to that.

[00:37:00]

Knut: Uh, and it made me, just when you were talking about time preference, a word came up in my mind. This is my ADD, uh,

Space Preference

Knut: Space preference. Why haven't we heard the word space preference before?

Uh, so if you have a low space preference, you don't want that much space and therefore stuff. Like you realize that, uh, you could basically live a minimalist life and a high space preference would be buying all sorts of stuff and taking up a lot of space. Is there something, is there something here? I've just literally just brain farted it out.

I don't know if there's anything in there. Can we introduce the term space preference and explore that?

Seb: I would definitely say [00:38:00] that it's interesting you say that because I think that our current system, given that our money is losing value and we're incentivized to spend, we're incentivized to consume, we live in this world whereby we're trending towards believing that happiness is this external thing. I just need the newest shoes.

I just need the newest car. If only I could have this, then I'm going to be happy. Yet, I think a lot of Bitcoiners, a lot of people that have spent any time looking inwards, you realize that actually, you Happiness is purely internal. It is an internal state of mind where we're spending time getting to know ourselves and how we want to show up and pursuing the things that matter to us internally. And so I think that fiat money very much incentivizes, to your point, this high space preference, this high space preference of trying to get whatever I can to be able to fill this void of longing and internal kind of support. Whereas I think when we have a system of sound money, something built upon something like Bitcoin, it flips all those incentives.

When we're incentivized to save, given that our purchasing power is increasing in time, all of a sudden, less capital is going to go towards [00:39:00] these consumerist companies. And if less capital is going towards these companies, then naturally we're going to see a lot of them wither away. The ones that survive are the ones that are actually, okay, I've got to think about, if I want to create a product, I want to create a product that's going to stand the test of time.

I want to create a product that is quality, that actually supports the needs to the best of my ability, the needs of the consumer. And so naturally we start to see quality rise, production value rise. And I think that this is huge because it realigns the incentives. And a lot of people, I think, don't quite just understand how much our current monetary system just impacts even just our environment around us, to your point earlier, whereby I think climate change is definitely something that I don't tend to like to talk about, given that I think the climate has been changing since the dormant time.

But environmental destruction is definitely happening, and our consumerist society is definitely impacting our waterways, impacting our forests, impacting the natural environment around us because of our consumer habits. And today, when you've got artificial interest rates slashed incredibly low, It's so cheap for companies [00:40:00] to borrow.

So we see the expansion of supply chains. And now what we're seeing is the average product touches six countries before it ever lands on our doorstep. One of the man and bike companies that I used to work for, um, our competitor had carbon bars that were made in Vancouver, and it was cheaper for them to get the deckle of those carbon bars put on in China. And so, this is where it's just like, this is obscene. So, I think that as we start to move towards sound money, I actually think that we start to see more community driven, uh, endeavors. I think we start to see the domestication of supply chains. I think we start to see less impact on the environment because the quality of goods goes up.

And I think this is huge. And to your point, I think it also incentivizes, given that we're incentivized to save, we're incentivized to start to look inwards. How do I want to sharpen this world? I don't know. How do I want to build a future of prosperity, support my family? How do I want to kind of pursue the things that actually interest me?

Who am I? I think that we trend towards a world with a low space preference.

Knut: Yeah. I'm gonna devil's advocate that one a little, because [00:41:00] I don't really, uh, buy the idea that, raw materials will be produced locally to any larger extent. I do understand that the incentives are skewed right now, and therefore it's cheaper to produce stuff in China. But it's also a question of where the materials are on the globe.

And, and, uh, and, uh, you know, sending stuff across the globe is not necessarily inherently bad, uh, for anything if it's done efficiently. And if, if we have a sound money, global free market, we allocate resources in the most truthful way we can, and therefore there is less waste. So I do, yeah, while I dispute the concept of nationalization of, uh, of, uh, That's not exactly what you said, but like, uh, um, um, of raw materials, I do think that yeah, Valgo consumerism will go away and, and that is the only solution to [00:42:00] any imaginable environmental problem.

Trying to do anything else politically or, or, uh, you know, just, carbon taxes and whatnot. Uh, it's. It's like putting a band aid on a cancer, like you're not removing the source of the problem, so yeah, consumerism, regardless of your stance on climate change, I mean, it's pretty clear that human activities are increasing CO2 levels, it's just, there's not just a big consensus on what I don't know what that actually does to the environment long term, but there are other impacts, and over consumerism of course leads to more garbage and more crap everywhere, and all sorts of unnecessary behaviors being carried out every day, like tons of trucks and people buying Christmas gifts with cheap plastic shit and giving to one another, I mean, fewer resources, uh, could [00:43:00] be misallocated in a, in a, uh, more sound free market and with less consumerism built in. So the consumerism is a very Keynesian idea. Like that spending is the only motivator and not building up capital and saving up for later. But, uh, to me, that's just, uh, you know, Well, you can go back to Robinson Crusoe, uh, catching fish with his hands.

If he, if he never stops doing that and takes his time to build a fishing net, he will never increase his production of fish. Uh, so, so he never gets anywhere. And that's what the world economy sort of feels like since the seventies. Like we have all these, all these great inventions were made back like 50 years ago, and now we're just getting, you know, I mean, newer versions of the same things, but if you buy a toilet today, for instance, I bet you the toilet you [00:44:00] bought 50 years ago for the same money is way better.

Seb: And you know what? I just wanted to add one point, which you're talking about, um, the supply chains. I fully agree that naturally, We're going to have certain resources that are abundant in certain areas, and we're going to have scarcity in other areas. So there's a certain amount of, uh, travel and the movement of resources around the world in order to be able to create.

Absolutely. I think the challenge that we face right now is, first off, when we move towards efficiency and productivity, we try to limit the amount of steps that take place in order to be able to improve the efficiency of the system. If we're moving something around the world six times before it ends on the consumer doorstep, that may mean It literally does take six steps because it's gotta pick up the resources at each of those locations. But what I think we are seeing today is that we've got a lot of authoritarian nations that are suppressing the cost of capital and suppressing labor to be able to artificially draw in capital. And I think that we're seeing this in Pakistan and India and and [00:45:00] China, and I think that that's leading to the artificial movement of goods and services all around the world.

Whereas I do believe that we may not see everything nationalized whereby. You're only going to be consuming stuff that's made in Canada if you live in Canada or if you live in the US, you're only going to be consuming stuff in the US. But I do believe that we would see a reduction in the amount of nations that it touches before it ends up on the doorstep in the long term.

Knut: Yeah, I totally agree. We would see elimination of the unnecessary steps like that. That's, that's what it means. I mean, still, uh, the, the, uh, carbon footprint, if you will, if there is a better word, I don't know, but the, the, uh, uh, uh, A good on a container ship, like the container ship is a very efficient, uh, transportation device.

Like I think that the shipping container is one of the most underappreciated in inventions of the last century, because you can move shit around the globe for at almost no cost. Uh, and the, like, [00:46:00] if you. Take the diesel consumption of the, uh, of the tanker, which is massive, but if you divide it up by a number of things in those containers, and you, um, you, um, put it alongside, um, the, the fuel consumption of, uh, uh, the truck that drives it to the, uh, to the store, uh, or the car that drives it to the home where it eventually ends up, I bet you the car has the, like, biggest footprint.

Bye bye. Um, but this show is not about Carbon Footprints, it's about Freedom Footprints, so let's get on to that. Uh, um, I was going to say something about the Suez Canal, but I forgot what. Uh, anyway,

Freedom Footprint

Knut: what are you doing to increase your Freedom Footprint, Seb?

Seb: Hmm. I don't think I've ever been asked this question before.

I would say,

Knut: it's only here.

Seb: It's only here. It's only here. Um, I would say when it comes to my Freedom Footprint, My focus right now is, one, I love educating and supporting others. [00:47:00] And so, part of me not necessarily increasing my freedom footprint is actually just supporting others in their journey to understanding what self sovereignty means to them. Because I think in order for the world to be able to trend towards prosperity, I believe that at the foundation of that, we need to have self sovereignty. I think if we do not have self sovereignty, if we don't have control over our action, if we don't have control over where we direct our capital, if we don't have control over being able to voice our opinions and what it is that we believe, then I think the world can quickly trend towards chaos, which we are seeing right now. And so, I think that what is important to me as an individual is to stay true to that ethos. And voice what it is that I believe in, because if I'm not voicing what it is that I believe in, then I'm only supporting the problem. If I'm scared of the repercussions of voicing what it is that I believe in, then I'm only limiting humanity's ability on my own tiny, tiny level to trend towards others voicing their opinion.

And so what I really value about Bitcoin is, is that we stay true to what it is that we believe. [00:48:00] What is interesting is, if you ever read the book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, uh, Matthias Dessmer, who's kind of the, uh, Professor at Ghent University of

Knut: Oh, love him. Love him.

Seb: incredible and he talks about how there tends to be three categories of people within a population. Around 20 percent of the population, 20 30 percent of the population will, no matter what the government does, they will always side with the government. You then have another population, which is about 40%, and this is kind of, you can think of them as like the swing voters. These individuals, they're kind of, you know what, we'll go whichever is the easiest direction.

So if you've got a very vocal minority, the 20 percent that is very supportive of the government, they will tend to swing towards those individuals. And then you have another 15 to kind of 20%. Which is the individual who values sovereignty, values freedom, and values expression, and is willing to stand up for what they believe in. And the challenge that I find is throughout history, depending on where, kind of, we're trending as a society, it depends on how vocal either the supporters of [00:49:00] government are, or the supporters of freedom are. And I think that what we're seeing more and more of, increasingly, is people are starting to maybe wake up, and they're starting to voice their opinions a little more. And so I think that it's incredibly important for us to be able to Voice what it is that we believe in. You're about to say something?

Knut: Yeah, what happened to the last 25%? I

Seb: only 80. There's only What is it? 40? 50? 60? There's about 20 to 25? 15 to 25? It adds up to 100 somewhere. Just think about it as in A small minority, a small minority, a large minority, and depending on whichever small minority it is that is most vocal,

Knut: Maybe the last 10 percent are the, hey, I ordered a cheeseburger kind of person, you know. Just complains about everything. Regardless.

Seb: yeah. And so I think that it's, it's so important as individuals to be able to stand up for what we believe in. And so there's these little endeavors, whether it is looking glass and trying to express my values through writing, whether it's the [00:50:00] books and trying to express my values through writing.

Yeah. Yeah. But then on top of that, I have a blog called the Chi of Self Sovereignty, and you can find that just at saidbunny. com, and the Chi of Self Sovereignty is outside of even just money, and I think this is what I really value about you, uh, Knut, is the fact that you don't just talk about money, because ultimately, money is just, it's a medium of expression, it's how we express to the world what it is we value, so I think being able to discuss that. How does the world around us impact how we are showing up, our behavior, you name it. And everything kind of interconnects with that. So being able to educate people on our world and sovereignty I think is incredibly important.

Knut: I totally believe, and I can back this up with a bunch of, a handful of irrefutable axioms, which you prove by trying to argue against them, that each and every living person, grown up, that can support themselves, they do have the right to do whatever the fuck they want with their lives, and other people don't have the right to violate that.

They do, and there are [00:51:00] consequences, and they may throw you in jail if you do something stupid, but there's no fucking natural right for any person to sit on top of another and, and direct where they're going with their lives, like, you, you do have the right. To defend yourself and try to get the fuck out of whoever's trying to steer your life.

Like, uh, and the more people that take that seriously and, um, really stand up to the man and, uh, refuse to take the orders and, and refuse to obey when necessary. The better off we all are. I truly believe that, that we need a resistance movement. And Bitcoin is inherently a resistance money. It cannot not be.

Because if permissionless, it's like, totally needed. If it's permissioned, or if it needs an approval stamp from somewhere, that will inevitably lead to someone abusing [00:52:00] that approval stamp. So we need people to resist uh, pressures from, from violent groups. No matter what those violent groups are. So that's it.

And now we have new means of doing that. We have a strong cryptography and we have communications channels we didn't have before, things that can't be censored. And most of all, we have Bitcoin.

Self Sovereignty

Seb: One, I've actually got a question for you guys. So for me personally, I find my background is more in sport. I spend a lot of time in the mountains. And so although I'm very, I would say, sovereign in that I understand my body, I understand what my body can take. When it comes to the technological side of things, that is, I would say, my weakness. I don't have much interest in understanding the deeper intricacies of like deep, deep cryptography and how to The Anonymous on the internet or how to protect my privacy. I have certain measures in place running a node, you name it. But I was curious on you guys and how you guys show up maybe more on that technical level.

How do you think [00:53:00] about self sovereignty and what would you say like the core steps which you guys take on a personal level to maybe add some form of whether it's privacy or security to your setup and how you show up digitally?

Knut: Would you care to answer this first, Luke? You're the security expert after all.

Luke: Yeah, fair enough. Sure. Great. Well, uh, digitally is a, is a larger, uh, sphere starting just in the, in the Bitcoin world, self sovereignty. I mean, the, the thing about Bitcoin privacy is that if you don't, uh, send your coins in a careful way, people can track what you're, you're doing. Right. And so, I mean, uh, Wasabi is the, is the.

The, um, mixing service that, that we use and recommend and all this. And I mean, it's, it's a great, it's a great service that, uh, coin joins your coins with so many others, uh, that, that you get an, [00:54:00] an anonymity score and you can't, uh, be, um, detected in that, in that group anymore. And so then you, you can go and spend your coins freely on anything you want and no one will know it was. You. Right. And I mean, this isn't to say go ahead and, and, you know, do this for the purposes of evading, uh, laws or taxes in your jurisdiction or anything like that. But it, but it does break the, the privacy thing. So that's, that's a start. Oh, node is, is great. We, we were just talking to Matt Hill from Start9, uh, just putting a server for your data into your own house. So using your node for multiple things, there are a couple of, uh, schools of thought on this, I guess, one being that, uh, say you should only use your Bitcoin node for running. Bitcoin and the related protocols and all that.

But another side of it is you could run a Bitcoin full node and use [00:55:00] that to verify the network and then also use a whole bunch of other things, run your own services and all that. But a lot of this other stuff just comes to, I think in the digital realm is a little more about sort of being conscious what you're putting out there. Social media apps. What information do you give them permission to use? Or what information do they take from you if you're using your system, right? So for example, not letting everyone in the whole world see everything that you post. I mean, that's an easy way to reduce the amount of information that's out there about you. Not posting, things about every little moment in life. I mean, that stuff is, uh, um, maybe something. I mean, for anyone listening who has kids, uh, I mean, I think this has started to turn into a thing that, that, uh, parents that are maybe a little more conscious about, about social [00:56:00] media and their kids are on social media are consciously deciding to not not put pictures of their kids or information about their kids and let them make a decision about what information they want to put out there.

So it's choosing selectively, choosing to what to reveal to the world basically is, is the idea and using things that facilitate that. So it's, it's going to look. Different for, for everyone, but another example was when we talked to Lawrence Lepard about he got hacked and sims swapped and, and, uh, um, had his Twitter account taken over, for example, and, um, talked about just a few things to, to safeguard against that you can, for example, use a, a hardware token, like a hardware wallet as your two factor authentication

Seb: one of those and it's phenomenal.

Luke: Exactly. So, so, I mean, all of these things together, you don't have to do everything, but I think what I would say is add layers of defense. That's, that's a common cybersecurity term, defense in [00:57:00] depth. Add layers of defense into your life and think consciously about what you're putting out into the world.

Knut: Yeah, I'm going to give a more, more philosophical answer. but, uh, The gist of it is the same. Make it costly to attack you. Like, uh, if we go back to the, uh, this is a long, I'm getting to a point here. Uh, did you see Milton Friedman's, uh, rant about a pencil and how no one on earth can make the pencil?

Because all the, goes back to, you know, the, the, Raw materials coming from different continents, right? So all of the parts of the pencil comes from different factories in different, uh, different countries and no one can make it on his own. There was also a TED talk about a guy trying to make a toaster from scratch.

By, you know, mining for iron ore and melting it down and like trying to make a toaster and it looks awful. Of course he can't, you know, because so, so my point with [00:58:00] that is that there is no such thing as trustless. You always have to trust someone. Uh, in some supply chain somewhere. Uh, and this is definitely true for hardware and software.

There's always a layer of trust somewhere. So, so the, the, the question really becomes who to trust and who not to trust and what to prioritize. And there's a saying by, um, I'm all over the place here. I know, but there's a saying by Marilyn Monroe. Uh, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

And this means. Like, if you have powerful friends, no matter how you define powerful, but if you have knowledgeable friends, that's powerful. If you have, uh, so if you surround yourself with people who know stuff and know how to help you with this and that, and, uh, can help you out in certain situations, uh, then it becomes more costly to attack you.

I, I truly believe so. I mean, um, being, having lots of friends. [00:59:00] It's, it's a good thing. Um, and maintaining relationships with people. That's part of why we do the show, by the way, to, to, you know, maintain the relationship with you. It's not only, you know, grasping for views and likes and stuff like that. We want to maintain relationships with other Bitcoiners that we love.

and that's part of, part of at least my, uh, thinking around safety and security. I know that's not a very technical answer, but, but, um, at the end of the day, like human connections are the most important thing and Bitcoin is all about that. It is a network of human beings first and foremost.

Seb: So if there's one takeaway from this episode, it is to go and download Tinder and go on to the friend setting and then go and build out a huge friend network of just people in your community.

Knut: Well, you have to pick and choose. It's like one of one of the sailors ten ten tips for success was curate your friends. And curated colleagues, so like, weed out the bad ones, like, when people [01:00:00] show you who they truly, truly are, believe them, and, uh, weed them out if necessary, give second chances, but don't give third chances, and, uh, uh, try to befriend as many good people as possible.

It's very rewarding.

[01:01:00]

Friendships and Relationships

Seb: You know, I would definitely say something that I lived a lot of my life by is that like we are the average of the top five people that we spend our time with. And I think that I'm very conscious of who I spend my time with. And I noticed that there are many relationships, just like a, whether it's a business transaction, in the long run, you want that relationship to be mutual. Whereby there's a give and a take. That's not to say that in the short term, sometimes, yes, you may lean on them more, or they may be leaning on you more. But every so often, you're going to find yourself in these [01:02:00] relationships where they're draining. They're absolutely just sucking life force from you.

And I think that it's challenging, but in the long term, it's healthier to be very conscious of if there's a relationship that is just depleting my life force over time, then maybe that's something that I want to trend away from and trend more towards those that actually rejuvenate me, those that actually instill confidence and prosperity.

Knut: Yeah, and it's hard because it's hard to evaluate friendship. Like, I truly value the friendship I have with friends I had since my teens. But I spend less and less time with them for several reasons. One being me being in another country is one. And also You know, when you, when you start a family, that, that inevitably leads to you hanging out with your old friends less, but also like getting new friends.

So there's, there's just not enough time at the end of the day to hang out with everyone. I

Seb: and choose wisely.

Knut: [01:03:00] choose, yeah, choose how to spend your time carefully, like, uh, and doing, and also nothing is something worth doing every once in a while, uh, just doing nothing and letting yourself, you know, letting your mind wander.

I find that, uh, some of the best ideas I've ever had comes from a, a, a state of mind where I just don't give a shit about productivity or, or, uh, value this and value that or, or any, uh, I, I just let, it's like sort of a dreamlike state where, where you just let things float away.

Productivity and Creativity

Seb: You know what? It's, it's, it's interesting you say that because I would say that from 20 probably 2018 to about 2022 productivity was just front of mind all the time. I was trying to consume content. I was trying to get as much information in as possible. So I started to, I listened to a lot of my books. I'm a useless reader. I feel like I'm partially retired at half the [01:04:00] time and can't consume. So I like listening and I go and take the dog walking. I go and walk through the forest somewhere where there's no people where I can really start to like concentrate on what it is that I'm consuming. I would listen to things that far faster than regular pace. And that meant that at my peak, and this isn't more of a brag, but just to highlight at my peak, I. I finally read over a hundred books in a year and I was like, fricking pumped. And then what I realized, I, last year it went down to kind of 50 books and this year I think I'm at one book. And I realized that actually it's one thing to consume content. It's another thing to understand and distill content. And I think that more and more as I'm getting older, I'm really realizing that. If I just really focus on one book at a time and just go slowly through that book, and then I take time to think about that book and even when I'm not actively thinking about that book, it's still tinkering away in the back of my mind. And every so often these little things pop up and it creates those, those connections and so more and more these days. I'm kind of letting things sit, letting things sinking, uh, sink in. And what I'm noticing is I'm having just as many insights that I was having, [01:05:00] if not more, from when I was reading and consuming a ton of content. But those insights are more, they're deeper and more authentic to me as an individual. They're not just parroting what someone else is saying.

Knut: Absolutely. Uh, yeah, I can just echo that and say, like, you wouldn't listen to a symphony. On 3x the speed, like, so why would you

Seb: Don't you do that? I would imagine in listening to Stravinsky on the sped up, like it makes absolutely no sense. It's complicated enough as it is straight away. I, um, I don't know if I'm the only one here who's a big Stravinsky fan, but anyway, uh, yeah,

Luke: You also may be the only Meshuggah fan in the room too, but so

we all appreciate different things.

Knut: Yeah. I wouldn't listen to that on a sped up either. Maybe slowed down though.

Luke: Maybe slowed down.

Knut: Anyway, but yeah, but, but just, you know, meditating is one thing where, where you, you're like literally forcing your brain to not think about anything. [01:06:00] But I find that most of my really good ideas come from when I not deliberately, but I just end up in this state where I don't just don't care about my brain anymore because it's, it's always talking like it's a cacophony in there.

Like. It's very hard to make it shut up, except for falling asleep, uh, it's hard to, hard to explain what that state really is, but something in between dreamlike state and yeah, maybe daydreaming.

Seb: It's, it's, I think it's fascinating. You just brought that up because the hidden cost of money. So my book, I wrote 95 percent of it in about a two week period between the hours of one and five o'clock in the morning. And what I noticed is that I would arise out of sleep. And I would know chapter one needs to be this.

This is the key points of chapter one. Chapter two is this, this, and this. And I would write down all of this core content and the flow and the structure and the narrative. And then during the day, I would expand on that and piece it together. And I remember digging into this [01:07:00] a little more because I was wondering why it was happening. And I started to realize that like Picasso, and I think it was Einstein, both recognized that all of their core ideas, A rose as they awoke, and so what they started to do is they would take naps during the day, and I think this was Einstein, he would hold a set of keys in his hand over a little metal tray. So the moment he fell asleep, his hand would open, he would drop the keys onto the tray and awaken back up again. And then all of a sudden he noticed that's when all of these kind of creative ideas and these connections were joining, because it's almost as if We're kind of connecting to that unconscious, that deeper level of knowledge that is sitting below the surface that our conscious is not readily able to access. And on a neurological level, there's a lot of evidence to support that at those times, we have a lot more, I think it's gamma frequency. And that gamma frequency, again, helps us get into that state where we're very creative.

Knut: yeah, can totally relate. Like, you know this Luke from like writing, writing right now. Yeah, for the longest time I had writer's block. I really wanted to write, but [01:08:00] I had nothing to write about. So like, I couldn't get a single original thought out of my head. And then all of a sudden, mid December, just, It just poured out of me like word after word.

It just came from somewhere. I don't, I don't know what that is, but like it's creativity in general is such a weird beast to try to tame, uh, because the, the whole point of it is sort of to be untameable. Like that's where the best stuff comes from. There's an excellent book by John Cleese, by the way, it's just an hour long.

Uh, um, Audio book on normal speed called On Creativity or something. And John Cleese is reading it him, uh, himself. So, so he laughs at all the jokes and stuff. It's, it's absolutely excellent. So you can really recommend that. That and Six Days to Air, the, uh, the documentary about how they make South Park in six days, uh, every episode starts six days before it airs and uh, they make the entire thing in six [01:09:00] days.

So those two, uh, helped me a lot in, in like understanding creativity. And Klees argues that you need to not only not be interrupted, You also need to know that you're not going to be interrupted, which for me, I think is like the even bigger reason why I write in the morning than waking up and having a good ideas when, when I wake up at like, say four or five, I know that I have a couple of hours to just hyper focus and I will not be interrupted.

I think that's key as well.

Seb: Absolutely. You know what? There's There's a, a, guy that I know who lives in the interior of BC, and he is an incredibly successful businessman. And I remember one night, uh, we were kind of hanging out, I was teaching this group, taking a man on biking. And I asked him, I was like, are you a fan of efficiency?

And he was like, oh, this is my freaking love language. And he shows me his calendar, and from 5am in the morning when he wakes up till 10pm at night, he's got 15 minute interval blocks, and [01:10:00] he knows everything he's doing, for every single 15 minutes. And to me, that's my idea of hell. I think that when I think about my calendar, I get so frustrated when, like, first off, I should say, I feel incredibly lucky to work in the Bitcoin space. But given that, and you're probably the same, Knut, I have a lot of people reaching out that want to discuss whether it's a book or potential opportunities or collaboration. And I struggle when I have a week where I have a very broken week, where I have two or three. Meetings half an hour to an hour long that are distributed throughout the day, and so I have all of these one hour blocks of free time, but in a one hour block, I feel like my mind doesn't get into that flow state.

I like to know I wake up and I at least have half the day to be able to explore.

Knut: Absolutely. Like a meeting can ruin a day completely by just being there, by just being scheduled. Uh, I, I truly believe like, and especially as I say, if you have three meetings in a day, that day is, you might as well just do fuck all that day. There's so much, but there [01:11:00] was a tip from John Lennon to George Harrison, I believe, uh, where, where, uh, George, So it tells it, uh, that John told him to, whenever you get the song idea, finish the thing then and there.

Don't wait for it. Don't, don't wait. Don't postpone it and try to finish it later. And yeah, I, I can relate to that. Klees has a sort of a, uh, A different approach. Like if, if you're stuck, this is talking about writing sketches and not songs. So that, I guess there's a difference there too. So you can have a problem, a storytelling problem, uh, and so just sleep on it.

And what he found out was that when he woke up, not only had he found the solution to the problem, but he couldn't remember why he had the problem in the first place. And another thing he did was some, uh, sometime during, during his early career, Uh, lost the script to something he wrote together with Graham Chapman for Python.

And, uh, [01:12:00] so they had to rewrite the sketch and then he found the old, the old, uh, sketch, the old manuscript and the new one was way better. So when he like rewrote it from memory, it became like 10 times better, which is also weird. Uh, so, so there, there are so many, I think, yeah. It's worth exploring your creative side if you have one, uh, definitely, uh, there's a lot to find.

Seb: no, and I think that again, going back to the fiat world, when I think our time is increasingly being infringed upon, when our cost of living is constantly rising, we're increasingly pushing for just productivity, productivity, productivity. And the challenge is that from my own experience, there seems to be a spectrum between productivity and creativity. And as you trend towards productivity, you start to lose creativity. And so that's where I really, for me personally, I'm trying to actually create more space these days. And actually there's a, um, uh, a famous value investor that I [01:13:00] used to follow called Manesh Pabrai. And he used to keep all of his calendar completely open. And unless it was something important, meeting Warren Buffett or whatever, he would not schedule it in because he wanted to be able to, Sit there and sit with problems because again, to your point, the moment you start to block up that calendar, all of a sudden you start to impact creativity. You prevent the mind from flowing where it wants to go.

Knut: Absolutely. And which is why you should turn off your notifications as well. Like, uh, they, there can be a huge distraction. So like, yeah, we need some notifications, I guess, like, uh, so wife called three times, uh, means emergency or something like that. Uh, But most of the notifications you can just turn off and then you are in charge of selecting whenever you, uh, whenever you want to check your messages, at least, at least to a larger extent.

Seb: And it almost parallels with Bitcoin again. I think that the fiat mindset [01:14:00] when you're looking at Bitcoin is that you've got to look at price. And so every single day you're constantly looking at price. What's the price doing? Is it going up? Is it going down? Whereas the more you're able to disconnect from the impulsive nature of price, the more you start to see Bitcoin for these bigger, more creative ideas, these more philosophical ideas.

Knut: Absolutely. And there are a lot of productive people in Bitcoin and sometimes you can feel like Or at least I can, this is very subjective, but I can feel envious that someone is such a, uh, has such a high work ethic and can just go on for hour after hour and do the thing, you know, whatever the thing is.

but then again, like, because on a daily basis, I'm almost, when the day is over, I'm almost always disappointed in myself for not, you know, Doing more shit that day, like for procrastinating a bit too much. Even if I just procrastinate for five minutes, I'm like, I lost those five minutes. But when I look back at a year, I'm impressed by myself.

Oh, [01:15:00] holy shit. You, you, you, you did all this in a year. How the hell did that happen? So I think that's like, our brains are sort of wired in a way, um, to be, I mean, productive, more long term. There's some reassurance there that some type of low time preference, I think, is inherent in our brains. I don't know where I'm going with this.

It's just mostly subjective.

Seb: No, and I'll add one more point as well, which is, and I know in, uh, in your book, everything in 20, everything divided by 21 million, you talked a little bit about maybe spirituality in the afterlife, and maybe we disagree a little bit here, but I think what is fascinating is that I do believe that the world always gives us what it is that we need to grow. And sometimes we can try to force growth through productivity and trying to be productive when more and more what I'm trying to do is separate, am I just being lazy here? Or is it that right now at this moment, [01:16:00] this is what interests me and maybe I should direct my energy towards this because naturally whatever it is that I'm trying to do on the side where I'm trying to be productive and I just don't have that inspiration, uh, it's giving me time to think.

And one of the interesting examples I'll give, if that didn't make any sense, is I got, I've just started working in the last kind of two months for a new Canadian company called Block Rewards. And we deal with like pensions, benefits, you name it on a Bitcoin standard. So supporting payroll and stuff in Bitcoin. And so my role is the educational side of things. I want to build this educational journey that helps employers and employees look at the world through the lens of Bitcoin rather than look at Bitcoin through the lens of fiat. And I've been struggling with this because I've been like, okay, how do I actually do this?

How, how do I best achieve this? And so I've had a few ideas bumping around in my head, but every time I go to sit down to your point, My mind is blank and I'm just like, I don't even know where to start. But actually that blankness has actually created pause and that pause has opened up other doors. And so in Madeira, on the first day I was on an [01:17:00] educational panel on the main stage with Dusan and John Dennehy from MIPRME and we're talking about education.

And I mentioned this one point, I mentioned The traditional education is very linear. We, we teach in modules. You've got to learn this, this, this, and this, and this order. And the challenge is our mind doesn't work like that. Our mind is not very linear. For us to be able to be engaged in something, we need to be able to jump around.

We need to be able to pursue things that interest us. Oh, this, this brings up this point. I want to dive into this point quickly, and then I'll come back. And so I made the point, which is. For Bitcoin to be, for Bitcoin is to be successful in our ability to orange pill, we need to change the way we think about education, and we need to start to think up ways.

How do we create more dynamic ways to educate? Ways that allow you to pursue the things that which you are interested in as an individual. So if a mother comes on board an educational journey, we're not just talking about the technicality of Bitcoin, we're going to lose her quickly. But at the same time, if an economist comes on this educational journey, we're not going to lose them talking about Bitcoin and relationships. We've got to find that [01:18:00] balance that allows for a dynamic learning journey. And so I have this idea, but I didn't quite know how to fulfill it. And from that one talk, I had two or three people reach out saying, Hey, this is my background, and I'm an educator. Do you want to jump on a call and just chat? And from there, it's amazing what has unfolded.

But it's actually only unfolded because of the time and the space. If I tried to force something, if I tried to rush something, those ideas would not have come. And so I think the world always gives us what we need to grow.

Knut: Absolutely. I mean, the mind, Needs to play to come up with new things. You need to allow the mind to play. Uh, let me ask you a personal thing. Were you, uh, like when you were a child, were you very imaginative and often in your own world playing with your own, like building your own stories or were you very social, like, where were you on that spectrum?

Seb: Now, I would say I've always, I would say I'm like an extroverted introvert. In that I have my like core little friend group and that friend group means a lot to me, but I don't, big social settings, [01:19:00] even things like Madeira, I struggle with it. Like they absolutely deplete me. I feel, I feel destroyed after a few days in these large social settings because I love time and space.

And for me, even now as an adult, I spend a lot of time, I would say multiple hours every single day walking the dog through the forest, whether I'm listening to content, which more recently in the last kind of, as I mentioned, in the last six to six months to the last year and a half, I have been increasingly not listening to content. And I've just been in silence walking through the forest and seeing what comes up. And my mind is just always turning. There's always stuff there. And what I also notice is I'm driving more and more without music on, without any stimulus. And I find it fascinating, just being more, more in my head and noticing what's coming up.

And it's interesting, When I spend more time internally, you start to notice more information. You start to learn yourself. And Carl Jung, the like famous psychologist from the, uh, 100 years ago, he spent something like, he spent a year or two documenting every single thought that came up. And he started to [01:20:00] notice that so many of these thoughts were even, and people can say this is BS, but so many of them are actually being predictive of things that were starting to happen in his life and globally around him. But to us as individuals, I think many times we ignore so much of the information that comes up, or we just don't even hear it because we're just, we've got way too much stimulus. We're looking at our phones, we're looking at social media, we've got friggin headphones and we're listening to music, you name it.

And I think that that impedes us from getting to know ourselves, being imaginative, to your point, and, uh, Asking the questions about like, who am I and how do I want to show up?

Bitcoin as the Noise Remover

Knut: I see so many similarities here and yeah, I think this, Uh, leads into Bitcoin not being the signal, just the greatest noise remover ever invented or discovered. Uh, that, that's the way I see it, that it allows you to find your own signal so that you can engage in what David Bowie called, uh, uh, aging, which is the, according to him, the, the slow process of, uh, becoming who you were always meant to be, [01:21:00] uh, which, which I think is true for all people who self reflect.

But not necessarily for everyone. I don't think NPCs ever grow into what they ought to be, uh, or always meant to be, but, but if you do self reflect, I think that's the journey, like, uh, self realization or like discovering new things. Who you are in order to be valuable to other people. We talked about happiness before and chasing happiness, which, which I think is a very fiat thing too.

Um, I don't think you can ever achieve happiness by, by chasing happiness, by, by having that as your end goal. Happiness is always a by product. I would say almost always, if not always. I mean, always, always a byproduct of helping others or being valuable to others. So if I, you know, write a book or make a song or draw a painting, I feel happy when others appreciate [01:22:00] it.

Uh, I, uh, any artists that say they only create for themselves is, uh, is lying to a certain extent, even though I think, uh, You have, when working on something, whatever the pro, if it's a book or if it's whatever is a film, your job when working on the thing is to make the thing as good as possible. It's not thinking about what comes after, uh, if that makes any sense.

So it must be good to you because you imagine yourself as the viewer, as the listener, as the reader, you're the reader. And what would you, what would you like to come from this piece?

Power, Prestige, Possessions; Contributions, Connections, Challenges

Seb: to your point, I think what comes up is actually a few years ago, probably about five or six years ago, someone who I truly, truly admire mentioned to me, That the world at which we look at, unfortunately, when we, when we set goals, when we kind of think about what we want our future to be like, we tend to base it around the three P's, which are power, prestige, and possessions.

We want to buy a new [01:23:00] car. We want to get a new job. We want to kind of have power over those around us, whatever that may look like. But if you actually just ask someone the question, what would you say are two or three of your most favorite moments throughout your life so far? They don't resolve around, revolve around power, prestige, and possessions.

Instead, they revolve around contributions. Connections and um, challenges when we're challenged to be able to do something that is hard, that we feel like we've grown as an individual, when we've contributed to society, we've given back, or when we've connected with individuals and had that bond. And I think the reality is that many times when people are setting goals, I'm not, I don't actually truly set goals these days.

I try and go more of the flow, but a lot of these goal setters, a lot of people in the fiat world, We're constantly trying to strive for, okay, I want this new job, I want the newest car, I want the newest thing. And it's not creating happiness, it's doing the antithesis, it's this fleeting moment, and then all of a sudden you want to crave more.

Knut: Funny thing that the three piece you just mentioned are all penis enhancers or alleged penis enhancers, right? That's, that's why people strive for them. [01:24:00] Uh, so it's all about signaling then. And that's why you never go happy. You can never be happy. by trying to signal stuff like that's, that's not the thing.

And yeah, it's, it's very true. I mean, if I look back at the conferences to, by the way, to me, they're also exhausting. I love every second of them. And I value the, the, the short time I get to spend with this amazing people a lot. Uh, so, so, uh, so I try to squeeze as much out of it as, uh, as I can, but then I sleep for like 40 hours because it's completely exhausting.

Like, uh, it happened after. Madeira happened after first time in Miami. I, I, I, my wife told me she's never seen me sleep like that. I usually sleep like six, between six and eight hours per night. Uh, used to be even less, but I tried to sleep more now because I appreciated more. Uh, but it's completely exhausting.

Um, where was I going with this? We were talking about something Three

Seb: Ps, contributions.

Knut: three pieces, yeah, because I can easily [01:25:00] remember my favorite moments from each of the conferences. And they're never, you know, what they, what you think they would be. It's usually something funny or like a heartfelt moment or something one on one it's, it's not like basking in the glory of this or that, never that.

It's just a silly moments. It's like, for instance, in Miami, when I'm sitting, uh, having lunch, uh, with Fractal Encrypt. And all of a sudden, a very American looking guy, uh, walks up to me on the street, takes off his sunglasses and says, Knut, Knut Svanholm? And I'm like, yeah. And he points at himself and he says, Greg.

And I finally connect the dots and it's Greg Saj. So like the first time I ever saw Greg Saj in real life, I got to stand up and just. Hug him and say, fuck you, Greg. And very few people understand that joke. But to me, that was a special moment because my very [01:26:00] first words to him were the meme. So living the meme.

That's, uh, that's what I strive for.

Seb: No, and to your point, I think that when I think about even say Madeira, naturally you think, well, is my favorite moment being able to speak on the main stage, is my favorite moment? And it's like, no, my favorite moment is, there was just a little. One morning, before the show had even started, I bumped into Robert Brinded, and I don't know how to pronounce his last name, I think I pronounced it right,

Luke: um,

Seb: we ended up just having like a heart to heart deep conversation for 20 minutes. And it was those little moments, that like connection that to me was actually arguably my favorite moment of the whole, the whole experience. And so I think that we've got to be aware of, especially for those that are listening to this and that set goals.

Question like, is this actually what I want? Is this actually what makes me happy? Or maybe I should redirect towards something that, what is it that actually motivates me? What is it that actually makes me feel warm and fuzzy and feels like I'm contributing to society?

Knut: Yeah, and it's a [01:27:00] hard question to answer. There's, there's so much to choose from.

Ending Up in Whistler

Luke: No, no, Seb, this is, this is great. Uh, I think, uh, um, it's awesome to hear what's kind of driven you in, in the directions you've, you've taken the writing, the education. I'm curious how you ended up in Whistler of all places, because I'm, I'm, Uh, from Calgary, um, originally, so just over the, the mountains for anyone who doesn't know the geography of Western Canada so well, but yeah, I'm, I'm curious what, uh, what made you settle in Whistler?

No,

Seb: Well, first off, I've just said, I've just started dating this, this, this, this girl, and she's from Calgary. I've never dated someone from Calgary before. So I'm being introduced to the Stampede, I'm being introduced to all of the country music, cowboy boots, all of these things. So it's a whole, whole new world to me. But, um, I would say, I would say from a very early age, man and biking just absolutely hooked me. I'd [01:28:00] say that it was my first true love. My absolute first full passion that I wanted to put everything into. I'm full ADD child. So the moment I get interested in something, there's nothing else in my mind.

It's the only thing that I can think about. And I'll push aside everything just to do that one thing. And so mountain biking was the first time that I found that true fire inside of me that I wanted to drive towards. And I was probably about nine years old when I found it. And from then on, all I could do was think about mountain biking. And so I think the first time that I ever even heard about Whistler, I actually did a school project and they asked, where do you want to live when you're older? And I did this whole project on, I wanted to live in Crankworx.

And for those that are not familiar, Crankworx is this mountain bike festival. I didn't even know Whistler existed, but I just wanted to live in this mountain bike festival. So at nine years old, I wrote up this whole big poster and that kind of started this journey towards how do I actually achieve this goal? And so I ended up, I dropped out of school at 14 and moved out and spent the summer of 14 and 15 out in Whistler on my own. And I moved out here full time when I was 16 and started teaching mountain biking and working in the industry because I [01:29:00] really realized that for me as an individual, and this is obviously unique to everyone, everyone needs different things.

But for me, when I was younger, I needed independence, and I needed to be able to pursue the things that motivated me. And so I feel really lucky that I had a mum who, she had a very challenging upbringing. She unfortunately was kicked out of the house at 13 years old to parents that kind of had their own addictions. But what she realized from that endeavor is that Because she was kicked out of the house, she had that independence to be able to pursue the things that motivated her. And so from very early on, she supported me in pursuing the things that motivated me, that being mountain biking. So I found myself in Whistler, and it forced me to grow up.

It forced me to, uh, look inwards and, and discover who I am. And so I think that it really has shaped me in trying to be more self sovereign, being more independent, being more self sufficient from such a young age. to shaping me as to who I am today. And that really started this whole passion and this curiosity about being, how do I want to show up in this world?

Which has led to all of this stuff, writing, you name it.

Knut: And do you take the mountain bike over the mountain to Calgary [01:30:00] to meet your girlfriend?

Seb: If I was to pedal to Calgary, I think the drive is what, 13 hours?

I think it's just going to

take a few days.

Luke: no, it's, it's, it's great. It's a great story. And I mean, it, it also really plays into exactly what you've been saying. It, it makes perfect sense, sort of the, uh, latch onto something and, and it, it kind of sticks. I, that, that really is, uh, I've, I've got a parallel with that on how I, I ended up in, in Finland.

Just, just something about when I started to find little cultural artifacts, uh, from Finland, especially music. I, I just got right into it. Similar age to it. Well, no, I know I wasn't nine, but, but around, yeah, 13, 14, 15 was when I really got into the, um, music and, uh, started to, uh, dabble with the language cause I was in the languages and then, you know, fast forward 10 years and, and I get a chance to, to move.

Here and, and yeah, now, now I live here. So, I mean, it's, it's, it's interesting [01:31:00] how life, uh, how things that are so meaningful can latch on at such an early age and, and, and then it just takes you there. It's, it's fantastic.

Seb: No, and I think it's so important for Us to be able to pursue what it is that really motivates us. And I feel so lucky to be able to have had a life where I've been able to pursue the things that motivate me. I've never, like, we came from, I'd say, just like a lower middle class family. Um, and So we didn't grow up very wealthy, but I was in a position whereby we weren't struggling.

And because we weren't absolutely struggling, I did have some opportunity to be able to pursue things that motivated me. And so I've had the opportunity throughout my life. Man on Biking has been able to pay me enough just to be able to get by. And that has meant that I've never had to take a job purely just to be able to survive.

I've been able to take jobs because they offer me something, whether it is internal happiness or growth or a skill set, you name it. And this is still stays true to Bitcoin. And what is interesting is that [01:32:00] I've actually, for a lot of my life, I felt like the system was unfair. I felt like our monetary system creates a lot of inequality.

And not only that, Um, I have felt as if, I've felt, I've felt frustrated and kind of demoralized by money. And the reality is a lot of people are like, well, why are you working in money? And what I find is interesting is that actually working in Bitcoin, I don't feel like I'm working in money. I feel like I'm just working in a way to be able to trend the world towards something where we can express who we are.

We can express our true selves, and our current fiat system, unfortunately, revolves around money, and increasingly, no matter who you are, you have to spend so much time thinking about money. What I love about Bitcoin is you don't have to think about money. As we trend towards a more Bitcoinized world, less and less we focus on money, which ultimately, again, to your point, um, Knut, which is the fact that what is phenomenal about Bitcoin is it's a noise remover. It removes a lot of these issues. It removes a lot of these financial pressures, a lot of these strains, so that we can actually get down to who we are. And I think that [01:33:00] is phenomenal, because the fiat world is not doing that. It's doing the opposite.

Knut: Yeah, I once tweeted calling Bitcoin money is degrading to Bitcoin. Because our interpretation of the word money is so skewed by, you know, just bad money. That doesn't do what it's supposed to do.

Following Passions

Knut: So, but there's a question for both of you. Would you consider yourself still as passionate about, you know, mountain biking and, uh, well, the Viking metal stuff, uh, look like, or the mythology stuff?

Seb: You go, Luke.

Luke: Oh, sure. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's right down there. I mean, maybe I've got other things on top of it, but, uh, yeah, at the heart, it's, it's still, yeah, the music, the cultural stuff. Absolutely. Um, I don't know. Nothing more to it. Seb?

Seb: I would say, I would use a relationship as kind of a comparison, whereby initially you always have in the first year, a [01:34:00] few years, there's just that honeymoon period where you're completely enamored, because every, New week, there's something new you're learning, and your learning curve is exponential. But naturally, that learning curve does start to plateau as you've consumed a lot of information, and then it goes into that strong, reliable friend or that strong, reliable partner that you know you can rely on.

And so mountain biking Although I don't ride to the same extent because I'm not, I don't teach anymore. I used to ride a hundred plus days a summer back to back to back and just kind of destroy the body. Now I probably ride once a week. It's something that I can always lean on and I know that it is there and it's a huge part of my life.

But at the same time, my ADD mind, I've always got the new next thing that I'm kind of directing my energy towards. So, Some of those things, they, they stay for a few months and they disappear. Some stay for a few years and some, some kind of latch on, uh, and join mountain biking as kind of these core companions that I use throughout my life. And so I think that that's kind of how I tend to look at activities.

Knut: Yeah, I'm asking because I totally ditched what I thought was my passion, which was traditional ships and sailing traditional ships, [01:35:00] which I did for a long time, and I don't do any of it anymore. And I don't miss it at all. It felt like I did all the things I could do with it. And like, then chapter over.

Onto the next thing, and I've never had any regrets about, like, not doing that more. I got the chance to sail a really old boat the other summer, like two summers ago, and that was good fun for a couple of hours, like, oh, yeah, yeah, I remember this. Uh, but, but it's not, I wouldn't call it passion anymore. Uh, I think, like things change sometimes.

Seb: You know what? A few years back, I went through like a challenging breakup, and I ended up seeing this counselor psychologist here in Whistler who works a lot with professional athletes and Olympians, because here in Whistler, I think we have the highest, what is it? The highest percentage of, like, Olympian athletes in the world.

Like, we've got, it's, it's, it's incredible because we're a mountain town with a world class ski resort, mountain bike resort, you name it. [01:36:00] And because of this, one of the things he, he told me, which really stood out, because I was, before we even got into the relationship stuff, I was just asking him a few questions, and he said to me, When it comes to these athletes, they've built their whole life around a single pillar. And so, when they've been aspiring to get a gold medal and all of a sudden they get a silver medal, their whole world crumbles. Well, they've been training for the Olympics for freaking five, six years, and then the Olympics comes around and they injure themselves six months before, their world crumbles. And I find that what I love about Bitcoiners, many Bitcoiners out there, is that we're curious. And so we have so many different pillars that support us. And so for me, I have my mountain biking, but at the same time, I also paraglide and I also ski tour, but then I also have my more philosophical stuff. I love reading and learning about psychology and trauma. And then at the same time, I also love nutrition and I love Bitcoin and I love macroeconomics and you name it, my dog walks. So the more pillars that we have that are supporting us, We can lose some of those pillars, but we're still whole as a person. It doesn't impact us as an individual. And to your point, Knut, I wonder if, um, at some point, that was a large part of who you were and your [01:37:00] identity, these, these, these boats. But as time went by and you picked up more and more interest, more things that kind of took that curiosity, at some point that pillar no longer needed to support you, so you leant on other things.

Knut: Yeah, exactly. I think there's a danger in tying your persona too much, your identity to a certain activity. I mean, you're more than, if you identify as the running guy and all of a sudden you lose a leg, like, you're not going to be the running guy anymore. So like, but I mean. You can change your life if it's, if it's not as fulfilling as you think it ought to be.

Like to me, life is much more about figuring out what you don't want to do than figuring out what you do want to do with it. Like, uh, it's like, if you're on a path that is not, Satisfying to you? You, you should try to, you shouldn't be afraid of making change because like, [01:38:00] uh, I had neighbors back in Sweden who, uh, an older couple who had lived in the same house for all their lives, and the one of them hadn't ever been on a plane.

The, the lady and the guy, uh, he was. An electrician, uh, he lived all his life in the same house on the same island, um, outside Gothenburg. And he, um, and he died like a year after we moved here and never having seen anything. And like, to me, that's my greatest fear, uh, a mundane life where nothing happens.

Like that, that's way scarier. Then taking a risk every now and then, like, uh, to me, like, uh, that scene from Papillon, when, when the guy gets judged by a jury in his dreams in a desert, says, you're, uh, but I'm innocent. I didn't commit the crime. And the jury says, no, you're not guilty of that. You're guilty of a wasted lifetime.

That's [01:39:00] brutal to me. Like, uh, um, You need to fill your life with stuff like and to figure stuff out like what you want to do with it. It's not a rehearsal. You only have one chance.

Seb: I couldn't agree more. And it's interesting because I see I've got a brother who's 18 months younger than me. And he's been struggling in that he wants to find the thing that is him. But he's very scared to try something in the event that that's not who he is. And to your point, which is sometimes it's not about what it is that we like, but what it is that we don't like. And there's an interesting analogy that I heard years ago, which is kind of like, When we are approaching life, it's, it's similar to carving a sculpture. You start with a giant block of marble, and that block of marble, you try something. Nope, that's not me, so you chip away a little bit, and then you try something else, and you chip away a little bit. And at the start, you started with a giant block of marble that didn't really have any distinguished features, but the more you try stuff, the more you chip away that material until you have that, that marble sculpture underneath. And so sometimes we can get that paralysis, that, [01:40:00] that, that fear of trying through the fear of failure.

And ultimately, I, we need to push through that because ultimately it's only through trying that we understand if we actually enjoy something. And the questions we can sometimes ask ourselves, if we don't know what it is that we enjoy, is actually what it is to your point. What it is that I don't enjoy, because you're removing material in that way.

Mm

Knut: Yeah, skin in the game. The Taleb book was a huge influence on me when started when I started writing about Bitcoin. Like, that's the influence. The decision to dare to put my name out there on the internet for people to find, like, sorry, am I good enough? And all of these, like, I mean, with any intellectual endeavor you'd set out on your, I bet you feel this too, that you're, you know, that you, that you, if you have total imposter syndrome here, and I am the lizard king, I can do anything here.

You know, that you're somewhere in between those two points, but you have no clue where. Like, uh, and I, I think all creative people feel that, uh, [01:41:00] once in a while that it's very hard to evaluate your own value to others. And it's, it's probably something you shouldn't think too much about. Uh, you know, lack of self criticism can take people.

I mean, look at Joe Biden and Donald Trump, lack of self criticism took them to the fucking oval office. So, uh, so self, while self criticism is good. And you need it to a certain extent. You shouldn't let it hinder you. It basically boils down to not letting your ego stand in the way of you. Because even too much self criticism is an egotistical thing.

Like, not ever daring and not ever putting yourself on the line is egotistical. It's vanity, right? So, so, uh, and being afraid of failure is a fear of vanity or a fear of, of something to some extent. And that [01:42:00] is to, to me, that's just another aspect of your ego standing in your own way.

Seb: hmm.

Knut: Thoughts?

Seb: No, fully agree. Fully agree.

Wrapping Up

Luke: Hey, I think this is a perfect place to wrap things up and I'll throw it right back at you one last time here. anywhere you want to send our listeners and viewers, we're going to find more about you, what you're up to, Looking Glass education, all of that.

Seb: For sure, and I should mention, because we kind of got a little sidetracked, for those that Want to kind of dive into the head and cost money and don't really know necessarily know what it is about. I basically realized quickly that again, there was the Bitcoin as a standard. There was a lot of Antonopoulos books, there were these phenomenal books, but very few of them looked at money holistically and actually what, what is money's impact on society and not just from kind of a financial lens, uh, the Bitcoin standard does it somewhat, but I really want to tie in more of the psychological lens and the behavioral lens. And we even talk about totalitarianism [01:43:00] to a certain point. And only after we describe the problem do we actually start to discuss what does a solution look like. And even then, I don't dive straight into Bitcoin because a lot of people may feel that aversion to Bitcoin. I look at what would a monetary system need, what are the characteristics that we'd need to see to be able to realign those incentives.

Because ultimately, For me personally, it's not about Bitcoin. It's about how do we create a world that supports us as individuals and allows us to be more self sovereign because I think that is a world where we trend towards greater prosperity and we trend towards a world where we maybe have more joy and happiness and you name it.

So, uh, that you can find the hidden cost of money just on Amazon. Um, you can also check out the Looking Glass education and we have a bunch of free courses, free resource, uh, resources. And then finally, If you're an employer or an employee and you're looking to be paid in Bitcoin in Canada, you can just check out blockrewards.

1. And yeah, we deal with kind of pensions, benefits, payments, you name it in Bitcoin. But yeah, I appreciate you guys having me on. It really means a lot.

Knut: That's a great name, Block Rewards, [01:44:00] by the way.

Seb: It's really cool.

Luke: Seb, thanks a lot for coming on. This has been a fantastic conversation. Uh, looking forward to more. This is really our first time, um, yeah, connecting ourselves. We, we barely talked on, on Madeira. I'm, I'm, I'm looking forward to getting to know you better, uh, going forward. So yeah, thanks again for coming on.

And, uh, yeah, looking forward to next time we see each other.

Seb: Thanks guys.

Knut: Thank you. This has been the Freedom Footprint Show. Over and out. Brush your teeth. What is it we say, Luke?

Luke: No, I think we'll end with that or with this. This has been the Freedom Footprint Show. Thanks for listening.