0:00

Hey everyone . This podcast episode is coming out

0:02

on August 8th 2023

0:04

, aka the official publishing

0:06

date for my book Blockchain Radicals how

0:09

capitalism ruined crypto and how to fix

0:11

it . What you're about to listen to is a recording

0:13

of the book launch events in New York City , which took

0:15

place July 23rd at the MetaLabel

0:17

office . As you'll hopefully hear , it

0:19

was a fun event and was hosted by David

0:22

Z Morris , the Chief Insights columnist

0:24

at Coindesk . I first give a

0:26

short presentation about the structure of the book and

0:28

then he interviews me and facilitates a Q&A

0:30

with the audience . Afterwards was a

0:32

book signing and hangout with food and drinks

0:35

. In the show notes , be sure

0:37

to check out the link tree , where I've listed out several different

0:39

places where you can order the book in different countries and

0:41

regions , so be sure to check it out if you

0:43

haven't ordered a copy yet . I

0:45

will also be continuing my book tour , as I'll be

0:47

in Dallas , texas , august 10th

0:49

, at HOOSE books at 7pm , as

0:52

well as MetaFest in Pula , croatia

0:54

, the Crypto Commons gathering in Austria

0:56

and in Berlin in mid-September

0:58

selling and signing books if you happen

1:00

to be going to any of those places and

1:03

as well . I'd like to give a very big thank you to everyone

1:05

who supported me over the past years financially

1:07

, via Patreon or the TBS

1:10

subscription NFT , who , without I

1:12

, would not have been able to get this far . No

1:14

doubt there's still a lot more I'm

1:16

wanting to do related to the book , so be on the lookout

1:19

for that through the newsletter , crypto Laugh

1:21

, this Discord community and the other usual places

1:23

where you can keep up with me . Alright , and

1:25

with that , I hope you enjoy the recording from the book launch

1:27

event .

1:43

It's that the business press is the only place

1:45

that you will actually be told the truth , and

1:47

I will tell you that's mostly true

1:49

and I

1:51

also , because it might be of interest to you all . I have

1:53

a PhD that I learned a few years ago

1:55

in the history of technology , which is kind

1:57

of what led me to blockchain , and

2:00

it is my privilege tonight to introduce

2:02

Josh DeVila , author of the new

2:04

book Blockchain Radicals , and he'll tell you the subtitle

2:06

, because I forgot to write that part down . Josh

2:09

is a technology theorist and writer who

2:11

, much like the book that he's written , bridges

2:14

a series of contradictions . He has

2:16

been active in left-wing politics

2:18

and political theory . He

2:21

also has , for a few years now , been

2:23

a consultant on blockchain

2:25

technology applications to businesses

2:28

in Europe . I will leave it to him

2:30

to reconcile the two wolves inside

2:32

of him , but what's most

2:34

important about Josh is that for quite a few years now , he's

2:36

been building a community of leftists and progressives

2:38

I use that word cautiously who

2:41

also happen to be interested in cryptocurrency

2:43

, on blockchain . He first tweeted pseudonymously

2:46

as the blockchain socialist , probably about

2:48

two , three years ago , and

2:51

has now come out of the shadows to publish

2:53

this book with repeater . Josh

2:55

is here with a preview of the book or a presentation

2:58

from the book . That will be about 15

3:00

or 20 minutes . Then he and I will have one-on-one

3:03

conversation for 20 or 30 minutes

3:05

and then we'll reserve the balance of

3:07

time . So plenty of time for questions

3:09

from the audience , perhaps an informal

3:11

discussion . Obviously pretty

3:14

small event , so we'll keep things loose , but

3:16

everybody , please welcome Josh DeVila to

3:18

Medallia . Thank you , thank

3:20

you .

3:21

Hi , I'm Josh . I

3:26

wrote a book called Blockchain Radicals how Capitalism

3:29

Ruin Crypto and how to Fix it . It

3:31

came out of sort of the , I

3:34

guess , synthesizing a lot of the work that

3:36

I've been doing over the past three years with the blog and podcast

3:38

, kind of like exploring these spaces

3:40

and niches and research that people

3:42

were doing that I felt like was not getting much

3:44

attention to and , more

3:47

specifically , usually having related to do some sort of

3:49

more left-leaning or

3:51

progressive kind of view of the use

3:53

of technology . So

3:55

about me , in case you need anything

3:57

more , my name is Josh . I wrote , or

4:00

I have been working in blockchain for about five years

4:02

. I started the blog podcast around three years ago

4:04

. I have a project called Breadchain Cooperative

4:06

that I've been working on for a while as well , to kind

4:08

of synthesize and put into practice a lot

4:10

of the things that I've been learning and experimenting

4:13

with . I'm also filming

4:15

a documentary on crypto . That's taking a little bit longer

4:17

than I thought it would take . And

4:21

, yeah , I've been most recently , I

4:23

guess , on the podcast focusing on giving

4:25

critique on the network state , a book by

4:28

Bellagie , who's a tech VC , think boy

4:30

. And

4:32

, yeah , and that's like the logo that I've been using on social

4:34

media and such for a while . So

4:40

what I want to do with this presentation is just kind of give you a taste

4:42

of kind of the overarching framework and

4:45

structure of the book . And

4:48

so when I was asked to write the book , I kind of didn't

4:52

. I wasn't like given a thing to write

4:54

about . They're like , yeah , I'll just write something , like I'll write

4:56

the left and like blockchain stuff , like write a little pamphlet

4:58

or something . But it ended up becoming kind of

5:00

like a bit more of that . And that was

5:02

after I kind of made this connection with

5:04

the work of Gilles Deleuze , who's

5:07

a French post-Marxist thinker and

5:10

the sort of thing that he's really well known for is

5:12

, or one of the things , besides being very difficult

5:14

to read , is what's called the critique of

5:16

representational thinking . So what

5:19

he says is that oftentimes , in order to understand

5:21

new things , we use models of the old

5:23

and sort of impose on it in

5:25

order to try and think about

5:27

how it can work and like to make predictions

5:29

about it and such . And he's saying this is

5:31

wrong and bad and we shouldn't be thinking this way , people

5:34

of . This would be something like the drum

5:36

machine I like to use . So the drum machine was

5:39

a piece of technology that was created

5:41

in order to allow people to create

5:44

or to be able to play music without

5:46

needing a drummer with a drum

5:49

set . So you can

5:51

get the machine , you buy it , you press the buttons and

5:53

then it'll play the beats that the drummer was supposed to play

5:55

, but he couldn't make it to practice . So in

5:57

this kind of like conceptual model of what the

5:59

drum machine was meant to do , it was a representation

6:02

of a drummer with a drum set . That

6:05

means it was a lesser version . So like a lot of

6:07

like platonic philosophy

6:09

focuses around like the ideal forms

6:11

of things , and

6:13

so he describes this as thinking like a tree

6:15

that you have like the trunk , which is like the ideal

6:18

representation of whatever it is , for example

6:20

a drummer with a drum set , and then

6:22

you have the things kind of going around it that

6:24

are representations of it , but lesser

6:26

than the ideal form . And so the

6:29

loess is obsessed with potatoes , because potatoes

6:31

have what's called a rhizomatic structure

6:34

to their roots , so do like

6:36

mycelial networks of mushrooms , but

6:38

essentially it describes a shape that

6:40

doesn't have a clear center to it , that

6:43

it's kind of like overlapping and has

6:45

different , it's kind of like a heterarchical structure

6:47

, different centers and

6:50

so kind of . The thing that

6:53

I connected with the book and with crypto

6:55

is that this type of thinking is endemic

6:57

in crypto since , basically

7:00

the start of it , bitcoin

7:03

was created as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system

7:05

. That was its intention , that was kind of like the representation

7:07

, that was a model that Satoshi or

7:09

whoever they are sort

7:12

of made Bitcoin to be , and inside

7:14

was infused this narrative of

7:16

being similar to gold and

7:19

this kind of metaphor or this model

7:21

of using Bitcoin as

7:23

a kind of extension

7:26

of like thinking that the

7:28

gold standard was the best form of monetary

7:31

system was thinking about Bitcoin as digital

7:33

gold . And so , since there had already

7:35

been sort of this existing political

7:37

group of people who we

7:39

call them gold bugs or people who believe this , it

7:41

was like an easy kind of like way to

7:44

get a lot of people who are already

7:46

connected believing in this one thing that

7:48

thinks should exist and willing to pay money for

7:50

it . Especially , they became

7:52

attracted to Bitcoin . So

7:55

that's kind of like the beginning of it . You can also , if you

7:57

go through , just like a

7:59

ton of things code is law , so

8:01

equating code and law together , decentralized

8:04

finance it's kind of like this thing to like let's

8:07

do finance , but decentralized . The

8:10

network state is also

8:12

something DAOs used to be called the centralized

8:14

autonomous corporations . So like the

8:16

way that we kind of like conceptualize these things

8:18

was already modeled on things that

8:21

already existed and that had certain

8:23

implications to them . This

8:27

is endemic . So

8:29

this is I like this quote

8:31

from Alfred Krasibski that I think kind

8:34

of goes well with this that the map is not the territory

8:37

, the word is not the thing it describes . Whenever the map

8:39

is confused with the territory , a semantic disturbance

8:41

is set up in the organism . The disturbance

8:43

continues until the limitation of the map is recognized

8:46

, just saying that this

8:48

kind of representational thinking or this metaphorical

8:50

thinking in certain ways like creates a map and imposes

8:52

a map on the territory

8:54

, which is the thing that actually exists . And

8:58

the second quote that I really like is that

9:00

all models are wrong but some

9:02

are useful . So it's

9:04

nice to have a map of

9:06

Peru whenever you're in Peru . It's

9:10

nice if you need to like find out where you need to go . You're

9:12

following the streets or whatever , but the map of Peru is not

9:14

the same as Peru . We

9:16

shouldn't like confuse those things together

9:19

. And so I think

9:21

in crypto we have many different

9:23

types of maps that oftentimes

9:25

people try to impose upon what it is

9:27

in order to try to understand it better , but

9:29

also as well in order to attract

9:32

a clientele and in order to

9:34

get people to separate them from their money essentially

9:36

to buy their product and to buy their tokens

9:38

or whatever else because it adheres to

9:41

an already pre-existing

9:43

model of way

9:45

that people think , and

9:48

I think this is like a very like political choice

9:50

. So like I like the work of Gramsci

9:53

and he has this concept called cultural

9:55

hegemony that oftentimes

9:59

this was used to explain that social

10:01

control structures of society that the working

10:03

class kind of gets imposed

10:06

this world view by the upper

10:08

classes as a way to like , impose

10:10

a certain way of thinking about the world and understanding

10:12

of the world . Like the map of our world is one that was

10:15

modeled after those who have the

10:17

power in order to model that world , and

10:19

they impose that through structures

10:22

, through institutions and whatever

10:24

else . And

10:27

so in the book , kind of what

10:29

I went through and applied this to cryptocurrency

10:31

was I kind of listed

10:33

out the most common representational

10:36

models that are used in the cryptocurrency world and I've

10:38

divided the book into three sections . Section

10:41

one is crypto as money , section

10:43

two is crypto as finance and section three is

10:46

crypto as coordination . So

10:48

these are kind of like the three ways that I've seen , just

10:50

like in my time kind of keeping track with it how it's

10:52

kind of evolved more In

10:54

the beginning , before Ethereum , for example , like

10:56

money was kind of like the main thing

10:58

that people were like trying to tackle and like creating

11:01

making Bitcoin , like this monetary system . Then

11:04

, with the advent of smart contracts

11:07

, like financial infrastructure

11:09

became to be more of a thing that people wanted

11:11

to emulate . And then , I think

11:13

, more recently , you have people who are kind of like

11:16

I think there's been a some amount

11:18

of self reflection . The crypto world like oh , that

11:20

we can't be financializing

11:22

everything and it's not so fun to be only about

11:24

like trading digital beans with one another

11:26

, and so

11:28

what you're seeing is kind of like this expansion

11:31

of the representational

11:33

model . Money and finance could be

11:35

thought of as different coordination mechanisms

11:38

, and I think part of this is just like this

11:40

evolution of people being like oh wait

11:42

, that's not what it is . Oh wait , that's not what it is

11:44

. It's always something bigger and bigger because we're exploring

11:47

more and more of the territory as time goes on and people

11:49

use it and

11:52

then through all of that , in the end I

11:54

try to lay out a new concept

11:57

for thinking about technology that I call techno probabilism

11:59

. That's meant to kind of push back against the idea

12:01

of techno determinism or like the idea

12:04

that technology is like

12:06

the only thing that determines reality , and

12:09

try to provide some more

12:11

context to that question and

12:13

problem about structure and

12:15

agency and whether or not we have the ability to change

12:18

and influence the way that we think about technology . And

12:24

so , yeah , this is kind of like how I

12:26

horribly kind of want to represent

12:29

what this kind of looks like . You

12:31

have the terrain of all the things

12:33

that are possible , which is kind

12:36

of like unknown or impossible to really

12:38

know fully completely because we can't do

12:40

it all at once , but

12:43

that the kind of the main

12:45

sort of mental model representation that we've

12:47

been thinking about has expanded more and more to

12:50

cover more of the terrain . I think a lot of that

12:52

terrain has still not been covered

12:55

probably , and that's

12:57

kind of like the things that I'm interested in

12:59

or want to point out a little bit more sometimes

13:01

, and

13:04

I think this is important and

13:06

it's kind of like a repetition of , again , like

13:08

what has happened over the internet

13:10

. The internet was one

13:12

thing at one point I really don't like the

13:14

whole like web one , web two , web three type

13:17

of narrative , but it is like

13:19

safe to say that the internet looks a lot

13:21

different now than it did a long

13:23

time ago , and we can also see that

13:25

, like the internet is not forever , so

13:27

the internet has kind of evolved and adapted and

13:29

changed based on the conditions and what has

13:32

become like tooling available

13:34

for different types of websites and content

13:36

over the internet . And

13:40

so yeah , so one of the things I

13:43

really like David's tweets a while back that

13:45

I think was really like really

13:48

resonated with me as far as how

13:50

to kind of I think we should be rethinking

13:53

these types of things is to just

13:55

build things more collectively . I

13:57

think one of the kind of main

13:59

maps or models of the world that I

14:01

think we are constantly imposed upon is

14:03

one like that is very individualistic

14:06

, one that is very isolated and alienated

14:08

, and so one of the things

14:10

with you know , for all his flaws blockchain

14:13

and cryptocurrencies it does provide

14:15

, I think , for a lot of people this like sliver of hope that

14:17

like maybe we can create more collective

14:19

ways of building things together . Even

14:23

though a lot of people may not be doing that or thinking

14:25

about it that way , I think that

14:28

this is something that is like very could be very

14:30

, very fruitful as far as our relationship to

14:32

the internet and technology , because I think

14:34

, like everybody , kind of hates

14:36

their relationship with the internet . I

14:38

think everyone's kind of like ambivalent towards it

14:41

at this point , for good reason . I

14:44

think we also are reliant

14:46

on it in certain ways that we would not

14:48

want to give up , because we like to

14:50

have connection with people that are on the other side

14:52

of the world or whatever else . That is a nice thing that

14:54

we can do as humans , and

14:57

so , yeah , with the book , I got a bunch of really nice

14:59

quotes from people , including Vitalik , nick

15:02

Cernick , primavera , the Philippi and

15:04

a bunch of other people that were really influential

15:07

for me when I was writing and like doing

15:09

my podcast , and I found out that doing

15:11

a podcast was a really nice way to network with people

15:14

. So I was lucky to be able to have connections

15:16

with these guys . And

15:19

, yeah , so the book comes out August 8th , but if you ordered

15:21

a book online

15:23

with a book event , then you get a book here a little bit earlier

15:26

than the launch event

15:28

, or than the official launch . But

15:31

yeah , I think that's it . There we go .

15:35

Awesome . So I

15:38

think we can probably just grab the opposite of

15:40

the counter . So

15:44

you , the first question I

15:46

wanted to ask is kind of one of the big . We're

15:48

trying to eliminate ourselves to big questions here so that

15:50

we can get to everything , but

15:53

the big one that you alluded to with that nice

15:55

circle graph is that

15:58

crypto is

16:00

sort of fundamentally especially

16:02

if you understand the security

16:04

model of whether you're talking about proof of work or proof of

16:06

stake there is like a monetization

16:09

aspect that is truly fundamental to

16:11

the way a lot of these things work , and

16:13

so I would just love

16:16

you to expand a little bit on that graph and

16:18

kind of how it actually works

16:20

in a practical sense

16:22

, to expand out from that core of

16:24

money to something

16:27

that is more abstractly about

16:29

coordination in a general

16:31

way and perhaps in a less

16:33

individualistic way , while building on

16:35

that platform that is really

16:38

about money or something very much

16:40

resembling money .

16:42

Yeah , so I think the I mean I would

16:44

not personally characterize something

16:46

like Ethereum or Bitcoin as money

16:49

at all or like any really cryptocurrency as

16:51

money , just like comparing it

16:53

to like what the actual definition is

16:55

. The

16:57

like thing that I think

16:59

is interesting when it comes

17:01

to cryptocurrency and relationship to money

17:03

is more the like , the

17:06

governance of , not

17:08

money , but like currencies or tokens

17:10

which maybe you can put money as like

17:12

you

17:14

know one aspect or like one

17:17

type , and

17:20

so like I like , like I think of Ethereum

17:23

, for example , or Bitcoin or

17:25

really any of these , as first and foremost , as like

17:27

kind of vouchers for using

17:29

the network . And yes

17:31

, it's monetized because you have to buy it

17:33

most of the time . That's like the 99%

17:36

of people , that's how they interact with it , that

17:38

they buy it first and so it has like a clear

17:40

price . It's a kind of commodity and

17:45

I think that's kind of you know , in

17:48

the book I go through as well like there

17:50

are a lot of properties

17:52

of these tokens that

17:54

mimic things about money and

17:56

people will kind of like cling on to those things and say

17:58

it's money because it can do this , like I can send

18:01

it to someone . Therefore it's money , but it's

18:03

kind of like . I mean , yeah , I don't

18:05

know , they haven't spent the time to kind of like understand what

18:07

the kind of like social institution

18:10

that money kind of inhibits

18:13

. And what I find

18:15

interesting for me personally is

18:17

, like I said more about on the governance

18:19

side Right now , kind of the monetary system

18:22

is a very like technocratic institution

18:24

, like there is no kind of like democratic input

18:26

for what it is . There is like a certain imperative

18:29

of like keeping liquidity

18:31

in markets or something like that as being like

18:33

the one thing that they need to do , and this has like

18:35

a lot of downstream effects

18:38

to our situation now . And so I think

18:40

, yeah , thinking

18:42

about ways and these examples of

18:44

different forms of

18:46

money is more interesting to me than like trying

18:49

to like like the gold standard type

18:51

of narrative about money is one that thinks of money

18:53

as like a type of commodity

18:55

or like a natural commodity that has like intrinsic

18:58

value and you know this a lot because you've

19:00

studied gold bugs before which

19:03

is just like a very it's

19:05

a shallow way of understanding money

19:07

and how it works and not thinking of it

19:09

instead as like this kind of social institution

19:11

For the , for the , for the heads out

19:13

there .

19:14

it's a very great example of reification

19:17

.

19:19

Yeah , oh no , I mean , I think that's

19:21

basically . It's like I'm more interested in these like

19:23

experiments of

19:25

like basically democratic

19:28

forms of monetary system .

19:29

Well , so so can we like look at specifics

19:31

. If we look at kind of historical

19:34

examples of you know

19:36

, the things that come to mind for me and I know you write about them in

19:38

the book include , like co-ops

19:41

, community currencies I'm

19:44

sure there are other that I'm forgetting

19:46

but these kind of like attempts to build alternative

19:48

structures within

19:50

what we already have . And

19:52

kind of what is it that you

19:55

know crypto or blockchain brings to the table

19:57

? That , for example , would

19:59

make those experiments more

20:01

viable than they have been in kind

20:03

of like the analog era or , or you

20:06

know , obviously we can't predict the future and your

20:08

rhizome metaphor is perfect

20:11

, but you know what are maybe some

20:13

potential new forms

20:15

of similar collective organizing

20:17

efforts .

20:19

Yeah , I mean , I think that's like , like

20:22

for me , mutual credit is a very interesting

20:25

system to think about .

20:26

Yeah , and you have a great analysis of an example

20:28

in the book .

20:29

Yeah , so focus on circles . Ubi , which

20:31

is based in Berlin for that one , but

20:34

like , yeah , so , like you

20:37

know , all models are wrong but some are useful

20:39

. I think there are

20:42

kind of . What has happened is kind of like the hegemonic

20:44

models of money , of

20:46

finance , are the things that generally people are

20:49

wanting to build in the cryptocurrency

20:51

world , because that's like that's the

20:54

quickest way to making money and that's like the imperative

20:56

of capital and if you're going to invest in a business

20:58

, there's like a lot of like you know , neoliberal

21:01

brain in the cryptocurrency world of like

21:03

that's , basically , in order to change the world , you have to make a startup

21:05

that makes money itself

21:07

and takes venture capital and whatever else when

21:10

it comes to money , you know , yeah , I think taking

21:12

. I think it's become an interesting

21:15

place of experimentation where you

21:17

can take other types of models that have

21:19

not been able to get the same amount

21:21

of traction as a dominant one , because

21:23

it is an alternative space where people

21:25

are trying to experiment and filled with people who

21:27

are very skeptical of the current institutions

21:30

and want to create something different , and

21:33

I think it makes like a fruitful space

21:35

. So like I really liked

21:37

a recent article from Brett Scott

21:39

, who was like a money researcher , where

21:42

he kind of talks about the

21:45

synthesis , like he's like

21:47

kind of like a crude dialectical synthesis of like

21:49

the monetary

21:51

, like crypto token world

21:53

or commodity money thinking of crypto world

21:56

, with kind of like the more alternative

21:58

, like historically more

22:00

progressive kind of monetary

22:02

and currency experimentation space

22:05

with community currencies and

22:07

so forth , and kind of like mixing those

22:09

two together to create something where

22:11

we use the models of these kind of alternative

22:14

currency and community currency spaces but

22:16

get the affordances of the technology

22:18

as well . So , like I think , for him , it's

22:21

a lot to do with scale . I think the kind

22:23

of the one of the critiques of a lot of these

22:26

kind of localized attempts

22:28

at doing these is that they oftentimes don't

22:30

last too long or they're reliant on

22:33

, like a particular person who spends

22:35

a lot of time administering the system

22:37

. I think

22:39

, like you know , being

22:42

able to automate so that you're not reliant on this

22:45

type of thing but people can just use it , is something that's powerful

22:47

, and being able to create a space where people

22:49

can kind of collect if they govern is

22:51

something else .

22:51

That's that's very and I would add to that list to

22:54

like transparency also would be , I think

22:56

, a pretty big one , because I think of

22:58

you know , probably a lot of people are familiar

23:00

with Berkshares the

23:04

probably the most successful community

23:06

currency , I would say . But I

23:08

always think , like , you know , how do you actually

23:10

know that they're not just like printing it

23:12

, you know , so that's one very

23:14

small brain way of looking at it . So

23:17

there's

23:20

the kind of like structure of the technology

23:22

and there are certain biases that one

23:25

might think , at least we're kind of baked in there . And

23:28

then there's kind of the history of the technology which

23:30

is very specific and we know , and

23:32

you know , going back to like the 1990s

23:35

and the cypherpunks , aka

23:38

crypto anarchists is

23:40

another term that sometimes applied to the same group , who I

23:43

have quite a lot of sympathy to and are kind

23:45

of privacy focused and really foresaw

23:47

some of the issues I think that we're

23:49

now really facing with the internet . But

23:52

that did sort of , during especially

23:54

the early years of Bitcoin adoption

23:57

, kind of fed into

23:59

some very specifically

24:01

libertarian , like people

24:03

who are obsessed with Ludwig von Mises

24:05

and Murray Rothbard , and

24:09

that really became very strongly identified

24:11

with Bitcoin and there were even

24:14

books written about it , and so I'm kind of

24:16

curious for your

24:18

read of , I guess , the relationship between

24:21

politics and technology , both

24:23

coming in and going out , in

24:25

the sense of is the politics

24:27

that that fed into this technology

24:29

determinative of what it's

24:31

good for , you know ? And

24:34

if like , if not , where

24:36

does that lack of determination

24:38

come from ?

24:40

Yeah , I mean I don't think it's like it's

24:42

not deterministic , but it is like

24:44

getting way ahead of

24:46

the game . That makes sense , like the

24:50

unfortunate truth

24:52

about Bitcoin , I think , for me

24:54

is that it was successful

24:56

as a technological implementation of a particular

24:59

politics and

25:01

it is playing

25:03

out that politics in its structure

25:05

and in the way that people are interacting with it and

25:09

so , yeah , I mean I

25:12

don't think like that determines

25:15

the entirety of what will happen

25:17

is kind of the point that

25:19

I'm on . It's like a more

25:21

difficult job , of course , after the fact

25:23

, but it's something that I think is

25:25

worthwhile kind of pursuing . So

25:30

, like I kind of like I have like

25:32

a couple of influences , I think , with this

25:34

. Like one , I

25:36

really like Donna Haraway's

25:38

Cyborg Manifesto . She's

25:41

like a feminist writer and she

25:43

talks about how , basically

25:45

, like technology is not

25:47

, or say

25:50

like faithful to its creators or

25:52

to its parents , oftentimes that

25:54

you can take it and use it for something else , which

25:56

is like what happened if you I don't

25:58

know , you did a PhD in history of technology . I imagine so

26:00

many things that were built for one thing ended up

26:03

like not being the thing that it was used for .

26:05

Yeah , your example of the drum machine was really good . I like that

26:07

.

26:07

Yeah . So I think this is sometimes

26:09

lost , like when it comes to crypto

26:11

. For me , this is like the like

26:14

. I very crudely try to separate

26:16

people one side

26:18

as like the hype men , the crypto hype men , and

26:20

the other side as like the critic , the hype

26:22

man being like this is going to change the world , do it , let's go . And

26:24

then the other one being like this is all stupid , don't

26:26

do it and stay away from it . And

26:30

I guess I'm trying to use , like you

26:33

know , thinking about models and

26:35

maps as like a way to be

26:37

nuanced in between these two kind

26:39

of like very hardcore positions , I

26:41

feel , so that we can find the

26:44

cracks in both , the cracks in the ways

26:46

that , like , the hype men are explaining it , because I feel that the critics

26:48

, they kind of like , are reacting

26:51

to just the way that hype men kind

26:53

of explain it to them , and then you

26:55

kind of like lose out on a lot of like potentially

26:58

like very , very interesting things and like radical

27:01

potential for the use of this

27:03

stuff .

27:04

Yeah , I mean , that's a very interesting way that you put

27:06

it in terms of , like , the

27:09

people who are motivated to profit

27:12

from something often explain

27:15

it . They're motivated to explain it in

27:17

the dumbest possible way . And

27:19

then the people who are , you

27:22

know , opposed to it are responding

27:24

to that already reductive framing

27:26

and I love that as a I'm

27:29

sorry .

27:29

No , go ahead . Well , I was going to transition

27:31

, I was going to agree , yes , okay .

27:33

So so I

27:36

love that as kind of like a way

27:38

of analyzing the dialectic . I

27:41

mean , I would kind of maybe offer

27:43

like two other categories that can

27:46

go alongside , which are like the more nuanced categories

27:48

of like , maybe like true believers

27:50

probably including some people in this room who

27:52

are like actually trying to build something and

27:54

are , you know , maybe not trying to make a million

27:57

dollars as their primary goal and

27:59

then I would say there's also a class of critics

28:01

that is at themselves quite nuanced

28:03

, paying attention to specific things and and

28:05

you know , maybe they're skeptics of

28:07

the entire thing but they're actually like focusing

28:10

in on here's how it's going to fail

28:12

. But but I'm most

28:14

interested in some like psychological way

28:16

in the

28:19

, the sort of more knee

28:21

jerk critics that you're talking about people

28:24

, and often it seems like at

28:26

various moments , you know , obviously

28:29

like media sort of follows a cycle

28:31

, so at particular moments there is definitely

28:33

a surplus of people saying

28:36

, like all of this is fraud

28:39

, like the like crypto

28:41

has nothing to offer , like

28:44

none of this means anything , and

28:47

it often , you know you're , you're

28:49

delusional , I'm like most

28:52

fundamentally affraidy in , and so

28:54

when I look at things like this , I feel

28:56

like there's a sort of like reaction

28:58

construction happening of

29:00

like . So

29:03

I guess the question is , like in your read

29:05

, and this does tend to be sort

29:07

of centrist liberals

29:09

, I think , and maybe to

29:11

kind of beg the question a bit

29:13

, institutionalists , who

29:16

are most reactive against

29:18

crypto in this , like everything

29:20

, all of it is fake way . So I'm curious

29:23

kind of what your take is on that aspect

29:25

of of the dialogue , like where

29:27

is that coming from ? Where , especially

29:31

, you know , often it's people who haven't necessarily looked

29:33

at the technology very closely

29:35

or thinking from a very US

29:37

centric perspective Like

29:39

where but where does that like sort of knee jerk I

29:43

don't mean reactionary in the same

29:45

sense , but like sort of reactionary response

29:48

to crypto come from ? In

29:51

your opinion .

29:52

Yeah , maybe like reactive is a it

29:54

would be the right ones . But yeah , no , I

29:56

think , like I

29:59

think Elizabeth Warren is like the obvious kind

30:01

of like person right now .

30:02

This banking

30:04

reformer .

30:05

Yeah , I mean , I think it's like a very

30:08

I think it's a worldview about like

30:11

I mean just a lot of trust

30:13

in the status quo and in institutions themselves and that like

30:17

it's a very much like we

30:19

can fix it from the inside belief , which I mean in

30:23

some cases maybe you can and you know

30:25

, go for it . But I think it's this kind of very limiting view

30:28

of kind of like only thinking of politics

30:30

as like electoralism , I think is a big aspect of it , like

30:34

thinking of being

30:37

presented with the system and like a

30:39

map of the system , usually being that being like the main institutions

30:41

for electoralism is a big , is a big one .

30:43

Yeah , speaking of mistaking

30:47

the map for the territory . Right yeah , and so like .

30:48

I think that there is this like people and it's a difficult thing , I

30:50

think , for a lot of people to wrap their

30:53

heads around that like

30:56

to think outside

30:58

of these institutions and ways of like in order to create influence or

31:00

power , like

31:03

doesn't have to go through these institutional

31:05

pathways , and that may be scary

31:07

for some to do that

31:10

and it may . I mean there's just a lot of of course , our

31:12

brainwashing is the right way at

31:14

word , but like thinking that anybody who

31:16

does try to do that is like some crazy anarchist who wants

31:19

to destroy the world , and you know , is it

31:21

like Joker or something like that ? But there's like plenty

31:24

of like instances in history where that was the way that people

31:26

change the world and interact with

31:28

it . You know like I think you

31:31

know the way that democracy has manifested itself today , especially

31:34

just like in the US and in Europe and

31:36

as well in the West . It is kind

31:39

of like a democracy

31:41

has become a kind of like justification

31:44

machine for the status quo , that like

31:46

, oh you , you know you elected

31:48

, you tried and you voted really hard , but , sorry , you can't do anything

31:50

about it next time

31:53

, wait another four or five years , and I don't

31:55

know . I think . I think it has a lot to

31:57

do with , yeah , thinking , thinking

32:00

in this type of map

32:02

of the world , I guess yeah .

32:05

So sort of relevant to that and

32:08

maybe sort of to conclude on a totally personal

32:10

curiosity kind of note

32:12

. You know , as I said

32:14

, I have a lot of empathy for

32:17

the viewpoints of , like crypto anarchists

32:19

, even , to a certain extent

32:21

, radical libertarians , for

32:24

the , for the very reason that you're you're outlining

32:26

that there is this like institutionalist

32:29

situation that we find ourselves

32:31

in , I guess , and

32:33

I guess my question would

32:36

be more to your , more

32:38

to the socialism side of it than the blockchain

32:40

side . But , you know , given that

32:42

this comes out of such a libertarian

32:45

, anarchist milieu , leaving

32:48

the technology to one side for a second like is

32:51

there , you know , is there an overlap

32:53

in that then diagram ? Is there like

32:55

strategic common ground

32:57

to be found ? Or

33:00

maybe not strategic , maybe just kind of like , you

33:02

know , mental , creative common

33:04

ground to be found between you

33:07

know people who want

33:09

to end the Fed and and

33:11

people who , like you know , just want

33:13

socialized healthcare , you know ?

33:16

Yeah , sure , I mean , I think . I think , yes , there

33:18

is . It's a very complex game

33:21

at the same time , like , like

33:23

, for me , I like to understand politics

33:25

as like like all politics is

33:27

a is coalition

33:30

politics that , like it's usually

33:32

, I mean , unless you have like real , like

33:35

a huge base that you're able

33:37

to mobilize in order to make change where you have , like

33:39

, the majority of the population . Usually , if you have

33:41

that is because you have a coalition of different groups

33:44

, like usually

33:47

, you can't , you can't make the change that you want to do

33:49

without it . And I don't

33:51

know , I think of like . You

33:54

know , like Yanis Verifakis

33:56

was the Minister of Finance in Greece during

33:58

, like the Greek crisis and

34:01

like he was giving , you

34:03

know I mean , he's a Marxist giving

34:05

like recommendations for policy on

34:08

what to do , like to fight

34:10

against , like the austerity being posed by the ECB

34:12

and everyone else , and like

34:14

, like libertarians loved

34:17

him . You know like American libertarians loved

34:19

Yanis Verifakis because , like

34:21

they were actually aware of that , yeah . It's

34:23

like I'm reading a book right

34:25

now like they're able to find common ground on kind of

34:28

like their hatred for certain types of financial

34:30

, like the ways in which certain

34:32

financial institutions have been playing the game , because

34:34

libertarians have this certain I don't know

34:36

like fairness in financial markets , as like a , as

34:39

like a big thing , and

34:41

so like I think there is there's

34:43

a space to play in there . Of course , it's

34:45

just like a very it's a complex one and it's a

34:47

one that requires politics , like it requires

34:50

like having you know relationships

34:52

with people that you like don't

34:54

necessarily agree with on everything , because

34:56

to find enough people who

34:58

agree with you on everything is just like

35:00

to me , a silly game to play .

35:03

Yeah , Thank

35:05

you , Very enlightening so . So

35:07

I think we can start opening

35:09

it up to just a

35:11

broader dialogue and I'll

35:13

try and keep things horizontal . But are

35:16

there is there anybody in the audience who has a

35:18

question ? Go for it

35:20

.

35:21

So thanks for the talk . The book seems really

35:23

interesting . I've been following you for a little bit

35:26

so , as somebody who's been in

35:28

like the kind of like left protect

35:31

space , I've seen that , as

35:34

has kind of been pointed out , that there's

35:36

this almost

35:38

resistance against tech being

35:41

integrated , tech movements being

35:43

integrated into

35:45

movements , as

35:47

we pointed out , into institutional spaces , into

35:49

institutional politics , and

35:52

it seems like the biggest base would be people

35:55

that you get called the liberal

35:57

communists , the corporate

35:59

redistributors who

36:01

are , you know , early adopters

36:03

of technology , like Bill Gates

36:05

, right , and

36:08

that you know he's

36:10

really into , like nano reactors

36:12

and this type of thing , right , but it

36:14

. But in my experience , people like Nick Schoenig

36:16

and left

36:18

accelerationists and these types of people have

36:20

had a really hard time moving

36:23

past technocratic

36:25

speak and also integration into culture

36:27

, and

36:30

that the movements you know around

36:32

these things has largely , like

36:34

look at the Bernie Sanders movement been against

36:37

really basic technologies like nuclear

36:40

. So I'm just curious if

36:42

there's a strategy and

36:45

what kind of politics would

36:48

be connected to that strategy of

36:50

you know , of a socialism that

36:52

is connected to people as opposed

36:54

to kind of , like you know , a PMC

36:56

type of politics .

37:00

Yeah , I agree with the criticism . I think

37:03

it's it's

37:05

a tough one , but ultimately , the

37:07

thing that does probably need to happen is just like

37:10

engaging with the communities

37:12

that you are wanting to like build

37:14

the technology for the most Like

37:16

I mean , it's pretty common , you

37:18

know , even I've

37:21

done I've done a lot of like projects . You know Technological

37:24

project management or something like in corporate

37:26

spaces , and even they , like you know you

37:28

do like surveys or like whatever you understand

37:31

, like the thing they're trying to do , like it's

37:33

a basic thing , and like anthropology that you like you

37:35

know fine , identify , like the group of people

37:37

that you want to identify and like understand

37:40

, like Use , use that type of framework

37:43

to understand , like , maybe , the problems that they're facing and

37:45

whatever else . A big also

37:47

. I think one of the biggest obstacles , though , is

37:50

that , like technical education

37:52

is very Low

37:54

in like a lot of the world that we don't

37:56

like it's

37:58

not common knowledge how the internet works , but

38:01

Everybody is using it all

38:03

the time , but nobody is just like it's just like

38:05

a little magic box that like no , it gives you

38:07

the , the text or whatever that you want to see , that

38:10

your friends sent you and

38:12

this and I think this has

38:14

been on purpose , like it's been created

38:17

to be this like , almost

38:19

seemingly , that it requires

38:21

like years of intense study in order

38:23

to understand like the basic things of how the stuff works

38:25

, when it ever

38:28

like it , like some like

38:30

some type of like I guess reform

38:32

you can call it that I think would be interesting To

38:35

have . I think that would change this a lot

38:37

is is if you

38:39

know , as you know , as part of the education

38:41

system , you like , understood , you are taught like

38:43

how these things work , and

38:45

that's one thing that I think the kind

38:47

of like the left accelerationists and like other

38:49

types of , I guess , left-wing movements that I've tried to

38:52

be more open to the use of like

38:54

digital technologies have kind of Kind

38:57

of miss is that they do use a lot of like they tend

38:59

to recreate then like the technical jargon that

39:01

they're like you know , because they're trying to like

39:03

, they're understanding the , the

39:05

technology on the tech , the

39:08

original creators , technologists , like

39:10

their own turf , I think , and

39:12

we're not really doing much of an effort to make it like

39:14

and our mass education program

39:17

and how this shit works and why it needs to be changed

39:19

and like like . I think there is this kind of like paternalism

39:22

of like , oh well , we can't , really , they

39:25

can't understand it because it's too difficult , or something

39:27

like that . Whenever I think , if

39:30

I don't know , I've just found that if you sit someone

39:32

down and they're willing to learn and want to participate

39:34

or whatever else , they Are willing to learn

39:36

about it , and and that can go a long way and like creating

39:39

then the framework for how they interact

39:41

with their , with their apps or

39:43

whatever else . So , yeah

39:46

, I've said a couple of things there .

39:48

I mean I can't speak to . I would add a

39:50

little bit to that , which is I can't speak to

39:52

the specific Sort of

39:55

portions of the movement that you're talking about but , like , on

39:57

top of the , the

39:59

actual technical education , I

40:01

think there

40:04

is still a ton of room to

40:06

grow in . You know what you're basically

40:08

doing , which is you know

40:10

critical analysis of technology

40:12

that is kind of socially

40:14

informed and actually is able

40:17

to think through the implications

40:19

of something . I mean , and and this is where

40:22

you know you can't necessarily

40:24

teach the entire package at a

40:26

social level , but also

40:29

like we're dealing with it on both sides

40:31

, because you also have the technocrats themselves

40:33

actively engaged in the process

40:36

of dismantling an

40:38

education system that is oriented

40:40

towards Incocating any

40:42

kind of critical , like awareness

40:44

, into people .

40:48

I I'll

40:51

just wrap this up , but no

40:54

, yeah , thank you . Both of these are

40:56

really great answers . I think too , like , I

40:59

think one of the things that like

41:01

, if we look at like the early Maoist movements

41:03

I'm not a fan of Mao but I do like some of the

41:05

strategies Of mutual aid right

41:08

, people didn't understand the

41:10

politics , but when their life was benefited

41:12

from the actual act of being benefited

41:14

from a technology they are political technology

41:16

in this case that they maybe didn't understand . Maybe

41:19

that could be a micro politics that you could

41:21

push for . That would

41:23

, you know , make meaningful change and real

41:25

people's lives . And I don't think they have to

41:27

understand . You know quantum

41:29

computers or whatever you're using to make this

41:31

technology real .

41:32

So I think that's a

41:34

great question , yeah , sure , so

41:36

this might be an unfair question

41:38

to ask you . Let me ask you at anyhow , but

41:41

I think there's probably impossible

41:43

to predict . But I'm just kind of curious what your

41:45

view is on

41:47

what like . What do you think

41:49

like the the sort of like socialist endgame

41:51

is for Incorporating

41:53

blockchain technology into society

41:56

? So like , let's fast-forward 10

41:58

, 25 , 50 , 100

42:00

years , however long All

42:04

the breaks go in the direction of

42:06

the left ? Where are we

42:08

? Are we still Living

42:11

in a society like similar to today , but

42:14

the block change is occasionally used for

42:16

Mutual aid and

42:18

co-ops ? Or is it like all

42:21

of society full on On

42:23

the blockchain ? or like on chain socialism

42:26

yeah on chain gay communist

42:28

socialism or whatever . Yes

42:31

, I'm just kind of curious , like what your

42:33

, what your projection is

42:35

assuming the best .

42:38

I mean , like for me it's I

42:42

, to me this , like when

42:44

it comes to socialism , like

42:47

we could have had socialism without blockchain for

42:49

sure . Like I think that can exist

42:52

.

42:52

Like I don't think it's like we need to have

42:54

like the block , we need to have a cryptocurrency to make socialism

42:56

, like I think that's kind of like a silly idea , or

42:59

Maybe not like socialism per se , but

43:01

just sort of like it all moves in the

43:03

direction of sort of like leftist

43:05

Whatever as far as

43:07

you mean like starting from now , like what would

43:09

be the influence or what would what

43:12

would ideally would like to see happen yeah

43:14

, maybe framing

43:16

it less in the the context of like

43:18

socialism or leftism , but just like if the

43:21

, the breaks all move in the direction

43:23

that you'd like it to move into all

43:25

right in 50

43:27

hundred , however many years , like what do you

43:29

, what do you sort of view as the end game ?

43:31

I Mean

43:33

the end game is socialism . But I

43:36

think that I don't know , one time I

43:39

wrote like a big list of like things that I wish existed

43:41

, that people could Could

43:43

do . But I mean I think it's more about like , because

43:46

for me I think , like we're I

43:49

really hate saying this , but like we're really

43:51

early that's Because

43:54

there hasn't been very much like

43:56

experimentation with like

43:58

. Specifically , this technology is with

44:00

a , you know , progressive lens

44:02

on it or Socialist lens on it . So , and

44:05

I think part of that , I mean there's

44:07

a lot of reasons for that . One is because of all the libertarians

44:09

in the space , like socialist kind of generally , kind

44:11

of rejecting it in a lot of ways . Socialists

44:15

now , like never having money and

44:18

like you know , a lot of these types of things , that kind of

44:20

have been like huge obstacles to making

44:22

that happen . But I mean , ideally

44:24

I would love to see just like . I mean the biggest

44:26

thing is like a whole lot less

44:29

reliance on venture capital and like

44:31

the idea of capital

44:33

in itself generally like to

44:35

me , like a post capitalism , it

44:37

means that we are less reliant on

44:39

capital as like a social institution

44:41

for how we kind of reproduced

44:44

ourselves and like the things in the world , which means

44:46

that you know , people are just not

44:48

doing things solely for , like the

44:50

profit motive , and that's really

44:52

hard Problem

44:54

to solve because , like cryptocurrencies

44:57

are so monetized and like

44:59

the main reason , like

45:01

90% of people buy it generally is to

45:03

speculate and to make money off of it . So it's like , it's it's

45:05

difficult , but

45:08

I think , like and and there is

45:10

, I think , another problem to

45:12

solve as well is that , like the consensus

45:14

mechanisms of basically every blockchain is

45:16

based on a profit motive , like

45:18

Economic incentivization is

45:21

just like profit , like

45:23

we're reliant , so like I think what , why

45:25

blockchains Work

45:27

is because they comply with

45:30

kind of like the , the expectations

45:32

of capitalism , of like you are accumulating

45:34

capital and that the world is moving forward because

45:36

of that . Again , another

45:39

very difficult problem to solve , like whether or

45:41

not we

45:43

need , like the consensus mechanism should

45:45

be changed to something that doesn't allow that but also

45:48

still have the same kind of safety and security

45:50

guarantees that it gives us . Maybe

45:53

that means that it's like like

45:55

not a blockchain and is like some other

45:57

type of distributed ledger Could be . I

46:01

think just blockchains are the ones that the like kind of infrastructure that

46:03

has become the most popular and the most like Interesting

46:07

people developing on it and that's why , like , I spend so

46:09

much time looking at it and thinking about it . But

46:11

I do think that there are . There is like Like

46:15

a non insignificant chance that like we

46:17

need to rethink . Like blockchains themselves , and maybe

46:19

that means that they are not blockchains anymore

46:21

and , you know

46:23

, are able to do the things that they do without necessarily

46:26

relying on capital . So

46:29

those are a lot of things that's like , and I think part of so . Like getting

46:31

rid of venture capital basically means that there is funding available for people

46:33

to do work . That's important . That

46:35

doesn't involve Making

46:38

a deal with the devil . I think that's a huge part . Yeah

46:40

, cool .

46:42

Follow-up question to all that . It sounds like

46:45

you're less a blockchain rack

46:47

on more of a decentralized ledger technology . Right , maybe , but doesn't roll off the

46:49

tongue as well , so I guess on that note , Are

46:52

there any ? Dlts

46:55

that aren't Ethereum that

46:57

you're

47:00

excited about . That might , yeah , they're

47:02

not Ethereum or not blockchain or something

47:04

that , yeah , I guess , like aren't

47:07

.

47:07

Ethereum aren't Bitcoin , like me .

47:10

I guess the definition of blockchain is a little loose , but I

47:12

guess I'm just curious If there are any technologies in the , in the , in

47:14

the rough family of blockchains or DLT that you think sort

47:17

of conform to what you're describing . Yeah

47:22

, so I mean there , one of

47:24

the last chapters is compares a couple of like alternatives , since

47:27

the book is pretty like , I don't know . 90%

47:29

of examples are on , like Ethereum or something

47:31

like that , but

47:35

I do look in like .

47:36

The definition of blockchain is a little loose

47:38

, but I guess I'm just curious if there are any technologies in

47:40

the , in the , in the , in the , but

47:42

I do look in like . I think I mean , cosmos

47:45

is a really interesting like

47:47

ecosystem in itself , just because of how they've thought

47:49

very differently about how the different chains relate

47:51

to one another , but it's still I mean , it's still based

47:54

on capital . No doubt Holochain

47:56

is another one that I think is interesting

47:58

that doesn't doesn't

48:02

have this type of consensus mechanism . I

48:05

think one of the things that I'm waiting for from

48:07

Holochain at the moment , though , is like just more

48:10

use and more production , like

48:13

I like , you know , I've spoken to like the founders

48:15

before , and I like I think a lot

48:17

of their ideas are really interesting , even

48:19

though they , like really don't describe themselves as socialists

48:21

or whatever , but I do think that there are some things that they say

48:23

that are that are really Interesting , that like I'm

48:26

interested to see what the you

48:28

know what's going to come out of it , and like I'm

48:30

kind of like for me , I'm just kind of

48:32

like waiting and observing and seeing like

48:34

what is coming out , and

48:37

keeping track with those , but Holochain is one of those things

48:39

that I'm like I would like to see , like

48:41

, do more and succeed

48:43

. But we'll see .

48:46

And if I could just like expand a little bit on what I think

48:48

is like the point that I agree with the most out

48:50

of all you just said is which is trying to get

48:52

rid of VCs , right , like and I'm sure this

48:54

is no news to most of the people

48:56

in this audience if you're paying attention to

48:58

technology at all but like there

49:00

was a moment when Venture Capital kind

49:03

of did a pretty decent job of allocation

49:05

to new ideas and

49:08

new technologies lasted maybe

49:10

10 years , and for the last 15 we've

49:12

really been living in this kind of like hallucination

49:14

of capital where narrative

49:17

dominates so much and

49:19

like you're just trying to collect

49:21

money from people and really the money isn't in

49:24

building a business that works or building

49:26

a new technology that enhances people's

49:28

lives . Like the money is in creating

49:31

the narrative , running the fund , collecting

49:33

the investment and then cashing out as quickly

49:35

as possible and so

49:37

like to . Again , I think we're

49:39

sort of just expanding on each other's ideas here , but for

49:42

me , one of the visions of the future is

49:44

this ability of maybe

49:46

even relatively small groups of people

49:48

to form communities online

49:51

that can direct capital

49:53

towards projects that actually , like benefit them

49:56

, and they then also have a

49:58

literal stake . In as much as that is

50:00

like a sort of capitalist metaphor

50:02

, I think there's some value there . Of

50:05

course , the tricky part is that when

50:07

you're looking at it on a day

50:10

to day basis , the difference

50:12

between a like

50:14

the law cannot necessarily see

50:16

the difference between a community engaged

50:18

in a collective enterprise and

50:20

like one guy running an exit scam who's

50:22

going to take all the money from like the 20 people

50:25

he attracted . So that really , for

50:27

me , like that's like the how

50:29

do you make that distinction and make it in a

50:31

lasting way that works is one of the

50:33

real remaining challenges of this thing , because once

50:35

you take like face to face

50:37

community out of the equation

50:40

and stuff can happen online . Obviously

50:43

, we've seen that what it does

50:45

as much as anything else is like

50:47

create opportunities for fraud and scams

50:50

that are , you know , mostly

50:52

smaller than the macro

50:54

societal scale fraud and scam that is venture capital

50:57

over the last 10 years , but

50:59

it's still , you know , it's not the

51:01

future that I think either of us want . So

51:03

that's a hair that is very difficult to split .

51:06

I love hearing that for me because I

51:08

mean I'm just being at coin desk for so

51:10

long and seeing that

51:12

the increase in

51:14

venture capital the past few years must have been

51:16

, I mean , yeah , it's crazy

51:19

.

51:19

Like I've been writing about crypto for

51:21

like it's going to be literally a decade

51:23

in like two months , which is crazy , and

51:26

the I

51:28

was talking to somebody as we were getting

51:31

ready here even

51:33

in like the 2018 blow

51:35

up , like there was the first hint of

51:38

like full , like like

51:40

people in the finance industry actually getting

51:42

interested . That's why I love the subtitle of your book

51:44

so much is because , as much as it like

51:47

sort of you are , you're required to think nonlinearly

51:49

to make sense of it . But like how capitalism

51:52

did destroy crypto right like that

51:54

that it really involved like

51:56

people who were in mainstream

51:58

finance seeing an opportunity

52:00

again , like I said , to create

52:03

a narrative . Narrative didn't have a lot

52:05

to do with the reality , frankly . And

52:08

then you get this like horrific

52:11

public blow up that damages

52:13

the I don't know reputation

52:16

of the technology even more than it already

52:18

had . So it's very frustrating .

52:22

So so I'm an optimist

52:24

and I think that looking

52:27

at blockchain from a socialist

52:29

perspective in our world is fundamentally optimistic

52:31

, and I

52:33

think , in order to get to a place

52:36

where socialist

52:38

infrastructure is built

52:41

on the blockchain there

52:43

in our world , it would seem

52:45

like that would happen in tandem with A

52:48

world is also hyper

52:50

financialized , and so

52:53

, and in and

52:55

in that world , in that scenario , the

52:57

critics of crypto really do

52:59

have a role to play , and

53:01

so my question is what

53:04

do you think needs to happen for more

53:08

? So the crypto capitalists on the on

53:10

the other side , to see

53:13

that there is an option to use crypto

53:15

in a different way , so in a different

53:17

lens , a

53:19

different way of allocating

53:21

capital ? Because

53:24

I think that there's . It's not just that

53:26

socialists need to build

53:28

, but it's also that what

53:30

is being built needs

53:32

to be torn down as well . So

53:35

how do you , how do you , you

53:37

know , navigate that ?

53:40

very , very carefully . I

53:42

think it's a . It's a really , it's a . That's a really hard problem

53:44

. I think it's kind of like the ultimate , one

53:47

of the ultimate problems that needs

53:49

to be solved is like I

53:52

go back to this a lot , but like like

53:54

living within capitalism but also working

53:56

against it is like not

53:59

easy thing to do and like you

54:01

know , one of the things , another kind

54:04

of idea that like those gets into , is like the

54:06

how capital In

54:09

one hand de territorializes things

54:12

, like capital has de territorialized like

54:14

pre existing social

54:16

structures that used to be the thing that , like people

54:18

relied on for help or support or whatever

54:20

else that's been destroyed , while at the

54:22

same time re territorializing

54:25

or then creating new types

54:27

of social structures that now we're dependent on . To like I

54:29

kind of just use the like kind

54:32

of metaphor of like a double edged sword that

54:34

like on one end you are , you are

54:36

removing , and on the other end you're always

54:38

adding , and

54:40

that's like a difficult

54:42

, it's a difficult thing to like plan

54:45

everything out and for it

54:47

to happen exactly as you intended

54:49

, I think , but

54:52

like is something worth doing it's

54:54

. I don't know if , like , of

54:57

course , yeah , I don't know if you just like

54:59

ask a capitalist like hey , can you please

55:01

like give us money and not expect returns

55:04

? Like it's like very unlikely

55:06

, they're going to do it a lot of the time , and

55:10

but I think if

55:12

you are in a situation where you're lucky enough to

55:14

like convince them

55:16

to give you a bunch of money , I think it's

55:18

kind of it's imperative to try to be

55:20

that , I

55:22

guess , to find ways to de territorial , de

55:25

territorialize capital itself

55:27

and and re territorialize other things

55:29

. I mean like . I think to me this is

55:31

kind of like also the essence of like other

55:33

concepts , like do power or something

55:35

like that , that there has to be like this interaction

55:37

with the world as it exists and

55:40

as well as like creation of , of the new

55:42

in order to like supplant it or

55:44

to create , you know , to overcome it

55:46

and

55:48

yeah . So I think . I think it's it's very context , specific

55:50

, of course , and like what thing is actually

55:53

that you are trying to pursue ? I

55:55

think those are it's kind of like the . I think people

55:58

need to be more comfortable generally

56:00

in thinking about contradictions

56:02

or like like acknowledging the contradictions

56:05

of the things that they may be doing and

56:07

like kind of working through those things because

56:10

like yeah

56:12

, the world is full of contradiction and it's like not an easy

56:14

thing to kind of get over . So I think at least

56:17

being aware of it if you're the one trying to build

56:19

this stuff and like being honest with yourself

56:21

, is part

56:23

of it .

56:25

Being willing to confront the contradiction

56:28

. Yeah , yeah , I mean , and I think

56:30

the use the word build , which I think is

56:32

really crucial , because you know another

56:34

way of I'm

56:37

paraphrasing somebody here it's going to escape me but

56:39

like one very effective way to

56:41

like tear down the existing structure is

56:44

to just go ahead and build the new thing that's going

56:46

to replace it , right , and

56:48

so I think that you know building

56:50

and then also like

56:52

being in that process

56:54

and engage with it in all of its complexity

56:57

and sometimes like compromise . Perhaps

56:59

I mean to give the really

57:02

like basic example

57:04

. I think we probably have different views about Bitcoin

57:06

, but personally I view Bitcoin

57:08

whatever else it is as like potentially

57:11

a useful counterbalance to certain practices

57:14

by certain governments

57:16

, and so I think that's a pretty

57:18

decent example in my mind of if

57:20

you build something that actually works

57:22

and does something for people , then

57:25

it can have effects that

57:28

you know , if you're strategic enough

57:30

, can accomplish your ends by actually

57:32

just offering the alternative .

57:35

I have a question if that's cool . We've

57:40

talked about venture capitalism and

57:42

how the legacy models

57:45

and narratives present an obstacle

57:47

to thinking about how the tech can

57:49

be used . But

57:52

what I found is some of the loudest

57:55

voices for socialist concepts are

57:57

actually venture capitalists , like

58:00

Lee

58:02

Jin has a podcast called means of creation

58:04

, as talked

58:06

about creator on platforms , universal

58:08

creator income , like

58:11

things that sound on the

58:13

surface level like actually very leftist

58:15

, but it's now VCs that

58:18

are promoting like an

58:20

investment thesis .

58:21

Let's never forget who sold us the quote . Unquote

58:23

sharing economy . Like I

58:25

have to jump in here because I have an answer

58:27

, but I'll restrain myself , sorry .

58:30

Well , I also want to tie

58:32

into your point about coalition building

58:34

. So , like all politics are building a coalition

58:37

, so if some

58:39

radical ideas are shared with

58:41

venture capitalists , do you see a path

58:43

of building a coalition

58:46

with VCs somehow

58:48

? And also , what

58:50

do you think about the co-opting

58:53

of radical language by people that

58:55

are , at the end of the day , just trying

58:57

to get a return on capital

58:59

?

59:01

Yeah , I mean , it's a tough problem

59:03

as well . Like

59:08

, yeah , it's not

59:10

surprising that language gets

59:12

co-opted . In my opinion , it's

59:15

not something that I think we can really

59:17

just prevent , like

59:20

tell them no , you can't do that , don't

59:22

do it , that's not going to

59:24

happen . Nazism

59:27

is the co-optation of socialism

59:29

through a nationalist lens

59:31

. The reason the Nazi party was created was

59:33

because socialism was on the rise

59:35

and there was a need to co-opt

59:39

that movement and turn it into a fascist

59:41

one . So I think

59:43

this is constantly going to happen . There

59:46

is always this battle back and forth

59:48

. It's

59:52

hard because I think , if you purely

59:54

think of things as like , there

59:56

are two sides and we're each pushing back

59:58

and forth between one

1:00:00

another and whoever is pushing hardest is going to get more

1:00:02

and more . I don't think that's how it works

1:00:04

. It's a lot more multifaceted . And

1:00:07

there is this you

1:00:10

probably use some metaphor of Asian

1:00:12

philosophy about moving with the water or something

1:00:15

like that finding ways to kind

1:00:17

of acknowledge that this is a possibility

1:00:19

, that this can happen , and how to mitigate

1:00:22

it , because you

1:00:24

can't completely defend yourself from all these things

1:00:27

. I know of people

1:00:29

who are working on specific projects , who believe

1:00:31

, who are taking venture capital , for example , and

1:00:33

they are trying to find ways in

1:00:35

which that kind of reduce their power or

1:00:37

their influence over them . Right

1:00:40

now I'm kind of in the phase of waiting to see what

1:00:42

they do and how that pans

1:00:44

out . Right now

1:00:46

I'm more on the side , personally

1:00:49

, of I personally wouldn't

1:00:51

do a project that accepts venture capital

1:00:53

, because that's not the thing that I want to do . To

1:00:59

me it's kind of like

1:01:01

that's what

1:01:03

neoliberalism over the past several decades has been

1:01:05

very good at

1:01:07

, especially technology

1:01:09

and big tech . There was a pretty

1:01:11

good amount of time where people were thinking Google

1:01:14

is this big progressive force that's going

1:01:16

to change well for better . I remember people thinking

1:01:18

Elon Musk was the leftist

1:01:20

billionaire because he's making electric cars

1:01:23

or some shit . Obviously now

1:01:25

it was very stupid , but that was for a long time

1:01:27

that's been happening . I

1:01:31

understand people being a bit traumatized

1:01:33

or a bit fed

1:01:36

up with that type of thing . We're

1:01:40

in conditions not of our choosing

1:01:42

and it's a difficult game to play

1:01:44

to choose to want to make

1:01:48

radically different new ways

1:01:50

of being and structures , to accept a

1:01:53

pretty big task in the first place . I

1:01:56

think that kind of has to be acknowledged

1:01:58

, that you

1:02:02

can , of course , come up and make

1:02:04

decisions on what is a good way or a bad

1:02:06

way of doing it , but I think there

1:02:08

is a space that

1:02:10

you can play to , where people can try

1:02:13

different strategies , because I don't think we've really

1:02:15

figured out what is the way

1:02:17

to move forward

1:02:20

on all these things . I still think we're really at a point

1:02:22

that we're in need of experimentation

1:02:24

in this , because

1:02:27

we haven't figured out the thing that's

1:02:29

rapidly

1:02:31

creating , the thing that we want .

1:02:37

I love your point about alluding

1:02:39

to sharing

1:02:41

economy rhetoric , for example , as this

1:02:43

kind of co-optation of an

1:02:45

existing social impulse

1:02:48

, maybe towards something like socialism

1:02:50

, but instead we get like we

1:02:52

work which , like the we , was like a huge

1:02:54

part of their whole marketing thing . This

1:02:59

is slightly changing the topic , but I would just kind of like

1:03:01

issue a call of warning

1:03:03

, I guess , because in my mind I'm paying

1:03:05

attention to obviously , everybody's paying a lot of attention

1:03:08

to it right now . If you're in tech , but

1:03:10

in artificial intelligence

1:03:12

, you're now seeing the deployment

1:03:14

of a certain

1:03:16

kind of , I would say , perverted

1:03:19

socialist rhetoric being

1:03:21

deployed around creativity

1:03:23

, for example , this idea

1:03:25

that an algorithm that ingests

1:03:28

other people's work is really

1:03:30

just doing the same thing that all artists have done . All

1:03:33

artists steal , all artists are

1:03:35

, like , inspired by each other . We're all one

1:03:37

, we're all part of the same thing . But in fact it's actually like

1:03:39

this cover for intellectual

1:03:42

property theft , in my opinion , on a huge scale

1:03:44

, and I think that like to

1:03:46

bring it back around in a way that

1:03:48

doesn't really match any political

1:03:50

orthodoxy that springs to mind . But

1:03:52

I think , as we see this like predatory

1:03:56

AI approach

1:03:58

to intellectual property , it kind of

1:04:00

, I have to say , as somebody

1:04:02

with socialist or leftist

1:04:04

tendencies . It perversely

1:04:06

kind of like reminds

1:04:09

us of the value of property and of individual

1:04:11

property and of being

1:04:13

able to maybe place some limits on

1:04:16

how people use certain things that certain

1:04:19

people created and have actual rights to , and

1:04:23

I think that crypto does offer

1:04:25

that as a different viewpoint

1:04:28

that can be useful in certain strategic

1:04:30

circumstances , to be able to say like

1:04:33

no , this belongs to this

1:04:35

group or this person , and like

1:04:37

in the digital age , it's the capitalists

1:04:40

who really have the most reach

1:04:42

to come in and take things

1:04:45

that are just kind of in the commons right

1:04:47

, like I mean , we're seeing with

1:04:49

AI , essentially like a replay

1:04:51

of the real tragedy of the commons

1:04:54

, which is the partition of

1:04:56

it and the appropriation from it into

1:04:58

private hands , and

1:05:00

so like thinking about ways to

1:05:02

limit that pulling out of the commons

1:05:05

. I think is also another

1:05:07

potential , very

1:05:09

theoretical at this point application

1:05:11

of blockchain through certain rights management

1:05:14

things .

1:05:14

No , I really like what you said , but one

1:05:17

of the things that part of this question

1:05:19

to acknowledge

1:05:21

, I think , is that oftentimes it's phrased as

1:05:23

in how can we prevent

1:05:26

the right from co-opting us

1:05:28

? And like that's

1:05:30

kind of like the framework that's generally used , without

1:05:32

acknowledging that , like I

1:05:34

don't know , like Marx

1:05:37

, he co-opted like right wing

1:05:39

philosophy . Like Hegel

1:05:41

was not a leftist . Like David

1:05:44

Ricardo and Adam Smith were not leftists

1:05:46

, you know , like they were . Like the liberal

1:05:50

philosophers who , like

1:05:52

then ended up greatly influencing

1:05:54

the way that we think about capitalism today and

1:05:56

you basically co-opted the use of

1:05:58

their theorems , of their labor theory

1:06:00

of value , and used it and

1:06:03

applied it in a different way to create

1:06:05

what ultimately became , like , you

1:06:07

know , marxist socialism at the time . And

1:06:09

so , like there is , like there is also a history of

1:06:11

the left being able to do that as well . I

1:06:13

feel like we kind of forgotten

1:06:16

or like don't do very much . So

1:06:18

, yeah , I don't know that's that's something that I would , that I would keep

1:06:20

in mind as well . It's a , of course , like

1:06:23

it requires

1:06:25

like critical thinking in order to do that . It's not

1:06:27

, like you know , an easy

1:06:29

thing to do . At the same time , Hi

1:06:32

Josh .

1:06:33

So I know , josh . So

1:06:35

before I ask my question , I want to share

1:06:38

with you guys my perspective , because it's kind

1:06:40

of my framing as to where the question kind

1:06:42

of stems from . So we

1:06:44

talked about tech being an expression of our political

1:06:46

beliefs . So that's one . My

1:06:50

belief is competition

1:06:52

and coexisting ideologies . I

1:06:56

believe in this . I believe in that

1:06:59

kind of as a means of global learning . You

1:07:01

know , we don't like that ideology because X , y , z

1:07:03

happened . We like ours because you know Y

1:07:06

, z , x happened , whatever , but

1:07:08

more as a means of global learning . The

1:07:10

third one my

1:07:13

belief is , you know you're talking about

1:07:15

representational thinking . I

1:07:18

think it's kind of the easiest way for people to grasp

1:07:20

something especially . You know

1:07:22

it's just easy , it's memetic

1:07:24

. But also , if we're

1:07:27

thinking about , you know , the burden of

1:07:29

our information age , we just have everything

1:07:31

coming at us all the time , everything

1:07:33

all at once , everywhere , sort

1:07:36

of situation . So those

1:07:38

are the three things I kind of want to frame

1:07:40

before we jump into my

1:07:42

question . So my

1:07:45

thinking is you know , what do you think about the

1:07:48

perspective that you

1:07:50

know the best direction of in implementing

1:07:52

? You know socialist blockchain

1:07:54

might be kind of , you

1:07:57

know , leveraging this current

1:07:59

state that we have , you know , in this

1:08:02

representational thinking , but

1:08:04

maybe doing this with the public commons

1:08:06

at scale like water

1:08:09

, air , land . You

1:08:12

know a lot of this . You know , with ideologies and

1:08:14

tech , it's all kind of an evangelism

1:08:17

game . You know who can you

1:08:19

get to follow you

1:08:21

on board in your direction and your

1:08:23

ideology ? And if we're thinking about

1:08:25

bringing socialism to blockchain

1:08:28

at scale , you know what are those largest

1:08:31

examples . So my thinking here might be

1:08:33

that direction . So you

1:08:35

know what's your perspective on that .

1:08:38

So what are like influences

1:08:41

? You mean that are moving

1:08:44

towards socialism on the blockchain ? Is

1:08:46

that kind of thinking ?

1:08:47

Like my thinking is , the

1:08:50

best way to evangelize people is

1:08:53

to do things with them at scale that

1:08:55

have immediate utility . So

1:08:58

an example could be you know public

1:09:01

utility blockchains that are leveraging

1:09:04

data on water that we use

1:09:06

. You know books that we use , things

1:09:08

that are generally public , but you

1:09:11

know just kind of are being leveraged by and

1:09:13

managed by the government .

1:09:15

Right . No , I think this

1:09:17

, I don't know , might be an unpopular opinion

1:09:19

, but I do think that there

1:09:22

is like a really interesting

1:09:24

place to play potentially

1:09:26

with like partnering

1:09:29

with certain governments or like

1:09:31

local municipalities to use the

1:09:33

technology in a way that like helps govern

1:09:36

already existing , like shared resources

1:09:38

in a particular locality . I

1:09:41

think that would be a very fruitful place and

1:09:43

like a very immediate thing . Of course

1:09:45

, it is sort of like we

1:09:47

haven't found yet . I

1:09:51

don't know if there are like so many . I

1:09:53

know of a couple of projects . I've kind of done this , but some

1:09:55

of them are kind of like the vaporware a lot of

1:09:57

the time . But yeah

1:09:59

, I think , being like I'm

1:10:01

not afraid to say that it is interesting

1:10:03

to like partner with governments

1:10:05

to do this type of thing and

1:10:08

should be considered a lot more , just because it's

1:10:10

already a preexisting institution

1:10:12

that has access to like

1:10:14

all these people and who , like

1:10:17

, are reliant on them for a lot

1:10:19

of their services . So

1:10:21

, no , I think that's like one place to play . Like one

1:10:24

of the one of my like articles

1:10:26

that I wrote quite a while

1:10:28

in like beginning of the pandemic was like how

1:10:31

to ? Because in the beginning of the pandemic everybody

1:10:33

was afraid of being kicked

1:10:35

out of their of their homes and apartments

1:10:37

because they were not working and their landlord was going to kick

1:10:39

them out if they didn't pay rent . And this is

1:10:41

happening at like a massive scale and

1:10:44

so , like , for me , one of the things like thought

1:10:46

experiments I had at that point is like how to

1:10:49

how to use like

1:10:51

blockchains to kind of like create

1:10:53

a different type of relationship with housing

1:10:56

, for example . So I just you know it's called the housing

1:10:58

for all token or something like that where the

1:11:00

token is representation of

1:11:02

a political rights to housing

1:11:05

. So , like you

1:11:07

could use the token to , based

1:11:10

on you know what your like

1:11:13

particular conditions are

1:11:15

at that moment use your token

1:11:18

to purchase a house or

1:11:20

not really purchase a house . It gives you the right to

1:11:22

use the house . So it's like a different relationship

1:11:25

with property that you don't need

1:11:27

to buy a house in order to live in it or

1:11:29

rent a house to live in it . The housing is

1:11:31

kind of held in Commons , in

1:11:33

the public , and you use

1:11:36

the token as just a system of

1:11:38

allocating , like who is able

1:11:40

to live in which

1:11:42

particular apartment or house

1:11:44

, because , and at the same

1:11:46

time , you can , I think , pretty easily programmatically

1:11:49

put in , like if this is a single mom

1:11:51

or something like that with with kids , their

1:11:53

their token would give them a right to a

1:11:56

house with more rooms for their

1:11:58

children to play in , versus I don't know

1:12:00

someone who's like a single guy who doesn't need

1:12:02

that much space . So I think that's

1:12:04

like that is decommodatizing

1:12:06

housing and

1:12:09

relying less on

1:12:11

the markets and is something that , like I

1:12:14

think in a world where we aren't so like

1:12:16

reliant on free markets

1:12:18

, could be possible . Or utilizing kind of like

1:12:20

public housing already existing public

1:12:22

housing systems around the world . I

1:12:25

think is like one thing that I'm

1:12:27

that I thought about . That thing is is interesting

1:12:30

. What do you think ? The government

1:12:32

?

1:12:32

welfare structure is . How

1:12:35

different do you think it

1:12:37

is from what you're presenting ?

1:12:40

here Quite different . I mean , the logic in

1:12:42

a lot of welfare systems

1:12:44

is very like me . It's , I

1:12:47

mean , there's means testing in

1:12:49

a way that is like quite like

1:12:51

needlessly punitive . I guess that

1:12:54

a lot of in order to get welfare

1:12:56

, especially in the US , like you have

1:12:58

the amount of paperwork they have to give them

1:13:00

before you're even able to get anything is

1:13:03

like pretty monstrous . It's

1:13:05

sort of like just kind of like punishing people for

1:13:07

being poor , like they're already in a bad

1:13:09

situation and then like also , you want

1:13:11

to like they have to come in , you know , once a week

1:13:13

for , like a drug test or whatever else . Like that's

1:13:15

taking away time for them to be able to like

1:13:18

care for their families or to like find a

1:13:20

job or whatever else . I think it's

1:13:22

quite different . It's just like

1:13:24

yeah

1:13:26

, it depends on like the logic that's embedded inside of it , because

1:13:28

what is another great fear

1:13:30

of mine actually is that blockchains do get

1:13:32

used by existing

1:13:34

public institutions , but in

1:13:36

the logic of the already existing

1:13:39

system , that's quite punitive . So

1:13:41

, yeah , I've got answers . Question .

1:13:44

I guess start off , I would say , like what you said

1:13:46

about working with existing

1:13:48

institutions , because you talk a lot about

1:13:50

this parallelism , right

1:13:52

, with these new structures . But I'd

1:13:54

be curious to know what your

1:13:56

thoughts on of crisis playing

1:13:59

a role in this shift

1:14:01

. If you look at Bitcoin

1:14:03

, you know this

1:14:05

can't . This was spun out of a crisis , right

1:14:08

, banking crisis . It was a direct response

1:14:10

to that . And so , yeah

1:14:13

, and to the sort of original

1:14:15

like delusion point , when

1:14:18

you're doing this kind of schizo

1:14:20

analytic framework with

1:14:24

rhizomes and the systems

1:14:26

and how you , how you present them

1:14:28

, what kind

1:14:30

of prevents not

1:14:32

your own personal politics but politics in general devolving

1:14:34

into essentially being a pirate , right

1:14:36

, like you're kind of riding

1:14:40

, you're building the ship with

1:14:42

the small group that you've coalesced

1:14:45

and you guys are just trying to get through the storm

1:14:47

. So I wanna contrast

1:14:49

that with sort of the conventional

1:14:51

, you know , notion of socialism

1:14:53

as a movement , a real

1:14:56

collectivist movement .

1:14:59

So , to your earlier points about crisis

1:15:01

and the role of crisis , I think , yeah

1:15:04

, what brought about neoliberalism

1:15:06

was the crisis in the 70s

1:15:08

of like stagflation , like that was ultimately

1:15:11

like the moment when things like really shifted

1:15:13

. The entire world was like under a crisis

1:15:15

and people were just like looking

1:15:17

for new ideas , and the one that already

1:15:20

existed was neoliberalism . There was already

1:15:22

a huge movement I mean not

1:15:24

a movement , but like a lot of money behind

1:15:26

this type of thinking of like free

1:15:29

market fundamentalism that began way

1:15:31

before , you know , 1970

1:15:33

, whatever it was whenever it

1:15:35

started to come up , and

1:15:38

so , like I think there is At least the meme is 1972

1:15:41

, right yeah ? yeah , but

1:15:43

yeah , I mean like it's

1:15:45

a so like I think it was like

1:15:47

Naomi Klein or like Shockdachtchen

1:15:49

I think she wrote a lot about this that

1:15:52

, like in moments of crisis , that

1:15:55

it's like used as a point

1:15:57

whenever like nobody's kind of like

1:15:59

able to pay attention , or looking for like massive

1:16:01

changes to happen , a lot of times for the worse

1:16:04

, in the benefit of like

1:16:06

those already have a lot , and

1:16:08

that's how , like , we tend to have really

1:16:10

big changes in the world , just like

1:16:12

after these crises , like so

1:16:15

I think , considering

1:16:18

that , I think that means

1:16:20

sort of acknowledging

1:16:22

that there's a need to like build

1:16:25

, collect , like a

1:16:27

collective of sorts , a movement

1:16:29

of sorts , before the crisis happens

1:16:31

, because by the time the crisis happens , it's

1:16:33

too late , like you're

1:16:35

not ready for what's happening . Like

1:16:37

if there was some sort of greater

1:16:40

movement before Occupy Wall

1:16:42

Street that was more organized and

1:16:45

more you know , whatever , it probably would have been

1:16:47

a lot more successful than it has been or

1:16:49

than it was , even though it

1:16:51

was a well-intentioned you know , people

1:16:53

were angry , but it's this like constant

1:16:56

thing where there is this reaction to

1:17:00

crises happening . So

1:17:02

I think that there is just like , yeah , the

1:17:05

need to build infrastructure before

1:17:07

the crisis and to so

1:17:10

that you're ready for whenever the crisis does happen , because

1:17:12

I mean , if you

1:17:14

, I mean just capitalism , just like guarantees

1:17:16

crises , that's like par for the course .

1:17:19

Yeah , yeah . So , like , I guess that's

1:17:21

kind of why I was going to the whole Schizel analysis

1:17:23

, right , because I wanna kind of pick

1:17:25

your brain about what your teleological

1:17:28

view is of this right . Like , is it

1:17:30

that there will

1:17:32

be a crisis and then , you

1:17:35

know , society is sort of remade in

1:17:37

this new image , or is this something

1:17:39

to help not promote the

1:17:41

status quo , right , but is part

1:17:43

is a mechanism of stability

1:17:46

, right ? So you

1:17:48

know , is this socialism a

1:17:51

stabilizing

1:17:53

, you know equalizing force , or is

1:17:55

this socialism something that arises after

1:17:57

the crisis , right , when you know

1:17:59

there are these tools lying around for

1:18:02

others to pick up and continue

1:18:04

? And so I guess that's sort of my

1:18:06

main point , yeah

1:18:10

, point .

1:18:11

I'm not sure . I mean , I'm not like I

1:18:14

wouldn't be able to make the prediction on

1:18:16

that . I guess I'm more

1:18:19

interested to just see . Like I

1:18:22

don't know what works essentially

1:18:24

Like , and it's for me still hard

1:18:26

to say how exactly that will pan

1:18:29

out .

1:18:31

Like my take on that and you know , like , leaving

1:18:33

aside an immense amount of

1:18:35

complexity , but my entire

1:18:38

fascination with , like Bitcoin

1:18:40

specifically , and to whatever lesser

1:18:42

extent these other systems have

1:18:45

similar features but this

1:18:47

idea that there it's

1:18:50

put dismissively but it was like a

1:18:52

meme that became a collective

1:18:54

action that actually built

1:18:56

something , and

1:18:58

obviously it's rooted in a lot

1:19:01

of stuff that I think you know a lot of us would

1:19:03

dispute on fundamental ideological grounds

1:19:05

, but nonetheless , in terms of

1:19:07

you know , speaking to the crisis , like

1:19:09

it really does

1:19:12

appear to now be something that

1:19:14

can at least have , as you said , not

1:19:17

necessarily status quo , but like some

1:19:19

sort of protective effect , something

1:19:21

that , in particular , if you're

1:19:23

coming from like the neoliberal

1:19:25

institutionalist perspective and you believe

1:19:28

that , like the government

1:19:30

is gonna take care of everything , basically there

1:19:33

is now this model for , in

1:19:36

a digital way , building an alternative

1:19:39

that can be

1:19:41

you know , maybe it's not the structure

1:19:43

that we would like it to be , but it is nonetheless

1:19:46

this structure that can exist

1:19:48

past the crisis and it does

1:19:50

exist . You know , it's really there and

1:19:53

there are obviously I'm leaving out a ton of complexities

1:19:55

, but and I think that

1:19:57

, like , if you go down to a more granular

1:20:00

level and maybe

1:20:02

it's about money and maybe it's about other things , but

1:20:04

there are these other structures

1:20:06

that you can build outside

1:20:09

of the institutions that

1:20:12

then can be , yeah , there

1:20:14

for the crisis , or mitigate

1:20:16

the crisis , or however you wanna put it . And

1:20:19

I think that's one of the , for me , really fascinating

1:20:21

things about all of this is that it's a model

1:20:23

for exactly , I think , part of what you're talking

1:20:25

about , with all the hairy

1:20:28

downsides and not

1:20:30

quite things that we would wish them to be . That

1:20:32

comes with that .

1:20:34

Thank you for the book and podcast . I

1:20:37

guess I have a couple short questions

1:20:39

based on your sense of

1:20:41

the ecosystem , sort of demographic

1:20:43

questions like what percentage

1:20:46

of builders in the space would you say

1:20:48

identify as being leftist ? And

1:20:51

then also what percentage of

1:20:54

builders are women and

1:20:57

what percentage of them are not

1:20:59

from the global north ?

1:21:02

All of them are lower than I would like them to be

1:21:04

. It's really hard to say . I

1:21:06

mean I think it has changed

1:21:09

interestingly over the years , like

1:21:11

I don't know . I was at ETH Barcelona a

1:21:13

couple of weeks ago and there were like

1:21:15

a surprising amount

1:21:17

of people , who at least

1:21:20

considered themselves to be on the left , that I was able

1:21:22

to meet or find I don't know

1:21:24

, just kind of like by accident , I guess . I

1:21:27

do remember , like when I lived

1:21:29

in New York for a year , when I was first getting into stuff

1:21:31

and I would go to like these crypto events and it would

1:21:33

be like I mean pretty

1:21:36

horrible like the type of like politics a

1:21:38

lot of the people were espousing . It's

1:21:41

still the case a lot of the time , the politics that

1:21:43

people are espousing , no doubt , but

1:21:45

there has been like a growth in like these

1:21:47

pockets , I think , of people who are

1:21:50

not thinking about it in that way . So

1:21:53

yeah , and I do think I mean I

1:21:55

don't know my impression

1:21:58

talking to women at

1:22:00

some of these conferences is that they

1:22:02

do think usually they're ones who come

1:22:04

from like traditional tech

1:22:06

or traditional finance or

1:22:08

something like that Like I've heard that

1:22:10

they've said that there are more women at crypto

1:22:12

things than at the traditional

1:22:14

, whatever financial tech things that they would

1:22:16

normally go to . I can't

1:22:19

really confirm that necessarily , and

1:22:22

I guess there are I don't know at

1:22:24

least in Europe , the places

1:22:26

that I've been to , I've met quite a few people

1:22:28

who come from a lot of the time

1:22:30

. I mean , there's a lot of people from , like , south America who

1:22:33

are building that . I've probably met

1:22:35

quite a few . But yeah

1:22:37

, ultimately there needs to be more or there should be more .

1:22:39

I think so , like in

1:22:41

terms of elections , would you say it's 1%

1:22:44

, 5% , 10% .

1:22:46

That's really hard to say , I think . But the thing is that , like

1:22:48

a lot of people don't label themselves

1:22:50

, they don't say like they don't

1:22:52

want to be labeled to be

1:22:54

a certain thing , and I get that , I

1:22:57

understand it . I've sort of taken on the

1:22:59

horrible duty of labeling myself who

1:23:01

I am and just being honest with it , because I feel fairly

1:23:03

confident in it and like willing to

1:23:05

engage in discussion about it , and

1:23:08

I don't mind it . But I think a lot of

1:23:10

people don't have a

1:23:12

coherent politics generally and

1:23:14

that's not like meaning I'm not saying like like they're

1:23:16

dumb or whatever , because they have that , it's just

1:23:19

that we don't . It's not like everybody takes

1:23:21

the insane amount of time it takes to like

1:23:23

read whatever big political theory books to

1:23:25

then say like oh yes , I am this and

1:23:27

I can defend all of my positions for everything

1:23:29

all the time , because it's like a weird sort

1:23:31

of responsibility to put on yourself , you

1:23:33

know . So it's hard to say . I think

1:23:36

a lot there are a lot of people who

1:23:38

have like progressive tendencies

1:23:40

and like have kind of like good

1:23:43

intentions and wanting to create things

1:23:45

that are more egalitarian and democratic

1:23:47

and whatever else , but that

1:23:50

they don't necessarily put

1:23:52

it under the bucket of a particular political name

1:23:54

is what I find most

1:23:56

often .

1:23:58

I would just add one thought to the question about

1:24:00

demographics , which is having

1:24:02

sort of to echo what

1:24:04

your informant told you , which is that

1:24:06

having kind of been in the traditional tech

1:24:08

space and being in some of those

1:24:10

spaces and then kind of looking

1:24:13

at what's happening in crypto , I

1:24:16

mean just the simple fact that

1:24:18

it is set up in a way where

1:24:21

you know political borders

1:24:23

don't have that much influence

1:24:25

, does have a genuine impact

1:24:27

, and there are major projects that

1:24:30

come from absolutely every corner of the

1:24:32

world . I mean , an example that I try out

1:24:34

a lot of the time is I don't know if people

1:24:36

know this , but the team that built Etherscan

1:24:38

is based in , I believe

1:24:40

, malaysia or Indonesia . I might be getting

1:24:42

that slightly wrong , but that's like a key

1:24:45

clutch part of the entire

1:24:47

ecosystem built by people

1:24:49

way outside of the Silicon Valley

1:24:51

venture capital sphere , and there are

1:24:53

a lot of examples of

1:24:55

that , and so I you know not to try and

1:24:58

simplify it into percentages or

1:25:00

whatever , but there really is

1:25:02

some expansiveness to

1:25:04

the space and the people who are

1:25:06

involved that I think can be for

1:25:08

very material speaking of let's

1:25:11

be materialist about it right , for

1:25:13

material reasons in terms of the way the technology

1:25:15

is set up , that does have an

1:25:18

impact in opening doors and you can really see

1:25:20

it if you're out there kind of interacting

1:25:22

with people in the space . Yeah

1:25:25

.

1:25:25

I have to agree with that . That tends to be missed by a lot of critics

1:25:27

.

1:25:31

I think that seems like a good

1:25:33

stopping point . I think we'll

1:25:36

all many of us will

1:25:38

be hanging around for a little while longer here , so I'll

1:25:40

be signing this . If you wanna chat with Josh , he's here

1:25:42

and do you have books for sale ?

1:25:45

If you've bought the $30 ticket , then I

1:25:47

will sign a book for you and give it to you . I have the box down

1:25:50

right there . We can do that right now , more

1:25:52

or less . But yeah , and

1:25:54

then if you didn't I don't know you have

1:25:56

20 bucks I'll give you a book .

1:25:58

And then just for the purpose of the recording

1:26:00

, if you wanna follow me , I'm on Twitter

1:26:02

at DavidZMorris and is there anything you

1:26:05

wanna kind of plug on the way out here

1:26:07

? Uh

1:26:09

?

1:26:10

no , please buy the book , I

1:26:13

guess . Yeah , you have one thing to buy . Okay

1:26:15

well .

1:26:16

Thank you so much , Josh DeVila , for

1:26:19

writing the book , for coming out and doing this . It's

1:26:21

been great and we'll be hanging out , thanks

1:26:24

. Thank you so much .