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THE Bitcoin Podcast
VIBE SHIFT: America's Identity, New Overton Window, & Bitcoin's Bull Case | Marty Bent
01:27:55
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- [00:00]
Marty Bent
You can't tell me not to believe my lying eyes. Like I see this is happening and mad as hell. I'm not going to put up with it anymore with these people dragged into court and tried for treason and appropriately thrown in prison. I just want rule of law brought back. I would like to read some passages from the bear market of 2015 2016. People literally thought bitcoin was going to die. We're off the all time highs of 123,000 down about 30% but we 5xed in 3 years. This is the most healthy consolidation.
- [00:29]
Carl
Nobody lines up for bitcoin when it's, you know, 90,000. They line up for it when it's at 200,000.
- [00:34]
Marty Bent
You hate it when the price is dumping, but you hate it even more when the price is pumping too. You're like, oh God, I don't have enough bitcoin. I am incredibly, incredibly bullish right now.
- [00:49]
Walker
Greetings and salutations my fellow plebs. My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin Podcast Bitcoin Bitcoin continues to make new blocks every 10 minutes and the value of one bitcoin is still one bitcoin. If you are listening to this right now, remember you're still early. This episode is brought to you by Blockware. What if you could lower your tax bill and stack bitcoin at the same time? Well, with blockware you can. New US tax rules let miners write off 100% of their mining hardware in a single year, so earn bitcoin daily while saving big come tax season. Get started at mining.blockwaresolutions.com Titcoin use the code Titcoin to get $100 off your first miner when using the Blockware marketplace. This is not tax advice so go speak to the team at Blockware to Learn more. That's mining.blockwaresolutions.com Titcoin Head to the Show Notes for links to find the show on centralized social media platforms and on Noster. Or just go directly to bitcoinpodcast.net yout'll find it all there and kind reminder that you can support this show by becoming a paid subscriber on Fountain or don't. Bitcoin doesn't care but I sure do appreciate it. Without further ado, let's get into this bitcoin talk.
- [02:04]
Carl
Agnoster is fantastic. Zapdot stream works great. Some of the the like been playing around with the primal streaming one too for a while now and that's working great. But sometimes it doesn't and so I like to have a backup. You know, I like to have an alternate option. And the cool thing about Zapdot Stream is you can just raid your own stream. So that works pretty well.
- [02:22]
Marty Bent
It's incredible how these have progressed. I'm seeing it now, though. I'm gonna send a message in nostr. Is it nostr or Nostr? I think that's.
- [02:35]
Carl
I mean, I say nostr. I actually don't know how you. What do you say?
- [02:38]
Marty Bent
Well, I went to an all boys Catholic high school where we were forced to learn Latin and the Our Fathers is in my head. Paternoster, Dominique, Eileen. So I say noster.
- [02:49]
Carl
Okay, okay. Okay. I mean, I'm not gonna hold it against you. You know, you're like, it's the same. Do you say hodl or Hodl?
- [02:56]
Marty Bent
I'm a Hodl guy.
- [02:57]
Carl
Okay, so you have a history of mispronouncing things. That's fine. This makes a lot more sense then. Just wanted to. Just wanted to be clear what I was dealing with here. That's usually. That's usually how I like to, you know, like to check that. But no, I mean, again, that's the beauty of open protocols, right? Is you're free to mispronounce them if you want to. Like, it's, you know, it's really anyone's game. All right, let's see. I'm gonna blast this out on old centralized social media as well, just because I like to. I like to think that maybe, and I've have had some evidence of this from people telling me, but that streaming only on Noster Noster does bring at least a couple people over occasionally that would not have checked out Noster otherwise. Well, it's like, you know, I'm. I'm doing my part in some small way.
- [03:40]
Marty Bent
You post, you. I would take the other side of this. We do this at RHR where we live stream on X. I wasn't trying.
- [03:45]
Carl
To dig it rhr, by the way.
- [03:48]
Marty Bent
And Noster, but we. We belittle the people on X and YouTube and then those chats. And we haven't been good with it recently, but we used to ignore the YouTube and X chats and be like, if you want us to respond, hop in the Noster chat. And I think that's a good tactic too.
- [04:02]
Carl
I do actually like that. I like that strategy. I was watching your. The RHR from yesterday, and you guys were specifically, like, calling out the, you know, the Nostra chat to like, hop in there. But I go. I go back and forth on this because I never wanted this show to be like, a live stream show. It's like, it's a different vibe to do live streaming. I wanted to be a podcast, you know, a real bitcoin podcast. And so the live stream is never part of the plan. But then, like, no enabled live streaming with zap stream shout out to Kieran. And I thought, well, why not? Why not, like, mess around with this, add a little bit of a different dimension to it? But yeah, I don't know. Has. Has RHR always been a live stream, too? I know you guys were saying yesterday you're at, like, what, like, 7.3 years of RHR. Like, 375 episodes. Something wild like that. That's insane, by the way.
- [04:50]
Marty Bent
It. It's crazy to think. And I'm tired, boss. No, I'm kidding. I am invigorated by Rabbit Hole recap weekend and week out. And no, it wasn't always a live stream. For the longest time, the first three years. It's crazy to think we've done now to think. I say for the longest time. But literally, for most of RHR's history now, it has been a live stream. But for the first three years, Matt and I would just meet in my apartment. It was audio only, no video. And then Covid hit, and we decided to. We had to do remotes, and so we were on a video call anyway, and we said, why not just record the video, post it? And then ultimately got to the point I was like, all right, let's just go live, too. And so we started doing that during the COVID era. So it started out audio only. Matt and I in our apartment looking disheveled because we didn't care what we looked like, often drinking whiskey, shooting the shit into handheld mics, and then Covid hit, and that's when we went video and then live stream.
- [05:51]
Carl
The rest, as they say, is history. It's. It's a wild streak, though. Like, that's a. That's a. Like, that is commitment right there. That is true proof of work. That's honestly, like, insane.
- [06:00]
Marty Bent
And all. All the credit goes to our wives who have put up with this week in, week out, year in and year out, because I know they both. I think they. They having a good relationship with both of them. They. They know, like, okay, when you're recording RHR this week, and as long as we give them a day's notice, I think they're fine.
- [06:21]
Carl
They're accepting of it. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, shout out to the wives out there that put up with the bitcoin podcasters, really, this is possible without, Without. Without wives that are. That are cool with it. I think that they. There's. There's an enjoyment on their side from being, well, one like, you know, it. They don't have to talk to you about bitcoin quite as much. Right? You get. You get some of it out of your system. Not that they don't like to talk about bitcoin, but perhaps they don't like to talk about it quite as much. I. I don't want to speak for yours or Odell's wife. Maybe they like talking about it more than you guys. I don't know.
- [06:51]
Marty Bent
My wife cannot care less as long as the numbers going up over. Over a longer period of time. She's happy, but she's the wife. We're in different conversations at a party and she'll glance over like, is he talking about bitcoin? And she's a proud. She's proud.
- [07:10]
Carl
Yeah. So Carla does this thing where she'll like. And we go to. We go to less parties now that, you know, we have a little one or. Well, now he's starting to get a little bit older, so we're, you know, going. Going to more again, like, with him in tow because he likes a nice, you know, nice fiesta. But she's the one like, you know, just don't bring up bitcoin first. Just like, please, just, please, just don't be the first one to bring it up. And then like, five minutes in, she's somehow brought it up and I'm like, well, what. What are you doing? Like, this is exactly what you told me not to do. It's like, you know, a couple glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. And she's like, and that's why the Fed is a cabal of central bankers. And I'm like, that's. That's my gal. That's. That's my gal.
- [07:48]
Marty Bent
They're pretty sure they're lizards and skin suits too.
- [07:50]
Carl
It's like, yeah, exactly.
- [07:51]
Marty Bent
That's three glasses.
- [07:52]
Carl
You've seen the movie they Live. It's basically. That's a documentary. It's a documentary. Eventually. Oh, man. Well, sh. Shout out to the. The few people who have already joined us on noer. I. I always. I always appreciate that. Like, it. It's to me the. Because I've done a few live streams as well. I've started doing like a weekly one with. With Roxam that like, it's the kind of new network that machine and Nolan are working on. And then I've done a couple just like very late night, random impromptu, you know, emergency broadcasts, quote, quote.
- [08:25]
Walker
And there's something about the Noer chat.
- [08:26]
Carl
That is just more satisfying perhaps to the fact that you're like, a pun intended, like you're receiving SATs. So like, of course it's more satisfying. Right. But the vibes are just.
- [08:35]
Walker
The vibes have consistently been wonderful on.
- [08:38]
Carl
Noster, I will say, despite all the weird vibes on X. Like, have you noticed that the divergence, the vibes divergence has gotten greater and greater like up until this point, or is that just me noticing that?
- [08:49]
Marty Bent
No, it's. It's very palpable, tangible, noticeable, if you will. And that's. And that's another part of the reason why when we live stream to all these platforms is like we like to focus on the Nostr live chat because it's higher quality and we have our, our ride or dies are in there. So we have. People have been listening to the show for eight years and we've developed at RHR this sort of like little community. So it's like they're not only talking to us, they're talking to each other. And over the years they've known to transition to the Noster live chat. And I think comparing it to like podcasting 2.0, which is wonderful, it's been great. And we see this with streamer culture outside of bitcoin. Like the zaps flow much heavier in the live chat than they do in the, in the post. Post recording released in that medium. Because I think people feel more social pressure to interact and you're more likely to. To call out somebody like JP who just zapped us 21 sats zaps that.
- [09:55]
Carl
Thank you, JP. Thank you for the zap. That is very kind of you. No, it's true. I mean, streamer culture to me is. Is really fascinating because I was. This was not something that was really on. I mean it was on my radar in the sense that like I knew that it existed but didn't know the extent of which people like, like some of these straight like these twitch streamers, it's mind blowing. Like just the, the audiences these people pull consistently, like, just, just kind of just like chilling, you know, And I wonder if so much of that it just goes back to like, maybe there's kind of the darker side where it's like people are just like a lot lonelier now, you know, to a certain extent. Like, I'm not saying that's the case for all of It. But like, for a lot of it, like that, that rise of streamer culture, I feel like it, like, I don't know if it would be where it is today without Covid, you know what I mean? Because people got so isolated during that period and then like this was like a one outlet where you could feel like somebody else was, you know, was in the house with you. Especially if you were like living alone, you weren't married or whatever, didn't have roommates. Like, that's a. It's a. I think it was a hugely therapeutic thing, like. And like very much like a net positive, I think overall, like even, you know, even with all the communist streamers out there, like, still, hopefully they're, you know, a net positive. I don't know.
- [11:05]
Marty Bent
Yeah. Because it really. Post Covid, I think the streaming phenomena pre Covid was predominantly sort of monopolized by gamers.
- [11:15]
Carl
Yeah.
- [11:16]
Marty Bent
Gaming culture specifically and maybe some political commentary as well. But post Covet, it's like everything. But that's like one thing. Like I look at like Aiden Ross and not that I watch a stream or anything like that, but like people of that type and it's just like, oh my gosh, I can't, to your point, believe people sit here and just watch this guy just sit in his room for hours on end. And it's something that blows my mind because it's like the other thing is the lifestyle that, that streamer, that class of streamer lives is just completely hedonistic in my mind. I'm like, yeah, and there's some sort of. There's some sort of aspect of the audience living vicariously through these people, which is an interesting social phenomena as well. At least from my observation. That's the way I read it.
- [12:07]
Carl
No, I, I feel that. I think that generally we're. We're at this period where it has very, I think late stage empire vibes gets overused. You know what I mean? Like, I. Because it's. I don't think that quite, quite captures it, but it's more like you've got all the hallmarks of like a Weimar type situation where, you know, everybody. Everybody's a gambler, everybody's engaging in like, highly hedonistic behavior. There's just, you know, general debauchery because it's like, well, may as well just live for today. And, and all of that comes back to the fact that like, a lot of people just don't have that much hope. And so it's like you're either living yourself or living vicariously in whatever way that actually makes you feel alive or like you're part of this present moment in time without actually having that much thought for the, the future. And I think that's one of the. Somebody I was on, I was doing a, you know, a little pod ception a couple days ago. I was on Cedric Youngelman show Bitcoin Matrix. He was asking me, like, what do you think the biggest difference between like a bitcoin family and the Fiat family is? We had done a. Carl and I and George McHale and Kay the Russian and a couple others had done a panel at, at Bitcoin Vegas about this, this general idea. And I essentially said, I think it comes down to time preference. I think it comes down to how do you think about how you, like you as the, you know, the, the father or you as the, the mother are spending your time, what's most important to you. But you're looking far into the future in terms of how you're spending that time. Like you're, you're. It's not just this instant gratification. It's become much more of a zoomed out, low time preference behavior. And like, I, I don't know what your thoughts on that are. I know you. I just ordered that book you posted about the book about legacy.
- [13:44]
Marty Bent
I, I got it right next to me.
- [13:46]
Carl
Yeah, well, you, you were, you were, you were, you know, glowing about this book. And so I was like, okay, this, this is, this is one I should order. I literally just, just ordered it this morning. Like, how do you, how do you think about that? Like, would you agree with that characterization of. Granted, it's a bit simplistic with Fiat family versus bitcoiner family. But like, just generally, do you think that a lot of it does come down to time preference and like, kind of purposefulness in that regard?
- [14:09]
Marty Bent
Yeah, I think so. I don't think I'm happy you said that at the end there because I don't think there's a clear demarcation between like bitcoin and Fiat family because I see it in, in my, in my immediate network. And most people in my immediate network are not bitcoiners, but I came from a strong Irish Catholic family and we're still strong to this day. And I think it comes back to. It does have to deal with low time preference, but it is really anchored in this idea of family, specifically nuclear family, most importantly then extended family. Beyond that. And time preference is sort of just embedded to the nature of those family dynamics if you care about them. Because nuclear family My wife or three boys, it's like, okay, I want to make sure they're upstanding, they're polite, they are ambitious and aren't afraid to take risk. And then we get together, my extended family, my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my in laws, both brother and sister in law, mother, father in law. And together we're collectively trying to instill these values within our children. Most importantly, like hey, family is important, you got to spend time with them. So I think they're, it's not explicit in the sense of like hey, this is a long term project. But I think it's implied. Like hey, family's important, family's forever and you've got to focus on this. And so I think in our modern times, particularly with the hollowing out of the manufacturing base and the digitization of the world and east of which you can move, like I got up and left Philadelphia when I was 17 and just moved back 16 years later, it makes anchoring in family values much harder, particularly extended family values. And I think that's a product. I mean the hollowing out in the manufacturing base sort of forced people in certain localities to move to big metropolitan cities to get tech or finance jobs so that they can actually try to make money to escape and climb the economic ladder. And so I think that had a corrosive force to family values because you're physically forced to uproot yourself and move away from, from your family. But that's what I think it comes back to is really having a focus on, on family and being intent on wanting to foster a strong family.
- [16:50]
Walker
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- [17:56]
Carl
Of course, none of this is tax advice from me.
- [17:58]
Walker
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- [19:33]
Carl
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- [19:35]
Walker
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- [20:19]
Carl
Now back to the show. No, I think that's true and I think it's such an important point that's often lost about just the geographical realities of like what that hollowing out of the manufacturing base did like and it's it's one of those things where, like, it's really sad because that's a very difficult thing to reverse. I think there's actually a lot more potential to reverse it now thanks to remote work. Granted, not everyone's a remote worker, but I think that that's, you know, again, you know, one of the kind of silver linings of COVID is that it normalized much more remote work culture.
- [20:53]
Marty Bent
Right.
- [20:54]
Carl
And just the. The tooling around remote work got a lot better, obviously. You know, again, I think just a lot of it was making it just a very normal thing that people had. You had to do it. So, of course, it became very normal, not for everyone, but for a lot of people. Granted, if you work, you know, still, if you work with your hands somewhere physical, you need to. You need to be there, right? But I think that it is a beneficial thing that people are now able to kind of work from wherever, but then that makes them. They still have to make the conscious decision to say, okay, I can work from wherever. Do I want to move back to where my family is clustered, like my. My closest family? Or do I want to, you know, move somewhere that's, you know, sunshiny and tropical and work from there? Do I want to do the digital nomad life? Like, I think that also depends, like, what stage in your life you're at. But, like, you know, for. For Carl and I, that was something that was super important. Was like, okay, we can, you know, we're looking at living out in Vegas for a little while. And then we were kind of like, yeah, okay, Vegas is. Vegas is sweet. Not the strip side of things. Like, we like the. The nature around it. I don't like the lack of trees or the lack of water, but, like, that can be. That can be forgiven. You know, anything's possible in Vegas. But then we just decided, like, well, what are we doing? Like, we're, you know, got. Got. Got pregnant out in Vegas. And so then we were like, everything became very clear in a second. It was like, nope, nope, we're. We're going to be as close to family as we can possibly be. Because, like, that's ultimately, like, that's what we want. We want us. We want the grandparents to be around. We want our sisters, you know, to be around. Like, that's. It's important to us. And maybe it's not for everyone, but I think that that's how you kind of get back to, like, that's part of the fabric of America is strong families and being able to build a legacy over Generations. Like that's why we're all here today. And I think that's kind of somehow gotten demonized or, or lost a little bit or made, you know, that's a right wing talking point. You know, having, having fit, stable families and is a, you know, clearly a far right dog whistle, you know, like it's. I don't know, it's crazy that we've gotten to this place, Marty, where just healthy behaviors and habits are, you know, and like taking care of people you care about before you take care of anyone else is viewed as like a far right mentality. It's, it's fucking insane, frankly.
- [22:53]
Marty Bent
It's literally how human civilization and modern civilization was built slowly but surely over time. Now, to your point, I mean we had, we were, we wanted to move back to the Philly area where we're both originally from. After our first child was born. He was born right before, right in the midst of COVID and we planned on moving back. We actually left Brooklyn and lived at the Jersey shore for what we thought was going to be two weeks to flatten the curve turned into 18 months. And we were pretty dead set on moving back to Philly. But at the time, the vaccine mandates and the passports were a pretty big thing. And for both of us, you're like, we're not going to thrust our young child into that environment. So we went to Texas and had our second child down there and then she became pregnant with our third. And obviously things are in a much better spot than they were in 2021. And it was just despite all the incredible things going on in our industry in Austin. But for me, the TFT with my TFTC hat on and then even with the 1031 hat, like Austin, it was a great city to be in and incredible place to raise a family. But for us, that sort of familial drawl that gravity was in ignorable, it couldn't be ignored. And we both agreed independently, like, okay, let's move home. It's time to be with our parents, brothers and sisters and cousins. And it's been incredible so far. It's made our lives much easier. My mother in law, she lives around the corner. She'll come, yeah, watch the baby. My mom, she'll be coming over tonight. Sleeping over, watching the kids while we get to dinner makes it a lot easier.
- [24:39]
Carl
With this one simple trick that's literally just been the norm for forever. Your life gets so much easier. It's like the people that you want to have looking after your kids too, right? There's nothing wrong with babysitters or whatever else. Everybody has different situations. If you can, you'd rather have family members looking after your kids, like at any, at any given time. Like those are the people you want them to spend the most time with. So it's like, it's quite a, quite a life hack. But it turns out it's like, it's just the way we've always done things. It's only recently, like, like there's this kind of like aberration a little bit in the last, you know, 75 years or whatever where that style, you know, 50 years. And you could probably trace a lot of it to fiat, I'm sure. And the, the fact that even just at the most basic level, both parents are working so you're paying for somebody else to raise your child while you go out to be a tax slave and spend all the money that one of the parents is making to pay. Like I have friends who are, you know, live in the city and it's like they both work and that all good, you know, but like they have to pay like basically college tuition for child care. And it's like after taxes, like one of you is just like a, like, like it's, you're just breaking even there. Like what's the point? Yeah, why not just have one stay home like and then you're in a lower tax bracket also your net income is actually the same and you spend more time with your kid. Like to me this is just like a no brainer. But it's just people have been conditioned.
- [26:03]
Marty Bent
I think, well, not only is it a no brainer, but I think it's a no brainer to stay home. But the other side of that coin is if you have the two income family, both parents are out and you see in the videos like the moms who are like holding their baby for the last time before, before the maternity leave ends and they're like crying like, have to go back to work. Don't wanna, I don't want this to end. It's like you don't have, it doesn't have to end. You have to make a hard decision. But then when it does end, they go back to work. Like that has, that has sort of effects on the child parent relation that matriculate throughout time and then sort of exacerbate this whole family formation problem that we're describing right now. And so like I wouldn't be surprised if that practice, which became more popularized post 1971, has led to this fall in family formation because the children of that era are basically saying, like, my childhood wasn't that great. I don't have a great relationship with my parents, or at least not as good as I would hope it to be. And why would I try to continue that, that trend with a family of my own?
- [27:14]
Carl
It's. I'm. The older I get, the more grateful I am to my parents for homeschooling me. Like, I, I become. I was not always as grateful as I should have been at the time, but like that. Such is youth, you know. But the older I get, the more I'm like, wow. And I tell them this every time I think of it. I'm like, thank you guys so much for that. That that meant a lot of. And I think it made a huge difference. I'm like, I'm not a total freak. You know, like, it turns out you can homeschool your kids and they. All of the misinformation that's out there is, is just that it's, it's misinformation about like, what the effects of homeschooling are. Like. It is, trust me, it is very possible to be a well adjusted, you know, functioning member of society and in the good way, not like in the sheep way. Can I ask if it's not too personal, are you guys thinking of homeschooling or are you looking at other options?
- [28:01]
Marty Bent
We're, we are not. I think the idea of it for us is great, but the implementation I think is, is not, is not, it's not conducive for, for us personally. So we decide. We both grew up going to Catholics, so like faith is really important to us. And so I would say that's a.
- [28:24]
Carl
Huge distinction from public school.
- [28:25]
Marty Bent
Yeah.
- [28:26]
Carl
Like, like when I'm contrasting homeschooling with public school, there's a very big difference there, like with between a private, like faith based school, in my opinion.
- [28:36]
Marty Bent
Yeah. No, and that's like. So I went to public school all the way up until high school and then then went to a Catholic all guys school. My wife went to a Catholic all girls school. She went to Catholic school her whole life. That's something we, we trust believe in. And the school's right around the corner. It's Montessori based up until nice first grade. And so I went to Montessori school before grade school. And I thought, I think that has had long lasting impact on the way I approach the world and learning new things. And that's the, in the school again. Moving home to family. Some of the kids, cousins, go to the school family friends that we've known forever. Like one of my wife's, one of.
- [29:20]
Carl
The.
- [29:23]
Marty Bent
One of the guys in her friend group who's really close with some of my cousins, like his daughters go there and so you know, the parents into the community and it's a good education too. At the end of the day.
- [29:34]
Carl
I think, I think that's, that's, that's huge. And I did some like, I actually went to public school during high school after being homeschooled until, until 8th grade and was worried I was going to be really, that I was going to be behind and be stupid. Like, you know, my parents are English majors, like what if they screw this up? But like I ended up graduating number one in high school. It turns out I wasn't stupid. Turns out that the public, you know, public school system, again, totally public, was, was not catering towards the, the highest achievers, it turns out, but did a lot of, we did some, some Montessori like schooling earlier as well and then like, you know, co founded a charter school with you know, a group of other like know eight, ten other families like, because you can just do things like that unless you live in Germany where, you know, not being in public school is illegal since the, since the Hitler era. But hey, you know, I, I didn't, I never get this about like Germany is such a strange beast to me because it's like you get rid of every last vestige of Hitler except for kind of this super fundamental thing which is mandatory public schooling, which is also just like this neo Prussian tradition. It's been carried like, I don't know, Germany's a strange beast.
- [30:43]
Marty Bent
You're trying to get away from the, the, the Third Reich indoctrination, but you're keeping the, the indoctrination, the, the infrastructure that, that seated the, the indoctrination in place. It doesn't make sense.
- [30:58]
Carl
It, it doesn't, it doesn't. Well, you know, I, I could, I could talk about family all day and I think we, we may circle back to this, but I do want to, I do want to dive into a couple other tangents with you if you're game. Because one of the reasons I like you, Marty, is I think you always have a very pragmatic approach to things. Like you are, you know, you're very principled about the way that you look at things and I like that because there's a lot of flim, flammery out there these days and there's a, there's a great episode. You did I forget if it was with Danny or if it was when Peter was still doing what bitcoin did, but it was a white pill episode. And I want to kind of generally talk like today about like black pills and white pills that you see, let's say, or you know, put another way, you know, bearish things that you're bearish on in society, things that you're bullish on in society. And I guess right now I'd be curious, like, what do you think is the. Like, what's the biggest non bitcoin topic or theme that you're kind of tracking? Right. Or maybe it's bitcoin tangential, but like something outside of just like direct, you know, bitcoin, Bitcoin exposure, let's say.
- [32:05]
Marty Bent
No, you're talking. You alluded to it before we hit record. But I think that's what's happening in America right now, politically, socially, economically. I think it's the most important thing going on right now. Because I think, I mean, if you ask me, I think we've been subjected to an attempted color revolution in this country for many decades now. And part of that has been the mass migration, mass immigration, illegal immigration under the Biden administration. So I think this, this whole Overton window shift that we're experiencing in terms of just the whole question, like, what is, what is America? What does it mean to be an American? What do we want this country to look like? What are the criteria by which we sort of determine who is and is not allowed in this country? It's obviously hyper, hyper polarized, hyper vitriolic. But I think it's critically important that we're having the conversation. So the black pill, I guess on this theme is that we've gotten to this point and for the longest time it was completely taboo, even approach. These discussions were considered a racist, xenophobic bigot to sort of highlight like, hey, maybe we shouldn't just be importing all these immigrants without some sort of test of whether or not they're going to naturalize or contribute to society. More importantly, white pill. Is that the Overton window shifted. The conversation is happening again. It's vitriolic and hyper polarized. But I think to solve a problem, the cliche phrase is you need to know it exists in the first place. And so I think the problem has been sort of dragged out into the spotlight. And I think that's a good thing. And it is a hard conversation. It's not comfortable for a lot of people to approach, but I think it's critically important. If we Want to ensure that the United States and the west more broadly can actually continue to be this beacon of sort of liberal in the classical sense, ideals and principles.
- [34:34]
Carl
I think that, I mean, talk about like, overton window shift. Like, I'm assuming you saw that last video that Trump or was posted about Trump, where he's going off about Somalis, right? Like, and this is like, you could just, you could see it in his. It wasn't like the normal. It wasn't Trump, you know, grants the Trump grandstanding. It wasn't Trump behind the podium. It was Trump just being like, just like, I'm sick and fucking tired of this. Like, why, why are we not. Why are we not saying this out loud? Like, why? You know, and, and that's the thing. You know, I. Carla is an immigrant to the US took her 13 years to become a citizen. Her parents, you know, her dad was a communist defector. Her mom came over with, with her after the fall. And so, you know, I am, I am surrounded constantly by, by immigrants to the United States who have been here for many, many decades, who have paid ungodly amounts in taxes, who have built multiple businesses, who, who very much. And I think anybody who is either an immigrant of, of this regard or knows immigrants like this will know that you talk to them and they're like, yeah, I think the current immigration policy is insane. Like, it's insane that it's so easy for. So, like, it was really hard for us to come over and like, even, you know, as a, you know, a communist, a communist defector, like, you know, you were like, polygraphed for days on end to get into the country to make sure you weren't, you know, weren't somehow working for the, the kgb, the securitate. Like, it's just insane. I think this, this was going to be looked back on as this really, like, like America lost its mind a little bit, period, where it was just an open flood, especially across the, the southern border. But not only that, you know, and it's not like everybody always comes back with this. Like, well, immigrants built this country. It's like, correct, you know. Yes, yes. But that doesn't mean that we should have stupid immigration policies. You know, like, that's, that's, that's not like a. And all those immigrants assimilated. I think that that's the piece that people really, like, really need to wrap their heads around is that, like, this isn't about whether you're an immigrant. It's about whether you assimilate and actually internalize American values. And, and love America and are grateful for the opportunities that America has provided you to. We're both lucky enough to have been born here, right? And that is like, that is a, a huge bit of luck. Like we, you know, just happened to, to pop down into existence here in America. I'm so grateful that I, that I did. But, like, if you're born somewhere else and you want to come to America, that's fantastic. I can see why. America is amazing. It's the greatest country in the world, but you should treat it like that. I don't, and I don't think that that should be a controversial thing to say like that. And, but, but it's become one. And I think that's where, like, now the kind of the gloves are off a little bit. And I've just seen more and more sentiment that's like, no, like, why, why are you acting like America is somehow this tyrannical place to live?
- [37:32]
Marty Bent
Like, you.
- [37:33]
Carl
You came here for a reason. You should remember that. I don't know. It's crazy to me that we got this far, though, Marty. Like, I, I don't know. The pendulum feels like it's swinging back.
- [37:43]
Marty Bent
It definitely is. And we got this far because we were brow beaten into again, these topics becoming taboo and unapproachable. And again, you're xenophobic, racist bigot if you express these. But I think the, whatever you want to call it, the woke mind virus, sort of DEI mentality, sort of communist Marxist indoctrination, got to a point where it's like, you can't, you can't tell me not to believe my lying eyes. Like, I see this is happening and mad as hell, I'm not gonna put up with it anymore. And I think the economic sort of pressures that have emerged in recent decades have sort of forced the issue. And again, to your point, like, that's what makes this conversation so hard to have. And it's unfortunate because it's incredibly unfortunate that it even needs to be had because this was completely avoidable if you had sensible. Or if you. I think we did have sensible immigration laws. They just weren't being enforced, particularly under the Biden administration. A lot of people are brow beating and yelling at people, calling this out and saying, hey, I don't like this. I think it needs to change. And saying, oh, you racist bigot. Like you're creating this problem. You're rounding people up in nice vans and sending them off to El Salvador and making you seem like the bad guy. Well, it's like, well, I would prefer not to do this. And the reason we have to do this is because we had some crazy people in charge, particularly Joe Biden, but more specifically Alexander Mayorkas and his ilk that really forced this issue. And you can't be mad at people for trying to fix the problem. And yes, the solutions may be a bit abrasive and aggressive, but. And it's not the fault of the people trying to fix the problem. It's people created in the first place. And again, I think people need to. I know it's very hard, but try to approach this in an unemotional way. And just look at the numbers. I mean, I think the fraud that has been laid bare in the last few weeks, particularly from the Somali community in Minnesota, is undeniable. You look at that and say, this is okay, like, these people deserve to be here. They're a net negative in terms of their overall contribution to the economy and the tax system. Like, they're a literal drain on it at a time when we're $38 trillion in debt. And so like, you have the sort of law and order aspect of it, of, hey, we're in a country, we're paying taxes. And sort of the explicit contract with the agreement that we have with the state when we pay the taxes is like, hey, we're the union of states, you're the federal government, and we're going to pay you these taxes to enforce the rule of law. And that's not happening anymore. And so like, when you get to that point, that's where things get really scary because you can have this sort of cascade and into. Into pure chaos if, if the rule of law isn't being enforced, if you have this anarcho tyranny really take hold to a point where there's no turning back. So you have the rule of law aspect and you have just the economic reality of it is like we literally don't have the capacity to continue subsidizing these people who seem not only unwilling to contribute in, in a productive way, some, a lot of them aren't not only not willing, but unfortunately not able to either. And then you just exacerbate the problem. It's like not only they're not willing and many of them not able, but they're actively just stealing from the system that everybody else is paying into. It's like this cannot persist.
- [41:45]
Carl
It's really like this Minnesota thing is just insane because I think it's, it's so, it's so obviously bad. There's just, there's no way that a reasonable person can spin this. And I mean, I saw Ilhan Omar tried to be like, well, it's. It's really just because these systems were not set up properly. And so that's what. But it's like, well, but people. But people were the ones who en masse, exploited these systems, right? Yeah. And it's a certain group of people that were doing so, like, you can't try to say, like, okay, yeah, the, the programs were, were, you know, not good to begin with. That doesn't. That's not an excuse.
- [42:23]
Marty Bent
No, it's like if the programs weren't set up in the right way to begin with, you would think if you were a conscious, morally driven individual and you notice that instead of exploiting it, you would maybe go like, hey, if you don't fix this, there's a way that people could drain funds from this. And if you don't have accountability, there's a way that they can get away with it for a while. That's what I would like. That's an upstanding American in my mind, as somebody who notices the potential for fraud, waste and abuse and calls it out and says, hey, we should fix this. Their first impulse isn't, hey, let's exploit this to the nth degree. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. I saw man on, or saw a woman on TikTok talking about this similar situation happening in Columbus, Ohio, with another smile. And I'm not trying to pick on Somalis here. It's obviously just the. The topic of the last couple of weeks with what's been unearthed in. In Minnesota specifically. But then I've seen Man on the street interviews where in Minnesota. And these are from years ago of reporters walking up to people on the street, Somali immigrants on the street and asking them, like, if they would prefer to live in the United States or Somalia and if they would prefer the rule of law in America or Sharia law. And I mean, obviously it's an edited video, but there is at least a number, at least five or six people he interviewed that day said, I would rather live in Somalia and I'd rather live under Sharia law. And it's like that Sharia law is not compatible with the. The United States and our role of law, the First Amendment.
- [44:10]
Carl
Most important. Why'd you come here then? Then why didn't you just stay, you know, like. Well, and it's wild.
- [44:18]
Marty Bent
I mean, that goes back to the color revolution and the. The whole great replacement conspiracy theory, which was a conspiracy theory for the longest time. And now many people are becoming aware of the fact that the UN literally wrote a paper on this and distributed it over three decades ago. And it's like a documented sort of strategy by UN officials to sort of replace native populations and sort of just import the third world. And I forget where I was going with it, but it's just, it's not tenable. It can't sustain itself. I mean, it certainly can continue to happen, but if it does, it's not going to end well for anybody.
- [45:03]
Carl
Yeah, I mean, the, another white pill out of this besides the Overton window shifting to people being able to have these uncomfortable conversations and feeling empowered to do so is that at least Tim Waltz is getting called a retard.
- [45:18]
Marty Bent
I saw that, I think yesterday, I think yesterday was a top five meme day on, on the Internet with the Tim, just amazing retard memes.
- [45:26]
Carl
Oh, my God. I mean, really, it's just like you, you love to, you love, you love to see it. Like, it's just him saying that they're driving by my house, they're yelling the R word. And it's like, okay, like, you know, I'm, I'm not for, you know, harassing people at their, at their homes. Like, generally, like, you know, that's something that the leftists typically do. Right. So I'm, I'm not usually a big fan of it, but this is as far as a good little bit of, you know, clean, clean fun. I mean, it's just, it's just pretty funny. And we should still be able to laugh at these things.
- [45:59]
Marty Bent
Like, it's hilarious. And to your point there, like, that whole presser was complete projection. It's, yeah, they're driving by my house calling me the R word. You know what that leads to? It starts with the R word, it leads with harm. It's like, dude, your whole. And I hate this because I hate to get seeped in sort of partisan politics, but it is objectively true, at least. My observation is like, the whole left, really driven by the radical left, has been calling Trump supporters Nazis and fascists for years. And in the last 12 months, that has manifested in physical harm, multiple attempts on Trump's life, obviously. Charlie Kirk was assassinated. We had ICE officers shot down in Dallas a month ago, a couple months ago, whenever that was. And it's like, no, like, and from my perspective, I'm obviously a more conservative leaning individual. Like, people driving by Tim Waltz's house calling him a retard, I think has way less of a chance of leading to Physical harm of somebody like him on the last. What I truly believe, and I personally would like to see as a conservative, is like, I don't want sort of vigilante justice against these people. I want these people dragged into court and tried for treason and appropriately thrown in prison. Like, that's like, I just want rule of law brought back. Like, I'm not. I don't think the right should begin engaging in vigilante justice like Luigi Maggione or what has happened to Charlie Kirk or the ICE officers or potentially President Trump or fortunately not President Trump. But that's where I think there's a distinct difference, is this inability to recognize reality. Not only that, to actively like project sort of what you're doing on to the other, if you will, from this perspective. The left projecting what they actually do on the right.
- [48:01]
Carl
Yeah, it is. I mean, it is just very kind of rich. But the reason that I think that they're able to project like that without any semblance of self reflection is because they truly believe they have the moral superiority. And so anything that they do is justified because it is the, the moral, good, humane, you know, thing to do. It is the progressive thing to do is the, you know, the, the right thing to do. Anything that somebody else is. Any. Even, even actual violence, not, you know, words being violence, but actual violence being. And murder against the other side. Well, that can be, you know, yes, that's bad.
- [48:39]
Walker
Of course we'll say it's bad, but.
- [48:41]
Carl
You know, they kind of had it coming because of how bigoted they were. Like, and like that. The justification loop that you see over and over again, it's like, it's, it's.
- [48:48]
Walker
You know, it's not great, but at.
- [48:50]
Carl
Least, you know, maybe they shouldn't have.
- [48:52]
Walker
Been saying those things.
- [48:52]
Carl
You know, it's. It's like, it's. It's essentially like, it's a form of the argument. Like, you know, a woman is assaulted. It's like, well, what was she wearing? You know? And it's like, well, no, no, it's the. Somebody like the, the person who is guilty here is the person who did the assault, not the person who was assaulted. Like, geez, it's just like the, the mental gymnastics is truly astounding.
- [49:12]
Marty Bent
Yeah, I mean, we saw this bl. I mean, BLM riots were like the worst case. Like, stay home, stay 6ft separated, quarantine for two weeks if you come into contact with anybody not in your immediate circle. And then, oh, wait, just for this month of June, you can riot and set Things on fire. But it's completely okay. It's insane. And it's. It's just. It's this weird. You can tell, too, because there is, like, this layer of deception that is really insidious and nefarious. Like, bring it back to Minnesota. Like, you look at the mayor. He's like, these are Americans. And like, literally in the same press conference, two sentences later, he starts speaking in Somali.
- [49:51]
Carl
And it's like, I saw that one.
- [49:52]
Marty Bent
That was insane. This is like, you can't. Like, you're obviously lying to our. Like, it's like this whole. Again, going back to the color revolution. I think that's part of the tactic. It's just like, gaslight, gaslight, gaslight. And you're gaslighting in the front, in the back. You're, like, waving everybody in. Like, get in here. We're gonna this place up. And. And again, you see it with, like, Ilyan Omar. Like, she has gone to campaign rallies for her U.S. representative seat and says that she's a representative of Somalia. Like, if you want to do that, like, okay, go do that in Somalia. It should not be controversial or bigoted to say, hey, that's cool and all, but this is America. You are a U.S. representative. You are supposed to represent the will and desires of the American people and your constituents, not some foreign nation that doesn't even have a government.
- [50:53]
Carl
Amen to that. I mean, it's, again, as bad as all of some of this is, though. Like, again, I am optimistic on this because the conversation is more open now and more honest, and people feel empowered to speak up. And then I look at places, like, I look at Canada, I look at the uk I look at different places in Europe where, like, you're very much not like you. You will get thrown in jail for speaking up or even for, heaven forbid, posting a racist meme or retweeting a racist meme. Like, this. This stuff is insane. Did you see the stuff that just came out today about the European Commission trying to pressure X into engaging in censorship and all? I mean, like, this, like, you know, God bless America. Because at least we. As we may have problems, but at least we can still speak about them freely without worrying about getting tossed in jail for wrong think. Like, I'm. I'm genuinely, like, I'm. I'm trying to. You know, we need, like, a bingo card of, like, which nation, you know, which. Either is it Canada, the UK or like, one of the European nations that is just going to completely, completely fall first because of this. Like, it's it's insane.
- [51:59]
Walker
Like, it's just destructive.
- [52:00]
Carl
It's a destructive ideology to think that you can't allow your people to speak freely about things that are genuinely harming them that they're dissatisfied with. It's the rise of the, the AfD party in Germany is a great example of this. All the, you know, the leftist pundits are like, we just what, I don't know what's making everybody go for this AfD party. It's like, really, like you've got no idea. You can't think of like one reason why. I, I don't know. Again, it's just like complete dislocation from reality, it seems.
- [52:29]
Marty Bent
Yeah. Well, to your point about us being fortunate to be able to do this here in the United States, I would take it a step further and say that it's critically important that we exercise this fortune and really speak out. Because again, I think this is America has many flaws, many of which we're discussing right now. But I think this is literally the last bastion of free speech, freedom, free markets and sort of advancing Western society in the world right now. And it is of critical importance that people like yourself, myself, others out there who recognize this and maybe have self censored in the past because they're worried about the sort of social and political blowback that may come with it to speak up. Because there's also a short window here where if we don't get loud enough and take enough ground that we could go the way of the uk, Germany, Canada. It's, that's also a very, the probability of that timeline is way higher than zero. If, if people don't speak out and action isn't taken. And that's why I think, and it's with the Trump administration too. I think hopefully they're beginning to realize it. But there's been, if you look at the polls, I had Mark Mitchell on TFTC from Rasmussen Polling, who's been sort of tip of the spear of sort of trying to get the attention of the Trump administration. Like, hey, Gen Z, millennials are not happy. You're not going hard enough. Like, you really need to do something to solve these immigration issues, specifically H1B issues, particularly because you're not following through on the promises and it doesn't look like midterms are going to turn out well for you. And if that's the case, midterms will turn out well, 2028 doesn't turn out well and these Democratic socialists take over. You're going to have, we could go the way of the UK and Canada and Germany quite easily by the end of this decade. And again, I hate to get into the partisan politics of. Doesn't mean we shouldn't be vigilant of what the right is trying to do too. Like you want to avoid the strongman fascist. So there is sort of a balancing act as you're trying to do all this. So my, my great hope would be this, like okay, you take action, you kick out all the illegal immigrants, obviously top of the list, then it's going to be an even tougher conversation. But those who refuse to naturalize and would prefer Sharia law, the United States compared to the rule of law that this country was built on. And then you have the even harder conversation of hey, we're 38 point whatever trillion dollars in debt, we need net producers coming into this country. If you're an immigrant, like we need you to actually provide value and economic output. Like you can't just be a freeloader on our welfare system. If that is my great hope, that would be my ideal scenario. Then once that's all figured out it's like okay, tighten the border. Really focus on sort of this re industrialization and build out of the United States for this continued transition into the digital age.
- [55:49]
Carl
Well, it's something that's interesting. I was listening to, love listening to Dave Smith's part of the Problem with Dave and Robbie the Fire Bernstein. For anyone who doesn't check out that podcast, it's a great non bitcoin podcast. But like Dave is a, I would say Dave is a bitcoiner. I mean he's been in a lot of bitcoin conferences. He's super based guy and again just operates from a very principled perspective. I on you know, pretty much everything. So I enjoy that a lot. And he was talking about, you know, just this. He was talking about the, you know, the great replacement quote conspiracy which is, you know now people are realizing is is not such a conspiracy. It's like you can, you can say that. I'm pretty sure probably this will get a flag on YouTube because they'll see that the words great replacement were used in it. They'll put a flag at the bottom with a Wikipedia source showing great replacement conspiracy theory anytime I have Great Reset is set in a show. I don't know if you've noticed this too. If you say great reset they'll, they'll probably put a flag up here now. It'll put a flag on YouTube that says the great reset is just, you know, it's just a, you know, conspiracy theory. No, no, it's like, well, they've got that.
- [56:49]
Walker
It's not.
- [56:50]
Carl
But okay, fine. But he was talking about immigration in the US and how traditionally it's like we would have large waves of immigration and then a long period of very little immigration, which was a period of assimilation for the populations that had just come into in large numbers. And like, that assimilation was obviously like if, you know, American history was not always pleasant. Basically, you know, whether you were the, the Irish or the Italians or, or any, you know, group, it was not easy for you at first. You were not always treated great at first, but you contributed to society, you worked very hard and you, you know, grew through generations here to become like a, you know, founding part of this country and, and this idea that now it's like, no, we just need to have open borders all the time and everybody has somehow a right to come to America, which is just like, like, no, you don't. Like, nobody has a right to come to America. Just like, I don't have a right to go to China. Like, good luck, you know, you know, like overstay your visa in China and just like, just see, see what happens. And while you're there, while you're there at the, at the, you know, the whim of the Chinese government, feel free to tell them how much you hate China and how China should adopt American systems and just like, just see how that goes, you know, in the, the paradise of China. Just, just see how it goes. Like it's not going to go the way you think it will. But I think unfortunately we've adopted this very overly permissive attitude about how people should, should view coming to America. And like, it's always been the place that people really had to strive to get to and that attracted the best of the best and the biggest risk takers and the people who were a little bit crazy and who didn't like the nanny state that they grew up in, you know, and wanted to live somewhere freer. And now we've gotten away from that a little bit. So I hope that we get back to that more because we should be attracting the best and the brightest from around the world. We should be attracting the highest quality of people who want to come here. That will actually make our country a better place for being in it, not a worse place. Like, and I don't think that that's a, that's a, that is a race agnostic statement for anyone who is, who is confused by that. That has nothing to do with race whatsoever. It has to do with the merit of people. And I think that that's what we need to get back to ultimately.
- [59:05]
Marty Bent
And again, like, like I said earlier, like, it would be great if we were in that position now. And it sucks that we sort of have to have this hard line or I would like us to have this hard lined. Like, we got to freeze everything, get the bad people out of here. Let's take some time off and get back on our feet here. Like, it would be ideal to have the scenario which you just described where we are bringing in the best and the brightest from around the world. But unfortunately, the actions of the people in charge over the last few decades have put us in a terrible shot where it's like, all right, we need to reset, sort of catch our breath, get our feet under us, and then, okay, maybe at some point, maybe a decade from now, we can begin to like, okay, we're good. Let's start bringing the smartest and brightest in in a regimented fashion. Like, I don't think there's any other way. I think it sucks. I think we have to rip the band aid off and just do, do the uncomfortable, uncomfortable things. And to your point, too, I was illuminated this week. I think that's a great point you brought up. I was completely unaware. If you overstay your visa in Singapore, China, Russia, any of these other countries, you get, you get caned first, then you go to jail, and then in some of them, you do forced labor, and then only after that do you get sent back to where you came from. Like, comparatively, the solution that people are talking about here in the United States is more humane, if you will.
- [60:40]
Carl
And, well, right now it's like, we'll buy you a plane ticket home and we'll give you a thousand dollar stipend and you have the option to come back here later legally. Yeah, that's as, like, that's as nice as you could. This is under, you know, Trump's fascist, you know, border police. Right. And we're literally being like, yeah, we'll buy you a plane ticket home, we'll give you a thousand US Dollars and we will allow you to come back later, like in through illegal means and apply for that. Like that says, boy, that is, is still quite generous of us, you know, like, that's, that's more than most countries would, would possibly give you.
- [61:12]
Marty Bent
Yeah. And it's like we're getting deep down this rabbit hole. But again, go anchoring back to the first part of discussions, like, why, why feel? I mean, I, I, I Tweeted out last night, this is what I voted for. A video of one of the. The drug cartel boats getting bombed. And I knew it was going to be spicy and there's gonna be a lot of vitriol, but it's like, I thought it was like the perfect microcosm of like, this whole problem. It's like, oh, we didn't declare war. And like, we can't just be bombing people indiscriminately. Which agree, like, I'm not a war monger, but like, this is nuance. Like, there has been. We didn't declare war, but I, I think there's been a silent war declared on us with the smuggling in of fentanyl into our country that has killed hundreds of thousands of people over the last five years. And again, this is one of those things where the prior administrations allowed this to happen to build up, and you have to take radical action to solve it. And I think a show of force to deter these narco terrorists from bringing these weapons of mass destruction just in another form into the country is like, again, it's not ideal. I wish it didn't get to this point. But radical problems call for radical solutions. And I think that's like a perfect microcosm of this problem that we've been put into. And I will stand by it. It is what I voted for. Something radical needs to happen. And again, it's unfortunate that has to be bombing of these traffickers. But the message needs to be sent to try to deter this. And why do we do this? Like, for that specific action there is stopping the narco sort of movement of fentanyl into the United States. It's like, I have people in my life that have died from fentanyl. I have young children who are like, I'm. I'm 10 miles away from the, the Frankfurt L, which is infamous if you. It's like the skid row of Philadelphia. And we've become very popular as a city for people being tranked out and on fentanyl under, under the Frankfurt L here in Philadelphia. Like, that is. I grew up. I grew up my. The house I grew up in for the first 10 years of my life. I could ride my bike to the Frankfurt L in five minutes. And it wasn't the best area back then, but it's gotten progressively worse over the course of the. My life. And like, why do I have this view? It's like, I now have three young children. I'm looking at them like, what the hell? What kind of world are you going to grow up in? What are you going to be surrounded by? What are the opportunities that are going to exist for you? When you get of an age where you have to leave the house and go do something, what's the world going to be like? And I don't want the United States to be in the state that it is now, where you're just letting in whoever. You're allowing narco terrorists to flood poison into the country. And again, it seems radical. It is radical, but it's only radical because you're. You're trying to. You're trying to push back against just as radical force that's moving in the other direction.
- [64:33]
Carl
All right? It's like, I mean, radical solutions aren't needed unless the problem gets so bad for so long. You get to a point where there clearly, there is no, like, a gradual solution to this. Right? This isn't something that, like, you can just be like, okay, we'll just. We'll just change some policies here. You know, like, I mean, like, at a. With regard to, like, the narco bombings, right? Like, this is. I know that people have a lot of problems with this, but it's. And like, I think neither you nor I are certainly not the people to warmonger. And I don't think that's like that, like, putting that aside, it's like, man, what. What would you do to stop it? Like, what. What is your proposal for how to stop this? Because it is like, it is a weapon of mass destruction. It's actually like, it's such an insidious one, too, because it kills people slowly and it destroys entire families. And it, like, it moves like a virus, right? This is essentially like it's. It's a. A form of a bioweapon, right? An addictive bioweapon that kills people slowly after it's infected entire communities. Like, that is. There are a few things as destructive as that, you know, especially over the long run, over generations, that problem compounds. And I just don't see any. Any reasonable proposals for how that should actually be fixed.
- [65:53]
Marty Bent
Yeah, go read up on the opium wars in China from over a century ago. How long that set that country back, particularly. It was. I mean, it wasn't the only factor, but it was a considerable factor in setting China back.
- [66:08]
Carl
You look at, like, Singapore, people always hold this up as, like, this, you know, this amazing example. Like, wow, look at how fast they were able to progress. You know why? Because they would hang anyone who was importing drugs like you, if you brought in more than, I think, 10 grams of heroin, they would hang you, like, public, like, they would. You. You would be executed.
- [66:24]
Marty Bent
Yeah.
- [66:24]
Carl
For that. Like anything more than 10 grams, which, like, is, you know, I don't know how many people. 10 grams gets high, but, like, I, I think that's a pretty, like, low bar, you know, it wasn't like you had to bring kilos and kilos in. It was like, no, no. You have anything more than 10 grams, you're getting hung. And otherwise the punishment was still extremely, extremely, you know, vicious even for less than that. But, like, that's how you're able to develop an incredibly clean, incredibly prosperous society in a short amount of time. It's by making sure that your citizens aren't being poisoned and just letting it, Letting it happen to them because. Oh, well, you wouldn't want to offend anyone, you know. Yeah, we'd hate, we'd hate to offend anyone here.
- [66:59]
Marty Bent
I had some people in my mentions, like, they need to be tried in the court of law. It's like, brother, they're. They're bringing the drugs in right now. Like, I don't know. It's been happening again. Radical, radical reaction to a radical problem. But I don't know. I think the libertarian that exists out there is like, oh, this is, number one, like, drugs, like, people should be able to do drugs that they want. Yeah, yeah. And then number two, like, you can't just be indiscriminately bombing people. It's like, hey, if you see somebody bringing a poison, like, literally en route to bring fentanyl, that is killing the younger generations at a very high rates, comparatively, relatively. You're just going to watch, wait for them to get to the border, maybe they get the drugs in and you find them somewhere on their escape back to Venezuela or Colombia, wherever they're coming from, and then you take them to trial. Like, what is that actually going to solve? Like, it's not going to stop the drugs from getting to market. Right.
- [68:00]
Carl
At that point, they're already here. Right. I'm glad we went down this rabbit hole quite deeply. I do want to. I do want to get into a couple of other things too, because otherwise I'm going to keep going deeper and deeper and deeper and. And this will never be allowed on YouTube. YouTube. Anyway, that probably doesn't. You know, I've got. I've say YouTube a lot and I think that's like, maybe I'm. Maybe it's why I'm getting deboosted. Who can say? There's only one way to find out, though. But I'm not going to stop saying it. So you know, one of the other things I wanted to talk to you about was like where we're kind of at like bring it back to bitcoin a little bit. The vibes are weird in bitcoin right now. We've had this sideways choppy year. Everybody seems super bearish right now like that we're going to enter this kind of protracted bare market and you know, this is just, you know this is just the way it is now and whatever. I don't know about you Marty, but I am just like I'm, I'm very bullish right now. Yeah, I've, I've like, I think the, some of the, especially on the medium of exchange side, some of the things that have been happening this year to.
- [69:08]
Walker
Me have been just like mind blowingly cool.
- [69:11]
Carl
Like what Square has done, enabling this bitcoin for you know, 4 million plus merchants also at Square but like cash app, the fact that they're using lightning rails for USD payments to bitcoin, like so many incredible things happening. Not to mention all the stuff that happening on the like the Cashew side of things with Ecash. Not to mention all the cool stuff happening on Noer with you know, white noise. Not to mention bitch. Like all of these other tangential things. Like I'm just really bullish on, on bitcoin and also largely freedom tech right now. Are you in the same boat or are you, are you suffering from, from some, some bear like syndrome?
- [69:47]
Marty Bent
No, I mean we're anybody's worried out there. I wish I had it on, but I don't. But I would like to read some passages from the bear Market of 2015, 2016. People literally thought bitcoin was going to die back then. And if you compare it to today, I think perspective is incredibly important. Like 2015, 2016, people thought Bitcoin was going to die. Nobody was using it. Twitter was dead. Nobody was talking about it. Fast forward Today, completely different dynamic 1point trillion dollar market cap, whatever it is, what is it? $1.78 trillion market cap just below $90,000 right now. Obviously it's not 126,000 but we were at 16,000. Let's just go back to three years ago exactly today, the fifth. We were at like $17,000 three years ago.
- [70:46]
Carl
It's wild.
- [70:47]
Marty Bent
So we are, we are up about 5x in three years. Yes, we're, we're off the all time highs of 123,000 down about 30%. But if you look, if we 5x in three years and just pattern recognition haven't been in Bitcoin for 12 years now. Like this is the most healthy consolidation. Yes, it may not look great on the chart, but if you put it on log, it's imperceptible. And to your point, the infrastructure in all areas has just been maturing massively this year. Obviously Block with everything they've done from Proto to Cash app, really leaning back in. Obviously square point of sale terminals opening up bitcoin to all their square sellers and potentially their end users or their clients at the end of their customers. That's been massive. Like Ark launched, Spark is taking off. Cashew mints. Cash mints, Fettimans, cashew mints are exploding. The innovation around them is picking up steam. And then if you are just using sort of social indicators, like there hasn't been a retail fervor like there was in 2017, 2021, 2013. Like we're nowhere near those levels. So like I'm extremely bullish right now. I think we're just in this sort of cool off period after expanding the network by 5x in a very short amount of time. And the fact that we're trading right below $90,000 is extremely impressive to me as somebody who's been around for 12 years. Like if this sort of boring market were to manifest 10 years ago, the price would have crashed. It did crash 80%. So the fact that we're only down 30 is pretty massive. And then you just think of the fact that there is too much brand awareness of Bitcoin at this point from individuals, companies, institutions. I mean you just have Vanguard open up the floodgates for their customers to ETFs. And then you have bank of America's investment arm sort of recommending a 1 to 4% allocation, like and then the cherry on top, which is actually probably the cherry in the core, that the government's have not solved their deficit problem. So they're gonna have to print. I mean, I think the poly market odds last time I checked were like 91% for a Fed rate cut next week or the week after. And yeah, just take it easy out there. It's not, it's not the end of the world. There's a lot of people who expect Bitcoin too have expected Bitcoin to be at like 300,000, 400,000, whatever at this point. And they're disappointed. And I think instead of lamenting at the state of the market or Bitcoin itself, maybe exhibit some introspection and say hey, maybe my expectations were a bit out of whack. And hey, you're talking to somebody who I would have not. I would not have been surprised if we were at 250, 300,000 at this point. If you were talking to me last year, hand up, I was like, super cycle might be in play. Who knows? It might still be in play. Maybe it's all just one big super cycle. But just because it hasn't met your expectations doesn't mean that good things aren't happening. And very good things are happening, both on the brand awareness side and the infrastructure side. Again, the second layer advancements over the last two years, I think are woefully underappreciated, not only by the broader markets completely unaware of them, but even by bitcoiners. They don't really appreciate what's happening behind the scenes. I think lightning emerging as this interconnective tissue between these other interoperable protocols built on top of bitcoin is going to be massive.
- [75:10]
Carl
Yeah, it's, it's, it's huge. And I mean, you listed off a bunch of just kind of incredible, like, structural things there that I think have. I've almost like the fact that any one of these things, and I have not been in bitcoin as long as you, obviously. But, like, even thinking back to like 20, 20, 2021 depths, the bear market, 2022, even, like not so long ago, any one of these developments would have been like, just so massive there, like seen as this massive catalyst. And now it's just kind of like, okay, yeah, like 4, 4 million merchants. Like, okay, whatever, yeah. Oh, like Vanguard, $11 trillion in Estes under management just opened up, you know, just bent the knee, basically. Okay. Like the stodgy old bank of America 1 to 4% allocation recommendation. Okay, whatever. It's like these are all massive things. Like, and this is, this is the thing right now. You mentioned the retail piece, which is fascinating to me because I think you're absolutely right. That's like we have not seen this retail wave, right? Just interest in bitcoin from the quote, retail perspective is not there right now. And it's like, man, the bummer is. And this is why bitcoin education, and this is why we need more bitcoin podcasts out there, of course, is because, like, this is the time when our fellow plebs should be doing whatever they can to stack, like, in these doldrums, in these kind of, you know, crabs, you know, sideways chop solidation periods. This is when you should Be stacking. But sadly, it's like the memes are very true. You know, it's like nobody lines up for bitcoin when it's, you know, 90,000. They line up for it when it's at 200,000 or, you know, 5. Like, but it's just like, man, humans, we. We are victims of our own nature. Very often it seems.
- [76:47]
Marty Bent
Yeah. And there's like another social aspect. This may sound spicy to some, but there's too many. I don't want to say too many people, but I would caution anybody out there who makes bitcoin their whole personality, like, you got to touch grass. You gotta, like, we talked about, like, focus on family and stuff like that. Like, if you're. I mean, and maybe I'm being a bit hypocritical. Obviously, my whole business, my whole professional career revolves around Bitcoin. YouTube, Walker. But, like, even so, like, I try to make it a point. Like, hey there, bitcoin is one of the biggest things going on in humanity right now. But there are other important things. And I'm not going to live and die by the intraday candle of the bitcoin chart and let that. Let that sort of dictate how I operate, even though I am human. It does affect sometimes, like, obviously. It's funny too. It's this paradox because you hate it when the price is dumping, but you hate it even more when the price is pumping too, because you're like, oh, God, I don't have enough bitcoin. So that's. I think that's the mentality anybody out there is pissed off is just remember how try to put yourself in future use shoes as the price is ripping. 50,000 candles. $50,000 weekly candles. And you're like, oh, shit, I don't have enough bitcoin. Like, to your point, like, treat this as a blessing that you're able to. To accumulate. But I am incredibly, incredibly bullish right now. Does that mean the price is going to go up next week or a month from now? I have no idea. But I know that the fundamentals are incredible. Like, we're streaming. I'm watching the Noster live chat come up. I can see you. I can see you messaging the. The audience as we're talking here. But, like, this is what I think is going to be the twitch competitor. Like, we have. You have 28,996 sats that have been zapped to your wallet directly. And like, once streaming culture, going back to streaming culture, once they realize, like, oh, I don't have to wait for Twitch and Stripe to, to pay me out twice a month or whatever it may be. Like, I literally have this money now. I can go spend it, do whatever. That is a profound step, function improvement on that particular use case. And most of the world just doesn't realize it yet. Like, it's there, it works. It's objectively. Like, objectively it is better. And that this is just this one use case. You can apply it to, to anything. I have a lot of contractors at tftc. They're younger, they like to get paid quickly. And many of them get paid in bitcoin and they love that they can send me an invoice and I try to be timely with it and pay it immediately. Instead of waiting for a wire to go through, waiting for payroll to go through, they are able to get paid immediately. That is objectively better than the fiat system. And that's, I think probably the overarching lesson here is just whenever you get down and you're a little pissed off that the price isn't where it is, just remind yourself like, this thing is literally, literally, quite literally objectively better in every aspect than everything else. And it is fortunate that you have recognized that before. Most of the world.
- [80:23]
Carl
It'S literally magic Internet money. Like, it really, like every time you use, you're just like this, like, this is incredible. And then every time you need to use the fiat system, it's like, this is, like, this is just really clunky, isn't it? Like, it's amazing. But like, you know, goes back to the old cliche, the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet. And I think about that a lot because it's like you even see amongst bitcoiners, you look at the different development that happens in different parts of the world. You look at the way that bitcoin is adopted in Africa or in Latin America, America versus the way that it's typically adopted most, you know, most in the most like, average way in the U.S. like those, they're different. They're different forms of adoption, right? And, and they're progressing on different time scales. And I think that's. That's beautiful. But Marty, I want to be conscious of your time here because I know we're running up on the end of, of the scheduled time. Maybe. Last thing I would just ask you is any. Actually maybe I won't even make it an ask. We'll just say that I think it's something we should bring up, which is the samurai devs and just that people I, I know you guys made a call for this. I've made a couple calls for this as well. But people should go and sign that petition. I think it's, it's bill and keon.org right? Let me make sure.
- [81:29]
Marty Bent
Keon and bill.org I think y.
- [81:32]
Carl
Okay, yeah, I think, yeah, there we go. But, yeah, this is like, this is wild to me. I mean, I, I really hope that somebody, or. Let me see, let me see if I can pull it up.
- [81:52]
Marty Bent
Yep, yeah, Bill and Keon.org you're right.
- [81:54]
Carl
Yeah, I'll drop it, I'll drop it in the chat for folks on Noer. And I would just ask, like, go, go ahead and go sign this petition. Like, and you know, tag if anybody happens to know any members of the Trump administration. Like, man, try to get somebody's ear or at least tag him a bunch on social media because, like, it, this is set such a destructive precedent for me. Like, and just, it's like, how can we be the, the quote, bitcoin and quote, crypto capital of the world if we're prosecuting developers in this way? Like with these archaic money transmitter laws. Like, it's just insane to me.
- [82:31]
Marty Bent
It really is. It would be a terrible precedent. I think this is very important that you brought it up too, because it highlights like, hey, a lot of what we talked about earlier is very right wing coded, if you will, but here's an example of an opportunity to call balls and strikes. It's like, hey, Trump, you sent out the Blanche memo and then your Department of Justice is ganging up on all these open source software developers, two of which are about to report to prison for five years and live in a cage away from their families. This is not okay. Like, this is the type of fascism. I don't want to see any fascism. This is like fascist, sort of. This is fascist action that should not be taken. And this is not good. It's not okay. It's like holding authority, particularly right wings conservatives who have power right now to account. It's like, this is like holding them accountable for this is extremely important. Like, hey, I may agree with what you guys are doing from a immigration perspective and trying to, to make sure we're saving the country and making sure that we're not wasting any money and letting in people are going to be in that negative on, on the economy. However, like, this thing that you're doing, like, you're not following up on that and it's, to your point, a terrible precedent that will make it so that the United States is not the bitcoin capital of the world. If you can't have software developers writing code that, that makes it easier to use Bitcoin in a non custodial fashion.
- [84:17]
Carl
Amen to that. And again, I would encourage people like go take a couple minutes and you know, share this out on either centralized or decentralized social media. Like this is one of the beautiful things about having these incredible tools for communication our fingertips. Like you can get a small message out there to a lot of people and it can become a very big message, but it requires people to actually take action. Like yeah, you, you, you can make a difference though. And this is certainly like, think any of us want to see two guys who are building, who built awesome privacy tools on bitcoin going to jail. And there's a bunch of other cases now that people should pay attention to too, whether it's tornado cash or Bitcoin fog or Ian Freeman, like all of these, like Bill and Keon is just the one that has some very immediate like time timeline restrictions. And yeah, it's, you can do to spread the message.
- [85:09]
Marty Bent
I'm looking at it now. The position only has 30487 signatures. It's not enough. I thought there would be more. I got to pump that number. That number needs to go up.
- [85:19]
Carl
That's wild to me. If you give a shit about Bitcoin and the future in which you can use Bitcoin in a privacy preserving way, this is something you should deeply care about and you should definitely care about these guys not being thrown in a cage, taken away from their families for five years, forced to pay massive fines. Like when this can be fixed with a simple presidential pardon. And like Trump's pardoning plenty of people already. Like, you'd think this should be top of his list if he really wants to put his money where his mouth is. Yeah, yeah, it's Marty. I. Oh, go ahead, go ahead.
- [85:55]
Marty Bent
I was gonna say it's, it's incredibly important. Like it is, it is a great shame that it's gotten to this point, but I was going to say like, and if you look at some of the people that Trump has pardoned in recent weeks, it's like this should be, this should be an easy layup considering some of the objective scammers that he's parted.
- [86:15]
Carl
Yeah, yeah, exactly, should be. One would hope this would be a no brainer. Maybe it just hasn't gotten to his desk yet, but I hope somebody puts it in front of him and until then continue making noise out there. Where do you want to send people.
- [86:28]
Marty Bent
Just find me on x and primal primal.net MartyBent x Marty Bent and you'll find all my stuff there. Beautiful.
- [86:39]
Carl
Well, dude, glad we got a chance to do this. Appreciate you sharing your time and yeah, looking forward to doing it again, perhaps in person at some point. That would be fun. Get over a couple of beers. That would be ideal.
- [86:50]
Marty Bent
That would be great. Thank you, Walker.
- [86:52]
Carl
All right, Cheers, dude.
- [86:54]
Marty Bent
See it.
- [86:55]
Walker
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin Talk episode of the Bitcoin Podcast. Remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're watching or listening and share it with your friends, family and strangers on the Internet. Find me on noster@primal.net Walker and this podcast@primal.net Titcoin on X, YouTube and Rumble. Just search at Walker America and find this podcast on X and Instagram. Itcoin Podcast Head to the Show Notes to grab sponsor links. Head to substack.com walkeramerica to get episodes emailed to you. And head to bitcoinpodcast.net for everything else. Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant. So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to the Bitcoin podcast. Until next time, stay free.