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Saifedean Ammous published The Bitcoin Standard in 2018 and it remains one of the most essential books in understanding the affects Bitcoin will have on the world.  He discusses what money is, identifies fundamental properties that separate good money from bad money, and correlates the rise and fall of civilizations both small and great with the soundness of their money.  His history of money begins with the most primitive societies which used stones, glass beads, and sea shells, and continues to the advancement and utilization of precious metals as money, and finally to our current age of fiat currencies.  The Bitcoin Standard gives a better understanding of economics than can be found in most modern high-level education programs today.

Our 2 hour discussion of this book is broken down into two parts, look for Episode 28: The Bitcoin Standard (Part 2) next Sunday, 13 March at 10:00AM EST.

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Are Russians at war with Ukrainians, or is the Russian government at war with the Ukrainian government?  Is Putin evil, or is he simply playing the game of international politics better than his opponents?

In this episode, we discuss the implications of Russia's invasion of Ukraine as well as all the entities that benefit from the invasion (governments, the military industrial complex, oil companies, banks, media, and even trump).

Meanwhile, governments wage war against each other at the expense of the citizens who created them.

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Our most practical metric for determining something's value is money.  However, there are two issues with this.  First, if people are not willing to pay for something, does that mean it is worthless?  Van Gogh only sold one painting in his life--he sold it for 400 francs, 7 months before his death.  Now, Van Gogh paintings are worth tens of millions of dollars.  Second, if the measuring stick (our fiat money) is constantly changing in size (increasing in supply and manipulated by the government) how can we accurately measure the value of anything?  We discuss these issues as well as better ways to accurately assess value in Episode 25: True Value

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A low time preference emphasizes a gain in the long term, or a delayed gratification.  A high time preference emphasizes a gain in the present, often reflected in today's YOLO type ideology.  This episode explores which time preference today's economic system incentivizes, the benefits of each, and whether you can have too extreme of a preference in either direction.

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True Names by Vernor Vinge explores a cyberpunk future where computer coding is abstracted to a point where what matters most is your ability to solve problems and understand the purpose of different tools.  Even though computers are a relatively new invention, the abstraction Vernor Vinge describes in his book is already taking place.  We can write programs to run on a computer without understanding the underlying machine language.  We can use a word processor to type an essay without understanding the program language used to create the word processor.

We discuss the plot of True Names as well as some of the incredible insights provided by a book written in 1981 which hold true to this day.

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Why is everyone racing to escape the dollar?  The S&P500 increased 27% in 2021.  Real estate increased 19% in 2021.  Is this a reflection of an actual increase in value of these two assets?  More likely, these increases in value are reflections of the worthlessness of the U.S. dollar.

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Man created government to serve his purpose.  Over time, the relationship flips, and men serve their governments.   At what point does the government lose its utility?  As technology continues to advance, so does the power of the individual.  When individuals are empowered to defend themselves more efficiently and more effectively than the government, what purpose does the government serve?  This episode explores how  the incentive structure in a crypto-anarchic world is far superior to living under a "democratic" government that enslaves its citizens.

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What is Mass Formation Psychosis?  And why was it getting memory-holed from the internet?  Maybe more importantly, is everyone parroting "Mass Formation Psychosis" also under the effect of Mass Formation Psychosis?

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What happens to a Silverback Gorilla when he is stripped of his purpose?  In the zoo, the Silverback Gorilla is not needed to protect and lead the troop--his position changes from the most valuable member of a troop to the most unnecessary member.  What happens to man when he is stripped of his purpose? And what does this have to do with Bitcoin?  Listen to find out.

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Do we have free will? And if not, how can we have individual responsibility?