The One Problem

Every passage, on the record.

1. 01:15Open question · condensed

   I'm not going to release that 2022 recording until Bitcoin hits a million dollars, because when it hits a million dollars my full prediction in that podcast is going to come true. I don't want to spoil it other than the fact that it will hit a million dollars.

2. 01:15Prediction

   It will hit a million dollars.

3. 01:47Claim

   A million dollars doesn't mean dick. A million dollars are printed up by some dude in front of a computer screen, that number means nothing. What actually means something is what you have to exchange energy for in the real world in order to get, and that is Bitcoin.

4. 01:47Quote

   A million dollars doesn't mean dick.

5. 02:18Claim

   Money acts as a proxy for the answer to all of these questions, you just think, if money go up, if the figure go up, I became better off. But once you start to remove the top layers, you start to try and figure out what is the answer, what is the problem that I am trying to solve for, anywhere and everywhere, at all times.

6. 02:18Quote

   I'm not doing this podcast for you. I'm doing this podcast for me.

7. 02:52Claim

   If you were to approach the space with the attitude of dedicating your entire life for the past five years to getting to know everything about Bitcoin, from around 2020 until today, that was probably the best investment you could have made, the best way you could have spent your time. I'm struggling to think of something else that someone actually generated in the real world that would have gotten you stronger returns.

8. 03:30Quote

   I'm struggling to think of something else that someone actually generated in the real world that would have gotten you stronger returns.

9. 03:30Claim

   The answer to every question about when you should have bought Bitcoin or not is yes, I should have bought and I should have bought more, and everything that I didn't sell to buy more Bitcoin, that was the improper energy allocation.

10. 04:33Prediction

    The single best allocation of energy that you can find now, that you can actually action now, where you can divert energy from some other aspect of your life into Bitcoin, is at least the best choice that you can make.

11. 05:03Claim

    Because Bitcoin is so new, there really isn't that much information, there's drips and drabs on just how impactful the information is going to be, how impactful the knowledge is that Bitcoin represents and what that's going to do to the outside world. It's the hardest information that can be generated, which then acts as the foundation for everything to be built on top of, just like a foundation is necessary for all the things built on top of it.

12. 05:33Analogy

    Now that Bitcoin exists, it's at the bottom of the gravity well for value. Everything will be built on top of Bitcoin. If you can get to that stage, you are far ahead of the game.

13. 05:33Claim

    The problem is Bitcoin is becoming more valuable and more scarce, faster than you can generate enough energy reserves in the real world to have a meaningful impact on your future. That is always and everywhere the case.

14. 06:06Quote

    You are not racing other people, you are racing Bitcoin and Bitcoin is winning that race always and everywhere.

15. 06:06Claim

    The beautiful part about Bitcoin is there is a blueprint for what the future looks like in the past. All you have to do is look at the block rewards, look at how much your wealth would have increased if you had gotten into Bitcoin in 2012 or 2016 or 2020.

16. 06:43Prediction

    All of those cycles that play out, that is what 2028 is going to look like, that's what 2032 is going to look like.

17. 06:43Idea

    You have to choose a time in the future where you will say, okay, now I'm going to step off of the train because now I have reached Sat peak, and Sat peak has come in my life. If you're not familiar with the term Sat peak, that is the maximum number of satoshis that you will ever own in your life. I don't say Bitcoin there because anytime anybody's listened to this in the future, nobody's going to own a whole Bitcoin.

18. 07:51Claim

    It's only going to get worse. Why would it get better? If I was on the other side, I would make it worse for as long as I could, because making it worse for you makes it better for me. That's the incentive there. The model is, I don't want it to be better for you, I want it to be better for me.

19. 08:23Quote

    That's a nice way of saying go fuck yourself.

20. 08:23Claim

    I want at every opportunity to be able to say to whoever is putting friction in my life, go fuck yourself. That is the power that Bitcoin brings to you. That is what you should be chasing down.

21. 09:29Idea

    If we consider that wealth is the repertoire of the total transformations that one can either initiate or prevent, who can do more with less help from others, as in the single entity, how sovereign are you? I would argue that outside of Satoshi, somebody like Michael Saylor or Max Keiser, or someone who is early and heavy into Bitcoin, is the wealthiest person on earth.

22. 09:29Reference

    You take someone like Elon Musk and say Elon Musk has a net worth of $150 billion, and you've got someone like Michael Saylor, let's say he owns a billion US dollars of Bitcoin in now terms. Who is wealthier?

23. 09:29Reference

    Outside of Satoshi, somebody like Michael Saylor or Max Keiser, or someone who is early and heavy into Bitcoin, is the wealthiest person on earth.

24. 10:05Analogy

    What Michael Saylor can do is he can put up a bounty online that says, I want a hundred thousand South Koreans to be at the border of South and North Korea tomorrow morning, and I will give every military-age man that shows up $1,000 to be there for the day and fight. Who can stop them? Think about the power behind what Michael Saylor can summon at any time, that no one can get in between him and the people on the other end of that value.

25. 10:42Claim

    Try to do that if you're Elon Musk, see how many steps and middlemen you have to go through to do something against the grain, because that is the essence of true sovereignty: can you do whatever you want anytime you want, and how many people can stop you along the way? If you don't have the ability, you're poor. If you do have the ability, you are not poor.

26. 10:42Quote

    If you don't have the ability, you're poor. If you do have the ability, you are not poor.

27. 11:14Reference · condensed

    Now it's very easy to keep abreast of what is happening in the industry and with Bitcoin, because you've already gone over everything else, and everybody can go, well, hopefully, if the extended order is maximizing efficiency, everyone goes off in their own little directions and the roots of the tree just get further and further spread out.

28. 11:14Analogy

    Hopefully, if the extended order is maximizing efficiency, everyone goes off in their own little directions and the roots of the tree just get further and further spread out.

29. 12:20Reference

    In order for it to be an advantage, you have to think, okay, well, what is, we think of it from the David Deutsch angle, what is the problem that we are actually trying to solve? At the very end of everything, why study even the Bitcoin part?

30. 12:50Claim

    I want to be able to pursue any problem which interests me enough to pursue it. That's what I want to do. That's the ultimate freedom.

31. 12:50Idea

    What do I need in order to make that a reality? Well, definitely I would need all of my energy needs met. If every energy allocation is a choice between make or trade, it doesn't matter if it's an organization, an individual, a country, that is a decision that is being made. Anytime you do anything, make or trade, any input to any issue, any information one can construct from the ground up using energy and previous information, or they can trade for it.

32. 13:20Claim

    This happens in the Lego building block sequence we have previously discussed on this podcast: I transform, that results in further information, that results in further transformations being possible within less energy input necessary. So you need to form the foundation, something gets built on top of that foundation. Now it's easier along the sequence to contribute more information at the top because there is more below, everything has already been done.

33. 13:55Analogy

    The pieces have already been tried in every single configuration that they can be tried in, and what do you add to the system? It's because we've tried all the underlying pieces before, and now when a brand new piece shows up, all we have to do is take that one piece and try to connect it to everything else that has already been constructed.

34. 14:29Claim

    I am compressing the information of a previously useful algorithm and removing variables that were excess to required demand. That is what you're doing when you plug Bitcoin into anything: something was already successful, it already had information that had been generated that was useful, or else it wouldn't be around. I'm taking it into the banking system, into finance, into politics, into all of these systems that had already been constructed and found valuable, and I'm adding another piece that wasn't previously available and asking, does this make the algorithm more useful? It has to remove something, some step, some middleman, or it's not going to be more efficient.

35. 15:33Claim

    If I have access to the same amount of energy condensed into the same physical space with the same decay models already in place before my transformation, but now I'm able to perform a greater number of future transformations because of my new knowledge, then I'm better off, because given the energy allocations I have access to, if I only need a smaller amount to do a transformation, my wealth has increased in that process.

36. 16:08Idea

    I think knowledge here represents the information I have generated, which results in new causes, new effects. So again, knowledge, information with causal power, that's what I've generated. The power of new knowledge is determined by how much energy I can actually unlock in the future, either directly in the process of transforming previously inaccessible energy pools, or via savings.

37. 16:40Claim

    So we want more knowledge. There is no problem that cannot be solved with an increase in knowledge. The group of life that generates the best knowledge wins. It then stands to reason that it'd be wise to facilitate quality knowledge creation to the best of our abilities.

38. 16:40Quote

    There is no problem that cannot be solved with an increase in knowledge.

39. 17:15Claim

    What's the one question that should be at the base layer of every decision tree? Are we facilitating the production of knowledge with any rules or protocols that we put in place? Is it easier to generate knowledge, or is it more difficult because of this? Any activity that doesn't lead us down this path is less than ideal.

40. 17:46Claim

    Information compounds and is built layer by layer. So understanding what the goal of life is in the first place is actually more important and more time sensitive than any of us can imagine. The human brain was not meant to think on the scales necessary to fully grasp the opportunity cost of misallocating scarce resources.

41. 18:16Claim

    The path to success would look a lot like the emerging properties of the Bitcoin network: the most number of energy transformers generating information as quickly and efficiently as possible. I use we because it takes mere seconds to realize that by yourself alone, you cannot win at this game, it is not possible, you will always be out-competed by networked individuals who specialize to expand their knowledge creation abilities through conjecture and problem solving.

42. 18:49Claim

    You will not out-compete network individuals because you reach the person byte limit. There is a threshold which you cannot pass because you don't have the computational capacity to do it, there's too much data to crunch and generate knowledge off of, it is actually physically impossible to do it alone, so we have to share it. But if we share the load, then not everyone knows everything, and if everyone doesn't know everything, then there are going to be holes for certain individuals.

43. 19:21Claim

    We're going to have to share resources. Is there a protocol that we can use to share what resources we need? This is where we come across our first identifiable problem where we can choose between a number of competing theories: how do we maximize a group's specialization efforts so they generate the most amount of novel information with the least amount of energy input, how do we coordinate the activities of everyone in the network to maximize production of useful information?

44. 19:54Analogy

    You could start with a central planner, maybe the smartest person in the village can decide who does what, when they do it, and for how long. If we remember the goal of the system, what the final output is that we're looking for, it's fairly straightforward to see that a central planner is probably not going to be the best approach.

45. 20:25Claim

    A rival group will out-compete this village in knowledge creation over time, and the gap will compound larger and larger until the centrally planned group will be powerless, both physically, in kinetic terms, and in knowledge, against its rivals. It will lose. The optimal strategy is to have the most number of individuals processing the largest amount of information in the most amount of areas possible.

46. 20:59Claim

    This is the Lego piece expansion: the quicker new Lego pieces, new blocks, can be discovered and spread through the network, the greater the returns overall are going to be. Maximizing specialization is the winning strategy, and this is not something we have to guess at, history is the record book for this energy and information game we're all playing. You leverage knowledge to increase access to energy, then you use energy reserves to grow a base of information generators, and then specialize even further.

47. 21:37Claim

    If we can maintain a communication network that allows for the sharing of the maximum information possible with the least amount of noise in that system, we have to devote less energy to overcome that noise. We are wasting energy in the computation process when we are trying to filter signal from noise. If we can eliminate that, we're going to win. So we need a communication network that is free from noise and as close to friction-free as possible.

48. 22:08Analogy · condensed

    In the perfect world, the most efficient farmer is dedicated to milking the cows, and the less efficient ones can be set to another task that is yet to operate at peak efficiency. We don't need a hundred people milking cows with varying degrees of efficiency.

49. 22:42Claim

    The farmer needs his own inputs taken care of, he has the same starting point as every other operator in the network for energy, which is make or trade. Does he make his own food, or does he trade for it? The answer is trade, all the time, that is what we're trying to do. Of course, he can make his own tools, but then he is increasing his knowledge where it might be retracing the steps of someone much further along in the process, and now we have a double up of energy, which is less efficient.

50. 23:14Claim

    Less efficient means there's an opportunity for a competing chain to surpass the slower cohort, and this is not ideal. A group that has a communication protocol that is as low friction as possible, and as fast and robust as possible, will be better off. The larger the network grows, the more we can specialize, the faster we can share information and knowledge, the further we can dig down the rabbit holes, the more problems we can solve, the more information we can generate, and the process increases exponentially.

51. 23:45Claim

    This is why each generation is becoming less and less able to relate to one another. The timeframe for change in the knowledge of the extended order is now progressing so fast that useful information generated in one lifetime can be made obsolete in that same lifetime. This is a function of the extended order's ability to share information, to communicate, to be so well off in energy reserves that we can look out into the future further and further.

52. 24:19Claim

    We can take the necessary energy to fact-check past ideas, it is useful to now find holes in inefficient past activities because we have the Legos necessary to fix things on such a massive scale. In bringing this back to Bitcoin, I don't even think we've started to scratch the surface of the utility it is going to provide to the extended order.

53. 24:50Analogy

    It isn't just financial, that is the nose of the camel, but that isn't the entire animal. If you understand what is happening, then you're going to make such a giant return on your investment, it's hard to quantify using today's terminology.

54. 25:24Claim

    As I've said before, if you follow these ideas through to their most logical conclusion, you arrive at a simple investment thesis for Bitcoin. Different cohorts accumulate and transform energy and information at different rates, but the numbers do not lie: if you want to survive, you need to coordinate information and specialize as much as possible.

55. 25:24Reference

    The Lindy effect is that life has generated more and more knowledge than ever since the beginning of recorded history.

56. 25:56Claim

    The less waste, the better off the group is, the more chaos, the more opportunity for novel information. We need information that holds its structure: the longer it holds its structure, the more useful it is, because we don't have to recreate that information, it's still ordered, we don't have to reorder it. Something that has structural integrity is preferable to something that doesn't, something that allows for the most number of participants with the least amount of governance is best, something faster rather than slower wins, something that removes unnecessary inputs wins.

57. 25:56Quote

    This is why solids made life possible without solids, no life.

58. 26:27Claim

    Trust requires energy, it requires an energy investment. But if trust can be outsourced in a relationship between two specializers who are relying on one another to exchange the information they need to meet their survival quotas, that is beneficial.

59. 27:03Claim

    The question you need to constantly have at the front of your mind when examining the world through Bitcoin is whether or not the extended order will generate more information in the future or less. The only thing we can confidently say since the beginning of recorded history is that mankind is generating more information. If that trend continues, we will have more knowledge, and the people that find a way to share that knowledge will win out over those that don't.

60. 27:36Claim

    That idea ultimately is the output of the tool that is Bitcoin: the machine takes all these inputs and spits out information that is the hardest in the world to vary, perfect for a foundation, perfect for sharing all the fat removed from previous attempts at constructing a network that optimizes for life flourishing.

61. 28:07Analogy

    Imagine a tractor. It has inputs, the fuel, of course, but also the metal, the wiring, the knowledge on how to arrange these elements to work together, the know-how of putting it all together. That's a lot of different pieces of information coming together to form a tool. Yet it's easier to grasp because we can see and touch the outputs. Let's say the output of the tractor is a field that is ready to be planted. Without the tractor, to get a field ready took a certain amount of energy and knowledge: the caloric energy to power the hoe and shovel, the physical tools, the knowledge of how to construct the tools, where to get the minerals, how to extract them, and how to actually clear the field itself.

62. 29:14Claim

    With the tractor, we want the output for less input, that's the question we're asking ourselves. Do we get easier fields with less energy with the tractor? If yes, that's good, it's probably going to be popular because it's going to be useful, which means it's going to be valuable.

63. 29:47Claim

    It also has to make sense for the group as a whole, aka the economy which made the tractor possible. All of that information about the fuel, the wiring, the construction, the materials, is shared throughout a number of people in the extended order. The tractor can't just be beneficial for the farmer, it has to be beneficial for all of the other people that are also on that supply line. What that means is that the hive mind has collectively done the computation necessary to realize that using a tractor is more beneficial to the whole than doing it by hand.

64. 30:19Analogy

    It wasn't always like that, I'm sure there were many farmers who fought the tractor revolution. The farmers who were successful, pre-tractor, were busy being successful, they didn't have the resources necessary to look around and jump up a level. A new guard was needed. The same is true for Bitcoin.

65. 30:51Claim

    What is the output of the tool that is Bitcoin? It is information harder than any other, finitely limited in supply, absolutely scarce. If we're outputting it, it looks worthless with nothing built on top of it, but how can you build on top of a foundation that doesn't exist? The question you need to ask is, will information continue to grow? If yes, like it has since we began keeping records, then Bitcoin increases in utility because its output becomes more valuable.

66. 30:51Quote

    You can't put the cart before the horse.

67. 31:23Claim

    The incentives that ripple through the extended order because of this information mean the facilitation of future energy transformations greatly increase. The tool gives us, the users, more power, more power equals better outcomes versus adversaries that are not using the tool. Over time, the tool becomes synonymous with the output.

68. 31:54Prediction

    Bitcoin will be useful for all, even when it's too obvious to ignore, it'll still be useful. It might not make individuals a thousand X better off in the span of a few years, but it will certainly continue to be advantageous over every other alternative.

69. 31:54Claim

    The output of Bitcoin is that the machine spits out energy in the form of information to the specialists inside the network that have professed the largest problem they think they have a solution for. It is a tool for energy coordination, it doesn't require individual users to identify the most efficient energy allocators, that is what the system does. It removes the need of the individual to determine where to store their excess.

70. 32:29Claim

    In Bitcoin, the highest bidder receives the energy because there's no alternative. If the network shrinks in energy, it's because allocation has been poor, if it grows, it's because allocation has been efficient. All 21 million Bitcoin represent the total pie of accessible energy at any given time inside the extended order. As a holder, you can pull energy from the system at any time, but it's a little bit dangerous, because if you come back with less than you started, or even more dangerously, come back with slightly more energy in overall terms, in that time you were away from the network you were passed up by the entity that is the Bitcoin order overall.

71. 33:10Claim

    You can lose and end up with less Bitcoin, you can also win and end up with less Bitcoin. The big unlock here is that many participants won't have the ability to specialize and generate information more efficiently than this tool, than Bitcoin, and that's a really hard pill to swallow for some people.

72. 33:45Claim

    That's why your wealth has increased quicker than normies. Your repertoire of transformations that you can bring about or prevent has increased, because the output of the tool that is Bitcoin is superior to every other competing system. There's no end to this winning, because better participants join when they recognize they too can't outcompete the output of the tool that is Bitcoin. Now a larger share of the energy accessible in the extended order is getting more efficient, which means the numbers for everyone begin jumping higher and higher at a faster and faster pace.

73. 33:45Quote

    This is not slowing down. There is no competition. It just looks like there's competition because many people don't know what a bloodbath looks like. This is it. This is a bloodbath. We are living through it. The legacy system is being annihilated.

74. 34:22Claim

    The problem that I wanted to solve at the beginning was how do I make myself as wealthy as possible, how do I give myself the best chance of dealing with the uncertainties of the future. The theory that we have come up with to that problem is Bitcoin.

75. 34:54Claim

    Over time, conviction grows, trust grows, winning continues. Along the way, knowledge grows, new problems are identified as old ones are solved for.

76. 34:54Open question

    What problems will be next after millions and then billions solved for the problem that has occupied the largest collective compute category since the dawn of man? What takes its place? I don't know. I don't know what that will be for me, let alone everyone else in the extended order.

77. 35:25Claim

    The chances are that it won't be the same for everyone, and that will be good for information and good for knowledge, which cycles back to being good for the individual and good for the collective. The hive mind is growing, it is becoming more powerful, it is strengthening its ability to deal with the future. That is what we are building. Bitcoin helps build a faster, stronger extended order, which can project out further and further into the future as the reserves it has access to grow.

78. 35:59Quote

    So it's not stopping at 100,000. It's not stopping at two or five or a million. It's going up forever. You have the Apex asset. Do not give it up.

79. 35:59Prediction

    It's not stopping at 100,000. It's not stopping at two or five or a million. It's going up forever.