CoinDesk Podcast Network

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DISCUSSION: Decentralization and What Section 230 Really Means for Freedom of Speech Jun 04, 2020

Show notes

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last Thursday, seeking to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 prevents social media companies from civil liability for the content posted on them. The order targets Twitter and Facebook after Twitter fact-checked two of the President’s tweets.

Today, CoinDesk tackles the topic with Chief Content Officer Michael Casey, Privacy Reporter Benjamin Powers, New York Law School professor and past President of the American Civil Liberties Union Nadine Strossen, and author of the Open Index Protocol Amy James

This episode is sponsored by Bitstamp and Ciphertrace.

On this podcast, the CoinDesk team brings listeners up to speed on the leadup to and aftermath of the executive order, discuss the fairness implications of editorializing on social media, the business models that enable and are empowered by all of this, and how decentralized protocols can chart an alternative path forward.

First we talk about the first amendment and Section 230 itself, what it does and doesn’t do as it pertains to social media platforms and moderation.

Then we talk about fairness and the if you don’t-like-it-leave argument, as well as related topics

We’ll talk about the business models and assumptions implicit in the current state of dominant social media platforms before turning to alternatives or possible solutions in decentralized protocols and multi-layered approaches to moderation or censorship.

Links from the episode:

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BREAKDOWN: 5 Numbers That Tell the Story of Markets Right Now Jun 03, 2020

Show notes

Every day that protests continue and the stock market goes up, more people ask what the disconnect between markets and the real economy is. In this episode of The Breakdown, NLW peels back the story of today’s economy by looking at five numbers:

This episode is sponsored by Bitstamp and Ciphertrace.

The growth of the S&P500 since the March 23 low
Current unemployment stats and a Bloomberg Economics estimate of the number of jobs at risk
The performance of the S&P500 in 1968, one of the most tumultuous years in American history
The total percentage of the world’s debt denominated in dollar terms
The number of flights between the US and China by Chinese airlines going forward

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BREAKDOWN: Cellphones, Bitcoin and the Citizen Tools of Anti-Authoritarianism, Feat. Alex Gladstein Jun 02, 2020

Show notes

A conversation with the outspoken pro-bitcoin, anti-surveillance human rights advocate and global power expert.

This episode is sponsored by Bitstamp and Ciphertrace.

Alex Gladstein is the chief strategy officer of the Human Rights Foundation. He is a powerful voice for the role of bitcoin in combating authoritarianism around the globe.

In today's episode, he and NLW discuss:

What the protests tell us about the state of democracy in the U.S.
The potential impact of protests and COVID-19 on surveillance norms
The potential for a "biological Patriot Act"
The implications of China's push to absorb Hong Kong
The relevance or irrelevance of China's digital currency
The role of bitcoin in promoting freedom

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BREAKDOWN: The Power and Peril of the 'Bitcoin Fixes This' Meme Jun 01, 2020

Show notes

As the U.S. experiences the most sustained civil disobedience in more than a generation, an exploration of what role bitcoin has to play in building a better system.

This episode is sponsored by Bitstamp and Ciphertrace.

Cities around the country have been engulfed in protest in the wake of the murder of 46-year-old black man George Floyd. There is an intense battle for the narrative around the protests. Are they legitimate outcries against institutional racism and police brutality? Is the looting covertly being driven by white supremacists on the one hand or ANTIFA on the other?

In the Bitcoin community, some have plumbed the “Bitcoin Fixes This” meme to argue that the core underlying issue has to do with a monetary system that structurally creates inequality. Others have clapped back against pushing that meme in this moment.

In this episode of The Breakdown, NLW looks at:

What bitcoiners are trying to say when they apply the “Bitcoin Fixes This” meme to this moment.
Why the current system structurally exacerbates inequality.
Why the meme fails to capture additional economic, political and power dimensions of what’s going on.
Why the meme in this moment might feel so out of place as to inspire the opposite of its intended effect: turning people away from bitcoin rather than making them want to learn more.
Why Satoshi’s “If you don’t get it, I don’t have time to explain it to you” quote is the most misused and abused of his sayings.
Why complexity and nuance, not memes, are needed now.

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LTB!: 'We Need 30 Different Words for Different Kinds of Censorship' May 31, 2020

Show notes

'The best Sundays are for long reads and deep conversations. Recently the hosts of the Let's Talk Bitcoin! Show gathered to discuss state sponsored propaganda, corporate censorship and how cryptocurrency or decentralization changes the game.

The rallying cry of the totalitarian is "He farted first", but if both systems have produced similar outcomes, is there much of a difference? Inspired by a recent article in the Atlantic, in today's wide-ranging discussion the hosts of Let's Talk Bitcoin! dig deeply into the questions of censorship, propaganda and how things are both better and worse than in years past.

The episode is sponsored by eToro.com and The Internet of Money Vol. 3

Shownotes:

Who are they censoring from and how do we unpack this manipulation?
The rallying cry of the totalitarian is always “He farted first”
Who gets to decide what is censored?
The squeaky wheel of child pornography gets the attention, the much more insidious problem of silencing certain voices, or giving preference to other voices.
Propaganda goes hand-in-hand with censorship
Propaganda is harder to detect ‘reverse censorship’
Private platform curation have the right to moderate which can be interpreted as censorship.
You have to choose if you’re a publisher or a platform
What if AT&T listened to your phone calls, sold ads against them and disconnected you whenever you say something that would trouble sponsors?
Common carriers vs. publishers
FOSTA, SESTA and turning platforms into publishers
Crony capitalism will always co-opt government
The only way to win is not to play
The only way to not be coopted as a protocol is to have it not be owned by anyone.
It may be impossible to be a platform if you’re not a protocol
Information overload and compartmentalization
Are the solutions that are being proposed the solution that we need to solve this problem?
What kind of side effects does the solution have?
It’s one thing to say “there are idiots out there who have not developed critical thinking and are easily swayed and we need to fix this” and a whole other thing to say “And that’s why only the landed gentry should vote”
Do tech companies think they’re helping?
Benevolent fascism is still fascism
The public school system was never meant for the average person to be able to form their own opinion, “it is for factory men not philosophers”
Manufacturing consent with the power to control, censor, frame, set up the base assumptions of belief and then seek to nail them down.
A dictatorship of the mind is far more effective than a dictatorship of violence.
If Let’s Talk Bitcoin! Were on Youtube, we wouldn’t be able to say the word Covid-19. Avoiding totalitarian controls means missing opportunities presented by big would-be platforms.
Government surveillance vs. private surveillance provided to the government
What we learned from Edward Snowden
Does China commercialize surveillance?
If both systems have produced the same outcome, is there much of a difference between them?
A virtual prison camp
Suppression of information does not translate to changing reality
Biblical verses in the blockchain and
“A platform puts data out but search is editorialism”
Phone numbers, the yellow pages, cocaine and liability
Privacy, anonymity and another form of censorship
We need 30 different words for different kinds of censorship
Is it censorship when private companies do it?
Where did the word censorship come from and what words should we be using?
“The problem with censorship is not the content, it’s the person in which the control is vested”
Is this worse because of growing polarization and partisanship?
Was the internet free-er when nobody used it?
Letters to the editor and platforms that amplify
Even more insidious than censorship are the algorithms choosing what is seen and by who.
Geographic boundaries vs. idealogical boundaries and the demise of newspaper monopolies on local discourse
5G and Coronavirus: Niche ideas wouldn’t propagate if censorship worked
The Streisand effect, reach and survivor bias
The influence that Google’s page-rank has on congressional primaries
A generational divide in social media management skills and critical thinking
Masks, conspiracy theories and narrative control
Manipulating the wisdom of the crowds as manipulating the wisdom of society
Censorship by private forces for profit and by government for state control, and the coalition of the two.
Censorship as controlling access to the publishing of information vs. controlling what is amplified vs. how much reach it has.
A big difference is visible in implementation of severe consequences for speech
The chilling effect of harsh penalties and being “disappeared” for speech
Ostracism, state punishment or private corporate consequences
What are your favorite words or terms for specific kinds of censorship? Send us an email at adam@ltbshow.com
If you light your brainfarts on fire, is that flaring?

Credits

This episode of Let's Talk Bitcoin features Stephanie Murphy, Jonathan Mohan, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Adam B. Levine. Music provided by Jared Rubens and Gurty Beats, with editing by Jonas.

Photo by Sebastiaan Stam on Unsplash

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BREAKDOWN: The Battle for the Future of Money, feat. Lawrence Summers, CZ, Michelle Phan, the Winklevoss brothers, The Chainsmokers and more. May 29, 2020

Show notes

As the economic dimension of the COVID-19 crisis comes into clearer view, what have we learned about the battle for the future of money? Does the dollar reign supreme? Are within-the-system competitors like the euro or China’s digital yuan gaining ground? Does an outside the system alternative like bitcoin stand a chance?

This episode is sponsored by ErisX, The Stellar Development Foundation and Grayscale Digital Large Cap Investment Fund.

Over the last month, the “Money Reimagined” series has looked at the battle for the future of money.

Episode 1 focused on the dollar and why it is simultaneously stronger and more set up to fail than ever before.

Catch up: Why the Dollar Has Never Been Stronger or More Set Up to Fail

Episode 2 was all about the obvious contenders to replace the dollar such as the euro or China’s currency, especially as they race towards a digital yuan. It also looked at where Facebook’s Libra might fit in the mix.

Catch up: The Rise of the Dollar Killers

Episode 3 looked at one of the most unique features of this modern currency battle - the fact that there are fundamentally new systems like bitcoin in the running. Can a non-sovereign currency actually be more relevant than global fiats?

Catch up: Where Bitcoin Fits in the New Monetary Order

This final episode of the “Money Reimagined” series checks in on each of the previous episodes but brings a new set of voices to the mix. Between May 11 and May 14, CoinDesk hosted Consensus:Distributed, a virtual summit featuring some of the leading lights in crypto, finance, economics and pop culture. In this episode, we hear from those voices, including:

Lawrence Summers - former U.S. Treasury Secretary
Christopher Giancarlo - former Chairman of the CFTC
Michelle Phan - YouTube innovator and founder of Ipsy
Chaoping Zhao - founder and CEO of Binance
The Winklevoss brothers - founders of Gemini
The Chainsmokers - Grammy-winning artists
Carlota Perez - influential economist

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BREAKDOWN: The Geopolitical Implications of a Too-Strong Dollar, Feat. Brent Johnson May 28, 2020

Show notes

A macro expert joins to discuss why the U.S. dollar and economy are more broadly poised to suck the liquidity from the entire global economy.

This episode is sponsored by ErisX, The Stellar Development Foundation and Grayscale Digital Large Cap Investment Fund.

You know the meme: Money printer go brrr. It means inflation right?

Not necessarily, says Brent Johnson. Since 2016-2017, Johnson has been arguing the big economic issue of our time isn’t inflation of the U.S. dollar due to excess money printing, but the havoc caused by a global system where the dollar keeps getting stronger and sucks up liquidity from the rest of the world.

As the dollar has strengthened over the COVID-19 crisis, his ideas look more prescient than ever. In this conversation with NLW, Johnson discusses:

What the “Dollar Milkshake Theory” is
Why the implications of the theory stress him out, even though he created it
Why everything is relative and no asset can be analyzed in a vacuum
Why we could see the dollar, bitcoin and gold rise at the same time
Why we can’t discuss macroeconomics without discussing geopolitics and even the military

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BREAKDOWN: Why Innovation Matters (and How Not to Screw It Up), Feat. Matt Ridley May 27, 2020

Show notes

This episode is sponsored by ErisX, The Stellar Development Foundation and Grayscale Digital Large Cap Investment Fund.

Twenty-one different people can reasonably claim to have invented the light bulb, but Thomas Edison is the one we know about. Was it just good PR? According to Matt Ridley, it was because Edison was the progenitor of an “innovation factory” that didn’t just create things but brought them to market in a way no one else did.

Innovation is one of the most important forces in the economy, and arguably the most important driver of human prosperity over the last century. Yet, for most of its life, it has been viewed as some strange exogenous force, rather than as a discipline that could be understood.

In this conversation with NLW and Ridley discuss:

Why it took so long for economists to take the study of innovation seriously
Why invention is different from innovation
Why innovation has tended to concentrate in geographically proximate areas
Why free societies produce more innovation than closed societies (including empires)
Why China’s innovation production over the last decade may be an exception that proves the rule of innovation thriving in freedom
Why government winner picking is a terrible way to inspire innovation
Why innovation policy led Matt to support Brexit
The rational, optimistic take on the future

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BREAKDOWN: Deglobalization and Other Narrative Violations, Feat. Geoff Lewis May 26, 2020

Show notes

This episode is sponsored by ErisX, The Stellar Development Foundation and Grayscale Digital Large Cap Investment Fund.

The battle to control narratives is the battle to shape how people understand the world around them. But the traditional gatekeepers of narratives - the media - have never had more competition to shape what is perceived as truth.

In this episode, NLW speaks with Bedrock Capital founder Geoff Lewis about what it means to seek out opportunities in “narrative violations.” They also discuss:

Why de-globalization and “onshoring” are likely to be among the most important economic drivers in the U.S. in the coming decade
Why the shift to working from home may be an overblown “narrative mirage”
How important questions of institutional decay have been co-opted by the culture war
Why independent, individuals in the media have more influence than ever
Why we’re in a “narrative mirage recovery”

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BREAKDOWN: The Shadow of Satoshi's Ghost... Why Bitcoin Mythology Matters May 22, 2020

Show notes

This episode is sponsored by ErisX, The Stellar Development Foundation and Grayscale Digital Large Cap Investment Fund.

On Wednesday, a batch of coins mined just a month after bitcoin’s birth were moved. It was the first time since August 2017 that any bitcoin from early 2009 had been transferred, and the action set Bitcoin Twitter on fire. While a number of bitcoin archaeologists quickly and persuasively argued the tokens were almost assuredly not mined by bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, it was a moment that reinforced the living history in the bitcoin ecosystem.

In this episode, NLW looks at what makes the Satoshi mythology powerful:

Genuine technical innovation and problem solving that had stymied some brilliant minds for decades
Incredible instincts around narrative and human psychology, as reflected in the “Chancellor on the Brink” message embedded in the Genesis Block and the ceremony around the halving
The incredible contrariness of a creator withdrawing in a world where entrepreneurs are lionized like no one else in society

And while the battles within the bitcoin community around interpretation may look more like the early history of religions than like a business ecosystem, NLW argues that fervor is a key part of what de-risks bitcoin, even for investors who don’t at all care about the mythology.

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