Decentralization and What To Do About It , Monday Morning

00:00.00 mikebledsoe Welcome to Monday morning with Mike and max and today we're going to be talking about decentralization now this is a word that's being thrown around quite a bit I don't think that people necessarily know what it means and when it's used. It's normally used specifically for. Currencies they're talking about decentralized currencies alternative currencies like bitcoin ethereum and a bunch of other shitcoins that are out there but the idea of decentralization is much bigger than that and when we look at technologies that allow us to decentralize. We can see how it disrupts. 00:37.94 mikebledsoe Economics It Disrupts social constructs and it yeah entire societies. So we're gonna talk about as decentralization occurs what you can do to position yourself to be in the best place possible. Um, and not get completely screwed over like some people are gonna experience. 00:58.54 Max Shank Well I think this is gonna be perfect for us to talk about because you and I have really different perspectives on this I'm not very schooled in cryptocurrency because I don't quite understand the stability of it. Um. But I am deeply interested in increasing the amount of freedom I have in my life as well as that of our listeners. So I'm excited to discuss it with you today. 01:27.44 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah, so let's start here the the decentralization um as a concept is that there's a smaller group of people that have absolute control over what's going on in their world. 01:46.14 Max Shank Um, that's centralization. You mean. 01:46.84 mikebledsoe So right now decentralization. Well there's ah what I mean is like you're grouped into a smaller group So there's greater responsibility for the individual in a decentralized society. 01:58.88 Max Shank So the individual has more agency over their money their time their food that sort of thing. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. 02:03.31 mikebledsoe Yes, yeah, yeah, more agency more autonomy more choice. Um in some cases so in ah and a centralized setup. 02:15.43 Max Shank A. 02:21.72 mikebledsoe Which is primarily what we're existing in right now if we have we have centralized money we have centralized food supplies. We have centralized energy systems. So when I talk about decentralization or centralization. This is a global conversation. Not necessarily. Talking only about cryptocurrencies or only about farming so with that being said is if you're we are being driven into a decentralized society because of ah you know this twofold one is people desire. It. Enough people desire it and that desire has helped people to generate technology which makes it possible and due to a lot of centralized power and a lot of money coming into a very small group people a lot of technology has been advanced. That used to only be available to a few that's now available to many an example of this is I remember when and you've probably noticed this max is Amazon um, and this is just a function of capitalism Amazon has. Always has better technology than the average ecommerce store. They have better tracking. They've got more data on their users. They've got ah their ability to sell at scale is just incredible and there's so many pieces of technology that. Only existed for http://amazon.com five years ago and now you and I have access to Facebook ads that targeting targeted ads that most people don't know much about ah because of Facebook and ah. A lot of this stuff that only really advanced marketers with a lot of money had access to special software. That's now been made available to all of us. So um I mention that because because of the way that things have been built up at this point is what actually creates the opportunity for a. Decentralized technology do exist now. So one's not better than another one just gives birth to another and the technology that's available will basically demand that you things be more decentralized and that each person takes more personal responsibility. And for those who don't take personal responsibility. It's gonna be a hard transition. 04:56.23 Max Shank I think you brought up 1 of the big advantages of centralization which is called economies of scale. So one of the reasons that people we can feed more people and one of the reasons that we can get more people a cell phone. 05:05.25 mikebledsoe Go. 05:15.98 Max Shank Is because these companies are able to do it at a much lower cost because as the number of units goes up the cost per unit thanks to efficiency goes down so not just. Thinking centralization bad decentralization good is important and I would also agree that as long as the consumers are free to choose their product then that will yield the. Best efficiency as long as you can choose whether you want to go to Walmart or the farmer's market or something like that I think that's kind of inherently good and the more we are allowed to choose the better. The outcome is and the more people are forced to obey. the the worse the outcome is historically and presently. 06:15.79 mikebledsoe Yeah, this conversation makes me think about Atlas shrugged. You've read the book. Yeah, okay, ah so in out. 06:23.99 Max Shank People either really like that book or they really hate that book's guts don't they no no, one's like it's all right I guess. 06:32.38 mikebledsoe Yeah, well you know anytime I run it when I run into people that hate it it I've learned to to focus in on 1 thing in the conversation that will totally break them and that is did you finish it. 06:50.33 Max Shank First. 06:51.91 mikebledsoe Did you read the whole thing because I've yet to meet somebody who's actually read the whole thing that still hates it so you know usually people hate it because they read something that someone else wrote about it or they're part of a ah social group that. Thinks that ein Rand is the Devil. So ah, it makes me think about that because you know you're saying choice. But right now they're essential like so let's just forget forget that but the where things are going when decentralized decentralization becomes possible technologically possible I think is what's going to happen is what happened in atlas shrug which is the most productive people in society are going to choose decentralization now. Decentralization wasn't. Necessarily a concept in that book. But the concept in the book was that the people who were the most productive and the people who took the most responsibility for themselves and their companies and things like that once that once they were being taxed. And the government was demanding and and social groups were demanding that they be more like slaves than independent and people they basically burned down their factories and walked away from their jobs and shut down the railroads and all went hiding in a valley in Colorado. And a lot of and then people in society are going. You can't do that and goes I can do whatever I want I'm not a slave and so I think what's gonna happen is the the atlas shrug is happening but we're not gonna have to go hide in a valley in Colorado. And where we're we were you know able to hide from planes and radar and shit what's going to happen is we're me able to hide technologically or we're going to be able to opt out of the current system. Ah and technologically and then everyone who's productive goes there and the people who are mediocre at. Best will still subscribe to the to the centralized model and so when we start talking about choice. It's like yeah you do have a choice but the being a part of a centralized model in 2020 or 2019 or whatever was. Really probably the most convenient choice. It was you you ended up having a lot of luxury a lot of really cool things were available to you. But as time goes on if the best producers on the planet decentralize. They've now removed themselves from your economy. So you're not getting the best anymore. 09:43.84 mikebledsoe And the the beauty of a centralized economy and a centralized society is you don't have to think so much because people can become much more specialized and they don't have to consider. You know where does my food come from. You know what's really going on with the currency people right now. For instance, you could take a computer programmer and they've gotten really good at computer programming. They don't know Jack shit about anything but computer programming and so that's because. They can pick up their phone and have their groceries delivered to their house. They can just automatically have their money. Ah go into an Ira that you know someone from their job told them it was a good idea and that could they're they're outsourcing their wealth. Their health. Just outsource all these things something goes wrong physically, they don't have to be aware of it. They just go to the doctor and they write him a prescription a pill to fix it and so. 10:42.41 Max Shank Well, that's comparative advantage. You hunt the food I'll cook the food and this guy here will protect us in the night and this lady over here will take care of all the children. 10:51.76 mikebledsoe Totally but in a world of centralization where we're dealing with hundreds of millions of people. We'll we'll talk about the United States specifically it's become. It's we've gone past the point of diminishing returns. There is a massive benefit to it. But now we're seeing the repercussions of it for instance, the average person unless you're a health expert your health is really poor. 11:19.31 Max Shank That's true and we could think about the causality of that and to piggyback on this centralization theme I think it's really important to differentiate between which sectors. Of Centralization. We're talking about So I like to simply think of it as you have no choice of where to go you have to come to us basically right? and so there's education which I'm no fan of I think it's child abuse. 11:42.50 mikebledsoe In a centralized model. 11:54.28 Max Shank I Think it's a really bad investment I think it's yeah public school I think it's one of the worst things you could do to a child. It's a horrible investment I could it's obedience school. Let's keep a simple language obedience school listen to this guy at the front. 11:54.41 mikebledsoe Government education. 12:01.14 mikebledsoe We should just call them indoctrination system governmental indoctrination systems or something. 12:13.23 mikebledsoe Did you you send your kid their obedience school today. He's been acting up. 12:13.56 Max Shank Sit down shut up, ask permission to go to the bathroom god forbid it I ever have a kid I would never send it to school not in 1000000 years um under no circumstance. Yeah well, it's ah you know I don't want to assume it's gender. 12:22.85 mikebledsoe If I won't have a kid as long as you start referring to as long as you refer to it as it. Um, you might get yourself in hot water there in California. 12:33.55 Max Shank Ah, so I don't want to be 1 of those hateful people who used to think that genitals identified your gender. Ah I'm woke now. Ah so anyway, so. 12:49.23 mikebledsoe Congratulations max. 12:50.61 Max Shank Centralized education gets away worse result. Ah the bigger. The centralized government is the worse. The result is because it's the difference between the pie makers and the pie slicers and you have to Zoom way out and. And way in to really understand what's happening so zooming way out to what it's like to be a creature who's capable of doing things and surviving in the world is really difficult on your own. In fact, it's impossible on your own. So the whole purpose of our culture. Is to reduce chaos and that's why actually why games and play are so critical for building relationships and also building skills because if you have the chaos reduced through culture but you don't have any dosage of that excitement or chaos. You're going to be a really sad little monkey and then you also need to really zoom in on what I call rules of engagement so you have to consider the interactions between entities. And reduce it down to the fewest parts possible to really understand what's happening. You know if 3 people live on a cul-de-sac and 2 people vote that they should Rob. The third one is that okay and interestingly enough in democracy. Yes, that's. That's perfectly. Okay, in fact, that's exactly how it works as long as most people want to Rob the not most people then is totally fine. So all of this back and forth. 14:33.33 mikebledsoe It. It's interesting. How people people lose the concept of morality at scale it. What you? what you say makes no sense when it's a hundred people but the moment it's a 0 people it's 14:43.50 Max Shank The. 14:52.23 mikebledsoe Somehow has eluded people What what do you think that is. 14:55.22 Max Shank The the greater good The fallacy of the greater good. Um, and it has to do with arrogance. Some people want to be saviors so they have a messianic complex of some kind and they want to be the guy who saves everyone some people are just sadists. And they want to dominate and control people and typically those are the only type of people who want ah positions of Authority like I I don't want a position of Authority over anyone but myself because I think I'm I'm a reasonable person. Ah, it's totally unreasonable. To want to be in charge of hundreds of millions of people. It's totally unreasonable. Um, but that's why. 15:40.86 mikebledsoe There's a book about this There's a political pourology I I began it I've read about 20% and then I had to start it was one of those books where it started getting I was gonna have to invest more energy into it. When I want to put my energy somewhere else. I'm definitely going to come back to it but the concept I had gotten to that point was psychopaths make up 4% of the population. This is a so this is a known psychological statistic. 15:59.26 Max Shank M. 16:14.72 mikebledsoe And just like the rest of Society. The psychopaths tend to you know they the thing that makes a psychopath so powerful is not only are they not experiencing emotions the same way we are so we experience emotions and. Creates turbulence and it impacts our decision making and yeah, we just we just do really strange things to fit in and somebody who's a psychopath the the really good ones understand that other people. Are having a different emotional experience than they are. They know it and they know how to exploit it and so yeah, so not only not only do they, they're not experiencing the same emotional stuff so they actually become very apathet on a become I think they just are that sounds like they're born this way. 16:55.20 Max Shank They leverage that perceived weakness. 17:10.91 mikebledsoe They're very apathetic which is kind of a problem but then on top of that they understand how you can be manipulated with your emotions and so ah, just like any group of people they're the ones that are really smart and then they're the ones that are really dumb. The dumb ones end up in prison and the smart ones end up in Dc and the so there they are attracted to pout. So you tell about being unreasonable this book makes the um makes the case that ah. They're drawn to power over other people and so. 17:48.40 Max Shank Exactly and like what you just said, it's rhetoric driven. It's tugging on people's emotions rather than focusing on fundamental rules of engagement. You know there really shouldn't be that many laws and every law should be in simple language. But of course. 17:52.84 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 18:07.74 Max Shank That is not incentivized by the people who are writing up these laws. You know so. 18:11.90 mikebledsoe Yeah I like what you're talking. Ah I want to go back a little bit because we're a little off track but the it was worth touching on the the as you were talking before I was thinking about incentives because when we think about people who are in in a centralized power structure. And you always mention this first we got to look at incentives so someone in a centralized power structure where is the incentive for them to make the decisions that they're making so what is the incentives of the news media. The centralized news media outlets Cnn ah Fox all these things a highly centralized stream of information because they're all reporting the same shit. They've got the same narrative. There's a centralized There's a centralization of information there and then. 19:06.00 Max Shank I would say they're opposing narratives but they're about the same thing and that thing doesn't matter very much compared to the real situation which is jurisdiction and Authority who's in charge and when do they exercise that authority. 19:08.30 mikebledsoe There. 19:13.18 mikebledsoe Well. 19:21.20 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah, and well that episode that you recommend to me last week Joe Rogan with Gavin De Becker he talked about how man that was one of the best Rogan shows I've ever heard. Ah, he talked about. 19:29.55 Max Shank Is champ. 19:38.50 mikebledsoe How all the news media outlets basically agreed to call Iver mechton horse paste and there wasn't a major news outlet that wasn't doing that and so what they got. 19:42.80 Max Shank Right. 19:49.96 Max Shank It's a coordinated assault on people's minds to maximize their attention and to maximize their fear because fear is deeper in the brain than anything else. So you have to recognize that that. You have to recognize that the news is a hostile entity and you must take precautions to protect yourself from this because of the incentives you know, um, the whole idea of good and evil. Is um I think it's a trap all on its own. You know, don't believe the red guys are evil the blue guys are evil whatever just recognize that they're um, traumatized animals just just like almost every person right? and they're just doing. What is in their best interest with no regard for you but rather than ah say this is evil this is good. This is what whatever you just have to recognize for yourself that that is a hostile attack. On your mind and it's not going to help you exist in the world better to pay attention and it might even feel ironically a little more scary at first to not like know what's going on in the world but when it distracts you from. 21:16.30 mikebledsoe Yeah. 21:22.60 Max Shank The fundamental. That's why I come back to rules of engagement if I have value that I can provide to you that you believe is truly valuable as long as I can communicate with you. You will take it. And it'll be a win-win situation. That's why I say the customer is always right? The coercer is always wrong and the more you focus on serving your customers something that they really value the more abundant your life will be and the more you focus on. Plugging in to a machine that is literally trying to destroy your mind and break you into thinking that you are alone and isolated and powerless and convince you that some asshole in a big chair. Knows what's best for everybody else because he suddenly like figured out his version of utopia How could utopia be the same thing for Everybody. We're so different. You know some people like having their nipples hooked up to car Batteries. Do I Want that guy deciding what utopia is no way. 22:30.21 mikebledsoe Um, yeah, ah, circle back. But the going back I wanted to finish on the incentives thing is is ah going back to the fear. The the media creating fear the incentive there is. The more fear they can create the more you're gonna consume their content and the more you consume their content the more you're gonna buy from their advertisers and their advertisers are going to send more money to the news agency and so you know. 23:03.11 Max Shank And the more you'll trust what they say if you if you just expose yourself to it more you will start to trust what they say more and more and more and more and more and that's why you have right now, People who blindly Trust one outlet and blindly distrust another is the classic. 23:07.31 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 23:11.54 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 23:22.71 Max Shank God and the devil situation. Blindly Trust whatever God says which is your favorite news outlet and blindly distrust whatever the devil says which is the fucking other guy. It's just it's us and them type of shit and you would think we would be past this but we're still just. Ah, half-retarded chimps looking for food and love. 23:47.78 mikebledsoe There's um I want to point out you said something really important is the it's the repetition creates beliefs. So if you if you were consuming that news outlet every day. It's the repetition of something that makes it believable. We talk about the there's there's ah, a handful of ways that you learn something and if you want to ingrain something as ah as a skill and I think about skills and beliefs the same exact way is. Every skill you want to get better at hitting baseballs. You're gonna fucking swing that baseball bat a lot of times if you want to believe that something is true. You'll go to church every Sunday that way you get that repetition and so that you ingrain it. Whether it be good or bad I'm not saying either 1 is good or bad. But this idea of good and evil ah playing out and saying yeah red team bad blue team good whatever it is. It is is really. Great to look at through the lens of centralization versus decentralization because in a in a centralized model of society you can create groups of people and just say that entire group over there is bad or that entire group over there is good because not only is the information. There's um, there's so little deviation from one narrative about who's good or bad There's no opportunity. It. Yeah, it just creates very few options. It's like you're either like good bad or independent and you're kind of a dick for not you know. Deciding you're good or bad or not and so the decentralization of good and evil requires and here's the thing is decentralization requires people to think and that's why a lot of people are are resistant to it because you have to think. And if you have to apply moral law in your own mind to each individual that you come in contact with then instead of just being able to label them and not have to be curious about them and think about them and listen to them. It's it's a form of laziness. And people are ah again going back to repetition. People are repetitively ignoring information they're being ignorant by choice and they've done it so much that they they don't even think there's a way to consider and. 26:31.91 mikebledsoe And make a moral judgment themselves on an individual instead of an entire group people because someone else did the thinking for them. 26:37.79 Max Shank Well, there's a reason that um, we do that is because trust saves calories. It's really valuable to be able to trust other people that way you're not assessing every person you interact with and go oh is this guy going to attack me and steal my. 26:44.70 mikebledsoe Yeah. 26:57.78 Max Shank Will the beast meet or whatever it is I'm guessing be different now but trust saves calories so it can be a very powerful tool and if you trust nobody man life is extremely hard and it feels very isolated So it's. 26:58.57 mikebledsoe Um, am. 27:11.81 mikebledsoe Yeah. 27:16.36 Max Shank No surprise that we want to trust somebody that we want to. It's all it's trust is pure efficiency it. It is like language faith Trust all this stuff if I can outsource my health to someone who knows better. 27:28.32 mikebledsoe 5 blame. 27:36.23 Max Shank And I can outsource my finances to someone who knows better and I'm saying legitimately. Also they legitimately know better that that's going to give me a much better outcome if I can trust a farmer who's much better at farming to make my food I'm going to end up. So. Crazy wealthy. It is like a superpower to have all of these different experts and that's the core of comparative advantage but you got to be careful who you put your faith into right? That's why I think um, The. The most flexible culture is one that is based on free choice because if trust is broken in one sector, there's another sector to soften that trauma basically. 28:29.20 mikebledsoe Yeah. 28:30.62 Max Shank You know what? I mean as long as there are multiple options for where you can go to school buy your food. Um that sort of thing. It's ah yeah, multiple places multiple doctors you can go to and of course everyone because of. 28:41.60 mikebledsoe Well that this is where. 28:49.60 Max Shank Power structures we want to go from survival up to supremacy. It's like survival sex and supremacy and sex and supremacy are so closely interrelated because that's how ladies choose the more ah exalted or elevated you are in the hierarchy the more. Ah, you are going to alert the sounds so weird alert The females to your viability genetically right? So you have to look at these. 29:19.30 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 29:25.00 Max Shank Raw instincts underneath all of this stuff so because there are people who are looking to dominate and protect their authority. They're also going to stomp out other alternatives and maybe even with good intentions. Do some? Ah arguably evil stuff the greater good just anytime you like hear or even feel that sense of the greater good. Oh My God that person. 29:49.30 mikebledsoe That's where book burning comes in hand comes in handy. 30:02.45 mikebledsoe Yeah, that's ah, that's a slippery one. Um, why the ah book burning I mean the modern day book burning is getting banned from Twitter or Youtube or whatever it is um. 30:02.86 Max Shank Come on get out of here. Good lord. 30:14.78 Max Shank Yeah, that's pretty wild. 30:19.42 mikebledsoe It's pretty fucking people people think are advocating for if they were actually burning books on the street they might freak out but they don't think they're not able to think and connect the dots that these the the way it's happening is the same thing or. 30:34.68 Max Shank Censorship is an admission of guilt we should. We should be able to have we should be able to have ah a Martin Luther King guy and a hitler guy have a nice debate with each other that would be interesting to watch and like. 30:36.97 mikebledsoe Um. 30:45.32 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 30:49.94 Max Shank What you have so little faith in humanity that everyone's going to go like you know what after that crazy guy yelled for a while I think I am going to go for ethnic cleansing now. It's like what come on. 30:58.35 mikebledsoe Yeah, oh man. Ah yeah, there's so much to talk about there. The I think that I want I Want to point out that decentral late decentralization is not isolation. It's quite the opposite and I think what's going to happen in the future is that. 31:20.88 Max Shank It's of specific aspects to it's not absolute decentralization because that that wouldn't be very efficient at all I think you're mostly talking about currency I think you're mostly talking about currency. 31:27.39 mikebledsoe Right? You can decentralized to right right? You're not, We're not decentralizing down to the individual all I'm talking about but no I'm talking about food I'm talking about energy all these things. Ah the the it's not. It's not well. 31:37.30 Max Shank In most cases right. 31:44.95 Max Shank Talk to me talk to me about him separately though. So I can understand better. 31:46.49 mikebledsoe I say this because what? ah my isis. Okay well I suspect that the media in the future. The mainstream media is gonna start trying to talk about deset people who are doing decentralized things forming decentralized communities. They're gonna be considered isolationist and. You know they're gonna try to you know, burn them. But ah, they're racist. Yeah,, they're already doing it. You're racist if you don't want to participate in this this narrative that we have going On. You must be a racist trumper and you can't be Trusted. We're gonna have to. 32:08.38 Max Shank They're racists. 32:22.50 mikebledsoe You know, hold some trials at some point down the road because of you. 32:26.69 Max Shank It's just ah, a new agey fancy way of saying you're the devil. We don't listen to that guy at all. It's it's an ad hommonym censorship I mean it's so obvious once you filter it down to the real meaning of what's going on and if you're not even willing to have a discussion. 32:32.29 mikebledsoe A. 32:43.53 Max Shank And sell somebody on an idea and you have to force an idea upon someone is it really that good of an idea I mean if you need to spend billions and billions of dollars marketing your drugs are they really like all that good. You know it has no marketing for it whatsoever. Cocaine. Ecstasy marijuana psilocybin guess what people do shitloads of with no marketing whatsoever. All those things so if something is really good. People will find out about it as long as they are free to communicate. 33:20.58 mikebledsoe Yeah, what? what were you wanting I agree what were you wanting me to explain separately. You only said right out. 33:20.92 Max Shank Freely with one another. 33:25.83 Max Shank Ah, okay, so decentralization of currency and banking. Let's say versus or alongside decentralization of other aspects. So let's say food. Education maybe even governance because that's ah, that's a tricky thing right? How do you? really How do you live in America without participating in America. 33:54.95 mikebledsoe But well governance is at the core of all decentralization. So That's the that is how are we going? What are we? What are we agreeing or how are we agreeing on the decisions we're going to make as a group. You know what are the rules that we're gonna abide by what are what are our values? um. 34:16.31 Max Shank We already have a perfect method for that. We have lobbyists who pay the politicians to decide what kind of laws they want to exercise over the people and then. Over time. The people have less and less authority over their lives. It's perfect system. 34:34.63 mikebledsoe Yeah, it works. Yeah, just shut up and go home. Don't don't go outside. Ah so the but let's talk about this so you want me to talk about currency and then talk about food as examples of this I think I think currency. 34:47.94 Max Shank Sure just just ah, make them separate. 34:54.25 mikebledsoe Which one should I start with the food might be make the most sense I think it's people can put their eyes on it and so decentralizing your food I'm involved in a project that is decentralizing food at this point and so um, there both. 35:07.69 Max Shank For yourself or for lots of people. 35:13.59 mikebledsoe So so this is what decentralization is it's about me my my objective is to create as much. Um, value for myself as possible and that is true value being ah my lifestyle. You know my my ability to critically think is valuable having a roof over my head is valuable the community I hang out with is valuable. The things that are of true value is I want to create as much value in my life. Ah as possible and. If I do that? Well enough I can then distribute some of that value outside of myself and so ah in a decentralized food network. For instance I'm gonna just give some hypotheticals because this is this is happening around. Awesome Texas right now. So some of it's hypothetical because it's in the. Plan and it hasn't completely been executed yet. But these things these are things that are in the process. So say that there's a twenty acre farm over here a sixty acre farm over here 200 over here five over here. Everybody has the ability to ah grow all sorts of stuff and. What you do is is you grow enough to where if you couldn't leave your own farm. You're good. You may not have all the shit you want. You're not going to get you know I don't I I have lamb but I don't have any beef and so and a decentralized model with food is we would then exchange. Locally with other farms now then it extends beyond that even fewer items might get exchanged between regions and we're also sharing information so we're farming in Texas someone else might be farming in Louisiana or California and we're exchanging. Not just goods and services but information as well instantly on what's working. What's not working and so in this yeah I mean we're not going to talk about economics as you know as a part of it but ah it. 37:12.33 Max Shank Um, so it's kind of like bartering. 37:24.27 mikebledsoe There's an so this is where I was thinking about timing money into it which is now I'm I'm like interlacing the 2 already which I didn't want to do but I was trying to stay away from that so the but I think that the the way that currency is going the decentralization decentralization of currency is making this possible. The other thing that's making this possible is daws decentralized autonomous organizations so you mentioned earlier that people need to exercise trust in order to save calories and so that's actually that's one of the big reasons that there's centralized power right now and dows actually help. Decentralized governance so daws are are basically governance models that are executed with smart contracts if this then that so right now if you and I go into a contract with each other and I say I'm gonna give you. Money for this service or whatever and then you don't do it and or or maybe you do it and I don't pay you. What's your recourse you then need to go to a court and then you need to so on and so forth. So as technology is advancing. We don't need a court to verify that something was completed or not there is there is a smart machine that is watching I mean depends on the service but but to make it easy to understand because this will extrapolate out to like farming. Um, if. You complete a project that we can track on your computer and you do it and you hit the complete button now. Automatically, the money is sent if I want to dispute it. There's really nothing I can do and that's possible because we're not using banks anymore and I'm not going to go dispute it and create a legal issue out of this. It just is and so. In the early days of dows which we're in There's going to be some stuff where people set up some rules and then they regret setting up those rules and then they're like oh we need to think this further out we didn't consider this and they're going to have to update things as they go along. It's going to become very sophisticated. And these rules aren't being drafted by lawyers lawyers are pretty much the people that are running and governing the world right now and like you were saying earlier. They use all sorts of tricky language. It doesn't make any sense to the layperson. It's very confusing and you can pretty much if you're a good lawyer. You could. And trap anybody in anything kind of like the Irs can basically you know if you follow all the rules as you see fit. You're probably going to be wrong or they could make you wrong if they really wanted to so in. 40:11.22 mikebledsoe With dow's decentralized autonomous organizations which are run on the blockchain trust becomes unnecessary. You don't have to trust what someone says it just is um so last you there a second. How long were you gone? Okay, not not long at all. Ah, so yeah, the doubt dows are beginning to They're not going to completely eradicate the necessity for trust, but the future we won't have operating agreements in the future. 00:04.83 Max Shank I'm back um, 3 seconds yeah 40:49.56 mikebledsoe It'll be your business will be a dow and. 00:26.10 Max Shank Well, it will still be an operating agreement. It'll just be executed by computer software. So it's software as a service basically which is responsible for a ton of efficiency. 40:59.79 mikebledsoe Yeah. 41:07.28 mikebledsoe Yeah, and with the blockchain software with Blockchain is basically recorded everywhere instantly and so you can't go fuck around with it and that's what makes it where it's it's like oh people are fallible. The legal system is prone to fuckery. But. 00:44.58 Max Shank Right. 41:27.20 mikebledsoe Over time. The dows are going to become more and more solid more and more useful and their use cases are going to expand and so um, what I see a future where the dows we talked about this. We have the farms. We talked about this like a year ago yeah and the. 01:15.78 Max Shank Um, yeah. 41:45.78 mikebledsoe The currency is decentralizing the same way if I buy if I buy bitcoin but I want ethereum or you have ethereum and we want to make an exchange I can quickly and easily convert my bitcoin to ethereum and then exchange with you and then I can take. You give me ethereum and I could exchange it over to bitcoin it was it used to be.. Yeah yeah, um, and so what I see is that people will join. They'll be using so particular currencies based on their values. 01:40.38 Max Shank Provided someone else wants what we're selling right. 42:23.50 mikebledsoe And if I want to exchange with somebody inside my value group. We all agree that we like to farm regeneratively and so on and so forth. Yeah let's just get on the same currency. We'll make it easy. Ah, each organization has their own dow each farm has its own dow that also can. Plug into another dao and so there there can become there can become hierarchy I think there will be really cool hierarchies that are designed with das and what's gonna happen is ah I'm gonna be making this food over here and you're making your food over there and or maybe. And then another guy has a solar farm down the road and he's delivering batteries to people who don't have space for solar so you know that's the decentralization of energy and so and all this is running on 1 cryptocurrency. That are multiple daalas plugged into a greater dao and if this happens then this happens someone is signaled. Oh this guy is low on energy that this guy delivers it and then there's ah the currency you can see the current start to work there and ah a current is always moving. And so the the system we're existing in right now it can take days for money to transfer. It's it's all these weird bureaucratic administrative steps that we got to go through in order for this or that to happen accountants. And bookkeepers those jobs those are jobs of the past. Those are not gonna be They're gonna they're gonna look very different or become unnecessary. They'll be It'll be more of like a reporting thing. Um, and so. 03:43.91 Max Shank The. 44:16.47 mikebledsoe Because what's going to happen is. 03:50.36 Max Shank It seems like you have more ah control over what's going on but it it seems a little bit less efficient because you don't have the same economies of scale. 44:27.75 mikebledsoe You're not going to have the same economies of scale. Ah and well and that's not that's not necessarily. Yeah, you're not going to accumulate. It's going to reduce the amount of of Deca billionaires. 04:05.67 Max Shank Um, it's kind of like um self-reliance. Well so I like to think in extremes. 04:17.76 Max Shank Well, it's just going to reduce your individual efficiency. So I like to reduce things to exaggerated Exc Extreme extremes. Ah for fun and for clarity and so I think of the ultimate decentralization like we've talked about is you run your own farm. 44:50.25 mikebledsoe Yeah. 04:37.51 Max Shank You run your own solar farm. You have ah a plot of land on a River all your own so you can make everything you need to make but the more you are relying on yourself. You have to have less. 45:23.13 mikebledsoe M. 04:56.34 Max Shank Um, sophistication and complexity right? if your computer breaks down and you don't know how to fix a computer you're screwed. So What's the solution is it to learn how to fix a computer in addition to being a farmer or is it to live without a computer which ah. Is probably good in some ways and in other ways it's it's far more difficult so you just have less efficiency and less overall power. Um, if you're reliant on a smaller group so you don't have the efficiency through economies of scale. 45:49.83 mikebledsoe Well, a lot of those things are. 45:56.68 mikebledsoe Well, and ah if you Google decentralized network. So the the idea of decentralization that that word was made you popular in the IT community so ah now I can install a network inside of my house. It's highly decentralized. 05:37.18 Max Shank The here. 46:15.82 mikebledsoe And everything just flows and I can be on one side of my house and I I get perfect connectivity and I don't have to hop from router to router and all that stuff so decentralized networks. Um, the way it works is 1 thing could go down and it doesn't impact everything else. 05:58.68 Max Shank The. 46:32.84 mikebledsoe But everything else can pick up the slack for that 1 thing that went down so in your in your case where you're talking about the farmer whose computer breaks or whatever. He's not isolated. There are still people who are going to specialize. There are people in his community that are specialists and computers down the road and then all he has to do is flash up the bat symbol. 06:06.92 Max Shank And. 46:52.27 mikebledsoe And says you know I have this issue and so that's something where like we're talking about different specializations there and so you. 06:27.30 Max Shank Right. 06:34.57 Max Shank But that's where we get our efficiency from is through that comparative advantage.. That's why the whole concept of money in the beginning was so damn Useful. Ah, some people say money is the root of all Evil I think it's probably more greed is ah the root of some. Evil stuff that happens but the advantage of money is if you are a baker and I'm a candlestick maker and I still want bread but you don't want any candlesticks I can still get bread. 47:30.49 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah, and so decentralization doesn't make that that makes that even more possible look. We've got billions of people on the planet. We don't need 1 manufacturer of 1 thing in order for it to be really good. There's there could be many many and. 07:20.15 Max Shank To and and I'm not advocating for that at all that there should be like 1 1 person who makes all the food. 47:49.72 mikebledsoe Yeah, so I'm not saying we should or shouldn't but a decentralization doesn't mean that what the the main thing the benefit of the decentralization that I see is in a centralized model. We have single points of failure so you know there's 3 just as ah, ah this isn't totally accurate, but there's there's in ah in a centralized model and a centralized model like let's just assume that there's very few Usda. 07:46.44 Max Shank Do you mean multiple points of failure in a decentralized model in a sense. Okay, got it. 48:28.52 mikebledsoe Butchering facilities. 1 guy gets covid in one facility and now it completely stops up all operations and it breaks down the entire supply chain to where the farmer has to start euthanizing pigs because and this is this actually happened yet. These farmers have to start euhanizing pigs because the cost of keeping them. Alive isn't worth it because they got to keep feeding them. Plus they got more pigs coming. They're being grown and when a pig gets a certain age. You don't want to eat that meat anyway. So like there's like this very specific. 08:18.48 Max Shank Right. 08:26.22 Max Shank Wild. 49:01.57 mikebledsoe Way of doing things and there's single points of failure in a centralized model and a decentralized model that one farmer could get I've gotten Covid and kind of fucked up. You know say he gets some some type of weird plague thing going on and and then and then the rest of it doesn't ah impact the entire. 08:47.12 Max Shank I Totally yeah I Totally understand that I think for like. 49:20.42 mikebledsoe Global community it impacts a very small person 1 person or very small group of people and the ability for these other ah because you're never disconnected in ah in a decentralized model. There's always interaction with the outside. It's just. 08:55.98 Max Shank Right. 49:39.60 mikebledsoe Just not centralized I might have instead of I always I only have a you know one way to get in that of my neighborhood I now have 20 and it take it may take me longer to get from point a to point b but I'll never get stuck in traffic. 09:32.44 Max Shank It's kind of like insurance. It costs you more money than not having insurance unless something happens yet. 50:02.92 mikebledsoe Setting it up is expensive. You know it's it's a time it takes time energy. Um I'm doing things with decentralized currencies decentralized food. Ah, ah, I'm talking my buddy Jesse about doing decentralized energy. He's working on that. Um, I think that's also important and so really focusing on on on getting all these things done is a huge investment of time energy money right now. But when something goes wrong. When there is when steaks are at $100 I want to go get a stak. It's me a hundred dollars because russia's not exporting the ingredients we need for fertilizer right now. Ah then I'm not going to have to pay a hundred bucks for my steak I I just go over to the farm and I pick up my food. Because I already contributed already made my thing I'm already I yeah we yeah we could we could eat steak exactly and so um, yeah, it's not cheap, but it is. 10:34.62 Max Shank Or maybe you start selling steak and you start eating something else. 10:47.40 Max Shank That's why I like thinking of it like insurance. Well it makes sense to me. Yeah well and you have to assign some probability of risk in your mind. 51:15.31 mikebledsoe It is valuable. It's ah it's a you have to think further out and ahead in the future than most people are willing to do. 11:00.65 Max Shank Like what is the probability that x will happen. What is the probability that y will happen and we talked about this in our in an earlier episode too. You have to ask yourself like what is the probability that I won't have access to food for three months six months one year and um. Everybody has a different perspective on that That's why thinking of this like insurance is helpful for me because in when times are good. It's going to be less efficient. But if there's some ah risky occurrence that happens. 52:04.34 mikebledsoe Yeah, if something terrible happens if something if supply chains get fucked up and all that then we're living like Kings right by comparison. But here's the thing but it is already happening. 11:39.10 Max Shank Then it's going to be well worth it. 11:44.90 Max Shank Right. 11:50.80 Max Shank But when it's not happening. You're not working as efficiently as you could and you're outlaying more capital to set it up. Well I mean. 52:24.30 mikebledsoe So Here's the thing is there's canaries in the coal mine and there's very few of there's very few of us that are picking up on it I've been picking up on it for a long time Decade I Read Omnivore's dilemma and you look at that and I and I look at what's happening with the farming and I go. Yeah, I'm willing to invest a lot of energy in a farming even if nothing ever happens to the supply chain stays exactly the same I Still want to do this because ah the food that we have access to right now is not very nutrient dense and it's not it. It's already Poor. So The thing if I'm going to invest in my health then I'm going to invest in the farm If things stay the same but we all know the experts all agree and this is widely agreed upon whether you're on the left right? Whatever is. Soil is being degraded. You know there's only what 50 or 60 crops left that can be farmed on the soil the way it's being done so that every day that goes by the average nutrient nutrient density of our food. Is going down. It's going down. It's going down so I look at that and I go look even if we don't have a huge fertilizer shortage which is going to lead to skyrocketing food prices and rights in the streets and all that even if that doesn't happen I Want to do this anyway. Ah, the idea that something like that might happen definitely has spurred a little more urgency around the matter because I've been thinking about this since 2011 and it's 2022 and I'm just now getting to it because before it there was no. 13:29.32 Max Shank Um. 54:14.50 mikebledsoe There was no potential danger like oh this is coming now. It's just a slow trip. You know we're frogs in the boiling water. You know, just. 13:56.70 Max Shank I think we should talk about food next week because what you're telling me now is a very different reason for decentralizing your food or ah taking more control over the lifecycle of your food and I think it's extremely valid. 54:39.40 mikebledsoe Well, that's the case with everything that's the case with energy. That's the same with currency. It's It's not like it's not like I'm buying bitcoin or other cryptos because the dollar might fail that might cause someone to like oh fuck I need to get some now. 14:15.94 Max Shank Because you. 54:57.45 mikebledsoe But the reality is is we've got we've had ah you know we came off the gold standard in the 70 s and the value of the dollar is slowly degraded. It's the same thing as the food. It's just slowly happening. We're just watching it. But it's so slow that you don't notice and you don't feel the sense of urgency to make change. And so I think that I don't think we need to cover food necessarily again, but your your view of it being insurance is is that's only part of the conversation of like the benefits of decentralization. Ah, because. 15:06.53 Max Shank The. 55:35.19 mikebledsoe Yeah, it's just I think it creates a healthier system. Overall. 15:14.32 Max Shank And maybe not as efficient but healthier. 55:44.20 mikebledsoe Um, I Well when you say efficient I I think I think it'll be more energy efficient Overall like right now we've got food being shipped from chile and. 15:24.99 Max Shank Energy in versus energy out. 56:03.38 mikebledsoe Steaks from Australia New Zealand and we're having it to make an impossible burger. You're having to get some ingredients from 20 different countries. That's highly centralized and inefficient. It's only efficient financially. It's not efficient. It's not efficient use of. 15:52.74 Max Shank Right. 56:22.19 mikebledsoe Oil. It's not the efficient use of people's time and huh. 15:59.82 Max Shank But it has to be Efficient. It has to be efficient use of all those things The idea is that the amount of energy to produce it locally including everything has to be more. Than it would be to import it from somewhere else unless there's like dirty dealings or something like that. But you know if you're a company you're going to try to maximize efficiency. 56:42.90 mikebledsoe And well well well part of it's cultural right? and part of it's cultural like it. It would be more energy efficient to get your food all locally. Um but the thing is is. You're not going to get people to farm because they expect to get more money almost everyone use 95% and now and now we got like yeah computer programmers in the city and and whatever fucking jobs are happening in the city going. Keep going back to computer programmers. 16:38.41 Max Shank Um, well almost everybody used to be farmers and but and and and poor. 57:20.94 mikebledsoe Only because you before the show. Ah, that's ah, that's pretty much it they like the most like the most useful people to me I Do you make shit. 16:55.57 Max Shank Um, in our in our in our community. There's only farmers and computer programmers. You can be a farmer or a computer programmer or get the fuck out. 57:40.17 mikebledsoe You make awesome software and can you feed me then I'll be your friend. 17:19.46 Max Shank That does cover a tremendous amount of bases. Actually you know plumber Electrician there are other things that are similar to but you need like a tech guy and a food guy. Basically. 57:48.40 mikebledsoe Yeah. 57:55.11 mikebledsoe Yeah, tech guy and a food guy is it right? because that's all technology. The plumbers are you know they're working with technology. You know. 17:38.60 Max Shank But I wouldn't trust a computer software guy to do my plumbing or the or the electrical well and that's what I mean you could figure out anything. It's ah it's so. 58:07.24 mikebledsoe No no could I figure it out. 17:57.48 Max Shank Amazing to be able to exercise the benefit of comparative advantage in a community whether that community is large or small. The reason for currency is so you don't have to rely on the barter system which necessitates that you have something the other guy wants. 58:41.37 mikebledsoe Yeah. 18:17.80 Max Shank And you want something of his so I definitely agree with you. The quality of food is questionable in a lot of places and inflation is a very sinister tax that is hidden and really. Fucks The bottom percentage of the population the worst. Ah by far. So ah, you know I try not to think in good and evil but that shit's pretty fucking evil. 59:03.23 mikebledsoe Totally, it's like the ah. Ah I saw was I saw a meme a few weeks ago that was like Biden saying we're not gonna tax the poor rolling in tax the rich and then they print off a shitload of money. It's like yeah a fucking snake. Um, but here's something we haven't talked about but. 19:01.42 Max Shank Um, yeah, it's yeah, inflation's not good. 59:30.78 mikebledsoe that I that I've begun to experience and I think we both kind of do this is neither one of us optimize for finances. We really value happiness and connection and. Like was it ah a year ago or more you took a lot of time off of Instagram you said? Yeah I'll make a little less money. Yeah I'll make a little less money but you know it's not worth my happiness. 19:31.66 Max Shank Yeah, like 2 years but if I hadn't prioritized but if I hadn't prioritized wealth before that I wouldn't have been in that position to do it either. 01:00:07.23 mikebledsoe Totally yeah you you thought I had Yeah, that's maybe to have I mean to have the same exact lifestyle you have then sure. But when I think about. 19:51.20 Max Shank If money is the goal then I think you're missing the point I think if freedom is the goal then money is a good tool for that. Just like exercise and language are good tools that can facilitate freedom. 01:00:30.71 mikebledsoe Well I think people people do get caught up on the money equals freedom piece and the truth is is that if I took away all your money could you still be free for sure. Yeah, but you it doesn't. 20:18.16 Max Shank Yeah, free to sleep in the gutter until I figured things out. No, you'd figure it out. Yeah you I would figure it out I will say this though. Ah because I don't want to sound like ah super asinine I mean the reality is. 01:00:49.30 mikebledsoe But not the same thing. Yeah freedom is freedom and money is money. 20:38.80 Max Shank Money won't solve all your problems but it will solve many of them instantly that a poor person might agonize over. Ah you won't necessarily be happier. What's that. 01:01:07.65 mikebledsoe totally totally I'm not saying I solve problems. Well they that they've they've done studies where more money this is I mean the studies over a decade old. So the numbers may seem a little small, especially with inflation. But they said that? Ah what they looked at was getting a pay raise making more money actually increased people's happiness up to $75000 after $75000 no change in happiness happiness didn't go up. But it it did actually tend to go down a little bit and so yeah, there's in seventy five Thousand ten fifteen years ago it's pretty much talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs is you have all those things you're experiencing some safe you probably can afford a home in a place where you feel. Ah, somewhat safe. You have a shelter you're able to eat food and whatever so 75 hours after that no more but I bring up the happiness thing because do we really need to. Keep on going down the path of ah, having more and more specialization advancing technology and innovation and all this stuff that is happening at at a very fast rate with the centralization of power and by the way it actually might advance more quickly in a decentralized model. If we look at open source software. That's ah, that's a good example of of ah of a decentralized system where there are a lot of people contributing separately and doing their own experiments but like I use an operating system on my phone that is. Much more secure and a lot more advanced than ah than Android you know it it utilizes android but this company that created the operating system I use. It's open source people are contributing to it from all over the world for free and then Android then later adopts it. And then everyone else gets it because it was the the advancements are being made in ah in a decentralized model but going back to the happiness piece is you know I could have a shitload of money I could be flying in private jets to my 5 different homes around the world and all that but also which. 22:57.26 Max Shank Ah. 01:03:41.20 mikebledsoe I Could still do in a decentralized model that type Lifestyle doesn't completely go away there. But if I say hey I'm gonna take a pay cut and I'm going to live more simply and I'm gonna spend more time on the farm and I'm gonna and I'm gonna do more varied Activities. So this past weekend I did a little bit of gardening I did some work on the house I did some home improvement stuff hung out with a friend of mine to do all of it and I felt incredibly happy and incredibly wealthy. Um in that space. But if I. 23:48.29 Max Shank Sounds like that's going to really interfere with your hustling and grinding though and you're giving 110 I I think it's good. You bring that up too because not only are people poisoned by the news but they're poisoned by. 01:04:22.21 mikebledsoe That's right. 24:08.26 Max Shank The false idols of culture in general. So people chase things that they are made to believe will bring them satisfaction and and then I'll be happy if I if I get blank then I'll be happy if I do blank then I'll be happy. And the reality is people are are different I know that's an outlandish thing to say people are different but we are and people have different wants and desires for a lot of different reasons. We have different upbringings and who's to say. That you're better off working at something you hate for 20 years so you can retire before you're 40 or doing something that you just purely enjoyed doing because you would do it anyway and making enough money but working until you're 80 years old ah, and there's not a right answer to that we want to especially the guru types and the leader types they want to say this is this is the way but it's like is it really the way like I don't know for you. Man. 01:05:44.31 mikebledsoe By the way max and I are coming out with a product. It's called the way. 25:25.74 Max Shank This is called this is the way do it or else. 01:05:53.49 mikebledsoe Ah I think you brought up an interesting thing is because a lot of what people desire is based on what they seen on media right? No one knew that they wanted that car or this or that and so I mean if we go far enough back and. 25:45.74 Max Shank It's all about sex people look. It's food and survival and then it's sex and sex is directly proportional to your position in the hierarchy and Ferrari's and glittery tits are the new currency. 01:06:26.63 mikebledsoe Yeah, totally now if we look at the influencer culture and so we go on Instagram and we look at ah, what's his name ty lopez and. 26:00.63 Max Shank For your position in the hierarchy. It's all this stuff is deeper than language. 26:09.98 Max Shank The. 01:06:41.83 mikebledsoe You know he's got the lamborghinis and the books and he's got this lifestyle thing going on all the glitzing lamb a lot of that was a lot of that was based off of hollywood so like people saw hollywood stars and people wanted to be like the the actctors and actresses back when you know television. And movie stars were the only influencers you know the I think you heard about that on that that podcast that we both listened to you talked about? Ah, there was only like 5 influencers in the world that that back in the 50 s or whatever it was or 60 s. And then yeah, yeah, like there's only a handful people that are known by millions or billions of people and now there's a shitload of people that are known by so many people and the influencers have become decentralized one. 26:54.66 Max Shank When we were talking about like Elvis I think right? Yeah right. 01:07:38.70 mikebledsoe We added channels to the television. You know we went from print media to video media audio video then it was internet Instagram Youtube and now there's there's more influencers than we can count and so that's decentralized so I think that. In the centralization of influencer culture. There was only a few ways to live your life. You saw their lifestyle on you know the lifestyles of the rich and famous and you go oh I want to have that mansion in that pool and all this but now like I talk to a lot of people that are my age and younger. And they look at that kind of stuff and they just kind of go hey and there's definitely ah, a lot of young people that are doing the glitz and glam and all that. But it's it's becoming less popular and it's actually made fun of a whole lot. It's the. They become comical means it's like yeah that is true, but everything's decentralizing. So now I you know I may follow some influencers that I like that that share my own values and so I think we're gonna see um where I think we're gonna see a lot healthier. Social environment with the decentralization of the influencers as well because I think where I think we've had to go through a point where everyone realizes oh I can be an influencer and they become extremely egotistical and it becomes it's not. 28:39.42 Max Shank Ah. 01:09:08.99 mikebledsoe It's such a weird thing and I I think that a lot of people got fucked up by that in the last decade but I think on the other side of that. It's growing pains on the other side of that everyone kind of goes. Oh yeah, everyone's connected to everybody and everybody's unique and I don't need to be like anybody else or. You know I want to I want to be a part of this crew over here I don't need to to try to kill myself to live up to some fake standard that I'm noticing over here. So I think that with with well with tech. Well but what one of the things that technology is really doing and ah. 29:11.38 Max Shank I Hope people are thinking that way that sounds awesome. 01:09:46.92 mikebledsoe Bitcoin's a good example of this is transparency is you can see all the transactions between all the wallets anytime you want and so the well I mean my only my email is tied to my my wallet. 29:24.13 Max Shank Yeah. 29:32.34 Max Shank Doesn't leave much for privacy though. But that's okay I guess. 01:10:05.97 mikebledsoe So you wouldn't really be able to figure out who I was if I didn't want to be found Um, ah and you guessed it. Ah so but um. 29:45.34 Max Shank Mike Underscore blood so at Gmail I wonder who this is. 29:53.82 Max Shank Who could this possibly be. 01:10:21.26 mikebledsoe The thing is is we've had an incredible level of transparency in our culture but it's been one-sided Only only intelligence agencies were allowed to have ultimate ah transparency you know there's anyone can go look at any my shit. 30:10.19 Max Shank M. 01:10:39.32 mikebledsoe I mean if they want to be in my computer and my phone right now they can do it and there's nothing I can do about it and they want to freeze my bank account they can freeze my bank account. They want to look at my books they can look at my but they can do whatever they want we already have it's ah I think it's a Peter Diamandas ah is like. 30:17.90 Max Shank Um, amazing wild gnarly. The power of the stick. 01:10:58.16 mikebledsoe Like the future is already here. It's just not widely distributed yet or maybe that's a occurs while and and the same thing happens with transparency transparent 100% pure transparency already exists. You're already being watched if they want to watch you. 30:36.70 Max Shank Yeah. 01:11:17.13 mikebledsoe They're already collecting the data the shit is there now it just needs to be widely distributed because the benefit of this massive transparency. That's coming is the transparency will start going both ways. So the. I think Snowden was one of these guys that that started this is people like oh I think we need more to have more transparency with the intelligence agencies. Let's see about that. Where's the money flowing. Well if they don't control the currency anymore we can start seeing where the money flows at a governmental level. Okay. Things all of a sudden become very unpopular when we can start seeing how money is flowing all over the world and it's not hidden or being mislabeled or whatever it is so it's it's one it's one of those things. It's kind of like. I really enjoy my privacy I'm gonna do my best to maintain it and I would rather live in a world where everything was 100% transparent than 100% ah than ah well I'd rather be in 100% private but we can't. We can't put pandawar back in the box right? and the yeah so it's like the the next best thing is for it to be a 2 wo-way street is that there's ultimate transparency. 32:09.89 Max Shank In a lot of ways That's true. 32:18.86 Max Shank I think that's an important thing to remember with everything that we're talking about is there is no ultimate final best solution except for except for live and let live and I don't mean final solution like final solution. Ah, that that phrase is not cool anymore after that 1 german guy. But just you you don't know ah hit Hitler. You remember that guy. 01:13:07.87 mikebledsoe I Don't know what you're talking about no fill me in how yeah I heard about him. 32:55.78 Max Shank Yeah, his final solution was to kill all the non Aryans now I never thought that was a good idea and fortunately a lot of other folks also did not think that was a good idea. But ah anyway, my point is. 01:13:23.71 mikebledsoe E. 01:13:35.80 mikebledsoe How does have to do with live and let live. 33:13.42 Max Shank There is not well what I'm saying is live and let live is a really good way to live but everything we're talking about. It's just searching for a marginally better way if you spend your whole life looking for the ultimate Best way to live. 01:13:50.53 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 33:32.47 Max Shank You probably won't spend your life living and doing things that bring you joy I mean I'm a very contemplative guy. Personally I find it really fun to just sit and think about things and sketch stuff down. 01:13:59.91 mikebledsoe Dude, it's gonna suck. 33:51.68 Max Shank That no other human will ever see because it's way too outrageous and I find I find that I find that super interesting. It's It's a fun game. Ah I also like to play tennis and dojujitsu and things like that where I'm not living in my head and I'm just in that flow state. 01:14:25.00 mikebledsoe Yeah. 34:11.38 Max Shank Um, but if you spend all time analyzing like am I living the best way possible am I living the most secure way possible. That's it's kind of like buying fire insurance. But then agonizing over whether or not your house is going to burn every single day. 01:14:53.14 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 34:30.79 Max Shank It's like checking the value of your home every day. It's like checking the value I mean it's just like ah it's ah, electing to give yourself some sort of schizophrenia. Basically it's It's not a really healthy way to live The reason we're talking about this stuff is. I Think to give you some sort of understanding of how things are and maybe how things are becoming and how to make yourself as free as possible as these things change. You know I. Have enjoyed this conversation so far a lot because I'm ah kind of an Assholeish Devil's advocate if I don't understand something I will just ask the most poignant autistic question Possible. So It's a lot of fun because I know that. 01:15:46.12 mikebledsoe Perfect. 35:26.63 Max Shank You won't take it personally and it's also a topic that I I really haven't been able to grasp very well. Um I understand how you can I don't know actually because um. 01:15:59.99 mikebledsoe You do you understand it better today. 35:46.31 Max Shank The the main thing I don't understand is what the staying power of different cryptocurrencies is I understand the value of ah autonomous contracts. Basically. 01:16:19.28 mikebledsoe I Got you. 01:16:27.29 mikebledsoe Oh. 36:05.10 Max Shank So like basically you have software and an escrow account like you know I lend you ah x amount of dollars you put y amount of dollars in an escrow account if you don't pay your payment I automatically draw on your thing that part makes sense. It's. Kind of like software as a service. what ah what I don't understand is how to value a cryptocurrency relative to another cryptocurrency or relative to the dollar. Um, but I also ah don't like the idea that. More can be printed any old time. So that's why so far I've focused on investing in companies that create a profit because it it doesn't really matter what currency they're dealing in. As long as there's more energy coming out than there is coming in and that's easier for me to understand whereas if you ask me how much f will be worth in two years I don't know if the answer is 20000 or or 0. 01:17:41.47 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 37:18.80 Max Shank Quite frankly and and I can't understand how someone would be able to know that. 01:17:46.24 mikebledsoe Man, there's um, there's a lot there I'm glad I'm glad that I'm glad you explained all that. So. Um, so the idea that that our entire lives from the earliest memory that we can before we understood value. We had made. We made something mean about money and for us american and probably people around the world I mean even if you're born in Mexico it's the dollar you know like the peso versus the dollar but our entire reality has formed around the dollar. So the dollar has behaved a very specific way. It's had its It's been consistent in our consciousness you know in different ways for different people. But I think that what we're gonna end up experiencing is it's a paradigm shift and so there's ah in in like all good paradigm shifts explaining. It is practically impossible. It's something that. I I think that for me. Ah what I've had to do is I've dug so much into all the different information I I look at how it works I've seen how it's behaved I look at the patterns and my I've loosened up my mind around the dollar being. The thing that everything else is compared against and it is um I mean I think we talked about this in the last year or 2 is like I've had a hard time going. Okay, we're not comparing things if we don't have a standard currency then man it's just going to be chaos. Really won't work. People are looking for stability. Um, so I think there's an opportunity for a paradigm shift around there being a single currency. Um, there's also people who were trying to There's a there's a gold backed cryptocurrency like ah you know a coin. Is an ounce isn't you know that's what it is it just is and when you when when you trade it there are your reserves of gold are somewhere and if you want it in your hand you can you know you could figure that out so there are things like that happening um a lot of people think and i. I tend to agree that bitcoin may end up being the like the reserve currency. Um, it's definitely a currency that now there's times that I believe that it won't be able to exchange in high volumes and that. 40:00.40 Max Shank Definitely maybe. 01:20:28.51 mikebledsoe It's expensive to trade and so only the wealthy will hold it so like like the classes of people will actually divide up based on part of it. It would would be like you know it's it's expensive to buy an Nft with ethereum compared to Mineero. For instance because the gas fees are higher so they basically train like ah like a transaction fee and so um, people will kind of like put themselves. They'll use currency that makes sense to them and they'll. 40:28.70 Max Shank A. 01:21:05.57 mikebledsoe Be a little bit of a hierarchy that starts there. Um, but I mean in the end the the law of economic like when the primary laws of economics with supply and demand is really how it's going to go is what's the supply of it and what's the demand of it and enough people agree to be using a particular currency. It's going to cause it to do that and. I think it's going to take some Ai technology for us to that's the paradigm shift is it more likely is it's there's going to be a machine that can compute at high enough speeds that just kind of says that this much bitcoin is worth this much. Ethereum is. This much monro and whatever you're holding and you want to make an exchange it. We're gonna we're gonna make it work and I know that there's companies that are already working on that. Um, and you know there's this really cool sign here in Austin because I'm in like. Crypto land here right? So it's well they just had the bitcoin conference last weekend I had a few friends there and other yeah. 41:38.32 Max Shank Here. It's even crazier in Miami and Florida yeah, don't get me wrong I love I love the idea of a decentralized currency that's based on demand and not based on. Ah. 01:22:22.79 mikebledsoe Right? Yeah I mean as long as the authorities control that as long as people put their faith in the authorities more than they do and people then we have problems but there's a sign in Austin. 41:58.29 Max Shank Blind faith in an Authority's ability to control their money printing and their grubby hands. 42:14.29 Max Shank Ideologically I'm like a hundred but percent bought in already with that idea. 01:22:43.79 mikebledsoe there's there's well There's this there's this one company that keeps on putting up signs in Austin they're black signs with white letters. It's always I I forget the name of the website but 1 is bitcoin bitcoin is a revolution. Ah. 42:28.22 Max Shank Bad marketing. 01:22:59.74 mikebledsoe Hiding in plain sight. There's another one that's ah ah bitcoin isn't and is not an investment. It's a vote and then um. 42:45.30 Max Shank Now that that part I understand because one of my strongest beliefs is that you vote with your dollars and you vote with your attention. Basically. 01:23:18.68 mikebledsoe Yeah, and then another sign is ah cryptocurrencies are ah is a rev cryptocurrencies something like that is a revolution disguised as a casino and so yeah. 43:09.64 Max Shank Ah, that's one. 01:23:37.48 mikebledsoe And so and and I think that all of those are clever and accurate. You know people are in there trading and getting in there and and they're excited about it's new technology. There's an opportunity to make shit tons of money if you want and not necessary. Well. 43:26.44 Max Shank As long as you're in there early. 01:23:56.13 mikebledsoe But earlier the better 100% about that. You know the best time to grow you know plant a tree was twenty years ago might as well hop in now and ah and and currencies is just one piece of this we have dows we have Nftts I've been learning a little more about Nftts recently. 43:31.63 Max Shank There. Okay. 01:24:15.91 mikebledsoe And well the Nft world is really you know what's getting a lot of the attention is the art but I can Nft my property and so now the the government so the the government ah holds the deed to the house right? They they. 43:50.97 Max Shank Oh god. 01:24:35.85 mikebledsoe Keep the the ledger and all that shit somewhere and they give me a copy of my deed and then ah but the Catholic Church used to do that and then the government took over that function because someone had to do it and they they have more power and now it's gonna become. Ah. It's because the deed and the recording of of assets is usually handled by the government if you buy a car they want your title if you own you know they give you your registration. They're going to handle the deed to your house I can nft my property. 44:41.96 Max Shank Right. 01:25:14.35 mikebledsoe And I can sell it to you and the smart contract says well when max sends this money here then this triggers that he gets this nft there and then it's recorded on the blockchain and it's inarguable and so the we just killed a ton of. Administrative load I mean it took me thirty days to close on my fucking house. It should take 1 and or maybe 5 you know you want to get your inspections and all that shit. But the majority of those. Yeah no shit. 45:15.22 Max Shank Um, well look otherwise what are what are those realtors going to do otherwise though come on what about the poor realtors Mike that's not cool. Dude if they could. 01:25:51.50 mikebledsoe Ah, ah, the realtors is oh the realtors are still be employed. No you think so I know I know I know a handful of realtors. They love their shit. They love putting people on homes. 45:32.10 Max Shank Do something else. They would be doing that I don't know I just like to make fun of realtors. No being a realtor is an amazing gig in terms of the ridiculous commission that you can get on a house it. It makes no sense whatsoever. Um. 01:26:10.46 mikebledsoe Oh yeah. 45:52.10 Max Shank But just to clarify I think the idea of voting with your dollars resonates with me the most and that's why I like to let markets decide instead of people that's that's why I don't like the way democracy works because. It's basically glorified mob rule right? If 51 % of us vote to rape the other forty nine then it's perfectly legal but voting with your dollars requires that both parties of every transaction gain a profit from it. And there's no coercion involved so in that regard I think vote with your dollars and then investing in a certain currency because you ah believe in it like you vote with your dollars by investing into this currency because you believe in it I think that's totally valid. Still don't know how to value it relative to other things. But I think just fundamentally and philosophically voting with your dollars and voting with your attention is maybe the best advice to give anyone because then you also won't get caught. 01:27:20.81 mikebledsoe Um, I think if you were to. 47:08.46 Max Shank And this idea where you think like oh this is a good Politician and this is a bad politician. It's like no forget about it vote with your dollars invest in yourself and invest your attention in things that you ah want to absorb because you will be absorbing them kind of like you said you follow. 01:27:40.24 mikebledsoe Um, yeah. 47:28.12 Max Shank Certain Gurus Um, the internet is a tool cell phone is a tool social media can be a tool or it can be a poison and whatever you're paying attention to you're gonna. Absorb that you're basically downloading information into your brain So be really mindful of how you're investing your dollars and attention. 01:28:15.49 mikebledsoe Yeah, and go check out. Um, if you one of the things that things started stopped being so mysterious when I went and read some white papers. You know, pick out a few different. Cryptocurrencies If if you want to look at something that is somewhat difficult to buy you have to jump through some hoops. Um, you know I would say Theta is something that's extremely useful that is that not only will your. 48:08.80 Max Shank And. 01:28:50.26 mikebledsoe You have an opportunity for the coins you hold to increase in value but will actually give you cash flow as well. The more that the service is used so the current all these currencies are tied to real business services. Most of them are actually um and so. Ah, theta being one of these is it's a video streaming service and they're getting companies like Youtube netflix a lot all these streaming services are getting on board. 48:57.10 Max Shank Is it like buying shares in that company basically but using the coins as an avenue to do that. 01:29:27.23 mikebledsoe Yeah, so you could do that or you could do ah you could also run a node which would then earn you fuel. Yeah kind of like a miner so you'd be contributing to the network with your own resources and there's there's. 49:11.32 Max Shank Like being a minor. Yeah. 01:29:46.35 mikebledsoe Yeah, there's ways to be involved and yeah, part of it is like owning stock like it's the future stock market you know Apple should have a coin. You know you want to. It's just just new rules. New rules are that same same game and which does change the game cause. 49:22.35 Max Shank F. 49:33.60 Max Shank Um, yeah. 01:30:04.78 mikebledsoe Game is pretty much defined by the rules. But. 49:40.44 Max Shank Well, you got me convinced I just invested my retirement into Nfts is that what I was supposed to do. 01:30:11.55 mikebledsoe I wouldn't take all of it and do that. But um I I did just I cashed out the last of my stocks last week I hold nothing but ah, the only thing I'm interested is crypto real estate and startups. So I. 49:50.71 Max Shank I can't help poking fun because I just don't understand well enough. Oh. 01:30:31.30 mikebledsoe I own stock I own stock in a few companies that are startups I don't not stock market. So I basically pulled my money out of the stock market 100% so I don't have a retirement fund anymore. Um, and because I mean the only benefit retirement funds is I mean there's a couple of benefits depending on which way have but like. 50:09.90 Max Shank E O E E. 50:22.73 Max Shank Taxes Primarily who. 01:30:50.59 mikebledsoe Taxes is the main thing and and there is a reduction if you're doing like a life insurance policy on you know how much loss you might endear. But the. 50:35.86 Max Shank Just a reminder to our listeners. This is not financial advice in any way. 01:31:04.33 mikebledsoe No, not none whatsoever. We're not financial experts we ah you know I just I have fun with my money. But yeah I've I've made I've invested. That's why I buy fun. 50:55.75 Max Shank That's why you buy funny money. 01:31:23.99 mikebledsoe But yeah I like startups in crypto the most and then you know real estate's the least sexy but I think the most important asset anyone could ever own. 51:10.72 Max Shank Yeah, you gotta live somewhere and there's built in scarcity just follow the 3 rules of real estate location, location location and someone's always gonna want to live there. 01:31:45.30 mikebledsoe True that true dot let's wrap this bad boy up and we we went hard today. The final thoughts max were you aggressive or was high aggressive or were we aggressive. 51:30.54 Max Shank Ah, it was aggressive. Um. No, the topic is um, very uncertain and because I don't understand it I feel like I just kept asking a lot of questions which is is cool. Ah, but I still. 01:32:08.19 mikebledsoe Um. 51:55.59 Max Shank You know there's a difference between understanding and explanation versus having conviction in the idea enough to bet and I think that's something um that you learn I mean life is a bunch of bets Poker is bets investing is making bets. 01:32:24.64 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 52:15.49 Max Shank And if you don't have the conviction to bet you really don't have any conviction at All. So The proof is in the pudding for you because clearly you are putting your money where your mouth is and that's why all these phrases have lasted the test of time right? So I think you got to vote with your dollars. You got to put your money where your mouth is and ideally you want to invest in things that you understand. So if you understand them. Ah just because I don't that that doesn't matter. 01:33:08.80 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah, and I think the the one of the thing when I think about you're talking about conviction and the word that I was thinking of was like oh maybe you know I think this is how I see it is groking it that is I ah. When I grok a topic is I surround it I look at it from as many angles as possible. There's a shitload of data collection going on tons of research and it's just question question question question and then when I grok something one day it occurs to me I go. 53:08.13 Max Shank Yeah. 01:33:46.63 mikebledsoe And this happened to me in 2017 it's like oh we want you to talk on a panel about decentralization I was like well I guess I'd better. Go learn about crypto so early Twenty seventeen before that when I caught a really big upswing I started researching it in a few months into researching and I go it hit me I got the. 53:26.54 Max Shank So. 01:34:04.78 mikebledsoe Hit that grot point where I go I get this as like oh this is the future I should buy some now but and I did and I ended up making like $30000 in less than a year from like ah. 53:40.54 Max Shank The. 01:34:23.53 mikebledsoe Mean I think I may put like four or $5000 in total and the. 54:02.91 Max Shank 6 x in a year is historically an incredible investment. 01:34:31.72 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah I couldn't get that anywhere else I'm like I'm looking around I'm like I didn't do that in my own business. 54:12.78 Max Shank Well, you could you could get it somewhere else, but it's just hard to know ahead of time. That's the thing there are lots of places you could get it Well I mean there are companies you can invest in that will do that. But it's just hard to know ahead of time. 01:34:43.40 mikebledsoe Um, you can get it at the casino. Yeah, but totally totally totally. So um, so yeah I I like to when when something piques my interest. 54:30.72 Max Shank Ah. 01:35:02.12 mikebledsoe I Like to just say I want to Grot this and that means that I can I can stabilize a perspective around this I don't actually need to know everything about it because I understand the the philosophy I Understand. The the big picture how it works and then as I learn more information and I just get more and more confirmation like oh I learned this small detail about this cryptocurrency. You know that validates how I understand crypto and I keep getting upgrades to that that understanding something comes in I go. Oh you know what I didn't even know that that was possible but in the thing is the I've collected a lot of evidence. Of course you know we're all subject to the particular activating system and so. 55:30.32 Max Shank Is that confirmation bias that you're talking about okay reticular activating system I learned so many new words when I talk with you new many new words and phrases. 01:35:58.00 mikebledsoe Yeah, kind of yeah so you buy a red car and now you see red cars everywhere. Um, yeah, a s.. Ah yeah, there's been yeah. 55:48.24 Max Shank I Think you hit something really good there though which was you're interested and if you're interested in some I mean look I've done pretty well for myself. But the reality is I was just more interested in the topic than almost anybody else. It's kind of like cheating it's like ah the idea of what's what's difficult. 01:36:25.75 mikebledsoe That's true. 01:36:33.72 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 56:08.10 Max Shank Well difficult is anything I don't want to do. But if I'm if I'm willing to happily spend hours and hour hours and hour hours a day learning ah about movement and exercise and psychology and copywriting then I'm going to. 01:36:53.94 mikebledsoe Yeah, that makes me think about ah is it not being fair people look at other people and go. They're so good at thing it's not fair. It's like you're just not as interested. What are you interested in. You need to go be unfair somewhere else. 56:27.25 Max Shank Completely dominate someone who is just trying to do that to earn a buck. It's not fair. So if you're interested follow that. 56:41.85 Max Shank Um, yeah, right? Yeah I when I'm playing games I like to I like to play games where the odds are stacked against me. But when I'm in real life. 01:37:11.83 mikebledsoe Or maybe they've just been out the thing you're interested in longer that could also be. 01:37:25.88 mikebledsoe Totally yeah I was talking to a regenerative farmer. He says ah just always trying to increase hammock time. But if I can make my garden grove I can make the farm work for me. 56:59.93 Max Shank I try to only play games where I have an unfair advantage because you you can You can do that. 01:37:45.70 mikebledsoe Where you know I think a lot of people think look at something like that and they think about all the hard work That's gonna have to go into It's like now you set it up and you hamicck time permaculture. You know certain farming methods are built that way. Alright, ah the only thing I've gotta say to wrap this bad boy up. 57:28.18 Max Shank E. 01:38:04.76 mikebledsoe Is invest your attention into things that are decentralizing and learn about it because I think this is my belief and so you can just if you want to adopt my beliefs which you know when people do good things happen. Ah. The I. 58:00.21 Max Shank You seem so down man I feel like I broke you what happened here. He's like I guess just ah, invest in things you like? ah. 01:38:30.10 mikebledsoe Ah I'm um'm um well I'm is well this is my way of like not trying to be overly influential is my way of like it's kind of it's my energetic way of going you know, take it or leave it but it is a good idea looking at what. 58:20.41 Max Shank Um, ah. 01:38:49.60 mikebledsoe What's happening in decentralization when it comes to food energy money and governance and when you look at all these things and you can understand them if you get in on you if you catch the wave that's coming then life's gonna be pretty good for you. You have opportunity to. For it to be pretty awesome if you resist it and you don't want to be a part of it and you just want to keep watching the news and you want to just and put as much money into the Ira as possible so that your company matches it doing the job you hate then. 58:43.83 Max Shank All right. 01:39:26.86 mikebledsoe You know I think I think life's gonna suck. But you know I'm just trying to convince you to do things from a perspective I'm holding. 59:12.40 Max Shank All right? Well I'm gonna go the exact opposite way I'm not goingnna be not going to be wishywashy about it at all I'm gonna say that if you go to http://macank.com/pass I have a new course coming out. 01:39:42.76 mikebledsoe Are a. 59:29.72 Max Shank Specifically for coaches. But Also if you want to be the best training partner possible been working on this for a couple years I think it's a real revolution in personal training and just movement coaching and communication in General. Ah. Limited space available http://macshank.com/pass.. It'll be more than worth money more than worth your time and if you are a fitness professional. It's a way better investment than anything Else. You could make. 01:40:27.75 mikebledsoe Yeah I heard that I heard that your program is like the it's basically the the decentralized training system. You know so definitely go check it out. Folks. Ah, one thing I do want to mention is I will be at paleo effects at the end of the month they have not run their event in 2 years and every year that I've been before it feels like a family reunion. It's just so sweet. So I'll be there I'll be speaking on stage I'll be on a couple of panels I got a booth there. We're gonna be hanging out. There's parties every night I highly recommend. Go to I got a link somewhere if you want it if you want me to make money off this thing shoot me a Dm and then I'll send you a link if you don't give a fuck about this and and you just want to buy your ticket then just go to http://paleofx.com and get a ticket and then I'll give you a high 5 either way. Later Max love you 01:01:00.49 Max Shank Love you bye.