Bitcoin's Real Power Has NOTHING to Do With Getting Rich

Bitcoin is a truth machine, but are you prepared for the massively disappointing reality it's about to reveal to you? Thomas Stroll light has been one of my biggest philosophical inspirations on my Bitcoin journey, and in this episode, he shares his most convictionheavy takes yet. We discuss why our current institutions are crumbling, how to live a life of truth in a world full of lies, and why Bitcoin is the only thing that cannot be faked by AI. and stick around to hear why Tor believes Bitcoin's ultimate mission is about permanently stripping the rulemakers of their power to decide your future. If you enjoy my content, it would mean a lot to me if you could subscribe to the channel and like my video to support my journey. Thanks a lot. Now, let's dive in to this episode. Tor Strolite, welcome back to Bitcoin for Millennials. >> Nice to see you again, bro. >> Very nice to see you. I mean, I I told you before you are probably my biggest philosophical inspiration in this whole Bitcoin journey of mine, but >> I beat somebody. Wow. >> And I'm happy with just one. >> No, more than one. You know, it's more than one. But um yeah, I mean, and I'm also just saying it again for the people that maybe didn't didn't listen to our previous two episodes or or in some weird way don't know your writing yet. So for anyone who doesn't know Tor lights writing just Google Tor's medium uh page I think everything is on medium right or >> it's about the the best stuff is on my medium and then there's a couple of movies uh >> exactly >> and and a book right so um looking at the landscape today right with ETFs and then you have Treadfi coming in I see you know there's Bitcoin collateral for mortgages now um which you know some people say this is the logical progression of something like Bitcoin, but do you think you know the the ethical value proposition of Bitcoin changed or um have we just adjusted our expectations of it? Like how do you look at that? I think the focus moves from time to time. Part of what we uh realize, especially during a time when Bitcoin isn't in grow in fiat growth mode, when it's not capturing fiat value, which is kind of like the the value lull that we're in right now, that's when people get a chance to focus on its other attributes and and which I think are its more important attributes. it it is replacing the fiat system gradually and there are moments where it's it's moving quicker than others and so all all the attention becomes a fiat attention but intrinsically bitcoin is different from the fiat system and it's not when it's winning against the fiat system but when people can see it for what it is that people start to have profound insights because of bitcoin where it really opens their eyes it's You know, we had our we were slaves in the fiat system, born as slaves, and we get excited when there's a way to be more successful slaves in the Bitcoin in the fiat system because we have this we think we have this thing called Bitcoin that's worth more fiat than it was worth before. So, we think we're winning. But Bitcoin really wins in freedom. It opens your It opens eyes that were closed to you before. You start to see things that you didn't see before. And some of the first things are like horrifying things. It's like all these people I trusted, all these institutions I trusted are actually corrupt and they're not working for me like they said they were. They're working against me and they're taking advantage of me and they're lying to me about how they're treating me. So, it's a very massively disappointing moment in time when you when you go through that first screen of wait, the people who run the money system are not in it for our own good like they tell us. They're actually in it for their own good. that actually makes sense and it explains so much more. Now everything's starting to make sense to me and I don't have to take everything on faith, but it can leave you in a very depressed or dejected or cynical uh mood. And I think the excitement of where Bitcoin takes you is it does so much more than increase in fiat value. It gives you your autonomy. It gives you your freedom. It gives you a perspective to hold on to that helps you make sense of the rest of the world and and gives you the freedom and courage to explore that real world that is not the fiat veil with the Wizard of Oz, you know, behind you little man behind the curtain telling you he has magical powers, but the realization that all men are equal and none of them have magical powers. So that's one of the things that starts to happen when the when the when people are confronted with there's more here than getting rich in fiat terms in a fiat world. The fiat world is fake. There's a real world though. And what is the real world? Nobody's taught me. I was everything I was taught. Well, I shouldn't say everything, but so much of what I was taught was a lie that I have to deprogram myself and then reassess what reality is. I think Bitcoin is the most revolutionary aspect in in that regard because it is rooted in reality and verifiable math and verifiable physics and and human ambitions that are that are real. like it it really is a system that treats you fairly and equally. It doesn't give you advantage over somebody. You know, there's no part to play where you get a unfair advantage over somebody else. And there are people who may view that they can. And so there's tension between everybody. Like not everybody in Bitcoin has the experience you've had which is to recognize that it's a connect it's connected to the principles of freedom and rights and rather than wealth and money and when people and so the bigger Bitcoin gets the more you have different people with different perspectives uh in many people who are not yet fully awakened they're like they came to Bitcoin because they heard it was going to go up quickly cuz they heard there is an ETF And they heard that Michael Sailor's company was buying a lot and that there were a lot of mimic companies mimicking his strategy. So that there was a a lot of fiat money to be made in Bitcoin and many people come to Bitcoin first as this get-richqu scheme. But it, you know, Bitcoin is actually a expand freedom for humanity scheme disguised as a get-richqu scheme. I've I've been repeating this on this podcast, but you're the perfect person to talk about with this like and and it's and it's the it's the I I I think it's the pinnacle moment in the journey because that's the first time where you either decide to stay ignorant or you decide to um go further on the path but also take on more agency and also more uncertainty, right? Because you don't really know where you're going to end, right? But just the fact that you do it, that you take that red pill on the way to the orange pill, I think that's the that's the freeing action. I think >> Yeah. You know, I I think it part of it is it's um you're you're drawn to it because you want to make more money, right? you look there's this idea of what do you invest in to make money and then somebody mentions Bitcoin >> and and there's a lot of p there's a lot of paths that you can take uh that are misleading paths you get caught up in the crypto thing potentially or you get caught up in Bitcoin derivatives or you get caught up but eventually or maybe not eventually for everybody but for many people you end up focusing on like well what is Bitcoin and why is Bitcoin different than everything else? Why is it why is it a good investment? What what makes sense here? And what be the more you try to understand Bitcoin, the more incompatible the rest of the world view is with what Bitcoin is. It's like no, there's no institution. There's no issuer. It's not controlled by the government. Nobody tells you what's right and what's wrong. The rules are the rules. It's much more like nature than it is like human institutions which are controlled and evolve and adapt with the people who are in charge of them. And you hear expressions like don't trust verify. And it's like or that the problem is with the traditional system is all the trust that's in it. And you can't simultaneously have a understanding of both and a belief that both work, right? Like one is one exposes the contradictions of the other or one is in direct conflict with the values of the other. You know, if you believe in a central bank that can centrally control the economy through adjusting interest rates, then you then you don't believe in Bitcoin. But if you but if you study what central control does, then you realize it it's a manipulation and a violation of the rights of the people who aren't in control of it and have no control over it. And so you you cannot avoid for very long the moral, ethical, philosophical implications of Bitcoin which shed light on the immoral, unethical implications of the fiat system. And then it lo and behold, it's not just the money, it's everything. It's the public education system. It's the incentives for health care and pharmaceutical and agriculture and and everything starts to unravel. And you have to form a new view of the world that initially starts off quite dismaying, quite discomforting because you're all alone. Nobody's coming to save you. In fact, all these things that you were told were here to protect you are actually taking advantage of you and they're taking advantage of everybody else. And they're asking for your submission and and and uh approval in continuing to do that which is immoral. And so it is Bitcoin ends up becoming a rebellion, a revolution for you, a claim on your birthright as a free human being. 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M >> um there are people who try to suppress it and distract and you know and do one thing or another to resist or reject having to confront that reality. But once even some small portion of your subconscious has seen it all you can do is pretend to be in denial of it. Right? Like once you've seen the truth, you can pretend that the truth isn't the truth, but you know you're pretending. like deep down inside you know you're lying to yourself and you know there's something wrong and you can get into a Bitcoin derangement syndrome where you've seen the truth and you now violently and vehemently oppose oppose it because the truth is just too much for you to bear or you can accept the truth and you can start doing what you can to live a life of truth to live in alignment with the truth even though the rest of the world is misaligned right like you You can't in a world where everybody says 2 plus two is five, you can know that 2 plus two is four and still walk around, you know, and looking at all these fives and knowing that they're fours and looking then at subsequent equations where they add 5 + 5 and get 10, but they're really only eight, you know. So, there's an independent path that you're put on by studying Bitcoin. And you may you manage to meet others uh who have seen the light as well. and and you you may try to write to others to try to get them to see the light as well and and build a bigger community. But as Bitcoin grows and I I think this is part of the for me the evolution of my realization about what it means is like the number of people who hold Bitcoin is expanding dramatically, right? They they hold it indirectly so they don't really hold it for many people. they hold it, you know, through intermediaries, so they don't really hold it, but they they know of it and they hear they hear some of what's been told about it. And as time passes, it's more and more. So, you end up with a very large group of people, only a minority of whom have have been through the journey and accepted the truth of what it is and actually pursued the truth of what of what it of what it means. >> Mhm. So you don't have every Bitcoiner that you run into is like philosophically aligned with you. You have many who are very fiat-minded who haven't really taken the journey. Some who are in a relapse to the fiat mindset. Uh but that doesn't mean that the Bitcoin cause is lost because at its core at it at its essence intrinsically Bitcoin is still exactly what it always was and it's still a revolution a re a big revelatory it reveals the lies of the rest of the system by just being purely honest in and of itself. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I that last part I absolutely love because I think that is it right. You talk about uh Bitcoin being a truth machine. It's what kind of battles against all this noise and like like you said like the veil of fiat money, right? Or the enchantment I call it or the you know the obfuscation, the abstraction, all this stuff. And then there's just this thing that just says, you know, this is what I am and this is what I'm doing and I'm actually doing it. I've been doing it for 16, 17 years. >> Well, this is exactly Bitcoin does what it says it does in the white paper. The white paper isn't a sales pitch for Bitcoin which does something other than what it is, right? Like everything you see in politics. Almost everything you see on television and in commercials and stuff is like it's a lie. >> Politician is saying I'm going to help you. But what he's really saying is please I'm I'm out to help me. I have an agenda and I'm not going to I won't answer any questions clear. Like it's so vivid now. They won't answer any question clearly or concisely. They'll misdirect the question and and all the people who are rooting for them know that they're lying, know that they're not answering the question, and they're like, "Woohoo! He, you know, he got away from that question without answering it honestly." They're celebrating deception and dishonesty if they're supporting any any politician. I just can't think of a single politician I know who tells the truth. So it is, you know, when you're faced with that system to actually see something that tells the truth that isn't written by a marketing, it isn't gone over by marketing people to say, well, let's not say this. Let's put it in another way that's more emotionally appealing, emotionally, it just says peer-to-peer electronic cash, and here's how it works, right? And it's so refreshing because it's just purely explanatory of how it works and it's honest and then you can go into the details and mechanics and see how it works. But there's just something about the truth and you know that's the truth that we see in in in true science, not in science that's trying to be mystical or trying to be again puffed up and inflated beyond what it is. a few simple rules um that are discovered that apply in a broad set set of contexts and people can understand in what context they don't apply allows us to build a modern civilization. It's built on truths, right? Um but you know for the last however many years you want to call it 50 years 70 years there's been this detachment from the truth and the civilization is crumbling as a result and people don't know what the truth is and we we have systems and institutions that are like meant to educate us but actually indoctrinate us and so they don't educate us. They don't teach us the truth. They teach us what what certain people want us to think so that they can continue to hold their positions of power. But if we think these things that are wrong things and we try to apply them in the real world, but they're wrong, bad outcomes happen. And that's what we're seeing right now. We're seeing this confusion, collapse, loss of purpose, loss of identity, loss of distinction between right and wrong, whether that's scientifically or ethically. And there's just we live in an incredibly confused time period which isn't being helped by a AI which can fake videos, fake photos, and write really long coherent but incorrect essays very quickly. Right? It's all really really tough times I think for the truth seeking person for the person who >> thinks they want to find the truth even. >> Well I I think I I have an essay which is uh you know everything will be copied except Bitcoin. And so for me I do think that especially in this age bitcoin is uh in the digital way also an anchor of truth right there. There is just if everything can be infinitely copied which is digital, right? If anything digital can be infinitely copied and eventually also everything that is physical. Um, >> yeah. What is what what is still real and scarce and you cannot make more of even though if you if you wanted to, right? Um, >> well, this I think one of the first profound things for me at least in Bitcoin was it kind of it goes back and I haven't read that essay of yours yet, so I apologize for it, but it was everything digital can be copied. >> So, Bitcoin doesn't prevent you from copying it. You can copy Bitcoin. In fact, that's what the peer-to-peer nodes are intended to be. The Bitcoin says, "Make a copy of me." But you have to make a copy that has integrity or it's not Bitcoin. So, if you make a copy that inflates the supply of Bitcoin, it's not a copy. It's a bastardization. And it's easy for everyone else to tell that it's not a copy because the hash of the most recent block doesn't doesn't work out to what everybody else's copy is. So it takes advantage of the fact that everything digital is copyable to actually increase its security, increase its legitimacy, increase its credibility. It doesn't try to conf to fight the fact that everything digital can be copied and make some kind of UNC. It doesn't have like digital copy protect. It doesn't have copy protection. It has copy go ahead. What it has protection of is the integrity of its records through digital signatures and proof of work. And by doing that, it creates replicas of itself all over the world, which is what then gets people to start to wonder, well, gee, it sure looks like a life form because it's growing and consuming energy and replicating itself and doing all of these things that only life living things seem to do. But at at the basis of it, it is it's an invention that accepts the reality of the fact that everything can be copied. where so much of, you know, so much of the experience of becoming digital, of things becoming digital for humanity was an attempt to fight this, right? How do we get people to pay for files? How do we get people to not be able to copy software? How do we get people to not be able to, you know, copy uh music files or we'll sue them, we'll apply all these things. And Bitcoin's Bitcoin is completely doesn't have the legal department that prevents people from copying Bitcoin. doesn't have a department. It doesn't have any people. It's software that is open source and ready to be copied, but in being copied, it's not like, well, I can make as many bitcoins for myself as I can. I can make as many copies of the ledger that are in compliance with the ledger's rules, you know, so I can make as many copies as I want of the fact that you own the Bitcoin that you own. >> Exactly. Of the fact that you proof make no new Bitcoin for myself. That's wow what and I just remember seeing that and saying this is the solution to all this you can't copy stuff right and it's it's in the intention of being a solution to the double spend problem right which is the would also be the triple spend quadruple spend quintuple spend problem the copyable problem and you can you like you can copy Bitcoin but you can't inc you can't change Bitcoin and that's this profound >> yes invention it's still So crazy more people don't see that right or have their mind blown by it. But we were talking about you know I think the truth part you can look at that from different ways right it I I say engineer truth because of just the the time chain right the time chain is engineer truth if if you verify it right now and I verify it right now we see the exact same thing objectively right which is crazy like there's nothing in the world that you and I can verify from your location and my location at the same time and see the exact same thing not even reality right Like I could say like what color is that and you say orange and I say orange but it's just a light spectrum that we labeled orange right we don't know if it's exactly the same in your head and as it is um in my head but with Bitcoin it is the exact um >> yes exact same thing >> the fidelity is so perfect because here it is it's now what the you know the blockchain itself is 800 gigabytes and the unspend transaction output set is 11 GB or something and we don't generally agree We agree of every single bit. >> Yeah, exactly. >> In the entire thing and we need a machine to keep track of it. But we know thanks to the technology behind it that our copies are in perfect fidelity. Not again, they're not close. It's not like, oh, I have a I have a toy horse and you have a toy horse and they came out of the same 3D printer and so they're very much alike, but of course there's minor imperfection. Like there's no imperfection whatsoever. It's perfect fidelity because it's a digital file and it's the exact string of ones and zeros. It goes on for, >> you know, 11 billion ones and zeros >> and they're exactly the same and it gets updated by adding to the end of it and it remains exactly the same in perfect fidelity. >> Wow. For every single person who runs it. >> Wow. >> Yes. Last week someone told me that they hear heard people say like, well, but you know, Bitcoin sounds too good to be true. And I mean if if you follow >> Yeah. your philosophical reasoning and and and you agree that it is what it is. It does sound too good to be true in the noisy fiat money world. Like how could this be? Is there is is this thing actually honest? Is no one in charge? Right? Oh, it's not a Ponzi, right? It's not a cult, right? Oh, just >> And that's what it requires. It requires verification, validation, research, and work to figure out that it is as good as it claims to be, right? and and it isn't more than what it claims to be. And I I think >> when people think something is too good to be true, they often default to, well, there's a catch, you know. And there often is a catch. And look, there there is a catch in Bitcoin. You have to take responsibility, you know, that's one of the catches that nobody nobody can save you. Like you're responsible for your ownership of your coins, not some third party. And when you and well, people say, "Well, there you go. So there's the problem." I go, "Don't you realize that if you surrender the control of your money to somebody else, that somebody else can then take advantage of you? They may not be there to protect you the way you think they're there to protect you." And they're like, "Oh, right. That's actually the whole source of the fiat of the fiat money problem. We let somebody else be in charge. We put our trust in somebody else and that somebody violated that trust." And so the there's truthfully only a binary choice here. Either I take responsibility or I seed responsibility. And if I seed responsibility, I may be taken advantage of by the person I gave the responsibility over what's mine to. So you have to choose one or the other. Bitcoin is the only thing that lets you take responsibility though in a world where responsibility is waved and where the rationalization of surrendering responsibility to those more intelligent, experienced, wealthy, what wise, whatever is is presented as the right thing to do, right? But of course, they take advantage of you. So you're better off, even if you're not as smart as them, looking out for yourself because smarter people than you looking out for themselves at your expense with your money is not exactly in your interest. So it is in your interest to look after yourself. And that's and that's not a catch. That's a philosophical deduction insight that you realize that if you don't take care of yourself then someone who who is selfish as well might take advantage of you delegating the care for yourself to them. This is the whole point of independence and adulthood. And if you don't believe that people should be able to take care of themselves, should understand how to take care of themselves, you will not like Bitcoin. You will like the kind of political system, an economic system that has collapsed over and over and over again and in which it's much better to be a ruler than someone who is is ruled. You won't believe in equal rights. But Bitcoin is for people who view that they're able to take responsibility and they do believe that it's right for people to be equal before the law, before the system that that everyone's a peer, right? It's it's a peer it's reflected in the architecture. It's a peer-to-peer system, not a master slave, a client server, whatever terminology other types of systems use that have centers and leaders and rule makers and rule enforcers. In Bitcoin, we're all equal. Everyone infor accepts the rules. Everyone enforces the rules. Everyone's equal. >> I mean, that's it. Again, you know, Bitcoin is so profound because it touches these philosophical parts. >> Yeah. >> But it it it combats them through the use of technology, right? Because what you're describing is the is the principal agent problem, >> right? >> And and that's as old as I don't know, that's that's that's old, right? And and I think also part of just how humans work because also what you described there are definitely people that don't want what you just said, right? They don't want to take on that agency. >> There's two types of people. There's people who don't want to take on the agency. There's people who want to take on the agency of others, right? It's like I will be your ruler. I will serve you. Uh bless me, bro. I only need one private jet and an army to protect me and 70% of your net income and you know and your sacrifice of your life in the war I'm having against this other person who chose to be a leader of other people and then everything will be perfect and utopian for you. Vote for me. Well, I think the interesting part here is that I've also heard people talk that uh in in some forms uh like dictatorships, right, have proven to be uh of uh uh to have better outcomes for the majority of people than than democracies. I'm not saying I want a dictatorship, but I just think it's interesting. >> I'm not saying I want a democracy either. Like there's a danger in democracy which is it's the it's the maj majority rules means minority is the slave of the majority if it even worked that way right like we know there there's actually modern democracies are delegations to a very small class of people politicians rulemakers bureaucrats by a majority vote which is often in a multi-party system not a majority of the vote but a more votes than the other than any one other person got. So it's not whoever came out to vote, >> but it's it's a very small minority of people rule with the de through the delegation of a larger minority of people at the expense of all the people. For my European friends that want to buy Bitcoin with ease, check out Relay. I've been a longtime fan and happy to partner up with what I think is the best Bitcoin only platform for Europeans. They offer a super simple beginner-friendly app with no distractions and no shitcoins. You can do a quick one-time smash buy or set up automatic purchases when you're stacking regularly. And here's the thing that matters most. Relay is 100% self-custody. Every set you hold is yours. Your keys, your coins. If you want to get started, download the app via my link below or in the description and use code bra. That's br at checkout to get 10% off your fees. A huge shout out to Relay for sponsoring the show. Now, let's continue. >> There's there's a lot of problems to democracy, right? The what the Americans had as the idea in the revolution is creating a republic where everyone was equal before the law and every everyone was endowed with inalienable rights which a state would not be permitted to violate. But the state is able to violate. These rules are just words on paper and words on paper don't enforce your ability to do them. Where whereas what Bitcoin is doing through distributed consensus prevents any no man can violate right you cannot create a version of the blockchain where you have 2 million more Bitcoin you can attempt to create one but it'll be instantaneously rejected easily by all the other nodes and so you cannot like in Bitcoin it's not that there are punishments for breaking the rules right like that's the legal system we have doesn't say you cannot murder cuz if you murder we'll come after you and throw you in jail. It has consequences to breaking its rules. In Bitcoin you cannot break its rules. You cannot double spend. You cannot spend coins to which you don't have the private keys. You cannot add a block to the blockchain without demonstrating proof of work. So nobody can break the if anyone attempts to break a rule, their attempt is simply rejected by the entire network. So we don't need to have courts. We don't need to have lawyers. We don't need to have police. We don't need to figure out what the right punishment is. We just don't have rule breaking. And it's a profoundly innovative approach to playing a game, if you will, or to having a set of rules. These are the first inviable rules created by man. You can't violate the law of gravity. You can't violate the law of electromagnetism. But those are natural laws, not man-made laws. All the other man-made laws you can violate except for Satoshi's. Well, I like that you use the word game, right? Like if you want to violate them, you have to make an entirely new game. So, I like the analogy with chess or English grammar. Like I can make chess bra style, but not many people want to play with me, right? And if I become the guy that says, you know, Braum chess is way better than usual, you know, general chess, then maybe a lot of people that are playing chess don't want to play with me, right? So, it's with with Bitcoin, it's like you don't you cannot even play the game anymore. Yeah, >> it's a different game if you want to change it. >> Well, that's it. It's a it's a different game because the minute the minute that you've tried to do an illegal move, it's not that somebody needs to come in and say, "Hold on a second. Blow the whistle. That's an illegal move." According to even Bram Chess, right? It's you cannot make the move within the within everyone who's playing the game. They don't have to look around to see who's made an illegal move. There's no You are the player and the referee at the same time. You referee yourself and everyone is the is a referee also. Everyone calls every attempt to break to violate the rules before it's done. It's almost like it's temporally reversed, right? In in all other games, you can break a rule and someone has to catch the fact that you broke the rule. In this thing, before any move is made, it has to be tested >> to see if it complies with the rules and then it's permitted, right? So it it's like it's how can how did you know it was compliant before it was permitted? It's well we have a cue of moves that people are trying to make and we check each one for its validity with the rules before it's permitted to be made before it's added to the blockchain before we ex we rebroadcast it in the meool before you know so the it's a very different system than what we're used to. We're not used to a system where you cannot break any of the rules. And that's what so many people spend so much of their time figuring out how to do in other systems is how to find where the rules can be subtly broken, subtly violated and and then they proceed to violate them. >> Yeah. I think this is where the at least in in my mind the the trustlessness part comes from, right? Mhm. >> You when you know that everyone who is playing the Bitcoin game can only play the game if they adhere by the rules. >> Yeah. >> You only have to focus on you following the rules. If that makes sense. >> You you have to win the game by the rules rather than by cheating. >> Exactly. Yes. Yeah. >> Fiat is different. In fiat, it's like, well, you can get more fiat not by not necessarily by offering more value to other people, but by pleading to the government or by getting into a role where you are close to the money printer or where you are the money printer, which violates the alleged rules of the system. But you know, in a system where people can change the rules, this is a really important insight, there are no rules. There are only temporary >> temporary what temporary suggestion. There are no rules. >> Suggestion. Oh, this is a good one. Temporary suggestion. things are suggestions and they may be enforced on certain people but not uh but not by others and so being a rule maker you know and again in Bitcoin who gets to make the rules >> well anyone can propose new rules but everyone has to accept the rules before the rules can change as a consensus that's required to change the rules so it's not a democracy you know it's not a dictatorship it is a consensusbased system where the rules don't change unless you have an overwhelming majority of consensus to change those rules and people who don't want to accept the changes to the rules don't have to accept them, right? They they can >> they can make a different game. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. They they can keep the game the same and now you're playing a different game. But >> yes, >> that's a lot of technical detail. >> Jeff Booth says cooperative competitiveness, which I really like. >> Yeah, I understand that. And um in I think a field money world um also at least for me on my journey there were many times where I just realized I'm an idiot. I'm doing things >> and I have no clue. I I don't know why I'm doing it. I don't know how it works. How did I even end up here? Right. But I know mimicking I don't want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I do know I don't want to do it. >> For my why why Bitcoin book was called why choose Bitcoin. It was because and they have a short answer. It's a short article, but the even shorter answer is because Bitcoin asks you to choose it. It doesn't force you to choose it, right? Like you were born into fiat money. Nobody asks you, do you want to use fiat money? You are forced to use it at the point of a gun, no less, right? If you don't accept it and you don't pay your taxes in it, you're in violation of laws and you will be thrown in a cage. Like this is the difference between Bitcoin that says you don't have to use me. Like here I am as I am. Use me if you want to. I think I'm valuable because I possess all these characteristics of sound money engineered to near perfection or perfection if you will. So choose me if you want. But one of the things about money is it accepts that you have agency and it lets you choose. And so how can I as Bitcoin try to force you without violating your agency? Choose Bitcoin if you want it. and that every single person in the world who uses Bitcoin has chosen to use Bitcoin. You know, the choice may become exceedingly obvious in the future. It may become the only rational choice for even a highly irrational person, but it's still not forced on you. There's no point of a gun saying choose Bitcoin. The government mandates that you do. >> Yeah. >> Exclusively, right? Like that's, you know, that that's monopoly power. That's an irrational monopoly granted by the government to itself to say everyone must use our fiat currency, which we secretly print lots of without telling anybody about. Yeah, exactly. >> Uh there this is another meme, right? Bitcoin doesn't care, right? >> Um and and uh I I think you explained it uh well, right? It doesn't matter if you choose it or if you think it's stupid or whatever, you know, like Bitcoin is neutral in that sense. It doesn't it doesn't care. It it it it um it's funny because it just puts it back puts the burden back on >> the person who thinks whatever of it, right? Bitcoin just is. And if if you don't see it, um Bitcoin doesn't care if you see it because Bitcoin just is in that sense. I I I think that is very >> it's like nature, right? I mean, and this again goes to back to it operates like a law of nature. Gravity doesn't care. You know, it'll work on you. And if you jump off the top of a 30story building, gravity doesn't care that you have a wife and kids and value your life, it's going to take you down to the concrete at the bottom at whatever the rate of acceleration is until you hit terminal velocity. Bitcoin doesn't care either. You know, Bitcoin provides the value proposition that it does. And if you missed out on it, it doesn't care. where it's going to continue to provide the value proposition. It wouldn't be the value proposition that it is if it did care and said, "Hold on, we got to roll back the blockchain. Bram just realized Bitcoin's valuable and he wishes he bought in back when it was, you know, 2009, so we're going to roll back for the sake of Bram." Cuz that would be not fair. That would be >> It's another meme. It's another meme. You get Bitcoin at the price you deserve. Right. That's not It's not a nasty meme. Some people are like, "Oh, that's so that's so that's not nice to say." No, it's it's like when you wake up, right? Like when you see it, you see it and that's when you when you >> can get it. >> Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, like there's a there's freedom, responsibility, accountability all baked into this thing. And freedom doesn't mean easy. Freedom doesn't mean rich. Freedom means you get to choose, you know, according to the laws of reality, what what is. And freedom comes with responsibility. So you know including the responsibility to respect the freedom of others you know if you're if you're a person who says I'm free to do whatever I want and you start shooting people you know and you say well it's my freedom to shoot people other people will say well then we have the freedom to shoot you in return right and you don't really have a leg to stand on. If we think we know that we are right about the future um but we have to wait you know in some way for other people to also figure it out in a period that is quite chaotic. Yeah. >> How do you think or how do you >> basically get on with your life uh and and and are active in like other areas of personal growth or spirituality or whatever, right? I feel like yeah, the difference between being right and being shown you're right. >> When does when does every last person I meet in the world come to me and say, "You were right, Tor." >> Well, that I don't know that that's not going to happen. It's not going to happen, right? Yeah. Maybe this is just for our children, for example. That's what I said to you before. >> But even for our children, even for our children, there will be people who don't. Yes. >> Who have different values, different things. And so, one of the things you have to accept and embrace and live by is that different people are going to have a different point of view about about different things. Bitcoin doesn't require global monopoly, right? Bitcoin works. Bitcoin doesn't care if everyone in the world believes in it and trusts it. You and I and Canut Van Holm and Eric Kase and Gigi and all of your listeners can interact with one another freely using Bitcoin as money. And um I think it's the it's the last essay in my book. It's called Why Bitcoin is a Declaration of Peace. Um and I'm I'm almost tempted to read it. It basically says, you know, we can live in peace even with people who don't accept Bitcoin. We just don't have to deal with them, right? We can live in peace uh trading value for value with one another who believe in Bitcoin. And if other, you know, and it's a declaration saying that what's mine is mine, but that other people who say, well, I don't I don't appreciate the value of Bitcoin, you can say, then let's move on and live in peace without trading with one another. Right? So the ability to form a network of people who voluntarily and mutually agree with you on your values is all that you really need. If Bitcoin is a strong value proposition, more people will believe it. If it isn't, then there will be fewer people you can deal deal with. But it's a choice that you made. And and Bitcoin doesn't ask for your exclusive belief. It doesn't say don't you're not if you have one Satoshi, you must have zero dollars and zero yen and zero. Bitcoin doesn't care, right? Bitcoin allows you to be free to do whatever you want um as long as you don't attempt to violate the rules, which it won't let you do, right? So the the expectation that Bitcoin has to take over the world, I think is one of these false and never to be realized hopes of Bitcoin fanatics who legitimately, you know, recognize the value in Bitcoin and want everyone to benefit from it, but don't legitimately recognize the fact that not everybody will choose to do so. Right? Because Bitcoin is purely voluntary and asks everyone to choose it. There's going to be those who don't. and uh and they and you might as well let them live live in peace and live with the consequences of not choosing it. Sometimes the best way to teach someone that their choice is the wrong choice is to let them make the wrong choice. Right? You cannot force the right choice upon people. You certainly can't force their mind. You can't force their con. You can force them at the point of a gun to use something. But that doesn't mean that they agree now. It just means that they know that you're threatening them with physical force and violence. So you'll never convince everybody of any single idea no matter how rational it is and Bitcoin and money and has economic, psychological, global implications on human beings which are very unpredictable entities as individuals let alone as 8 billion of them all growing up in at different times in different places. So I don't I I don't worry about the fact that it is not widespread um yet and might not even become widespread in my lifetime and might and won't be universal in my kids' lifetimes. I think it'll continue to grow and be recognized as valuable by value producing people who want to live a life where they exchange value for value with other people rather than seize value by force where where they mut mutually agree with one another to exchange value for value. That to me is a peaceful movement and it's a growing peaceful movement that everyone in the world is given an opportunity to participate in. And that's the really that's the beautiful gift that Bitcoin gives us and and it comes with the consequence that not everyone in the world will choose to accept the gift. The longer Bitcoin exists, right, the longer it uses it turns high entropy, you know, infinite energy chaos in into a low entropy block >> with information that is immutable. like the longer that exists, the more predictable it becomes that it will keep on doing its thing, the higher its integrity. >> Bitcoin, Bitcoin mines um entropy into whatever the opposite of it is into into steadfastness, right? Like if you want to use Bitcoin, what's the first thing you have to do as a user of Bitcoin to generate a wallet? You have to create entropy. You have to come to it with a huge random number or else you can't play. If you come to it with low entropy then your coins will be stolen. So you have to and and how does >> and how do transactions get confirmed? They get confirmed through the mining of your you know your your signed high entropy uh in data that's achieved through taking lots of chaos and finding a chaotic result that is below a particular threshold of physical difficulty. So it requires all this high entropy energy and then the minute that a block is discovered the instant that it's discovered essentially it affirms and removes the entropy from from everything older in the system it requires more and more energy to the point of near impossibility to add to it. So for people who understand how Bitcoin mining works or they understand how keys are generated by rolling dice uh or just coming up with a a large random number, they recognize that Bitcoin is like taking all this energy using entropy to eliminate entropy to provide certainty in a world that's chaotic, right? And so you have this certainty, but it recognizes that you can't achieve certainty without first applying the principle that entropy exists and using as much entropy as possible >> as everything in nature, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. as a like what a brilliant invention because it's not well we we'll we'll create a user ID that's bram pants bitcoin.com and everyone in the world can guess it and now you need to create a password and this it's like no it doesn't even know that human beings exist let alone that they have names let alone that you're one of them let >> it just knows that there are large large addresses that are that you can provide signatures for using uh the signature algorithm and and that's it. And it knows that it only accepts his blocks blocks that meet the difficulty requirement. It doesn't know that it's it's actually hard to achieve them in reality. It just says this is this is the algorithm for >> the conditions met right these >> are the conditions that are required. The programming behind it means that for us in the real world, it's very hard to find a block and and the more people are trying to find a block, the harder it gets. That's the difficulty adjustment. But Bitcoin doesn't >> It's so amazing, don't you think? I think it's so it's just, >> you know, Yeah. Again, you you can go so deep in so many ways. is this whole idea of >> of of taking something from the physical world needing to use that in order to create something digital that is immutable and cannot be copied and like the longer it exists the more trustworthy >> I think this is something that's that is drawing a lot of people's interest again because I I've been talking about it on the spaces that I appear on and there's more and more people asking questions every day so that like this this refocus like I think a lot of people came into Bitcoin because they heard it's going up because micro strategy is buying a lot of it and there's an ETF and so that was like here's something that's going up in fiat terms number go up technology I understand that that's that's simple although I don't exactly understand why the number goes up but I know it has something to do limitation yeah I I like the number going up and I know it has to do with the supply cap so it's like but the more you start to talk about how Bitcoin works which is what you're like enthralled with at this moment about how beautiful it is and how stunning it is the more other people start to get hold on wow That's that's really amazing. It's using physical energy. It's using this. It's using that. And so, as long as there's people around to keep explaining how how it does that, what what a hash function is and why why it can be used to generate a signature and why it can be used to generate a difficulty that needs to be required with through lots of entropy. When people start to understand that, they start to really see the beauty of the invention in the same way that they might see the beauty of an airplane because of its wings that they generate more lift than drag and it lifts the airplane up and that's why the wings need to be wide and need to be a certain shape. And how beautiful it is that when it achieves speed, there's more lift in the weight of the plane. And so something that weighs 20 tons can fly in air that weighs essentially nothing. That's the beauty of understanding the engineering of a thing. And Bitcoin is designed not to interact only with the physical realm, but to interact with the human realm of what humans want to do. But it provides this constraint so that we don't destroy our you know it and our belief in the system. The fact that nobody can cheat is what then gives you the trust in the system. And the trust in the system is what allows people to hold on to Bitcoin as money, as a store value for forever, trustlessly. If you get it, if you understand how it works, it's actually an amazing tool to talk in a philosophical way. We have lived through an era of institutions that require trust. They were set up, you know, even like the American form of government with the separation of yeah uh legislation, judicial and executive functions around the law was set up as a check and balance system, right? It was oh no, it's a system of distrust. Oh no, Yval Harrari, what are we going to do? But it was ultimately a system of you trust judges to be good judges. You trust executives to only execute law and not in influence the legislation of laws and you trust legislators to to compose laws that the executive would authorize being independent from the judiciary. But what do we see now? We see that all of these things have become you have judges who are part partisan and party affiliated. You you have the president telling the legislature sure what laws he wants to see that he will sign. you have pressure being put on the executive by the legislature ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra rather than accepting their independence. So we've lost trust in the system and this has happened in every institution that we have. We've the trust in the in the individuals who are put in charge of these institutions has been eroded because they've been corrupted. They've become compromised and corrupted. So we now need a system that doesn't put trust in human individuals because human individuals are corruptible and o over the last 70 years or you know some rough period in that range all of these systems have been corrupted through the corruption of the individuals who are in charge of them. So what do we need? We need a system without somebody in charge. And Bitcoin is the prototype of potential more institutions. I don't know how to invent them yet. But at the very least here we have one institution that is incorruptible because it has nobody in charge of it. It has no CEO. It has no head of marketing. It has no of whatever. Its rules are purely objective. We don't get to decide whether we accept a transaction or not. You know it has to obey the rules and but we all enforce the rules in if we run a node. So it's like this is how we replace trust with trustless systems, right? Who that are and it's not like we're we're replacing trust in a world where we said ah just trust anybody and everybody. The in in invocation of these systems were meant to have checks and balances so that trust would be honored. But we've gone too far, right? There's too few people making too many powerful decisions. The government has gotten too big. It become a monopoly on education. it it's a monopoly on the regulation of health care diet like they recommend what diet you should eat and they prove foods through the FDA they recommend what drugs you can take and approve or deny drugs through through the same the same entity you know so there's just way too much centralized authority that's corruptible and um and difficult to see through it's not transparent right it's opaque and so you can't even see the corruption you can only feel its effects. And so what do we need? We need transparent systems with no people. Well, that Bitcoin is the prototype, right? And it certainly fits the bill for money. And it may be instructive as to how we structure other systems through at at the very least through decentralization. The more the less power is concentrated, the less incentive there is to be corrupt, the less ability there is to be to entirely corrupt one thing through >> through one, you know, vulnerability. >> Yeah. Well, this is also why I'm very hopeful about the future because Bitcoin will just keep on chugging along and showing that it's doing what it's doing. And on this other, you know, on the on the centralized fiat side, it's probably going to be crazier and crazier and more repressive and and and whatnot, which is >> you will see a tie, right? Yeah, Bitcoin versus the central bank, decentralized homeschooling versus centralized top down education, you know, regenerative agriculture versus monocrop, you know, agriculture with fungicides and herbicides and pesticides and fertilizers. Like, we'll just see it in all these different ways. And it won't always and it won't happen very quickly in every single instance. And it won't be perfect the first time around. you know, people figuring out how to community school their children, maybe starting with homeschooling, but moving to something that's more local and communitydriven won't always be successful everywhere. There will be failures. There will there will be individuals who betray trust and hurt kids or miseducate them, but it won't be universal. It won't be the whole the whole of the population of kids because there isn't a central authority saying all kids must learn all this exactly this at the exact same time at the exact same age which is what we have right now nationally in every country. We have fiat education, we have fiat healthcare, we have fiat food and we have fiat money and it's because we've put too much trust in centralized authorities and it's time to remove that trust. I want to ask you two short questions. I think they're short. Uh to to wrap it up. Um I just want to ask you about like your your your crazy view or like your spicy view. Like is there is there something that you think will happen let's say the next 10 or 20 years that uh you know even the most maxi bitcoiners would find crazy or too far out there. >> Well 10 years is a very short period of time. Like you know I I try to think about like what will happen. do longer, whatever you want. >> One 100 million years. Um, that's that for me is the fun kind of crazy thinking. I wrote one story called moving heaven and earth that said, you know, Bitcoin will teach us how to first of all sustain our civilization, but to master energy to the point where we will become, I didn't say this in the story, but like a Kardash civilization where we will be able to harness the power of our star, which will allow us to move our star. uh you know to direct our star uh and turn the entire solar system essentially into a starship uh and with the with the stated purpose of spending a 100 million years or so traveling towards a younger star so that we can by before the sun explodes and runs out of fuel reposition the earth in uh orbit around another star that will last us another billion years and we can go on uh repeat rinsing and repeating so we can save not just humanity but the earth itself. and all life on Earth. Um, so that's a pretty far out idea. >> I love that. >> Yeah. You know, but it's like that's that's a low time preference idea. It's something that even in the most optimistic of my estimates is, you know, it's a 100 million-year journey cuz you can't just accelerate the sun. uh you know you're trying to plot an intercept course and gradually adjust its course and and we of course don't have the knowhow or expertise to even move even budge the moon let alone the whole solar system but that's you know that's to come >> I love that. All right the last one if you had to describe the purpose of Bitcoin in 2026 without using the words money currency or inflation would be >> without using those things. Well, in in that case, it's it's to return human civilization to a state of reliability and and trustworthiness between between people. Uh to remove the division of power between the ruled and the rulemakers, right? To to make humanity truly equal before the law and before the systems of of the world. Awesome. I did it without without using your >> amazing. I knew you could I knew you could do it. Um yeah, man. Thanks so much again. I really enjoyed it. Uh hope people will enjoy it and thank you so much. >> Pleasure. >> Okay. Terrific. >> I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, you can click here to find more. Just like it and click here to find all Bitcoin for Millennials podcast episodes. Also, if you want to help me shine a light on the message of Bitcoin, please like this video and subscribe to stay connected. I hope to see you for our next episode. Bye.