I took you on a tour of several approaches to the concept of self, well into the, well into the thirties or the forties, we had this image similar to the atomic theory. We have this image of there was an indivisible self. Every individual has had an indivisible self. And so that's why we call it indivisible. And then gradually with Melanie Klein and others, we begin to understand that the self can fracture and break and can contain a variety of objects. It's like the development in physics transition from the atomic model to elementary particles. And then we realize that even these particles can be broken further. Some atomic particles can be broken even further to quarks like in physics. And so we had a multiplicity of egos, for example, in object relations theories, ego states in ego state theory, some personalities in psychodynamic theories, self states in dissociation and trauma related theories, never mind the name you give them. The self is not unitary. It's a dynamic process. It's a dynamic process that is critically influenced by input from the environment, from other people, external objects, and increasingly input provided by internal objects. The relationships between these internal objects are very critical. If these internal objects are perceived as painful, hurtful, life threatening, if they are perceived as persecutory, if they are perceived as good, well-intentioned and positive, it makes all the difference in the world. Is there a coordinating, organizing principle at work? Is there a guidance? Is there a use in internalized user manual, which we call the self? We don't know. I personally don't think so actually. I think we don't have a self. I reject Freud's model. I don't think we have this core central identity that is unchangeable, that is permanent, that is with us forever. I do think that healthy people have much more of a core than a narcissist. I do think that they have, let's say, 40% cores, 80% core. In other words, I do think they have their act together. They have an organizing and explanatory principle in action, and it is applied equally to all ego states, all self states, whatever you want to call it. But I think everyone uses self states. Everyone transitions. The question is the degree and access to resources. In healthy individuals, the self states share. They access the same resources. They compare nodes. They have a unique pool, the same pool of memory. Consequently, they contribute to the formation of identity over time.  They fight. They're polarized. They refuse to share resources. They hoard resources. They have exclusive resources. They take over. They become executive. So they regard all the other self states as objects. They suppress them.  There's no organizing principle. There's no consensus. There's no agreement. In most people with dissociative identity disorders, something called the host personality. It's the closest approximation to an ego or a self. But even the host personality is not in full control. In the narcissist and the borderline, we have the false self. It's the closest thing to an ego or a self, but it's not it. In a codependent and a borderline, we have an internalized, internalized intimate partner who then become a self surrogate or an ego surrogate. It's not it. It's not enough. In the absence of a self, in the absence of an ego, you are an absence. And as an absence to act upon a world and in a world of presences and real life external objects is very close to impossible. Ultimately, all these personality disorder people withdraw into a schizoid phase. I mean, if they're not treated, if there's no treatment involved, if we let the diseases, the disorders progress unimpeded and uninterrupted and unintervent in, these people end up as schizoids. They end up homeless, they end up alone, they die alone, they end up ruminating and brooding. They end up living much more in the past than in the present or the future. They end up disappearing externally as they had always been absent and void internally.


Leaper Brothers Company, makers of swan, a soap that gives you a wonderful new kind of suds, presents... Swan, with my friend Irma. Starring Marie Wilson as Irma, and Cathy Lewis as Jane. Friendship, friendship, just a perfect landscape, When other friendships have been forgot, Bears will still be hot. You live in a teeming metropolis like New York, For any length of time you tend to become blasé. And you develop the feeling that nothing can confuse a bewilderer. Then you run into someone like my friend Irma. And you're a babe in the woods again. Now don't get me wrong, because I love the girl. It's just that, well, for instance, the other night I noticed Irma putting x-ray pictures in her hope chest. So I said, Irma, why are you putting those x-ray pictures of Al in your hope chest? And Irma said, Because I read that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and I want to see how I'm doing. Well, that's Irma for you. In fact, she thinks that when a marriage goes on the rocks, it's because the honeymooners went over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Anyway, right now she's holding her for it. Irma, what's the trouble? I have a headache. Yes, in my head. I've had it all week, especially at work. Well, honey, maybe it's your eyes. You probably need glasses. Oh, Jane, don't say that. I could never wear glasses. Al wouldn't like a girl who wore eyeglasses. Well, what do you care about Al just so long as you see better? Jane, what's the sense of being able to see better if you haven't got a fellow to look at? Oh, look, sweetie, your health comes first. I don't see how you can worry about losing a man who hasn't worked for five years. A man who, when he sees a sign, help wanted, interprets it as measles, keep out.  All men have some weaknesses. Some don't work, some don't dance, some don't swim. So what? Well, suppose Al was out in the ocean drowning. What good would it do me to say, there goes my boyfriend. He can't swim, but he has a job. Besides, jobs are scarce.  Jobs aren't scarce. Well, I may be holding down two jobs next week. Two jobs? Well, with Christmas coming on, you know, I can use some extra money, so I put in an application for some part-time work. In fact, I'm expecting a call any minute from Mr. Sloan. Well, that's wonderful, Jane. It's wonderful if I don't have to sit around here worrying about your eyes, honey.  Well, it may be all right for others, but not for me. I don't want my children born with glasses. Oh, sweetie, I... Hello. Yes, this is Jane Stacey. Oh, hello, Mr. Sloan. What? Of course the extra work won't be a strain on me. I'm in perfect condition. You'll bring the ledgers and the reports over tonight. Fine, thank you, sir. Bye, Mr. Sloan. All right, all right, come on, Irma. I'll take you over to Dr. Davis, the eye doctor. Glasses. Oh, honey, you say you have headaches. I know. I have cold feet, too. That doesn't mean I have to wear snowshoes. Honey, this is different. If you don't get glasses, your headaches will get worse. You'll become dizzy. Oh, what am I saying? Irma, please, will you be reasonable? No, I'm not going to be an old maid. I'd rather she double than remain single. But, Irma, honey... No, I won't go... Don't be stubborn. Maybe then you'll see things differently. It's only me, Professor Kropatkin. Hello, Janey. Hello, Professor. Sit down, won't you? Thank you. I hope you don't mind my stopping by for a few minutes. The bats in my room drove me out. Bats in your room? Yes. Mrs. O'Reilly came up to collect the rent, and in each hand she was swinging a bat. Tell me, Janey, where is my darling little Irma? Oh, she's in the bedroom, Professor. I'm awfully worried about her. Forever. I was afraid someday this would happen. How violent is she? Oh, no, no, it's her eyes, Professor. I think she has to wear glasses. Is that all? She won't even take an examination. Why not? What is she afraid of? There can't be anything seriously wrong. Believe me, if they examined her whole head, they wouldn't find anything. Oh, no, that's not it, Professor. It's her vanity. You see, she's afraid she'll lose Al.  How could she lose him? I guarantee, if anybody found him, they'd return him. You know, I just can't understand this foolish phobia that Irma has against glasses. Oh, it's a natural thing, Janey. My eyes aren't so good, but I refuse to wear glasses. Why? If I saw my room the way it really looks, I think I'd kill myself.  Oh, I can't, Professor. She's in the bedroom just crying her heart out. Honestly, I'm just worried sick about her.  You know, a woman only cries for two reasons. Either she is suffering or she is about to make you suffer. Janey, let me try to talk to her. All right, Professor, I'll call her. Irma? Honey, come on out. The professor's here. He wants to talk with you. Done with my thoughts. May a young girl like that should have such gruesome company. Please come out there, my darling. I'll cheer you up. Nothing will cheer me up. I'm doomed. Doomed.  Professor, would you please tell her that wearing glasses won't make the least difference? Certainly, Irma. You should consider yourself lucky. A lot of people have to go to work with bifocals. Professor, I don't care how they travel. I'm talking about appearances. Irma, you don't want to get glasses because you love Al and you're afraid you will lose him, right? Right. Honey, I've told you million times, forget Al. There are plenty of fish in the sea. That's all right for Fridays, but what about the rest of the week? Oh, Professor, will you talk to her? Look, girls, I've got an idea that will solve everything. What? You go down to the five and ten. Buy a pair of cheap glasses.   Now, honey, that's practical. What do you say? Oh, all right, Jane, if you'll go with me. Sure, sure, I'll go with you. And Professor, I won't say too low because I'll be right back. I'll just say bon voyage because it's raining. Gee, Jane, don't you just love the five and ten? Everything's so expensive-looking. Now, control yourself, honey. Come on, here's the eyeglass counter. My, what a selection. Can I help you? Yes, I'd like to get some glasses that my boyfriend would like. Well, we have glasses to fit every personality.  You have no business picking on him. Let me handle it, will you, honey? Miss, she wants the glasses for herself. Well, how about these? Do you like them? Well, how do you like them, Jane? How do you like them? That's not a fair question. If I could see what the glasses look like, I wouldn't need glasses to see what they look like. See? Put them on, Irma. Why in the world have you got your eyes closed? I want to see if I can see in the dark. Oh, please, honey, come on. Well, we haven't got all day, you know? All right. Miss, this pair seems fine on me. Here's the money. Thank you.  No, thank you. I won't be able to see where I'm going. Oh, come on, come on, honey. Look, honey, maybe you better run along home. I want to go to the stationery store and pick up a shorthand book so I can take dictation for Mr. Sloan tonight, okay? All right, Jane, I'll go home. Gee, I'm dying to hear what Al will say when he sees me wearing eyeglasses. Hiya, chicken. Oh. Yeah, the icebox is open. Who got here before me? Something about me. Oh, that. Chicken, your slip is always showing. Peace. Chicken, you're wearing glasses. Yes, Al, how do you like them? How do I like them has nothing to do with it. You're not the type for glasses. What are you trying to do? Make people think you went to Harvard? Oh, but Al, lots of people wear glasses. Well, I know, but that's because they're looking for something. You don't have to look anymore. You already found me. Al, don't you like the way I look? Well, that's not the point, chicken. I want to take a little inventory. Inventory? Well, sure. When a guy goes with a girl, he likes to think she's perfect. Now I find out about the eyes. It makes me a little cautious. Erma. What, Al? I lose your own teeth. Oh, Al, how could you ask a question like that? It's a perfectly natural question. Once a dame starts breaking down, she breaks down all over. Certainly I do, chicken. You're making an observation. To me, you're as pretty as ever. No, I'm breaking down. I can feel it. Chicken, you're just slipping off the couch. Believe me, you're the same sweet Erma I've always loved.  No, baby, you're as beautiful as ever. No, you, Al. Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses. That poem ain't true. Once a girl's got a build, her sofa will be filled. No, you're just trying to be kind to me, and I won't have it. Please, chicken, I didn't mean it. I love you. Here, I'll prove it to you.  That's no good, Al. My eyes are so bad. How will I know it's you? Chicken. Anymore than I know it. I don't want to ever, I don't want to ever see you again. Gee, I hope I didn't hurt her. Chicken. Oh, hello, Al. Where's Erma? In the bedroom. Something wrong? Just a typical lover's quarrel. Well, I think I'll be running along. Goodbye. Bye. Erma? Erma Peterson, where are you going with that bag? I'm leaving. Leaving? Yes, Al saw me in my glasses, and though he tried to be kind, I know what he really thinks. Oh, honey, it's only your imagination. Well, I've made up my mind. You'll never see me again. I'm going away forever. Forever? Yes, and when I come back, don't ask me where I've been. And now Susie Swan sings to us. Listen. My advice says Susie. You like this brand, you kind of lather, so be choosy. Swan gives you beauty, lather, riches, cream. Your skin stays soft as any dream, and fresh as dew. I swan to you, says Susie. And ladies, if you make white floating swan soap, your complexion soap, you'll see for yourself that Susie Swan's advice is good advice because swan really does give you a wonderful new kind of beauty lather for your skin. A new kind of lather that's so rich, so creamy, it smooths onto your skin as softly as a caress. A new kind of lather that whisks away dirt, leaves your skin so clean it fairly glows. And swan is so mild, so gentle, that it pampers your skin while it cleanses. And swan rinses away so completely too. Your face doesn't feel drawn and over-soaked when you're through washing it. Instead, it's left smooth and fresh. Another advantage of swan's wonderful new kind of beauty lather. Another reason to get swan soap for a new and wonderful kind of complexion care. It has gone away forever. That means she's gone to the movies to sit through a double feature twice. You see, that's Irma's idea of Siberia. Whenever Irma gets mad at Al, she packs her bag and goes to the movies. Frankly, I'm quite accustomed to Irma's little jaunts, but right now I'm considerably upset. What with Mr. Sloane coming tonight to give me dictation, I don't have too much time to get Irma to an eye doctor. Since she's complained of headaches, I really feel it's my duty.  Oh, do you, Mrs. O'Reilly, is anything wrong? Oh, I just came from the movies and I saw Irma.  There, she sat crying like a baby, crying and eating peanut brittle. Yeah. Did you speak to her? I tried to, but she wouldn't let me. She said her heart was breaking and she was having trouble following the plot. Janie, what's wrong? Oh, it's really nothing too serious, Mrs. O'Reilly. Irma may have to wear glasses and she's afraid she may lose Al. I just can't get her to go to the eye doctor. Well, maybe I can help. How? I'll show her a picture of my husband and tell her the truth. That if I'd taken care of my eyes and could see well, I never would have married anything that looked like that. Bless his insurance and may he rest in peace. No, no, thank you, Mrs. O'Reilly. I'm afraid it'll take something more persuasive than that. Excuse me, come in. Oh, Jane, Mrs. O'Reilly. Oh, I'm glad you're back, Al. I want to have a word with you. What in the world did you tell Irma? You mean when she had the glasses on? Well, I'll admit at first I was thrown, but then I told her it didn't make any difference, but she didn't believe me. Well, you couldn't have been very convincing. What do you mean? I was even going to tell her they made her look intelligent. How far can a guy go? Well, if you really cared for her feelings, you would have been more tactful. Tactful? Look, Jane, I love Irma. Didn't I be breaking my head over getting these big deals every week? Al, I don't want to hear any more about your deals. I still haven't gotten over your last one, pumping up pigeons and selling them for turkeys. Well, I'll admit that wasn't practical, but this one's a natural. Working on a machine gun with a built-in flag and a recording of the star-spangled banner. So when you're holding up a bank, it don't look suspicious because everybody's saluting. Of course, if it's illegal, I'll drop the whole idea. Well, if you're going to do any dropping, drop into that movie and get Irma back. I want to get her to the eye doctor before Mr. Sloan gets here. Leave it to me, Jane. I love that girl. I'll get her out of that movie if I have to pay to get in. Be back. Well, Jane, if you'll excuse me, I'm going up to Professor Kropotkin's room. I want to do a little mopping. Mopping? This isn't Wednesday. I know, but he's behind in his rent, and it's the only way I can get him out from under the bed. See you later.  You've got to help me. But what's wrong? I want to get Irma to the eye doctor. I think she needs glasses, but she refuses to wear them because she's afraid she'll lose Al. Is that something to be afraid of? Well, Richard, that's beside the point, but what am I going to do? Well, it's very simple, Jane. You know how Irma looks up to you.  Then I'll drop by and rave how wonderful you look. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I get it. In other words, if I don't lose you wearing glasses, then Irma will know she won't lose Al. Exactly. Good. Good. I'll go right out and get the glasses. Jane isn't home yet. Chicken, will you forget, Jane? I've been trying to tell you all the way home. You're all wrong feeling that way about glasses. Oh, I don't know, Al. Can prove it to you, chicken. The finest people wear glasses. Now, you take them society people. When they go to the opera, what do they wear? Opera glasses, right? Right. Yeah. Well, at lawn parties? I know. They all wear larnette. Check. And take the man of distinction. They all have glasses, one in their hand and one on the table. No. Chicken, even the most glamorous movie stars wear glasses. Name one. It's Harold Lloyd. I'm glad to see you back home again. Have you unpacked? Yes, I didn't like the picture. Oh, Jane, look at you. What's the matter? You're wearing glasses. Oh, yeah, yeah. While I was out making an appointment for you with Dr. Davis, he examined my eyes and prescribed glasses. Oh, I see. Jane, where are you winking your eye, Al? Oh, was I winking? Oh, that must be the one with the drops in it. But, Al, why did you wink back at her? Merely returning the courtesy. Jane, you're not afraid of Richard giving you the air on account of glasses, are you? Not me. Love me. Love my glasses. I think a girl's health comes before everything else. You're right, Jane. Well, it takes sleep and beauty. Dame was a piff, but they couldn't wake her up for 60 years, so what good was she? You understand, Armour? Yes, but Richard hasn't seen Jane yet. Well, I don't think it'll be long. Come in, Richard. Hello, everybody. Why, Jane, you look positively radiant. I've never seen you so ravishing. What have you done? Can't you see? I'm wearing glasses. Glasses? Darling. He still loves her. Didn't I tell you, honey? The proof of the pudding is in the eatin'. Well, I'm not hungry. But I think it's wonderful. Richard, I'm glad you like me in glasses. Like you? Jane, I have to leave now, but please don't move for a moment. I want to remember you just as you look now. Goodbye. Yeah, I think Richard needs glasses too. He walked into the closet. I'm sorry. I guess I was carried away by Jane. I got the wrong door. Goodbye. Well, now, Armour, you see, I've got glasses on. I didn't care what Richard thought. Jane, are you sure you're not playing a trick on me? Do you really need glasses? Why, of course I do. Sure. My eyes are bad. Come in. Good evening, Miss Stacy. Oh, hello, Mr. Sloan. Oh, Mr. Sloan, this is my roommate, Irma Peterson, and her boyfriend, Al. Happy to know you both. I hope you don't mind my coming in a little early, Miss Stacy. You see, there's so much work to be done, and say, I didn't know you wore glasses, Miss Stacy. Oh, oh, these? Oh, well, I really don't. She just got to Mr. Sloan. Her eyes are very bad. Bad eyes? Well, this may make a difference. Oh, it's really nothing. You see, I'm just... I'm sorry, Miss Stacy, but if your eyes are tired... Really, they're not tired. Oh, no. Mr. Sloan, the only reason they're open is because they're yawning. Jane, why don't you phone Mr. Sloan later on? Yes, yes, thanks, Al. I'd like to discuss this further. No need for discussion. If your eyes are bad, there's no use making them worse for just a few extra dollars. Maybe next year. Goodbye. Why are you biting your lips? Because I'm eating my heart out the hard way. Your eyes are those tears, or are they watering? Watering. They've just gone down for the third time. Well, your glasses will take care of them. Yes, they already did, but good. Jane, I'm convinced that if eyeglasses are good enough for you, they're good enough for me. We'll go to the eye doctors as soon as I wash my face. Oh, no, no, no. Take it easy, Jane. It's just one of them tough breaks. He had a walk-in just when I was putting on an act for Irma. Now, what am I going to do for that extra Christmas money? Things will turn out, Jane. Besides, you already have a good job. What do you want to for? Work is bad enough, but why make a hobby of it? Gee, I counted on it so well. Well, I guess Irma comes first. If we can get her to the eye doctor by hook or by crook, I guess it was worth it. Well, I'm ready. Come on, Jigan. No, Alice, as much as I love you. You better take Jane's arm. She's wearing glasses and she may trip. If I do, it'll be over my own dead body. Come on, let's go. Come in. Dr. Davis, this is my roommate, Irma Peterson. How do you do? Well, all right, I guess I have a pretty good job. How do you do? I beg your pardon? Dr. Davis, I would like to have her examined. But I'm an eye doctor. What she needs... And never mind. Just please examine her eyes, will you, doctor? I'll wait outside in the reception room with Al. All right, Ms. Peterson, right behind this creak. That's it. Now, sit up on this chair. Fine. Shall I open my mouth and say, ah? That's not necessary. Well, I thought you might want to see how the back of my eyes look. Ms. Peterson, if you'll just kindly cover your right eye and read the first and second rows from the charts in front of you. First and second row? Exulpt. Unifrist. Gosh, doctor, where'd you learn how to spell? Bless my dilated cornea. Ms. Peterson, those are not words. Now, please read the letters in the third and fourth rows. All right. E-M-R-E-O. APO, you've got it all mixed up. It's O-P-A. Don't worry about it. It's been repealed. Your sign is out of date. And much obliged. Next line, please. Q-L-T. Next line. R-X-G. Thank you. Made in Rochester by a hot-made screen cover. You can read that? Certainly. Ms. Peterson, I've got news for you. If your eyes were any better, they'd be headlights. Thank you. Thank you. Goodbye, doctor. Good day. Oh, honey, how'd you come out? Gee, Jane, the doctor says my eyes are perfect. Perfect. But you say you've had headaches all week at work. That's right. Oh, Irma, this is just driving me crazy. I've lost that extra job on account of you. I just...what could it be? Well, I don't know, Jane, unless it's because I haven't been eating all week. Well, of course, you know that can cause headaches. Why didn't you tell me in the first place and why haven't you been eating all week? Al has been buying my lunch. Tonight, Irma was playing some records and I was just relaxing when suddenly I noticed that Irma was holding a cake of swan soap in front of the phonograph. Irma, I said, why on earth are you playing those Frank Sinatra records to that bar of swan? And Irma said, Jane, you know what Sinatra singing does to the girls? Well, I've never seen a swan swoon before. Well, no matter what she says, Irma certainly knows the soap for her complexion. White floating swan soap. Because swan gives a wonderful new kind of lather, a new kind of lather that's perfect for your skin. Yes, it's perfect because it's so rich and creamy. It cleanses your skin to a glowing radiance. And it's perfect the way it feels against your face, soft as a cloud. And gentle, because swan is mild as fine cast heels. Swan's new kind of beauty lather is perfect too in the way it rinses away. So thoroughly, your skin is left fresh and smooth, not all tight and over-soaked. And ladies, no other soap can give you this wonderful new kind of beauty lather because no other soap has swan's exclusive super cream blend. So how about making swan your facial soap? You'll find that swan's new kind of beauty lather will give you a new and wonderful kind of complexion care. Well, I did some fast talking and I got that extra job back with Mr. Sloan. Irma? Well, she's buying her own lunches again. She's perfectly healthy. She still can't understand why I no longer wear glasses. So I said, oh, well, you see, Irma, I've been doing eye exercises. And you know, when you exercise, you get stronger. And Irma said, well, Jane, I've been thinking for years and it hasn't made any difference. And you know, you'll find out that's the truth if you ever talk to my friend Irma. My friend Irma presented by swan, another fine product of Lever Brothers Company was produced and directed by Cy Howard. Tonight's script was written by Cy Howard and Park Levy. Folks, next Monday evening, tune in an hour earlier over most of these same stations for the Lux Radio Theatre. And then stay tuned to listen to... Swan with my friend Irma. Starring Mary Wilson as Irma and Kathy Lewis as Jane. Hans Conreed was Professor Kropotkin. Mary Wilson can soon be seen in the Eagle Lion release. Linda Begur, Frank Bingman speaking. Better finer textured cake. Sprite means easy sure success with every cake you bake. Sprite with Cake Improver. It's SPRY, Sprite. And it's one bold method for the most delicious cakes ever. For no other type shortening has Sprite's marvelous Cake Improver. Try Sprite. Tune in again to my friend Irma next Monday evening at this same time. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.


prolific public speaker and a community builder got into Bitcoin and the reason why many of us understand it. He took a break from writing his fourth book, Mastering Ethereum, to be here with us tonight. When he's not writing, he's traveling the world, working to bring education about Bitcoin and open blockchains to communities everywhere. His Patreon supporters make that work possible, and they've made this event tonight possible as well. Most importantly, our next speaker is the kind of person who would actually organize and host an event like this. One that benefits a local community instead of himself. Please help me welcome Andreas M. Antonopoulos. Thank you so much, thank you. I can't see any of you. It's all one big black thing, but I'm just so thrilled to be here and thank you all for coming out. Thanks for making it, and thank you to all the volunteers. It was a really touching moment this morning. We did the soundcheck and practice run, and then watching 25 people who all volunteered, running around, scurrying, and getting all of the things that we had planned and trained for for a month and a half all came together, and you made it. So here we are. Thank you. They put some yellow tape here so that I don't fall into the mote of lights in the front. Makes it difficult because I tend to pace. I want to talk about the three components of this incredible space that we all work, live, and breathe every single day. This isn't just a technology, it's not just an economy, it's not just a community. It's all three. It's really this multifaceted thing where technology, community, and economy feed off each other. They come in these crashing waves that sweep us off our feet and make us feel small, sometimes elated, and sometimes terrified. You get all of these waves of memes, craziness, and fomo, and fear of missing out, and huddle, and biddle, and all of these great community expressions that we see. The last six months have been weird for all of us. We watched this incredible run-up in the price, and it dominated the conversation. If you've been in this space for a while, this isn't new to you. You've seen this happen. This is maybe the sixth, seventh, maybe eighth big bubble-like behavior, where you see this massive increase in price. We've seen it before. I remember, at some point in October, I started getting calls from journalists, and they asked me to comment on this, and they would ask in a very kind of cagey way. So what do you think? Could this possibly maybe be a bubble? I was like, of course it's a bubble. We're living in the era of the everything bubble. But really, it's not the Bitcoin bubble you should be worried about that everybody is very aware of. I'd be more worried about the subprime auto loan bubble, the stock bubble, the bond bubble, the real estate bubble, the student loan bubble, the debt bubble, the foreign exchange bubble, the fang bubble, the tech bubble, the everything bubble. Yes, Bitcoin is a bubble, the most obvious of the bubbles right now. And 24 hours later, someone made a video with me in a Darth Vader mask, said Andreas went over to the dark side. He's calling it a bubble. I told you so. All I said was be careful, and obviously some people were not careful. Price dominated everything. I think many of you have probably had this experience. You come into this space, you don't know what's going on. It's all very, very weird and complicated and difficult to understand.  And they come to you and they go, you know about Bitcoin. Should I invest in iota? Or you know about Bitcoin, is this a good time to get in? And maybe you told them when the price was, I don't know, 200, and they ignored you because they thought it was silly internet money. But the morning that it hits 19,000, they call you up and they go, is this a good time to get in? And depending on whether they're a good friend, in which case you say hell no, wait, or they're that douchebag who bullied you in high school, in which case you're like, yeah, now's the time to get in, Chad. You wouldn't do that, of course. Everyone in this theater is wonderful. We wouldn't do that. But the best part, after you told them to get in at 200 and they ignored you and they called you up at 19,000, in January and February, you start getting the calls. I know you've had them where someone calls you up and they go, I saw on CNBC that Bitcoin crashed. It's destroyed, it's gone, it's down in the doldrums, it's a mess. Are you okay? Now, let's not minimize the fact that a lot of people who did get in at 19,000, probably in a very ill-advised way, are hurting. And that's not funny. That's bad investment conditions, and you should be very, very careful.  Because we heard it crashed a year ago. We were just over a thousand. So price-wise, we're up a cool 800%. So your answer should probably be, you're in S&P index funds. Are you okay? Because the day I start hearing about your investment on TV, you won't be okay. Nobody will be okay. And so you see, even my talk here dominated my price. Not something you hear me talk about a lot, but it's apropos, it's the times we're in. And then suddenly, the price tanks, the meet-ups start getting roomy again. The phone calls stop.  And the cycle repeats. Do you guys like farmer's markets? Anybody here like farmer's markets? If you go to a farmer's market this weekend, they're going to have two things. Rhubarb and pumpkins, because it's winter. And you're not going to find a great array of beautiful, organic vegetables. Those come from Mexico at this time of the year. The farmers, the local farmer's market, all they can deliver at this time of year is rhubarb. And in a great analogy to the economic situation we're in, if you went to the farmer's market right now and noticed it's not very popular, and there aren't too many people there, you might go, huh, farming is dead. I knew it. I saw it on CNBC. They're about to start planting. And we are too. We're about to start planting. What happens right after one of these great explosions in price and interest and the fear of missing out and the crazy rush to the exchanges is nothing else can get done. Nobody can get anything done because of all of the distraction of trying to deal with a 95% influx of newbies, where everyone you meet is brand new. And they have questions like, can't anyone guess by just trying all private keys? Or what happens when the last Bitcoin is mine? Not bad questions, the same questions we all had in the beginning. But nothing else can happen.  It's all operations, it's firefighting every step of the way. Coinbase, for example, implemented SegWit in February. That's not a coincidence. Because right until the end of December and into early January, they had no time to do anything else. I don't know this by talking to them. I'm just guessing. We could all see what was happening. It was absolutely insane. This was repeated across the entire industry. Anybody who was involved in a business or running anything from a meet-up to a training session, to trying to write the next book, and getting 15 requests from journalists every single day about, oh my God, is this a bubble? Or is this a bubble? Everyone was just overwhelmed. And that's not a good time to get anything done. Hover's time is the craziest time. Now, that's the time when we start planting the seeds. Community and technology lag economy. And right now, let's be honest, economy isn't about having a lot of economic activity based on the import-export business, or doing remittances, or creating new crazy applications and doing micropayments. Ninety-nine percent of the interest in economy is pure speculation, and just chasing the next opportunity. That's okay. We have to go through that phase. But it is very distracting. And now we can start the real work. In a group like Bob, Bitcoin and the Open Blockchain, and any of the other big meet-up and community groups, you're going to have this influx of people who are excited about the price, and the only reason they came is because of the price. Let's be absolutely honest. They're not interested in the principles of debanking all of us, banking the next six billion, freeing the world from the terrifying oppression of central banks, returning to the gold standard, or whatever else you might have as one of your guiding principles.  They care about whether we're going to the moon. But once they've been burned, they're not going to sell most of their cryptocurrencies immediately. They're just going to let it sit for a while and try to figure out what to do next. Here's the interesting thing. 95% of the people who came into our industry during this big, big boom have never done a single cryptocurrency transaction. Their only experience with cryptocurrency is doing an ACH or wire transfer into a custodial exchange that printed a number on their screen that told them that they have... what they don't actually have, which is cryptocurrency. And they haven't learned the most important rule. And that rule is, your keys, your coins. Not your keys, not your coins. Who's going to teach them that? Who's going to teach them that? You are. Bob is. They have everything to learn. Right now, they know nothing. All they know is they didn't buy a Lambo. They're still trying to figure out how to tell their significant other that they're down 60% on the investment they weren't supposed to make. Now's the opportunity to teach all of the basics, to educate, to support, and also to expand that vision. They came for the price, make them stay for the principles, which means they need to understand why we do this. And the best way to understand why we do this is for every single one of you who have a deeper reason for doing this to express that with authenticity, with passion, with enthusiasm, and to do that face-to-face as part of a local community. Now is the most important moment for a local community. Now is when we help educate people on why we do this, why we care so much about this, and dispel all of the weird rumors and myths that they hear and help focus their education on the things that matter. Somewhere in there may be a partner for you for your next startup, a graphic designer who can help you make a user experience or user interface for a wallet that doesn't suck, a marketing person who can sell this without resorting to a little gold coin as their only graphic. Somewhere out there is a developer who wants to follow the same vision that you have. Somewhere out there is an operations manager who can help you actually turn this into a viable business. They're going to be at your local meet-up. So we got the wave of the economy. Now we need to build community. And at the same time, right now, people are investing in startups. They're building new protocols. And they're planting the seeds in the technology space for the next great wave of adoption so we can be ready, so we can deliver a better experience to the next round of people who are going to join, so we can deliver more applications that are more meaningful and change people's lives. So we can make this easier to use, more secure, easier to use more securely. And this applies to all of the cryptocurrencies and all of the assets out there. We are right at the beginning. We are at the pre-DNS age of the internet. We all love this stuff, and we're all into it. And we will be willing to learn the hard stuff and overlook the collugy interfaces and the terrible nonsensical stuff that happens in our industry. I mean, really, it is horrible. Right? This is not the cryptocurrency technology that is going to become mainstream. It cannot be. It's too clunky. It's too complicated. It's too difficult to understand. It's not intuitive, and you can make simple mistakes that wipe out your holdings. We need to fix all of that. For every one of those problems is a potential billion-dollar industry. That's how you can tell the difference between an entrepreneur and someone who only looks at the doom and gloom side. In 2007, hundreds of journalists were writing article after article after article about how the internet would fail, because no one could find anything. Barry Page and Sergey Brin looked at that and said, How about we solve that problem instead of saying it's going to end the internet? Right now, right in this room, in fact, I know for a fact, there are several people I know in this room who are working on making sure that the next application... the next great lightning wallet, the next great big block Bitcoin Cash application, the next Ethereum smart contract, it doesn't matter. Build it. Make it better. It's too important to lose focus over petty disagreements and minor issues. I don't care what you build. Build something. Make something better. If you're not a developer, send a help desk request, fix a minor documentation problem, create a video, paint a painting, do a poster, get up in front of your local meet-up, and describe your experience so that others can be helped. Everyone has a role to play, and that's what community is about. Everybody thinks the cryptocurrency market just died in January. They look at the empty field, and they think nothing is happening. Yet that field is planted, and we're waiting for one good rain in a few days of sunshine. We're going to do this all over again, and it's going to be even crazier the next time. We'll be better prepared with better applications, better education, better technology, and stronger community. Thank you very much. I hope you're all as excited as I am. The next part of this is one of my favorite parts of the evening, which is the completely out-of-control, random Q&A session. We have microphones in the center section, where you see the light over there. If you want to ask a question, you go to that microphone, ask me a question. We've got about 10 or 15 minutes to go through as many questions as you want. So why not behind that microphone, where you see the light there? Good evening, Mr. Andreas. How are you doing? Good evening, indistinct black blob in the background. Very nice to meet you. I can't see anything. Go ahead. It's nice to speak to you again. My question was, what are your thoughts about proof of work versus proof of stake? That's a great question. One of the historical facts that's really quite interesting is that proof of work was invented after proof of stake. It was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto because proof of stake systems hadn't been able to work before. I don't know if they'll work now. I'm actually optimistic. I think proof of stake systems are possibly an interesting way of doing consensus algorithms. There are many, many smart people working on this kind of technology. If you're involved in technology, one of the things you learn is that if you use words like never, you're more likely to end up on one of those historic lists of quotes of idiots who said things couldn't be done. Like, lighter than air, heavier than air, flight is impossible. After the Paris fair, electrification will die as the fad it is. One telephone should be enough for each city. One computer should be enough for each country. Other great quotes like that, which you can find. I'm not going to ever say you can't do something. I am actually hopeful and optimistic, and I'd like to see what people come up with. I think there is a fundamental qualitative difference between proof of stake and proof of work. There is something very special about having an extrinsic investment in energy that you absolutely can't get back. It creates a thermodynamic guarantee of immutability based on the physics of expended energy. It makes that game theory very painful if you get it wrong. That has some drawbacks, it does. A lot of people can point to it and say it's expensive. Compared to what? I think we should add up all of the armored cars, lit offices, printed money, bank vaults, and all of the other waste that goes into fiat. There may be truth to the idea that we can only afford one proof-of-work network, just one. I think proof-of-stake becomes more powerful and stronger if you can check-point it every now and then into a truly immutable proof-of-work chain. If the only proof-of-work chain we can afford is Bitcoin, that's a damn good differentiator. Thank you, sir. Good evening, Mr. Antonopoulos. To follow up his proof-of-work question, is ASIC resistance futile? Or are we at the mercy of Bitmain and do we all have to buy an ant miner to have a say in the network? ASIC resistance is futile. Not only is it futile, I think it's not desirable. One of the challenges of going to supposedly ASIC hard algorithms or resetting the proof-of-work is that not only do you make it possible for people to recruit botnets by hacking other people's computers and use them to mine, and if it's GPU mining, they'll recruit and hack gamers' computers and use those. Not only does it have that really bad side effect, but at the same time, in the end, you can build an ASIC for anything, and it will always be better than a general purpose computing system, no matter what you do. If you need a lot of RAM, you'll add a lot of RAM. If we reset the proof-of-work algorithm to dethrone the current leader of that system, well, then we've created a level playing field into which any company that happens to have a couple of billion dollars in spare cash, the operational experience, all of the fabs ready to go, and all of the staffing and warehouses ready to fill with the new proof-of-work algorithm will dominate the space. We're actually going to make it even more centralized, because that first mover advantage is going to be enormous, especially for a company that has been obsolete and rebuilding their ASICs on average between every three and six months. If you think about it, these companies are ASIC replacement machines, ASIC replacement pipelines, and they're very efficient at it, so you just pull their timeline forward by three months. Rather, what I'm interested in is what happens when we reach the limits of Moore's law in terms of density, and we're there now. We're looking at 10 nanometer chips being developed, and that creates a level of competition that's interesting, because there are no 10x, 100x, or 1,000x improvements to get. The shelf life of one of these ASIC machines is now going to be two to three years. It's still going to be profitable, and that completely changes all of the economics of the market. It's going to take a few years for that to play out, but I think we have just achieved peak centralization in mining, and it's going to get decentralized from here. So let's see. Thank you. I could be wrong. So one of the things that we're always talking about is adoption, and you talked about the software tonight. A lot of people show concern over the transaction fees, but I'm actually curious about the tax side of things and the regulation, and that actually being a higher percentage of a transaction if we're having to consider that to be the way that the tax code is written currently. So what do you see as the roadmap for regulation to change in order for cryptocurrency to be able to actually be used the way that we would like it to be used? I'm not very optimistic about how that's going to play out in the United States, at least. I don't think it's an accident that the reporting requirements of capital gains for even tiny transactions are such that it makes it a nightmare to do your taxes properly and to be lawful in terms of paying your taxes. I know I have to do it. I do it, and it's a huge reporting burden.  What I can tell you is that my accountant, who happens to be in the audience today, is going to make more money than the IRS is on capital gains this year for the work of reporting, and that is backwards. That is messed up. And what is that going to do? Is that going to stop Bitcoin in the United States, or is that going to stop the United States in Bitcoin? You can get your country out of Bitcoin, but you can't get Bitcoin out of your country. Guess who doesn't report capital gains? Money launderers. Guess who doesn't report capital gains? Criminals. Guess who doesn't report capital gains? Well, Congress people, as we recently found out. So when there's a policy in place that's designed in such a way that it penalizes people who are trying to do the right thing and the people who are going to break the law anyway and avoid taxes altogether are still going to do that, you have to question whether the purpose of that policy is to support an industry that is still trying to use 70s technology and treat us to a nine to five Monday to Friday business as usual bullshit system that they call banking. And I think that's the real reason why you're seeing these regulatory responses. It is a bailout for the banks again. And it's going to fail, but it's going to keep happening and it's going to keep escalating in many countries around the world.  And they're going to use it anyway. So this is a losing battle. So if you thought this was going to be easy or if you thought governments weren't going to fight dirty, you might be surprised by this. But the bottom line is that no matter what they try to do, no matter how much regulation they try to impose, they cannot stop this technology. Thank you. This is the last question we can do. Okay. Hi, Andreas. My question is, so the Lightning Network is getting its legs underneath it right now. Second layer solution. So my it's kind of a two part question. One, do you think the Lightning Network is going well as of right now? And two, if we're going to need a third layer solution, what is that going to look like? What is your vision for a third layer on top of Lightning? What might that look like? I think the Lightning Network is going well. I think there's a general tendency to be impatient about technology, like hurry up and invent it for me. I've been waiting for two years. The truth is that these things are not easy. And in fact, the pace of development has been accelerating across the board there. I've been running Lightning nodes now for just over eight months, I think, and I've been running a production node on mainnet since the end of the year. And I think we're going to see more and more applications. We barely scratched the surface. I'm very excited about some of the new technologies that are being developed. Atomic multi-path routing, which allows you to use several small payment channels to make one aggregate payment that routes over many different paths, but is atomic, which means now you don't need to create a channel as big as the payment you want. You can instead create eight small ones and aggregate them to make a bigger payment. That will lead to more decentralization of the network, which is great. There's another technology that's coming along, which is payment channel factories, and various cut-through technologies that allow you to open a channel in the same transaction that you close a channel or to increase the funding in a channel without doing a new channel, without having to close it and open a new one. So basically cut through funding and top up a channel. These are really the third layer. But of course one of the things that people criticize about the Lightning Network might end up being one of its greatest strengths. The Lightning Network does not specify routing algorithms. Right now we have a very basic flood-based network, and the routing algorithm is fairly simple. It's called source-based routing, and that means that every node creates its own route to make a payment. The source makes the route, and that gives us a lot of privacy. It's not a very efficient way of routing. There's this other network that also decided not to embed the definition and specs for routing within the base protocol. I don't know if you've heard of it. The protocol is called TCPIP, and it tells you nothing about routing. There is not a single line of routing in the TCPIP protocol, and the first routing protocols for TCPIP for the internet sucked. But one of the interesting things is that on a network of networks, just like in the case of Lightning Network, a network of blockchains, routing is something that you can do at multiple layers with multiple different algorithms simultaneously. There are more than 25 algorithms that run on the internet today to do routing, local routing, area routing, long-range routing. Most of you have never heard of any of these protocols, and that technology continues to develop and evolve as we need to get to bigger scale. The decision not to put routing into TCPIP allowed routing to be developed independently and to progress much faster than the base protocol. That was the third layer. In Lightning Network, the routing protocols we have now are pretty basic, and if you think that's a weakness of Lightning, you haven't been paying attention. That's the third layer. I imagine many different routing protocols that can be used for Lightning. One of my ideas that I would love to see implemented is the route on metrics other than channel fees. For example, I would like to see the ability to route on the most private route, to be able to select privacy as the metric, to be able to select only through nodes that guarantee they don't keep logs of any of the transactions that flow through them. There are so many other ways we can do this. I'm very excited to see what the future is taking us. This is a massive, active research opportunity across major universities around the world that are going to reinvent routing for this new medium. I'm excited to see what comes next. Thank you, everyone, so much.


Well, thanks to Mercatus and everyone who worked hard to make this event happen for the invitation to be here. Thanks to the authors, one in absentia, the other present for writing a fabulous and extremely interesting book. It's a stipulated thanks because the book is so good that I struggle with finding things bad or critical to say about it. But I'm going to do my best. So one caveat is that I'm not an economist. I'm trained in political science and philosophy. So I am not well suited to critique the empirical literatures that were drawn upon. I really can't analyze the critically, critically analyze the validity of the selection of cases that they use to draw general principles and precepts like those from Singapore or Argentina. Although given my comparatively limited knowledge on the subject, from what I do know, their focus on the badness or goodness of institutions and institutional actors seems to me to be correct. It's the correct target of locus and concern and we just heard, I feel, somewhat validated and echoing the sentiment that was just expressed. So I want to, with all of this, is to say that I want to limit my comments to really two areas. The first is a very, very briefly situate the project and the current global justice scholarship in the literature and how it is. We heard a little bit from Lauren where he's coming from and I'll sort of round that out a little bit. I'll spend a little bit more time discussing the wrinkles I see in the very long chapter on war. That is my area of expertise, which is the ethics of peace and war, particularly humanitarian intervention and its relationship to the author's conception of the state. But I want to begin by way of anecdote, I think, to show what is the power of the core central thesis of the book. So I read a good bit of the book and prepared my comments over Thanksgiving. I have a nine-year-old son and it allowed me to spend some time with him and he has a pretty good sense of what my literary and scholarly tastes are, usually when he asks me what I'm reading or writing about has to do with war, political violence, famine, really kind of uplifting subjects that he's really into, but he saw the title and justice at a distance. So he asked me, what's the book about? And I said, well, what do you think it's about? And he said, I think I have a good idea, but I can tell you what I would want it to be about. And he said, I really would like it to be about superheroes that see objects in the air and they can bring justice at a distance. I said, okay, well, what it is about is justice at a distance. So you have another co-author for your next set, but he said that justice is primary. I knew it would expand our entire law. The second edition. But he says the sequel. So I told him justice is primarily about leaving people alone. That's the key thesis in page two. And he says to me, well, if justice is about leaving people alone, then it's really unjust that you have to do a book report on Thanksgiving. And I tried to say, well, it's voluntary, and he left. After that, it's like a parting shop, but not to make too much of the exchange, but I think it's demonstrative of the fact that the thesis resonates with common intuitions and principles. My son thought, well, his teacher assigns him a book report and says, read this, give it to me in three days, and it's highly coercive, right? I mean, it's a child. But it resonated with him that he thought that it was sort of a bummer to be coerced, especially during Thanksgiving. So in short, the principle of liberty as non-interference, I think, can be persuasive. And the authors have done a good job in showing that. So the general contribution of the book to the global justice literature is that I think that it adds a libertarian flavor to the vanilla ice cream of cosmopolitan scholarship. So as we heard from Lauren a moment, a few minutes ago, is that the focus on global justice is generally on positive assistance and massive redistributive schemes. And that's what the core of the literature calls for. The author terms this as a regulatory focus, doubling down in institutions, laws, and coercive measures, large-scale taxation, redistribution. So in contrast to the regulatory emphasis, the authors focus on the efficacy of institutions and the role they play in respecting individuals' rights. And this dovetails with the precept noted on page two, which I mentioned a moment ago that my son really found resonating, which is about leaving other people alone, not interfering in them. And that's what cosmopolitan justice requires, is people have the freedom to pursue their personal projects and to which this is a refreshing departure from the typical cosmopolitan approach. So I wrote my dissertation on a cosmopolitan approach to warfare ethics and I wish this book was around then. It's a refreshing compliment to the literature. More specifically, I was heartened by the use of empirical social science literature. So I'm speaking to a room full of primarily economists. And so you may or may not know that sort of the stock and trade of philosophers is often to try to elicit intuitions as part of the methodology. Elicit intuitions often by appealing to very cartoonish thought experiments. And then from the intuitions are elicited from these outlandish thought experiments to draw general moral principles which are then taken as objective fact. This isn't the approach that was taken in this book. Okay, so those are all the nice things that I'm going to say and now I want to turn and put on the hat of a critical commentator. So I want to focus here on the topic of war. But first I want to unpack the book's conception and role of the state vis-a-vis the relationship between citizen, compatriot, co-citizens, and distant others. So in my view, it bears on the permissibility of humanitarian intervention. So the end goal here is that I want to talk about humanitarian intervention and we're going to take a little tour through the conception of the state and the individual as it's laid out at the beginning of the book. Okay, so the authors begin with a primacy, putting a primacy on personal value in projects. A defense of personal value, things that are primarily of value to the individual. Personal value in turn underpins the author's defense of personal partiality. Because you can prioritize personal value, that is that you're going to be partial to oneself. We heard this quote from Adam Smith just a moment ago. You can be partial to your projects, commitments to one's family, friends, compatriots. But this is not sort of unbridled partiality. It's constrained by rights such as life, liberty, property, the pursuit of happiness, and a reciprocal respect for other's own partiality. So you leave people alone, let them do their thing, and they will do the same for you. Now this connects with the twin importance of the primacy of liberty. That is the conception of liberty as non-interference. I should be left alone to pursue my projects and personal prerogative via personal valuation. I should be free to value my personal projects as I see fit. And so if I want to go home and play Nintendo and eat chips, I should be free to do so. If I want to pursue philosophy and have an interesting conversation like the one that's about to ensue, I should be free to do that as well. And I should be free to prioritize that project within reasonable constraints. Okay, now this is in part supported by appeal to Smith and Siegwick's observations on what philosophers call associated preferences. That's that individuals are partial to themselves and they're close associates. This is what we just heard from Smith and from the quote from Smith, and that since each is master of her own personal valuations, then she has the prerogative to order her priorities accordingly. Okay, so this is justified. So in turn, so we have the beginning. We all have these personal projects that we're partial to. Yeah, no big surprise there. And it's justified by a rights theory of Locke and liberalism. We find this on page 56. So despite or perhaps because of this moral sentimentalism, the fact that we have these deep attachments to our own projects and those that are close to us, we are motivated to prefer those close to us, but also to effectuate our duty of non-interference for compatriots and foreigners alike. Now the authors argue that this theory of rights is pre-political and universal. That means it's cosmopolitan, right? It's effectively a natural right, this sort of Lockean sense. So what this does is it both delineates the limits of our duties for compatriots and foreigners. Beginning of the book talks about the guy who prefers to spend his $4 on a skim vanilla. Is it you that prefers the coffee, the $4 on the latte? Is the coffee drinker in the... My deductive powers. I owe you $4. So it's not unjust to prefer the $4 on the latte. You're not violating the rights of the poor, okay? But it also is calling for reciprocation, right? Yours and other rights to non-interference must be respected, too. It's a two-way street. Okay, fine. But if the main principle of justice is to leave people alone and we can prioritize our own projects and those of our associates and if the rights are universal, how do we navigate the very great needs of those less fortunate like those living under tyranny whose rights are being violated who are being interfered with on a daily basis? So what do we do when their right not to be interfered with is violated? And that's the core question here, okay? So how do we tame the potential for cosmopolitan mission creep, right? This cosmopolitanism that is interfering in all of our lives. Put it another way, how do we ensure that individuals can pursue their personal projects while respecting the cosmopolitan rights of distant others but not owing onerous positive assistance, right? You should be free to buy your latte and not have to contribute that $4 to the jar for UNICEF every day, okay? But so how do we have these sort of this tension if we think it's a tension? So here the authors make an interesting move is they rely on the fiduciary duty of the state to its citizens in drawing the distinction between a duty to interfere in domestic freedom deniers. And so if you're living in a state then the police or the government has a co-citizens have a duty to interfere when you're interfered with, right? We talked about Kant and all of this. And there is a mere permission to do so when considering foreigners. So we have a duty that is entailed in the domestic situation and it is a mere permission when thinking about foreigners. Now we have a quote here on page 209 which says, the reason for this is that the state owes a fiduciary duty to its citizens. The state has an obligation to protect its own citizens against one another but only a permission to protect strangers. It's not a duty, right? That's why you can drink your latte and spend your four bucks while not donating that money to those that are being interfered with in distant lands. Okay, so the criticism that I have is that this conclusion is made via fiat and not argument. I'm sure you'll find it persuasive. I find the intuition persuasive. And to be fair the authors do note previously published works where they address topics such as this one but at risk of trotting out a likely familiar objection which I'm going to do anyways. This libertarian view of the state is challenged. For example, Alan Buchanan writes in his piece The Internal Legitimacy of Humanitarian Intervention. He says that the view is afflicted by a deep incoherence if not an outright inconsistency. It justifies the state as a coercive apparatus by appeal to the need to protect universal interests while at the same time limiting the right of the state to use its coercive power to the protection of a particular group of persons identified by the purely contingent characteristic of happening to be members of the same political society. So if the triumvirate of rights that is life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness are universal what's the moral basis for protecting only those who possess the contingent property of being members of the same political community? Now I don't necessarily hold this view the one that I just articulated is an incoherent position and the authors obviously reject it but fully addressing such a critique such a critique would have strengthened the chapter in my view. Now let's assume, arguably, that the state does have a fiduciary duty and it is limited to said citizens. Okay? Here's where I want to turn to the topic of just war and particularly humanitarian intervention. I lost my... Where am I in terms of time? Because I can sort of... I'm good. Okay, yeah. I could go on and on but I'm not going to... I don't want to steal anyone's time. So on this subject, the author's state, by man, it's perfect. And I'm quoting, a government has a fiduciary duty towards its subjects. Fair enough. This includes the obligation to respect human rights at home but because morality is universal and all persons have rights a good government also has an obligation to respect human rights abroad. They don't interfere in others' projects abroad. And from this, the authors derive, and I'm quoting, an obligation to not cooperate with tyranny. I'm in agreement so far. Then they go on to note that quote, this purely negative obligation can be reinforced by adding a softer obligation to promote human rights globally provided, of course, that this can be done at a reasonable cost. That the government can, in theory, tax citizens for such a purpose to fulfill this soft obligation. I'm done quoting here. So if such taxation is legitimate then a government couldn't, in theory, tax for humanitarian intervention according to the authors. There is no difference with respect to taxation between taxing for funds for your human rights court or for a humanitarian intervention. The two are the same. Those are two analogous cases. So consequently the authors conclude, and I quote, sometimes taxing people for war is justified. They agree. And this includes sometimes humanitarian intervention. End quote. The question I have is, why? So if the state does have an obligation to protect its own citizens against one another but only a permission to protect strangers then where does the softer obligation to promote rights globally come from? Is moral permission to effectuate the soft obligation through coercive measure of taxation? So where does the soft obligation come from if we have a limited state that's only duty is fiduciary responsibilities to its citizens? Where does the softer obligation to say being taxed to provide for humanitarian wars? Where does this extra sort of bit of coercion come into? And I couldn't find it in the chapter so I was looking for it. Okay. So taxation for some... Oh, all right. So to sum up here in this point is that my view is that this tension between the fiduciary model of the state to act solely in citizens' interests those are the author's words and the cosmopolitan tenant of universality of rights come into tension. So it's one that the authors could have done a better job at attempting to resolve if it is all resolvable. I don't know if it is. All right. So my last point is that taxation for some humanitarian interventions is permissible in the author's stated view. All right. But what about asking citizens to fight humanitarian wars on behalf of distant others? All right.   Like how's he, you know? And she said, well, I'm sick of my husband having to go and build nations abroad when it is not what he signed up for. So that's the objection that is trying to be answered here. Okay. It's an end of one, so, you know, but still. So what about asking citizens to fight humanitarian wars on behalf of distant others? The authors restrict the state's permission to two categories of people. The first is volunteer soldiers that we have in the United States and mercenaries. The mercenaries is an interesting one but I was, when thinking about it, I ran out of time to get into it. So we're going to go with just volunteers and this will be two more minutes. So the authors endorse the proposition that a volunteer member of the armed services could be required to fight a war of humanitarian intervention by asserting that the enlistee has contractually authorized the government to decide on the justice of the cause of particular wars and the contract between soldier and state cannot be read reasonably to circumscribe the scope of permissible wars to only wars of self-defense. So there's this sort of hypothetical contract between soldier and the state and it cannot be reasonably read to be limited only to wars of self-defense. That's the argument here. My question when reading this was, well, why not? Can we not imagine a state that limits itself to only its fiduciary role? Not the kind of softer obligation. So not the model of fiduciary duty plus softer obligation to promote human rights. Especially when the stakes are so high as to asking people to fight, kill, become maimed, injured, and possibly die. So could we not imagine a model of armed forces that says something like join us, footnote, we will not engage in humanitarian intervention, right? It's only wars of self-defense. I have a few more points, but I think I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop there. All this to say is that I in fact am... I agree with the author's contention that humanitarian wars and taxation for humanitarian wars could be justifiable, but I think it needed better support and consistency with the particular theory. So with that, I'll stop. Thanks.


it's just been a handful of games, but how much of a spark do you think you've provided for this team? Not sure, but I really just want to, you know, help just double-team win games. I think 1-2-9, that's what our guys are trying to do right now and, you know, in a variety of ways. So, rather it's by the long ball, find ways to move runners, situational hitting, find ways to score runs and win games. There's playing time up for grabs in that outfield. How do you balance not trying to do too much and put too much pressure on yourself but also proving that you belong out there? Just take it day by day. Again, yeah. Unfortunately, if that's some guys go down in a variety of ways, but again, kind of have the next minute mentality. I just saw today flow is in the outfield. He just got called up. Seeing him contribute the way that he did was awesome. Your speed was showcased again tonight. How much of a weapon do you think that is on the base path? Again, I'm gonna be a little competitive, but it's all about scoring runs. So, that's how I look at it and if I can get myself and at the team if we can get ourselves in position to score more runs by using our legs and so be it. Big moment in that seventh inning chat green in a bit of a jam. How impressed were you with the way he was able to work himself out of that gym? Showed an incredible amount of poise coming in, tough situation late in the ball game. Got two big punchouts for so he's been a workhorse all year obviously, but it was good to see him just come in and shut the door right there.


Welcome to another thrilling, exciting, and physically responsibility episode of Hibachi Talk. I got my good old buddy, Rick Smauer, the fundmeister. Nice to see you, bud. Great, Gordon. It's good to be here. Good to be here. Good to be here. So, pull up a chair, grab a libation, and we're going to talk money. And we're going to talk about the sitting and counting of Honolulu, and their upcoming budget for 2019. So we kind of got into it last week with Natalie Alasa, who's running for City Council on District 4. Right. I watched that, and, you know, that was really a good show, and if some of the folks that are listening today haven't seen that, that might be a great show to segue into this one. Yeah. We're going to talk about the budget that's being proposed with the City. Now what makes this unique, and then a couple of things, is one is the City Council Budget and Finance Committee yesterday did not have quorum. So there could be no presentation or testimony on the budget. And that was going to be their first meeting on the budget. The proposed budget. So you're hearing the budget here first. So there's been nothing in the news about the budget. We're going to present a high-level view of the budget. And the Finance Committee, they have to hear the budget three times. Hear three times. And so now it's already delayed at least one week. And it's got to be heard and reported to the City Council and heard again and reported to the City Council and reported again, and then, or heard again, and then the City Council has to have the three readings too before they can make that. And they've got to have that budget done and approved before the end of June of this year. Right. And we know how fast they work down at the sitting and counting. So this is going to be interesting. And we bring a little bit of expertise to the table. So it's not like we're sitting here and pontificating on things that we don't have experience about. So you did a two-year stint as the Budget and Finance Director of the City. And you did a lot of cool things when you were there. And I was the IT Director, and I had to deal with you. Oh gosh. But you got what you needed, you just had to approve it. I thought you were going to say, I got what I deserved. Well, that too. Yeah. Okay. But we had some pretty good successes when we were there. And I think it's good that we bring these out first before we dive into this $2.61 billion operating budget. Right. Because I think, you know, we really brought some fiscal responsibility to or improved the fiscal responsibility that the City had. And I think that was for really the citizens. Yeah, it was. We put in a totally state-of-the-art financial system. And payroll system on time and on budget in government. Totally unheard of. And you know, I got to give movie credit. Love them or hate them. He was a strong boss and he drove that train. He drove that train and he drove fiscal responsibility for certainly the time that I was there. I could certainly see that and the guidance and the policy that he had was driving fiscal responsibility. Fiscal responsibility. Right. And so back in 2000 and when was this? 2009. 2010. So during that period of time, you lowered our interest rates on our borrowing. Yeah. Well, that's because of some, but I think some of the things that Mayor Hanuman was doing there as, you know, as part of that, I think, you know, some of the things that we got to remember is that you took all of those financial systems that we just talked about and you put them online so that the citizens of the city, well, anyone who had internet, they could come in and they could see and they could think. And it's still there today. It's still there. So that's why we have this information today. Because you are watching this. You can Google fiscal 2019 City and County Honolulu budget and you get the entire 300 and some odd pages of the budget in agonizing detail, which was never there before. But you know, it's kept, it's hard to take it away when it's been put up there. And people that are interested, they now have direct access to it.  Can you tell me what, you know, or what this number is going to be? And it's all there online. And it's broken down by department, by line item, by full time equivalent employee. So there's a lot of good reasons why you may want to get on as a citizen and look and say, you know, I'm interested in transportation services or I'm interested in environmental services or I'm interested in climate. Now, I don't know why we have a department on climate, but now the city has a department on climate which costs money and there's more people in the climate department than there is in the ethics department. There's something wrong with that picture as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. And I would agree with you on that as well. Because in my mind, the state should really be taking the lead on climate, well, and maybe on ethics too. Yeah, maybe on ethics too. But the state has multiple climate departments. One was just audited by the auditor and said that we don't understand what they do. They haven't done anything. So I mean, all of these full time equivalent employees and the departments cost money. So let's look at money. Fiscal year 2019, where are we going to go? We're going to throw up a pie chart here and show you where your money's going.  So here's where it gets the money. Here's where we get the money. So here's 2019 operating budget for this proposed operating budget for the city in County Honolulu. And people just take a look at this for a second because there's a couple things I want to bring to your attention. It's $3.32 billion. That's billion. Yeah. And B, and the difference between a million and a billion, I use this as an example all the time, a million seconds is 12 days, a billion seconds is 32 years. So that's what we're talking here. Yeah. We're talking a full lifetime here, if not more, a lifetime and a half of what we're talking $3.32 billion. And real property tax equates to 37% of that. Okay. That's yours of my real estate tax. But let's bring the chart up. I'm going to get where my heartburn is, okay? I think that 37% is a great comment because that sort of says, okay, I can put that around. Let's use that as a benchmark. And how do other things come together? Let's look at carryover, which is the one that drives me crazy, a 23.86% carryover. That's three quarters of a billion dollars. Three quarters of a billion dollars that's sitting there in carryover. I thought we were doing zero-based budgeting. Yeah. Well, let's talk about what the carryover really means. Yeah. What does that mean? Because what that means is that's money that has been collected by the city. But and that is in the current year and prior years that has not been spent. Three quarters of a billion dollars not spent. What was the carryover when you were the director of budget and finance? The last one when I did the 2011 budget was roughly 65 billion dollars. Not B. Or I'm sorry, million. Yeah. 65 million dollars. 65 million versus three quarters of a billion dollars. So this is carryover, which I take as money that was collected but never spent. And if the city never spent it, then really, they should have never collected that money. Collected it from us. Yeah. And now it's more than 10 times the amount of... That it was 10 years ago. Not even 10 years. Yeah. Seven years ago. Seven years. The money that they are collecting and are not spending is more than 10 times what it used to be. So here's comes back to my other point. Can I say there are two things about that? Yeah. One is the administration, that's the mayor, they're requesting that. Right. But the other thing is the city or the city council, they're approving that request. Right. So there are those two pieces of the city government that have increased the money they're requesting and are not spending by 10 times in seven years. Seven years. I mean, so we got a three quarters of a billion dollar float, it's kind of like how I'm looking at it. That's in somebody's bank account. Yeah. It could be in territorial. I don't know. Anyway. We're going down another path. I shouldn't. But here's my other point. If you look at the chart, 40 plus percent of the expenditures in the operating budget give us no services. It pays off debt, 20 percent in debt, 21 percent on what's classified by this administration as miscellaneous. Miscellaneous. AUT, another billion. 20 percent of 3.2 billion dollars. 3.2 billion dollars. And is miscellaneous? Miscellaneous. It's always FICA, EUTF, et cetera. Yeah. I always use a lot on it, et cetera. Yeah. But we should know, what is that more than miscellaneous? So I think the city council should be asking, we want to break down of this and the also thing I think they should be saying is, and this is where you and I can have a good conversation, I think a significant portion of that money that's in the carryover should pay down the debt service. Well, and I think a little bit different about that the carryover should go to fund the unfunded pension liability. Yeah, the unfunded liabilities, the pension liabilities. Yeah. Either way, we win. Yes. And I think that's why the city council has to have a really strong conversation about what is, you know, we have this money. We didn't spend it in prior years. If we're going to ask for it now, what is it going to be spent for? It should not be carried over into another year. Especially if we're doing zero-base budgeting. Okay, we got to take a break. We got to take a break. Yeah. This goes fast. Yeah. We got to take a break. We're going to go pay some bills with money we have, not from our debt service, and we'll be back in about a minute. This is Stink Tech, Hawaii, raising public awareness. Match Day is no ordinary day. The pitch, hallowed ground for players and supporters alike, excitement builds, game plans are made with responsibility in mind, celebrations are underway, ready for kick off. The club's and our supporters rise to the challenge. We make responsible decisions while we cheer on our heroes and toast their success. Elevate your Match Day experience. If you drink, never drive. 9.8. Aloha. Guard of the Tech Star here. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to my seat. I'm here with my good old buddy, Rick, the former budget finance director of the city and counting in Palo Lilo, a former DIT director, and we're talking about the upcoming budget for the city and county that was supposed to get its first hearing yesterday, but there's city councils in a little bit of turmoil right now. A wee bit. A wee bit. And so they didn't have a quorum and it's been delayed, but we're going to bring it to you first. So in the first half, we talked about 2019, the carryover and how it should be spent. I just want to show that this wasn't just 2019. Look at 18. I'm going to bring up the chart for 2018. The carryover in 2018 was 29.16 percent. So they spent some of it because now carryover is only 23, 22 percent, say? So there was a spend there, but guess what, we now have a history. So we can say, guess what, you can have 6 percent carryover, maybe a 6 percent carryover, or 10 percent carryover is fine, but the rest of it is going to go to, how about back to you and I? How about we reduce our property taxes? Well, that would be good. What about our car registration? Well, we're going to raise the fees. So guess what, we're raising car fees, we're raising... Well, that's proposed. That's proposed. We've got all these increases. Why do we need these increases when we've got three quarters of a billion dollars of carryover? Right. And are we really... And that means that the city has requested and gotten approved for three quarters of a billion dollars that... They did in 2018? Yeah. The city council approved three quarters of a billion dollars, if not more, for carryover. For what? And now they're going to have three quarters of a billion dollars, 750 million dollars that they got appropriated and didn't spend? Yeah. I mean, this is giving me heartburn. And then they're going to borrow, they're going to float bonds, we're going to float bonds to pay for rail, but also going to float bonds to pay for their operating budget of rail, I've heard, from Natalie last week, which means that we're using our credit card to pay for our operating expenses. It's like you and I running up our credit card and making the minimal monthly payment. Exactly. And we got the money. If we go back to the fixed base budget... Yeah. Zero base budget. Zero base budget, yeah. That means that they are asking for three quarters of a billion dollars more this year than they're spending last year. That's not a... It's strange. Zero base budget. No, that's not zero base budgeting. Or if it is, what's the $750 million increase? It's encumbered. What they're going to spend this year? Is it like... So the question becomes, okay, well those funds are encumbered, okay, what does that mean? You've got signed contracts. Well, those have two-year term limits on capital ones, at least they have those. So there's term limits on the contracts. And that's... And is it to fund FTEs that we don't have, you know, full-time equivalents was employees that we don't have? So we're squirreling that away as well? Yeah. I mean, there's just three quarters of a billion dollars. If they were saying like three million dollars, okay, I can live with it, but not three quarters of a billion dollars with all the stuff that's going on right now. It just doesn't make sense. And maybe I'm dumber than a doorknob, but you know... And maybe I've missed something over the last couple of years. Yeah, maybe you've missed something over and you've been in finance for as long as the dirt. A year or two. Yeah. Okay, so here... So we're just going to kind of look at this thing. So I want to bring up... There's a slide... I want to show a five-year history of resources and expenditures. Just to give everybody a sense, I think it might be slide number six on the deck that I put out there. And you just want to take a look. It's never going... I noticed it's never going down. You noticed that? Yeah. It's never, ever going down. If you take a look at... No, bring up the next one after this, which is going to be a bar chart. Five-year... There we go. Five-year history of resources and expenditures. And by the way, all of this is available online. So this is all available for you, Mr. and Mrs. Citizen, to look at where your money is going. Their hand is in your pocket. And you need to be paying attention to this by department. So you can start looking at this. Every year it's going up. Every year it's going up. The operating expenditures are going up. Capital expenditures are going up. It just continues to go up. Yet we've got a one three-quarters of a billion dollar... I'm not going to let this up... Three-quarters of a billion dollar carryover. Yes. Yet they keep increasing the budget. I noticed they're increasing... Now, they decreased the carryover from 18 to 19. So we'll give them credit for that. Yes. They spent some of that carryover. They spent some of that carryover. But it's still three-quarters of a billion dollars. Yes. I think 50 million dollar carryover is good enough. Yes. Maybe 100. 60 to 80 would be fine. Yes. But we don't... On a 3.6 billion dollar budget. Okay. I think that would be fine and reasonable.  You have it anyway. Yes. It's not like a line of credit. Yes. You've got the money anyway. And, you know, if we wanted to go... I shouldn't say we, but if the city council said... Or the city council and or the mayor were to say, you know what? We want to... We have spent all of our pothole money and we'd like to... We'd like to do some more pothole work. Then here's another... I think the city council... I think the city council would go out of heartbeat. I want to get 10 more million. Yeah. I think the city council would give you that money like that. Except they'd be squabbling over whose district is the potholes fixed first. That would be... So my thought would be you give each city council person a million dollars for their particular district, then you don't have to worry about the squabbling over ours first for the... Which one is it? I don't think we're... You know, there's a lot of potholes out there and it seems like there are a lot more today. I know the mayor says I'm spending all of this money, but quite frankly, it looks like there's... My car feels like there's a lot more potholes today. Oh, we won't talk about the damage shocks that I've had to replace because of the pothole. I've placed about $1,000. And I don't know if they're still doing it, but back when I was there, if they repaired the same hot pothole five times, they counted that as five pothole repairs. Yeah. No, no, no.  And it didn't last. And we use sub-materials and I can go back to a previous show where we've had pothole and asphalt experts on our show and say that the city is famous for using sub-standard materials and that's why these potholes come back time and time again. The same potholes keep coming back and they keep painting the same circles around them all the time.  Kalanana LA Highway. Yeah, yeah. No. That's the state. Yes, that's the state. It's a combination of both, actually. And the state has said, yes, we've gotten federal funds to do that. But that was a year and a half ago. And it's still there. And we don't have snow. So I've got to tell you, this is a true story. So I was in Utah a couple of weeks ago and I came across... There was a sign on the road that said yellow signs, that damaged road. And I said, wow, look at this. The state or the city is giving me a heads up that the road ahead is damaged. So I drove for like a mile, I kept waiting to find the damaged road. Now there was a couple of minor cracks or whatever, but they classified that as a damaged road.  And they'd be up there forever. And then they'd have to get permission from the poll committee on whether or not they could put it on. Well, here we go again. So all the extra people we have out there. OK, so we're kind of... But the outdoor circle, there would be so many signs. The outdoor circle would go crazy if there were so many signs. So many yellow signs saying damaged roads. We're giving the wrong impression. No, we're not. I'm saving my tires in my car. I'm out of shock. So what do you think? So what do we get? I'm going to be submitting some testimony. I hope that many of the viewers will submit some testimony. And mine's going to be focusing on the three things. It's like the carryover, the unfunded liabilities and the miscellaneous, which is, you know, FICA pension fund contributions and all those kinds of things, which is 40%, which gives us nothing in return. Yeah, it's just an ongoing amount. 40% of my money is not giving me anything. So it's like walking into the store and I'm going to buy a chocolate bar for $1, but it's going to cost me $1.40 because I'm going to give you 40 cents more for nothing. Right. And you're going to have to pay general excise tax on that as well. Oh, thank you. And the state has a surplus. So the state has a surplus. Well, there you go. And so here's the other thing. So you and I were involved in that.  This is a little off track. I need a proud member back. I'm hyperventilating here. So what is the state going to do with that surplus as well? Again, are they going to take that money next year? Are they going to actually use that to reduce the money that they're going to ask for? The unfunded liabilities that you're talking about, $14 billion. Do you think they have an unfunded pension liability? I heard it was a little bit. I think it was $14 billion. $14 billion. Yeah. Unfunded liabilities for pensions and all of those kinds of things. So $14 billion. Give the union a shock. Yeah. How many, how many seconds, how many years of seconds? $14 billion. That's 32 years times 14. That's 400 years. That's 400 years worth of debt we have out there. Yeah. If we paid a dollar off every second. Every second. Something like that. I don't know how that works. It's just crazy. It's just crazy. So I mean, we need to, as citizens, we need to pay closer attention to this. We can't let them be doing these kinds of smoke and mirror things with the numbers. I want some real numbers when I'm there and giving some testimony down there. We should put pressure on our council members because they're the ones that are approving the carryover. They're the ones that have to provide the votes to get that, to get the budget passed. And what we didn't see here, but I'm sure it probably is online, for the real property tax, there are two pieces of that. What is the value of the property? Right. But then what is the rate? That they're charging. Yeah. And it is. If you go there, it is in there. It talks about the value and the rates. Right. But the real question there is, at least for the property that I own and perhaps yours as well, that the property value, the assessed property value, that's gone up. It's all gone up. Year over year. Yes. If the city to keep the same amount of money, they would have to lower the tax rate. Yes. If the assessed value goes up. Right. So the rate should go down to keep it. Theoretically, the rate should go down. If the rate is not going down, That should go down. That means that same rate, more assessed value, the city is getting more money off of just, that's just math. And so let's say the rate and at the same time the values are going up. Right. It's a double hit on us. Yeah. Especially fixed income individuals. Right. And the real question I guess in my mind is, to keep the property tax level year over year, if the assessed value goes up, city, you should bring your rate down. You should bring your rates down. Especially to cover it. To keep our tax, our tax check the same. Reasonable. Yes. I agree. So anyway, we just burned through 30 minutes. And you can tell we were a little bit animated about this. I hope you pay attention to this. I hope you go online. Just Google city and county hall a little fiscal year budget 2019. The 300 and some odd page document is right there by department in great detail. There's an executive summary. I mean, my hat's off for having all there. So it's available to us and for us to look at it. And if you've got a concern about something, then write in testimony. You don't have to go down there. No. And wait in line. Write in testimony and send it to your council member. Absolutely. And that's what we've got to do. Anyway, Mr. Mauer, sir, it's been a pleasure. Mr. Bruce, my father. Yeah, okay. And so, and like we say at the end of every show, one, two, three. And how are you doing?


Georgia Perez has specialized in diabetes education with Native American Diabetes Project University of New Mexico since 1994. From 1975 to 1994, she was the community health representative for Nambi Pueblo. Ms. Perez calls her series of children's stories the Eagle Books. In these stories, a wise eagle assumes the role of tribal elder in the time-honored Native American tradition of using storytelling to pass on tribal culture and to teach lessons of life. The author was inspired in part by telling the stories to her three grandsons. She lives with her husband, Edward Perez, in Nambi Pueblo, New Mexico, a small federally recognized tribe of 600 people. Lisa A. Feifeld, from the United Tribe of Wisconsin, the Black Bear Clan, uses time-honored Native American tales and beliefs as the inspiration for her work. Her color palette is unique as she mixes paint to her own aesthetic. Ms. Feifeld's art has been exhibited in numerous museums in the Western United States. Patrick Rolo, from the Bad River Band of Ojibwe, draws from his rich Native American heritage to co-illustrate the Eagle Book. Mr. Rolo's career includes newspaper, magazine, comic books, and courtroom illustrations. Also a painter, his works in oil hanging galleries in Minnesota and Washington. Both illustrators live in Minnetonka, Minnesota.