Coronavirus: The State vs Civil Liberties with Aleks Svetski

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“We are never going to get rid of the shit cunts, but the best thing we can do is limit the shit cunts ability to run the show.”
— Aleks Svetski

SHOW DESCRIPTION

Location: Skype
Date: Monday, 23rd March
Project: Amber
Role: CEO

In late January, when the Chinese City of Wuhan was placed into a government-enforced lockdown to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. All non-essential businesses were closed, travel restricted, and people could only leave their home to buy food. While the measures put in place appeared extreme, they helped to ‘flatten the curve’ and reduce the spread of the virus.

Since then, the disease has spread rapidly throughout the rest of the world. Some governments have chosen to follow China, opting for widespread lockdowns. Italy implemented a nationwide quarantine in early March, Spain followed suit shortly after and the UK announced yesterday it was placing the country into lockdown.

There are now 17 countries with lockdown measures in place. The hope is that by reducing the number of people infected, it will, in turn, lessen the strain on local healthcare systems and reduce the number of people dying from the disease.

What is the cost of these draconian measures? Is it worth the impact on the economy and the erosion of civil liberties? Many Bitcoiners align themselves closely with Libertarianism and are against state intervention and therefore disagree with the restrictive measures put in place across the globe. We do though live in a democracy; if the will of the people supports these measures, then should they be supported?

In this interview, I talk to Aleks Svetski, CEO at Amber and a passionate Bitcoiner. We discuss the COVID-19 coronavirus, state response to the pandemic, the economic impact and the threat to our civil liberties.

TIMESTAMPS

00:06:25: Introductions
00:07:15: Peter’s tweet
00:11:00: Libertarian structures and flawed ideologies
00:18:25: Inequality and corruption
00:28:25: Desperation in broken systems
00:30:10: Foundations of America
00:35:06: Bitcoin as the catalyst for libertarianism
00:40:29: Free markets
00:45:09: Abusive business and consumer behaviour
00:49:33: Sound money and human nature
00:54:40: Emergency measure laws
00:58:03: Coronavirus patterns
01:02:00: Virus response with the current system
01:06:29: Centralized planning
01:15:07: Other ways of approaching the virus
01:22:10: Success of lockdown
01:28:13: Aleks’ view on testing
01:33:16: Trade-offs around virus response and testing
01:40:17: Society conditioned to need government
01:49:33: Freedom, liberties and individual rights
01:51:20: Masking over underlying systemic issues
01:58:05: Ideological response to the virus
02:07:30: Reality of state response
02:16:16: Response of general public to the virus
02:19:39: Introducing the masses to Bitcoin
02:25:17: Libertarian tribalism
02:30:15: Need for open debate around issues
02:35:54: Final comments

 

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SHOW NOTES

PodcastPeter McCormack