"Today historians focus on the symptoms of Rome’s fall, the consequences: The moral decay, the economic decline, the fall in public safety, the multiplying plagues from dysfunctional public services, the hollowed-out military that ultimately invited barbarian invasions. But we know these well - in fact we're living through many of them. What's a lot more interesting is the why. Because that's how you stop it." — Peter St. Onge


Are we living through the Fall of Rome? There are so many parallels with the United States empire today and the Roman Empire of so long ago that its hard to ignore. It's difficult to not think we will see the same fate when we experience so many of the same symptoms, with all of the same underlying causes. But do we have a way out? Is there an alternative? Peter breaks it down for us in another great piece, don't miss it.


Check out the original article and Peter's amazing newsletter at: Are we Living the Fall of Rome? - Peter St Onge, Ph.D. 
Check out the other great episodes and resources discussed in the commentary:
Chat\_81 - An Austrian View of US Collapse with Peter St. Onge - Bitcoin Audible | Podcast on Spotify 
Read\_602 - Bitcoin's Peaceful Revolution, A New Hope for Humanity [Peter St Onge - Bitcoin Audible | Podcast on Spotify 


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Read_768 - Living Through the Fall of Rome

The Best in Bitcoin made Audible.
Guy Swann makes the knowledge of Bitcoin, the world's most secure, independent money, accessible to everyone. Exploring Bitcoin from an investment perspective, economic analysis, its philosophical foundations, &amp; technological primitives. Reading and distilling thousands of hours of others' works on Bitcoin, Guy explains everything you need to know.

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"The U.S. Government spends in a budgetary deficit, then issues treasuries to pay for the spending, then, at a bigger rate than anybody else, buys the treasuries to cover the loss. An unbelievable Ponzi scheme. The U.S. Government is the director of the Ponzi scheme, the old investor, and the new investor. A true masterclass."
~ Cole Walmsley


Today we tackle the intricacies of fiscal irresponsibility through a Twitter thread by Cole Walmsley. As the U.S. government’s deficit spending spirals into what can only be accurately described as a “masterclass Ponzi scheme,” listeners are beckoned to question: How long can this last? With the state of national debt, the illusion of monetary stability, and the inevitable downfall of fiat currencies, are we witnessing the death throes of the dollar, and can a new monetary system rise from the chaos?


Check out Cole Walmsley's tweet. (Link: https://tinyurl.com/4saj8hsd)


Guest Links

 Cole Walmsley on X (Link: https://twitter.com/Cole_Walmsley)



Host Links

 Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
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  Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
  Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
  ⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
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"The whole government is a Ponzi scheme."
~ Bernard Madoff

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Read_821 - The Most Important Thing You'll Read This Year

"I'm pretty blackpilled on politics, but I'm definitely optimistic still because I think that there will be a lot of freedom technology that just allows you to opt out or that just allows you to not comply in a way that allows you to get away with it. I think that's the way to go. Freedom technology is the is definitely the way to go." ~ Travis West


Today we dive into an amazing chat around the complexities and shifts in law enforcement in a world with Bitcoin, as well as breaking down the nuances and difficulties in both the defense and prosecution of the Samourai Wallet case. Travis, previously a detective who found his speciality in cybercrime and fraud, requiring extensive knowledge and interaction with Bitcoin and blockchain analytics, presents a unique insight into how things may develop moving forward and where we should be wary to defend our privacy and independence. Don't miss this incredible discussion!


Check out the Nostr Thread that Inspired this Chat
Post #1 (Link: https://tinyurl.com/2jzfadtr)
Post #2 (Link: https://tinyurl.com/54b89bme)


Guest Links

 Travis West on Nostr (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3em5u5t2)
 Travis West Website (Link: https://west.report/)



Host Links

  Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
  Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
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  Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
  Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
  ⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
  The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)



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Chat_100 - Privacy is a Crime with Travis West

"We've been working in the peer-to-peer space for a long time, also me and David and most of the core team, and we've been dabbling and in unstoppable protocols and crazy distributed systems infrastructure for quite a bit. And we made this decision a couple years ago to take all this technology we've built that's pretty complex and does some crazy stuff, package it up, open source make it simple to use, and then just unlock people to build really powerful apps on top of it." ~Mafintosh


In our inaugural episode of The Pear Report, it only felt right to bring Mafintosh and dmc onto the show to explore the transformative potential of the Pear Stack and how it can reshape our digital interactions and the foundational layers of the internet! Delve into discussions on the role of the Pear Stack in enabling more decentralized, secure, and user-empowered digital environments. Do not sleep on what is happening, find out why in our first episode, "The Second Coming of the P2P Web".


Links to check out

 Keet.io (Link: Keet.io) 
 Pears.com (Link: Pears.com)
  Pear Portal Keet Room (Link: https://tinyurl.com/y4t2njan)
  Keet.io (Link: Keet.io) 
  holepunch.to (Link: holepunch.to) 



Guest Links

  Mathias Buus on X (Link: https://twitter.com/mafintosh)
  dmc on X (Link: https://twitter.com/davidmarkclem)
  Keet by Mathias Buus (Link: https://twitter.com/keet_io)
  Mathias Buus Website (Link: holepunch.to)



Host Links

  Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
  Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
  Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann/)
  Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
  Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
  ⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
  ⁠The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet⁠ (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)



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TPR_01 - Return of the P2P Web

"We have the fork wars, we have a culture that understands the importance of nodes and widespread enforcement of a protocol and its rules. Unlike shitcoins, which couldn't care less about it... So this node orientation in Bitcoin is is critical to it not being a shitcoin. So spam has come in and they start trashing the blockchain and exploding the UTXO set and making every block almost four megabytes, which was supposed to be a theoretical maximum we were never actually supposed to see because no one thought we would just fill it up with witness data... This is a ridiculous guys. It's an attack. They've stated it as an attack when they came out and just went "I want to bloat the UTXO set because it's the worst thing you can do in Bitcoin"."
~ Bitcoin Mechanic


In this episode, I talk with Bitcoin Mechanic about the current state of Bitcoin, focusing on the regulatory environment, the vital role of self-custody, and the challenges facing privacy and autonomy in the digital age. We delve into the complexities of maintaining operational security in the face of increasing regulatory oversight, and consider in what ways we can balance the needs of miners with those of everyday users and node runners to maintain a healthy network ecosystem.


Guest Links

 Bitcoin Mechanic on X (Link: https://twitter.com/GrassFedBitcoin)
 Bitcoin Mechanic on Youtube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@bitcoinmechanic)
  Ocean Mining (Link: https://ocean.xyz/)



Host Links

  Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
  Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
  Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann/)
  Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
  Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
  ⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)



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Chat_099 - Failure, Hope and the Purpose of Bitcoin with Bitcoin Mechanic

"This is a fancy way of saying that you need money to make markets, and you need decentralized, open, digital money to make decentralized, open, digital markets. Furthermore, higher layers require lower layers to exist, but lower layers benefit from the value created at higher layers. However valuable layer one Bitcoin can be as a new global money, it can become significantly more valuable if we recognize it as a crucial technical building block to building markets with the potential to disrupt many other human networks."
~ Dhruv Bansal, Ryan Gentry & Allen Farrington


How can we think differently about what is actually occurring at the base layer of Bitcoin and what it enables, to extend it to the more tangible and understood problems of internet centralization, abusive platforms, censorship, and so many other prevalent problems in our networks today? If we can break each of these problems down into their smallest, and simplest parts, and one-by-one solve each of those problems, can we begin to actually solve the broader concerns of permission-less communication, scalable decentralized payments, service provision, and global openly accessible networks of all kinds? Can we re-decentralize the internet, with Bitcoin? Find out in a fantastic new piece from the crew at AxiomBTC and written by the incredible set of authors, Dhruv Bansal, Ryan Gentry, and Allen Farrington. You'd be a fool to skip this episode.


Check out the original article at The Bitcoin Stack. (Link: https://tinyurl.com/582zh742)


Guest Links

 Dhruv Bansal, on X (Link: https://twitter.com/dhruvbansal)
 Ryan Gentry⁠  on X(Link: https://twitter.com/RyanTheGentry)
   Allen Farrington⁠ on X (Link: https://twitter.com/allenf312)



Host Links

  Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
  Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
  Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann/)
  Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
  Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
  ⁠Bitcoin Audible on X⁠ (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)



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“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. To the naive mind that can conceive of order only as the product of deliberate arrangement, it may seem absurd that in complex conditions order, and adaptation to the unknown, can be achieved more effectively by decentralizing decisions and that a division of authority will actually extend the possibility of overall order. Yet that decentralization actually leads to more information being taken into account.”  
~  Friedrich Hayek

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Read_768 - Living Through the Fall of Rome

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