Do you speak Pleb? Bitcoin show with @technologiekult

The Bitcoin is close to becoming worthless. Now what's the Bitcoin? The Bitcoin is like rat poison. The greatest scam in history. Let's get it. Bitcoin will go to fucking zero.

[Laughing] Alright you ungovernable misfits. I'm your host, Max. Everybody knows the Bitcoin is useless, worthless and doomed to fail. But what if everyone's wrong? What if it's the system that is doomed to fail?

Join me as I speak to some of the brightest people in the space and slither to the deepest, darkest depths of the Bitcoin rabbit hole. Welcome back everyone. Today's episode is with TK. We talked about Bitcoin, language and culture.

I thought this was really interesting because TK is a linguist so he's looking at things very differently to most. He's picking up on patterns and words that are being used from the opposition and yeah, I really thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.

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I love the team. They do things differently and they make it so simple for anybody to go and buy some Bitcoin. Enjoy the show. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm fine. I'm actually super excited to do this today.

Me too. Did you want to sort of go through a bit of how we want to lay things out or did you want to just dive in and see where we go? What's your preference? Yeah, I didn't want to over-plan it at all.

I noticed something is wrong with this mic. It doesn't really pick up properly and I don't know why. Let me just quickly turn it off and on again because I even can't hear myself on my headphones on the monitor, which is weird.

Test 1, 2, 3, do you hear me? Yeah, that's much better. Ah, okay. Yeah, have you tried turning it off and on again? Just to always work. Okay. Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming on.

We're going to get into all sorts of interesting topics here. But before we do that, can you just pronounce your name for me, please, and for everyone listening so that we get it right? How do we say it and what's behind the name?

Well, thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be on to this occasion. And so my handle is properly pronounced as "techno-logy-kultur", which is a German word and it's pretty transparent to English speakers, I guess, because it's technology and it's culture.

And these are the things I came up back in the day when I thought, "Okay, what do I want to dedicate my time to?" And I have always had a fascination for the cultural techniques like the writing, like agriculture, like architecture, all these things that distinguished

humans and civilization from the chaos and the animal world and all these kind of things. So these are the cultural techniques. And then looking at it, I noticed that technology actually is always contextualized with culture. So there is nerd culture.

You have all the cultural aspects that are made possible through technology. So I thought techno-logy-kultur, just switched around a little bit, would make an appropriate handle for my Twitter presence or my homepage, stuff like that.

So techno-logy-kultur, obviously, is quite a mouthful and me being a linguist. Obviously I came up with something that nobody can pronounce that was very smart of myself. So I don't know in order to keep both parts like the technology and the culture,

we could just simply abbreviate it as TK and I hope that this will roll easier off the tongue. So TK, you said, obviously, that you're a linguist. We've spoken a little bit behind the scenes about this before, but what is it you're doing with this skill and how many languages do you work with?

So I'm a linguist by training. What I originally studied is general and historical comparative linguistics. So what that means, that independent of separate languages or single languages, I have dedicated my time to studying what language is, how it is represented in the brain,

how it behaves as a mechanism, as an organism, how it interacts with, for example, neighboring languages, how it changes over time. And in that respect, I've looked at a lot of dead languages.

So I looked very much into the Western Germanic dialects that are all interrelated. That was my specialty, but after I left academia, I found the position in the field of computer linguistics.

I was always sort of technically inclined, but through my time in the field of computational linguistics, I really got deeper into it. I developed more interest. I started playing around on the command line and looked into things like privacy, alternative operating systems, like Linux, and all these kinds of things.

So the technological aspect was always some kind of latent, and then through my job in this field really came to the forefront a little. And currently, I am managing a small team of, all together, we are 11 linguists now, and well, I think we can leave it at that.

So I'm into people management, I'm into computational linguistics, that's what I do for a day job in the field world. And yeah, to be honest, I do enjoy my work, and I love working with my team, but all the surroundings, the setting is really turning into a drag.

It's a very feared kind of setup that I have to deal with on a daily basis. And in the mid and long term, I really look into just changing into the Bitcoin world entirely if possible at all.

It's the way, it's a pattern I see with almost every single person that I speak to who takes this seriously and loves Bitcoin and the culture around it. And a lot of people that we speak to all the time in our Meastadels and everything else,

it's that they just get to a point where they're like, "Nah, I don't want to be putting my energy into this fiat world anymore. I want to work on Bitcoin or around it." And yeah, I think we're all going to get there, it's just a matter of time and finding the right fit, isn't it?

Well, actually it's a matter of respecting your own time, I would even say, because once you look really into the underlying economic and philosophic truths of Bitcoin, you automatically get to the equivalence of time and money and energy and value.

And you really start having a hard time wasting your time and selling your time for cheap to people that do not really appreciate it. It's a natural progression, if you ask me. And so were you already involved in technology?

Were you already playing around with Linux and was this an interest of yours or is that something that's come after getting involved? So I started down the tech rabbit hole before I fell down the Bitcoin rabbit hole.

I'm a typical case of the three nudges that you need to really get involved. So I do believe that the first time that I heard or read about Bitcoin was in 2013. That was before I became properly technical.

There I started to really look into stuff and I think in the course of me becoming more technical, I probably stumbled upon Bitcoin. At that point, I basically just understood, oh, this is very nifty, the kind of blockchain thing you do, that the newest block depends on the validity and the integrity of everything that comes before.

That's nifty, that certainly will have an application and completely forgot about it. And the second time around was when it really went to the moon in 2017. I said, oh my god, this Bitcoin thing is really doing something.

What's going on here? At that point, I was already much more technical. And I said, oh, I really need to do some research. And I need to look into that. And at the same time, it was around this time of my life where my wife and I, because of a small family that we're having, started to think about what's going to be in the future.

How do we actually put aside a nest egg? How do you do preserve that and these kind of things? And we started down a very traditional investing route. And so we were totally focused on that.

And then along comes this Bitcoin thing and I said, yeah, I need to look into that. And I put it off and I put it off, there was a whole lot of old coins. And basically, yeah, shit coins, it is around this whole thing.

And I got distracted and sidetracked and never really got to the bottom of it. And then it crashed and I said, oh, that was a close one. I'm so happy I didn't really get into this. I will look it up later.

I will study the thing. It's interesting technology, but right now we have bigger fish to fry. So that was the second notch. And then in 2019, my wife brought the topic up again, showed me a YouTube video of a guy, a self-proclaimed crypto and blockchain expert, and he was shilling all kinds of shit coins.

But what he did and what really clicked for me, he said that there is this thing built into Bitcoin that around every four years, the supply or the new supply is getting cut in half. I said, okay, now that's interesting.

That was the first time I actually got any glimpse of the monetary policy that Bitcoin has. At that point, I had looked into traditional investment and at least could understand the terms that he used.

And then I said, okay, wait a minute. I saw this thing rise and die in 2017. Why are they still talking about it? Why are they predicting that it's going to go up steeply when after this halving happens?

What does that even mean? And this was the point in time where I actually started reading about it, looking into it, trying to understand what was really going on. It then still took a couple of months before we really started investing.

Our first 20 bucks, 50 bucks, whatever you start with. Because I really followed the guidance of these traditional investors, only investing something that you understand. I took that too hard and really looked into that.

Then came a sort of intermediate shit coinery phase. But because it was serious, was that the shit coins of traditional investing or the shit coins of scammy other blockchains? Yeah, just crypto.

The whole crypto thing, a lot of proof of stake and a lot of really nifty solutions in search for a problem and these kinds of things. And I started studying up on it, I started reading, followed all the wrong people on YouTube and watched their stuff.

I even inscribed myself into an academy to really learn about the coding and the ins and outs and whatnot. I really spent a shit ton of money trying to learn about this. And I said, okay, but first I need to study Bitcoin properly.

So within this academy, I started looking really at the Bitcoin parts first. And the more I learned, and the more I really went through all the talks and all the big names and I started discovering new words, I started to discover really more serious contributors to the space.

A lot of them that had this overlap with traditional finance then as well. I mean, the better known ones are probably like Preston Pish and Lynn Alden and these kinds of folks. So this started to make sense for me from an economic perspective.

So I actually could identify the problem that Bitcoin is really solving, whereas most of the other shit coins or all of the other shit coins for all intensive purposes are really not solving.

And then I just said, okay, I need to focus on that. I really need to dive in and dig as deep as I can. And I basically just completely dropped shit coinery before I got burned. Let's say it like that.

Well done. Yeah, I have a voice voice. But this is really a function of having all this amazing great content out there. I mean, I've heard a lot of you people, you and others that have been in this space for way longer than I have.

And I know that information that was available was just a fraction of what you have today. And now it's mostly a matter of sifting through the overflow of information. There's so much good content now.

I remember like early days when I was really trying to learn and there just was not really anything of quality. We had TFTC that I always listened to. What else was there? There was Andreas on to noplace doing his like more technical deep dives like question and answer stuff.

But outside of that, there was not really there's it's not like now. Like you said, it's too much. You cannot actually keep up and then you've got people branching off into different sections.

So you know, you've got people who like really go into the technical stuff. You got the more privacy focused people. You've got the people who just care about the finance side. You've got all of this content and yeah, I like to think that the time for somebody to come in and then get to a okay.

Let's just focus on Bitcoin and this is why it's important and this is why the culture around it is interesting rather than it being a couple of years. I'd like to think it can be a few months now if someone's really, really keen.

I absolutely agree and this is definitely the case and helped me really a lot. It's also good that over the last, let's say, one, two years, a lot of people have bubbled to the top of this that are actually really entertaining.

I mean, one of the better examples, for example, is Michael Saylor. You can say about him what you want, whether he's net positive or negative for Bitcoin. But he really brought a whole new element of entertainment to this whole space the way he can talk to different clientele.

Like talk to the CEOs, can talk to politicians, can talk to all the TV anchors. It's just something different. He's so poetic and so many things. He's basically just speaking in pictures.

And this is something that he brought to the space. Yeah, that was new to the space. He's very, very clear with his message and I think for the CEOs and the suits and these sorts of people, it's very helpful to have him on board.

The one thing that does concern me though is, and I understand why he does it, I completely get it that he wants to be super Polish and politically correct and stay away from anything to do with a revolution and anything to do with anarcho-capitalism

and anything to do with what I think most of us are really caring about and he's doing that because he wants to onboard people in the most efficient, effective way. And I get it. My hope is though that enough people who are a bit rougher around the edges who start to understand that self custody does matter and privacy does matter.

And that people don't allow this to become too suited and booted and controlled because although people say, "Oh, you can't control Bitcoin."

It's like, well, actually, if everything's custodied and re-hypophicated and held by massive institutions and you start to centralise all the mining and everything else, well, actually, it can be to some extent.

And that does concern me. So, I still think he's a net benefit, but I'd love to just hear him come out and just occasionally be a little bit more punk rock, but I understand why he doesn't.

Yeah, I do agree with what you say that the actual monetary revolution kind of thing is happening elsewhere. It's happening under the surface a lot or at least it's not as publicly visible, even though it's not necessarily hidden.

And, yeah, Sailor, he's just one of the flavours, one of the flavours that's very enjoyable, but if you ever do it, you really need something, I don't know, more salty, maybe?

Yeah, but, you know, if he was to speak like we speak when he goes on news channels and when he speaks to CEOs and when he speaks to banks and all this sort of stuff, it would get their back up.

You know, it would just annoy them because they don't care about the revolution, they don't want the revolution, they don't want people to have control, that's not what they're here for, they want to earn money, that is it.

So, if you start to shill them on all the things that it can do and the freedoms and that it can onboard all these people and bank all the unbanked and all this stuff, they don't give a fuck. In fact, they'd rather it not happen. So, I do get it why he doesn't want to say it.

And I know a lot of people get annoyed by that, but I think he's an expert or I like to hope he's an expert. Also, I'm not necessarily sure that I need to be always up on the barricades and really proclaiming the revolution and all that, I actually do believe that the revolution is in and of itself inevitable.

If we just continue building this alternative and independent system that can really just fill in once the old one shows too many cracks and really starts to break apart, because this is just, I think the best advertisement

or the best PR that Bitcoin can ever have is like the old system continuing as it does and just keeping on crumbling. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. That is all the advertising we need and NGU helps as well.

That's definitely a good marketing campaign for Bitcoin, language and culture, huge interests of yours. There's a huge amount of crossover with Bitcoin. You obviously will be looking at this through a very different lens to a lot of people. What are the things that going through your head?

Firstly, when you started to really think started to click for you, can you remember any like big moments? And since then, now that you're spending more time in the Meastadels, you're spending more time on Bitcoin, Twitter and obviously thinking deeply about all of it.

What are the things that are going through your head? So, when you mentioned that lens, I view the world through. For most of my life, this lens has been language. It still is. And hardly anything in the world could really hold a candle to what language means to me.

And because what fascinates me in language is that it's omnipresent. It's everywhere all the time used by anybody. Even mute will use sign language. And if you raise children without any linguistic input, they just die.

I mean, it's just part of social interaction. It's one of the most important parts that make humans what they are. And so, this was really, really central to human culture. And when I started looking at Bitcoin, I had to ask the question, as anybody does, what is money?

What is this function? What makes a good money? What features does it have? What can be improved? Or what kind of flaws do money have? And while I was looking at it, I learned that money actually is a coordination mechanism.

It coordinates certain things across time, across space, across interpersonal relationships. And as Michael Sayler very often says, this is energy. It's your life's energy, your productive energy, your lifetime that you coordinate through that.

And then I said, okay, this is a parallel that it has to language. What other parallels might there be? It's used everywhere all the time. It's like this underlying bedrock of most things, but it's also the current that flows between things all the time.

Very, very similar to what language does. Then it has all the characteristics of a living thing, like Brent Hoon Quinton writes when he talking about mycelium, or what else the way it evolves very slowly that it has these evolutionary pressures, which is also true for language, same as the Bitcoin protocol and the network.

So these are just parallels that I saw. And this is the reason why I then started spending so much time looking into it and researching it.

Because to me, right now, it's basically as important of a coordination mechanism to human society as language is. And that is quite something to say, actually, from my point of view. Because I've been looking for things that can hold a candle to language for my entire life and never found anything.

Yeah, and so would you say that it actually is a form of language, because you are communicating value? Would you say that it is a language or is that a step too far?

I wouldn't say it is a language per se, that always depends on the definition of language. I just think it has very similar mechanisms for one thing. It has similar use case, very similar use case.

And what they both have in common, and there you can really lump them together, their coordination mechanisms. You can think about it if you think about a project that needs to be done.

Let's say you want to build a bridge or a road or a school or something like that, you can ask certain questions about this project. And the answer represents certain forms of coordination.

Let's see if we need a bridge across the river between two towns. We need to ask the questions, where do we want that across the river? When do we want it? It needs to be done by 2025.

Who is going to build it? The first question of what do we actually need? A bridge. So you have these questions that are basically answered by, okay, we have some needs here, we have some capital here.

And on the other hand, you have then somebody who plans this project and needs to put it into reality. So you have the money, the capital lying on one side, and you have the wants and needs.

And they are represented by the money lying there. And then you have a head of the project that communicates how this thing is done, and the how is communicated how, mostly through language, maybe some drawings, but basically language coordinates the how.

These two things, the how, and all the other questions, the when, the where, the who, the what, how do those two connect? They are connected by another question. And this question is why?

Why does anybody do that? Why is anybody planning this thing? Why is it actually getting built? Because money flows between that. And so here's how I think language and money, be it Bitcoin or anything, be it gold, be it fiat. Doesn't matter.

Really, around one project, you have these different questions that are answered in corporation from language and money. So this is, this is something I'm scribbling about and drawing little diagrams and all that I'm still working this out. This is totally work in progress.

That's why it was a lot of rambling around that. But I hope to really put this into a proper formula. It makes all sense in my head.

No, no, it makes sense to me as well. It's like part of almost all transactions. And, you know, that was something I think a lot of us have gone through when we're learning about Bitcoin and start to think about money. What is money?

It makes you think about things that you've never previously thought about. Like, our understanding of money or, you know, certainly for me and most people I speak to is like, it was very limited.

And we didn't understand quite how important it is in day to day society and in our human actions. Like, in the way that we go through life, like you just said, why are we building the bridge?

Well, if there's no economic value for anybody, then it's unlikely it's going to be built in the first place. When I think about Bitcoin and having a better money or a brilliant money, really, I always think, well, we're going to have more collaboration.

We're going to have more speech. We're going to have more to talk about. Do you think that Bitcoin could potentially influence language? I mean, I certainly think it will with culture, but do you think that that is something that's going to happen fairly soon?

Or do you think that when we're talking about hyper-Bitcoinization and citadel theory and mestadel theory and all these things, do you personally feel that that's a while off?

That definitely already is like traces of Bitcoinization in language. Bitcoiners as a group already have established and developed a very unique lingo, for sure.

I mean, start with calling ourselves "clabs" and I also looked a little bit about how the slogans, all these abbreviations that we use and all that, how they are different from, let's say, all the rhetoric and the marketing material of fear society,

especially in respect to the great reset and how this one is marketed, how they differ, really. And there are very clear differences because, of course, the lingo that we use is a way of creating community.

It's language and social acts usually serve to distinguish oneself from the others. There's a We Group and there's a We Group. And obviously, we do see that here, but this is not unique to the Bitcoin community, not at all.

This happens for every subculture, be it music, be it gaming, be it take whatever you want. Even Wall Street has its own lingo, for sure. So, what you do see, you have these things like NGU, number go up, HFSP, have fun staying poor, but all these things, if you check out of Twitter for a week, you miss half of them.

Exactly, you have to be really in it. You have to swim in this meme pool, literally, to really get all of these. All you need to have them explained. Very interesting that a lot of these things that happen in the English-speaking community are only partially known, for example, in the German-speaking Bitcoin bubble.

I have noticed this recently because I actually started out in the English-speaking Bitcoin bubble and only recently really started to connecting more to the community here in Germany. And how do they differ?

I mean, they have their own micro celebrities that produce German content for German audiences, and a lot of people do consume also English-speaking content, but maybe they do 10, 20, 30% of their intake is in English and the rest is in German.

And there's really good high-class content. Really, I mean, Gigi, for example, has been like a co-founder or co-creator of the Inon Swansy podcast, just means 21 in German, which is a very, very good podcast.

And also very, very good maximalists that really have a lot of technical background. They really dive deep into all the issues of economy, of technology, all these kinds of things. They're really, really good.

Actually, if you do not speak English, you do have very good resources also in German, and people that are not so fluent, not so used to speaking and listening to English content.

They're just fine doing their thing in German. It's absolutely sufficient for them. But at the same time, they obviously missed this really fast-moving show, the drama that is developing on Bitcoin Twitter, for example.

It's crazy. You step away for a few days, and everything's changed. I've experienced that a few times. I've got to just get some other bits done. I've got to stay off Bitcoin Twitter just for a few days or a week.

And like you said, everything has changed. The language has changed. I've never seen anything so fast-paced before, but it is fun. It's nice to have this kind of language that's developing, and it's a way of communicating that's developing.

I love the plebs. I don't know. It's not taken so seriously. It's not so stiff. It's all memed and jokes. I don't know. It's just a fun place to be. It's just such an amazing group of people. I really enjoy 90% of it. Ten of it is a pain in the ass, but most of it is a lot of fun.

That's an important point you just made, that plebs in general, they don't take themselves too seriously. I mean, they are aware of what they're doing, what they're capable of, and do acknowledge when others really show their work or bring the proof of work and all that.

It's very much of a meritocracy, but at the same time, they are really just, I don't know, to belittle themselves or each other is probably not the right expression. But if you use just these things like calling yourself memed hearts or the wifu and the babu and its safu instead of being safe, all these kinds of things,

they basically just show it's not about being fancy, looking good all the time. It's about what you actually do and the rest is just the banter on top of it. We're having fun while we're doing it. So this is a very strong sense that you get from this community.

But at the same time, if you know what the acronym stands for, it's very clear. If you do not adopt Bitcoin, you can just have fun staying poor, as simple as that. What is the most important quality or the most important feature of the protocol, its number go up, doesn't get any more simpler as a message than that.

And GMI, not going to make it. Yeah, that's a good one. Do you think our messaging is clear? Or do you think that it's got to a level where it's so insular, the right word? You have to be involved to understand what people are talking about a lot of the time.

Do you think that that makes it unapproachable in some ways? Or do you think it's more that people are intrigued and it will pull them in? I do think it is still very approachable because it's very easy to ask for it.

And I have seen a lot of people ask stuff like that, especially also in the German speaking community. I have seen a few occasions where people have been asking about what is going on in this English speaking bubble, specifically about Moscow time, for example, was a thing like that.

This just came up two or three weeks after it had actually already happened. And then people say, wait a minute, why are you now always reading out Moscow time when you start your podcast?

Because of course, a couple of podcasts have already picked it up and are running with it. But the messaging I think is absolutely clear, the really basic thing, like not your keys, not your coins, is the clearest message ever.

And if you contrast that, for example, now to a slogan that is directly linked to this whole great reset affair, build back better. It's just an absolute classic because what does it actually say?

What conclusion can you do? What is it going to do? What is it going to look like? It's absolutely vague. It's maximally vague. And if you look at it, what do you have? First of all, it illiterates. Build back better.

So it's easy to remember. This alliteration is a mnemonic device to really make things more easy to retain, especially when they're being hammered into your brain. Through constant repetition. And then you have the words in and of themselves are basically all positive because building is a very constructive and positive word.

Better, obviously, as well. And back in the setting that we are, back to before this whole shit show went down, back to 2019, also has like a positive connotation.

That's very true. Are you seeing this kind of stuff a lot like you analyzing the way that these phrases or slogans are being put together on both sides? And if so, what can you tell us about what that tells you? What are you picking up?

So there are things that are often used because they resonate in the human brain. So rhyme and alliteration and these kind of things are very good. So all the stylistic devices. Alliteration is a very big one that comes up time and time again.

For example, concerning all the green New Deal and climate emergency and all that. I think it's the you that has a new program and they basically are making us fit for 55.

Fit for 55. Also, rather positive in the choice of words fit always good. Yeah, and the rest is like 55. That's the year, 2005. But fit for 55 is also one of these slogans. Another one that I found really interesting. It's in German, but I will try to translate it properly.

I first heard it in Austrian news and then later found it time and again in different variations also in German speeches from politics and stuff like that.

And it was...

And then I saw it in all the variations like not being like proper like proper nouns, but being verbs. So those who would stall and hold out the evening did zergen and southern. So exactly the other way round, but doesn't matter because it alliterates the same.

And time and again, I'm seeing these things and I see how they rhyme and alliterate and use all these mnemonic devices that together with a constant barrage and repetition of these slogans.

I really see taking effect in people because when people basically regurgitate these narratives, they use the very same phraseology. That's what they do. And so I see that it works. And this worries me.

It's almost like a brainwashing people are repeating without thinking. Brainwashing is a very strong term. I do think that you could call it that, but more obviously even I would say it's a marketing campaign.

Maybe something that can be said about how... let's say the slogans... how would you call them? Because it's not slogans. The aphorisms of the Bitcoin space could be characterized.

You have a lot of equivalences, things that are set equal, like not your keys, not your coins, very parallel structure, very easy to understand. But at the same time we have fix the money, fix the world.

It's also easy to remember, but it is not trying to trick the brain with some a literative device or something like that. Stacking sets.

Stacking sets. Okay, that's definitely an alliteration. And that would work the same as the fiat slogan. Indeed, stacking sets. Build back Bitcoin. Never heard that one before. Maybe we should use it and appropriate it.

No, I've been throwing that around for a while. I think we should basically take all of their bullshit, bastardize it and take it as our own.

Yes, I think that's probably the way to go. Because we are used to not taking ourselves seriously. As I mentioned before, we use these diminishing or ridiculing terms...

Like the mean terms and the retudes. But what we also have in the vocabulary, we funnily enough have a lot of words of the social sphere, because we have the friends, we have the fam, we have the wifu, the babu.

And we really pound on that. We consider our fellow Bitcoiners. We consider them friends and family and all that, at least in our language. This is also something that struck me when I looked at it.

Yeah, so interesting looking at it through this lens of language. It's not really something I'd ever considered, to be honest. It's just like something we're immersed in. And you just get used to it very quickly.

But it is a totally different world. And the language around it is fascinating. And this whole not taking yourself too seriously stuff is so refreshing. You know, you have some of the smartest people in the world who are just fucking around on the internet and just like having fun.

And I don't know if that's because it's like, "Oh, we've worked out this secret, which is incredible for preserving and growing your wealth." And so we don't need to be prim and proper and we don't need to fit in so much with society because we've worked this out.

Or is it just the type of people that come in? Or is it a combination of the two and people come in here and they see that no one else is prim and proper and everyone's fucking around and having some fun.

And they sort of go, "Oh, this isn't you. I like this." And then get drawn in. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, because I also, I didn't really look at it, but some observations that are made when all these Wall Street bats thing and the meme stocks and all that were sloshing around.

I read somebody characterizing the communication and interaction of these folks and they seem to have been absolutely respectless amongst each other using a lot of sexually derogative terms, for example, also racially and sexually derogative terms.

And I'm pretty sure in the Bitcoin space you will also have a couple of these, but in general, it's not the case. No, it's not. We do attack each other on the basis of what we say. So you might be an idiot or incompetent or whatever, also with very strong wording sometimes.

But we never really go for these really cheap, discriminatory things. Even though in Wall Street bats, they are put in a different and positive context.

They also form this weak group that separates them from the others. But Wall Street bats in and of itself had this very strong "I don't give a fuck" characteristic. We are disrespectful.

We do it in spite of everything. In spite of better knowledge, we have nothing to lose. This kind of vocabulary I found in this group that I do not find in the Bitcoin space that much.

We have all kinds of people and all kinds of ways to express their frustration and anger or just trolling each other. But I see it qualitatively a little bit different.

A lot of it will be mindset. Whereas the whole great reset and fiat kind of setup is very artificial and well constructed and basically engineered to work, the Bitcoin community seems to have a lot of fun with it.

I mean, if a future of the monetary system was determined by means and mean warfare, this would already be over.

Wherever a central bank opens their mouth or something like that, we already have the proper response within an hour and everybody goes with it and builds on this. So I think this is really, I see this as a point of strength, we are not desperate in the face of what they try to do and what they tell us and what they try to pull off.

We're not desperate in that at all. Do you think that's because we know we don't have something to lose. We already have worked something out and it's them that has everything to lose and almost like a quiet confidence of like, you still don't take us seriously

the world doesn't take us seriously, but we know we should be. Well, not taken seriously, but we know that this technology should be taken seriously. And so we can just fuck around and have fun.

It's kind of like, you know, the serious, the blue checks come out and try and shit all over Bitcoin and say something. And, you know, they've obviously put a lot of thought into it and trying to appeal to authority kind of thing.

And then we just come in and just shit all over them and find it funny. And we don't care if they believe us or accept it or not, because we're just doing it for a laugh between each other.

Do you think that sort of plays into it a little bit, whereas where you've got the Wall Street bets, guys, I think more of that it seemed to me. When was that like January, December January or something like that, and something like that. And I remember like, obviously the story behind it.

And when all said and done, they were, they were not in control because the institutions and the governments were going to do what they were going to do, and they didn't have any power over them.

And that's very different to Bitcoiners because we have a completely separate system. And we're like, do what are you fucking one in your system? We don't care. In fact, everything that you're doing only plays into our hands. All the stupid, crazy shit you're doing only makes us look better.

It only makes us stronger. It only pumps more of your shitty fear into the system, which eventually is going to find its way to Bitcoin. So carry on. We do not care. Do you think that that plays in because we genuinely don't care, whereas something like Wall Street bets really deep down.

They must have known this is probably not going to end well for us. And then there's more anger and aggression. Do you characterize that really well? Because the Wall Street bet folks basically just showed what it was, it was an act of defiance, knowing that they had nothing to lose and probably would lose it anyway.

And the Bitcoin community has this lack of respect for authorities in general. Yes. But if you look at most accounts, they just oscillate between some really, really low level shitposting.

And in the next tweet, they just put out a really, really deep economic philosophical argument. And then it's show Bob's. Yeah, exactly. Bob's in the gene is just the best thing because of the screwed up ofography. It just blows my mind every single time. It's really hilarious.

Yeah, it's true, but like you said, it's that contrast that is so funny. Because Bitcoin, the Wall Street bet folks, they figured out a very, a very intricate, but still knowable or publicly available mechanism of Wall Street of how the whole system works.

And they really just threw a wrench into this Wall Street machinery. That's what they did. And that's why they eventually went under with it. And they probably knew it all along.

So that explains that. But I do not believe that the Bitcoin community, for example, even though they have like an alternative to offer, I do not see it as complacency really. There are a couple of complacent people.

But what I see when I talk and listen to the folks, especially also on your podcast, the whole group of the digital folks, they all are very conscious of the problems that are still around that need to be solved.

And while we show this disrespect to the existing system, we are aware of the problems and most are actually working on solving these issues and have a plan to do so.

And that's why they then just lay back and have this really snotty, disrespectful attitude.

And I guess it's that confidence. And I don't think it's misplaced when I say I'll get off a call, especially after we've had our mesh to those spaces and I've chatted to all of you guys. I mean, quite often I'm quite pissed afterwards and, you know, feeling a bit jolly.

But regardless, I get off the call and I think all is okay with the world as crazy as it is, as crazy as things are getting. I've got a group of people who have got all sorts of incredible projects happening.

They're smart as hell. They're hardworking. They're decent, good people and they're my mates and we'll get through this. And so it does definitely give this sense of security because you're like, I don't really ever think of a problem that comes up in life and not think, ah, I know someone I can speak to about that.

And I know that I do and I know that they can fix it, or an idea comes up and it's like, oh, how am I going to have someone who's going to be able to work on this or push this idea forward. And there's always somebody.

And so I think it does give this kind of like confidence, which then sort of probably adds fuel to the fire with this lack of respect for the old system and the blue checks and all of that fear at world.

Because it's like, you lock and fucking do this, not in a million years, but we can. And so it just heightens that sense of like your dinosaurs, absolute dinosaurs and we don't need you.

Yeah, Bitcoin is hope and Bitcoin is do give me hope. There is, there are other folks out there and other groups that really try to solve issues and whatnot. And I think a lot of these communities are gravitating towards Bitcoin now.

Because I think that the folks that really want to constructively work on resolving these issues are also mutually attracted to each other. So a good junk of them have already found Bitcoin and they find other people who are working on solutions

rather than, than moping and complaining all the time. And they will probably pull in more people that are looking for alternatives and actually really need a tool that enables them to pull off their proposed solutions.

So that's where I really think that in the end, Bitcoiners and all the communities that latch on to what we have going on will provide a solution to what is yet to come.

So, I know if this really answers your question. Yeah, I mean, it does in the way that you're obviously thinking along the same lines, which is nice to hear, because I do sometimes get that feeling of like, are we being too overly confident?

You know, are we being too, because I think, you know, for me, certainly in terms of Bitcoin, I kind of see it as a foregone conclusion. And I see a lot of the stuff that we're doing with the Mestadel as not a completely foregone conclusion, but that we will find a way to do most of the things that we're discussing.

It's going to happen. I do sometimes like want to check myself and think, is it just because I'm around a load of other people who are also confident, and is that just Bitcoiners as a culture that we've got a bit big for our boots?

Or is it that actually know we're just fucking awesome and we are going to do this.

Oh, we're indeed awesome. That's for sure. But what really made a huge difference for me. I mean, maybe I'm gushing a little bit, but actually when I found the first Mestadel episode of a podcast, it was the very first episode I ever listened from your show at all.

The word Mestadel just resonated with me, because to me it was very transparent what it was about. It's just a very simple, productive word formation of the mesh network and the citadel.

So that was obvious to me, and I need to listen to that. And from that really, I started to become more vocal on Twitter. I reached out to a couple of folks like Solax and Chino and the others.

That was really like a starting point for me. It was a kick in the butt to actually get going. And not only did I do this on the social media, I also started to really look a lot more into my network locally.

And then I'm really putting a lot of effort into that and I see how it is starting to pay off. And I'm also trying to orange pill a lot of people in my surroundings here locally, because they all agree that we will have to provide mutual support.

And the question is what tools do we have and can we use to actually do so? Because they will come for a couple of things. They will come for our jobs. They will come for our money in the form of CBDCs.

They will come for freedom of movement. And that's pretty much also the conspiracy theory anymore really. You can just extrapolate it into the future. And then what are the things we're going to need?

A money that will work outside of this, ways to communicate, to get around, to communicate with each other, regardless of what they're throwing at, be the cyber pandemic or be movement licenses or all these kinds of things will need solutions.

There I think it's very rewarding to talk to people that I would call them pre-coiners now, that see the need that also have this awareness of the problems and are still open for all the solutions.

I have talked to people that whether two or three years ago would have been the least likely people to ever spend a single second thinking about Bitcoin. But now because they see the problem at large, they are actually open to a tool that will help them with what they want to achieve if it comes to the worst.

This comes back to this idea of everything they're doing is just marketing for us. If you look at what public discourse has become, it's equally interesting to look at what they are saying and how they're saying it, but it's also very, very interesting what they are omitting all the time.

Because I've heard on so many occasions in all different variations that the only possible way out of the situation and the pandemic that we're in is this vaccination. I do not advocate for or against the vaccination at all because it's none of my business what anybody does at all.

I don't care at all. That should be everybody's choice and so much for that. But to really just push this as the only thing to be even considered, even though the guidelines of the FLCC, for example, the front line, COVID care, whatever, they published this stuff in the first half of 2020.

And this has not changed since its early treatment protocols that have been tried and tested in the field with good results, and this is not being discussed, for example.

So, yeah, I do believe that vaccinations might be a very important tool to take care of the situation that, in my opinion, is not enough of a situation to justify everything that's being done.

But even if it was only about the COVID situation, we need to look at all the different tools in our toolbox, including early treatment, all different sorts of medication and boosting general health in people with sunlight, movement, diet, whatever it might be, supplements, all of it.

And this is just being left out entirely. And so do you think they just, do you think they think, well, if we just keep everyone in the dark and keep repeating the same phrases, then they will just submit to it, and they'll stop thinking clearly?

I mean, it certainly seems that way. I just wonder how much language plays into this, like, how much of it is just someone who's skeptical of government and their intentions, and maybe it's a bit wary to think a bit deeper, and how much of it is language that they're using that can get under people's skin.

I mean, certainly, one thing that I've noticed is the propaganda, like literally propaganda posters all over the UK, and the wording that they use on these things about, like, how would you feel if you killed someone's grandma, and like this kind of stuff, and like pictures of these old people who are like,

they've got a gas mask or ventilators and stuff like that, because you were selfish and this kind of stuff. And I look at that kind of language, and even to me who knows nothing about it, I'm like, this is a bit fucking weird, isn't it?

There is not a single shred of positivity when it comes to this whole progression of the situation. So first, they said they dangled the carrot of the vaccination, and everything's going to be good. They already set it up there that this is going to be the only solution.

I was wondering back then, already, why are we sitting here just waiting to be killed in masses by a virus while we just wait for the vaccine to come out and be ready? Why are we not really looking into all the possibilities of what we can do before? And people have done so. It was just never really publicized.

So I kind of lost my train of thought here. What was your question? The negative language you were saying, that it's only negative, there's no positivity, and I was saying that it feels very propaganda-like, and very much, you know, you're talking about repetition.

It's just the same shit all the time. It's like, you know, if you say it enough, people will start to believe it, I suppose. That is how it feels anyway. Yes, it's all about the numbers of deaths and infections and all that. But at the same time, all the collateral damage is not ever mentioned.

And I would like to have a discussion, a public discussion about whether measures, the cure, and whatever do make sense, because let's say, okay, we can save 100 lives at the cost of 50 lives.

And then we can have an argument about that. What does this entail? Is it what do you want for public health and whatnot? But just say we can save 100 lives and just omitting the cost part, be it because of screenings that are not happening

on all the mental illness that is just skyrocketing of all the development issues that we see in young children.

All of this stuff, just not there. And I actually had one moment, the moment where they actually really lost me, where I really said, okay, now I need to look into what they're doing here and how they're doing it.

From a linguistic point of view, because it was listening to the radio, and there was a report on the screen pass and how it's being implemented in Italy. And they were talking about, yeah, there are people for it, there are people against it.

And just in a sentence, one single sentence that was not connected to anything that just said, and there is no mass protests in Italy and then the report basically went on with reactions of people and blah, blah, blah.

It was the first time ever that on the radio, I have been told what is not happening. And this was just screamed at me, and it was so low, it was so low key, it was so low key that usually people do not recognize it, because people are not used to listening closely.

And this jumped out to me, it was such a manipulative bomb that they planted there.

That was a point for me, which I said, no, I've had it with that, I'm listening to mainstream radio every single day still, because I want to avoid at all costs to just live in my echo chamber.

I need outside input, I need to contextualize all the things that I want to believe and try to verify the best that I can, but I really need the counter arguments and all that.

They are just not very consistent, they lack consistency, and if you confront people who are buying it, who are convinced and actually try to convince you of their position, they cannot argue for it in their own words.

They have to use the vocabulary that they are handed through repetition and mnemonic devices like iteration and whatnot, it's all the same formula that you get from them.

And if you talk to people that do not know each other, and they say the same things with the same words to you, you know that they must have had it from some other source.

So let me ask you something then, what's your thoughts on the chances, I mean, I'll start with saying, I don't believe this to be true, but I'm just sort of like playing devil's advocate.

Do you think that it could be that all these news channels and all these governments and all these people from around the world, who are saying the same thing, it's the same message delivered in the same way.

Do you think that it's a chance that they're all just listening to each other, and then as we are on Bitcoin Twitter, we're sort of, we're communicating the same way we have our phrases, our sentences that we use interacting with each other.

Could it be that they're doing the same, or do you think no this is something that is thought through, they're using specific phrases and wording things in a specific way because they know that's the most impactful.

I would say, it looks to me very well constructed, and I had a professor when I was studying in Austria, Professor Parnagal, he is actually very well known because he also looks at, he's quite old already, but he looked at the language of politics

and advertisement, because he was also into classical rhetorics, also something I studied, so all these literary and stylistic devices are usually used in that so by basically by chance I have been trained to a certain degree in detecting these things.

I've always considered myself a poet as well because I started writing at the age of 13 and never really stopped with it and always had a play with language so I'm very sensitive to when language is constructed.

And this is mostly, not mostly, a lot of it is constructed, things that are repeated very often, they're just fishy to me, and this is very well known from political language, but it's not only the, let's say the surface of the language that you see and that you hear, how the words are put together and all that.

It's also the underlying meanings that are being manipulated, we call that semantics in the field of linguistics, and semantics can, they will always shift over time, but they can also be shifted on purpose.

This is what we're seeing, we're seeing like emerging of different ideas and different contexts into like a very vague cloud of words.

And funnily enough, the ways that the people that share, let's say, our position or our convictions, usually all of the words used for this group of people or this kind of opinion or negative.

In Spanish, all the people who stand up against these measures and the vaccination pass and all these kind of things, they call them negafunistas, so the negationists.

And in English, you have always worked with anti, anti-vaxxers and all that, even though anti-vaxxers had a very clear definition, and it was a very, very small segment of the population that would qualify as an anti-vaxxer.

And yeah, it's something I have always frowned at, this anti-vaxx movement, I always frowned at that for obvious reasons, because medicine and science and all that have brought us great progress over the last decades and centuries.

Anti-vaxx was anyone who was opposed to all vaccinations, but now, like you're saying, it's changed to if you're opposed to this vaccination, even if you're not opposed to any of the other vaccinations, you're an anti-vaxxer.

And you're anti-science, even though you're actually looking at scientific data and you're actually trying to prove something wrong and trying to test theories rather than just blindly listen, your anti-science, where actually it's very much the other way.

Yes, you even will be labeled an anti-vaxxer, especially in Australia, if you are against vaccination passes or for free choice and bodily autonomy.

There was a guy Australian politician, I saw the clip, he actually said that with these crazy eyes, and if you even sympathize with people who would stand up for their bodily autonomy and all that, you are anti-vaxx and will come for you.

So, they are shifting the semantics, it has to do a lot I guess with the Overton window, which is also a very popular concept these days, because the Overton window is being, whoa, it's being shoved back and forth and it's really crazy how people have such a bad memory

and they do not even recognize the things that would have outraged them two years ago are not just, oh, okay, yet another Tuesday or what? So, I don't really get how people do not see that, because people are not sensitive to how language changes over time, because nobody reflects on language in general, hardly ever.

People do it the same way, they use money, if they have it, they spend it, they use it for whatever ends, they need to use it, but they do not really look at it before they hand it over.

Say you have like a five pound or five euro bill in your hand, you don't look at it and you don't ask yourself what does it represent, how does it actually work, or if you take out your credit card, your debit card, and you slide it into the machine, you're not thinking about, okay, what has to happen in the background

and make this payment really work, and the same thing is true for language, it's just the most mundane, everyday thing that everybody constantly uses without having a really good idea of what it actually does.

And language is the framework for our ideas, for our thoughts, for our morality and all of that, and if you fuck around with that, if you fuck around with the framework, you fuck around with the thing itself.

So true, I mean we think in language, so does the corruption of language corrupt our thoughts, and then does the corruption of our thoughts corrupt our actions. Yes, I suppose.

And if they withhold the vocabulary from you to talk about the other side of the argument, you're not talking about it, this is also something that George Orwell very well described in 1984, how the new speak is being constructed that over a long period of time, you take away all the new ones from people,

all the things they want to express all the ambiguities and all that need to go away.

Yeah, I remember there was a chapter in the book where he's in the cafeteria or whatever it's called, having the disgusting gin that they drink and the guy who was the linguist who was constructing the new language was like really excited about it and he's saying, oh yes, with the new speak we can take

90% or whatever it was of all the words out, in fact we only need 200 words, and he was all excited about it and I remember thinking back that this was before COVID, this was when I was reading it, it was when I was looking through the lens of Bitcoin and the stuff that they're doing

with finance and everything else but I remember hearing that and just thinking, holy shit, that would be a fucking scary world.

The connection between these books, 1984, together with Brave New World and also Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, they basically have been like a literary...

What would you say in German? We say for Ayn Rand. It's been the processing, the literary processing of a time that is very similar to what we see now, and this is the time shortly before and during the World Wars, or specifically the Second World War.

These people have seen this, lived through it, drew their conclusions and tried to give it a literary form through exaggeration at times, hyperbole, but basically the spirit of these three books is very similar and the funny thing is that there is another book by, I think the author is called

Yevgeny Samyatin, a Russian, and the book he wrote is called We, so WE, the pronoun, and it was written in Russian, and it could not be published there. In fact, it was the very first book that was banned by the Bureau of Sensorship in the Soviet Union, I think,

it was the very, very first book that was being banned, and so it had to be smuggled out of Russia, and it was published in English, I don't know whether it was the UK or America or whatever, and translated in a lot of different languages, and it took like 22 or 25 years before it actually got published and printed in Russian.

And all three authors, Ayn Rand and George Orwell and Elders Huxley, they all drew inspiration for these books that I mentioned from this one book. I haven't read it, I haven't read it yet, but it seems to have the seat of all the ideas that are fleshed out in these three books.

It seems to have the seat already in it, and now I think, under what conditions this book has been written. What was the political situation? What had happened to free speech, the freedom of movement, bodily autonomy, and all these kinds of things?

Yeah, it's so fascinating. The insights that they had, I guess, they were probably following what had happened with Marxist movements and socialist movements previously, and this helped them have an idea for it, but yeah, it's remarkable how close we're getting and how quickly.

Oh yeah, the speed with which this is happening is mind-boggling. This is the most scary part to me, that it's all happening so quickly. Did you ever read, you know, we were chatting the other day about snow crash? I haven't come around yet. Okay, all right, I won't go into that, but it's definitely on the list.

Yeah, because the language plays quite a big part in that, and yeah, it's quite interesting, we'll chat about that off there when you've read it. Yeah, listen, was there anything else that you wanted to cover? Because I'm sort of conscious that I've been rambling a little bit here. It's fascinating to see through the lens of language.

It's not something I understand well, I can barely speak English myself, but, you know, be interested if there's anything else that's on your mind, anything else that you wanted to cover.

I saw you definitely selling yourself short there, you have a habit of doing so. I have to say, I really like listening to you and so don't think that way.

Oh, I have so many, so many different things I'm thinking about, but to be honest, I have too many things really going on and not a real project that I'm putting everything in now.

The only thing really is that I started writing more, and that I actually even got the chance to earn some sets in the future for writing.

I'm really looking forward to that. But yeah, I really just think that the role I want to play is more in the educational side for Bitcoin and trying to contextualize different aspects of Bitcoin.

For people that are not technical, for people that are not neck deep into all this, but I see more and more that people that are aware of problems that happen have a predisposition of latching on to certain aspects of Bitcoin,

be it the monetary policy, be it the decentralized quality of it, be it the egalitarian mindset, or the meritocracy within the Bitcoin community.

These kind of things, I'm really trying to work these out one by one through separate articles. And yeah, I'm really looking forward to doing that. But other than that, I just kind of stick to the community and try to make this work in spite of everything they might throw at us in the future.

This is the plan. Well, it's been awesome having you on. And I look forward to reading these articles. And I'd love to have you on again if you're up for it when you've got some articles under your bell, and we can then go through them.

That would be really cool. But yeah, I think you're a great asset to the space and I'm very, very happy to have you in the Meastadale, really happy to get to know you a little bit more. And yeah, thanks for everything you're doing, mate. I really appreciate it.

Well, thanks so much for having me on and really being this crystallization point for the ones who actually want to be part of it and are contributing and all that. It's, it needs something like that. You're bringing people together and I have hugely benefited from the connections that I made through what you're doing.

And, you know, obviously, all the other candidates that we have in the Twitter spaces and in the telegram group and that there is sort of a core group there. And you have talked to a lot of them now one-on-one, like we are doing now, and I feel absolutely humbled to just make part of that list.

It's just awesome. Just love it. Stacking virgins at the moment, mate. That's what I'm doing here. Yeah, podcast virgins. All right, mate. Well, yeah, thanks again. And just stay on the line when we close this out, but it's been a pleasure and we'll have to do this again soon. Thank you.

Yeah, sure. Looking forward to it. Thanks a lot. Bye.