Term Paper

Today's podcast is a letter I found going viral on twitter by Samantha Messing. Here is the letter:

https://medium.com/@samanthamessing/why-progressives-should-love-bitcoin-an-open-letter-to-senator-elizabeth-warren-176ab5cc9229

I enjoyed the letter and thought it deserved more exposure and to be read aloud. Text below. 

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Dear Senator Warren,

I am a fan. I think you are very smart, and you genuinely care about building a more equitable society.

But respectfully, when you talk about Bitcoin, you sound silly.

Bitcoin is not powered by a “shadowy faceless group of super coders.” It is not a “scam,” it is not “bogus private digital money,” it is not “highly opaque,” and it is not built to “assist criminals.”

Rather, Bitcoin is the most democratized form of money ever created. Nobody owns or controls Bitcoin, and everyone can take part.

Bitcoin is a monetary instrument that does not require trust in governments to not inflate away the value of money or trust in banks to stay solvent. Bitcoin was founded in 2008, amidst the global financial crisis, by a person or persons under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The creation of Bitcoin was a noble endeavor. Satoshi is among the richest people in the world, and yet, Satoshi’s Bitcoin remains untouched (and unspent). We know this because Bitcoin runs on an open source blockchain. Every transaction is recorded on a public, transparent, decentralized ledger.

Bitcoin adoption, as measured by the number of people who own Bitcoin, is growing faster than internet adoption. However, the commercialization of the internet was the ultimate insider’s game. Rich white men, venture capitalists, and favored institutional investors got in early. By contrast, since its birth, Bitcoin has been available to anyone with a cell phone.

Eleven years ago, the cryptocurrency market did not exist. Today, the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market exceeds $2 trillion. This incredible wealth creation has benefitted individuals, not institutions, particularly the unbanked and disenfranchised. It is a beautiful progressive story.

Your voters own Bitcoin. A recent Harris Poll survey found that 30 percent of Black and 27 percent of Hispanic investors in the United States own cryptocurrency, compared to 17 percent of white investors. The same survey found that most Black and Hispanic Americans consider Bitcoin’s decentralization to be a positive attribute. Is it any surprise that people who have been most oppressed by the state find appeal in a stateless money? Your voters are rejecting the legacy financial system because it fosters economic and racial injustice and perpetuates wealth inequality.

Throughout the globe, most people have suffered through currency collapses. As an example, Argentina, Brazil, China, Mexico, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, Indonesia, South Africa, and Lebanon have had one or more currency debasement cycles over the last four decades. Incompetent and corrupt monetary policies steal the fruits of people’s hard work, or “life energy.”

By contrast, Bitcoin has a fixed and pre-determined monetary policy. Trusting Bitcoin means trusting math, and billions of people are embracing Bitcoin for this very reason. Bitcoin represents a monetary life raft to the world’s inhabitants.

Nigeria offers a great case study of Bitcoin’s promise and utility. Political repression, currency controls, and rampant inflation have turned Nigerians into “minimum-wage slaves.” Because of hyperinflation, they must spend their paltry wages today or risk losing their purchasing power. Time preference is a luxury they do not have.

As the Nigerian naira plummets in value, Bitcoin has become a necessity. 32 percent of Nigerians own Bitcoin, the highest percentage in the world. Furthermore, remittances into Nigeria exceeded $17 billion in 2020, and a substantial proportion of this value is conveyed in Bitcoin. Lastly, Nigeria has one of the youngest populations in the world, and, on a globe basis, this progressive cohort increasingly embraces Bitcoin.

To quote NYDIG Executive Chairman Ross Stevens, “Bitcoin is hope.” It is hope for your voters. It is hope for people all over the world. Bitcoin’s decentralized, transparent, democratic network will inevitably replace the failed, corrupt partnership between governments and large banks.

Importantly, Bitcoin’s decentralization is not — as you say — a “fantastical narrative,” with miners and corporations flaunting “false moral superiority” when they are, like banks, “the true power brokers.” Senator, facts are a stubborn thing. Let me show you the folly of your words.

The Bitcoin Fork Wars of 2016–2017 bitterly divided the Bitcoin community into big blockers and small blockers. The former wanted to increase the block size to increase transaction throughput. The latter opposed the change as it would have made the Bitcoin network less decentralized. Corporate interests, including Coinbase, Digital Currency Group, Xapo, Bitgo, and the largest Bitcoin miners, joined forces to fight for larger blocks. The small blockers, a collective of “Mom and Pop” holders of Bitcoin, resisted this top-down change and defended the existing decentralization. A virtual civil war ensued. The people won. The establishment lost. Most importantly, progressive ideas prevailed.

Digital money is here. We have two choices. First, a technology-based money like the Chinese digital yuan where the state has absolute power, and citizens have zero privacy. A system, I might add, where hard-earned savings can be zapped out of bank accounts at the government’s whim. The second option is a decentralized stateless global currency — Bitcoin — where anyone with a cell phone is sovereign over their money. This option offers rules without rulers and financial freedom for all.

Like you, I am a progressive. I believe in smart regulation regarding investor protection, anti-money laundering, and tax collection. Let’s regulate Bitcoin through the prism of wanting it to succeed.

Sadly, your misguided position on Bitcoin hurts the people you tirelessly fight for. I am comforted by the fact that you cannot stop Bitcoin’s rise. However, you might be able to slow adoption. If you succeed, who benefits? I will tell you. The winners will be the biggest banks in the world. They are terrified of Bitcoin as evidenced by Jamie Dimon’s recent annual shareholder letter. Senator Warren — do you really want to do Mr. Dimon’s bidding…because you sounded like a J.P. Morgan lobbyist at the recent Senate Banking Committee hearing.

I love Bitcoin. If you truly understood Bitcoin, you would love it too. To that end, I have attached a recommended syllabus of insightful Bitcoin content.

Bitcoin offers equal access which will inevitably foster more equal outcomes. Bitcoin will make the world a better place. What’s more progressive than that?

All the best,

Samantha Messing

B.A. with Honors, Political Science, Brown University ’21, Member of the Brown Women’s Varsity Soccer Team, Recipient of the Alan Zuckerman Award for “Build It, and She Will Soar: Title IX and Athletics as a Road to Social Equity”

Syllabus

The Bullish Case for Bitcoin

https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-6ecc8bdecc1

Stone Ridge 2020 Shareholder Letter

https://www.microstrategy.com/en/bitcoin/documents/stone-ridge-2020-shareholder-letter

Seetee Annual Shareholder Letter

https://www.seetee.io/static/shareholder_letter-6ae7e85717c28831bf1c0eca1d632722.pdf

Inventing Bitcoin by Yan Pritzker

https://www.amazon.com/Inventing-Bitcoin-Technology-Decentralized-Explained-ebook/dp/B07MWXRWNB

Michael Saylor Keynote — MIT Bitcoin Expo 2021: The New Normal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s-A_TK8gNk

A Mind Blowin’ | Ross Stevens & Michael Saylor Discuss Bitcoin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA_fI-wUqnw

The Blocksize War by Jonathon Bier

https://www.amazon.com/Blocksize-War-controls-Bitcoins-protocol/dp/B08YQMC2WM

Spreadsheet link

Today I discussed food prep for COVID-19 with Katie Barbaro. Katie is a cartoonist, comedian, occupational therapist and overall wonderful human being living in New York City. Since the Coronavirus has really started to ravage the city, I have been contacting all of my friends in the city and going over how much food they should have in their apartments so they don't have to rely on going out to the supermarket during the upcoming scary days. It's a surprising amount. I create a spreadsheet with Katie and we do the math on how many calories she and her roommate will need to survive for 90 days. Each of them are budgeting to eat 1,500 calories a day, so 3,000 combined. 90 X 3,000 = 270,000 calories. Each pound of dried food is roughly 1,560 calories, and each gallon of cooking oil is 25,000 calories, so we ended up settling on her buying an extra 50 lbs of lentils and 5 gallons of oil to supplement what she had. Many online outlets of bulk foods are already sold out, and most stores as well, but rainydayfoods.com still has some and is a good resource, for now. As always, email [email protected] with your questions, and enjoy the show.  

'I said that although hanging Colby was almost certainly against the law, we had a perfect moral right to do so because he was our friend, belonged to us in various important senses, and he had after all gone too far.' 

Today I'm reading one of my favorite short stories by Donald Barthelme: Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby. 

A book of his short stories, with this one included, can be found on Amazon here:

https://amzn.to/2G92Z4R

Today I'm posting a conversation I had with Katie Barbaro, the host of the podcast Showing Up Messy. Katie is a standup comedian, life coach, a cartoonist, and an all-around great human being. 

Her podcast, cartoons and blog can be found here:

https://www.showingupmessy.com/

Today on the podcast I have Tommy Lukrich, who is working on an amazing project in Chicago called Monologues For The Homeless. As of this recording Tommy has taken three people under his wing and is doing everything he can to help them eventually find stable homes, jobs and the security they desire. In the meantime he is helping them with their basic needs through a tough winter in Chicago. Tommy is a trained actor and is raising money for this project by performing monologues on the streets of Chicago, and he also accepts donations on his GoFundMe page:

http://bit.ly/2PFCYzt

Tommy regularly updates his donors with videos that explain exactly where their money is going, and the various twists and turns of navigating the social services on behalf of the people he is helping in Chicago. 

They are also published to his youtube page:

https://youtu.be/4zhwWFZ_DGo

On the show we discuss the project in depth and where it could lead with more resources and manpower. 

Poem: Unknown author, https://turningthepage.info/if-you-put-your-nose-to-the-grindstone-rough/

Book, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance: https://amzn.to/2ZTgixC

Atlantic Article, Why Local Money Matters, the Middletown Story: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/09/why-local-money-matters-the-middletown-story/279443/

Music Recommendation, The Earth is Not A Cold Dead by Explosions in the Sky: https://explosionsinthesky.bandcamp.com/album/the-earth-is-not-a-cold-dead-place

In this episode of Philip's Podcast, we take a deep dive into "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. The book is about Resistance, and how to overcome it. What is Resistance? From the book:

"Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. It's a repelling force. It's negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work." 

"The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel towards pursuing it."

"Resistance outwits the amateur with the oldest trick in the book: It uses his own enthusiasm against him. Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious timetable for its completion. It knows we can't sustain that level of intensity. We will hit the wall. We will crash. The professional steels himself at the start of a project, reminding himself it is the Iditarod, not the sixty-yard dash. He conserves his energy. He prepares his mind for the long haul. He sustains himself with the knowledge that if he can just keep those huskies mushing, sooner or later the sled will pull in to Nome." 

The book can be found on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/30nTREE 

The poem at the top of the show is [love is more thicker than forget] by ee cummings. 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/22224/love-is-more-thicker-than-forget

First episode of Philip's Podcast. Recommended that you skip this one, but if you insist, here are the relevant links:

Poem: http://bit.ly/philip001a

Pocket, article-saving app: http://bit.ly/philipspodcast001b 

Collaborative Fund Article: http://bit.ly/philipspodcast001c 

NLP Coaching Cards: https://saladseminars.com/index.php/portfolio/nlp-coaching-cards