Michel Bauwens: P2P & Commons Strategy

[00:00:03] Michel Bauwens: Any competition for scarce resources leads to oligarchy. Why? Because it's a it's a game. And every iteration of the game, some is more lucky or more clever than you. So they already have more resources for the second game and then the third game. And so whether it's land or money, you, you see it, you know, that is always this tendency towards oligarchy.

[00:00:26] Jarrad Hope: Oh, thank you so much, Michel, for joining me. You don't quite know it, but your ideas and the peer to peer Foundation wiki was very transformative in my thinking. I think I came across it around sort of 2006, 2007 when I was looking at the Pirate Party.

[00:00:45] Michel Bauwens: That was right at the beginning.

[00:00:46] Jarrad Hope: Yeah, yeah, I was very in much in the sort of like file sharing side of peer to peer networks. But coming across the peer to peer foundation and what they were doing with the Pirate Party, I kind of started realizing the broader scope of peer to peer technologies. Peer production and the notion of a public good and building these as these protocols and these networks as public goods is something that stayed with me since. And I've been trying to kind of build that out. So that's like one reason. Also, another reason I'd like to speak with you is, you know, you've talked about the network society. You've been very concerned with civilizational transitions, as I understand it. And I'm very much about this notion of cyber states and so on. So, yeah, I guess before we get into any of that, would you like to introduce yourself?

[00:01:41] Michel Bauwens: All right. So. Yeah. So my name is obviously Michel Bauwens. I'm from Belgium originally. I would say, unfortunately, I'm 66. You know, start starts to count. And I live in northern Thailand in Chiang Mai, which last week was the most polluted city in the world. But was saying I nevertheless recommend outside of these hazing months, which is, you know, like March to May. It's it's quite a wonderful place to live normally. And it's, you know, one of the places where the number of digital nomads is very, very high. And it used to be Westerners. Now it's like a lot of Chinese people are coming are coming here. So, you know, the last few meetings of digital nomads that I attended were like full of Asian people from India, from Pakistan, from everywhere. So, you know, you kind of feel the shift also in the zeitgeist and the vibe, you know, the Westernization is in the air. What else should I say? Yeah. So I founded a peer to peer foundation that was in I took a two year sabbatical in in 2002, 2003, which was the purpose was to study transitions. And I came to the conclusion that before you have, you know, really radical transformations like revolutions and stuff, that this is really only the last stage. And it only happens when society cannot adapt peacefully. Then, you know, you need something more violent to to shake its foundations. But that mostly what's of importance is seed forms. So, you know, the way you should imagine it. And I know this is already outside of self presentation.

[00:03:30] Jarrad Hope: No,

[00:03:30] Michel Bauwens: But

[00:03:31] Jarrad Hope: This is great.

[00:03:31] Michel Bauwens: The way you should, the way you should imagine it. So you have a relatively stable system you know, that has solved some basic societal issue and that as a set of institutions that, as it has solved its institutions, creates its own problems, as it were, which can no longer be solved with, with, with that solution. And so at that point, people start quitting either voluntarily because they have like an anti anticipatory consciousness or because they have to because the old system no longer provides what they need and expect. And so these seed forms are experimentations in a new logic which eventually will find each other, create subsystems, and eventually be strong enough to, you know, to transform the whole, the whole civilization. So that's the way I look at the world. And so, of course, right now I look at the world at around two specific things, which is peer to peer, which is the capacity for translocal self-organization. So that's, you know, you have peer to peer in a tribal environment with, you know, a small village and people can you know, can solve their issues by talking to their family members, mostly because that's what tribes were about, about kinship. I'm talking about you know, what we are doing here and all the systems that go with it.

[00:04:57] Michel Bauwens: So the fact that people can join ecosystems of collaboration which transcend pure geography. And, you know, that's not to say that's the only reality, but that is certainly to say that this will change the old reality and that I think this is civilizational because civilization was actually a relation between agriculture and the city. So it's the surplus of agriculture allows you to create a new class writing class. And, you know, which was a minority, and the writing class created markets and states you know, to kind of upscale from tribal arrangements. And I think we're reaching a new pivot. So I think this is actually more like A5000 year shift rather than just like a, you know, a 50 year shift or even 500 years shift. I think we are moving towards this new form of mutual coordination. So distributed coordination. By Pierce. But to do that they need comments. So this is the second concept. So the second concept is comments which is shared resources that are managed or created or defended by a community or a group of stakeholders using their own regulation. And so that immediately distinguishes from the market and the state. So,

[00:06:19] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:06:19] Michel Bauwens: You know, without without saying or expecting that they will disappear anytime soon. I do think that we are creating this new sphere. So I don't know if you know. Mark Stallman from the center for the Study of Digital Life. He has a good way to. He says you have East and West, and now you have digital. So you have this

[00:06:38] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:06:38] Michel Bauwens: Kind of like, you know, market centric versus state centric competition between the West and the Russia-china axis and the BRICs and, you know, mostly allied now with with them. So that's like the struggle in the geosphere. But then we

[00:06:53] Jarrad Hope: All

[00:06:53] Michel Bauwens: Have

[00:06:53] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:06:54] Michel Bauwens: A new layer and we come with our own solutions. And then of course there's a big debate and maybe we can have that debate whether the, you know, purely libertarian solution is, is the solution or whether, you know, it's some something else or some kind of hybrid adaptation between, you know, the the earlier layer, physical layer and this new layer. So that's the whole debate. I think that that is of interest is like, you know, where are we going? And so

[00:07:21] Jarrad Hope: The.

[00:07:21] Michel Bauwens: If you if you study civilization, I and I will stop, I promise, you

[00:07:26] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:07:26] Michel Bauwens: Know, and especially civilization transition of the past. I think this gives you a lot of patterns that, you know, without saying they will be repeated in the same way. It's still, you know, allows you to think like, what if, right? What if this pattern, you know, is now also operative in this transition? And how would it be different once we have the digital? So that's the kind of what I use

[00:07:48] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:07:48] Michel Bauwens: To my thinking. I look at the end of Rome and, you know, like medieval I love medieval society, Western medieval society. I think it's a very

[00:07:56] Jarrad Hope: Same.

[00:07:57] Michel Bauwens: Good image of a distributed system. You know, it

[00:08:01] Jarrad Hope: Definitely.

[00:08:01] Michel Bauwens: Was full of contracts, as you know, you know, not digital contracts, but it was contract based society,

[00:08:08] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:08:08] Michel Bauwens: Very local, but at the same time, a unified culture through, you know, through the monks and the Catholic Church. And again, I'm not saying this to say we're going towards the same, but I think it's very useful to study patterns of the past and see if they apply or not, and whether they are transformed or not, and how they are transformed, and whether there's new things that, you know, that didn't exist before. But it helps you see the present especially, you know, because we are in a presentist moment, right, where people can't see anything like scales. So and they can't project themselves. And that's, that's very dangerous, right? If

[00:08:47] Jarrad Hope: Definitely.

[00:08:48] Michel Bauwens: You

[00:08:48] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:08:48] Michel Bauwens: Cannot project yourself. And, you know, and there's basically three two ways to deal with that one. One is transcendence. You know, you become spiritual and you choose the vertical dimension and you kind of like move away from the world in a certain way. Or you can have a horizontal transcendence, which is like to have a long enough view that you can project yourself beyond the catastrophe. Which, you know, every civilization transition also is so and that can give you strength and hope. And I think that's what I'm trying to do with, you know, my narratives about peer to peer and the Commons.

[00:09:26] Jarrad Hope: Right. Nice. I mean, thank you for that. There's a lot to unpack and I'd love to get into so I guess, like when it comes to this sort of like five year, 5000 year or 5000 year shift where are we in that sort of period? I guess, in your mind, like, if we bring this to, like, a more concrete, like, I assume that you you think

[00:09:54] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:09:54] Jarrad Hope: We're undergoing this civilizational shift?

[00:09:57] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[00:09:57] Jarrad Hope: And then, like, what is the agriculture equivalent we're talking about here?

[00:10:03] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:10:03] Jarrad Hope: Is this the the net or or or,

[00:10:06] Michel Bauwens: Okay,

[00:10:06] Jarrad Hope: You know, just

[00:10:07] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:10:07] Jarrad Hope: Instantaneous

[00:10:07] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:10:07] Jarrad Hope: Communications.

[00:10:07] Michel Bauwens: Let me say a bit about cycles. Maybe first. So

[00:10:11] Jarrad Hope: Sure.

[00:10:12] Michel Bauwens: What? So what I believe is that we are in a concatenation of cycles. I hope that's a good English word. What I mean

[00:10:18] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:10:18] Michel Bauwens: Is that a lot of cycles which are in the descending phase are, you know, coming together and making the crisis very intense. So we have a kondratieff cycle. This is the cycle of the political economy, which is about 50 years, you know, has a upswing, peak and downswing and then a sudden systemic crisis. This is rather

[00:10:42] Michel Bauwens: Easy, I think, to pinpoint because. So starting in 45, you know, we had an upswing. The middle was 73. You know, we had the oil crisis and everything. And I think definitely 2008 was the end of it was when the the whole, you know, that system kind of crashed.

[00:11:07] Jarrad Hope: So

[00:11:07] Michel Bauwens: Then there is

[00:11:08] Jarrad Hope: When

[00:11:08] Michel Bauwens: 100

[00:11:08] Jarrad Hope: We're

[00:11:08] Michel Bauwens: Year

[00:11:08] Jarrad Hope: Talking.

[00:11:08] Michel Bauwens: Cycle,

[00:11:09] Jarrad Hope: Sorry

[00:11:09] Michel Bauwens: Right?

[00:11:10] Jarrad Hope: To interrupt you there, but like when we're talking about these cycles, are you talking about it in like, a sort of Spengler Toynbee Burnham kind

[00:11:18] Michel Bauwens: Yeah,

[00:11:18] Jarrad Hope: Of sense?

[00:11:19] Michel Bauwens: But they have long. I'll come to it. They have long cycles.

[00:11:21] Jarrad Hope: Okay?

[00:11:21] Michel Bauwens: So I'm starting

[00:11:22] Jarrad Hope: Okay.

[00:11:22] Michel Bauwens: With

[00:11:22] Jarrad Hope: Sorry.

[00:11:22] Michel Bauwens: The small

[00:11:22] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:11:23] Michel Bauwens: Ones and I

[00:11:23] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:11:23] Michel Bauwens: Get to the longer ones. So

[00:11:25] Jarrad Hope: Okay.

[00:11:25] Michel Bauwens: The, you know, the shortest is on average 50 years. But you know, when you say 50, it can be 60 or 40

[00:11:31] Jarrad Hope: Sure.

[00:11:31] Michel Bauwens: Or, but

[00:11:32] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:11:32] Michel Bauwens: You know,

[00:11:32] Jarrad Hope: Some

[00:11:32] Michel Bauwens: And it's like

[00:11:33] Jarrad Hope: Standard

[00:11:33] Michel Bauwens: A,

[00:11:33] Jarrad Hope: Deviation.

[00:11:33] Michel Bauwens: Like it's

[00:11:34] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:11:34] Michel Bauwens: A political economy system. So and you can, you know, we had two phases before the peak, the welfare state and then after the peak, the neoliberal system and

[00:11:43] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:11:44] Michel Bauwens: Then that crash in 2008. So so there we are in the chaotic transition of the political economy cycle and seeking a new combination of energy and, you know, work organization and all of that. But then there is the hundred year cycle, which is described in the fourth generation book, right where you have. First generation after the crisis. Rebuild society. 25 years. One generation. The second generation 68. Starts revolting against the system already. The third phase is when they're both on the same level of strength. So the old and the new are like like in the 90s. And then the fourth, the fourth generation cycle is when you enter chaos. And so that's a civic cycle. It pertains to civic institutions like the trust in democracy. We can

[00:12:44] Michel Bauwens: Clearly see, you know, it's largely gone.

[00:12:47] Jarrad Hope: It's

[00:12:47] Michel Bauwens: People

[00:12:47] Jarrad Hope: Very eroded.

[00:12:47] Michel Bauwens: Don't trust the press, don't trust the media. That's not an economic issue. That's a civic issue. Like how do we organize ourselves politically? Of course they're related.

[00:12:55] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:12:56] Michel Bauwens: But and

[00:12:57] Jarrad Hope: And

[00:12:57] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:12:57] Jarrad Hope: What

[00:12:58] Michel Bauwens: It

[00:12:58] Jarrad Hope: Shreds

[00:12:58] Michel Bauwens: Also

[00:12:58] Jarrad Hope: Remain

[00:12:58] Michel Bauwens: Seems.

[00:12:58] Jarrad Hope: Of that generative AI is going to completely ruin

[00:13:02] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[00:13:02] Jarrad Hope: As well,

[00:13:02] Michel Bauwens: You can.

[00:13:03] Jarrad Hope: Right?

[00:13:03] Michel Bauwens: Yes. So then

[00:13:05] Jarrad Hope: No.

[00:13:05] Michel Bauwens: You have, you know, you can see that the war cycle and the hegemony cycle are also hundred years are related to that second cycle. And what happens is every hundred years there's a big war. Think Napoleon, World War one, World War two, and now you can feel it. We're going back to

[00:13:21] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:13:21] Michel Bauwens: A very unstable period with Ukraine, Gaza. And this is just, you know, in the last two years and who knows, you know, Iran could get involved. And the Houthis and, you know, it's and China

[00:13:32] Jarrad Hope: Could

[00:13:32] Michel Bauwens: And Taiwan,

[00:13:32] Jarrad Hope: Escalate.

[00:13:33] Michel Bauwens: I mean, it's it's not you know, it's it's getting very unstable. Right. And

[00:13:37] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:13:37] Michel Bauwens: So a harmonic means like a change of hegemony, right?

[00:13:41] Jarrad Hope: Okay.

[00:13:41] Michel Bauwens: The Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, they had actually two cycles and the American cycle. And I think it's very likely that the American hegemony is, you know, is is going down, which is very dangerous because, you know. It's like a wounded tiger, you know, if you're.

[00:13:59] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:14:00] Michel Bauwens: That's when you're

[00:14:01] Jarrad Hope: Thrashing

[00:14:01] Michel Bauwens: Most dangerous.

[00:14:01] Jarrad Hope: In its last throes.

[00:14:02] Michel Bauwens: Right?

[00:14:02] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:14:03] Michel Bauwens: Right. So then the so. So now Toynbee and Spengler, they are about long cycles and

[00:14:10] Michel Bauwens: It's 1000 year and 500 years. So basically you could you could have this kind of idea that. You know, so you have chaos. Out of that comes a civilization eventually

[00:14:23] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:14:23] Michel Bauwens: Creates cities, and they're decentralized, right? Eventually they start fighting to each other and creating

[00:14:30] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:14:30] Michel Bauwens: Alliances against each other, and eventually they exhausted themselves. So that's what happened to Greece. I think around the fourth century BC.

[00:14:40] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:14:40] Michel Bauwens: And that's what happened to Italy in the 14th century, right? So when you reach that 500 year stage of a civilization, the second phase is a centralizing phase of civilization. Now, in Europe, because England was always destroying the would be empires. We have a very special system, which is a nation state. So we never got a true empire. But nation states are also centralizing, you know, agents, right. They centralize on a smaller area, but then they unite in an international system. And which was clearly dominated by the US since, you know, the 1940s. So I would say we are also at the end of A1000 year cycle of Western civilization, because that started more or less in line 98 with the German Holy Roman Empire, which restored a kind of integrative dynamic because between 500 and 1000 it's chaos. It's a dark age. So it's only when the Holy Roman Empire establishes itself that you get, you know, like the the growth of the High Middle Ages. And so that 500 period collapses in the, in the in 1500.

[00:15:55] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:15:56] Michel Bauwens: You know, the I mean, it's it's a longer process, but that basically creates the conditions for the nation state system, which again, you know, has different iterations. And I think that is ending now. Right? So

[00:16:08] Jarrad Hope: Absolutely.

[00:16:08] Michel Bauwens: That's 501,000 years. And then the 5000 year is the idea that civilization was an agrarian, a rural urban relationship. And you know, which you can also then go into complications. But let's put it let's stay simple that we now have this new layer, the trans local layer of self-organized trans local communities. Right. And then

[00:16:33] Michel Bauwens: If you don't mind, I can historicize that a little bit. So

[00:16:36] Jarrad Hope: Sure.

[00:16:36] Michel Bauwens: I think 93 is a key date because we democratize the digital. Before

[00:16:41] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:16:42] Michel Bauwens: 93. It's used by companies, big governments, but citizens have no access to it. So in 93 is like the explosion after the web and the browser. Right?

[00:16:54] Michel Bauwens: Then open source, and I'm not sure what day to put an open source, but open source. Why is this important is the first time we can coordinate human labor at a global scale. Outside of corporations and states. So, you know, small groups of on average five people. Can create a coalition of 25,000 workers with 500 companies involved and create Linux.

[00:17:22] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:17:24] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:17:24] Jarrad Hope: And

[00:17:24] Michel Bauwens: So.

[00:17:24] Jarrad Hope: Run

[00:17:25] Michel Bauwens: But.

[00:17:25] Jarrad Hope: On billions of devices as the backbone of

[00:17:27] Michel Bauwens: Exactly.

[00:17:27] Jarrad Hope: Basically

[00:17:28] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[00:17:28] Jarrad Hope: The

[00:17:28] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:17:28] Jarrad Hope: Internet,

[00:17:28] Michel Bauwens: And and

[00:17:29] Jarrad Hope: You know.

[00:17:29] Michel Bauwens: The market estate can cannot even do that on their own. So without

[00:17:33] Jarrad Hope: No.

[00:17:34] Michel Bauwens: The open source commons, no state or or company is actually able to do it by themselves. And okay, then crypto comes in, which is a second layer, because I think the problem with open source was that we couldn't fund the core of the commons.

[00:17:50] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:17:51] Michel Bauwens: So the

[00:17:51] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:17:51] Michel Bauwens: People who interfacing with the market, you know, could get money for certification, education, improving adaptation. But the people working for the core had to be subsidized by big multinationals. And so the problem of open source is it's under heavy influence of big companies that, you know, that are very influential in the core of these open source developments. And so crypto is interesting because it allows for the financialization, for the financing of that open source work in the core. And so now you see Ethereum, you know, funding public goods. So taxing itself, as it were, right. Optimism. You pay double the cost of maintaining and growing that that I don't know how you call it like a chain or whatever you want to call it.

[00:18:41] Jarrad Hope: Sure.

[00:18:41] Michel Bauwens: And, and they give it to Gitcoin and Gitcoin then funds the commons of Ethereum.

[00:18:48] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:18:48] Michel Bauwens: Right. So this is an extraordinarily significant because we have. So the capacity now from within the network. To finance your own comments. Now, I think there's still, you know, a big problem and which I will explain right now, which is the relationship. So I still think crypto is, is incomplete because it doesn't deal with real production. Right.

[00:19:16] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:19:17] Michel Bauwens: So when you look at declining civilizations, let me give you very quickly the end of Rome. So Rome is a slave based system, right? You conquer, you get slaves and booty and gold, and then you pay the soldiers with that booty. When

[00:19:33] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:19:33] Michel Bauwens: You can no longer conquer. Now you have to start paying your soldiers. So you have to start taxing, right? Then the landlords have to pay the tax. But as the system declines, you know, the the people leave the cities and look for to go back to the countryside to be closer to food production. And they start, you know, putting pressure on the landlords to pay them, you know, to lower the rents. So then the Roman state says we're going to make them colony, force them to stay on the land so that the landlords can pay their taxes. So that's the beginning of feudalism already within the

[00:20:07] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:20:08] Michel Bauwens: As a root within the Roman Empire, right? So what I'm saying is and so what you also have to understand is that at the end of the Roman Empire, there was no more money. Like, literally

[00:20:18] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:20:19] Michel Bauwens: The monetary system collapsed. So you go back to food, you know. So I'm a farmer, you're the landlord. I give you, you know, half of my food production. And so you can pay soldiers that will protect me. That's

[00:20:34] Jarrad Hope: Right?

[00:20:35] Michel Bauwens: Like the social contract

[00:20:36] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:20:36] Michel Bauwens: Feudalism. And so what I'm so my critique of crypto is that if you just think that you can do like an exodus out of the old system and then do an arbitrage between nation states, you know, and, oh, if if Portugal collapses, we go to Greece. If Greece collapses, we go to the Canary Islands. You know,

[00:20:55] Jarrad Hope: Right?

[00:20:55] Michel Bauwens: At some point it will bite you in the ass because

[00:20:58] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:20:58] Michel Bauwens: Some

[00:20:59] Jarrad Hope: You're

[00:20:59] Michel Bauwens: People

[00:20:59] Jarrad Hope: Not

[00:20:59] Michel Bauwens: Will say,

[00:20:59] Jarrad Hope: If you're not producing

[00:21:00] Michel Bauwens: We

[00:21:00] Jarrad Hope: Anything on

[00:21:00] Michel Bauwens: Don't

[00:21:00] Jarrad Hope: Your own.

[00:21:00] Michel Bauwens: Want these parasites, you know,

[00:21:03] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:21:03] Michel Bauwens: We don't want these parasites. We,

[00:21:05] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:21:05] Michel Bauwens: And so I think crypto should get involved. In physical production, in reorganizing physical production and creating what I call mutual coordination economics with your own supply chains. Okay, this is not a topic I can go into it, but okay, I feel I've I

[00:21:25] Jarrad Hope: I

[00:21:25] Michel Bauwens: Want

[00:21:26] Jarrad Hope: Have

[00:21:26] Michel Bauwens: You to

[00:21:26] Jarrad Hope: So many

[00:21:26] Michel Bauwens: React

[00:21:26] Jarrad Hope: Questions.

[00:21:27] Michel Bauwens: To this.

[00:21:27] Jarrad Hope: And there's there's a bunch of things that I want to unpack. This is great stuff, I guess. Are you familiar with familiar with Bertrand de Jouvenel, who did the book on power?

[00:21:38] Michel Bauwens: Yeah, yeah, I

[00:21:39] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:21:39] Michel Bauwens: Read the I read it. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah.

[00:21:43] Jarrad Hope: I was. Yeah. Because I guess, like, you know, one of my questions is and it certainly comes up, you know, after the fall of Rome in his examples. You know, basically how things start to recentralize I don't know if

[00:21:57] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:21:57] Jarrad Hope: You have any ideas around, like why that has or if you agree with,

[00:22:01] Michel Bauwens: Yes.

[00:22:01] Jarrad Hope: You know, some

[00:22:02] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:22:02] Jarrad Hope: Of his ideas

[00:22:03] Michel Bauwens: Okay,

[00:22:03] Jarrad Hope: Or.

[00:22:03] Michel Bauwens: So let let me explain, Spangler, because he sheds a light on this. So,

[00:22:08] Michel Bauwens: A civilization. Is a mixture. At first

[00:22:13] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:22:14] Michel Bauwens: You have an invader and a local population, and that's

[00:22:18] Michel Bauwens: Why you have to go beyond custom, because both have their own customs and are there together. They have to reinvent society in order to live together. Right. And so essentially you have a warrior class, which is the invading class, and a priestly class which tries to civilize the warriors because, you know, you need almost psychopaths to go to war. But then, of course, when they come home, they do the same and they rape the women. And so you in order to have a civilization, you need both. You need the warriors and the priests, and the priests are there to soften the, you know, the,

[00:22:52] Jarrad Hope: All right.

[00:22:53] Michel Bauwens: The

[00:22:53] Jarrad Hope: Like a regulating

[00:22:54] Michel Bauwens: System

[00:22:54] Jarrad Hope: Function.

[00:22:54] Michel Bauwens: Of the

[00:22:54] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:22:55] Michel Bauwens: Warriors. Right? So

[00:22:56] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:22:56] Michel Bauwens: Eventually, you know, they're successful, they create a surplus and you get cities. So

[00:23:00] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:23:00] Michel Bauwens: In cities create a third class, which is the the merchant class and the guilds and stuff. Right. So this is where you get the juvenile because what he noticed is, is that and this is not like Marx who only sees two, you know, dialectics and juvenile sees Trialectics. Right. He sees

[00:23:18] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:23:18] Michel Bauwens: Bottom, middle and top. And so what

[00:23:21] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:23:21] Michel Bauwens: Juvenile says is that the top will mobilize the bottom against the middle. Right? So

[00:23:26] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:23:26] Michel Bauwens: The the cities and the kings will ally against the aristocracy. And if that inevitably will actually abolish the caste system eventually. And it happens in

[00:23:35] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:23:35] Michel Bauwens: Every civilization, not just in the West, you, Byzantium, China, you know, Spain really documents that this is a very universal pattern. Right? So then in the cities. As they grow bigger and bigger, you create a fourth class, he says, which is a working class, and they want democracy. And they'll get democracy. But democracy is corrupted by money, and eventually that will collapse as well. And then you get what you call caesarism.

[00:24:02] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:24:02] Michel Bauwens: And I think there's very good grounds to say that we are now entering a serious period. You

[00:24:10] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:24:10] Michel Bauwens: Know, figures like Trump.

[00:24:12] Jarrad Hope: I

[00:24:12] Jarrad Hope: Was

[00:24:12] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:24:12] Jarrad Hope: Going to say

[00:24:13] Michel Bauwens: People.

[00:24:13] Jarrad Hope: That. Yeah.

[00:24:14] Michel Bauwens: Yeah. So, you know, if you talk to people who like Trump, it's not that they like everything he is or does, but they say, we need a crazy guy like that just to, you know, be

[00:24:26] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:24:26] Michel Bauwens: A bull in a China shop, because

[00:24:27] Jarrad Hope: Reset

[00:24:27] Michel Bauwens: Otherwise nothing

[00:24:28] Jarrad Hope: This.

[00:24:28] Michel Bauwens: Is

[00:24:28] Jarrad Hope: Exactly.

[00:24:28] Michel Bauwens: Going to change for us, right? And because the system is so stuck. You know, so you get these figures coming out and they do the arbitrage between the people.

[00:24:37] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:24:37] Michel Bauwens: Right? They. So what is Caesar can do is say, well, I'll give this to the working class and I'll give this to the capitalists, and I'll give this to the, to the, to the church. And because they, they are in a, in a how do you say this in English? Like a bad situation where nobody can win, right. The

[00:24:55] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:24:55] Michel Bauwens: Reds and the Blues in the US

[00:24:56] Jarrad Hope: Stalemate.

[00:24:56] Michel Bauwens: Is

[00:24:56] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:24:57] Michel Bauwens: They can't win. It's a stalemate. So then you can have a figure coming out who can, who can decide who to favor. And if this side comes too strong, he'll support for a while. The other side. Right. So that's what a Caesar usually does. There's somebody who allies with the poor. You know and then changes the system and gives enough to the poor so that they're happy with him.

[00:25:22] Jarrad Hope: No.

[00:25:23] Michel Bauwens: You know Peron, Napoleon. They are figures like that. And I think Trump

[00:25:28] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:25:28] Michel Bauwens: Is probably has the potential to be a figure like that.

[00:25:33] Jarrad Hope: Gotcha. Yeah, I think thanks for that. I guess, like so one of the things that, you know, we talked about crypto and how this improves the open source dynamics, you know, and, and building these sort of public goods. But like in the light of this, I've kind of been a little bit concerned in the way that I've been viewing you know, blockchain networks because I, I'm starting to view them more like social orders and the consensus

[00:26:02] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:26:03] Jarrad Hope: Algorithm much more like a a form of popular sovereignty in a way. And I can imagine this order being the backbone or basis for a you know, cyber state, virtual state, temporary autonomous zone, network

[00:26:17] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:26:18] Jarrad Hope: State, whatever you want to call it. And so then, like when we start talking about you know, funding of these public goods, it's almost like a developmental state in that it is investing heavily in infrastructure. But that patronage is also kind of a centralizing force because it creates this strong dependency. So unless, you know, we build out token economics and mechanisms for these various public goods to be self-sustaining. I could see, you know maybe in, I don't know which cycle it would be 50 or 100 years time that, you know,

[00:26:53] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:26:54] Jarrad Hope: A crypto SA comes up and

[00:26:57] Michel Bauwens: I,

[00:26:57] Jarrad Hope: Aligns

[00:26:58] Michel Bauwens: You know, I

[00:26:58] Jarrad Hope: All

[00:26:58] Michel Bauwens: Think

[00:26:58] Jarrad Hope: Of these things.

[00:26:58] Michel Bauwens: You should. You should, you should actually see that way in a way. Right. Because

[00:27:02] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:27:03] Michel Bauwens: We can't be fully utopian. So because nature, you know, is cyclic and human culture is cyclic. And so here's my view. So any competition for scarce resources leads to oligarchy.

[00:27:17] Jarrad Hope: New.

[00:27:18] Michel Bauwens: Why? Because it's a it's a game and every iteration of the game, some is more lucky or more clever than you. So they already have more resources for the second game and then the third game. And so whether it's land or money, you, you see it, you know, that is always this tendency towards oligarchy.

[00:27:37] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:27:37] Michel Bauwens: Unless unless you either react to it violently. So that's actually, you know, few people know that. But Greek democracy was a revolution against the landed aristocracy, which was, you know, lending out money at high interest. And that was that's what created Greek democracy as a revolt against, you know, the self and self enslaving by the landlords. And then the way to maintain it is by having anti oligarchic measures. Right. And so

[00:28:13] Michel Bauwens: Again, I'm happy to see what like what I think quadratic funding and quadratic voting. You know I'm not very technical. And you know I'm not sure exactly how they work. But I think you know they seem to me, to me to be anti oligarchic efforts right to, to balance contribution with, with the, let's say the investor tokens and give more power to people who contribute to the network itself. So I think to the degree that we can find these like balancing measures, we can maintain, you know, the systems longer will it be forever? I don't know, I don't think so. I don't expect it because in the past we haven't been able to do it either. You know, look at like medieval cities, you know, they were self-organized.

[00:29:03] Michel Bauwens: Run by the guilds. And only later, you know, did the merchant guilds dominate. And then other the merchant guilds came, came these families that started dominating the whole city, you know, like the Medici. And. Right. It took a while, but there's a long period where, you know, maybe 150 years, half a 300 year cycle where the, you know, you have. We had very democratic run cities. 98% of the people in the Middle Ages were in the cities, were members of associations, fraternities, you know, with their own judiciary and everything. So, you know, I hope you can see that, you know, there's there's some parallels there with the way the crypto

[00:29:48] Jarrad Hope: Absolutely.

[00:29:48] Michel Bauwens: World is developing. Right? Except that they're

[00:29:50] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:29:51] Michel Bauwens: Not territorial

[00:29:51] Jarrad Hope: I mean, Dao

[00:29:51] Michel Bauwens: Cities.

[00:29:52] Jarrad Hope: Is a kind

[00:29:52] Michel Bauwens: They're

[00:29:52] Jarrad Hope: Of like

[00:29:52] Michel Bauwens: Like.

[00:29:52] Jarrad Hope: Guilds, you know?

[00:29:54] Michel Bauwens: Yeah. And you

[00:29:55] Michel Bauwens: Actually have now, you know, they call themselves guilds like

[00:29:58] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:29:59] Michel Bauwens: The Protocol Guild and stuff. So, so this kind of tendency towards distribution and decentralization, which you see in crypto is kind of creating similar phenomena. Then, you know, when we were creating this decentralized city systems. But again, you know, we'll have to see whether we can go out of the cycle or not. To some degree, I think this is the real the real challenge, actually. Okay. And here I have to be optimistic. So I'll give you a big scheme I like scheme, so here's another one. So nature created or God if you like, you know, created an immature biosphere.

[00:30:42] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:30:42] Michel Bauwens: Right. And then you have something called the Great Oxygenation Event, which was poisonous, but then actually created. A mature biosphere eventually. So, you know, based on on oxygen and what, you know, what some people call Gaia, but it's scientific now. It's called Earth System science, which is, you know, it's actually a system that that tries to maintain itself. It's mysterious. We, you know, but they have identified many feedback systems that recreate order when there is chaos and disorder. Right. So then then we come. So nature creates sculpture right through humanity creates a new layer. So you have the geosphere, the biosphere of life and then the new sphere of human culture. And what we create is an immature technosphere, right? Which is eating the biosphere and eating the geosphere in an unsustainable way. So the

[00:31:42] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:31:42] Michel Bauwens: Big challenge for me is. Can we move from an immature technosphere to a mature technosphere? Right. And I think this is the big challenge. This is the big transition. And if we succeed in that, then maybe we can live for thousands of years. In balance with with the planet. I think that's the great hope. Right. And so where does crypto come in? I think crypto creates a planetary scale, mutual coordination economy, but I

[00:32:15] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:32:15] Michel Bauwens: Call it cosmological because why do we need to be local? Because two thirds of the expenditure of matter and energy. Is actually transporting now, and that's way too much. Like, you know there's very good better in in Patagonia. But they're getting bankrupt by the New Zealand better. Right

[00:32:39] Jarrad Hope: Right?

[00:32:40] Michel Bauwens: This that's there's no need

[00:32:41] Jarrad Hope: Absurd.

[00:32:41] Michel Bauwens: For that. Like

[00:32:42] Jarrad Hope: Yeah, yeah.

[00:32:43] Michel Bauwens: That's absurd. Right. Or you think about

[00:32:45] Jarrad Hope: For.

[00:32:46] Michel Bauwens: Shrimp. You know they they're fished and use in New England. They sent to China and then they come back.

[00:32:52] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:32:53] Michel Bauwens: Same thing here. You know, the apples go to China and then they come back. So there is a lot enormous waste because we are fixated on money. And money doesn't give us the right signals about thermodynamic realities. Right. And

[00:33:07] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:33:07] Michel Bauwens: So there's a lot of things in, in crypto that actually that are potential solution to this. So the first thing is the actual ability to coordinate production on a global scale. So we relocalize we mutualize certain things because it's cheap to do certain things collectively. But then we have the layer of the noosphere, which is cosmic, right? What is heavy is local, and what is light is global. And so I always say to the localist that localism is sublinear.

[00:33:40] Jarrad Hope: What?

[00:33:41] Michel Bauwens: You lose efficiency if you only local.

[00:33:45] Michel Bauwens: But cosmological is superlinear. We gain efficiency by combining the local with the cosmic. Right. So re localized production but but global cooperation. And so you ask me how long you know the crisis can can last. So one of the answers is this it used to take four generations. I

[00:34:09] Michel Bauwens: Don't think we have four generations. So our hope is the acceleration of technology, and that's where

[00:34:15] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:34:15] Michel Bauwens: Ai comes in. You know, for me, not as some mystical intelligence is going to take over, but

[00:34:22] Jarrad Hope: It.

[00:34:22] Michel Bauwens: As something that is going to be like a tool. That is going to tell us the limits of what we can spend for humanity, right? So I see a first layer of stigmergic coordination. So because of open source and crypto, we can see the whole ecosystem. So we move from a situation where you have competing states and markets

[00:34:47] Jarrad Hope: See.

[00:34:47] Michel Bauwens: Which can only see their own thing. Am I making more profit? Am I getting enough taxes? They never see the impact, the externalities. Now we have a universal ledger, the blockchain.

[00:35:02] Michel Bauwens: Where you know. And so this is a fourth layer. You have market stage nonprofits. We creating an integrative meta layer of coordination of those three sectors, plus all the three contributors that can also join a collaborative ecosystem. And it's cosmological.

[00:35:21] Jarrad Hope: Well.

[00:35:21] Michel Bauwens: It works both for the local and for the for the universal level. So I think we need it. So we need planetary without having a world government. And I think

[00:35:31] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:35:31] Michel Bauwens: That's where network

[00:35:32] Jarrad Hope: So?

[00:35:33] Michel Bauwens: Commons based networks are that are are the the equivalent of a world government based on states.

[00:35:42] Jarrad Hope: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of interesting. I've come to some similar conclusions and parallels, but from a slightly different angle. So and more from a technical way and like how you can retain these sort of utilities and properties of, you know, what we love about you know, Bitcoin and Ethereum. And, you know, one example in terms of the US's, you know, potential decline you know, in its position as being, you know, effectively the de facto peace keeper for the planet. And consequently, the US dollar being essentially the world reserve currency. Right. But through its overuse of economic sanctions, you're finding BRICs countries are now starting to create alternate swap lines to circumvent the US dollar effectively.

[00:36:36] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:36:36] Jarrad Hope: And within that you know, there's a call for the notion of political neutrality in a world reserve currency. Like this would be a highly

[00:36:47] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:36:47] Jarrad Hope: Desired

[00:36:47] Michel Bauwens: Which

[00:36:47] Jarrad Hope: Property,

[00:36:48] Michel Bauwens: Which the

[00:36:48] Jarrad Hope: Right?

[00:36:48] Michel Bauwens: West unfortunately is, is you know that I mean, that makes me angry that, you know, when

[00:36:53] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:36:54] Michel Bauwens: They freeze Russian assets, right? You're telling

[00:36:56] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:36:56] Michel Bauwens: The world you cannot trust the Western financial system

[00:37:00] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:37:00] Michel Bauwens: When you

[00:37:00] Jarrad Hope: Exactly.

[00:37:01] Michel Bauwens: Are bombing, you know, the Nord Stream, you're telling the world, oh, it's okay to to destroy physical infrastructure.

[00:37:08] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:37:09] Michel Bauwens: I mean,

[00:37:10] Michel Bauwens: We, the West, have set very bad precedents, you

[00:37:15] Jarrad Hope: Absolutely.

[00:37:15] Michel Bauwens: Know, which I think comes from the panic of the US of losing its hegemony. And, you know, it's it's willing to do everything to keep it. But it's it's in many ways counterproductive.

[00:37:26] Jarrad Hope: I agree. And so like, with this idea in mind and I was also reading, I think it's called is the international legal Order unraveling, which is done by, I want to say, the American Law Institute. I could be wrong on the publisher on that. And

[00:37:43] Michel Bauwens: I'm

[00:37:44] Jarrad Hope: The title,

[00:37:44] Michel Bauwens: Going to take

[00:37:44] Jarrad Hope: But,

[00:37:44] Michel Bauwens: A note of that because. Yeah.

[00:37:46] Jarrad Hope: You know, it's it is a set of American lawyers who work in international law. And they start, you know, looking at all the different aspects of you know, how world order has changed over, you know, certainly post

[00:38:03] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:38:03] Jarrad Hope: World War Two. But like, you know, what, the sort of vertical and horizontal rules and and how they've been treated and so like, if you view blockchain that is as politically neutral as possible. And in my view, you know, this includes you know, private network level privacy as well as private transactions are almost necessary to maintain that. If you have that in place, then it actually becomes like a great order for, you know, this global coordination. And then the stakeholders are the participants in the consensus algorithm can be state and

[00:38:43] Michel Bauwens: One.

[00:38:43] Jarrad Hope: Global non-state actors yet they retain their sovereignty because they can either, you know, withdraw from their usage

[00:38:51] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:38:51] Jarrad Hope: Of that order or fork it. Right.

[00:38:53] Michel Bauwens: So that's a very good example of, you know, fourth sector, right. Where you you are

[00:38:57] Jarrad Hope: Okay.

[00:38:57] Michel Bauwens: Creating this meta integration. And I think that's the most realistic because, you know, when you talk about network states and network nations, I mean, definitely there is something going on. I you know, I'm not denying that, that people are self-organizing and wanting to do this and, you know, assembling money and that, you know, like at this stage, you know, which is like the Network City stage, you can imagine some countries like Morocco or Tunisia and saying, oh, why don't you come here? You know, and that attracts

[00:39:27] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:39:28] Michel Bauwens: Money and knowledge. I mean, that I think can certainly happen. But, you know, given

[00:39:32] Jarrad Hope: That's

[00:39:33] Michel Bauwens: The

[00:39:33] Jarrad Hope: A digital

[00:39:33] Michel Bauwens: Scale

[00:39:33] Jarrad Hope: Nomad

[00:39:34] Michel Bauwens: Of China,

[00:39:34] Jarrad Hope: Version of it. Almost. Yeah.

[00:39:35] Michel Bauwens: Right,

[00:39:36] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:39:36] Michel Bauwens: Given the scale of China and Russia, I think we shouldn't rush into like utopianism about it. You know, the

[00:39:42] Jarrad Hope: No.

[00:39:42] Michel Bauwens: So it's going to be like a play of mutual adaptation for, for a certain time where. And so I think this strategy is the best one where, you know,

[00:39:53] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:39:53] Michel Bauwens: And so the

[00:39:54] Jarrad Hope: Thank

[00:39:54] Michel Bauwens: Difference

[00:39:54] Jarrad Hope: You.

[00:39:55] Michel Bauwens: Is the following. So

[00:39:57] Michel Bauwens: Market societies in the West are competing with state centric societies, you know, in the East Eurasian side and then the BRICs with them, they, you know, they they want to. So the state is becoming stronger in Russia and China, not weaker.

[00:40:14] Jarrad Hope: Sure.

[00:40:14] Michel Bauwens: Right? So

[00:40:15] Jarrad Hope: Of

[00:40:15] Michel Bauwens: You

[00:40:15] Jarrad Hope: Course.

[00:40:15] Michel Bauwens: Have to be careful to be realistic about what is happening in the world.

[00:40:19] Jarrad Hope: So this

[00:40:19] Jarrad Hope: Is what I wanted to get back to around this

[00:40:22] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[00:40:22] Jarrad Hope: East versus west versus digital. Right. So like the the main issue that I see with, with that trichotomy is that the digital is, is basically dependent on the East and West's physical infrastructure. Right.

[00:40:36] Michel Bauwens: Yes.

[00:40:36] Jarrad Hope: And so that's a huge dependency. So again, this is why I think, you know, blinding the network level traffic between peers may be a way that you can Reach netizens in countries that may

[00:40:55] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:40:55] Jarrad Hope: Not be able to access

[00:40:57] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:40:57] Jarrad Hope: It under

[00:40:57] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:40:57] Jarrad Hope: Normal

[00:40:58] Michel Bauwens: Then so

[00:40:58] Jarrad Hope: Conditions.

[00:40:58] Michel Bauwens: Then, as you know, as a relatively autonomous actor, you know, these

[00:41:02] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:41:02] Michel Bauwens: Proto network nations,

[00:41:05] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:41:05] Michel Bauwens: I like the word coordination that was invented by, you know, Primavera De Filippi

[00:41:10] Jarrad Hope: The.

[00:41:10] Michel Bauwens: And her crew. I think

[00:41:12] Jarrad Hope: I'm.

[00:41:12] Michel Bauwens: That's

[00:41:12] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:41:12] Michel Bauwens: A really

[00:41:12] Jarrad Hope: I'm familiar

[00:41:13] Michel Bauwens: Nice

[00:41:13] Jarrad Hope: With

[00:41:13] Michel Bauwens: Word

[00:41:13] Jarrad Hope: Her.

[00:41:13] Michel Bauwens: Coordination

[00:41:13] Jarrad Hope: Yeah, it's a great.

[00:41:14] Michel Bauwens: Because it leaves it open to what exactly it's going to be. You know, how you know, but they have a vested interest to protect themselves, right? And so this, I think is inevitable, right? You, you as as a kind of. So I'm not sure if this is a good analogy, but I, I like it. So. Okay. So 5000 years ago, we create writing

[00:41:40] Michel Bauwens: That creates a writing class. And they create a world to their image through markets and states. You know, we can do their

[00:41:47] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:41:47] Michel Bauwens: Accounting and their writing and okay. Then today we have a new language coding and

[00:41:54] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:41:54] Michel Bauwens: A coding class. Right. Which has access to its computers. So that's their means of production, but they don't have access to the means of valuation. The networks

[00:42:05] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:42:05] Michel Bauwens: That would because they are still controlled by corporations and states. And so, naturally, if they want to create a world to their image, they're, they're they're pushed to create, you know, their own infrastructures and to do arbitrage and to protect themselves. And I think this is where crypto, you know, is, is very important to, you know, to create all these things because of course. You know, I don't know what you think about this, but I think that in the West, we're moving pretty fast to a Chinese situation in the sense of,

[00:42:42] Jarrad Hope: Oh,

[00:42:43] Michel Bauwens: You know,

[00:42:43] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:42:43] Michel Bauwens: Surveillance

[00:42:44] Jarrad Hope: 100%.

[00:42:44] Michel Bauwens: Control. And, you know, I actually tend to believe that the. So, you know, there's this woman, what's her name, Catherine Austin Fitts, and she says, okay, today, the war. So, you know, so you have a declining system, it loses legitimacy. So you have a fragmentation because the the integrating narrative loses legitimacy. Right? So you have

[00:43:07] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:43:07] Michel Bauwens: Fragmentation. Fragmentation creates polarization because if you're

[00:43:12] Michel Bauwens: Alone you're looking like where can I find the most support. Right. So this creates the pagans against the Christians, the Reformation against the Catholic Church. And I think today

[00:43:23] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:43:23] Michel Bauwens: The culture war, and I think

[00:43:25] Jarrad Hope: Absolutely.

[00:43:25] Michel Bauwens: The culture war today is two factions in the ruling class. And this is where the juvenile comes in. You know, it's always

[00:43:32] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:43:33] Michel Bauwens: About alliances, jurisdictional alliances. So these factions are trying to get more strength by looking who can support us in the people. Right. And, you know,

[00:43:45] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:43:45] Michel Bauwens: The middle class, upper middle class, working class, rural. So they're trying to strengthen their, their coalitions. And so you have one coalition which wants to sacrifice the nation to the empire.

[00:43:59] Michel Bauwens: You know, the globalists, as

[00:44:01] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:44:01] Michel Bauwens: The right wing would say. And I think that's real. And, you know, like the

[00:44:05] Jarrad Hope: I

[00:44:05] Michel Bauwens: Left,

[00:44:06] Jarrad Hope: Think

[00:44:06] Michel Bauwens: Their

[00:44:06] Jarrad Hope: It's an accurate

[00:44:06] Michel Bauwens: Image

[00:44:06] Jarrad Hope: Assessment.

[00:44:07] Michel Bauwens: Is.

[00:44:07] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:44:08] Michel Bauwens: Is the whiff one day. Their ideal is a world run by multi-stakeholder coalitions in in

[00:44:16] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:44:16] Michel Bauwens: Domain's global domains, but dominated by financial capital. You know the

[00:44:21] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:44:21] Michel Bauwens: Blackrocks of our world. And

[00:44:23] Jarrad Hope: A

[00:44:23] Michel Bauwens: Then

[00:44:23] Jarrad Hope: Managed

[00:44:24] Michel Bauwens: The

[00:44:24] Jarrad Hope: Democracy,

[00:44:24] Michel Bauwens: Other side.

[00:44:25] Jarrad Hope: You know.

[00:44:25] Michel Bauwens: Yes. You know, the other side is sacrificing the empire to the nation. So these

[00:44:32] Michel Bauwens: Are this is Trump, you know, allied

[00:44:34] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:44:35] Michel Bauwens: To local business people, to the rural, to those who want to bring back industry and things to America, but they don't think they can continue to fund 800 bases abroad.

[00:44:47] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:44:48] Michel Bauwens: And

[00:44:48] Jarrad Hope: I

[00:44:48] Michel Bauwens: You

[00:44:48] Jarrad Hope: Think

[00:44:48] Michel Bauwens: Know,

[00:44:49] Jarrad Hope: Like

[00:44:49] Michel Bauwens: And

[00:44:49] Jarrad Hope: The.

[00:44:49] Michel Bauwens: And

[00:44:50] Jarrad Hope: Sorry.

[00:44:50] Michel Bauwens: I, you know, I don't

[00:44:50] Jarrad Hope: Go.

[00:44:51] Michel Bauwens: Want to choose either side. I think either, you know, they both have strengths and weaknesses.

[00:44:55] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:44:55] Michel Bauwens: So I think that the commoners, this is how I think about it, is that the commoners or the people are self-creating this productive ecosystems that are partially translocal. You know, we should first of all strengthen our own power.

[00:45:10] Jarrad Hope: No.

[00:45:10] Michel Bauwens: And then look at who's supporting our agenda. That's the way I think about it. So to so to not necessarily to choose sides, although I want to choose the side that gives me the maximum amount of freedom of speech and pluralism, you know, and

[00:45:28] Jarrad Hope: Sure.

[00:45:29] Michel Bauwens: I'm not sure what side is the best for that. I actually, you know, increasingly tend to believe that, that the side is in power. Now, he's doing the worst in terms of suppressing

[00:45:41] Michel Bauwens: Free speech.

[00:45:42] Jarrad Hope: Yeah. I think, like you know, some of the populist movements we're seeing or, you know, maybe nationalist movements, this sort of sacrificing the empire for, for the nation. I think they have a lot of really important points for understanding or criticizing the current status of, of our empire, right? Or of our civilization. But. At least how I see it. It's almost this kind of this return to to the single nation with, you know, a standard territory

[00:46:18] Michel Bauwens: I

[00:46:19] Jarrad Hope: I

[00:46:19] Michel Bauwens: Think

[00:46:19] Jarrad Hope: Don't

[00:46:19] Michel Bauwens: That's

[00:46:19] Jarrad Hope: Think is

[00:46:19] Michel Bauwens: Ultimately

[00:46:19] Jarrad Hope: Actually viable

[00:46:20] Michel Bauwens: Also

[00:46:20] Jarrad Hope: Against.

[00:46:20] Michel Bauwens: Reactionary, right? Yes.

[00:46:22] Jarrad Hope: Yeah, yeah, it's a very reaction,

[00:46:24] Michel Bauwens: It's

[00:46:24] Jarrad Hope: But

[00:46:24] Michel Bauwens: Not a future.

[00:46:24] Jarrad Hope: It's

[00:46:25] Michel Bauwens: It's

[00:46:25] Jarrad Hope: Also

[00:46:25] Michel Bauwens: Not

[00:46:25] Jarrad Hope: Not

[00:46:25] Michel Bauwens: A future.

[00:46:25] Jarrad Hope: Known.

[00:46:26] Michel Bauwens: It's a way to react. Yeah, I agree

[00:46:28] Jarrad Hope: So,

[00:46:28] Michel Bauwens: With that.

[00:46:29] Jarrad Hope: So I think, you know, for that to be viable, there almost needs to be like some kind of transnational policy network between those nations and to basically

[00:46:38] Michel Bauwens: All right.

[00:46:38] Jarrad Hope: Create a counterbalance to a globalist. So the point being is that the stage is at the global level, you know, for this iteration. And we'll probably, you know, depending on the timeline, it'll probably dictate how the world governs itself. Right? And I

[00:46:56] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:46:56] Jarrad Hope: Don't know, maybe we'll get some kind of you know. Quasi utopian Star Trek military, you know, government controlling the world or I don't know what's going to look like.

[00:47:08] Michel Bauwens: Right? Yeah.

[00:47:08] Jarrad Hope: But

[00:47:09] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:47:09] Jarrad Hope: I

[00:47:09] Michel Bauwens: That's

[00:47:09] Jarrad Hope: Guess

[00:47:09] Michel Bauwens: What

[00:47:09] Jarrad Hope: That

[00:47:09] Michel Bauwens: Exciting.

[00:47:09] Jarrad Hope: Kind of.

[00:47:10] Michel Bauwens: And of course, you know, you know what they say in Chinese. May you live in interesting times, which apparently is a curse.

[00:47:16] Jarrad Hope: We certainly

[00:47:16] Michel Bauwens: And

[00:47:16] Jarrad Hope: Do. Yeah.

[00:47:17] Michel Bauwens: So, you know, we're gonna have a lot of swings. I think we have to expect wild swings in politics. You know, where, you know, if you look, for example, at Republicans in the US and what they want to do if they win power, some of it is frightening. You know, like closing the DEA, closing the I, I can live with that personally, but closing the DEA, maybe,

[00:47:38] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:47:39] Michel Bauwens: You know. So, you know, kicking out 50,000 people you know, on the first day comes in office. You know, I'm not saying I necessarily against it, but it's, you know, these are, like, destabilizing. If they do

[00:47:52] Jarrad Hope: There.

[00:47:53] Michel Bauwens: It, it's going to be very destabilizing. It's going to create massive resistance. You know, look at what's happening in Argentina. And, you know, with serious dangers of civil war in some countries, and

[00:48:04] Jarrad Hope: I

[00:48:04] Michel Bauwens: Especially

[00:48:04] Jarrad Hope: Was about to

[00:48:05] Michel Bauwens: I

[00:48:05] Jarrad Hope: Ask

[00:48:05] Michel Bauwens: Think

[00:48:05] Jarrad Hope: You

[00:48:05] Michel Bauwens: The

[00:48:05] Jarrad Hope: If

[00:48:05] Michel Bauwens: Us

[00:48:05] Jarrad Hope: You think a

[00:48:06] Michel Bauwens: Is

[00:48:06] Jarrad Hope: Civil war would be on

[00:48:07] Michel Bauwens: Well,

[00:48:07] Jarrad Hope: The

[00:48:07] Michel Bauwens: You

[00:48:07] Jarrad Hope: Table.

[00:48:07] Michel Bauwens: Know, I'm not predicting it's going to happen, but I certainly think that the danger is there. And there are

[00:48:13] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:48:13] Michel Bauwens: Some of these scientific you know institutes. I've forgot the name. There's one in Scandinavia. And, you know, they're based on what happened in Bosnia and Yugoslavia. And so they have quite objective criteria. And they say, like us is 70%.

[00:48:29] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:48:29] Michel Bauwens: Right. Which is, you know,

[00:48:31] Jarrad Hope: It's quite.

[00:48:31] Michel Bauwens: It's not 100%, but it's or it's 70% of all

[00:48:35] Jarrad Hope: Spicy

[00:48:35] Michel Bauwens: The criteria

[00:48:35] Jarrad Hope: Meatball.

[00:48:36] Michel Bauwens: Which conditioned the eventual outbreak. And this is where, you know, Europe now is not in a good shape. I think

[00:48:44] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:48:44] Michel Bauwens: It's being vassalized by by the US and

[00:48:47] Jarrad Hope: Yes.

[00:48:47] Michel Bauwens: Doing things that are counter to its own interests,

[00:48:50] Jarrad Hope: Interests.

[00:48:51] Michel Bauwens: Which, by the way, is also typical for the end of an empire. So as you lose control of the of the for abroad, you, you come back to your near abroad. Right? And then you have to hyper

[00:49:02] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:49:02] Michel Bauwens: Exploit. Your your near allies. In order to to to resist. So European is a bad shape. But Europe has a interconnected network of 400 cities with

[00:49:18] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:49:19] Michel Bauwens: Long history were still integrated in their territorial regions. And that are very connected to each other. So we kind of primed for distributed. So, you know, if the, if the EU or the nation states collapse, we have this kind of underlying. And you, you know, you see the map of the Holy Roman Empire, it's, you know, it's very colored. It has like, you know, 80 different regions in Germany. And yet they all chose an emperor in that last for 1000 years. So that was like a, you know, a very stable, relatively distributed system. The US

[00:49:56] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:49:56] Michel Bauwens: Has 40 cities which are not well connected except by plane. So the US is primed for regional breakup.

[00:50:04] Jarrad Hope: Interesting.

[00:50:05] Michel Bauwens: You know? And so that's maybe a good side of Europe is that we have all these, you know, all these historical cities where, you know, convivially built, architecturally built you know, they're very pleasant, you know, to live in.

[00:50:24] Jarrad Hope: Absolutely.

[00:50:26] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[00:50:26] Jarrad Hope: I try to spend as much time

[00:50:27] Michel Bauwens: I'm

[00:50:27] Jarrad Hope: In Europe

[00:50:28] Michel Bauwens: European.

[00:50:28] Jarrad Hope: As I as I

[00:50:28] Michel Bauwens: I'm

[00:50:28] Jarrad Hope: Can.

[00:50:29] Michel Bauwens: Still a bit

[00:50:29] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:50:29] Michel Bauwens: I'm still a bit patriotic. You know, I think it's still you know, we have things that that are likable.

[00:50:36] Jarrad Hope: No no, no. I guess, like, you know, so going back to the sort of like, seed forms, you know, we've talked about, you know you know, the crypto as being a potential seed former and an evolution of open source technologies and, you know, creating these public goods. Is there any other seed forms that you identify at the moment?

[00:51:03] Michel Bauwens: Well.

[00:51:03] Jarrad Hope: And

[00:51:04] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:51:04] Jarrad Hope: I guess

[00:51:04] Michel Bauwens: The two

[00:51:04] Jarrad Hope: The.

[00:51:04] Michel Bauwens: For me are peer

[00:51:05] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:51:05] Michel Bauwens: To peer and the Commons. And they

[00:51:07] Jarrad Hope: Sure.

[00:51:07] Michel Bauwens: Reiterate everywhere like, you know,

[00:51:09] Jarrad Hope: I

[00:51:09] Michel Bauwens: So that's

[00:51:09] Jarrad Hope: See.

[00:51:09] Michel Bauwens: Basically what my week is about. You know, I have 25,000 articles. Per domain business, spirituality and you will see that everywhere the same thing is happening. These

[00:51:20] Jarrad Hope: Wow.

[00:51:20] Michel Bauwens: Seed forms are emerging, but those are like the two common points.

[00:51:25] Michel Bauwens: So.

[00:51:25] Jarrad Hope: I see,

[00:51:26] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:51:26] Jarrad Hope: I

[00:51:26] Michel Bauwens: That's

[00:51:26] Jarrad Hope: See.

[00:51:26] Michel Bauwens: Why I say peer to peer networks based on commons. Right.

[00:51:30] Michel Bauwens: So

[00:51:30] Jarrad Hope: Gotcha.

[00:51:31] Michel Bauwens: You need a you need a common infrastructure for collective action. If you have only individual then nobody

[00:51:37] Michel Bauwens: Wants to invest in the things that we all need to do together to be stronger together. So that's why

[00:51:42] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:51:42] Michel Bauwens: You need commons, right? And that's why we needed states in geography. Because otherwise, you know privately you why would I buy you know, invest in a road.

[00:51:52] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:51:53] Michel Bauwens: You know that I'm using only

[00:51:54] Jarrad Hope: The

[00:51:54] Michel Bauwens: Once

[00:51:54] Jarrad Hope: Private

[00:51:54] Michel Bauwens: A month.

[00:51:55] Jarrad Hope: Market tends to, you know,

[00:51:56] Michel Bauwens: Right. So the collective

[00:51:57] Michel Bauwens: Action

[00:51:57] Jarrad Hope: Look

[00:51:58] Michel Bauwens: Problem.

[00:51:58] Jarrad Hope: At short tum gains,

[00:51:59] Michel Bauwens: Right,

[00:51:59] Jarrad Hope: You know.

[00:51:59] Michel Bauwens: Which was solved by the state as a collective actor.

[00:52:04] Jarrad Hope: Brandt. Oh. That's

[00:52:05] Michel Bauwens: And,

[00:52:05] Jarrad Hope: Interesting. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that.

[00:52:06] Michel Bauwens: You

[00:52:06] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:52:06] Michel Bauwens: Know, and so at the network level, we also need to solve the collective action problem.

[00:52:12] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:52:12] Michel Bauwens: And I think that's the commons and not the state.

[00:52:15] Jarrad Hope: Now I

[00:52:17] Michel Bauwens: You

[00:52:17] Jarrad Hope: Can

[00:52:17] Michel Bauwens: Know,

[00:52:17] Jarrad Hope: See that.

[00:52:17] Michel Bauwens: We have para states, right? So you look at, at open source communities, they do have these for benefit associations like the Wikimedia

[00:52:26] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:52:27] Michel Bauwens: Foundation and the Drupal Association. And, you know, which acts as a collective entity, you know, to broker agreements between multiple stakeholders, right.

[00:52:40] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:52:40] Michel Bauwens: And crypto for, you know, for some reason, is trying to avoid human deliberation and go, you know, to a kind of incentive based consensus. And, you know, I still not sure if that's going to work fully, but I think where it makes sense is that, you know, it's the evolution of trust, right? So you have. Big little sister. Little brother. Tribal.

[00:53:06] Michel Bauwens: You can always go to some family member. Everybody is your aunt and your uncle, and everybody loves you. And you know, you go, you solve problems through talking together and maybe the elders, you know, you have to go in front of the elders. Then we scaled up to empires, right?

[00:53:23] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:53:24] Michel Bauwens: So then you get big Father, like, why are we working together over long distance? Because we fear the same God and the punishments by the priests. Right.

[00:53:34] Jarrad Hope: Yes.

[00:53:35] Michel Bauwens: Then we move to the nation state, big brother, because we are all equal citizens and the state is our big brother. I

[00:53:42] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:53:42] Michel Bauwens: Think, somewhat controversially, we now in Big Brother, which is, you know, so because we are feminizing and 70% of universities are led by women and and so it's, it's, you know, it's for your safety. Right. We're going to protect you. So

[00:53:58] Jarrad Hope: Now.

[00:53:58] Michel Bauwens: It's like a benevolent, benevolent surveillance.

[00:54:02] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:54:02] Michel Bauwens: And, you know,

[00:54:03] Jarrad Hope: It's

[00:54:03] Michel Bauwens: That's

[00:54:03] Jarrad Hope: Almost

[00:54:03] Michel Bauwens: What

[00:54:03] Jarrad Hope: Like

[00:54:03] Michel Bauwens: Wokeism

[00:54:03] Jarrad Hope: There's now

[00:54:04] Michel Bauwens: Is

[00:54:04] Jarrad Hope: A maternalism.

[00:54:04] Michel Bauwens: Essentially. Yeah.

[00:54:06] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:54:06] Michel Bauwens: You know, and and this is like a gender difference, you know, like, this has been studied like 70, 70% of the men would say, we we want truth.

[00:54:16] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:54:16] Michel Bauwens: And 7,070% of the of the women would say, we want safety. We want to protect the, you know, the weak.

[00:54:23] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:54:23] Michel Bauwens: So there's, you know, there's outliers in both groups, but like, there's this general thing of value differentiation, right. And so that's why we now have censorship in the name of the good. Right. Like

[00:54:36] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:54:36] Michel Bauwens: You can't critique minorities. And so, so but it's, it's very, you know, very repressive I think like, you know, this like

[00:54:46] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:54:47] Michel Bauwens: All

[00:54:47] Jarrad Hope: Like the intentions

[00:54:47] Michel Bauwens: The things you can't

[00:54:48] Jarrad Hope: Are good,

[00:54:48] Michel Bauwens: Say

[00:54:48] Jarrad Hope: Right? But

[00:54:48] Michel Bauwens: You

[00:54:48] Jarrad Hope: The mechanisms

[00:54:49] Michel Bauwens: The intention

[00:54:49] Jarrad Hope: Are used to

[00:54:50] Michel Bauwens: Is

[00:54:50] Jarrad Hope: Employ

[00:54:50] Michel Bauwens: Good.

[00:54:50] Jarrad Hope: It.

[00:54:50] Michel Bauwens: You

[00:54:51] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:54:51] Michel Bauwens: Know, it's the protective intention.

[00:54:54] Jarrad Hope: But

[00:54:54] Jarrad Hope: The mechanism.

[00:54:55] Michel Bauwens: And.

[00:54:55] Jarrad Hope: Yeah. Is.

[00:54:56] Michel Bauwens: Yeah. And

[00:54:57] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:54:57] Michel Bauwens: So I think we need to go back to little brother, little sister, but on a distributed network. Right.

[00:55:03] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:55:03] Michel Bauwens: And,

[00:55:03] Jarrad Hope: Absolutely.

[00:55:04] Michel Bauwens: And create smaller communities that can decide autonomously in there. So it's going from tribalism to neo tribalism, not

[00:55:14] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:55:15] Michel Bauwens: Kinship based but affinity based.

[00:55:17] Jarrad Hope: Definitely

[00:55:18] Michel Bauwens: Right. And if

[00:55:18] Jarrad Hope: I.

[00:55:19] Michel Bauwens: You think about it integrally, you know, like Ken Wilber stuff, right? You might be familiar with that. So the idea of transcend

[00:55:25] Jarrad Hope: A little. Yeah.

[00:55:26] Michel Bauwens: And include. Right. So we have tribal then we have these empires. We have the

[00:55:32] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:55:32] Michel Bauwens: Axial revolution which creates like communitarian systems like, you know, Judaism and, and Buddhism and Christianity. Then we

[00:55:41] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:55:41] Michel Bauwens: Have the capitalist you know, entrepreneurial layer, modernity,

[00:55:47] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:55:47] Michel Bauwens: Science, technology. Postmodern layer, which is like, you know, we should be critical about our own and like, see through our own determinations and, you know, anyway, and I think we need to kind of like, you know, take things from every system, right, in a new in a new kind of integrative framework, a meta integrative idea. And so, you know, I work with Daniel Schmachtenberg and his team

[00:56:20] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:56:20] Michel Bauwens: With people like Zachary Stein. I'm, you know, I'm contracted to the Civilization Research Institute. And, you know, we talk about the meta crisis there, right? Which is the idea that. So the poly crisis is we have multiple crises and they're all related. And you can't solve one problem without the others. The meta crisis is a one step further is we are looking to generative common patterns. That are seen in all these crises. And so if we can work on these patterns, then we can solve all the crises at the same time. So

[00:56:51] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[00:56:51] Michel Bauwens: I'm not you know, I'm not sure they're going to succeed. But that's the, that's kind of the, the aim. And then what I'm doing, you know, in that project, because that is not my specialty, is confronting these kind of systems theory, cybernetics theory with civilizational history. Right. Because the problem with systems theory is that you have agents in a network. There's no subjectivity. There's no culture, there's no history. And I think for human beings that is actually very important. So, you know,

[00:57:22] Michel Bauwens: Like

[00:57:22] Jarrad Hope: I've come to the same

[00:57:23] Michel Bauwens: Which

[00:57:23] Jarrad Hope: Conclusion,

[00:57:23] Michel Bauwens: Yeah,

[00:57:24] Jarrad Hope: I

[00:57:24] Michel Bauwens: We're trying

[00:57:24] Jarrad Hope: Realized.

[00:57:24] Michel Bauwens: To merge, you know, these two approaches in something that is like a you know, I'm not saying we're going to succeed, but that's, that's what we're trying to do. And then the other

[00:57:33] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:57:33] Michel Bauwens: Thing I might

[00:57:34] Jarrad Hope: Like,

[00:57:34] Michel Bauwens: Want to say

[00:57:34] Jarrad Hope: Just

[00:57:35] Michel Bauwens: Just

[00:57:35] Jarrad Hope: Just

[00:57:35] Michel Bauwens: I'll finish

[00:57:35] Jarrad Hope: On that

[00:57:35] Michel Bauwens: With this.

[00:57:35] Jarrad Hope: Note.

[00:57:36] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[00:57:36] Jarrad Hope: Okay. Go,

[00:57:36] Michel Bauwens: Okay.

[00:57:37] Jarrad Hope: Go. Yeah.

[00:57:37] Michel Bauwens: Go ahead. No, no. Go ahead.

[00:57:38] Michel Bauwens: I just want to

[00:57:39] Michel Bauwens: Say

[00:57:39] Jarrad Hope: Just.

[00:57:39] Michel Bauwens: I have another project you might want to know about.

[00:57:42] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[00:57:43] Michel Bauwens: But go

[00:57:43] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:57:43] Michel Bauwens: Ahead.

[00:57:43] Jarrad Hope: I mean so on that notion of like, trust I think for me, what I got into crypto when one of the selling points was this notion of like, trustlessness, right? If you're you know, one of the new priests, you can read the code and you understand how everything works. You can trust the mathematics, right? Of course, the average person can't do that. And so, like, they have to rely on social proof or heuristics to, to do that. But,

[00:58:09] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:58:10] Jarrad Hope: What I actually what that actually was about, I realized later, was the erosion of a high trust society that I was embedded in. Right. And like, that sort

[00:58:20] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:58:20] Jarrad Hope: Of part of the culture was actually what I was looking for was this this high trust society that I used to be part of as a, as a child and in my, in my, you know, in my youth, I guess,

[00:58:31] Michel Bauwens: So what

[00:58:32] Michel Bauwens: Was your background? Where were you living?

[00:58:34] Jarrad Hope: In Australia. Yeah. So.

[00:58:36] Michel Bauwens: All

[00:58:36] Jarrad Hope: But

[00:58:36] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:58:37] Jarrad Hope: I've been traveling I've been, you know, digital nomads for probably the past sort of 17 or 18 years

[00:58:43] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[00:58:43] Jarrad Hope: Now, so. Yeah. Did

[00:58:46] Michel Bauwens: Well.

[00:58:46] Jarrad Hope: They find any of these before you talk about your, your next project or the other project you're working on? That's interesting. Did they find any metapatterns yet? Or are they still you know, trying

[00:58:58] Michel Bauwens: No,

[00:58:58] Jarrad Hope: To to

[00:58:59] Michel Bauwens: They

[00:58:59] Jarrad Hope: Discover

[00:58:59] Michel Bauwens: They

[00:58:59] Jarrad Hope: Those.

[00:58:59] Michel Bauwens: Have some. I, I haven't really studied it that much yet.

[00:59:03] Jarrad Hope: Okay.

[00:59:03] Michel Bauwens: But you know, like, misaligned regulation,

[00:59:08] Michel Bauwens: Social traps. So they, they use this kind of

[00:59:12] Jarrad Hope: I see.

[00:59:13] Michel Bauwens: Vocabulary,

[00:59:13] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[00:59:14] Michel Bauwens: But, you know, my own project, which is to read all the macro historians, I can tell

[00:59:20] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[00:59:21] Michel Bauwens: You, it's like, so, so much already

[00:59:23] Jarrad Hope: So.

[00:59:23] Michel Bauwens: That I have a hard time getting other stuff, you know?

[00:59:26] Jarrad Hope: So.

[00:59:26] Michel Bauwens: So I'm really so I've read so there's three phases in macro history.

[00:59:31] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[00:59:32] Michel Bauwens: Well, I actually start with Spengler, right. Because he's the first non-eurocentric macro historian. So in the 19th century, everybody believes in progress. And Europe is the highest stage of progress. And so everywhere if everybody copies Europe, then, you know, then we're good, right? And Spengler is the first one, even though it was a conservative to say no, the West is is just one of civilizations. It will also decline eventually. So there was a big shock. And so then you have a whole number of cultural historians Carl Quigley, Arnold Toynbee, and they react and improve and critique Spengler. But within that cultural framework with culture, I mean that humans have agency. That

[01:00:16] Michel Bauwens: Values matter, right? So a civilization for Spangler is. Like a very particular orientation to the world that is unique

[01:00:25] Michel Bauwens: To that civilization. So it will say things like the Greeks, the body in space. So all

[01:00:32] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[01:00:32] Michel Bauwens: Their sculpture is all about the body in space. There's no transcendence.

[01:00:38] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[01:00:38] Michel Bauwens: In, in the Hellenistic civilization, it's it's all embodied. For the Christians, it's immediately when it starts the

[01:00:48] Jarrad Hope: So,

[01:00:48] Michel Bauwens: Gothic cathedral infinity.

[01:00:51] Michel Bauwens: The you know, for the Byzantium's and the and the Islam's, which he, he actually puts together in some way, even though they're different. It's, you know, it's round, right. It's a protective the protective dome. So

[01:01:06] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[01:01:06] Michel Bauwens: So that's how we you know so

[01:01:07] Jarrad Hope: Fascinating.

[01:01:07] Michel Bauwens: That's cultural. It's so every

[01:01:09] Michel Bauwens: Civilization has it calls it a prime symbol.

[01:01:11] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[01:01:13] Michel Bauwens: Then you have spiritualists reactions and that's Aurobindo. The yada Sadhan Sarkar in India. So these are people who say no culture is actually also spiritual. And so they try to

[01:01:28] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[01:01:29] Michel Bauwens: Kind of like synthesize evolution and modernity with, with with their traditions and their. Okay, so in the 70s, then you have a second layer, which is world system analysis, you know,

[01:01:42] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:01:42] Michel Bauwens: And these are basically the neo-Marxist neo materialist. So Wallerstein and and they look at geopolitics and, you know, productive systems and which, you know, is also very interesting. You know, I just see it as a, as a perspective. And then the last one which is still going on is called Big History, which is the same as what what Daniel is doing, which is looking at the patterns of change behind the world of matter, life and human history. Right. So for example

[01:02:14] Jarrad Hope: All right.

[01:02:14] Michel Bauwens: Emergence. Bifurcation. You find them in nature. You find them in life. You find them in human culture. So that's so. But you know, it's a it's a big field right.

[01:02:28] Jarrad Hope: Yeah. And a lot of history to go through.

[01:02:31] Michel Bauwens: Yes.

[01:02:32] Jarrad Hope: Yeah. And what was that your what was the latest project you're working on you were

[01:02:38] Michel Bauwens: So

[01:02:38] Jarrad Hope: Going to mention?

[01:02:38] Michel Bauwens: Yeah. No. So this is

[01:02:39] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:02:39] Michel Bauwens: A so I, this is a story. So I went to for the first time to to Montenegro last year in April.

[01:02:48] Jarrad Hope: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I was there for

[01:02:50] Michel Bauwens: And.

[01:02:50] Jarrad Hope: The SSC week, you

[01:02:51] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[01:02:51] Jarrad Hope: Know.

[01:02:52] Michel Bauwens: And, you know, I was quite critical about crypto and everything. I

[01:02:58] Michel Bauwens: Had my resistance. Let's see. But I sat on a table, you know, and there was a climate denialist. So somebody who doesn't believe in climate change, there was a

[01:03:09] Jarrad Hope: Get it.

[01:03:09] Michel Bauwens: An impact investors so that some people would call a green washer and there was a deep adaptationist, you know, collapses. But the fact that they could talk together peacefully on one

[01:03:21] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:03:21] Michel Bauwens: Table, you know, which is almost impossible now on social media and even elsewhere, because why they had a commons, the commons, they are building the infrastructure that will be good for all of them together. Right. And so they

[01:03:34] Jarrad Hope: Yes.

[01:03:34] Michel Bauwens: Can put their differences between brackets and focus on their commonality. And, and so that is the power of the commons. And so when I realized. Hum how community centric and common centric crypto was. You know, I

[01:03:48] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[01:03:48] Michel Bauwens: Was more looking at the speculative and, you know, the criminal part

[01:03:52] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[01:03:52] Michel Bauwens: And all

[01:03:52] Jarrad Hope: The

[01:03:52] Michel Bauwens: Of that,

[01:03:52] Jarrad Hope: Outside

[01:03:53] Michel Bauwens: Right?

[01:03:53] Jarrad Hope: Face of it doesn't look particularly

[01:03:54] Michel Bauwens: Yeah,

[01:03:55] Jarrad Hope: Great,

[01:03:55] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[01:03:55] Jarrad Hope: But like the

[01:03:56] Michel Bauwens: So

[01:03:56] Jarrad Hope: Actual

[01:03:56] Michel Bauwens: Then

[01:03:56] Jarrad Hope: Core

[01:03:56] Michel Bauwens: The next step

[01:03:57] Jarrad Hope: And.

[01:03:57] Michel Bauwens: Is right. The next step is, you know, I give my lecture there, I gave two lectures there and there's some Chinese people and they come to me and they're like, oh wow, this is fantastic. I never heard this story before. And so it turns out to be the global

[01:04:12] Jarrad Hope: So.

[01:04:12] Michel Bauwens: Chinese commons, which is a Chinese crypto nomadic network, because crypto

[01:04:17] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[01:04:18] Michel Bauwens: Is, you know, is is is mostly illegal in China. So

[01:04:22] Michel Bauwens: They, you know, they become digital nomads so they can do their work and then go back to their families and not do anything illegal in, in China, basically. And,

[01:04:31] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[01:04:31] Michel Bauwens: And they said, oh, we based in Shanghai. Wow. You know what? I

[01:04:37] Jarrad Hope: A stone's

[01:04:37] Michel Bauwens: Have to go

[01:04:37] Jarrad Hope: Throw

[01:04:37] Michel Bauwens: To

[01:04:37] Jarrad Hope: Away.

[01:04:37] Michel Bauwens: Montenegro to meet people who who have their headquarters in Shanghai. And so I'm, I'm doing research coordination for the GCC as well.

[01:04:45] Jarrad Hope: Oh, wow. Nice.

[01:04:47] Michel Bauwens: And so that's also helps me a lot to, you know, to become closer to the crypto world because, you know, I'm not a crypto person. I'm a person that tries to build bridges between

[01:04:56] Jarrad Hope: Yes.

[01:04:56] Michel Bauwens: Domains. Right? And so I'll know much less than you about crypto, but

[01:05:01] Jarrad Hope: So.

[01:05:02] Michel Bauwens: I will still know more than a lot of people who are skeptical or don't know anything about crypto. And I can make bridges between different domains because I had a kind of varied and rich life which put me in, you know, many different spaces. You know, I've been in technology. I created two startups. I, you know, so I manage SMEs. I worked for two multinationals, you know, in strategy. I, you know, I was a radical in my youth and I was a, you know, at the top of an international organization. I had a very intense spiritual search when I was young. So, you know, I've done the eastern stuff. I've done. I was I've done alchemy. And so, you know, at some point, you know, you you are able to draw from different worlds that normally don't

[01:05:48] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[01:05:48] Michel Bauwens: Speak to each other. Right, but and that I can somehow translate more or less. So, you know, I'm not saying I know everything, you know, of course, that's not the case. But when you've been in a world, right,

[01:06:03] Jarrad Hope: They.

[01:06:03] Michel Bauwens: You understand it better than if you're just, like, reading from outside, right?

[01:06:07] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[01:06:07] Michel Bauwens: You have to interact with

[01:06:08] Jarrad Hope: Definitely.

[01:06:08] Michel Bauwens: The people, understand the culture from the inside. And so, you know, after a while that gives you something that a lot of people don't have because, you

[01:06:17] Jarrad Hope: You have

[01:06:17] Michel Bauwens: Know,

[01:06:17] Jarrad Hope: A broader perspective,

[01:06:18] Michel Bauwens: Probably for

[01:06:18] Jarrad Hope: You know?

[01:06:19] Michel Bauwens: Good reason, because there were not as unhappy as I was when I was young. So, you know, I just had to do it to search for like, the solution, you know, and then at some point you discover you're just as fucked up as everybody else. And

[01:06:34] Jarrad Hope: I

[01:06:34] Michel Bauwens: Then it's

[01:06:34] Jarrad Hope: Mean,

[01:06:34] Michel Bauwens: Okay,

[01:06:34] Jarrad Hope: There's a

[01:06:34] Michel Bauwens: You

[01:06:34] Jarrad Hope: Lot

[01:06:34] Michel Bauwens: Know?

[01:06:35] Jarrad Hope: Of rabbit holes that I would have loved to if we had more time to like, you know, delve into their right, like, particularly on the alchemy side of things. And, you know, I guess that's very occult adjacent as well. And I find that

[01:06:47] Michel Bauwens: Yeah,

[01:06:47] Jarrad Hope: Sort of topic

[01:06:47] Michel Bauwens: I've been

[01:06:48] Jarrad Hope: Very

[01:06:48] Michel Bauwens: A Templar.

[01:06:48] Jarrad Hope: Fascinating.

[01:06:48] Michel Bauwens: I've been a mason. I've been a Rosicrucian.

[01:06:50] Jarrad Hope: Wow.

[01:06:51] Michel Bauwens: I you know, I

[01:06:52] Jarrad Hope: Incredible.

[01:06:52] Michel Bauwens: Wanted to know it all from the inside. And so

[01:06:54] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[01:06:54] Michel Bauwens: I spent some

[01:06:56] Jarrad Hope: But.

[01:06:56] Michel Bauwens: Years just, you know.

[01:06:58] Jarrad Hope: Yeah. I think, like you know Ethereum is I've been on the inside for Ethereum for, you know, for basically the duration of its existence. In Bitcoin a little bit earlier than that. And It was almost like a quasi religious experience for me, in a way, because it was like the first time that I had found people who could have, who could actually hold different points of view in, in

[01:07:25] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[01:07:25] Jarrad Hope: Mind and have an intelligent conversation and non-judgmental conversation

[01:07:29] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[01:07:29] Jarrad Hope: About,

[01:07:29] Michel Bauwens: That's so

[01:07:30] Jarrad Hope: You know,

[01:07:30] Michel Bauwens: Important.

[01:07:30] Jarrad Hope: Different ideas.

[01:07:31] Michel Bauwens: Yeah, that's

[01:07:31] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:07:31] Michel Bauwens: So important. And so one of the things I learned from Zachary Stein, you know, he talks about invisible colleges, right. So

[01:07:38] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[01:07:38] Michel Bauwens: When things are fragmenting and tribalised and polarizing and the people in the middle lose, lose their influence, like, you know, like Erasmus was very popular. But once they started with the Reformation Wars, nobody listened to him because he,

[01:07:54] Jarrad Hope: Ryan

[01:07:55] Michel Bauwens: You know,

[01:07:55] Jarrad Hope: Wasn't

[01:07:55] Michel Bauwens: He didn't

[01:07:56] Jarrad Hope: On

[01:07:56] Michel Bauwens: Really choose

[01:07:56] Jarrad Hope: The fence.

[01:07:57] Michel Bauwens: A side. Right. So

[01:07:59] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:08:00] Michel Bauwens: So what you then have are invisible colleges, which is smaller groups, right, are going to protect themselves to be still be able to think and exchange. Right. And

[01:08:10] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[01:08:10] Michel Bauwens: That, by the way, was the role of the Masonic tradition. You know, that was where Catholics and Reformation and atheists could talk together and different classes could come together without everybody else knowing that they were talking together. That's, you know, if you live in a highly repressive environment, that's what you need to do. And so I think, you know, that's to a certain degree we need to do this now, you know, because we have no guarantee that we'll have free speech left in ten years or so. It's, you

[01:08:42] Jarrad Hope: That's

[01:08:42] Michel Bauwens: Know, I'm.

[01:08:42] Jarrad Hope: Why I work on the technologies that I do.

[01:08:44] Michel Bauwens: You

[01:08:44] Jarrad Hope: So

[01:08:44] Michel Bauwens: Know, to be

[01:08:45] Jarrad Hope: At

[01:08:45] Michel Bauwens: Honest,

[01:08:45] Jarrad Hope: Least

[01:08:45] Michel Bauwens: Like on

[01:08:45] Jarrad Hope: You

[01:08:45] Michel Bauwens: Facebook,

[01:08:45] Jarrad Hope: Know the cat's

[01:08:46] Michel Bauwens: I

[01:08:46] Jarrad Hope: Out of

[01:08:46] Michel Bauwens: Quit

[01:08:46] Jarrad Hope: The bag.

[01:08:46] Michel Bauwens: Facebook because I couldn't even share, like, scientific peer reviewed material, you know,

[01:08:51] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:08:51] Michel Bauwens: Like it's

[01:08:52] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:08:53] Michel Bauwens: Insane, you know? And so I'm on Twitter. I think Twitter is more pluralistic and it's not perfect, but it's more pluralistic. And, you know, if you can't do it publicly, you have to do it in smaller groups. And

[01:09:08] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:09:09] Michel Bauwens: Of course that's the problem with crypto. You know, like the fragmentation, right? Which is like, you know, 500 telegram groups. So one, one thing, you know, and it's like, oh, God, you know,

[01:09:21] Jarrad Hope: Well,

[01:09:21] Michel Bauwens: You can

[01:09:22] Jarrad Hope: There's.

[01:09:22] Michel Bauwens: Spend day and

[01:09:23] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[01:09:23] Michel Bauwens: Night, you

[01:09:23] Jarrad Hope: There's.

[01:09:23] Michel Bauwens: Know, and you still don't know, like only 5% of what's happening in a community.

[01:09:28] Jarrad Hope: Yeah. Like there's almost an interesting parallel with, say, you know, the establishment of the United States of America and The Federalist Papers in particular, where you basically had a bunch of anons, you know, writing letters to each other and, you know, regardless of the content, they were, you know, fearful of, of British rule and rightly so for for some reasons.

[01:09:50] Michel Bauwens: Right? Of course.

[01:09:50] Jarrad Hope: And crypto is kind of doing the similar thing. You know, you have these anons that are and other, you know, other political groups out there

[01:09:57] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[01:09:57] Jarrad Hope: Being anonymous, publishing their information like their ideas

[01:10:00] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[01:10:01] Jarrad Hope: And

[01:10:01] Michel Bauwens: Censorship

[01:10:01] Jarrad Hope: Then evolving

[01:10:01] Michel Bauwens: Resistance.

[01:10:02] Jarrad Hope: Their thoughts.

[01:10:02] Michel Bauwens: You know, zero knowledge proof. Yeah.

[01:10:04] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:10:05] Michel Bauwens: I think, you know, that's necessary to protect these trans local groups,

[01:10:10] Jarrad Hope: Yeah. I

[01:10:11] Jarrad Hope: Think, like, you

[01:10:12] Michel Bauwens: And,

[01:10:12] Jarrad Hope: Know, in the pursuit

[01:10:12] Michel Bauwens: And

[01:10:12] Jarrad Hope: Of truth.

[01:10:12] Michel Bauwens: And the

[01:10:13] Jarrad Hope: You

[01:10:13] Michel Bauwens: Transfer

[01:10:13] Jarrad Hope: Need that.

[01:10:13] Michel Bauwens: Of value,

[01:10:14] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:10:14] Michel Bauwens: I think is very important. Right. You like, if you don't have capital, you can't win. Right? If you if you're living at the edges and you cannot invest, invest in the expansion of your system, you're very marginal. So the capacity

[01:10:27] Jarrad Hope: No.

[01:10:28] Michel Bauwens: To transfer value. You know, is also a crucial aspect of crypto. And, you know, you

[01:10:34] Jarrad Hope: Oh,

[01:10:34] Michel Bauwens: Talked

[01:10:34] Jarrad Hope: Absolutely.

[01:10:34] Michel Bauwens: About religion, right. And so.

[01:10:36] Jarrad Hope: So.

[01:10:37] Michel Bauwens: That's also what I kind of discovered, and most people will be critical about it. But I think you need that, right? You need something

[01:10:43] Jarrad Hope: I think

[01:10:43] Michel Bauwens: That transcends

[01:10:44] Jarrad Hope: So.

[01:10:45] Michel Bauwens: Your your daily circumstance. And Viktor Frankl in The Man in Search of Meaning,

[01:10:51] Jarrad Hope: People.

[01:10:51] Michel Bauwens: Which, you know, he was in the concentration camps, right? He said only two kinds of people survived. The communists and the Catholics. The Catholics,

[01:11:01] Jarrad Hope: Hmm'hmm.

[01:11:01] Michel Bauwens: Because they have vertical transcendence. And they could you know, I'm going to have an and you know, okay. So they could kind of detach themselves and the Communist because they had a temporal utopia right in the future. So I'm not saying both were right or wrong, but

[01:11:17] Jarrad Hope: No.

[01:11:17] Michel Bauwens: I'm saying

[01:11:18] Jarrad Hope: But

[01:11:18] Michel Bauwens: Is

[01:11:18] Jarrad Hope: Like

[01:11:18] Michel Bauwens: The

[01:11:18] Jarrad Hope: It's

[01:11:19] Michel Bauwens: Capacity

[01:11:19] Jarrad Hope: That they

[01:11:19] Michel Bauwens: To

[01:11:19] Jarrad Hope: Had

[01:11:19] Michel Bauwens: Project

[01:11:19] Jarrad Hope: The.

[01:11:20] Michel Bauwens: Yourself in the future is crucially important. So what I'm doing, why I'm interested in cycles, is because the capacity, when you are in declining phase to go beyond the declining phase, right to to look at the next up cycle

[01:11:36] Jarrad Hope: I'm.

[01:11:37] Michel Bauwens: And to have sound ideas about what the next upside could, could look like. Right. And so that's what I'm doing, is like analyzing seed forms.

[01:11:47] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[01:11:48] Michel Bauwens: And thinking like, is that working? If it's working, what does it mean? And can we deduce from that, you know, like characteristics of the future system that that are emerging and.

[01:12:00] Jarrad Hope: So what are the different sort of scenarios that you foresee in the future, like your, you know, you think are likely and you know,

[01:12:08] Michel Bauwens: Yeah,

[01:12:08] Jarrad Hope: Can you pin

[01:12:09] Michel Bauwens: I

[01:12:09] Jarrad Hope: Them to any

[01:12:09] Michel Bauwens: Have

[01:12:09] Jarrad Hope: Kind

[01:12:09] Michel Bauwens: Four

[01:12:09] Jarrad Hope: Of cycle.

[01:12:10] Michel Bauwens: Worlds, you know, it's like a four world theory.

[01:12:13] Michel Bauwens: And there are four combinations of. So centralizing global. Versus local and distributed. So they're not entirely the same these two words. But you know, I have only one quadrant. So I put them together and then for profit and for benefit. So centralized for profit uses peer to peer and the commons in a fake way. To extract. From human cooperation so that this is what I call net article capitalism. You know, the Googles and the Ubers. And I think there's a shift in capitalism from commodity based capitalism. You know, I call it Marxist capitalism because they there's an extraction of surplus value from human labor and nature to systems that directly exploit human cooperation. So they create platforms,

[01:13:11] Jarrad Hope: So.

[01:13:12] Michel Bauwens: We exchange and we work and they tax so that we're back to rent. Right to

[01:13:19] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[01:13:19] Michel Bauwens: This is feudal. This is they're not profit makers in the sense that they make things that they sell a higher price. They taxes. Right. Just as a serf had to give half of his produce to be able to use the land. Right. That's so even capitalists today are exploited by them, because you have to give 30% of your profit in order to access the platforms, sometimes 70%. So then you have

[01:13:45] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[01:13:45] Michel Bauwens: Distributed capitalism, which is libertarianism. And so the idea is to to make everybody in a small entrepreneur who can, you know, autonomously make agreements and, and create and share value. But it's still kind of for profit oriented. Then you have urban commons local for benefit oriented and the global open source world. Right. So these are four different systems, all based on peer to peer and in different combinations. They all exist and they all compete with each other. And

[01:14:24] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[01:14:24] Michel Bauwens: Then of course, what is interesting is when you start having hybrids, right. Like crypto is evolving. To incorporate open source. Right. And what I want

[01:14:38] Michel Bauwens: Is a crypto also incorporates the urban commons.

[01:14:41] Jarrad Hope: Right.

[01:14:42] Michel Bauwens: Because

[01:14:42] Jarrad Hope: Well

[01:14:42] Michel Bauwens: Then we have

[01:14:43] Jarrad Hope: I mean there

[01:14:43] Michel Bauwens: Three

[01:14:43] Jarrad Hope: Certainly

[01:14:43] Michel Bauwens: Against

[01:14:43] Jarrad Hope: Exists

[01:14:44] Michel Bauwens: One.

[01:14:44] Jarrad Hope: Within crypto. Yeah.

[01:14:46] Michel Bauwens: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.

[01:14:46] Jarrad Hope: There.

[01:14:47] Michel Bauwens: I mean, they're all, you know, wi fi and all that. They're trying it.

[01:14:50] Jarrad Hope: No.

[01:14:51] Michel Bauwens: But what I'm, what I'm critiquing is the lack of connection between all the people in the cities of the renewable energy co-ops and, you know, collective access to organic food and and real car sharing and cooperative housing and cohousing. And then they're not connected at all to the crypto world and vice versa. And

[01:15:11] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:15:11] Michel Bauwens: I would so I wrote something called crypto for real, where I call for, you know, these alliances. This is what you know, that's my particular point of view, what I would like to see.

[01:15:23] Jarrad Hope: That would be really nice. Yeah. For sure. Those ideas, like were very prominent, like, even early early on in Ethereum's life cycle. And Ethereum has like a different sort of affinity, cultural affinity group around it than, say, the Bitcoiners do. Right?

[01:15:39] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[01:15:40] Jarrad Hope: Which is also quite interesting to to note that, like these different public programable chains or public chains have their own sets of AI you know, behavioral characteristics, you know, virtues and these sort of things. But I think, you know, part of we're taking a long detour because there is a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built and ensuring things

[01:16:04] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[01:16:04] Jarrad Hope: Are scalable while maintaining the properties that we care about. And like, that's why you don't really see a very large decentralized application ecosystem. It exists. Sure. But like, it's kind

[01:16:18] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[01:16:18] Jarrad Hope: Of in a almost like a halfway house, like a web 2.5 where you

[01:16:21] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[01:16:21] Jarrad Hope: Have,

[01:16:22] Michel Bauwens: You know, and

[01:16:22] Jarrad Hope: You

[01:16:22] Michel Bauwens: The interfaces

[01:16:22] Jarrad Hope: Know.

[01:16:23] Michel Bauwens: Are often like, you know, I mean, I use a wallet, but to be honest, I still find it very complex. And

[01:16:32] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:16:33] Michel Bauwens: I often have to ask a friend, you know, I would do screen sharing.

[01:16:37] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:16:38] Michel Bauwens: You know, maybe

[01:16:38] Jarrad Hope: I

[01:16:38] Michel Bauwens: It's my

[01:16:39] Jarrad Hope: Mean, it's

[01:16:39] Michel Bauwens: My

[01:16:39] Jarrad Hope: Like rebuilding

[01:16:39] Michel Bauwens: Generational

[01:16:39] Jarrad Hope: The net

[01:16:40] Michel Bauwens: Handicap,

[01:16:40] Jarrad Hope: Again.

[01:16:40] Michel Bauwens: But I think it's way, way too complicated.

[01:16:44] Jarrad Hope: It

[01:16:44] Michel Bauwens: And,

[01:16:44] Jarrad Hope: Is. Yeah.

[01:16:45] Michel Bauwens: You know, a lot of the, like, publishing portals. Yeah, there's still a long way to go. But

[01:16:53] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:16:53] Michel Bauwens: The thing is,

[01:16:54] Jarrad Hope: Gotta

[01:16:54] Michel Bauwens: It's

[01:16:54] Jarrad Hope: Start

[01:16:54] Michel Bauwens: Been

[01:16:55] Jarrad Hope: Somewhere.

[01:16:55] Michel Bauwens: Going on for, you know. It's been going on, what, for 15 or 10 years. So the thing is, when Bitcoin goes down and the crypto goes down and you're still doing it. That's that's very important, right? Because that means that it's not just greed. It's not just

[01:17:12] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:17:12] Michel Bauwens: Speculation. You really believe in it. So that's where the religious aspect, you know, it's an ideology also. And

[01:17:19] Jarrad Hope: Yes, it really

[01:17:20] Michel Bauwens: We

[01:17:20] Jarrad Hope: Is.

[01:17:20] Michel Bauwens: Either have religion or we have ideology, you know,

[01:17:23] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[01:17:23] Michel Bauwens: And it doesn't mean it's true or false, but, you know, it's a way to make sense of the world. And it gives you you need something transcendent, right? You need something that's beyond you. Because if you just

[01:17:36] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[01:17:36] Michel Bauwens: Follow your feelings Monday, you like it. Tuesday you hate it. So

[01:17:40] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:17:41] Michel Bauwens: If you want to be committed

[01:17:42] Jarrad Hope: It's not

[01:17:42] Michel Bauwens: To

[01:17:42] Jarrad Hope: A

[01:17:42] Michel Bauwens: Something,

[01:17:42] Jarrad Hope: Grounded

[01:17:42] Michel Bauwens: You have

[01:17:42] Jarrad Hope: Rock.

[01:17:43] Michel Bauwens: To believe. You have to believe that it's more than that. You have to be willing to make sacrifices.

[01:17:50] Jarrad Hope: You

[01:17:50] Michel Bauwens: And

[01:17:50] Jarrad Hope: Know,

[01:17:51] Michel Bauwens: I think

[01:17:51] Jarrad Hope: I'm

[01:17:51] Michel Bauwens: Crypto

[01:17:51] Jarrad Hope: No stranger

[01:17:51] Michel Bauwens: Has that.

[01:17:52] Jarrad Hope: To that.

[01:17:52] Michel Bauwens: You know

[01:17:52] Jarrad Hope: Yeah.

[01:17:53] Michel Bauwens: Crypto has

[01:17:53] Jarrad Hope: Yeah,

[01:17:53] Michel Bauwens: That.

[01:17:55] Jarrad Hope: Absolutely. No, I

[01:17:56] Michel Bauwens: I.

[01:17:57] Jarrad Hope: Believe it does. And I feel that for a large part of that, I'm an embodiment of it. And, you know, the sort of beer runs I really appreciate for this, you know, for the exact reason that you mentioned that the the people who are here for the right reasons stay right, and they continue

[01:18:16] Michel Bauwens: All right.

[01:18:16] Jarrad Hope: Building and they also continue building almost on faith because, you know, their runway

[01:18:23] Michel Bauwens: Right.

[01:18:24] Jarrad Hope: Or their, you know, like

[01:18:25] Michel Bauwens: But

[01:18:25] Jarrad Hope: The

[01:18:25] Michel Bauwens: Faith

[01:18:25] Jarrad Hope: Amount of capital

[01:18:26] Michel Bauwens: Moves mountains.

[01:18:26] Jarrad Hope: They have. Yeah. And I guess before before we jump off I was wondering, you know, if there's any book recommendations you might have on some of these topics, particularly around cycles.

[01:18:39] Michel Bauwens: All right. Well, okay. You have Peter Turchin. Secular cycles.

[01:18:43] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[01:18:43] Michel Bauwens: And he has a new book. I,

[01:18:46] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[01:18:46] Michel Bauwens: I, I enjoyed fourth generation as well. Or

[01:18:50] Michel Bauwens: Is it a fourth generation? I think so, right. You know that famous book about the generational cycle.

[01:18:55] Jarrad Hope: Yeah, yeah.

[01:18:57] Michel Bauwens: Now the fourth turning. I'm sorry. It's the fourth turning.

[01:18:59] Jarrad Hope: There we go.

[01:19:00] Michel Bauwens: One book I really like is Kojin Karatani. It's called The Structure of World History, which is a really great summary of, you know, many of these thinkers and doesn't really focus on cycles, but it's it's very good. So I have, I have a section in my wiki called Civilization Analysis with very detailed overviews of all these authors

[01:19:23] Jarrad Hope: Mm.hmm.

[01:19:23] Michel Bauwens: I have. I have a site called a page called sources of P2P theory. Where, you know, I survey all the things that influence my thinking over the years. I have another one called What you should read about the comments, and maybe in the description I can send them to you and you can put it in, in the description and, this is more than one book, but they, you know, they can choose which book that appeals most to them.

[01:19:50] Jarrad Hope: That's fantastic. Yeah. Thank you very much. And thank you for spending the time with us. Really appreciate it.

[01:19:55] Michel Bauwens: Yeah.

[01:19:56] Michel Bauwens: With pleasure. I really enjoyed this conversation.