0:03Richard Greaser Alright. Let's see if we're live. I don't think we're live. We are live. Wow. Look at that. We are live. Holy shit. I figured it out, boys.

0:29Richard Greaser Richard is live warming up for his debate.

0:37Rod Palmer Blake.

0:45Richard Greaser Alright. Let's see if zap dot stream works. I'm on I'm on Elon's platform. Looks like zap. Stream isn't working. I've never had this many issues with it. It's kinda lame. Wow. Revolution won't have good UX. How about that shit? How about that shit? Hopefully, the audio is fine. I assume it probably is.

1:14Richard Greaser Okay. Wow. 15 views. Look at that. Alright, guys. So we're gonna go live with, Mike Brock in, like, twenty six minutes. Oh, wow. Okay. So this is, like, really stupid talking about streaming UX. Let me fix that graphic. Flip horizontal. There we go. Alright. Should

1:43Richard Greaser I don't know why it does this. So I'm going from OBS to another streaming platform back to Twitter, to Elon's platform. Zap. Stream's not working. Never had issues with it before.

1:60Richard Greaser Guess it's not wanting to work tonight. It's it's gonna be slightly less of a revolution. Revolution won't have good UX. Oh, look. It just flipped. We got a little bit of a delay. We're looking at, like, fifteen second delay, from my typewriter. Yeah.

2:21Richard Greaser We got quite the quite the setup here. I don't I don't know what to expect from Mike Brock. Been doing some debate prep. Getting ready for this. Been working hard all day. I, listening to some Mike Brock. I mean, one of the things that's kind of amazing about Mike Brock is you go through his interviews, and he looks, like, dramatically different

2:47Richard Greaser in most of his interviews. It's kinda crazy, actually. So, like, you know, he's got his Twitter profile picture. It looks like he's been taking some Ozempic. It's pretty thin. You go back to his, what Bitcoin did interview, and he was a little bit chubbier. So it was Priozempic. That was before it hit the market. We all know that Mike's not smoking cigarettes. I'll I'll address that with him on the debate tonight.

3:14Richard Greaser But, I went back to, like, another older interview. He looked like an entirely different guy. He looked like an entirely different guy. Like, he had no facial hair. His hair was different. It looked like he'd gotten a bunch of Botox and maybe plastic surgery. I couldn't really tell. But,

3:35Richard Greaser you know, like, I don't change that much over time. I'd I mean, you have to look at me anytime in, like, the last twenty years, and I I essentially look like the same person. I don't even think I've aged that much. It's kinda crazy. I look like the same person. But, like, Mike, the in the three different interviews that I I watched of him, just constantly changing. I wonder what that's about. I think it's just like these Silicon Valley guys. You know? They're they're always, like, pumping themselves full of random shit. There's always, like, the new fad. Those, like, you know, go get plastic surgery, take Ozempic, you know, do whatever.

4:16Richard Greaser And, I'm just not that way. You know? I I I smoke cigarettes. That's what I do. That that's the supplements that I take. I smoke cigarettes and, work in my typewriter and, you know, go for walks and get some sunlight. I listen to Steven Loveko a little bit. But, yeah, for for people tuning in, we'll get we'll get started here in a little bit.

4:39Richard Greaser I was a little bit afraid that Mike would flake, but it sounds like he's committed to the interview. Sounds like he's ready for it. Let's see if Zap dot Stream's working. Looks like Zap dot Stream is not working. Blame.

4:57Richard Greaser I'll have to talk I have to figure out who does zap.stream and and give them a little talk. But, yeah, let let me tell you about my, my warm up here. For the debate, I I was reading some of Mike Brock's Substack's articles. It was, you know, kinda interesting.

5:17Richard Greaser It was kinda interesting, but listened to some of his interviews. Is it admiring how he looks like he's a shape shifter or something over time, constantly changing into different people or or looking entirely different, get getting fat, getting super skinny, going on those epic. I mean, one of the things I'm really concerned about in this debate is that Mike has not prepared for it like I have.

5:46Richard Greaser I I watched some of his interviews. I I read a bunch of his stuff. I I listened to him talk about, like, why Ayn Rand is, terrible and why objectivism is stupid. And, it's a it's an interesting debate. It's an interesting there's gonna be an interesting debate. I don't I don't wanna get into my points too much yet.

6:11Richard Greaser But I I thought the best thing that I could do is open up a Atlas Shrugged and start reading it. So I I I read Atlas Shrugged for, like, about an hour before I went live on the stream, drink some coffee. It's really late out here in New York. Really, really late. Past my bedtime. Almost 10:00.

6:35Richard Greaser Should be going live here in twenty minutes. I I wonder how much Mike has got in him. I guess we'll I guess we'll kinda figure out what the tone of this this debate will look like once we get into it. But, yeah, I I didn't even know that this was a thing. I didn't even know that you could do conversations on Substack.

6:57Richard Greaser You know, I've always kinda turned my nose up to Substack. I think Substack is kinda like the platform for, like, wanna be journalists that don't have the proper credentials. You know, it used to be it used to be back in the day. You wanna be a journalist. You had to go work for, like, a CIA ran newspaper or something like that.

7:19Richard Greaser And then the Internet came around and and disintermediated it. Right? And, people started spinning up their own website. So I have my own website, which I think is way cooler than having a Substack. And part of the reason why I don't really care about Substack is because it's all

7:39Richard Greaser it's all CIA, kinda monitored, like, Fiat rails bullshit to be able to accept donations. There's no, like, way to integrate BD's pay server into it. It's just not a it's not very friendly for Cypherpunks. You know what I mean? This this conversation isn't very friendly for Cypherpunks in general because I'm having to use a a app on my phone, but, you know, whatever.

8:05Richard Greaser My wife showed me how to do it. I'm not very technical or tech literate, but, you know, this is like it's why you get married. You know what I mean? Like, you you need somebody that compliments

8:21Richard Greaser you. You can't do everything yourself. There there's a division of labor for a reason. You know? My my wife can spend the time learning, about all these doodads. I I mean, you heard me. I I can't figure out why this stupid streaming app doesn't work. It's a miracle I'm on even on Twitter. She figured that out for me. But, yeah, I mean, this is, like, why I got married because I I

8:50Richard Greaser I fill an important role in the family, provide for my family. I bring home cartons of cigarettes every week. I work my ass off for it. And she shows me how to use my technology and and how to get my voice out to the world.

9:08Richard Greaser And, like, we've got a pretty good system down where, you know, I type out all my thoughts on a typewriter, and then she transposes it onto, you know, one of these, whiz bangs. I think they call them computers. And, that's how we got it get it out there. But, anyways,

9:28Richard Greaser the way that journalism works today is it it's not substack. Substack is, like, where the betas hang out. Like Mike. It's where the betas hang out. The real the real frontier for journalism

9:46Richard Greaser and we we all have to give big props to Adam Curry. If you're sitting here listening to this broadcast, I'd implore you to clap your hands right now. Get give a good clap for Adam Curry because Adam Curry, he's like Prometheus.

10:07Richard Greaser You know? Used to be that the only way to broadcast your voice out there for the masses to hear was to get on a syndicated news channel. And I I guess you could do AM radio too. But AM radio is kinda like Substack. You know? It's it's it's like the medium for the betas. There's, like, a handful of guys that have done well on AM radio. There's, like, Sean Hannity and, you know, Alex Jones and Glenn Beck and, you know, guys like that, but they're all betas at the end of the day. They're all betas.

10:42Richard Greaser The real frontier is podcasting, and what essentially Adam Curry did is he stole the fire from the gods and gave it to us. All of us could now become broadcasters, spreading our voice out there. And this is why it's so important to be a podcast listener, not just be a podcaster. I think everybody should start a podcast. That's my opinion. It's the only way that the price of Bitcoin could go up.

11:08Richard Greaser It's a very logical, you know, like, a lot of these guys come up with the price models like the Giovanni guy with Bitcoin power law. It's it's stupid. You can poke holes in it. You can't predict the price. But one thing is apparent is it it should be self evident to everybody listening to this broadcast, which is that

11:29Richard Greaser if you start a podcast, you'll at least get a handful of people to listen to it. You've got your mom. Hopefully, you got your wife or your girlfriend or the girl that you wanna be your girlfriend. Your grandma, maybe. Maybe your grandma wants to learn about crypto because Donald Trump's talking about playing with your Bitcoins.

11:56Richard Greaser You're gonna have at least a few listeners. And if we all start podcasts, we're gonna get everybody listening to Bitcoin podcast Inevitably, they're brute force, and it's gonna make the price of Bitcoin go up. The only reason to to not start a Bitcoin podcast

12:16Richard Greaser is if you hate yourself and you want the price of Bitcoin to go down. That's the only reason to not start a podcast, so I don't know why you haven't started a podcast yet. But not just that, you you shouldn't just be podcasting. You should be listening to podcast. You should be listening to forty hours per week. And the reason why you should be listening forty hours per week is so that you have a good understanding of what's going on in the world, and you need entropy.

12:42Richard Greaser It can't just all be macro. It can't just all be, you know, grumpy people, grumpy Bitcoiners talking about doomer stuff. It can't just be Marty Ben and Matt Odell. You need an entropy. You need a broad view of the world. You need to cover a lot of ground. And you can cover a lot of ground

13:02Richard Greaser in a lot of time, or in in forty hours per week. You can you can listen to Bitcoin podcasts you don't with podcasters you don't agree with. You can listen to the Progressive Bitcoin podcast. You can listen to Danny Knowles and what Bitcoin did. And, honestly, I haven't listened to him yet, but I'm sure he's probably pretty good. I feel like Danny is probably a lot more based than than Peter.

13:29Rod Palmer But I don't know

13:31Richard Greaser because Because I haven't listened to it yet, but it it I should. I should. I should listen to it. I just haven't prioritized it on my forty hours per week, but, like, you know, if you're out there, and I I assume out of our 104 listeners, most of them are men. Sorry for, like, the two

13:50Richard Greaser women that are listening. I'll address you here in a minute. But to the 102 men listening to this broadcast, It's your job to provide for your family. And in order to provide for your family, you have to know what's going on in the world. You have to be aware. You have to know about the macro environment. You have to know

14:12Richard Greaser about the cutting edge of privacy tech. You have to know about the memes. You have to know about the trends. You need to know you need to hear Matt and Marty talking talking about people getting harassed about Teslas. You didn't know all this shit.

14:30Richard Greaser And you're not gonna know it if you're not listening to Bitcoin podcast because what's the alternative? You listen to AM radio and get bombarded with gold commercials? All that shit's meant for boomers. Boomers don't know how to use their iPhones. You shouldn't be you shouldn't be consuming that type of content. What are you gonna do? Watch Netflix? Get bombarded with woke bullshit?

14:55Richard Greaser The tip of the spear as far as useful information right now is Bitcoin podcast. It's the tip of the spear. That's where the action's happening. And so you owe it to yourself. If you have self respect, if you care about your family, then

15:13Richard Greaser you should be listening for the HPW. Now to the women listening to this, it's also important for you. And, you know, I understand that everybody's an individual, and they have to determine how things work for themselves. And so I kinda make generalizations sometimes about men providing for the families. I I wouldn't be upset, you know, if you're a bad ass woman out there providing for your family. You're being a sugar mama

15:44Richard Greaser for some orange shell. If that's your thing, go for it. I don't really care. It's not my thing. I'm the provider for my family. But the reason why it's important for you to listen to forty hours of Bitcoin podcast is so that you can support your your husband or your boyfriend, and you can relate to them. Listening to 40 HPW is for everybody.

16:08Richard Greaser They say Bitcoin's for everybody. I don't really think that's the case. Bitcoin is for those who do the proof of work. Those that listen to forty hours of Bitcoin podcast. So we this is how we change the world. This is how you change yourself more importantly.

16:26Richard Greaser You change the world by changing yourself. There's so much projection, and and I feel like this is, like, what we're what I'm gonna get into with Mike Brock, because he's he's gonna project his worldview onto other people, and he's gonna condone people for not thinking the way that he does. And he's gonna talk about, like, how he needs to coerce people that don't think the way that he does, and then use the term democracy. That's my prediction of where this conversation is gonna go.

16:57Richard Greaser We need to coerce people because of democracy. I don't think that way. That's why that's why I like the shit coins. I don't I don't I don't really engage with the shit coins. There's, like, one shit coin that I hold, and I probably should get out of it, which is, an error. And it's just because somebody decided to send me it's that Lincoln Park rules guy. He sent me some error.

17:23Richard Greaser And I just haven't I haven't gone about trying to figure out how to convert it to Bitcoin, but it makes more sense to be in Bitcoin. But I don't really care about Bitcoin maximalism because I don't care about identity politics. I think it's a waste of time. I think the shit coins provide tremendous utility to their our society, which is it makes dumb people poor. Because I don't think it's our job to convince dumb people to stop being dumb

17:50Richard Greaser unless they ask for help, and we care about them. That's it. We can give useful information to people that we care about, but you can you can essentially put useful information out there for people by starting your own Bitcoin podcast, and they have the choice to listen to it or not.

18:08Richard Greaser But this is one of the things that I think I'm gonna get into Mike Brock, which is that he just has a very low opinion of people. And the problem with having a low opinion of people is when you think that they're stupid, they're gonna act like they're stupid. I think people are stupid, but I just don't really care. That's the difference. That's the difference between me and a lot of people. I just don't really care if people are stupid because I know that they're adults, and it's their responsibility to take care of themselves.

18:36Richard Greaser So if you wanna if you wanna go play with Ethereum and lose a bunch of money, go ahead. Be my guest. I don't really care. I think it's stupid. I think it's a waste of time. But people waste their time in all sorts of ways. All sorts of ways. How many people go to the casino? Where there's there's a conference in Vegas.

18:55Richard Greaser How many people are gonna go waste a bunch of money at the casino in Vegas? Should I be going and campaigning to tell people to not play blackjack in Vegas? Is that how I should be using my time when I'm there? Or should I I have be having a good time smoking cigarettes and hanging out with Bitcoin podcasters. I don't really give a shit if you go waste your money at slots. Go ahead.

19:21Richard Greaser I don't really give a shit if you go waste your money playing with Ethereum. And you go you go use Coinbase instead of Strike or Swamp Bitcoin. I don't care. It's not my prerogative. You're a fucking adult, and you can make decisions for yourself. We're about seven minutes out from the interview. He didn't really give me, there we go. Alright. I'm accepting it.

19:55Richard Greaser Alright. What wait. Figure out how to turn on my video. Give me just a second, guys. It's about to get real. Wow. What's going on, Mike? I don't know if it's your end or my end that's having the audio issues.

20:44Rod Palmer I can hear you.

20:49Richard Greaser Technical difficulties. Let me see how I can how do I message you? Revolution won't have good UX. Your audio

21:29Richard Greaser is coming super weird through my end. I kinda I kinda can hear you. I'm not sure what that

22:03Rod Palmer is.

22:06Richard Greaser Give me just a second. Like, Shit. Here, let me leave and come back. Let's try that. Oh, fuck.

23:02Richard Greaser Alright. My video link has expired. Can you send me another link? Why?

23:53Richard Greaser Well, we got about two minutes and thirty seconds. I don't think it's, on my end that his voice was all screwed up, but it probably is. Yeah. It should be coming through fine. Alright.

24:29Rod Palmer Here we go. There we go. Can you hear me now?

24:37Richard Greaser Hello? I can hear you, but it's it's, like, coming through weird. I don't know what the issue is. It's probably it might be my setup, but I can hear you fine. Oh, it's it's not working. It's not working again. Here, let me leave and come back. I'm gonna try and restart my my phone and see if that fixes it. My apologies, dude.

25:22Richard Greaser Alright. I think it's probably sub stack. All these webbangs and and doodads and apps is just it's just a bummer. That's all a bummer. Alright. Here we go. Restarting the phone.

25:55Richard Greaser Might be time for a good song. Let me see. Alright. Phone has restarted while I figure this out with Mike. Let's listen to this.

26:25Song More than a bum. Learning to use your brains instead of suckling off their thumb. To build a better world, you have to use your head. Don't you wanna leave a legacy after you are dead? Why less when the world is yours to take? You look around and everything's all gay and fake.

26:54Mike Brock Can you hear me now? Yes.

26:57Richard Greaser I can. Perfect.

26:59Mike Brock Alright. What's up, man? Perfect. That's better. Alright. How are you doing? Alright. So, promise my audience I go live right now. I mean I'm ready. I mean, I I wasn't I wasn't I wasn't expecting you to be, in a mask and and and with the audio distorted,

27:16Richard Greaser but whatever. Well, this is just me, dude.

27:19Mike Brock Alright, man. Alright. Fuck. Alright. Let's go live. I'm gonna let's just get into it. I'm gonna let's just go live. We'll let people kinda collect in. It's gonna be recorded. We're connecting or not. We're, only done this once before. I may be doing this more on the on the regular now. Connecting. Are we not live? Why are we not live? I'm on a I'm on, like, a oh, there we go. There we go. We have one viewer. Alright. This is,

27:50Mike Brock here we go. People are joining seven nine. Wow. Wow. A bunch of people. Hey, everyone. People filing in here to watch a live conversation. It will also be recorded so everyone can can catch up on everything we're about to talk about. Cool.

28:11Mike Brock Alright. Happy to just wanna just, like, maybe give a give a few minutes to let people collect here? We're now at 25 viewers and growing.

28:22Richard Greaser Yeah. Sure.

28:24Rod Palmer Cool.

28:27Mike Brock It's a beautiful, sunny, and warm day here in Southern California here in Los Angeles where I find myself right now.

28:35Richard Greaser Right.

28:36Mike Brock My home my home base.

28:38Richard Greaser I really like Los Angeles personally, but a lot of people do. So

28:43Mike Brock I want to I I love Los Angeles. We can talk about that. We can talk about my love for Los Angeles. I love talking about Los Angeles. But, anyways, yeah. Yeah. I mean, why don't we just, like, kinda maybe get started? This is recorded, so people can always catch the beginning of this. You know, I wanted to, like well, first of all, like, welcome everyone to my first episode of of Counterpoint,

29:09Mike Brock a live coherent series. This is why I've been playing for, like, a long time. Basically, it's it's a new project I'm launching through notes from the circus. The idea behind it is very simple. If I publish something and someone believes I've gotten it wrong, misunderstood the stakes, missed the structure, or simply overstated my case, they can challenge me, like, right here in public. I'm willing to be called out on my bullshit. If if it turns out to be bullshit, we'll see whether my the coherence of my argument holds. We live in a moment where I think disagreement often collapses. I got an itch on my nose right here. Let me just take care of that. I mean, but we live we live in a moment,

29:45Mike Brock where disagreement often collapses into either spectacle or silence, and I want counterpoint to be a third space, you know, a space for a rigorous serious disagreement. You know, I'm I'm okay. You know, ideas can get tested and and not just shared where argument become the tool for clarity, just not, you know, not necessarily just performance for applause. And this isn't about winning. I'm not here to win a debate. It's about coherence. It's about, truth seeking, towards a civic discipline. So tonight, I have invited someone to challenge,

30:19Mike Brock a recent piece that I wrote. Our guest here today is Richard, Greaser. You you can see that he has, chosen to conceal his his, his identity. I'm fine with that audience, so, hopefully, you'll be fine with that as well. He's the chief editor of Bugle News.

30:37Mike Brock He's a podcaster. I think you're, you know, you're obviously a big bet, proponent of Bitcoin and defender of Austrian economics from what I can tell. You responded to my latest essay, Clear Thinking v Bitcoin Cult, which is part of my Clear Thinking series where I,

30:56Mike Brock as a moral and epidemic philosopher, analyze, various people and their arguments and give my take on whether I think that they present a coherent or, in this case, incoherent view. And instead of arguing back and forth on social media, we agreed to have a conversation here in the open. So here's my position, stated clearly and without hostility. I believe,

31:21Mike Brock that Bitcoin is valuable and potentially important piece of financial technology. I've worked in the space. I understand its utility. I think it has a nonzero expectation value. We can talk about what that means as a technical term,

31:36Mike Brock as a value you know, as a hedge against, like, political risk. I I gave a talk on this at the Bitcoin policy conference, earlier last year, on this point. You can probably find that on YouTube if you're interested in hearing my thoughts on that. But my critique here is, like, actually not about Bitcoin as a tool. This is actually not about Bitcoin as a technology. I don't wanna actually talk about that. It's about Bitcoin maximalism as an ideology. I believe that

32:05Mike Brock Bitcoin maximalism has become something structurally different. It's something more totalizing than a monetary thesis. It now functions as I've I I have said and argued in my piece, a secular cult. It has prophets. It has sacred texts. It has moral hierarchies, based on time preference. It has ritualized speech. It even has what, you know, a philosopher like myself would call a eschatological vision of the world remained in a form

32:34Mike Brock that is often described as hyperbitcoinization. I believe this ideology is intellectually incoherent, politically dangerous, and morally unserious. I see historical parallels with objectivism, which is Ayn Rand's,

32:52Mike Brock philosophy, which is expressed through various pieces of fiction that she wrote, you know, such as the fountainhead and and Atlas Shrugged. And if you read that in all 36 pages of John Galt's speech, which I also critiqued, in another piece called clear thinking v Ayn Rand. I also think that, within this Bitcoin cult that I'm calling the cult, I believe we see fascist aesthetic frameworks.

33:18Mike Brock I believe this shows through very vividly in the last half of the Bitcoin standard, and and, Seifedean's book. And, and I also have a general

33:32Mike Brock critique, about the technological deterministic view, and techno tech techno authoritarian turn that I think a lot of people in this movement, I believe, have taken. Now they might object to that and say, I'm not authoritarian. I'm libertarian or inner capitalist or whatever. I have my own critiques there. We could talk about that.

33:52Mike Brock And I but I believe these parallels are worth naming. And so, I mean, that's my general position. I'm not here to provoke. I'm here to be held accountable for what I wrote and to hold the argument together in real time. So, Richard, I'd love to hear your response to everything I just said.

34:09Richard Greaser Well, I I actually agree with you on a lot of things, and I I did appreciate your article today. So, like, the little spat that we had on Twitter was a disagreement. So, like, I I feel like to have a a valid voice in this industry in general, you have to listen to forty hours of Bitcoin podcast a week.

34:30Mike Brock But Why? Why? Why? Why? I mean, why do we have to listen to forty hours of Bitcoin? I mean, I have a I mean, I only have so much time in a week. I do a lot of things. I do a lot of reading. I do a lot of writing. I mean I mean, how how could, like, one possibly commit themselves that much to one single

34:50Mike Brock topic and have a fulfilled life? I lost that as a philosopher, actually.

34:55Richard Greaser Well, I I think I I was I was kinda talking about this earlier with some people. I I think, like, one of our jobs you know, like, my job as a man, as a husband, as father show up for my family and provide for them. And I don't think I can adequately do that unless I understand the world properly. And, like, why forty hours? It's because you need entropy because one isn't just enough. Like, you know, there there's, like, one person like, you know, Lynn Alden's great. Right? She's super hot. She's great. Yeah. I love Lynn. Lynn and I Lynn and I Lynn and I Lynn and I have been actually chatting, actually, between the two of us.

35:30Mike Brock We've had a little kind of conversation going I mean, I'm not gonna, like, say what we've been talking about, but Lynn and I know each other, and we've we've had long conversations.

35:39Richard Greaser That's awesome. Dude, when Lynn slides into DMs, it's great. It just makes you it makes my day awesome.

35:47Mike Brock Yeah. You need entropy. You know what I mean? And, like What do you mean by need? What do you mean by need need entropy? Well, you can't a lot about entropy and my philosophical work, so I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it. Well, you can't just only consume macro. Right?

36:04Richard Greaser You you need a wide variety of Bitcoin podcasts. But I think where Bitcoin podcasts are valuable is, like, you know, people have been right over and over and over again. And, like, most of the other media forums have been wrong over and over and over again. But Mhmm. I wanna before I wanna What? I don't wanna expand on this too much because I wanna I wanna get into, like, the actual debate of substance. But,

36:26Mike Brock Yeah. I'd love to talk to you about your views on Austrian economics in particular. I am a harsh critic of Austrian economics, a harsh critic of Murray Rothbard. I am I I should warn you that, like, I am a sophisticated philosopher who has very mechan very methodically and, rigorously

36:45Mike Brock deconstructed Mises and Rothbard's praxeological argument. So I'm, like so if you think I'd I should warn you that, like, when if if you assume that I'm unfamiliar with the arguments that, that had been made by these people, including, like, you know, you know, Hans Hermann Hafe and and his, you know, you know, his his book, you know, Democracy, The God That Failed that I've also critiqued. I'm, like, not stupid about these arguments. I mean, I'm I'm, like, a very, you know, I mean, I so I I, you know, I I get a lot of Bitcoiners come to me, and they tell me these these like, did you know about the Cantillon effect? Did you know that, like have you heard of Gresham's law? And it's like, yes. Yes. I have. It turns out that, like, I'm a

37:29Mike Brock sophisticated, you know, I mean, I'm I'm I'm a sophisticated person who has actually read a lot, and I have, particularly actually, twenty years ago, I was a little I was an anarcho capitalist libertarian, like, 20 year old, who was reading Rothbard and all of these arguments. So, I mean, the I I'm always surprised that people think that I just haven't heard of these arguments before, and that's why I don't agree. I have heard the arguments, and I have critiqued them at length. And and so I should just, like so I'm I'm I'm curious to to hear perhaps, like, where my critiques go wrong on that. Well, here here's two things I wanna I wanna say real quick. So I wanna argue with you about objectivism. Okay. Let's talk about objectivism.

38:12Richard Greaser But before before I spent three days writing a whole on it. Before before we get into that, I I wanna start with the things that I agree with you on. So I I agree with you on the the Bitcoin maximalism cult side of things. But I think Yeah. I think I believe that for different reasons than you do. Okay. I believe that Bitcoin maximalism is a form of identity politics. It's a form of collectivism

38:41Richard Greaser and collectivist thinking in order to get people to turn their brains off. It's essentially a marketing scheme to get people to use inferior products to Coinbase. This seems very different than your stance earlier on on Twitter and and and SubStack, to be honest with you. Like, I've been, like okay. Well, that that that and I I feel like most people come to that conclusion if they listen to forty hours of Bitcoin podcast, Oui.

39:06Mike Brock Because you need the entropy. You need the I'm not I'm not gonna listen to forty hours of Bitcoin, and I will not endorse that for my audience just to see where.

39:14Richard Greaser But, yeah, I mean, essentially, like, how I see this conversation going is, like, I'm the hero of a Ayn Rand novel, and you're the the villain of a Ayn Rand novel. I am okay. Oh, so I'm a moocher. You're no. Well a moocher. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm also thinking of, like, Ellsworth Tooie in the fountain head.

39:35Mike Brock I'm Ellsworth. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll go with that. Alright. Well well, I mean, I'm gonna think about I mean, I I did read Atlas Shrugged. Again, like, I mean, I I, I I I I spent some time, like, reskimming it, before I read my piece, so I'm gonna sit with that for a second and sometimes have tea. Yeah. I mean, like, I I tell my podcast Alright. I tell my podcast listeners to listen to or sorry, to read Atlas Shrugged twice a year. I think it's like a great act of of self care. Why do you think why do you think it's a great book? I think it's, like, I think it's, like, the dumbest fucking book ever.

40:13Richard Greaser Well, I think it's a great act of self care. It's a

40:17Mike Brock why?

40:19Richard Greaser Because it's building your own self esteem. Like, one of the cruxes one of the cruxes of the book one of the main characters of the book and and I don't think a lot of scholars talk I wouldn't consider myself a scholar. I'm a credentialed journalist.

40:31Mike Brock But Okay. You're a credentialed journalist?

40:34Rod Palmer Yes. Really? Yep. Oh, wow.

40:36Richard Greaser And,

40:38Mike Brock What credential can I can I credential, like, by what organization?

40:42Richard Greaser I have a bachelor's in journalism.

40:45Mike Brock Okay. Alright. Got it. So

40:50Richard Greaser yeah. I mean, like, one of the one of the things that I think is really important for people to understand is that Yeah. Smoking cigarettes is good for you. Mhmm. And Alice Shrugged What?

41:03Mike Brock I'm it killed my father. So, I mean, like, this my father was a chain smoker, and it destroyed his heart.

41:10Richard Greaser And so I I don't know if I agree with that. Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but, you know, ever since they started banning cigarettes, cancer rates have been going through the roof. There's tons of ways to die. That's not true. That's not true. Yes. It is. Cancer rates are down. No. They're

41:27Mike Brock up. Can you can you could you provide some evidence for that? Can you cite cite cite cite some evidence? I'd be curious to see that. You cite evidence. Like, where where can I where can I look? Where can I look? Like, I'd love to see I'd love to see where You first. You first. I you know, I broke up. No. I mean, you made the claim that that cancer rates are way, way up. I mean, that's the the proper like, I anyone anyone anyone who's, like, ever done, like, formal debate, like, Oxford style debating or whatever. Like, I mean, like, it would you know, it would I mean, not this is an Oxford style debating. We don't have a actually but, I mean, any debate format, like, generally, it's considered good form to when the person makes the claim to then

42:09Mike Brock back it up with evidence if that person challenges it. Yeah. But Not not to force the person that's that's called that's called reversing the burden of proof. But I'm I'm not I'm not a scholar. I'm I'm not an academic. I'm a I'm a journalist. You made a claim that cancer rates have gone way, way up since people stopped smoking, which is, like, a pretty like, I mean, most people do not believe that. So you're making a, a claim which is exceptional to the generally accepted belief by the vast majority of people. So you're essentially making a claim that that's a bullshit

42:43Mike Brock perception that the majority view is wrong. Maybe it's been we've been lied to by the establishment and the the mainstream media or whatever you wanna say, but, like, okay. That's fine. But, you need to like, a good way to prove that we've been all been lied to would just be to show us evidence that we've all been lied to. Like, I mean, like, that's why the burden of proof now rests with you. But I'm not I'm not an academic. I'm a or a scholar. I'm a I'm a journalist. But you made that claim, and and it's like a pretty like, I think most people would recognize that's a I'm just I mean, most people would, like, disagree with I think most people would disagree. You disagree that most people would disagree with that? Yeah. But I don't really care what most people think.

43:23Mike Brock I'm I'm using New York Times Publishers. I mean, I do. I mean, I do. If, like, most people want it like, most if most people wanna, like, do something that I think is morally bad, like, I care a lot about that. I wanna convince people otherwise. So, I mean, like, I live in a society, and people's opinions matter. Like, I mean, people voted for the guy that I didn't want them to vote for. So, I mean, it does matter what people think. It affects my life. It's affecting it right now. My stock portfolio has taken a huge fucking hit because this motherfucker started a global trade war. So, obviously, I care about other people's opinions because they fucking affect me.

43:57Richard Greaser But but that's an that's an example that you just gave where most you think most people are wrong.

44:06Mike Brock Sure. Most people don't think I don't think I don't think I don't think most people like Donald Trump. I in fact, I it, I think that a lot of people hated both of their choices and thought some people may have convinced themselves that he was a lesser evil or something. I don't know that that was a that was that their votes were approbation, but, like, sure. I mean, look. I mean, there are a lot of things that, like yeah. I mean, are are there things that a majority of people believe that I disagree with? Yes. I mean, that's true of, like, everyone, I think. You could probably find that is true of everyone. But, like but to say that, like, I don't care what the majority of people think, I mean, in a political I mean, a society where you have politics and elections and, an entire political economy, like, you know,

44:49Mike Brock that, that that that that that turns on people's opinions, I mean, it seems pretty, like I mean, it it it seemed, irresponsible, like,

45:02Mike Brock for your own interests and the interests of those you care about to not care about what most people think. That just doesn't make sense. That seems like an antisocial stance. Maybe. Like, if you don't care what most people think, then, like, why are you even trying to convince people to like Bitcoin? Most people are most people don't think that Bitcoin is the future of money. So you're saying you don't care what most people think, so why take the time to convince them otherwise? I'm not trying to convince anybody anything.

45:31Richard Greaser I believe people are adults that no. What's Google News' purpose then? To report the news.

45:38Mike Brock For what? What is the purpose if you're not trying to convince anyone of everything? We're reporting the news.

45:45Richard Greaser We've got we've got an audience that likes us. We're not we're not going for the majority. There's people that we're serving that like us. We're not trying to convince anybody of anything because we think people are adults, and they can think for themselves and make up their own minds. That's kinda like the crux of the the objectivist. It it is kinda why I reject Bitcoin maximalism as identity politics, collectivist movement

46:10Richard Greaser is it's I see it as a form of brainwashing through tribalism. Like, one of the things you said earlier is that most people didn't like either choice. Why is that an adequate thing to accept

46:22Mike Brock if you don't like either choice and you're getting screwed either. Right? I mean, there's a lot of times I don't like either choice. Like, if I get cancer, like, in the choices between chemotherapy and dying of cancer, those are two bad choices. But one is better than the other. But but if you listen to Bitcoin like I mean, we're we're we're we're we're faced with choices like this all the time. It's just called living in the world.

46:42Richard Greaser But if you listen to forty hours of Bitcoin podcast a week, you would know that the not only but there's more than two choices.

46:49Mike Brock There's more than two what what was the other choice? What what, like, what was the other choice on on November 3? I don't know. Between chemotherapy and and dying of cancer. What's the third choice there? Maybe you should go listen to forty hours of Bitcoin have a how does Bitcoin have a have a have a have a give me a third choice, on a cancer diagnosis? I'll I'll prescribe you I'll prescribe you forty hours of Jack Crew's

47:14Richard Greaser podcast.

47:16Mike Brock I mean, and that will say that that will that will that will that will that will cure my cancer? Yes.

47:22Richard Greaser It'll cure your cancer.

47:25Mike Brock Dude, I mean, I I I what? Like, what are you talking about?

47:31Richard Greaser Do do your homework

47:32Mike Brock come back to me? What do you mean do my own work? What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you, like, explain it to me? Like, this sounds like this sounds like something that someone shared a fucking Nobel Prize for. Like, what? Like, what? I mean, like, what what are we talking about?

47:49Richard Greaser Cold, hard fact.

47:52Mike Brock What? But, But, anyways, let's give it let's give it a little talk. I mean, if this guy is cured cancer, like, I I wanna tell the fucking world. I mean, he should, like, like, you mean the the hero of the century.

48:05Richard Greaser Oh, I don't think that's the case.

48:08Mike Brock Because there's a bunch of collectivists out there that just walk in lockstep, and they don't think for themselves. And the TV tells them that Do you think I think for do you think I don't think for my do you think I don't think for myself? Do you think I'm like like, what what is it like, let's just get to the crux. I mean, I'm representing a view here. Do you believe my view is simply the recycled entrails of of of what they have told me to think, or is that is that is that what you think? Well, do you smoke cigarettes and listen to forty hours of Bitcoin podcast a week? No. I do not do either of those things. Why is why is that fucking relevant to whether I think for myself?

48:48Richard Greaser Oh, man. It's important. There's a lot of people out there. So, like, let let me let me ask you this, Mike. So how do how do you judge the difference between Ask me. Ask me. Ask me. How do you judge the difference between an MPC and a sentient being?

49:04Mike Brock What the fuck does that I mean, I know what non playable character means, obviously. I understand the video game reference, but that just, like what the fuck? I mean, what do you mean? Like, what do you mean? What do you mean by that? Like How do you mean? Mean, like, do I do I do I try to, like, do I try to, like, do I try to, like, do I try to, like, categorize other human beings into NPCs and not MP? No. I don't do that. That seems stupid. Like, I think they all I I think humans are humans, and I treat them as humans. And I try to meet them where they are. I try to understand them where they are. I'm like, I I'm an empathetic person. Like but you listen to forty hours of Bitcoin podcasts a week, and you believe that you were enlightened to know more than, say, someone like me who reads I don't know. I read scientific papers. I read, philosophy papers.

49:48Mike Brock I I write a lot. I read a lot. I read a lot of books. I I I mean I mean, I guess I could, like, see if, like, forty hours of Bitcoin podcast would give me the same amount of information. I don't think so. I think that would I'd I'd I'd be surprised if I would then be able to turn around and write, you know, sophisticated, you know, essays on philosophy, political science, political economy,

50:15Mike Brock geopolitics, history, just from listening to forty hours of Bitcoin pot I mean, may maybe that's true. Maybe I'd be able to do that. Well, you should you should also be reading Atlas Shrugged twice twice a year, front to cover. Why the fuck why would I read Atlas Shrugged twice a year? Because because you need to take a break from Bitcoin podcast. Why? What the fuck does that the the fuck does that mean? Like, why? Like, tell me tell me about Atlas Shrugged. I wanna hear more about this. I wanna hear more about your love for Atlas Shrugged. Well, I mean, one of the things I like about Atlas Shrugged is cigarettes are her main character in the in the story. Are you trolling me? Is this a troll?

50:51Richard Greaser No. This is a debate on objectivism versus, altruism in your,

50:56Mike Brock Ellsworth two. Cigarettes are a okay. Oh, I mean I I mean, I agree there's a lot of smoking, and that was shrugged, and and Ayn Rand was a big smoker. I mean, there's no Yeah. I mean, no no there's no I I ran absolutely absolutely no disagreement there. But what what does that have to fucking do with anything? It's a fucking cigarette.

51:13Richard Greaser But let's let's go back to the MPC question. So, like, do you think MP do you think MPCs realize that they're MPCs?

51:22Mike Brock What? No. I I just told you that I don't consider any human beings MPCs. That's stupid.

51:29Richard Greaser Why? That's stupid. But there's tons of people that you agree with that you think or don't.

51:35Mike Brock Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people are stupid. I don't think they're NPCs. So is okay. We're we're we're getting playable character. We're getting caught in the semantics. So you think stupid people are I don't agree. MPC suggests that they have no personal agency. They don't make choices for themselves. They just do whatever their people tell them to do or or whatever some sort of, like, underlying or implicit programming tells them to do. That is, like, fucking condescending as fuck, and I know I do not hold that position. Do I think people are stupid and uninformed? Yeah. Of course they are. Like, I'm stupid and uninformed about some things. As smart as I am, there's things I I don't know, and I'm willing to admit that. Right? Like, I don't know the you know, I mean, I don't know the first fucking thing about, like I don't know. Let's think about something I don't know about. I don't know about, like, I don't I don't I don't know about, like, genetic science. I don't know the first fucking thing about how, like, you know, gene printers work. I mean, I have, like,

52:22Mike Brock like, I conceptually understand what DNA is, and I have some, like, workable knowledge around, like, how protein folding works and the cardinality of, like, you know, of, like, protein sequences and how they, like it's, like, right there's, like, a right handedness to it, and that's how, like, genes get copied by the ribosomes. I like some of that. Like, I paid a little bit of attention in in that, but, like, I don't fucking know how, like, how actual information is encoded in DNA. I wouldn't pretend to. I would look and if and and if I, you know, and I would, like, read about it if I if I wanted to. But, like so, I mean, I'm stupid about that. Fine. Like, I'm stupid about genetic science. Like, people lot lots of people are stupid about things.

53:06Richard Greaser But you don't you don't believe that there's people that aren't sentient, that have the inability to think for themselves?

53:13Mike Brock Do you think you think for yourself?

53:15Richard Greaser I know I think for myself. I listen to How do you know how do you know that you think for yourself? Because I smoke cigarettes, and I feel pretty good about myself. Because you smoke cigarettes?

53:25Mike Brock Or did you what? What the fuck does that have to do with thinking for yourself? I'm a big fan. Like, have you, like I mean, what I mean, like, I mean, like, I don't want do I have to give you, like, a crash course in Aristotle or something here? Like, I mean, like like, you know, like, the truth value of statements is, like, independent of, like, the person making them. Like, what, like, what the fuck does a cigarette have to do with this concept of, like, thinking for oneself?

53:46Richard Greaser Like, I know I know you have a much higher IQ than me, and I'm not gonna pretend that that's

53:51Mike Brock not the case, that I'm I'm somehow, you know, smarter than you. But it I still think my my argument's I'm not trying to prove I'm smarter than you. I'm actually asking you very fair questions and, like, giving you opportunities to answer.

54:02Richard Greaser How do I know that I think for myself? Yeah. Because I because I read Ayn Rand

54:09Mike Brock Mhmm. Smoke cigarettes. You read Ayn Rand? I mean, I mean, like, I've read Ayn Rand too. I mean I mean, I don't know that that proves that I think for myself. But you don't read it as much as I do. Yeah. I don't read it twice a year. Why the fuck would I read some, like, fucking, like like, ab like, it's basically like a it's it's basically like Ayn Rand, like, basically got so fucking afraid, like, from whatever, like, trauma she had around the Soviet Union and and the and communism in Russia that she basically, like, worked her way into a giant slippery slope fallacy that if you allowed any kind of, like, government intervention in the economy, it would ultimately, like, metastasize and and and and, I guess, like, asymptote towards, like, totalitarianism

54:52Mike Brock necessarily in there. I mean, like, it was like this, like, just like this weird, like, fucking, like, reactionary, like, nonsensical slippery slope fallacy that, like, forms, like, the bedrock of her thinking. And it's, like, crazy and nonsense. It's obviously not true. Epirically not true. We've actually seen periods of reform. Like, you know, we Maggie Thatcher came to power in the nineteen eighties in The UK and basically, like, engaged in a whole bunch of deregulation

55:21Mike Brock and shrunk the welfare straight and broke the trade unions. Apparently, that should never be able to happen under the Atlas Shrugged after under the Atlas Shrugged, you know, synthesis around, like, if you take one step, you're gonna take another, and you're gonna slide down that slippery slope until the government controls literally every aspect of your I mean, the same thing fucking happened with you guys in, like, COVID. I was told that we were gonna have permanent lockdowns, and all of the Democrats and the establishment people were gonna basically have us under permanent martial law for the rest of history. And, like, that was what they are planning, and COVID was just the perfect excuse. And then, weirdly enough, like, Gavin Newsom, like, in California, like, lifted the COVID restrictions, like which I was told by Bitcoiners and stuff at the time that he would never do because, apparently, this is what he dreamed of his entire life, which, like, seems like paranoid thinking. Like, maybe you should see a therapist. I don't know. Like, that's because it didn't happen. It was it was proven empirically false. So I'm, like

56:23Mike Brock like, I don't get this like, I don't get ran because, like, this this assumption that, that government is essentially just like a a runaway freight train that will just keep growing. I mean, the United States government has not been a runaway freight train that keeps growing. People think this, obviously, has a lot of debt. But The United States The US Government has less per the federal employees when Trump took office, there was actually less federal government employees per capita in The United States. People can go look this up, Google it, than there was during the time of Ronald Reagan. But, like, that no one thinks that. Nobody nobody believes that that's true. The civil service on a per capita basis has actually shrunk over the last thirty years, which according to Ayn Rand should never happen because it's a slippery slope. So, like, I just like like, it's it's a it's a bullshit position. It's it's it's it's

57:14Mike Brock it's it's it's obviously bullshit just by observe just by observing reality.

57:20Richard Greaser Well, I I mean, that's kind of like a a silly argument because computers came and No. It's not. But but what's silly about that argument? I just Tech technology made yeah. I mean, like, back when Ronald Reagan was president, everybody used pushing paper around. Now they do it all in computers, and you don't need five people to push papers around. Just because there's less government than employees doesn't mean that the government is less totalitarian at all.

57:44Mike Brock I mean, it's How how how what what what what to I how has your life been? I mean, I understand COVID was a thing. Can we just put COVID aside for a second? I guess it just seems like I I do wanna talk about sans COVID sans COVID, how has the government's totalitarian control affected your life?

57:59Richard Greaser Well, we have we have we have we have unelected officials auditing other unelected officials, and it's just absolutely insane.

58:09Mike Brock Auditing other unelected officials? Yes. They're not respecting their data privacy. Should all officials should all officials be elected?

58:17Richard Greaser They're not respecting their data privacy.

58:23Mike Brock What what do you mean?

58:25Richard Greaser There's this guy that owns Tesla that's running around with consumers with broccoli haircuts, and they're going through all our personal information. And it's insane.

58:36Mike Brock Dude, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.

58:40Richard Greaser You're not familiar with big balls and Doge?

58:43Mike Brock I mean, I I've heard about that, but, like, that sounds insane, but, like, I don't, like, know what that I mean, that guy is you trust that guy? You think this is normal? You think this is 19 fucking year old, like, running around, like, accessing, like you like, I you'd like you think that that's, like, you think that's credible?

58:59Richard Greaser No. I think there should be a ban on all government employees or anybody touching any information that has a broccoli haircut.

59:08Mike Brock It's insane. What is a what is a broccoli haircut? What are you talking about? It's these these Zoomers.

59:14Richard Greaser They go and they they shave the size of their heads, and then they get perms on top to make it curly on top. And and somebody that's doing that is so draining. You're you're trolling you're trolling me. You're wasting my time. What is this? Well, we're we're getting into silly arguments. I'll tell you the reason why the COVID lockdowns ended is because there's people like

59:36Mike Brock me and people like my friends that smoke cigarettes No. And think for themselves and listen to forty hours of Bitcoin podcast a week. And we said no. We're not putting up with this, and there was enough of them. Dude dude dude, do you realize, like, right now, you're just, like, making everyone watching my channel, like, think Bitcoin is insane? Like, you realize, like, I'm telling you right now, like, people are looking at this right now and being like, what the fuck is this? Well, they should probably go buy Ethereum and have fun staying in port. No. I mean, I I mean, I I I don't I don't know, but I don't know if that's true. But, like, this is not like, nothing you're saying I mean, everything you're saying is just listed all over the map. Like, you just like, you haven't said anything, really.

1:00:16Richard Greaser So that Atlas Shrugged is a good book. I've I've said some things. What's that? I said Atlas Shrugged is a good book.

1:00:23Mike Brock I mean, I I disagree. Why don't you like Objectivism? It's a shit it's a shitty

1:00:33Richard Greaser book. Why don't you like Objectivism?

1:00:35Mike Brock Did did you read did you read my piece, Ayn Rand v Clear Thinking v Ayn Rand. Did you read it? I explained and so I don't know. It was like a 6,000 word essay on why I don't like objectivism.

1:00:47Richard Greaser Yeah. I read the whole thing. But, I mean,

1:00:49Mike Brock you read the whole thing, and now you're asking me why I don't like objectivism? Doesn't that seem Well, can I summarize it?

1:00:55Richard Greaser Sure. Because you have this idea of the greater good in your head. Yeah. The subjective idea. I actually I actually do. And and you believe that people determining for them what the greater good is is a threat to your worldview.

1:01:12Mike Brock Yeah. I okay. Yeah. I mean, well, I mean okay. Like, so this is great. I mean so here's the thing. I do have a conception of the greater good, which is that I I believe that we should be moving in the direction of some conception of human flourishing,

1:01:34Mike Brock that is characterized by what philosophers call the, you know, like, the the the pursuit of the good life. Right? You know? And we all have, like you know? And I am a liberal philosopher, so I believe that the conception of a good life is malleable. It's like, you know, the good life could be being a gardener, or the good life could be being a philosopher like I'm being right now, or a former tech executive like I used to be. Like, I mean, there's all these options, and

1:02:08Mike Brock we wanna build a world where, like, most of like, where those possibilities are maximized for everybody, without, you know, without conflict

1:02:19Mike Brock and, and towards, like, some sense of, like, shared purpose because we're social creatures. We wanna we speak the same language. We we share the same customs and traditions, and we build meaning together, and we go we watch movies, and these become cultural touch points. I mean, like like, these are all like, they're all giant texture of what society is, like, towards, like, this

1:02:45Mike Brock this conception of of of, like, you know, a life worth living. And when I look at, say, something like objectivism, which is just egoism as virtue, my response is, I don't see where all that other shit comes in. It's like like, it it just sounds

1:03:06Mike Brock like just be rationally selfish your entire life, and everything else will emergently wake like, will work itself out. Right? It's like, what no. No. It won't. That makes no sense. Makes no sense. It's silly.

1:03:21Richard Greaser I think it makes perfect sense.

1:03:23Mike Brock You think it makes perfect sense? Well, I mean, like, I don't know. I mean, I I don't want I don't wanna I don't wanna live in a world where everyone is just, like, virtuously egotistical. Like, what that's a that's, like, the most, like, fuck. Like, you think, like, these, like,

1:03:40Mike Brock halting, like, shallow conversations that Ayn Rand, like like I mean, I I don't I don't I why why is that I mean, why is that the world you wanna live in? I wanna I wanna live I wanna fucking live in a world where, like, you know, like, people, like, love each other or sacrifice

1:04:01Mike Brock and and virtue and believing believing in something bigger than yourself. May maybe even working on things that are so big that you'll never get to see them completed. Because why? Because, like, because you you believe you believe in in, like, the human civilizational project. Like and and and that and, like, that, like, fills your heart, and that gives you purpose, and that makes you real and that makes you feel like part of a legacy and connected to the contingency of your history. Like, why do I wanna pursue

1:04:29Mike Brock selfishness as virtue? What the fuck? Like that like like like, what what has happened to somebody that they think that that's

1:04:38Richard Greaser good? Because they actually give a shit about themselves.

1:04:43Mike Brock I give a shit about myself. I think I I think I I think I'm I I I like myself. I I,

1:04:49Richard Greaser every everything you do everything you do is based out based out of selfishness. So let let's talk about, like, my relationship. That's bull that's bullshit. That's bullshit. That's bullshit. That's bullshit.

1:05:01Mike Brock You when a mother when a mother, basically gives up her own life to save her, like, young child, that's not a selfish act. No. That's When a fall when when when when a when, you know, even our most, like, primitive instincts. Right? Like, our tribalist culture. Right? Like, we've seen this. We'll see that, like, alphas in the tribe, you know, like, even among, like, primitive humans will sacrifice themselves for the greater good of protecting the tribe. They'll give their life. We we even in our basal tribal instincts, we have a sense that, like, sometimes we have to sacrifice ourselves for the tribe, for the community.

1:05:38Mike Brock So, no, I do not agree with you that all human action is grounded in selfishness. This is just not true. It entirely is. It's not it's not scientifically true. It's not scientifically true, and it's not it's it's it's, like I mean I mean, have you do do you believe in romance?

1:05:55Richard Greaser Yes.

1:05:57Mike Brock Okay. So do do you not agree that, like, sacrifice and tragedy are part of romance? It's not sacrifice. It's a choice of doing what you think is value. Wait. What do you what what what what do you mean? Like, what do you mean? Like, like, what do you mean you like, tell me tell me what romance means to you. When when I take out the trash when my wife asked me to Yeah. And it's super cold outside,

1:06:15Richard Greaser and it's late Okay. I make that decision because my relationship with her is valuable. It's it's it's driven It's valuable

1:06:25Mike Brock to you? It's it's it's a transaction. You're, like, paying it's a trade. It's transactional.

1:06:32Richard Greaser Well, I mean, I don't I don't really think of it day to day as transactional, but you do things that are I never said I hope you never said this. I hope you never said this to your wife. I mean, I'm Oh, I say it all the time. I say it all the time. Well, I mean okay. Alright. Sure. Okay. Turns her on. Makes her horny. Like Well, I'm happy I'm happy for you. I'm happy for you. And I and I I want her to feel the same way. I don't want I don't want her to be living her life for me. I want her to make the conscious decision every day

1:07:04Rod Palmer Yeah.

1:07:05Richard Greaser That doing things that are uncomfortable for her sometimes, it what it shows is that I I offer value to her. But if she's living out of this attitude

1:07:17Mike Brock When you say offer value, like, what does that mean? What is the quantity that you're talking about there behind that that word?

1:07:24Richard Greaser Like, how many times she's willing to have sex with me a week, or what do you mean? Well, I mean, you're like Well, I want I want her to show up and take care of my kid and cook me food and appreciate me for listening to forty hours of Bitcoin podcast a week. Like, you know, some basic stuff like that. Like, you know, I think love

1:07:44Mike Brock this idea of love and and sacrifice, and and this is part of the reason Yeah. I think why we have so many issues in our society with relationships. This sounds like a very this sounds like a this sounds like a very, like, shallow existence to me, like, the way you're defining it. Like, I mean, I think, you know, I went for a walk this morning, and I watched sunrise. And, I thought about, I thought, you know, I thought about, like, the the potential of the day, and I saw people walking around. You know? I saw, like, lovers, like, walking hands and people getting up and going for their, like, morning morning routines. And I thought to themselves, like, I wonder what wonder what I see that woman. She's, like, jogging. You know, she's jogging in the morning. What's she listening to in her AirPods? Like, what makes her happy?

1:08:30Mike Brock I'm glad I'm glad that she looks happy and content. It's nice to live in a world where, like, people, like, feel fulfilled. That makes it feel meaningful. That's the kind of world I wanna live in. I wanna see that. I wanna feel that, like, texture of life. Not looking at that person and going, what can that person do for me? Like, it's like, why why that just seems like that just seems like I mean, it just it just it just seems like disconnected and and, like, and and awful, like, a awful place to live where everyone is just, like, trying to figure out, like, what value they can extract from other people, like, what trades they can make with other like, that's not you really if you really think, like, but why why even have kids then? I mean, it's like it's it's just I I don't I this just does not seem like a like a a there's nothing romantic about what you're saying at all to me anyways. Like I said, you know, like, I mean, at least in my concept of of romanticism, like, in the the classical

1:09:24Mike Brock sense of romanticism that, like, you know you know, you know, Shakespearean sense of of it or anything like that. I mean, it's not recognizable to me through any of those frames.

1:09:36Richard Greaser I don't expect it to be.

1:09:39Mike Brock Yeah. But then why do you wanna why do you wanna force the rest of the fucking world to, like, live like you then? Because, like, none of us wanna live like this. I'm I'm not the one trying to force the world to live like me. I it's just the way I live, and I don't really care how you live. But I think I I would ask you. I mean, like, I mean, I mean, you did accuse me of Trump derangement syndrome. And so maybe we can talk a little bit about that.

1:10:01Richard Greaser When did I say that?

1:10:03Mike Brock No. I said you disagreed with the majority of, people in America that voted for Trump. No. No. No. I think you're I no. No. I think you're, well, I mean, on your bugle muse thing, like, you I think it was characterized as being in late stage Trump derangement syndrome. I'd like to maybe understand that pathology that I'm apparently suffering from a little bit more. Well, we we have a lot of writers at the Bugle,

1:10:24Richard Greaser so that was probably one of the other writers. What do you what do you what do you what do you think what do you think your your other writer meant by that when they said that? I don't know. They're not here debating you right now.

1:10:37Mike Brock Okay. I mean, I think I mean, I think Donald Trump is, like, I mean, I I mean, like Is it is it I mean, I think I think he's destroy I think he is destroying this country. Yeah. Literally destroying it. No. He's a he's

1:10:52Richard Greaser a collectivist.

1:10:53Mike Brock 100%. I agree. Well, that's good. That's good. Yeah. Well, so we agree on I mean, I don't I mean, I don't think he's a collective. You think he's not collective? What does that mean? Define collectivism to me. I mean, I I mean, I I mean, I know a lot about political philosophy. So when you use that word, I have, like, actually pretty rigorous academic conceptions of it. So just maybe explain to you explain to me what you mean when you say that.

1:11:18Richard Greaser Well, he's a statist. He likes to use coercion

1:11:22Mike Brock to accomplish his goals. What is okay. Believes in the state as a means I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a liberal. Does that make me a statist?

1:11:31Richard Greaser Yeah. You're a statist. Okay. Explain that to me. How am I a statist? You believe in in using the state as a way to coerce other people to behave how you want them to?

1:11:44Mike Brock Yeah. I mean, I do think that we should co we should use the state to coerce people to follow the law. That's, you know, I've, that's pretty I mean, like, I think if you were to poll, like, the population's, like, 95% of people would agree with that. The rule of law is, like, the I mean, the, like, greatest fucking invention in the history of civilization. I mean, have you have you, like I mean, have you read, like, any political philosophy around this? Like, you know, there's,

1:12:18Mike Brock have you, I mean, John you know, have you read John Locke on this on this subject? Or

1:12:24Richard Greaser you know, I mean, I'm just curious. Does that that ever come up in the forty hours of Bitcoin podcasts? Oh, it definitely has. I've been doing this for years. Okay. I'm fairly red. I I won't claim to be the most intelligent person in the world on the subject. Okay. But, yeah, I mean, let's let's let's talk about this. Let's talk about this legitimacy of this institution. Let's talk about let's

1:12:44Mike Brock talk about it. Yeah. I'd love to talk about it with you. Can you explain to me why the constitution is legitimate? Because well, I mean, because, like, the polity that it governs considers it legitimate, of course. That's the that's the only reason.

1:13:03Mike Brock That's the only honest answer.

1:13:06Richard Greaser How many how many people that. Yeah. Okay. Well, how many people Yeah. Agreed and consented to the existence of the constitution when it was

1:13:19Mike Brock do do you know what the Continental Congress was? Mhmm. How many how many people were there? Those people were representing their polities from their, like, initial the from the initial colonies. There was a political there were they were considered the legitimate representatives in the Continental Congress of the of the original colonies. So that there was already political legitimacy given to the founding fathers through that. Right? Thomas Jefferson, of course, was the representative from Virginia,

1:13:52Mike Brock in the Continental Congress. And the Continental Congress agreed to have him they debated. There was a debate, like, among them, and they all got together. They, like, agreed that Jefferson would write the declaration of independence, and there was all this, like, debate that kinda happened. Then, eventually, they got all together. I mean, like, I don't know, like, what I mean, like, I I just, like, what like, I mean Does it does it bother me? I'm I'm I I I I am a I am a scholar of The US founding, so I'm like like, it just, like, it just it's just, like, perplexing to me. Like, it they didn't just, like, they didn't just, like, here's the declaration and just, like, assumed everyone would go around with it. No. There was, like, a there was, like, there was political upheaval. Like, people were mad, like, about, like, how they were being treated. They there was pressure being put on the Continental Congress by, like, the polity, and they were reacting to it. It was considered legitimate because people thought, like, these fucking pea like, when they they these these people were they're representatives in the Continental Tonga. Like, I don't like, what, like, what are you talking about? Like, there was a there was, like, a

1:14:51Mike Brock a a grassroots establishment of of governments, and they slowly grew. And they had their legitimization mechanisms, and that built up to the to the to the to the original colonies and the Continental Congress. And then, Jeffrey, you know, they there was, like, a whole there was, like, several weeks of, like, debate. There are some states that weren't ready for independence, and, eventually, they all came together. Jefferson wrote it, and then they all voted on it on, you know, we on that sort of famous date. Right? That, you know, the the the July 4, you know, 1776.

1:15:26Richard Greaser Yeah. Right? I was doing some homework. And, like, and, like, and, like, and, like, and, like, I just I just don't like what the what the what the fuck you're talking about. Well, I was doing some homework on you, and I just found this contradiction that I thought was kinda interesting. So I was listening to an interview, and maybe your opinions changed, but I doubt they did. But one of the reasons why you said you didn't like libertarians was because they wanted to put up, like, no black people signs in their businesses and their private property. Yeah. That was that. That was a real converse.

1:15:54Mike Brock So, I mean, I, so this is a real story. I'll tell you a real fucking story about this. Well, hold hold on. So, yeah, I was at this, like, I was at this, like, libertarian. When are you finished? This, like, libertarian conference, like, twenty years ago. And, and, I have a really annoying itch on the itch on the bottom of my nose there. Sorry. I was at I was at a I was at a, a libertarian conference and found myself in a group of people,

1:16:22Mike Brock discussing some things, about about, like, the nature of property rights. And I brought up the kind of the just the the question of, like, is it accept would it be acceptable for, say, a shop owner to say white people only allowed? And all the libertarian I mean, they were, like, there there was, like, you know, there was a bit of a debate, but, like, you know, the the I should one of the people there is actually a pretty well known person and knows me, and I don't know if I wanna call them out or not. But, I mean, the the ar but the argument was was, like, yes. I mean, if it's their property, that sucks. But, like, of course. Like, under libertarian property rights, of course, you should be able to put a whites only sign and have only whites only businesses. That's just the that's your property rights. And I was like, okay. Well, that's what that was that was segregation in the South. So, basically, you're saying that the Civil Rights Act violated property. They're like, yes. I think this. And they're like, so, basically, like, you would have just been okay with that system continuing.

1:17:17Mike Brock I mean, you have to, like, account for that. If you're just gonna hide behind property rights, that's a very morally suspect position. And, yes, like, that was, like, a major breaking point for me in the libertarian movement. That's that that that's the that that was the story behind that.

1:17:33Richard Greaser Well, why is the constitution legitimate if it didn't apply to black people?

1:17:38Mike Brock It does fall, but it it should have. And it ultimately we bought a civil war over it. What are you I mean, what are you talking about? Like, Leytonstein, the emancipation proclamation, and and and which which ultimately led to the which which ultimately led to the civil war. And, like, because it was inconsistent, like, I I'd written about this. Like, what I mean, what are you talking about? What are you talking about? So was it is it only legitimate after the civil war then when it applied to black people? What do you mean about talk to me about legit what do you mean legitimate? What does that mean to you? Well, by the way I mean, I give you my definition. I give my I give you my definition, which is that, like, it's legitimate if you have a sufficient and stable polity to consider it such, such that, like, I mean, that's just, like,

1:18:25Mike Brock basic truth of any system of power in, I mean, in in in the world. I mean, even dictatorships at some point. I mean, if, like, 99% of people were to coordinate somehow, I mean, that's dictatorships function in ways to prevent people from coordinating to challenge their power, but, like which makes them illegitimate in my opinion.

1:18:46Mike Brock But, like yeah. I mean, if if you have a democratically elected government and a major and a sufficient number of people are willing without violence to accept the results of those elections and to live their lives and to follow the laws, I mean, it's legitimate by definition. Just because you're like, well, who the fuck says I should have to follow the laws that they voted for? It was like, because you do, because you live in the world.

1:19:11Mike Brock And it's like, I'm sorry. It's like this idea that, like like, you know, what are you saying? Like, I didn't ask to be born here. Therefore, I shouldn't have to follow your rules. Like, that's just antisocial. It's just stupid. Well, I think anybody stupid. I think anybody has a right to dictate

1:19:25Richard Greaser what they believe is legitimate or not.

1:19:29Mike Brock What do you mean by that? Like, you what if are you are you have a right to dictate that my life is illegitimate? No. And then have and then and and then and then cause and then and then and then use and then appeal to that, like, sense of asserted legitimacy to bring about an end to my life? Like, what, like, what the fuck do you mean by that? No. I think that's that's more of your belief system than mine. No. It's not. I don't believe that the government has the right to kill people. I oppose the death penalty.

1:19:58Richard Greaser Oh, it's just throw them in cages? You get you're limited to that.

1:20:03Mike Brock I I yeah. I mean, like, dangerous people should be removed antisocial dangerous people should be removed from the situation where they can harm people, but they should be treated with dignity. I actually think we need prison reform in this country. I think we treat a lot of prisoners like shit. But But that was something like I mean, like I mean, like but I mean but I but I mean but I mean, like, like, I don't know what your point is.

1:20:29Richard Greaser My point? Well, I don't know why you're advocating for prison reform because that was all put in place through democratic processes. Why would you need to change that if the majority of people support it?

1:20:40Mike Brock Because that's important what democracy is. I we have different opinions. We change our opinions all the time. We change our tax rates. We change our regulations. We create new agencies. We destroy old ones. I mean, like, we change our fucking minds of the people. We're constantly renegotiating what kind of government we want. That's what a democracy is. It changes. We like like, I mean, that's the point. Like, that's the fucking point. It's the point. But do you think there's points where people choose the wrong thing and they violate the people? Wrong to vote for Donald Trump, and that's why right now I'm telling people that they may I'm I'm I'm using my democratic right as a citizen of this country,

1:21:21Mike Brock my first amendment right to speak out, and tell other Americans why I think they are were wrong to have supported them and why I think they probably should be taking to the streets right now to protect their inheritance, their constitutional inheritance, which I think people should care about because I think The US constitution is,

1:21:43Mike Brock you know, a, like, a sacred I I I I revere it. Actually, I I consider myself a constitutionalist. I think we're probably gonna need some amendments after this once we put ourselves back together given some of the weaknesses of our system that have been exposed by this entire ordeal. But, yeah, I I, like, I I I once again, I'm not, like, tracking your point.

1:22:05Richard Greaser Well, can can you explain to me why your, reverence for the constitution is different than this cult you're describing around Bitcoin maximalism.

1:22:20Mike Brock Oh, I mean, because I mean, I'm I'm a liberal, and the constitution of the liberal document Is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is is you just arbitrarily disagree

1:22:29Richard Greaser with their point of view, but yours is right.

1:22:32Mike Brock I'm not I don't arbitrarily. I gave a very structured and rigorous critique of their point of view. But I don't know. Your logic your logic just isn't consistent here because you say the constitution is legitimate. I mean, like, it look look look. If you want if you want if you wanna, like, get down to brass tacks here, like, the meta metaphysics of it and the metaethics of it, like, sure. I mean, like, I'm a fucking human epistemologist. I don't I I don't I think, ultimately, meaning is subjectively bootstrapped. So if what you want me to admit is is, like, can I prove absolutely, like,

1:23:07Mike Brock to your satisfaction using pure reason that my position is correct? No. I can't do that. I don't try to do that. In fact, I a lot of my philosophy explains why you cannot do that. Like, so, I mean, I I so I I don't like, I once again, I'm not, like you call it arbitrary. I don't think that's quite the right answer, or right or the right characterization, I should say. Yeah. And my like, I'd,

1:23:33Mike Brock like like, what you're saying to me, this sounds, like, very juvenile. Like, like, somebody who's not even taken, like, one year of, like like, political science or philosophy. Like, you could first year, you know, policy like, you know, like like, political science, like, one zero one or philosophy one zero one will quickly disabuse you of these, like, very, like of questions that are worthy of a 14 year old.

1:23:56Richard Greaser Well, I I just don't understand. So you say the constitution is legitimate.

1:24:00Mike Brock It didn't apply to women and black people. Yeah. I think the constitution's legitimate, and I think most Americans agree with me on that. And that is a good sign of legitimacy in a political system that most people consider it legitimate.

1:24:13Richard Greaser You keep on going back to most people. If most people Yeah. Are jumping off the bridge, would you follow them?

1:24:23Mike Brock You're actually saying like, you think that the that's what it's supposed to be. My mom my mom asked me this question all the time. Before this is the this is this is the logic of a 14 year old. No. My mom used to ask me this when I was kid. Your mother your mother your mother says that, like, when the 14 year old is like, mom, can I, like, drink some fucking alcohol? And you're like, my friends drink alcohol. And then she says, like, if your friends don't have a bridge, would you? It's about the same thing as, like, talking about the legitimacy of a pool. I I think it's a it's a great question. There's, like, a category there's, like, a category error or five category errors, errors. Like, it works through all this. It's a great question because

1:25:00Richard Greaser it it challenges question. It's stupid. It's a stupid question. So you should jump off the bridge is what you're saying because most people are No. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it's a stupid comparison. Why? It's stupid. I mean, how many how many points in history comparison. How many points in history have most people been wronged?

1:25:22Mike Brock I don't I don't I don't who cares? What does that have to do with anything? Well,

1:25:26Richard Greaser isn't history important to understand? Anything.

1:25:29Mike Brock It has to do with this conversation. I mean, I'm I'm yeah. My I I'm a study of history. You wanna talk about history? We can talk about history. I know a lot about history. Well, how many times? I don't know. What the fuck? It just I I don't who who fuck knows the answer? Nobody knows. What the fuck are you talking about?

1:25:47Richard Greaser Doesn't make any sense. Can you name one notable time for me where most people were wrong?

1:25:56Mike Brock I mean, most people were wrong about whether the Earth was flat or round for most of human history. Very good, Mike. Very good. Okay. Yes. You think that you think and you and you think this wins you the argument?

1:26:13Richard Greaser Yes. 100%.

1:26:15Mike Brock Okay. Okay. I mean, I mean, I okay. I mean, like, I mean, like okay.

1:26:20Richard Greaser I mean What what did they do? What did they do what did they do to people that didn't believe the Earth was or was flat? What did they do to the round earthers?

1:26:31Mike Brock Well, I mean, I would note that you're allow, that liberals like me allow people to believe the earth is flat without executing them. I don't think you're allowed to do that. I believe in free speech. I believe in the first amendment. So, like, I don't know that I don't understand why you're using this as an argument against me and my position and my liberal position, which does not allow you to kill people for their views by definition. Liberals have never believed that. That was the whole I mean, like, I mean, I what are you what are you talking about?

1:27:01Richard Greaser Well, you keep on saying most people believe this. Most people believe that. Is somehow that's a definitive answer for what is true?

1:27:09Mike Brock No. You asked me how legitimacy forms in a in a in a polity. And in that sense, a polity is made up of people by def do do you agree? A polity is made up of people? Isn't it like asking it's like it's like it it's like saying that, like, do most of the atoms in your body agree that you're a human? Like, I don't like it's like it's like this, like, weird it's just like this weird sort of, like like like like, argument that you're making that I just, like, don't know why you think it's a profound point.

1:27:36Richard Greaser It's not a profound point. It's a very simple point.

1:27:40Mike Brock It's a simple point that doesn't mean anything in this context at all. Like, any it doesn't mean anything.

1:27:47Richard Greaser If most people jump off the bridge, should you as well?

1:27:54Mike Brock I mean, if I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, well, I mean, like, is there am am I running away from, like, a fire behind me? Are you know, is is am I am I in a world where, like, I don't know what you're I don't know what you're talking about. Do you know why that's an important question, Mike? No. Okay. Tell me why it's an important question. Because, like, I don't think any of the questions you've asked me are something I wouldn't characterize as important, but

1:28:21Richard Greaser tell me. Well, I think it's a very important question. I think some of the most important questions are the most fundamental basic questions.

1:28:29Mike Brock I think people like you where you get stuck. If everyone jumped off a bridge, would I? You think that's one of the most important questions?

1:28:36Richard Greaser Do you know why you ask kids that?

1:28:39Mike Brock Do you know why you ask kids that? I no. I actually do know. I to demonstrate to the I mean, like, I I don't but, like, why are you using the logic that we use on a 14 year old to convince a, like, highly informed adult

1:28:59Mike Brock on politics and philosophy. Like, I don't, like, I don't understand, like, why you don't see how this is absurd. Because you don't listen to forty hours of Bitcoin podcast a week. Of Bitcoin podcast a week. Yeah. I've heard you say this, like, 20 times now.

1:29:16Richard Greaser I I mean, I I think this is an important question to ask because you believe the constitution is legitimate. Why don't you listen to forty hours of, like, fucking

1:29:25Mike Brock Pod Save America a week? I don't know. Like, what the fuck kind of question is that? I don't even know what that is. Tell me about it. Okay. I mean, I'd say it's a it's like a I don't I don't like, it's a liberal, like, you know, like, you know, it's a a it's one of the most popular political podcasts in the world. I I actually don't really, I mean, listen to it anymore. But but, I mean, like, why I mean, like, I don't know. Why don't you listen to, I don't know, like, fuck. I don't know. Like, forty hours of, like, audiobooks a week from, from Audible.

1:29:59Richard Greaser Because it gets in the way of listening to forty forty hours of Bitcoin podcasts. Why what establishes these Bitcoin Bitcoin podcasts as the gold standard for information? Because Bitcoin fixes this.

1:30:15Mike Brock Fixes what?

1:30:17Richard Greaser This.

1:30:20Mike Brock Dude, this is like this is like we we haven't we haven't gotten anywhere. Like, my I I feel like people are getting bored. Well, you you won't you won't bored. Are people getting bored? You won't directly answer my question of, like I was really excited. I was really I was really ho I was really hoping that you would, like, actually, like, have some serious critiques on, like, us like, against my view on Austrian economics. You haven't critiqued me at all. You've just, like, gone around around in circles. Like, I don't, like,

1:30:45Richard Greaser Well, Austria's Austria's a pretty cool country.

1:30:51Mike Brock Dude, I is there something we can talk about where you can actually, like, challenge me on something? Well, I I I have, and you keep on dancing around it. And then you you keep on dancing dancing around anything. Oh, yeah. I'm not dancing around anything. I don't like, you're not asking anything, like, that anything that's, like

1:31:07Richard Greaser You're a good dancer. I'm I'm sure you you dance real well at weddings too. I'm sure people are super impressed with your dance moves. You told you said in multiple interviews that you thought libertarianism was illegitimate.

1:31:23Mike Brock Now let me ask you this question. Yeah. I didn't say libertarian is illegitimate. I have friends who are libertarians, and I'm still their friend, and I debate them. Like, honestly, I never said it was illegitimate. Okay. Well, you don't you didn't like libertarians views. You didn't like libertarians because I don't want black people. I mean, so socialists don't like liberals. Liberals don't like socialists. So liberals don't like reactionaries. Liberals don't like reaction. Who gives like like, what like, this is a very vapid point. It's like, what are you talking about? Let me ask you this question.

1:31:51Richard Greaser This is an important one.

1:31:54Mike Brock Yeah.

1:31:55Richard Greaser If a black person doesn't want white people going to their business, is that okay? No. Why?

1:32:05Mike Brock No. It's not okay. No. Because we're this is fucking America. We have, like, we're why would that be okay? Why would why like, I don't I I have you ever seen a blacks only sign at a business? Is that something you've seen? Is this, like, a concern that you have? No. I was just curious. Seen that. I haven't seen I I I I actually quite like, you know, there's a you know, I go to, like I I love, like, you know, soul food. There's, like, soul food kitchens, like, here in LA, like, black owned businesses. I go in there sometimes long like, sometimes, like, I'm the only, like, white guy in there. It's great. Like, I've never been told not to go into a place like that. So what are you talking about?

1:32:42Richard Greaser Do you tip more when you go there?

1:32:47Mike Brock I mean, I don't I mean, I I'm a I'm a generous tipper all for wherever everywhere I go. Good. That's the correct answer. Because if you tipped more, you'd be racist.

1:32:56Richard Greaser I applaud you, Mike. Okay. K.

1:32:60Mike Brock So explain to me What what are you what are you what are you what are you

1:33:03Richard Greaser getting at here? Well, then why is the constitution legitimate if it didn't apply to black people right off the bat and black people can't prevent white people from going to their businesses? Because because because because, like, I mean,

1:33:15Mike Brock the Or black people did they come? Found the found yeah. The found the founders were wrong. And, honestly, like, even we saw some of the founders knew this. Jefferson grappled with this. Right? Like, he grappled with his with the with the hypocrisy of the of at the time, and he never fully resolved his contradictions with slavery, and the the slaves that he inherited through his family wealth and stuff like that. I mean, like, there's, like, plenty of evidence the founders were aware of the hypocrisy on this, and it was ultimately resolved. Was it well, Lincoln attempted to resolve it, right, with the Emancipation Proclamation. So it's like it's like, yes. There was there was moral hypocrisy, legal hypocrisy

1:33:53Mike Brock at the time. Everyone knows this. This is, like, well known American history. But the majority of people thought it was appropriate. Yeah. I mean, like, we understand that we have a history of racism in this country. Everyone knows this. So what do you think the moral thing to do as a sentient

1:34:12Richard Greaser human being that disagreed with the majority of people?

1:34:17Mike Brock What was the moral thing to do at that point? I just don't know I just don't know what you're talking about. Like, I just I'm I'm not tracking the point that you're trying to fucking make.

1:34:28Richard Greaser The point I'm making is that you should be a selfish individual. You should read Ayn Rand,

1:34:34Mike Brock and you should think for yourself instead of just accepting what the majority of other people think and what the TV tells you. Okay. Well, I mean well, I mean, look. I mean, this was, like I mean, I we're about an hour in. We haven't gone anywhere. So is there, like, any, like, last remarks that you'd like to make before we finish up here today? Well, I wanna ask you. Should you trust the TV

1:34:58Richard Greaser if the majority of journalists are in the pocket of the CIA?

1:35:07Mike Brock No. But I don't like, that that's a hypothetical. Would I trust them if I knew that? No. Like, I don't think anyone would. That would it's a but it's a silly hypothet I mean, I don't know what you're talking about, but okay. But the majority of people do.

1:35:21Richard Greaser So how do you tell the difference between a sentient human being and an MPC? Dude, I mean,

1:35:29Mike Brock dude, I mean, I wanna thank you for coming on. This was great. Thank you for, this. Obviously, you know, this is recorded. People who watched it, they can make up their own judgments. I'm gonna, like, actually you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna have some final thoughts, but thank you for joining. And I, you know, I I put you on the hot seat. And, honestly, like, I I appreciate you doing that.

1:35:55Mike Brock It was great. Thank you. Thank you for coming out. But, I'm gonna wrap up the show now. Thank you. Thank you for thank you for showing up, Richard. Appreciate it.

1:36:06Richard Greaser Alrighty, guys. That was interesting. Alright. Debate with Mike Brock. He thinks the constitution's legitimate even though it didn't apply to black people. He had some pretty interesting

1:36:25Richard Greaser inconsistencies there. Pretty obvious he doesn't listen to forty hours of Bitcoin podcast a week. Doesn't smoke cigarettes. I think a pretty good, description of him is like an Ellsworth type character, and, unfortunately, didn't get to get into that too much.

1:36:45Richard Greaser I'm kinda proud. It looks like the stream on, Twitter here has got significantly more views than him. Which I think is kinda interesting. But I don't know. I guess I'm gonna have to listen back to that and,

1:37:03Richard Greaser kinda get an idea of what I thought. Let's, I've got a lot of messages I gotta go through and get the feedback. Is there, like, a a live let's see. Are there messages in this livestream that I can read? Elon Tusk. Top comment. I I should warn you. I am a sophisticated philosopher who is very

1:37:40Richard Greaser methodically and rigorously deconstructed, pranks the logical or argument. Yes. Podkoff. I will will be good to see Mike destroy you in your weak positions. Well, fuck you, Podkoff. Mike is more intelligent than you. How do you even know you're smart? Well, I'll I'll give him that. He's more intelligent than me.

1:38:02Richard Greaser Nick can't mind smiling. David Freeman. How does he not know sarcasm? I don't know what you're saying, David. There is no no sarcasm. Absolutely no sarcasm. Just pure, hard, hidden, journalistic, credentialed facts throughout that entire stream.

1:38:22Richard Greaser I don't know why people think this is a joke. It was a very serious, wow. Okay. Here we go.

1:38:30Rod Palmer Conno

1:38:32Richard Greaser Alchemist. Richard one. That's all I needed. That's all the validation I needed. I feel pretty good about myself. I I'm wearing a suit. If you if you go and look at the you go and look at the the stream on on Mike's Substack, the video. I'm wearing a suit. I got my my mushroom shirt on. I kinda like this shirt. I would consider that a Bitcoin podcast. I wanna thank you for everybody that tuned in for the last while that I was doing this. Let's see. How long have we been going? One hour and thirty nine minutes. So almost two hours of Bitcoin podcast

1:39:10Richard Greaser under your belt for the week. It's It's currently Thursday, almost Friday. It's a good chunk. Hopefully, this isn't the first two. I'm kinda interested in doing more debates like this, especially with academics. I I

1:39:32Richard Greaser I'm not really an academic. I'm a credential journalist. I do have I do have my credentials. They're not they're not as I would say they're impressive. I would say my, I think, like, you know, there there's all these guys that they they really flaunt their credentials in a way. I think you just gotta get your basic credentials on under your bat, under your belt, and, like, the most valuable credentials that you can have at the end of the day are being a Bitcoin podcaster

1:40:02Richard Greaser and being a Bitcoin podcast listener, being a good husband, being a cigarette smoker, being a sentient human being. But this is a really good question. I don't know if I have I don't know if I have a fantastic answer for this one. How do you determine if you're a sentient being?

1:40:22Richard Greaser I think this is one of the questions that we have to ask ourselves on a daily basis, on a regular basis. Are we are we thinking for ourselves, or are we like Mike and we just think that we're thinking for ourselves? And I think, like, one of the good ways you can determine whether you're a sentient being is you ask the question of whether you are a sentient being, and you chew on that. You you spend late nights outside staring at the stars,

1:40:52Richard Greaser smoking a marble red, and you ask yourself, am I a sentient human being? How do I know? Are all the thoughts that I believe, are they just things that I've been told by other people? Do I actually believe them because I came to this own my own conclusion? Did I go down you know, like, if you listen to forty hours a week,

1:41:16Richard Greaser you'll probably have heard the term first principles quite a few times. Quite a few times. Bitcoiners love

1:41:30Richard Greaser first principles. They love this. They love getting down to the basic, very basic questions because it's a very simple idea. Right? Very simple idea. So, like, I think this happened. So, like, back in the day before you had you had

1:41:50Richard Greaser maps on your phone to guide you everywhere. There those aren't always accurate. And you still have you still have to question the map sometimes because sometimes it'll take you in the wrong place. But, generally, they're pretty good. But back in the day, you either had to write down directions, and then there there was a certain point that you could print them out. You can look them up online. You could print them out, but there wasn't really active GPS everywhere. And if you took a wrong turn and you kept on following his directions or trying to follow the directions, like, go mile here and then turn right and then go mile here and then turn right, you would end up in the completely wrong spot. And what you would have to do if you took a wrong turn is you'd have to go all the way back to the point where you made your mistake.

1:42:32Richard Greaser But if you kept on going, if you kept on going in the wrong direction and you're like, I'm following these directions, you'd end up in a completely stupid place. And I think that is what this idea that Mike believes in in altruism is.

1:42:49Richard Greaser Why do you think so many people are unhappy in our society? It's because they're taught to believe in this thing called the common good. Should you do nice things for other people? Should you do act on every impulse that you ever want to?

1:43:08Richard Greaser Absolutely not. You have to make calculated decisions based on your own self interest. Are you gonna go and and and murder somebody just because you're mad at them? That's probably a bad idea. Why that's a bad idea is hopefully they own firearms, and they'll they'll there's a cost to doing that. And if there's not, there's gonna be repercussions. Right?

1:43:31Richard Greaser You have to you have to think through things based on your own self interest. And, like, when you go into a relationship I mean, can you think about anything as pathetic as going into a relationship with somebody, marrying a woman, not for yourself. You do it entirely for the other person. They call it being pussy whipped, and it's pathetic. I can't think of anything more pathetic than a woman doing that for you.

1:44:03Richard Greaser You want you want the other person to be in a relationship with you just based for you? Or do you want them to have some semblance of self confidence, self worth, and they're like, I'm here of my own volition, and I have deemed you to be valuable enough to do things that are uncomfortable for me because I want to, because it's gratifying for me, because I value you. This idea of altruism is insane. It's insane. This idea of being selfless. Do you know why they like this and why they preach this?

1:44:38Richard Greaser It's because they can get you to do stupid fucking things like give pedophiles taxes. Why is our society accepted smoking bans? It's because of this idea of the common good. Oh, secondhand smoke. I think everybody here listening, majority of them, they understand what I'm saying.

1:45:08Richard Greaser I gotta read through my comments. I might spin up a Twitter space. It looks like, I guess some people are asking me to do one. I'm glad that said I won. I I I don't really know what to to make of but I think this is my first debate I've ever done. And and, you know, I I don't really think it was a fair fight. I mean, when you when you're arguing with a guy that lives in Los Angeles, like, holy shit.

1:45:41Richard Greaser He's Californians, man. It's like I just like, I can't look at him and not see Corey Clipston. But anyways, I wanna thank you everybody for tuning in and, say, go be selfish. You know? Go do something that's gratifying for you. Like, go be selfish and do something nice for your wife because it feels good. Go take the trash out.

1:46:13Richard Greaser Go mop up the floors, go clean up the kitchen as an act of selfishness, as an act in defiance to Mike Brock. Go be a man. Do your job as a mate. It feels good to be a man. Feels good not to be a pathetic pussy.

1:46:33Richard Greaser Do it for yourself. Anyways, I wanna thank you for everybody that tuned in. This was it. Wow. This is a big one. Listen to my podcast. Ron Palmer and I, every week on Bugle Weekly, comes out typically Monday mornings. Depends on how, late you're sleeping. Best, most thermodynamically pot sound podcast

1:46:56Richard Greaser in the industry, Bugle Weekly. We had a big one last week. Kaylee Welch, our smoking hot producer, just came back. She ran off with the Monero guy. Had some personal troubles. I'll let her explain it on the show in the beginning. Go check it out. Boost us on Fountain, and,

1:47:16Richard Greaser yeah, thank you for tuning in, everybody.