BREAKDOWN: Bitcoin Doesn't Care About Your Politics – Why Bitcoin Has More Ideological Flexibility Than We Think
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2021
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
NLW is joined by three philosophy professors for a discussion of bitcoin, ethics and politics.
This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io.
Falling down the proverbial bitcoin rabbit hole tends to lead people to ask deep questions about the nature of the economy and society. Today’s Breakdown guests are all professionally trained to ask those sorts of questions as philosophers.
NLW is joined by:
- Andrew Bailey, Yale-NUS College @resistancemoney
- Bradley Rettler, University of Wyoming @rettlerb
- Craig Warmke, Northern Illinois University @craigwarmke
The three form a research collective called Resistance Money and are working on a book about bitcoin’s use helping individuals overcome infringement by states and other institutions.
On this episode they discuss bitcoin’s ideological flexibility and situate it in the context of the larger political landscape.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And if what we're saying about Bitcoin is right that it has enormous ideological flexibility, |
| 0:04.8 | all you have to do is have a commitment to the goodness of empowering individuals against |
| 0:09.2 | institutions, well, then Bitcoin's very well positioned to find new proponents and adopters, |
| 0:15.7 | no matter how political realignment unfolds. I view that as, if I may, bullish for Bitcoin, if we're right |
| 0:23.7 | that it is not just libertarian technology, but individual empowering technology. |
| 0:29.7 | Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the |
| 0:36.9 | big picture power shifts remaking our world. |
| 0:40.7 | The breakdown is sponsored by nexo.io and produced and distributed by CoinDesk. |
| 0:47.2 | What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, January 27th, and today we are talking about philosophy |
| 0:52.8 | and why Bitcoin has more ideological flexibility |
| 0:56.2 | than we give it credit for. A few weeks ago, I saw an article on Coin Desk called Why Bitcoin |
| 1:01.2 | Needs Philosophy. It was by three professors, Craig Wormke of Northern Illinois University, |
| 1:06.2 | Bradley Rettler of the University of Wyoming, and Andrew Bailey of the Yale-Nus College |
| 1:10.3 | in Singapore. |
| 1:11.4 | These guys have a little research collective that they call resistance money and explore |
| 1:16.0 | the philosophical dimensions of Bitcoin and other types of issues. Now, the TLDR on this |
| 1:21.8 | coin desk piece was that a lot of important questions in Bitcoin are about values, ethics, and the |
| 1:26.8 | world we want to see, |
| 1:28.2 | which are questions they argue philosophy gives better tools to engage with. |
| 1:32.5 | I thought it would be fun to have these guys on the show for a longer-form discussion |
| 1:35.9 | about where philosophy fits in Bitcoin, how much ideological flexibility there is in Bitcoin, |
| 1:41.1 | and what it all means for the coming regulatory battles we might have to fight. |
... |
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