60: Crypto Dreamin’ (w/David Morris)
Are you crypto-curious? This past year has shown that an increasing number of people are dreaming of becoming crypto millionaires. But what is blockchain and this strange new digital currency and, more pertinent to this podcast, how are conspiritualists trying to exploit it, even when they don’t understand what “it” is?
Matthew drills Derek, who worked in blockchain for over two years with two different companies, on the basics, before Derek interviews David Morris, the Chief Insights Columnist at Coindesk who also just happens to have a longtime interest in MLMs and cults. Matthew also reviews the 1996 essay, “The Californian Ideology,” the famous 1995 study of the bizarre Silicon Valley-fueled fusion of cultural bohemianism and free-market utopia rhetoric.
In the Ticker, Julian reconsiders the definition of free speech in an age of digital misinformation through the lens of anti-vax champion RFK, Jr, Vandana Shiva, and returning Conspirituality champion, Russell Brand.
Show Notes
The Lesson of Bitconnect: Promoters Can Be Liable
China’s Anti-Crypto Crackdown Is Different This Time
Of Course China Is Anti-Bitcoin: Look What Happened to Jack Ma
Biden’s New FTC Chair Could Be a Big Web 3.0 Ally
23-year old who kept QAnon online
Italy’s Five Star Techno-Utopians
RFK’s Children’s Health Defense article on Brand and Shiva
Seeds of Doubt New Yorker article about Vandana Shiva
Stanford U. Letter on Shiva’s Anti-Science Rhetoric
“Bill Gates Agenda” viral article
Gates New Agriculture Non-Profit
Barbrooke and Cameron, 1995: THE CALIFORNIAN IDEOLOGY
Richard Brautigan, 1967: All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
David Golumbia, The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism
