#16 Monday Night Konsensus: Why is Censorship Resistance Important?

Welcome everybody. This is the Monday Night Consensus, and this is the second one we do in English. So if by any chance, and I think there's a great chance, you're here for the first time, please subscribe, like, and we are basically trying to do these high-quality talk shows with interesting guests, interesting stories and topics. And every week, same time, 4 PM UTC time. My name is Niko Laamanen and I'm the chairman of Finnish Cryptocurrency Association ConsenSys. And today I want to introduce you to our new co-host, Raphael. He's been in a couple shows. Raphael, say hello to everybody.

Hello guys, nice to be here again.

And for the panel today, first of all, the topic is going to be super interesting, why censorship resistance matters. And for the panel, we have Annie Liu from Crypto Gossip. And we have Max Hillebrand from World Crypto Network. And we have Rico Coin Report, also from World Crypto Network. And together, the three of us—me, Max, and Rico—we form the European part of the World Crypto Network that we are trying to put up now. So big shout out to Mad Bitcoins and World Crypto Network. Thomas Hunt, they're doing awesome. and fantastic job. I believe he's actually having a show on at the same time, so make sure to check his show right after ours, or which way you prefer, it doesn't matter. But you will find all of our shows here. And do remember to leave those likes, please share. These are important topics we're talking about here, and we just want to reach as many people as possible. Without further blabbering, Rafael, would you do the honors and introduce us to the topic of

Yeah, so we're talking about censorship resistance. And first of all, I would just like to hear what everybody thinks, what everybody is— what comes to mind from that. Would you like to start, Niko?

Sure, yeah. Censorship resistance. A lot of times when you talk about this, people don't really understand why they should be even interested in something like that because we live in a free world, we can say whatever we want, we can do whatever we want, right? I mean, why should we care? Well, the thing is, while you might not, there are people who are being oppressed all around the world all the time. And it would be, in my opinion, naive to think that this kind of thing can't extend at some point to our place, wherever we might live. And at that time, it could be too late to fight for your right to say things, freely. So to that end, we have here today our honored guest, Annie, from China, who will be sharing her story later. But before that, I would like to hear also from the panelists, what does censorship resistance mean to you guys? Annie, why don't you go first?

That's a hard question. I was born in China, so I don't really know much about this because I didn't even feel so before until I came to Finland. So now I can— I think I know some. How should I say?

Did you feel when you were living in China, did you feel like you were suppressed or like Do you feel like you've been censored or something, or were you thinking that you're just a free person like everybody else? I mean, like, as much as everybody can be.

Yeah, of course. I didn't even know the censorship before, and English is not my advantage. And because everything, let's say this, everything is adapted into Chinese. Like if you watch a foreign movie, they will try— the subtitle is in Chinese and also the voice they would adapt to Chinese. So you don't even, you know, you don't get a chance to learn English except from school. Most importantly, the English teacher didn't even teach you in English. They teach you in Chinese. They teach you English in Chinese. So we are good at doing the exams, but we're not good at talking, which is sad. That's just a simple example. Because I think the government kind of don't want us to go abroad somehow. So there's a lot of information outside China they don't want us to know. It's easier to control people this way.

Yeah, that's what I've heard. I mean, like that firewall router just probably makes it— just works really well over there. Max, what do you think about censorship resistance?

Censorship resistance is really, really, really important. You really cannot stress that enough. Without censorship resistance, this means that you no longer own your property. You no longer can do what you want to do because someone can stop you from doing it, broadly speaking, because that's all that censorship is, right? It's the violent and all-covering oppression against free will. And this is, of course, you know, the freedom of speech. If we talk about censorship in speech, which is, of course, the manipulation of the press and the media. But you also have it, for example, in the censorship for immigration, right? You cannot go anywhere you want to go. That was the case just 100 years ago. You didn't even have a passport, right? You just walked over a border, whatever that is, and you just lived there. And of course, we have it with censorship in money, which might be also one of the worst ones. Because money is, you know, everywhere. It's the economy, it's free trade. And if you censor free trade, you know, you censor equal prosperity, and that is just fundamentally bad.

All right. Yeah, I'm pretty much thinking the same way. Rico, what are your thoughts?

Well, I think censorship is something that most people don't realize is happening on a mass scale. It's not only happening publicly, whether it's in China and stuff, but think about all the information that's kept from the people, whether it's energy, technology, whether it's freedom of speech, censoring people from that. And it can go everything from financial as well. And I think censorship-resistant is key factor in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. And even the smallest thing as just getting information from a peer who does their own research, because— and obviously you should all do your own research as well, but like never take somebody else's word. But when you get it from somebody who's doing that research and you can go and get the information sound, I think that that's sad that we have to— we're literally being fed some propagandized story or information so we don't deal with these things that are being secret, you know, or kept secret, you know.

Yeah, good point, good point. Niko, would you care to elaborate some more?

Sure, yeah. Censorship is something that, for example, us Finnish people have sometimes a hard time to actually recognize even because it's so well hidden. We do have censorship. Obviously, it's not quite as bad as in China or many other places, but we do have this kind of thing that the self-censorship and also peer censorship is encouraged. So you're not encouraged in spreading certain kind of ideas or things like that. So there is some kind of subtle mind control going on also. that I'm aware of, but many, many people aren't. And it would be foolish to say that we're not all affected to some degree to censorship. We are. But of course, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep up the good fight and keep getting— we're not free anywhere at the moment, not yet, but we can be more and more free. And that's what we're trying to do here and educate people on that. To that end, I want to move straight to the The most interesting part, in my opinion, in this panel is point 2. So once you realize that you are being censored, once you realize that there's a better way and you can get out of there, how does it feel to kind of jump the Great Chinese Firewall, and what kind of implications did that have in your personal life, Annie? Would you just start the story from the beginning? Where did you— Where did you start off? How did you get on the internet? How did you feel? How did you use it at that time? And then once you landed in the so-called land of free-ish, then how did that change your life?

Well, I guess now thinking back, what I did was, I guess, just like communication, messaging, talking with your friends. And in entertainment, I didn't really learn anything from the internet until now. Like right now, I keep saying Google knows the best. You can Google everything. But in China, they just try to entertain us. The government wants us to be entertained. That's it. I think like, really, you just waste a lot of your time checking on those funny videos or like talking with friends or have this some kind of group that just talking bullshit and such. We are not encouraged to study. Yeah, that's how I feel.

Let me jump in a little bit there. Like you said that you're not encouraged in study, but a lot of— it's almost a stereotype that there's this strict Asian parent that forces the kids to learn and study, study hard. But it's a different kind of study you're talking about, right? Would you tell a little bit more about that, the difference between the education there and, for example, here?

Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, the study is the key. The education is the key in China. We are, how to say, we are encouraged to, at least our parents want us to go to university to get a good job, to get a apartment, to have a kid, and then to stay in China. Our parents were taught like that. So I guess mostly because the government want them to be like that and they want me to be, they want us to be like that because they think it's for my own good. But how should I say? I think it's— You're not really free to do things. You don't— you're not— how to say? You just— you didn't feel like you were not free. You feel like China has everything, we have everything. But at some point when you know better, you feel like— I feel sad for those people who live in China, don't really know much. Like no Google and no such. I want to study, I want to study more right now, but in China you can't just like— not just the mathematics or English part, I'm not talking about this. I want to study more mathematics, no, I want to study more like what is going on with the whole world and the internet and such, not just 1+ 1= 2 and such.

That's kind of like, you know, the grain doesn't have an argument in being made into bread, right? Because it's all it knows how to do, and that's all the environment ever tells you to do. So how did you then break free from that? You know, you're from the countryside, so it's kind of an achievement to get this far? That's interesting, probably for the listeners as well.

Well, education is good at this point. I have to say this. I got to study, I got to study in university. I have always liked English. So, you know, and after university, I got to work with foreigners, so I started to know more than just like what I knew before, like, you know, Chinese thing.

Riko, you had something to add or ask?

Yeah, Annie, I wanted to ask you, because we come from opposite sides of the globe, that, you know, this is something that I've had issues with growing up from living in the States where it seems like you have all the information out there and you're liberated to do everything, but then when you actually do just start seeking this path of liberation, you're actually stopped. I know that probably that happens more in China, and I've actually watched this incredible documentary I saw at the Wellington Film— New Zealand Film Festival. Wellington, excuse me. And it was on censorship in China. And it was just, it was like 3 different stories in one film. And it was all about different people in the world of China. And it was all about censorship. And you were saying something earlier, like you were, you want to know more than you just about numbers and, you know, language. Yeah. And I think I've always wanted to know more about the things that we're not told about in history and things that are kind of kept under the secret, kept under the rug, because I feel like all humanity is kept from knowing more. And so many problems could be solved and we wouldn't have any problems, but they make money off problems, so they need that. But if we knew this information, wouldn't it be more better? So my question to you is, have you ever asked your friends Or then like, did you guys want to? Don't you guys think it's bad? Or isn't it like something you want to like stand up and you know talk about to people? And like I talk about things in America and people don't want to hear it, whether it's about like bad artificial preservatives in food or just different chemicals and water and stuff. People don't want to hear it. So I was kind of wondering if people just don't want to hear it in China. Maybe it's more mainstream. Like people just prefer not to hear about it. They'd rather just. Stick to their, you know, the tunnel vision, if you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, since I'm good, I'm into gossiping, so I can just gossip things with you. And for example, I got married with a foreigner, and before that, not just before that, even now, someone, let's say a Chinese, not just from the countryside, even from the city, they think foreigners are like, how to say, In China, we call it flower heart. Means like the foreigners are not like, you know, they— during the marriage, they won't be— how to say— so they won't just focus on the marriage. They will also try to cheat on you or whatever, you know. That's what we got, like, especially the foreign guys. And yeah, that's what we got. That's what— yeah. But since I know that's not the truth, that's so not the truth.

Yeah, you have to— sorry, sorry, Niko. Yeah, you have to understand the level of brainwash and the level of effort that the government goes into brainwashing people. I mean, from my understanding, I don't understand Chinese so well, but what I've heard is that in the end of the news they will have this like, you know, the people of China are happy and the government is fighting the good fight and everybody outside China is dying pretty much because it's so horrible. There's like terrorism and rapists and the foreigners are horrible, obviously immoral people, like you should stay away or at least take their money and this kind of thing. And it's really, really mind-boggling and there's something Like, as a foreigner, when you go to China, if you have— I don't know if you guys have been to, but I've been there on many occasions, and there's something called being a white monkey. And that's exactly how you feel. You feel like you're a circus freak there. Everybody wants to take a picture with you, have a drink with you, but they kind of treat you like not really a human. You're more like an act, more like something cool to hang out with. And hey, look at that, I have a foreigner here. You know, it's a really weird place to go, and I find it fascinating. Max, do you have— excuse me, I didn't see there. Rafael, you had a question. Go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, I was just going to say that I can understand how this social pressure is so difficult to just, you know, get over with. I mean, like, if all your friends and governments and schools and everything is trying to just make you in a certain way, I just have to say that I really appreciate people that can and are willing to fight that fight and get out of the— I mean, like, you— when the— I just appreciate people that are willing to see the world how it really is like and not just staying in their bubble. And I was just wondering, I wanted to ask you, Annie, that when you were living in China, were there like some weirdo people that are talking about VPN and some real internet and Google, or is it just like a basic thing, or nobody talks about it, or is there like a minimal group of people like that?

Well, at least from my friends, I have never heard anyone talk about VPN as such.

Okay, and how about any other ways of protecting your privacy and resisting the censorship? How well are the people educated in general about such technologies? And is there an interest to be educated?

I think not really much. It's just, anyway, what I heard is just My own opinion. Well, we have a large population, of course, and Chinese are everywhere. But the majority who stayed in China, who stay in China, I think they don't really care about those things. All they care is house, kids, money, cars. Those are your life goals. They are not into traveling. They are not— of course, some people, the minority are into traveling. They even sell their house to travel to see the world. But the majority are still just trapped by like, they want the kids, they want the money, they want a house, a bigger house, or 2 houses and such.

Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, like, I just can't imagine how it is over there. I mean, do you know if it's easy to come out of China and then go back or are they having some kind of big restrictions that you cannot bring, for example, some stuff that is not really liked in China or something like that? Is it— is there any kind of like that control?

Yeah, yeah, it's quite controlled, I would say.

I mean, like, is there something— if your friends come to Finland, can they just go normally back over there?

Yeah, yeah, once you come out, it will be easy for you. But, but like, as Chinese, you can't have double citizenship. How to say, like 2 passports, you can't have that. So I guess, you know, Chinese government are harsh on this. Either you choose to be a Chinese or you are foreigner to us.

All right, interesting.

And, and if I understand correctly, if you let your citizenship go, I don't believe you can apply. You, you're either born Chinese or you're not Chinese at all. So that's quite a nationalist state. Correct me if I'm wrong. Another thing that I think is worth pointing out here, which was shocking to me, is that most Chinese people don't even have passports, and it's highly discouraged to get one, even young people. Why don't you talk about that a little bit, Anni? And then I would like to hear— Max's views on this.

Yeah, I guess you wouldn't believe me. I got my passport when I was 24. Yeah, 24. And the sad thing is we ask people from the street, like 3, I think it was 3 or 2 out of 10 has passport and the rest, they don't even have a passport. And their reason is, China is so big, why would we go abroad to see?

Yeah, this is like the— you know, I couldn't believe it. I simply couldn't believe it. I was like, of course, most people have passports. Of course, you're mistaken. So I made a bet and then we asked like 3 or 4 people and not only they all declined, they were looking at me like, are you crazy? Who has a passport? What are you talking about? I think it's a little bit similar. Maybe, Rico, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's pretty similar to the US, actually. A lot of people don't— I mean, I'm sure a lot of people there have passports, but do they travel? Because there's a lot to obviously see in the country as well.

Well, the thing in the US is people just don't leave the States because the thing in America is it's not a censorship thing. It's more of fearmongering. instill so much fear in you that if you leave the country, you're just gonna have— you're not gonna be able to find your way back home to America. Like you're gonna get lost. If you go to Australia, you're gonna get eaten by a shark. If you go to China, you're just gonna get lost. If you go to Russia, you're just gonna die. So yeah, it's changing quite a bit now. It's becoming more promising to have, what's it called? Visa. Multiple passports. Like I have two passports, but a lot of people are trying to leave America. Believe it or not, it's not talked about, but there's a lot of there's a there's a minority that are leaving to go to Mexico. Mexico's got better health insurance. People were trying to leave to go to Canada, and now there's a younger generation that are literally just finding out about the world, the working holiday visas, which I know is pretty mainstream in Europe, but in America nothing of this. talked about. Traveling abroad is like the scariest thing. Leaving for a week or a weekend is like social suicide, you know. So it's more— it's a different type of censorship in America. It's definitely more of a fear tactics. And if you notice it when you go into America, the same thing, like they've got scanners, they can x-ray you, they can like this other kind of— not infrared, but it's like this biodome thing that goes around you and it can look at every single layer of your body, which is really bad for you if you're pregnant. And my wife came to visit me before I moved to France just to see my parents and family, and she was pregnant at the time, so it wasn't something she had to do, thank God. But even that, it's really bad. It destroys your molecular structures when you go through it. It disrupts it. Excuse me. It doesn't destroy it, it disrupts it. And yeah, so we're constantly being censored about the stuff in America, just like China, but it's just about things that are like safety risks rather than— I think overall in China they just have a ban. And I wanted to ask Annie about Bitcoin and how that kind of all— because you probably know more about it than any of us, maybe, maybe not, from family or friends. How Bitcoin has disrupted a little bit of China in its own market?

Before you go into that question, I just wanted to add that I think that fearmongering is one of the worst forms of censorship, actually. And that's what— that's the kind of thing that they get to us here in Finland as well. Not to the same extent as in the US. I think in the US, mainly the fearmongering thing is the thing. And also, you know, stay inside, like these gun control laws and everything, like somebody's going to come and shoot you if you go outside for too long or this kind of nonsense. They try to limit your movement because guess what? When you travel, when you go abroad, when you see how other people live, you will suddenly have a whole different perspective of your own life. You learn about yourself, you learn how to improve, and somehow this is not what the governments normally want because People who are free thinkers, who improve things and who build things for themselves are opposing competition. But yeah, Annie, go ahead and answer the question. What about Bitcoin in China?

Well, actually, I didn't know much about Bitcoin. I just heard about Bitcoin last year. And I happened to ask one of my friends who lives here, and she's older than me. She's like 40-something. And she and her husband knows Bitcoin, but they didn't really invest or believe in Bitcoin. They just think at that time, think it's like— what is that word? Speculation? You invest and you sell. You buy low and sell high. It's just making money and that's it. And yeah, that's all.

Yeah, I think that is really unfortunate that the countries that would need Bitcoin the most oftentimes don't hear about it. That is, of course, in due part because of censorship. And it's not just Bitcoin, it's all kinds of privacy protection. You know, we're talking about PGP encryption for all your emails and your messaging systems. Also, of course, VPN services and Tor. for browsing securely on the internet. The stuff is out there, you can use it. And good thing is it's cryptography, it's mathematics, so it is kind of government hard, at least to a large extent. And, you know, education is here, of course, the biggest part. People need to know that this stuff is around them, that they can use this self-defense tool.

Yeah, since we're talking about the technicalities, I want to give a shout out to the active chat. There's a lot of questions about Tor and VPN and I'll be happy to go into those in just a moment once we finish this round of talks. And while you're at it, please smash that like button and give us a share and like. And this is really interesting topic to me, and I'm sure everybody wants to hear how it is because it really is, truly is hard to put yourself in the position of somebody who is from an actual really badly censored country. And we all suffer from that, but some suffer more than others. And this is great insight. So, we had— Rafael, you had one more question?

Yeah, I was just thinking about this way you guys mentioned that with fear people can censor a lot. I just think that the way people are doing it in Finland over here is that they want to make you feel like if you don't give them control, you are really in danger. I mean, like, if you don't let people look into every single transaction you are making with your bank account and all your messages and everything, that's the danger. That's when, if you don't let that happen, then there will be terrorists or something like that. That's the way things are censored.

Yeah, I mean, it's for your own good, right? I mean, that's how it's sold to us. And this is the best, most effective way of self-censorship, when they sell you the idea that they know better. Somebody else always seems to know better than us ourselves about our body, about what we like, what we should do, what is fulfilling in life. How come it is that somebody always knows better? And this is like, it's not even a matter of dispute. We are trained to look for authority to give us that thumbs up that is, yeah, it's okay, you can do this, don't do these things. Don't explore with these things because these are outlawed and we already pre-approved these things. So why don't you just stick in this box that we built you here and then go nuts and you're free. You're free to enjoy your weekend.

Oh yes. And ideas are so powerful and they can be used for good to spread the message of freedom and liberty. And once an idea is planted in the mind, it stays there. It doesn't decay. It just is, you know, continuous improvement in the mind. And education and humankind are just a bunch of ideas put together. And if you meddle with this, then you meddle with the entire humanity. So yeah, whoever controls the education and the spreading of ideas, you know, media, communications, all that stuff, he holds great power over humankind.

Yeah, and I think that this is just the best way to control and get some censorship into the system. I mean, like, this is not forcing the censorship to people straightly. This is making them afraid so they run to you to get that censorship. That's the most efficient way to censor people, in my opinion.

I wanted to add something to that because I just remembered that's exactly what we were talking about. Max— excuse me, Niko, you had said something in the post that I had wrote about, and what you had said is the best weapon or the best way to control somebody is to not let them even know they're being controlled. And Rafaela, that's exactly what you're talking about, whether you're controlling them through the media, the education, the foods, the water, every little aspect of how they work and spend their money, their transactions. Then you can control pretty much where a directive is going to go. And I— you were talking about this earlier— what I envisioned was this massive river that everybody kind of gets stuck in, you know, and it's just the flow, it's stream flow. And so many people have tried to swim against it, it's just too big. And so many people, I think, are just getting out. They're like, you know what, I don't want to be part of this economy, I want to— I don't want to be part of this money, I don't want to be part of the system, I'm going to make my own money. I'm going to find other means of exchange. And through my research, I found that money can be anything. And that's something for the mind to have to realize, that when you become an entrepreneur, you can be anything. It can be somebody else's services. Money can be literally anything. As we see in Africa, people are using phone credits to exchange goods. So money can be anything. And I think that's why it kind of scared China. Because they're like, you know, they've got the— is it— which one is China? Not the yen. It is the yen. So the yen, and it's very powerful.

It's not yen, it's RMB. It's yuan, actually.

Yuan. Thank you. I appreciated that. And it probably scares a very powerful nation that a small little cryptographic exchange system that can't be hacked and can't be changed has infiltrated them, you know. And it's not even infiltration because it's just that— well, yeah, it is infiltration. It's exactly what it is, actually. Doing some research on— side thing about government— I know that Russia and China's infiltration system and security system is like the strongest in the world. And it's sad because America is not like that at all. And it's just weird to think that such a small little thing people are exchanging with it has affected this biggest country in the world. I'd say it's censorship-resistant.

Exactly. I was about to say that, Rico. Anything and everything can be a money as long as it is scarce, as long as if I give it to you, I no longer have it, but you have full ownership and control over it. That's all that a money necessarily has to have, right? But then the question is, what makes a good money? And, you know, of course, upon other things, censorship resistance is a huge point in that. Because if you cannot buy your assassin heroin on the black market so that, you know, he can shoot that up in front of a school, I don't know, then it's not good money. You really have to be able to buy anything and everything with it. If it's not, then it's just something that is And Bitcoin, you can literally use anything and everything for it. It's not as anonymous as you probably want it to be if you want to hire a hitman, but theoretically you can do it. Nobody can stop you. And that is an attribute of really good money. And that is why Bitcoin is such good money and why, in my opinion, it's really going to be quite something in the future.

Yeah, that's well said. And if anybody got offended about what Max said, that's how you— that's how they get you. That's how they get you, right? They say something like, Well, you know, somebody might kill babies with that or buy a weapon. And, you know, like, yeah, that's a theoretical possibility. But then again, you can go and buy a wrench from a hardware store and do all kinds of nasty stuff with that. Are we going to ban all the wrenches because there's a possibility to misuse tools? It's a tool. And Max correctly said that it's a censorless tool if there's no way to stop you from doing anything you want. Sure, might be morally disgusting what you want to do, but that's a subjective point of view. And also, that's not the point. The point is that if we start to censor something, where do we draw the line? Like, for example, in the Bitcoin blockchain, there's already child pornography there. I mean, somebody put it there. It's their responsibility. They shouldn't have obviously done that. But again, it's not the protocol's problem. fault that somebody is misusing it. Rafael, you had something to add?

Yeah. I mean, like, one way to notice if your money is censored is really just to try out and try and buy drugs. If your money— if you have money that you can't buy drugs, then it's really, I mean, like, it's censored then. Not that you maybe would want to buy drugs or use them or anything, but that's just, you basic way of thinking.

Yeah, that's an awesome point. Like, imagine having on your bank statement, you know, drugs are us or something like that on the statement. You know, if that sounds like something that you don't want to see there, maybe your money is not censorship-free and maybe it should be.

And I like the fact that this new means of exchange, whether it's just like cattle or phone credits or Bitcoin, Bitcoin or other altcoins. It's not like this centralized huge conglomerate that's controlling companies and banks and countries and wars is literally watching you and having it analyzed and putting this like basket of, this is— you're this kind of person and so this is how they control you. I like the fact that, yeah, it's a public ledger. Anybody can see it, you know, but everybody holds their own private keys. So Why, you know, if you're gonna look this stuff up, you're really gonna have to do some research, you know, and you're gonna have to cross-check. Do that publicly. You can publicly do that if you wanted to, but it's gonna take you a lot of work. Whereas banks, those are the most evil, like, deluded people in the world, and they are literally controlling all of your information, whether they're selling it, swapping it, giving it to each other, it doesn't matter. they're doing whatever they want with it. So we are past being— what's it called when people are just watching Big Brother? We are way past Orwellian times. We are like, this is the thick of it. And I think Bitcoin is the people's voice. It's the people's light. It's the truth. And yeah, you can read about it at Max's website. Max, you want to shout that out really quick?

Oh yeah, absolutely. Really, I mean, We have so much censorship in the banking system, it's incredible. It's not necessarily happening right now to you, but it really, really easily could be. And we know that because it already did happen a bunch of times, quite often actually. And, you know, when you see like the 2 biggest cash currency denominations being taken away from the citizens in India, That's horrific. If you see something like Greece, where just over the weekend people lose access to their accounts, and they take away 40% in taxes to pay off the government debt. That stuff is happening all around us all the time right now already. And if they can do it in one country, then that's just a testing ground. This is already possible anywhere in this world. And you can and you have to defend yourself against that. Because guess what? The government is not going to defend you. It's actually the one attacking you. So you really need to take defense in your own hands. And that is something which requires a weapon, a defensive weapon, a defensive tool. And that is, in the financial world, Bitcoin. Because it is defended by cryptography, by mathematics. You know, if you have a correctly generated private key, nobody is going to steal away your Bitcoin. It's just pretty much impossible, right? So that is something that is a tool that you can use against that.

Yeah, great, great points. And Rafael, I have one more question, but before that, before you go into that, I want to make a shout out to Jay. He's been super active in the chat, and he's, he's been basically saying that the mobile Mobile-based transfer system is a centralized digital money. So that's just another way to control people, sadly. Which is absolutely true. This is— the convenience is how it's sold to you. Like, you want to use these things. First they have these like loyalty cards and credit cards to track your every movement, and now you have mobile that it can also add GPS location. And not only just GPS, but if you use a phone, you can just by the phone signal, you can be tracked. And your purchases can be tracked, and there's a whole file on every single person. So absolutely, that's a method of collecting data and using to control that. And to that end, in China, it's the next level in China. I'm not sure if you guys heard of it, but they have this actually government loyalty program. Maybe Anni can tell us what its name is. But actually, basically how it works is that it's a game where you get rewarded by government points by ratting out unfavored behavior by your peers, by doing things that the government says is good and okay, you accumulate points, kind of like karma points that we do on Weconomy, but this is a much more sick game because you try to effectively please the government at all times and you get rewarded in points and then you get status and that's all people care about is status and face. in China, in my opinion. So I think that's pretty, pretty significant. Do you care to comment this a little bit, Annie? And then we go to Raphael and then we start talking about VPN and Tor.

I just knew like a few months back, I didn't really know much about that. I don't think anyone knows that in China, actually. The people who live abroad saw that news, but the people in China, I don't think they know that.

So are you saying that's not a real thing?

Maybe to some, to the government it is, but to the people who live in China, to the citizens, probably they don't even know. Like, I have never heard about that. I bet my brother or my family or even my friends have never heard about that.

Yeah, that's interesting because we are, of course, we have to rely on this biased news as well. We don't have the firsthand information. So it's what our media tells us, that things are bad in China, and at least you're not controlled this bad. Maybe there's some of that as well. But I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of program is ongoing. I certainly know that WeChat is taking over everything and all the payments and all the social media. So definitely profile building is on. deeper end there. Rafael, did you have something to add?

Yeah, it just came to my mind about that, that it's really weird how governments are trying to like— they are not like a piece of something that thinks and tries to make stuff in a way, but it's just the system that makes government feel or act in a certain way, or the people in governments. But what I was thinking is that it's weird how governments try to put themselves in your family. I mean, like, you know, that's something that has been fed to you since a little child. You know, be proud of your country, protect it, and, you know, pay taxes for it and be grateful for all that your government is doing. And then there's these names like Motherland or like dad's, father's country or something like that. And those just, you know, makes it even greater illusion that you should really be protecting your government or thinking for the best things for it.

Yeah, absolutely. Nationalism is a big, big problem in a global world because what it actually means is that our country, we are better than others. So for me, that's not a healthy starting point to create something and build something together. We should probably just think about maybe on the individual level. I mean, I have nothing against being proud of your country. Maybe we have a nice scenery in Finland. I like that. But, you know, that doesn't mean that Finland is any better country or we are any better people than anybody else. We just, we're different. We have different starting points in life. So that's something interesting to keep in mind. Yeah, I wanted to go a little bit before we move on to the final topic and finally start talking about Bitcoin and what kind of solutions that can bring. And if you enjoyed the conversation so far, leave us a like. We have about 10 people still hanging on on the live, which is great. Hopefully we can do this and reach the end without any more further interruption. We're gonna be talking about Bitcoin shortly. First of all, I want to go a little bit more in detail on VPNs. And Tor, and how can we use— how can people, for example, in China use? And I'm speaking from my own experiment. I've been there many occasions, and it's been changing a lot. Like, it used to be easy to even within China to use kind of like this proxy server to download the VPN software. You can't do that anymore in China. There's no way you're going to be able to download any kind of VPN inside China. So if you go to China, You better do it beforehand. You would need to install it on your mobile and stuff and have everything set up. Then you can actually use it. But now what I've read, and I'll put the links in the description, I'm not going to show it here on the stream now, but apparently Apple has been withdrawing VPN support in China, which is pretty awful. A big company like that. And I've also heard reports of actually Apple handsets that have VPN installed randomly stopping functioning. And they would have to take it back to the Apple Store to be rebooted. And then during the reboot process, of course, the VPN will be uninstalled. So these kind of things are going on other places in the world. And from my own experience, they've apparently found a way to throttle the VPN traffic. They can't really pinpoint you because in China it is illegal to use VPN. You have to understand that. understand that. You're not allowed to try to circumvent the Great Firewall. It's illegal. And the only reason people don't go to jail for it is because they can't really pinpoint you that well yet. But that's just a matter of time before they can. China already has by far the most advanced technology in facial recognition, and probably the CCTV network is also probably one of the biggest in the world. So it will be really easy to even in China to pinpoint you in the future, which is very unsettling. And they can already find the— they can already separate the VPN traffic from regular traffic, which means they can throttle it. They can kind of like make a choke point. So that means whenever I would jump to VPN from my home connection, my connection speed will go down from like 20 MB to 0.2 MB, which is still usable, but for many things like, for example, video streaming, that's pretty much not going to work at all. So that's what's going on now, and I've been there last time about a year ago. I have no idea what's the situation, current situation, but it's not getting better. Max, you're pretty well-versed in the VPN and Tor technology. Why don't you chip in here?

Well, you know, you can't stress enough the importance of running free and open and libre software. You know, if you do not know the source code, even if you can't read it, You do not own and you do not control the software. It is vitally, vitally important that you use as much free software as you can in pretty much every regard, and probably even go so far as to get open-source hardware. There are alternatives like that. There is, for example, the Purism laptop, which is completely transparent and really, really private and secure in its hardware setup already. Plus, they do, of course, run an open-source Linux distribution. I think it's PureOS, which also values your privacy and your anonymity. And I can just suggest to go as much with that kind of technology as possible. And further, just use a VPN. Get your hands on it somehow. You can buy it in Bitcoin. Use the Lightning Network at tor guard. .com, .net. You know, so you can check out Lightning today plus get anonymous on the internet, which is fantastic. Use Tor. It's just a browser. You know, it's similar. It's like Mozilla Firefox, just even better. You know, use stuff like DuckDuckGo instead of Google. Try to minimize your Google and Facebook and Twitter exposure and all the social media stuff. You know, just be smart with what you put out there.

I have a question, if I may just jump in really quick. So Max, what do you think about Chromecast and Google Chrome?

Well, Chrome is a really useful browser, and I hear it's especially nice for developers, which is of course a huge advantage. Plus, you know, Google just has a really tightly interconnected network. You know, the network effect is strong in Google. You got YouTube, of course, right? Then you have all the, you know, Google Docs, which is super useful to work in teams. You know, your Android, of course, your smartphone is Google. So the network effect is strong. I do use it. I am using it right now. But I also got Tor and Firefox open as well. So you can use all of those, right? It's not a binary decision. It's not use one and forget the others. You can use all of those. Anytime I'm streaming, I'm using Chrome. Anytime I'm not, I'm using Tor. That's what you can do. It's your choice. You're the user.

Yeah, absolutely. You should use all these technologies that we have available. And it is— it's not super user-friendly, but it is getting better. Like DuckDuckGo over Tor is not super slow anymore. I mean, it's totally usable. I want to use it more and more. However, in countries like China, you don't have access to those. So if you go into China, do a favor to a fellow man and bring a USB key full of this open source VPN software that you can help them install, because that will really, really help people. Once people have the tools to reach that knowledge, there's no limit how far they can go with their lives. Of course, you want to be careful not to do that in public because it is probably something that you get in trouble in if you get caught. But definitely for your friends, and if you're staying with Chinese family, for sure hook them up. You know, you can change their life for the better. And Jay again leaving good technical comments in the chat. Thanks, buddy. He says that if you really want to ensure safety, use Tails, which is a standalone Linux distribution that you can install on— you need to use 2 USB keys or copy a Tails So then the computer is completely virgin, never touched the internet. And so that way, for like private key management, that will be ideal for sure. And yeah, that's true. I used to do the same thing, but I didn't use Tails. I used another distribution. I don't remember what. You can have a USB key actually that boots into Tails, and you can pretty much have like open internet right there. Oh, well, there you go. Looks like I have one right here. Well, there you go. So, my man. Yeah, I used to have one. I think I need to make another one because that's actually a really good point, Jay. Thanks for bringing that up. Really useful thing to have. You can just have it in your keys. You can have it encrypted. Nobody can reach it. And then, you know, you can really be helpful with that. Awesome. Yeah, I want to move on to the last topic. Rafael, do you want to take it?

Yeah, sure. So this censorship that we're having, how could Bitcoin help with the situation? What do you guys think? Rico, do you want to start?

Yeah, actually that's kind of what got me to Bitcoin is I was pretty down and out with my research. I've been doing for as long as I've known, I've done research on things because I honestly believe that the information that is given to you is a cryptographic message that's supposed to make you— like Matt said, once the idea is in your head, implanted, and you can, you know, it's already in there, it's already growing, and they're implanting ideas literally in your head. And that's kind of the idea of the Matrix is like, if you don't believe that you're in it, then you're in it because that's— That's the idea that you are stuck in a system. But I think when I stumbled upon Bitcoin, and we talked about this off air, it was kind of like, for me, it was such a shock. I was like, thank goodness there is some goodness to all this darkness. And yeah, I was in a pretty sad state, and I was living in New Zealand. I was living in Wellington. I was living on top— I mean, I had done everything I could you can imagine. And I found out about Bitcoin and I just started researching about all these cryptographic messages and what you can use it to exchange, the means of it and stuff. And I was just like, I just got overwhelmed. And I think cryptocurrency and Bitcoin was created by people who were cypherpunks who didn't want to be controlled and maybe them liberals if you want, but they were just like, we want to be free and we don't want to be stuck in your system and we want to exchange things without you knowing about it. So they created this and it's censorship-resistant. That's literally what it is. When you have something that's waterproof, if it's waterproof, it has to say like water-resistant. It has to be waterproof, right? But like it has to be water-resistant, like nothing can get in it. Same thing with censorship-resistant. It cannot be With, you know, it can't be messed with. So I really love that about Bitcoin, and I think that's where— I think that's why we have it, is because of the censorship. They created this from their own good thing out of all the evil and control.

Yeah, that's cool. I mean, like, I have pretty much the same kind of experience. I mean, like, I was really depressed about this current money situation, fiat and everything. And when I first bumped into Bitcoin, I was like, can't this be real? I mean, like, how is this possible? How is this legal? I mean, how? But then you just start the learning curve. Max, what are your thoughts? How could Bitcoin help in censorship resistance?

Well, absolutely it can. And Rico is 100% right that the cypherpunks did build Bitcoin. And they still are. I myself am a cypherpunk. I completely identify with that ideology. And I'm just going to read you a paragraph of the Cypherpunk Manifesto by Eric Hughes, which was written in 1993. So it's nothing new, right? This is something that is quite old. And it has given us the internet, and now it has given us Bitcoin. So I'm going to read paragraph 3. Since we desire privacy, We must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases, personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at the store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, and there— and there— and how much I owe them in fees, when my identity is revealed by the underlying machine of the transaction, I have no privacy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself. I must always reveal myself. And that was the problem with credit card transactions on the internet. But now we have Bitcoin. Now we have something where you can transact in value without knowing anything about the identity. And that's also why all those know-your-customer bullshit stuff on Bitcoin blockchain is so stupid, because we no longer need it. We have a trustless currency. We have a currency that no longer needs to store all that data. And that's why we're not going to store it anymore. And this is one further step on how Bitcoin is gonna Hopefully end you know this war on privacy soon.

Yeah, that's that's an awesome awesome speech. I love the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto. Yeah, I actually read a tweet regarding that. The only information I want to give when I'm making a purchase is money, and that's the extent of it. Yeah, I think yeah, and Annie probably. You're the best one to tell how Bitcoin could really help in China. And I guess it's still banned there, right? I mean, did they lift the ban? I don't think so.

I think it's banned. Well, I don't know if I'm being Chinese or I'm being innocent here. I just don't care so much. Really. I don't care if I buy something, they know who I am. Am I being Chinese here or I'm just being like normal, a normal person, or like innocent?

I think you're being just like everybody. I was, I was like that a couple years back. I said like, you know, if somebody's really interested in my whatever I'm buying, then, you know, whatever. But I don't think that anymore. I think since now we have this like big data and everything, and how much is being collected and monetized without our free will, and how are we controlled. Like once I learned that actually there's algorithms that have been like, you know, first they are useful, for example, to find out what kind of music you like so you can find more new music, like Spotify and Pandora, this kind of service. Spotify. Super useful because I don't have time or interest to go and find some new music. What I didn't realize, what I didn't know, is that now the same algorithm has been reversed to produce music that people like to listen, resulting in the degradation of music and the whole art form. So I don't think the collection of the data is great anymore. I think we need to protect our data and And if we want to, there's ways to monetize that, but that's a whole other topic that we can talk about later. Sorry, Rafael, you go ahead.

Yeah, I was just going to say that I just think that Annie's way of thinking is traditional thinking. I mean, like, it's the way that governments have pushed this idea to your head that you can trust them and there is nothing that you wouldn't want to give them. There's nothing, not information that you wouldn't want to give them unless you are a criminal. But that's the thing that I tend to worry about is what is criminal and where. Just for example, about censorship resistance about Bitcoin. One way, for example, Snowden, the guys and WikiLeaks and everything, you know, these informations, these whistleblowers that told people around the world how, for example, NSA or whoever is watching us and listening for all of our conversation or gathering all of our messages and everything like that. That's something that wasn't known that well before. And when Snowden and WikiLeaks and everybody else was trying to talk about these things, banks and media and everybody attacked them. I mean, like, I just don't think that's right. I think it's okay for, if you see that we are being watched or some information is being gathered without us knowing that involves us, I think we should know about it. Then the way how banks and everybody just shut down WikiLeaks' bank accounts and everything and how media were saying that he's a bad guy and all kind of these things. When this happened, WikiLeaks just started accepting Bitcoins and they get a big bunch of them just because people in cryptocurrency scenes tend to like that kind of idea that information is free and open and available for everybody. And this was just one great example of how to be, in my opinion, doing the right thing, even though governments and everybody is saying that it's wrong. And how can you really just like fight back for this censoring?

I think that's what we've reached, a limit, to say we will no longer be controlled. And for a lot of people, Bitcoin is new. It's going to be new. This is what we're doing is being— we might have been arrived first to the party when it comes to, you know, 10 years in. But it's just crazy to think that there are so many people out there who just dismiss the idea that your information is being bought and sold. And people on Facebook, there's probably a good couple million, maybe 10, 20 million that are like could care less, couldn't be bigger. And that's massive change. I mean, that's the insanity of like giving a country the power to run their own finances if they want to.

Remember to like us, subscribe, and share. That will really be helpful for us to get the good word out. And looks like we are joined in by Rico Coin Report. He was with us on the last panel. Welcome.

I personally believe that censorship resistance is because of It's kind of like creating your own currency, okay? Eventually you have to do something to kind of fight against the control. And, but more so the fact that we live in a world of censorship, whether it's your information, whether it's your education, whether it's your belief of freedom. And people are going off the grid, people are going into their own currencies, people are going into their own education. system, and there's a reason for that, okay? It's just a pattern. And so the resistance to censorship is these different means of doing things. I like it. I call it an alternative lifestyle because it's an alternative to the mainstream. That's my opinion. And anybody like Annie who had to deal with what they, you know, deal with in China on a daily basis, it's— It's scary. It's a lacking of freedom, it's lacking of quality of life. And so I believe censorship resistance is really good, and people, um, will start to see that more and more as the censorship becomes even more contained.

Well, you know, the question is what exactly is censorship? And but I would say that censorship is the, uh, folding of your property, uh, so that doesn't matter what exactly that is. But as soon as someone is forced to not go somewhere, to a place, or forced to stay at a place, that's censorship in transactions. And that is any regulation that meddles with the price level or that requires licensing and registration of voluntary goods and services that are usually, you know, nothing wrong there if anything is peaceful. But government can censor those peaceful transactions as well. and introduce violence and a break of property in that way. So censorship is not just the censorship of freedom of speech, but more broadly defined as any type of government intervention.

While Rikko was talking, it reminds me of a movie I just saw a couple days back. It's about how the medical medication, like industrial The price is ridiculous high. And on top of that, how to say it, it's censored because they can just put the— the government can just set the price. I can't say as high as they want. Normally, it's like 5 times More than you get in Europe, let's say in Europe or something like that. So just and everyone is talking about this movie right now because they people think this kind information wouldn't be how to say oh is China is doing okay at this point? I I it's a little bit yeah it's a little bit surprise that the government just let us see this movie and then let us know that the price is ridiculous. Actually, I just saw the news also after this movie, and they changed the medicine. They adjusted the medicine price lower just after this movie. So I guess it kind of—

I completely understand what you're saying. And what Max said, such as exactly what you're talking about, when you have something And the control goes in, government, whatever it might be, and they affect that. That is a sense of censorship. You're affecting something to alter it from whatever it might be. It's an altercation. And yeah, we've become altered in every aspect of our lives. And it's sad. It's sad. And it's in movies and people— it's literally being told to us right in our faces. People are completely still. They don't want to detach themselves from the system. They're too scared. They really are scared for standing up. And so many people live in fear because of censorship. And it's just— we need to resist it too. We need to build this community and we need to help other people become more aware of the seriousness other than, you know—

Yeah, my point is also probably because the internet, the news spread faster. Like if something happens, people will just put into those groups and then the news will spread in no time. So I guess government is a little bit like, they should be more careful. It's not like in the old times, the news doesn't really spread fast. So yeah.

So what you're saying is that it's getting harder and harder for the government to actually control the news from spreading. So could this be a good thing that they simply couldn't handle it anymore and then there's more and more information leaks? Or do you think they are going to start taking more and more strict measures to control the people and control the internet? And to that end, I would still— I would like to open the discussion about the social credit rating system, which we briefly discussed about earlier. But what do you think? Is it getting better or is it getting worse?

It's a hard question. I can't really give an answer to that right now.

Whenever we keep adding more laws and regulations and all that, that just suppresses all the information we can get. For example, let's say that Facebook or USA starts banning, let's say, chewing gum or something like that, and that would lead to Facebook banning all kinds of commercials about chewing gum. That's really not that important of a subject, but let's say that that's what they did for cryptocurrencies. And I think it's really valuable to have open information about cryptocurrencies in your social medias and all kinds of that. And these are things that— how we are being controlled, even if we don't probably see it or realize it.

Yeah, exactly. This is what I've been saying. Like, this is— I think in China, probably they're realizing this as well, and maybe they are moving towards the model that we are having in the Western world, which is more like self-regulation through government agenda. So the government agenda is fed to us in the government indoctrination camps that we call public education institutes. And that's kind of like how the seed of the idea of welfare state is implanted on people, and that people can't take care of themselves possibly because the world is a dangerous place. This kind of a narrative is still present here, which is a source of fear and control in China as well. government uses fear to deter people from trying to learn about anything or going anywhere besides China. So I think in China, probably this is going to be the next step because I don't think— I think they are smart enough, the Chinese government, to actually see that people— the information leak starts to be something that they can't control. So they come up with something like social credit system where you actually get points for behaving the way government wants. So they gamify your life, and since you don't know any other way of life, this, this is great for you, obviously, as long as you play by the rules, which is of course terrifying. What happens once they change the rules? Max, what do you think?

Oh yeah, the social crediting system really is scary because it gives the power of exclusion. So in a peaceful world, in a peaceful society, anyone can engage in voluntary contract with anyone else. Right? And nobody can stop them from doing that. But a social crediting system, basically, it doesn't matter how they achieve it, but the basic function is that the government can say, no, you peaceful, you voluntary individual cannot engage into peaceful trade, a mutually beneficial trade with this company here, with this entrepreneur who is providing you with a service that you deemed necessary to be provided for you. Because you're willing to pay for it, right? And this basically means that the government with this social crediting system, although it packages it under, oh, we want to make the world a better place and we want to, you know, make sure that everyone is being taken care of, it actually introduces so much violence and aggression into the system that is not necessary whatsoever. Because how do they know what are goods and services that should be produced? How do they know on where to allocate the resources, on what to prioritize our time? They cannot. And so what they end up doing is just tyrannically forcing people to do stuff that they do not like to do. And I don't think that this is a good world to live in.

I agree with Max. And I mean, like, if you can't express yourself openly and freely, would just build up, you know, people will start doing pretty stupid shit. They have to be able to at least speak their own feelings peacefully to other people and have a discussion about it. But if that is suppressed, I'm just really afraid what will happen after that.

Well, if I might chime in, I definitely agree with Max and what you're saying, Rafael. And, you know, the question that Niko had asked is if she thinks it's getting better, if Annie thinks, somebody who's left that control, it's getting better. And that's kind of the big question, you know, that's really the big question. I know I have a lot of friends and I, my own self, have tried to leave countries that I've, you know, lived in to seek another better country. And every single place that you can think of has censorship, you know, it has censorship and it's just a way to control, it's a boundary, it's to keep you from touching the walls, to keep you from opening your mind up. And I think we've all collaborated into the same boat, and we are literally in a war. We are headed towards the battle, and just by sharing information helps bring people more to this space. It's just sad because it's more of a consciousness. It's a war on consciousness as well. I mean, if you're living in fear your entire life and your job is based off fear and you're living in a sleep state, It doesn't matter how free your laws say they are, but you're not living in freedom. You're literally living as a slave. And I like that these systems are coming out, whether it's living off the grid, whether it's using cryptocurrencies, whether it's becoming an entrepreneur, um, uh, or creating your own food. I mean, that's just something that people have done, and you see everybody doing their own thing because the mainstream is complete control. And we need anarchy, we need a bit of chaos to break free from all of that. So

yeah. That's all good that you said, Rico. And I want to push back a little bit on what you said in the end, that we need anarchy and chaos. While I think chaos can be a good state as well, in terms of creativity, for example, I enjoy creativity chaos greatly, and that brings me a lot of productivity. But I don't think that anarchy in itself means chaos necessarily. Anarchy just means, to me at least, it means being without a leader, without the leadership, being our own masters and personal responsibility in good and bad. And I think this is the key that the government propaganda tries to convince us that we're not worthy taking care of ourselves, and that's obviously bullshit. But it wasn't obvious to me, for example, not that long ago, so I definitely need this kind of conversations.

You know, I just wanted to kind of really quick elaborate before we move on, on what I said about the chaos. I— it's weird because I'm doing this, I'm reading a few books, but I'm also watching this thing called Decoding the Matrix. And it's like we live in such a control state where we're actually scared to stand up for our own right. We're actually living scared. And I think like when Neo has to release himself and he's in that loaded jump program and he's With Morpheus and he's trying to show him how to release his mind. He needs to let go. And he doesn't actually do that until the very end when he becomes the one. But he needed chaos. He needed something really— he needed to be killed in order to realize that he's just in a program. And he would say no. And I think that we need the initial combustion of a lighting match, the chaos, that explosion for us to be released. Each one of us, whether it's your job, whether it's, you know, your boss, whether it's your money, whether it's your government. I mean, we're voting these people in and we're trusting these people to give us the news and educate our kids and run the system that we put money into, and yet they fail time and time again. So I, I stick to the chaos because we do, and we need that combustion. We are stuck in our own, um, idea of being polite, which is good, but we also need to realize that— The world, the worlds around us have been so professionalized on us that we, we don't even— couldn't even understand what chaos is, and it would take a lot of chaos in order for us to be liberated. And I think for some, compared to others, some people live the life of reading their own mind themselves, but I think a lot of people are too scared to read their mind and themselves from the system.

Yeah, I think you're right. People are scared and the government wants people to stay scared. Yeah, go ahead, Rafael.

Yeah, I agree with Niko and I was just wondering that, you know, it's like you would have to have some kind of little chaos, a little bit of fighting between people and different things they are talking about, different perspectives, because if you are suppressing everybody else who's talking differently, You will really not evolve. It's like genes. If you really always try to mix up the same kind of genes, it gets weaker. You would need to add a different kind of stuff on it so it will grow stronger. And I just think that it would be better for our society to have all these things open so people can discuss these things and we can probably evolve much faster. Get new ideas.

Oh yeah, that's really great what you bring up here. And I would like to add on this that we do not really need chaos. What we need is volatility because life is antifragile. That's a term that Nassim Taleb coined in his great book Antifragile. It is something that is not destroyed When the volatility, when disorder is added, like a glass or fine porcelain is going to break when you introduce shaking. But with an antifragile system, the more volatility, the more uncertainty, the more quote unquote chaos is being introduced, the system gets more robust and more valuable and more prosperous over time. And this is of course, the case in life itself, just as in nature. We need the volatility, we need the uncertainty, we need this spontaneous order to arise, but spontaneously and out of many tries and out of many misconceptions and wrong beliefs. Eventually, due to all that volatility, the beautiful and prosperous system will emerge. But that is an inherent fact in nature. And government trying to reduce this volatility by managing everything to the last pinpoint will bring chaos. That is chaos. True chaos is the retraction of volatility in such a system, because an antifragile system such as nature and labor needs that volatility. And if you try to reduce it,

Yeah, if I might add with you on that, Max. Yeah, I do. You guys, I keep saying this and I won't stop saying it. We are in a war. It's a war of your consciousness. And for you to sit by and say, no, we shouldn't bear arms. Well, we shouldn't bear arms. We should definitely resist and create. We're living in a chaotic world. So in order to, you know, you have to— you can't just sit back and just keep taking it because time is of the essence. It's like what, like the idea that the information is— it's been, it's been in front of you for so long, you know. Just look at the book 1984. We are past Orwellian times. I mean, we are in the midst of a fight, you know. And the cypherpunks knew this, they saw this, so they got invested into this. And anybody who is investing their time into alternative lifestyles, you are living a chaotic world. Anybody who's an entrepreneur knows it's not an easy world. It's chaotic. You literally work some weeks, you don't sleep, and sometimes you don't eat. But that's okay because the fight goes on and you move on and then you're free. Mm-hmm. And what I'm saying is it's a lifestyle. So I want to stress to people that the information is already in front of us. It's like anybody that's living in the censorship is living in the matrix. If you're scared of getting away from that, then that's cognitive dissonance, and that's your own— I think that's kind of a problem. But more so that we need chaos, and not in a bad sense. Chaos doesn't have to be bad. You can have chaos in markets, you know, where it's super volatile. Like Max said, you need— we need liquidity. We need something that we can be able to invest in, say we can get rid of, and we can buy whatever we need to whenever we want without the control. Because if you think about it, we are living— our minds are in a chaotic state all the time. I mean, your adrenal glands, everything to your, you know, how you think about yourself and, you know, how you think about nature. We're not even in nature. Some people, they don't go out in nature, and that's a disconnection of humanity to the world we really live in, not the world that's been structured around us. But the world that we live in, not the world that needs us to hold them up. We live in a natural world. And so I think it's very important to create a little bit of chaos in the chaos that our minds are living in every single day.

That's cool. I wanted to talk a little bit more about Annie's experience in China and how, how does this all sound, what we're talking about, from your perspective? Because I know that you might disagree with some of the things that the more ideological Things that we have because well, I think I'll I'll offer an explanation because for us we have the luxury of having these conversations and thoughts and gathering together and talking bad about the government. You you lose that luxury quite quickly in China by putting in house arrest or something like that. Do do you think the regular people are safe in China, Annie?

Yeah, yeah. Why, why wouldn't they or we be safe? I don't think it's unsafe there. Of course, there's some propaganda from the news. I guess we already mentioned last time about this CCTV news, you know, in China every, every day, absolutely every day, uh, 19 o'clock for half an hour. Like, there's this news, at least before everyone watches, I don't know now. They talk, people said there are just major, there are 3 major parts to talk about. The first part is like the government, the governors are so busy. And then the second part are like Chinese people are happy. Because the government has done something good to the people, and then the third parties, like outside China, is not good. I mean, there are some wars and such outside China. I read that from somewhere.

So what I'm getting at is that a lot of, like, For example, there's something called the nothing to hide argument, which we talked briefly about last time, which is common belief that as long as you don't do anything illegal, anything that the government disapproves of, you're safe. You don't have anything to worry about. And that the general population should be monitored and controlled so we can get the real bad guys. And we will definitely never use this information and leverage we have on you against you. We want to protect you. This is the narrative the government normally gives you, right? Do you think this is correct? And do you think people believe this in China?

How would I say? I think it's a little bit harsh to talk like that. At least personally, I don't feel it. Let's say this, I don't feel it. And it's a little bit harsh. Yeah.

Well, I don't mean to be harsh, but, you know, sometimes harshness can highlight some of the problems of society. So that's why my conversation style might be a little bit adversarial, which is not my intention alone. But yeah, I wanted to spark a conversation around this topic. So you think that this is not a problem, or why do you think it's harsh to say this?

First of all, I didn't feel that way, like I was unsafe there. Secondly, I think, how would I say, I'm Chinese, so I love my country even though my country is not perfect. Brainwashed, I know everyone will say brainwashed, brainwashed, but Yeah, well, this is like an example then.

All right, that's fair. Like, a lot of people love their countries, and my view personally is that nationalism rarely breeds anything useful. But of course, I like my country as well. I wouldn't call myself a nationalist, or I don't watch sports and stuff like that. So it's a little bit different view, I guess. It's a way that people get together, but I think nowadays they're more fit efficient ways for people, like-minded people to get together because of the internet. So for me, governments and countries don't mean quite as much as maybe for a lot of people. But let's see what the rest of the panel thinks. I think, Rafael, you're up next. What are your thoughts on this?

Yeah, it just came to my mind. Have you guys seen this picture? Okay, first of all, I have to say no offense to anybody, but this is what I think that governments and these institutions are trying to make us. There was a picture about chickens and there was 2 chickens fighting. One of them were saying that they are leaving the range because they are fed up with the owners, the humans. And the other chicken was complaining that, why are you leaving? These people are giving us a roof over our head and food and all kind of this. cool little stuff. This is an awesome place. And the chicken that was trying to leave the range was just saying that they are really not up to our good. They are just trying to use us. And I just think that this is the way the system works.

Yeah, I like that. That chicken was really clearly onto something. Maybe perhaps the owners of the chickens don't have the Absolute best interest of the chicken at hand. I like that a lot. What do you think, Max?

Yeah, the question is really, does the government want to do anything good for you? Or maybe something's good for you? Or do they really love you and want to do anything that you want them to do? Well, let's go through the examples. Does the government do anything that you want it to do? Well, clearly not, because if you would say, okay, government, please Give me $1 million right now, they probably wouldn't do that. But nevertheless, so the government is not an institution that you can 100% control. The question is, does it do some good for you? And then people might argue that, for example, a welfare state where the government gives you money for something, for, for example, your medical care. Or for not working as an insurance if you do not have a job. So then, yes, the government might do some things that are good for you. They might provide roads and build out a healthcare system. So, yes, a government might be able to do good to you. But the question is, do they introduce more harm than they do good? And I would say yes here, because per definition, if the government is funded by taxes, then that is stolen money. And if they build anything, then they do not do it on the voluntary and peaceful market, but rather on a coercive and political market. And, you know, anything that the government tries to do pretty much all the time, it doesn't do it more efficiently and more resourcefully than private businesses. So why would we ever introduce violence to satisfy any need if we can do it more adequately peacefully?

First, do no harm. Like, uh, was it the Hippocratic Oath that also states that you should never do harm and then you should start doing good? So starting, starting the government funding by stealing money from people, not a great start. Uh, Rico, go ahead.

Well, I just wanted to chime in about that joke. You know, the chickens, one of them was on to the government that was already kind of doing— or their control anyways. And what Max is saying is exactly right. I mean, if the government's helping you out and they're doing things for you, whether that's your financial status or schooling or whatever, medical insurance, I mean, it's good if they're supposed to be helping you. But here's the thing, hook, line, and sinker. If, you know, if it's just making it worse, you know, they're slowing down your process, they're the middle line, that's like the middleman between, uh, good and evil. They're like kind of mediating it, like, oh yeah, we're good, but they're actually doing a lot of evil. What I'm trying to get to is that, um, if you can do— like you said, if you can do it yourself better, then we wouldn't need government. And if you guys look up the word government I believe it's Greek, not Latin, but the origin means mind control, to govern the mind, govern mental. And so it's quite interesting to think that we uphold these people, but they have repeatedly over and over just let us down. And by this time, you'd think they'd be pretty good at doing their job and helping us out, but yet they're still failing. I don't really know if we're stepping in the right direction. I think now is the people's chance to stand up and create a censorship-resistant system that we don't need to be supported by their downfall, I guess.

Yeah, excellent points. And Annie, what do you think about what you heard now? What is our point of view in this? We are all pretty, I would say, heavily anti-government here. I mean, don't let us try to bully you into anything, but have you given it any thought? What do you think? Do you think the government has our best interest at their hand, and should we follow the government always?

It's a difficult question. I think there should be government, but why there should be government, why there should be someone who controls or organizes things, I can't really tell.

Maybe you mean we need rules, maybe we need contracts, maybe we need laws even that we uphold ourselves, but do we really need government? Maybe we even need governance, but that can be self-governance like we have in Bitcoin, which is— I think we should also talk about because this is after all about the censorship resistance in Bitcoin in the end and how we can use those kind of protocols to help with censorship. But yeah, what do you think, Annie? In China, Bitcoin is banned. So does that tell you something since you are a fan of Bitcoin, I take it?

I'm a, how to say, a huge fan of Google. Talking about fan and outside China, it makes me realize that in China you can't use Google. If I didn't mention that last time, I love Google so much now because you can basically find anything online, which is good. You can learn those things. But in China, well, of course there's some kind of Chinese platform or websites that you can do the Chinese Google. But that's just what the government wants you to know. That I know. It's like the Tiananmen Square event, not event. What is that called? It happened more than 13 years ago. That kind of thing. People can't even find it inside China online. You can just find it outside China. Yeah, like people like me, like my age, if the parents didn't tell you, didn't tell us this, I don't think we are— we don't know those kind of things. So yeah,

that's a good thing that you brought out Google. It is a big operator that Chinese people are missing out. And I think one of the— like, obviously there are other ones maybe better suited for— it's kind of like non-controlled environment. I'm not a huge fan of Google myself. I use Google because it's the best game for searching at the moment. There's some other services like DuckDuckGo that is decentralized, that it's not storing our information and using it against us necessarily like Google is, which, which can be, can be bad. But to that end, I've actually— I got inspired by that idea of Googling Bitcoin because I think we should encourage people to Google Bitcoin and what it can do. So I made a t-shirt of that, and once I learn how to use the screen share, I'm gonna show you guys. But in the meanwhile, why don't we start talking about the Bitcoin and how How it is, in my opinion, what it is, it's censorship-resistant messaging protocol that you can also send transactions without anybody intercepting those. How— I mean, obviously, I think it can be quite helpful in places with high censorship because it is virtually uncensorable. So I would really like the panel's thoughts on this. Maybe, Rico, do you want to go first?

Sure, yeah. Bitcoin to me is a savings account. So I'm not a complete maximalist where I use it every single day on every transaction. So to me, it's a solution. Okay? To me, it's this shining light and a chance for hope for the future, my generation's futures. my kids' kids. I really hope that things are different for them. I really hope that they have a means to say what they want to say, meaning they can affect the world rather than just be stuck in a system that I don't believe in. So to me, Bitcoin is hope. And for somebody to censor that, that's a big— to me, that's a big red flag. blinking light, like just a warning sign. It's not a good thing. It's just my opinion.

Great points that you bring up. And Rico, especially that you said that Bitcoin is more of a censorship-resistant messaging protocol. And that is exactly right, because that is what Bitcoin is. Bitcoin allows you to send a transaction, to send a piece of data, a string, a hash of something. Over a network of peers, of computers that are just like you. All they do is send and receive those transactions. As soon as you receive— if you're running a full node— as soon as your full node is receiving one of those transactions, you verify if the transaction is correct, if the input is correct, if this set of data, this language, is correct. If it is correct, then you propagate it to all the others. I think standard, there are 8 nodes that you propagate it to. And so this means that you gossip every transaction. If someone would try to stop you from sending a message over this network, they would have to shut down all the nodes in the entire network. As soon as only a couple of them are still up and running, They will propagate the message to anyone who wants to have it. And, you know, so this— as soon as you cut down one head, 10 others appear. It's the Hydra, right? It's this decentralized, antifragile system. It just happens that this network of language, this propagation of speech, actually transports value, a scarce good, a good that is unique, and that if you give it away, someone else will have it and you no longer have it. Right? And if we have such a scarce good that is being transported over this communication, we can use it as a money. And that is what Bitcoin is. It is a censorship-resistant network that nobody can exclude you from. And over this, over this network, over this communication network, you can send money. And that is amazing.

That was well put by Max once again. I think like once we move to asset management over blockchain, like if we can have assets recorded in an immutable database that nobody can take away from you, unless of course they take your physical property away, which can always be taken. But the ownerships, the digital ledger can't be changed at all in any case if you take care of your security. So that should be a very important and interesting tool for everybody in the world. Why would we relinquish our property to the government for them to take better care of it? I don't think so, because all the actions the government is showing is that they don't want to take care of the old people who are more like a liability and an expense. They want to take care of the young, of course, but only on the prospect of future tax payment. And for me, this is more represents modern slavery at best.

In the last episode, we were talking about this Tails USB stick, and I went after that show, I went and Googled it just for fun, just to know what it is and how it works and all. And I just read that in Wikipedia, they are already saying that if you Google or put Tails in this big research machines like Google, they will probably add you to some kind of NSA list or something like that just by Googling it. And especially if you go and enter to their site, website, then you're on the list. So probably I'm already also. But about this, the censorship resistance and Bitcoin, how can it help on it? I just think that, for example, let's say that if you happen to hear some kind of a big or witness some kind of a big real thing that we've been lied to, for example, let's say that 9/11, you find out that 9/11 was a scam or just a false flag attack or something like that and you have a real proof and you're trying to show it to the world, you're trying to, I mean, like, you're trying to tell it to people. And these are the cases where people are usually trying to oppress you. They're trying to shut you down, like all your bank accounts and your social media feeds and all kind of that. And these are the things where Bitcoin is really helpful, just like in WikiLeaks' case. I mean, like, you never know when you will need this censorship resistance until you find out something that you would like to say that you believe is right and somebody else is saying it's wrong. At least you will be— I think you should be able to talk about it openly.

Yeah, I think nobody thinks they need censorship resistance until they do, and oftentimes it's too late. late at that time. Maybe you can't leave the country anymore. Maybe you can't just vote with your feet or vote with your wallet anymore once your funds are seized. So that's definitely something to keep in mind that you might want to hedge for the future. Because though, I mean, no matter how you look at it, I don't think there's any sane economist in the world who would say that we are living in a sustainable system. And no matter if Bitcoin is the future system or not, The old system has got to go. So it would stand to reason for me to make some kind of moves on that.

Well, talking about openness, talking like people should say what they want to say and such, it makes me think from my own experience, how to say, What is that called? Like a bunch of people gather together and then try to celebrate or protest something? A protest. That would never happen in China. As long as there's like a group of people gathering and then the police will go. I mean, in the public area, of course, not somewhere hidden no one can see. If you want to have a a protest, you are going somewhere like Tiananmen Square or somewhere that people can see because you want people to know what happened to you and why you're protesting. So that kind of thing will never happen in China in the central area. While I think when I just got here, like a couple years back, there was kind of protest happening. in the city center here in Finland. And then there were even people and the police, I can't say protect you, but there were some police cars just follow you and the police just like, I'm not going to touch you, and this kind of thing. If this thing happens in China, the police will already arrest you, already drag you somewhere, drag you to the car first and then take you to the police station and then accuse accuse you this, that, and then, um, you know, well, well, yeah, send you some, uh, a fine or whatever. So that I, I, yeah, I think, uh, it's quite different. Or would I say, is there anything to do with censorship here?

Well, yeah, I mean, that I, I think once you reach the point that you can't go out in the public and talk without the police collecting you. I think we have reached some level of censorship there. I think that's safe to say. And one thing I would like to add, that there's not a single drunk or homeless person in Beijing, which is amazing to me. And the only logical conclusion is that they get cleaned up by the police and the officials constantly. And there's no doubt in my mind for a second that this kind of thing If you have a show like this in China, you will be shut down if you can be found, and you can be found. So yeah, I'm glad that you brought this up, and it's definitely a great reminder of us where it can go once we have it. And China has very good technology for this as well, maybe the best in the world, probably the best in the world. So it's just a matter of time before this technology is adapted. Facial recognition, I mean, for crying out loud, we already paying Apple for taking our face prints and put them into their centralized database. I mean, how sick is that? How Orwellian is that? And we want these new features because we want to make chicken faces with the emotes or whatever. Like, I mean, come on. Or unlock your phone without looking at it, without putting in the passcode. I mean, my passcode has like, well, I'm not going to tell how many characters it has, but it has a lot. It has a lot more than for, I'll tell you that much. But, you know, if you keep taking these shortcuts, if you keep making your life convenient and just basically tell what the government does to you, don't be surprised one day once those liberties start to be taken away one by one. What do you guys think? I think we should wrap up here. Max, why don't you give closing remarks?

Well, Annie, great points that you brought up. And it's important to realize that censorship and anything in life is never a binary 1 to 0 scale. Right? It's, it's gradual. There are states that are really, really, really heavily censored, and then there are some that are not censored that much. And we do have to treasure the liberties that we have and that, that we of course fought for, right? So the right to protest is something that, uh, that people really fought for, and it is important that we, that we keep those liberties and make sure that they are not further infringed upon. But absolutely, the right that we can go out on the streets and, you know, yell at the government basically and tell them our opinion is something that we have to treasure. If we do not, and if we do not take that lightly, then eventually we will lose them. So this is really important. And further, I'd like to just emphasize here that the right to go out on the streets and, you know, Speak your mind is not a right that is given to you by the government. It is a right that you own, just like you own your body, just like you own your, your products and your physical goods. This is something that is inherent in creation or reason or, or the universe or whatever you want to talk about. The important thing is it's not given to you by the government. All the government can do is take it away from you. And we have to make sure that they will not further take away any of the rights that they did not give us, but rather that we just have by the fact of being conscious and human.

That's awesome. That's beautiful. Rico, would you like to add something to that?

Definitely. You guys, we are past Orwellian times. I mean, I don't think he could even imagine the idea of facial We have fingerprinting on all your cell phones now. Even just the base Streamline, I buy the cheapest cell phone, it has fingerprinting on it now. It's pretty scary. I don't use that stuff, or voice recognition. I am one of those people that puts little tabs over their cameras, you know, when I'm doing research. So yeah, it's what Raphael had said about the Tails. I've looked it up too, so I guess I'm on there as well. But you know what, I have something, a say about that. We shouldn't be scared anymore. That's, that's what they want, you know, and we need to mess it up with them. We need to create a little bit of chaos. So just speaking about it is the least we could be doing about it right now. The fact that you can do it and you're not gonna all get arrested right now, or this camera isn't gonna get shut down, that's so much power. When it's sad because it really should be— that should be normal, but a lot of people don't have this. So I think we're really lucky in this state, but we could That's sad that we think that we're lucky when we're actually living in a controlled state. We'll see where we go from here with Bitcoin and everything else in its new tracks.

Yeah, I gotta say, we are, we are super lucky, but that's not good enough. Like, we have— we still have to fight. There's a lot for us to do. And like you said, the least we can do is make— to keep making these videos and educating people. And yeah, don't be fooled. If you talk about these things on YouTube, you're on a list. You're on a list, 100% guaranteed. Everyone on this talk is on the list. Right from this moment. So keep that in mind if you want to keep a low profile, which I totally understand. Don't want to meddle, then don't talk about Bitcoin. Don't talk about— I think actually Andreas made a video about this as well, and he also said that it's not a good idea if you want to keep your privacy, stay safe. It's wise not to talk about Bitcoin. But I disagree to that because, you know, I'm a freedom fighter. And it's not for everybody. I understand that. And I take my risk and I want to educate people, but I totally get it if people don't want to do the same. Rafael, why don't you give your closing remarks?

Yeah, well, just about this freedom thing. For example, in here in Finland, we had a great war that our ancestors were fighting in. Just to get us some, let's say, freedom. And this is the thing that I would think that people would get much more mad about this current situation since we still are not free. We are already going again towards a censored way of thinking and what we can say and censored information and all that. I mean, If you want to respect people that has been fighting for your freedom, you should do that too.

Annie, why don't you give your closing remarks and then you can just proceed to let everybody know where to find you, where's your channel, your Twitter, whatever you want to advertise. Go ahead.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I just started to do my show also. It's called Crypto Gossip. Basically, it's just gossip as it shows, it sounds. So if you want to find me, you can find me through Twitter, Annie Liu, or Telegram, also Annie Liu. So I hope someone will like my style.

Yeah, great. Thank you. And definitely check her out. We need more women in the scene. Definitely, we need all kinds of content. And I think her content will be interesting to a lot of non-technical people that are still interested in money, like women in general. Like, who doesn't like money? So if you can explain that this is just a better form of money, I think we have a lot of success in a lot of different demographics. Max, where can people find more about you?

Yeah, so my personal website is towardsliberty.com, and you can find all my stuff there. If you want to support me in my work of writing a paper called Anarchy in Money and Why We Neither Need Nor Want Government Regulation in Bitcoin, then you can support that. It's all open source and published under the Creative Commons license, and you can support that at towardsliberty.com/anarchy. I do regular content, of course, here on the Consensus channel, which is amazing. Thank you, Niko, for having me on. And I also do a bunch of content for the World Crypto Network. So covered the Mises University there and just, you know, talking about Bitcoin. And soon we're going to start the new series, which is called Read Rothbard, Use Bitcoin. So that's going to be fun, where we talk about Austrian economics. and the art of using Bitcoin as the beautiful sound money that it is. Everyone on the panel, and especially Niko, thank you for having me. It was fantastic talking to you, and we're going to see each other on the next call.

Awesome. Thanks, Max. And I got to say, Max is at the moment probably one of the hottest Bitcoin talkers in the world that I'm aware of. So definitely he can bridge very well the Austrian economics and technicals of Bitcoin. So I think that's quite a unique combo at the moment. Super awesome to have you on the show as well. Rico, where can people find more about you?

You guys can find me on YouTube as well. I'm on BitChute. I'm on yours. Any of these platforms that are new and coming, you can find me at ricocoinreport.wixsite.com/2018, the year of change, you guys. Just /2018. But it is the year of change and I will be doing some new series as well. I'm looking for collaborators, so feel free to message me at Rico Report on Twitter if you'd like, or just my Google account, Gmail, Rico Coin Report. So yeah, guys, I'm excited to see how things are going, and everybody that's in this panel is— they all— you guys are all great in the space because this is what we need. We need new voices. So anybody listening is You know, you're just as important as the people speaking.

Yeah, wholeheartedly agree. And we need more different ideas talking about these things. Doesn't matter if we disagree. We probably disagree with a lot of things, but we also agree on a lot of things. So let's, let's not just keep patting each other in the back. Also challenge each other and yeah, keep up the good conversation. Rafael, where can people find more about you?

You can find me in Telegram with the name Crypto Raiffe, and I just started using Twitter also with the same name, and that's pretty much about it.

Cool, cool. Thank you for the panel so much. Thank you for the 8 live viewers. We have 7 likes, so if the last one could just go ahead and hit the thumbs up so we will get the full, full house to like our show. If you're watching this like Probably you are watching this non-live, then be sure to share us and subscribe and hit the bell button if you want to get all the latest live shows for you. And you personally, if you want to get in touch with me, you can find me on Twitter, OmniFin with double N at the end. If you want to buy some of those shirts that I showed you earlier, you can go to moneybacher.shop. We also have a ConsenSys shop which, which has some shirts with the ConsenSys logo. And that's— I'm gonna leave the link in the description. And yeah, I think that's pretty much it. That was an awesome conversation, and it turned out to be a little bit longer than I thought. I'm gonna cut a little bit extra, all the extra away, and make this one nice file so people don't have to navigate 3 different files because of the technical problems we had, which I'm still sorry about. But again, thanks for the great conversation, company. And remember, we have our next show tomorrow, actually already, because this is not the normal showtime. The normal showtime is every Monday. 4 PM UTC, and we aim to do a 1 to 2 hour show. Sometimes it's a little bit longer. Tomorrow might be a long one because we have the head of digitalization from Bank of Finland, Alexi Grim. Grim Reaper indeed. He called Bitcoin digital sand in our last show, which I still can't forget that. And he also wrote the hit piece on cryptocurrencies, The Illusion of Cryptocurrencies. So I'm looking forward to kind of digging into that a little bit more deep. And I believe Max is joining us as well, so that will be awesome too. Awesome to see. Anyway, thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.

Thank you very much, guys.

Bye-bye. Thank you.