Making Sense of Clown World

Hi and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics, brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. Today my guest is Jordan Schachtel. He is an independent journalist and writer, and we are chatting a little bit about making sense of Clown World, media bias and narratives, and I think he has some really interesting points to add to the discussion. Now we have the holiday season coming up, and if you have- Haven't already got some gifts for your family and friends? Consider my sponsor, Swan Bitcoin. They have a gifting program available, so this is a really easy way to gift to your family and friends. You can give it to them on their email, they will pick it up, they will sign up, become a customer, and then convert that fiat into Bitcoin, and at the same time, they will receive Swan's world-class customer support and education. So Swan is really focused on education. I recently hosted a self-custody webinar for Swan customers, and this is part of the commi- commitment to helping empower people financially and teach them how to hold their own keys. So if you're interested to give a gift for this holidays to your family and friends, go to swan dot com slash gift. Are you in the market for an industry leading Bitcoin and liquid wallet? Blockstream Green is worth a look for you. Blockstream Green has powerful features such as multi-signature security, but it is an option you can choose to use single signature if you wish. That it also has the ability to connect with your own full node, your own Electrum server. And you can use Tor support. So Blockstream Green has a multi-signature shield, allowing you to have one key on your phone and Blockstream servers hold one other key, and you also have a time lock or a third backup key to ensure you retain full ownership of your funds. Blockstream Green also has integration with hardware wallets such as Blockstream Jade, Ledger, and Trezor devices. So there's a range of features available. It is available on multiple platforms such as iOS, Android, or desktop. So to get that, go to blockstream dot com/slash/green. Now, for those of you in the market for Bitcoin hardware, CoinKite dot com are my favorites. They have a range of products available, most notably the Cold Card. The Mark IV is the latest version. It has two secure elements, it has NFC support, and it's a very reliable performer. And I particularly like that you can initialize this device without even connecting to a computer. You can just plug it to the wall or get a battery and use the cold power, hardware device to power this thing. And for those of you looking for a cheaper option, something in the forty dollar range, they've got the TapSigner. So this might be useful for you as part of a multi-signature, or potentially for people in the developing world, or potentially as part of, let's say, your more warm wallet setup. So they've got a range of products over there at the site. Go to coinkite dot com and use the code Livera for a discount on your cold cards. And now onto the show with Jordan. Jordan, welcome to the show.

Stefan, thanks for having me. I'm actually a, a pretty decent long-time listener at this point, so, so it's an honor to be on the show, and, and I've learned more about the, the technical aspects of Bitcoin from, from your show, a-and it's a kind of like a light technical approach than, than I think anyone else in the industry. So big props to you, and, and, you know, I'm a big fan.

Hey, thank you, Jordan. I'm, I'm a fan of your work also. I, I know you're doing a lot of great work with your Substack and, your commentary on Twitter, and I think, I came across you maybe two and a half years ago when the hysteria was going on, you're one of the few people calling it out, right? And then I saw, oh, hey, this guy's got a bunch of based takes, so, I thought it'd be good to chat with you. I know you have also been following with interest

a Do you wanna just give us a bit of a, like, I guess, what are the main things you're working on just for listeners who, who don't know you?

Yeah, so, so most of my work now is at, dacia.substack.com, my, my Substack publication. My background's in, in foreign affairs, so like with the COVID stuff, I think a bunch of people started getting interested 'cause I, I was looking at it from like more of a, thirty thousand foot or fifty thousand foot, however many thousand feet you wanna talk about, perspective, Governments and what these international organizations are supposed to do in the event of like some type of crazy breakout, and it was, it seemed to me that they were just like winging it, and that's when I kind of like started to call their bluff and realize that something very nefarious, in my view, was going on, and I think that attracted a lot of people to some of my work that I've been doing. But I've been in the, you know, journalism reporting space for about a decade, in the US, doing a lot of like non corporate media The, and most of my background's in foreign affairs. I spent six or seven years in DC, and this issue, of course, for many reasons, just captivated a lot of people, and, so I, I just kind of cover a bunch of stuff nowadays. My, my specialty is certainly, you know, I still love talking about international affairs, but, you know, I'm, I'm definitely fully orange-pilled now, so I, I love to talk about Bitcoin more nowadays, especially with this clown world that we're living in, and there's just so- So much insanity happening that it's like, okay, so let's try to filter out the noise and think about what's important in the world. And that's, of course, your, your entire podcast dedicated to Bitcoin, but like, I, I think it's, it's more important now than ever to kind of like have some type of filtering mechanism because the way that people, I think, absorb media now, it's actually a very difficult thing to do and, and process the information. So, so once you have like- Like some kind of fundamental grounding on some hard truths, and I think Bitcoin is one of them, and it kinda helps you see through the mess.

Right. And I think one thing that I appreciate in your work is, I think you have a bit more of an approach where you'll dig deeper than the surface view, right? That you tend to research a bit further and find out the real story, let's say. And I think maybe part of that is where maybe you and I and a lot of the Bitcoiners are seeing a lot of problems in the world today about the, you know, so-called clown All about the narrative and certain people get punished for saying things and other people don't get punished, and that strikes most of us as unjust, wrong, all kinds of things. And so maybe you wanna tell us a little bit about your approach in terms of how you go about researching some of these things, right? You might see, okay, on the news says, "Oh, today it's, you know, this is the, the story today." How do you go about figuring out and getting to the truth of the matter?

Yeah, so, so I think it's super important for journalists, reporters, individuals who don't identify as anything to be upfront with the audience about where you're coming from. Like, so my prioritization's always like individual freedom, human liberty, that's super important to me. So that's the lens through which I am reporting events. Today's media, they pretend that they're like, you know, just these objective observers of truth. That's just not true at all, especially the corporate media is all kind of just like overqualified Harvard graduates who want to use their New York Times salary or Washington Post job to tell people what they're supposed to think about the news, and I think that's an okay approach as long as you're upfront about where you're coming from. These people all come from the same political perspective, but they ten-- they, they pretend not to. So, so that's, I think, why a lot of people have gravitated to, I would say, objective reporting from People who are open about where they're coming from, none of this like passive-aggressive weirdness. there's gonna be no like pretending, there's so much pretending in today's media about where people are coming from and the superiority complex, and, and I just try to get rid of all of that. So, so I think it, it provides a, a much clearer picture. And, and it's interesting, like the whole political frame of reference nowadays is, I think, becoming clearer than ever for some folks. Like it's not so much about this like left versus right divide, it's Whether people want to dominate you or whether they're open to having a conversation and, and, and open to agreeing to disagreeing, and, and I think that's, that's the fundamental difference, of th-this global divide that I think we're seeing today is there, yeah, there's one side that is, that is open to coexisting, you know, the, the infamous coexist bumper stickers that the, progressives used to love, slapping onto their, their Subarus, and, I, I think that Like actually coexisting means being open to other people's opinions and not trying to dominate them, force them to get experimental, injections a-and, and the like. But it, it, I think it provides a lot of clarity, when, when you talk about, whether that's local stuff or even global events from that perspective. It's like, what are you trying to do here? Are you trying to force me to do something or are we gonna be okay, you know, living freely amongst ourselves?

one question on that This as well. I, I know obviously you came from a journalism background, you said you've been in journalism for over ten years now. I have heard of this idea, and I think I, I broadly agree with this idea that generally there's objective reporting and there's opinion. And if you're doing an opinion piece, well then, okay, yeah, you can write your opinion about things, but that's, that's distinct from objective reporting. But it seems to me that a lot of the so-called mainstream media or the corporate media today, they're almost blurring the line, or they Ram this idea of their opinion down your throat, but actually pretending it's objective reporting, and that's what we see with all this fact-checking and all of this stuff that we've seen over the last few years. I'm curious how you see that as a professional in the journalism industry.

Yeah, I think when you look at these headlines that say like experts say or studies find, that's when the people in the reporting space with an agenda will show you what their agenda is, because you can find an expert for anything nowadays. You can, you- You can put, you can pay for a poll that will show you anything you want it to, or a study, or some type of graph, or an experiment. So i-it's very easy to manipulate the media, and, I think just there is a way to do objective journalism, but it's so, like, botched today in America that it basically doesn't, doesn't exist. There, there's a few enterprises that have tried to do something like that, but there's always just like, you know, once a corporate sponsor gets involved, and then it's like, okay Yes, we can't talk about, if Boeing, you know, the big, military and, and commercial jet maker starts sponsoring you, then like what's your position gonna be on, say, relations with another country where they have just bought a billion dollars in Boeing jets? So it's very easy to like corrupt people. So from my position, I, I understand the, the traditional divide between opinion, commentary, and traditional reporting, and I think that may have worked in the past But because there's just like so much clutter in the space that I, I just don't think that mechanism works anymore. Like the idea that the New York Times is, has separated its, its opinion writers from its, from its journalists, even though it, it's very clear they're all coming from the same perspective. And, and I think that people, you know, people aren't stupid, they, they, they see what exactly's going on with the, the corporate media and how, deceptive that it is as an enterprise. And, and I think that's why a lot of people are We have all these alternative avenues for communication, whether it's, writing tweets or, or publishing, crowd funded publishing, stuff like that, or, or, or choosing your advertisers very carefully and making sure that you align with the mission, so you don't have like this corporate behemoth that's trying to control your reporting. I think all that stuff's super important. So it's just like a blend of a lot of things. but, but it'd be very difficult for, for me to see us getting back to that space of like a clear separation in newsrooms that have- have morals and particular values about their reporting, it just seems to have all gone, thrown in the trash over the last couple decades.

I think I agree with you there. And so on the question of follow the money, right? This idea that people are doing things because their sponsor tells them to, or because the government is funding them, and otherwise their organization, this enterprise might not exist were it not for government funding. I'm curious how you break that down between money and ideology. Like, could it be, as an example, that there are people- People who just over the years have just taken on what was more like a very left wing ideology, and they're also doing it out of some sense of ideology, or do you, do you think it's, it's money, or do you think it's some kind of combination of them?

Yeah, I, I think like a, an institution like the Washington Post or New York Times, which is like heavily progressive, they'll filter that out through their, their hiring process, whether you're not, you're down for the cause. So that's the easiest way for them to do it. When Like a, a, a new, not necessarily new anymore media publication like Axios that takes, that its revenue model is taking money from all the big institutions in DC. So you have this system where you have all of these, traditional media enterprises that are funded by whether it's pharma or defense, where they kind of like push forward the so-called current thing narrative, like the acceptable cultural and societal narrative But they'll never really betray that. But let's say, you know, The Washington Post is a different example because you have billionaire Jeff Bezos. So as long as you don't really push him around too much on Amazon, and then you have this whole idea that there's like a cul-corporate culture, there's an institutional culture at some of these papers that have been around for a long time. And if it's like sometimes you're talking about a small magazine where their ideology is like some like global-- globalism in, in the sense of like, you know- You know, wanting to, push forward this idea of like in a big American empire or, there, there's endless perspectives in DC, but, but I think it, there's, there's a variety of factors there, but I, I think that especially like those of us who considered ourselves, more on the old school right, where we, we believe in free markets, I think a lot of us, I'm not spe- I'm just speaking for myself, but and, and other people in, in the media, that we kind of missed out on The influence of mega corporations and, in addition to that, their connections to like the current thing regime. We were so focused on like what the government is doing, and we kind of dropped the ball on a lot of these major corporate interests, especially like, you know, through these COVID times, the amount of control and manipulation and power that, that an institution like Pfizer has over the media, I think, was completely overlooked, and then you saw some of that like stuff on Twitter where people put those like vid- Video, the compiled like clips together, and then like all of our, you know, morning news is somehow now sponsored by Pfizer and Moderna, like that's pretty fascinating to me, and I, I think that that is a big avenue for exploration that a lot of people have opened their eyes to over the last few years.

One other idea that comes up is the long-standing brand of some of these so-called corporate media or mainstream media, for example, New York Times, right, that people talk about this idea of being a, quote unquote, "paper of record." Are they just trash? Changing their brand, like what is happening with some of these large corporate media outlets?

Yeah, I think they're just, they're just desperate to control people and tell them exactly how they're supposed to interpret what they're being told. Not even that they're like reporting them the news, there's like several levels of deception. It's like, this is your reality and this is how you must understand it. And whenever you depart from that, they get really nasty and then start to call for censorship and shutting down everything. But I think that the New York Times, I don't know what their financials are, they're still very influential, but I, but I'm hopeful and, and I, I look forward to their, to their demise, along with a lot of the rest of the corporate media, because they're a huge part of the problem. You know, they've created this class of like hundreds of millions of NPCs throughout the world who just are, have become bots and, and they view these papers as the gospel, and like, if it hasn't been reported in their favorite paper by, by their, you know Ridiculous journalist, activist, then to them it's not part of their reality, but the-- these people depart so far from reality in their reporting, and it's like so obvious to those of us who consume other forms of media and have kind of filtered through the biases and realized what the reality is. Like, there's just a, a huge disconnect. It's all just agenda-driven nonsense. It's not even like, you know, the difference between someone out-- like, our, our perceptions of what the truth is. It's like that's, they're just telling lies at this point, and they're deceiving, and they're manipulating, and that, that's what they wanna do is they wanna continue this stranglehold that they used to have over the people's perceptions and how the people think about things. And I think that folks are-- there are many people who have gone fully on board, you know, in the direction of just like I am cattle and I will do whatever the, the corporate masters and government tells me to do, but there's other people who just, have come to reject it entirely.

I think the other aspect that is almost scary is that they can make people think about anything by just repeating a narrative. And so what we might find is even if there is a truthful story or some story that you want, they might very briefly mention that, but then the one that they just keep, keep on repeating and repeating is the narrative that they wanna push. It's their-- then that's their way of controlling the way people think about things is to just continually repeat this. And if people are, let's say the average person out there who's maybe not paying as much attention, he just sees a random line and just reads that headline, and then that becomes his way of interpreting that issue, right?

Yeah. Like, I, I know you, you spent a lot of time in Australia, so you know all about how so many people just become like bots of the system, right? Like you had to basically escape there. But, it's, in the US, there's these terms that the corporate media loves using that kind of just like generates this sentiment among the people that agree with them. Like the new thing now Now we just had our elections, and there are certain people now who they've labeled election deniers for questioning the integrity of the electoral system, and it's always like the enemies of the regime that are election deniers. It's never the people who would actually like also deny the legitimacy of elections, like someone like Hillary Clinton, who was running around in twenty sixteen and for several years saying that, you know, the Russians basically stole the election, blah, blah, blah. Like she's never labeled an election denier, only the enemies. Of the regime or, or election deniers. So, so it's funny how they create and modify terms to, and weaponize them to, to, I think, encourage certain behaviors. And the COVID stuff was, of course, great evidence of that insanity. When, like, I was talking about this stuff early on, and not even, even in the pre-vaccine era, where I was like, "Hey, guys, maybe we shouldn't just-- I think it's like kind of weird that we're all being, like, told to stay in our homes forever." Like this doesn't make sense, and then there's people like calling me a bioterrorist basically. So it was wild to me, but it showed the power that the media still has over the people, and the media. So in, in a regime like China or Russia, you have state media, but our corporate media has become like almost the equivalent of state media because they just like broadcast whatever the, the current thing is for the regime, and they're all like this kind of like interconnected enterprise, like this idea that, I think a lot of people have I've kind of woken up to this idea that, like, our so-called democracies aren't nearly as free as we thought they were, because they're like, they're-- we have these media institutions that are very much looking like a Pravda or a Chinese Global Times, just funded by corporate enterprises, but they're still like catering to this class, this ruling class.

Right. And I think it's difficult to put our finger on exactly what's going on, because I'll give you an example, right? So some people argue that some- All of the hysteria was driven in a way because they wanted to make Trump look bad. So even though Trump was in power at that, like, if we rewind the clock, right? At that time that Trump was in power, they were trying to make him look bad, but now that Biden is in, they're trying to make him look good and they're trying to run cover for him, right? So it, it sort of changes depending on who's in power because it's not even about who's at the head, right?

Yeah, like these are people that are specifically motivated by outcomes, like getting

Big reasons, sadly, for the global hysteria were like, a lot of these folks were like, "We, we gotta get this guy out of here, you know? We gotta shame him at every chance." Remember, like, if, if you were watching, cable news, all of them had that ticker, like every time someone died of COVID, they're like, "Oh, million COVID deaths on Trump's watch. Now one point one million. Now, how many could have been avoided because Trump's telling people to live their lives?" And honestly, I think in the United States, that was

A, a global pandemic or, or the, the excess death, the supposed excess deaths on the guy they hated, it was just the perfect storm for, for media corruption there. But, but it happened in a lot of other countries too, not just in the United States, but, but certainly the US media weaponized it to get rid of him. And, I don't wanna get too much into, you know, exploiting the democratic process through mail-in voting, but I think that they recognize that that was- was an opening to, to kind of modify the system a little bit to make it more beneficial to their people. I, I think that was one of the main goals of, extending the emergency. I, I think that Biden may try to, or the Biden regime may try to extend the emergency basically in perpetuity for one reason, because the government loves having power and never loves giving it away, and for another, because I think that they like to, manipulate the electoral process and win- When people, when you have like this crazy system that's very difficult to track, it's much more easy to exploit. So

yeah, I see. And so I think one point that maybe I was getting at even earlier is that distinction about, are they doing it for money or do they just genuinely have this ideology? And I think in certain cases, so, I'm not sure how closely you follow the Australian political scene, but recently, as he is affectionately known, Chairman Dan of, Victoria, who was the Premier during the time of hysteria, famous for keeping His state under lockdown, I think it was the longest in the world, and he just won the election, right? Like he just basically massively won. But I, I think in that case, well, I, I'd probably hear a case for the whole, you know, election and fraud in certain American contexts. I think in Australia, or at least in Victoria and Melbourne, which is a very left-wing state and a left-wing city, I think a lot of them just genuinely believe it. I think a lot of them actually just believe in Chairman Dan. so I- I see it as sort of, yeah, there are so-- and, but, but I, I definitely take your point though, that there's this double standard, right, that Hillary is allowed to question the integrity of elections, but, the other side aren't allowed to.

Yeah. It, it's sad to see that, I mean, Australia in all of these democracy indexes pre-COVID was like one, two, three on the supposed freest countries in the world, most democratic, most transparent, and then, you know, the rest is history. You had people- Told not to leave a one mile radius of their house for six months, and you can only jog for twenty minutes a day. You know, so it's like, it, it was that kind of crazy things where it's just like, it really changed people's understanding of reality in, in, in an interesting way, and like what exactly-- And I, I think it, one of the good things was it got people thinking about what is the best system of government, and how important actually is democracy to ensuring that our freedoms are upheld. So there's a lot- A lot of interesting questions that, resulted from these chaotic days, which hopefully, hopefully we'll have at least a little, a little bit of time before the next emergency to think about this stuff and, and hopefully find some answers. But, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I, I mean, I, I think this is also an interesting question about human nature and people's willingness to comply with what authority figures are saying, regardless Of your background or, what system you're in. And for me, it made me think about like when all this stuff was happening, all these people were complying and irrationally fearful, and even like had this like tyrannical complex down to the individual level. It had me thinking like, when you're growing up, you're taught about like these, all these awful moments in history where people are demonized and wrongly put, be-- like people who are victims of, like, let's say, like- Like World War One, you know, Nazi Germany, they blamed the Jews, and then you had like this spiraling effect where the Holocaust happens and no one in Nazi Germany really stands up to the Holocaust, or, or at least like ninety-something percent of the population was, was down with the cause, and it really makes you think about The importance of, you know, like, to me, it was, it became very clear that, you know, democracy isn't sufficient enough to protect our rights, because there are events in history that happen where a significant percentage of the population, or at least the majority, is very much okay with abusing your rights. So like, what systems can we have in place to protect our rights? And like- What better monetary system is there than Bitcoin right now that can help protect those rights, can help protect our pur-purchasing power and protect our most important asset from confiscation? And there's other form of governments that I think are worth having a robust debate about, about how to protect our rights. But I think democracy has been badly exposed in, in these, in these years, and that, like, it really hasn't protected anything. Like, even if you have, you know, I, I've debates in, you know, Twitter DMs with Alex Gladstein about this, and I think he's like more of like a traditional liberal Democrat, where he's like, "Oh, but, so he's very critical about El Salvador and Bukele having kind of just like authorized himself to accumulate more power, basically, or like, kind of like having rewritten the rules a little bit to be able to run for office again, something like that, and, you know, polling the people, and ninety percent of the people said, 'Yeah, that's great, you know, you're, you're helping us ensure our freedoms.'" And then I You know, you got, you don't, you guys don't really, your institute doesn't really talk too much about what Australia and New Zealand did, and they're like, "Well, they have a parliament and stuff," and I'm like, "Well, that, that didn't really help anyone, you know?" Like, the idea that you have like-- There's a difference between rule of law and like governmental structures that are supposed to uphold it and don't. So I think it's just a very interesting conversation people have amongst themselves, we're past Thanksgiving, but maybe, you know Protect, our freedoms, our rights, our interests, and I, I think that, you know, Bitcoin inevitably comes up in that conversation.

Right. And I mean, look, I, I like Alex, I think he's doing a lot of great work in terms of his advocacy for Bitcoin, but yeah, I do disagree with him on the democracy question also, because, I'm coming more from the anti-democracy camp, and I think that democracy wasn't the thing that made our societies great, it was actually private property rights and, you know, those aspects and capital accumulation and all These aspects that made us have all this fantastic technology and all, you know, all these amazing things. So I also wanted to, I guess, we've got all these problems around the media and how they portray things and this double standard, right? So they seem to love, you know, the president of Ukraine. They ve- they rarely ever talk about his human rights abuses or how he's conscripting people and things like this. They, they rarely ever talk about that. So is the way out of this to have more individual contributors and writers like people like yourself or someone even, Like Glen, Glenn Greenwald, someone like that, like just have more well-known and, I guess, arguably more trusted or semi-trusted in the sense, you know, you're not necessarily trusting them to always-- to give you the exact way it is, but they're at least open and upfront about their bias and how they see the world.

Yeah, I'm, I'm a huge believer that we need more voices, not less. And I, I think that what Elon Musk is doing with Twitter, and hopefully he'll uphold these principles, as- As creating it kind of as like an open platform with limited restrictions, basically to-- towards unlawful behavior and some other stuff that, you know, you can, you can debate those things, but i-- it's super important for people today to have an, a communication mechanism, whether that's Twitter, whether that's Substack, whether that's, I think Ghost is the other competitor, where people can talk about things, broadcast, you know, Rumble's another one that they're trying to be like a YouTube competitor, where people can talk openly about these things Things, and that, that's the only way I think we'll, we'll come to, better solutions. Like, a-- and, and I think through that process, it exposes individuals and organizations who may not have been heard, but who have very interesting things to say, and perhaps have a more convincing argument in, in open space than some twenty-year correspondent at the New York Times. And I think that's the way that people on the side- Of open free debate when is that you have exposure to all of the ideas, not just a, a censored, supposedly trusted bunch because of their credentials, and I think that, that will, that process will bring about the, the, the best voices a-and minds anyway, and I think you've seen this through this decentralization process in, in, in media at large.

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I think if you-- So I, I wrote about this at my Substack that I, I, I did kind of like a deep dive into SBF, Sam Bankman-Fried's, his history as a trader and then- And when he moved into the space of the infamous Bitcoin arbitrage trade, which supposedly created the, the value that he needed to start up his enterprises, whether that was FTX or Alameda or like ninety other institutions that he was involved with or bought out, my position, which on SBF, i-is, I think that it is very fair to talk about all All of these tentacles and all these connections. But I see him, after doing some research on him, just as kind of like a scammer and a fraudster who had, made important connections and used them to accumulate power and manipulate media, and it was very successful until just a few weeks ago when everything blew up when it was exposed that, you know, his entire, enterprise This empire was a house of cards, and I think that if you look back, you know, the, the supposed origin story for his genius and success, like I'm not denying that he's a bright guy, you know, you don't, you don't get into, I think he was an MIT math graduate, like you can't be a, a dummy and, and get through that program. But the idea, I, I think that we like in societies today, what is very much entertaining to people is like these caricatures, like the perfect- For example, the, the, there's like the rare examples where you have like these, like kinda crazy, slightly like weird geniuses. Like maybe a guy like Mike, Mark Zuckerberg, who has a crazy idea in his dormitory and, and creates Facebook with his roommates. Like that's a great story. So a lot of people are trying to replicate that great story, and they think they saw it in SPF, but what I saw in SPF is he's just like a fraudster who pretended that he facilitated this amazing arbitrage trade, that he was this trading genius. And what the evi-- there, there's really no evidence to show that there's evidence that he got money, he got millions and dollars, and then later billions of dollars. I mean, he raised o-off of a, a thirty-two billion valuation in January of this year, but there was never really evidence. And what's interesting is when you, when the more Sophisticated and conservative investment minds asked him for the numbers, like not these like, you know, crypto scam VCs. When they asked him for the numbers, they would never deliver the numbers, and their financials. It was always just like, "Oh no, Sam's, Sam's a genius trader, and he's got all these like..." Brilliant quants and stuff like that. But I think he was, he's basically just a fraudster and was able to manipulate people through a creative story. But this also doesn't mean that he made some interesting connections and manipulated the media, and there's all kinds of also interwoven webs with governments and powerful interests, especially because he was so heavily involved in the DC quasi nonprofit and lobbying space. So that, I think when You're seeing these media enterprises treating him with kid gloves, like they kind of started to beef or, or couple with that institution, and he gave these institutions a lot of money, and they kind of became corrupted by his empire. So I think that for them, it's like when you have an institution like Vox or The Intercept, which has taken millions of dollars from Sam, and they don't wanna give it back. You know, the, the ide-- I think the idea of a clawback process probably terrifies them. So they're not going to say like, "Oh, this guy's a fraudster," because that means like, we might need to write a check at some point and give the money back and then fire these ten reporters that were hired based on that grant from Sam's Enterprises. So I think that, that he was very smart to try to manipulate the media, and he did so successfully, and now you have like all this, I, I think, you have, you have all these major enterprises that are want to be empathetic because they're- They're like already corrupted by him in a variety of ways, and there's also this authoritarian leftist bent in his worldview, and they don't wanna talk about that because it's embarrassing to them too. You know, the, the whole effect of altruism narrative, which is a whole thing in, in its own category, but I think that a lot of these people were exposed financially and also ideologically.

Right. And so I think you have it right, I think you have a good way of putting it, because I have- I've also seen a lot of theories floating around about this idea of a deep state, that he was some kind of government operative and so on. But at least on my reading of the facts and what I've read, it seems more likely that he was not a government operation. It seems more likely that he was just trying to do a standard regulatory capture play, like he was trying to build this Ponzi enterprise up and then get buddy buddy with the regulators and get buddy buddy with the politicians and make some donations, put, grease the right palms and- Become, quote unquote, successful or part of the new fiat establishment in that way. So at least that's how I'm seeing it. But, how, how do you respond or how do you think about the people who are saying, "Oh, look, it's like a show, it's like a government op, and he wouldn't have been able to do some of the things he was doing if it weren't for that."

So the foundation of that argument that I think comes from a lot of the people in like the crypto crowd that, crypto meaning like all of these

altcoins type of like operation to destroy crypto and bring about this CBDC. But I think what the crypto people don't really understand, or, or what they don't want to acknowledge and, and accept, is that, like, this was already a scam enterprise, like, that was using terminology that didn't reflect what these people were actually doing. Like the idea that any of these coins or, or, digital assets were tools for decentral- Civilization and freedom, it's laughable. I, I, of course, like, I'm not familiar with all these twenty thousand plus, assets that were created and out of nothing, but I think that's what differentiates Bitcoiners from, just like this general crypto crowd, is that it doesn't make sense that the argument would be, "This is combined as Fed psyop, purposely destructive to destroy crypto, bring about CBDC." they wanna bring forward a CBDC Anyway, and that's a more, I think, complex argument because we have somewhat aligned interests with the banks in the United States, like they don't necessarily want CBDCs either. So it's not gonna be so easy for the federal government just to roll out a CBDC, which I think is a good thing. But like, it's kind of like, aligning yourself with the Soviet Union to beat the Nazis, you know? They're, they're-- It's not necessarily like the perfect relationship, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of interesting actors in this, in But I don't accept the, the framing that this was some type of like pur-purposeful self-destruction because this entire industry was just a gambler's paradise for retail. And I, I think that deep down, retail crypto people would acknowledge that, that they're just gambling and hoping to, you know, enter one of these get-rich-quick schemes. It's not about the ideology, it's not a- About freedom. I mean, maybe for some of it is, but, but I, I think they're wrong about that. And on the VC side, like the purpose of these institutions, like, it's not just FTX that was doing this. I mean, you talk about it all the time. The purpose of these institutions, like Coinbase, is to basically help Silicon Valley venture capital firms dump a worthless asset onto the public so that the price can go up and then they can, they can sell this useless asset with marketing hype and make billions of dollars. So like, are you telling me that because FTX collapsed and all these crypto coins, went down ninety-nine per-- another ninety-nine percent, like that, that's somehow a bad thing for decentralization and freedom? Like, so I just- So I don't accept that narrative. I, I think that in fact, the collapse of FTX is, is a good thing, especially a good thing for Bitcoin. anything that you, I think, can psychologically decouple Bitcoin from this crypto behemoth, i-is a good thing, because people, I think, are using the market, I guess, the market psychology right now has these things connected, especially from an institutional standpoint. So I, I think it's, it's important, it's, it's a time, a, a perfect time to educate people On the separate, on the necessary separation between Bitcoin and crypto, because I think that through these casino, FTX was basically just a casino where you're depositing your Bitcoin or whatever you're using, and you're just like trading a, a, a dog token and trying to get like a thousand X, and then you're gonna put it back, if you're gonna try to put it back in Bitcoin or you're gonna try to use it to get back out in your, I'm not sure what the regulations were like at FTX, but if you can get back out in your local currency. I, I think, you know, the collapse of FTX to me is a good thing.

Yeah, and you know what? There's some parallels here because, as you say, FTX collapsing is a good thing for the industry because Bitcoin is rightly being separated from the crypto clowns and the garbage out there. And the parallel I'll give you is, people used to say similar about Mt. Gox back in late 2013, early 2014, when they were going down, people saying, "Oh, no, if Mt. Gox went down

wanting Mt. Gox to fall down, and they maybe argued that it wouldn't, when obviously as history shows, Mt. Gox did collapse, and it was, at the time, it was the Bitcoin exchange, it was the exchange. And so I think it is a good thing, but, you know, we're just gonna have to take a bit of pain. It's gonna be a bear market for a little while, we're gonna be sideways, and we don't know how long. But fundamentally, we're building from a new base, and so at least that's how I'm seeing From FTX, right? And I know some of the local, or at least the US domestic, large exchanges like the Coinbase's and the Gemini's of the world, maybe they could face even more regulation now, even though FTX was mostly an offshore exchange.

Yeah, I, I think that this is an interesting, like, i-it's very difficult to predict market outcomes, a-and I think that a-as a Bitcoin, I'm a little different from Bitcoiners in the, in ex- Accepting the notion that Bitcoin, hyper-Bitcoinization is, is inevitable, I think it's probable, but human psychology is very complicated and there are a lot of factors, you know, God forbid a nuclear war, where, I, I mean, I think it's very probable, prob-probable that Bitcoin will catch on with the masses, become the global reserve currency, all that, people will use Bitcoin. But I think it's also important, like, for Bitcoiners to be motivated to educate people People about Bitcoin because the idea that, like, you can just sit back-- super important to sit back, s-stack sats, but the idea that you can just, I think it, it, it's too much of a relaxed approach, that I think that it's important to have Bitcoin educators such as yourself to orange pill more and more people because if it's only the plebs on Twitter using Bitcoin, and we want our children and grandchildren to in- inherit wealth that will make it very easy for them to live their lives, and we can somehow speed up that process. I, I think that's where the educational portion comes in. But yeah, i-in terms of like with these Gemini and Coinbase and Binance, like if all those things fall, like that totally sucks for so many people, and I think it might set back the price of Bitcoin for quite some time, who knows if it stays months, years, but the sooner we can get more people orange pilled, I, I think the sooner- You'll see re-a recovery on, on that front. And, I think that the idea of just because Bitcoin is a better money, like people need to understand that Bitcoin is a better money. Just because it's a better money doesn't mean that it, it's automatically going to replace these shoddy currencies, whether it's the US dollar or, or the yen or the ruble. I, I think that it, it makes education so important in terms like the hyperbitcoinization timeline. That's, for me, that's just a critical fact Factor, especially nowadays where you're seeing the, the price action just-- I mean, in the stock market, it's been terrible too, like the Facebook stock's down ninety percent. So Facebook also is going to need to, psychological, do some type of psychological campaign to get investors excited about Facebook again. But, but I, yeah, I think that, th-this just makes education like the most important thing nowadays, a-and to really convince people that this is, this is an amazing opportunity for them. I mean, I had- So many people close to me over the last couple years in, in during the bull market when Bitcoin was at sixty thousand, sixty-five thousand, sixty-nine thousand, and they're like, "Hey, I'll never, I'll never have one Bitcoin ever because, you know, I'm not gonna spend so much money on it now." And like, now's, now's a golden opportunity for them. So, I, I know I'm, I'm still like super optimistic about Bitcoin long term, but we just shouldn't sit around and be like, "Yeah, you know, we're getting You know, and it's just like to me, like I, I just, I think that, like, that's a simplification a little bit. Yeah.

and look, I'll tell you what, I've, I've done a, I've done talks on this exact topic, right? I, my talk at Bitblock Boom was basically this idea that we shouldn't just rest on our laurels, we can't just assume Bitcoin is inevitable. It takes work. It takes, developers, it takes review, it takes investors, it takes builders, it takes employees who

I, I think it's extremely likely to win, but it's not inevitable, in my view. so I agree with you there. I think one other angle that's interesting, and I know you've written about this also, is we are in this time or this place where liberty isn't really valued very highly, and there are, let's say, discussions and debates of even amongst libertarians and, let's say, liberty-minded people who are disagreeing on the right way forward. So for example, you have people saying, "No, we need to have the Libertarian Party," and, " Actually, really promote like the proper libertarianism, so that's a big improvement. You've got those in the Republican Party who say, "No, we need to have, we need to try and drive forward the liberty Republicans and drive that sort of angle forward." but then on the other hand, we have this, let's call it the, the Uniparty, right? And I don't know, you've written about this with, was it, Senator McConnell and Rep. McCarthy, right? As, so there's this almost, this idea that there's the establishment Un

Give us a few of your thoughts on that distinction and in your view, what is the best pathway forward for those of us who do want liberty?

So for me, having spent a long time in Washington, D. C. D. C. is irreparably broken and no strongman, no president who-- well, first of all, you're not going to elect someone who's like an anarcho-capitalist in the United States. So most likely you're going to get, I think that the Republican Party is more liberty-minded But still very flawed because, like, you have the future speaker of the House in the next session, Kevin McCarthy is basically like a bot for corporate interests. You have Mitch McConnell, who's going to be Senate majority leader if they get to fifty-one, and he's also part of the Uniparty. So when you're electing legislators to go to DC, you basically want them to blow these institutions up. I think that's what liberty-minded people want to happen. You want to weaken the power of the Federal regime, this uniparty in Washington. If you're going to look for someone to send there, that would be my motivation to vote for someone, i-is what can they do to destroy these institutions? When you're talking about A president of the United States, let's say in the coming twenty twenty-four election, I think that that is a very important thing to discuss, but also, is the president going to keep us out of these crazy wars? Because I think the lesson of the last two decades in the United States is that this imperial overreach has harmed our nation in an incredible, impactful way. And while the United States is still very much a first world country, you know, that's not necessarily guaranteed in the long run. having spent trillions and trillions of dollars And debasing the, bejesus out of the currency and really harmed the average American. You'd, to me, I'd, I'd look for a non-interventionist president, someone who would be willing to blow up the institutions. But certainly the most important thing is to kind of separate, i-if you're a liberty-minded individual, to do all that you can to separate yourself from the federal regime, because they just want to grow the power of this blob in DC. and I think that Florida is a great example, Texas is a great example of weaponizing the process of federalism in the United States to decouple as much as possible. I wouldn't call it a secession, but maybe like a soft secession to do all you can to stop the growth of the federal regime. I think particularly Republicans are so caught up nowadays about this debate between Trump, DeSantis, and who else, and about who's going to create prosperity Diversity in America again. I think those days of electing one person to fix something is just not going to work, and you're much more likely to get better outcomes by just electing people who would not grow the power of government at the very least. It's not, to me, having had a background in foreign affairs, coming to this realization has been very powerful that it's not China, it's not Russia, it's not Iran, it's not North Korea. That's going to potentially lead to the downfall of the United States. It's our own regime. So to declaw that regime, I think for liberty-minded individuals, when you're putting in place national legislators or even like crafting policy on a state level or even on a city level, you want to empower the individual as much as possible. And to do so, you need to, find avenues to- Grant liberty to the individual far away from Washington, D. C. And again, of course, the Bitcoin fixes that.

Right. And so even amongst, Bitcoiners circles, I think maybe there's, I think probably most Bitcoiners would argue, or at least many of them would just say, "Look, we, we just have to try to walk away from normal standard politics, and we just need to try to build these parallel economies and just promote Bitcoin, and that's really gonna have the, the best overall impact." and then maybe there are those who say, "Well system so that at least there's less bad regulation or reduce the regulation and the taxes that are, that could come onto Bitcoin holders, and maybe there's something to that also. I'm curious how you see those different views.

Yeah, I think it's, it's worth it if you have some spare time to get involved in the system, because the idea that like, I think some Bitcoins are, Bitcoiners are a little too blackpilled about the state of the American Republic. If you do, like, you can Work the system to facilitate your interest still. If you have a lot of money or you have a lot of loud people, you can definitely impact the system. So the idea that the system is like so corrupted to the point where like they're totally tuning people out, I, I, I reject that notion, and I think it's, it's important for people to engage, but also important for people to recognize that, in, in more like the non-bitcoin space, that just electing your preferred strongman Isn't going to fix anything. So i-it's very much worth it to continue to use the system to your benefit and use it kind of like how the elites use it, whether that's, I think a guy like Peter Thiel has done some very interesting things where he's like, "I'm going to put a lot of money behind these candidates who I think are very much non-interventionist minded and also believe in like free enterprise, and I'm gonna pick a few people and really support them and..." It, it's hopefully gonna make a difference. So like a guy like Masters who actually came up short, but JD Vance is gonna be a senator in the next session. So like, there's evidence that that kind of stuff works.

I think it's fair to say that having a lot of money helps you have that kind of impact. And so let's say if you're a listener now and you don't have a lot of money, well then maybe the best, your best path is just to stack Sats and try to, you know, do, do the best to create some wealth.

but Slightly, in, in less bad directions, let's put it like that.

Yeah, no, that, I think that's, that's exactly right, that, because like, imagine like, let's say you're some, you're some billionaire businessman, and you're, you're paying these enormous taxes, you're not taking advantage of the loopholes, you, you believe in liberty, and like, you know, you have this senator who invited you to like his cocktail party, like, I think you should go to the cocktail party and convince the senator to like lower the taxes So there's, there's stuff like that that engaging in the system would be beneficial, but certainly for like the average individual, you don't have, you don't, perhaps don't have ten million dollars to bribe your congressman, but using the system to your advantage is, is, is very important. Don't just let Bill Gates do it.

Okay, so, let's wrap up. Are there any, closing thoughts or tips for people out there who, let's say, trying to, get to the truth of the matter and, find out what's

Yeah, I think it, it's just very important to actually have an open mind. I was listening to the investors podcast, which, not Preston Pistachio, but, just the, the general investors podcast, and they had, Bernie Marcus, the founder of Home Depot, on, and he was talking about the importance of actually listening to, listening to people, because like, you know, those of us who are- In this like media influencer space or just like any random individual with any random occupation. Like most of us, we actually don't listen to people when they're, when they're talking, we just like kind of filter it. So I, I think that for me, that's what I've been focusing on, a lot on recently, like actually trying to understand other people's perspectives. And in the media space, that, that's super, super important because Over time, I think a lot of us just become hardened in a particular, position that hasn't really been thought out, and like, you know, something like COVID very much exposed a lot of our ideologies, and, and hopefully, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to take another emergency, but with the general theme of the media, I, I think, I'm very optimistic about what the future is going to bring. I think Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, he's no, he's no saint, but he's certainly better than having, like, basically our Government running Twitter, and there are continually growing spaces that I think will help create a much healthier, a much more open conversation in the media. And, I, I, I think that in terms of like the, the monetary answer, of course, is Bitcoin, but we have all these other institutions in play which will, you know, become part of the Bitcoin ecosystem. But when it comes to the media, Bitcoiners should absolutely write their thoughts Lost down. And I, I think like whether that means starting a subsac, start, putting a camera in front of your face and becoming like a citizen journalist. Don't doubt yourself if you have, if you think you have an important thing to say, just spend some time. I, I think that what we really need in this space is more people trying to be as objective as possible. There's billions of opinions out there, but if you have an interesting story, you should, you should absolutely tell that, tell that truth and get involved in the space. The, the more- Voices is better, and there's so many platforms now where people can use their voice to, to make a difference. And, and it doesn't necessarily have to be an ideological thing, you could just want to help get to the truth of what's going on in your city, in your nation. I, I think honestly that there were, i-i-in some countries over this COVID hysteria regime, there were some just individuals that kind of came out of no- Nowhere and started having people think about things another way. So, so just the power of an individual, a unique perspective, that's like the most important thing to facilitate in the media environment moving forward. And, and Stefan, just thanks so much for having me on, really appreciate it.

Hey, no worries. so listeners, make sure you follow Jordan, I'll put his links in the show notes, and his Substack is dossier dot substack dot com. So guys, go and subscribe over there. I just subscribed recently. So, thank you, Jordan. Yeah, Show notes over at stephanlivera dot com slash four three seven. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the citadels.