Transcript
A (0:00)
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B (0:37)
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here on today's show. We'll preview the New York Public Library's World Literature and Arts Festival, which kicks off this Wednesday. And George Motts joins us to discuss Hamburger America, his state by state guide to the best places in the United States to get a burger. That's the plan. So let's get this started with Everyone is lying to you for Money. In the 16 years since Bitcoin's release, the world of cryptocurrency has seen extreme highs, a certain degree of idealism and incredible hype, but also extreme lows. With billions of dollars lost and prison sentences for some of the crypto world's most influential people, the documentary Everyone is Lying to you for Money follows my guest Ben McKenzie as he tries to figure out what's behind cryptocurrency and why people are putting money in it. You might recognize Ben as an actor, but the truth is he was an economics major at the University of Virginia. When he first heard about cryptocurrency, he was left scratching his head. He started down the rabbit hole trying to to understand it. This journey took him from rubbing elbows with Sam Bankman Fried before he was sent to prison to a village in El Salvador that's being displaced to build a quote unquote crypto city. To his staring at a computer screen just trying to make sense of it all. He's directed Everyone is Lying to you for Money. The doc is a little bit gonzo, a little bit of punk, and it's actually pretty funny. Not funny for a film about the financial system. Everyone is Lying to you for Money will be in theaters this Friday. You can catch an advanced screening at IFC center tonight with an extended introduction from be. He's also doing a series of sold out Q and A sessions. So let's get into it with Ben McKenzie. Hi, Ben.
C (2:34)
Hi, Alison thanks for having me.
B (2:36)
Let me ask you a question. Going all the way back. What drew you to getting a degree in economics from uva?
C (2:41)
Ooh, good question. I didn't know what I was doing. I was 18 years old. We were just chatting earlier about your son who's going off to college. And I feel like this is a common theme. I didn't know what I wanted to study. My father's a lawyer. I figured I'd get a degree in things that would vaguely prevent. Prepare me for law school. So I studied international relations, which at University of Virginia they call foreign affairs. Very sexy. And economics. And I studied economics because. Not because I'm good at math, because I'm not good at math, which kept me from being an economist, but because I was fascinated by human behavior. If you think about economics really is the popular perception is as dry and mathematical. But in actuality, there's a whole field of economic economics called behavioral economics. How do people behave? Behave both individually and in groups. And surprise, surprise, we're not, quote unquote rational. We do a lot of things that don't really quite make a lot of sense in terms of like, you know, statistically improving our chances of success. And so cryptocurrency fell beautifully into this sort of field that I. That I love. And specifically the sort of true crime of it all as well, was sort of appealing to me.
