Ep 36. Alex Gladstein. Democracy & Bitcoin. Wake Up Podcast

I've got Alex Gladstein from the Human Right Foundation joining me on Ep 36 of Wake Up.

As Bitcoiners, Gladstein & I see eye to eye on many things, but there are differences we have on what the ideal mechanisms of governance are.

In this episode we explore these, and look at the past, the present and what the future may hold.

Some of what we discuss:

Enlightenment Values

• Free Speech
• Freedom of Association
• Property Rights
• Freedom of belief / of & from religion

And how Democracy *may* have emerged from these.

My View of Democracy:

My contention is that progress via Democracy has been conflated with actual progress via Free markets, instead of it more accurately being represented as the parasite which has benefited from the prosperity of free markets and continued to leech resources, capacity and energy alongside.

We’re only now seeing the ramifications of this.

I put forward the idea that Democracy is merely:

Sophisticated Theft.
Democracy emerged in the west as a derivative of the prosperity created by free markets.

It’s just a more sophisticated way of stealing from people.
It’s quite simple actually.

Give them enough space to innovate and produce, and then just take all their shit *after* the fact.

It feels better initially, but it’s a much greater burden on society because it has the capacity to last.

We discuss what the future holds, and I put forward the idea of Meritocratic Feudalism as the end state in a Bitcoin denominated world.

This is a far reaching discussion and one that I hope you will learn alot from.

You can follow Gladstein's work here:

@Gladstein on twitter

https://hrf.org

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Thanks again for listening.

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