Good morning, Stephen. Thank you so much for joining me today. Very excited for this conversation and glad to see you back on X. I want to have you on because we want to touch on Anarchy versus Minerka. And in particular, in Bitcoin, there is a lot of questions around like what is the role of the state and particularly what would the role of the state be in a hyper-bitonized world. A lot of times I'll hear the idea of smaller city states or minarchy that kind of Knight Watch type set up. And even some people referencing Hoppa's work will talk about the benefits of monarchy versus democracy.

And so I'm curious in your view, I mean, you've been evangelizing Bitcoin, I think, since

2011. In a hyper-bitquinized world, how do you envision the role of the state? What is government

like at that point in time?

And can it even exist if it doesn't have control over the currency?

So great question. It's good to start me off this morning with the easy stuff.

So the question of statism is really around two things for me.

Number one is the universalization of the non-aggression principle. The non-aggression principle is you cannot morally initiate the use of force against others. It's kind of something we get and we understand, you know, like when you're in, I worked in a daycare for many years. So whenever there was a fight between the kids, you know, when you say, hey, what's going on? What did the kids say?

He started it.

No, she started it, right?

So whoever started it is in the wrong.

And we kind of get that instinctively, and there were really good moral reasons as to, like, philosophical moral reasons as to why the initiation of the use of force is wrong and why

self-defense is good.

So the initiation of the use of force.

Now, statism as a philosophy states says, probably states should probably wrong way we're putting it. It says that there's a

certain group of people who are so angelic and wonderful that they should be given the almost

universal power to initiate the use of force in a geographical area, and they'll be just fine with

that. And they won't corrupt

them, and they won't be greedy, and power won't go to their heads. So it is the idea that there

are human angels and human devils among us. And the human angels need to be given the awesome power

of the state, and the human devils are restrained by the angels with the power of the state.

Of course, logically, when you break it down, doesn't make a whole lot of sense, right?

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