Why Progressives Need Bitcoin with Trey Walsh
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Trey Walsh is a nonprofit director and progressive Bitcoiner. In this interview, we discuss the problems facing Gen Z: climate change, high education and housing costs, wider economic problems constraining opportunities, the erosion of democracy, and social media-induced mental health challenges. We talk about why Bitcoin could provide hope to this hopeless generation.
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Gen Z is suffering. They have been excluded from the growth in asset prices over the past few decades, but are facing the dire consequences of spiralling debt on the provision of public services. They are being excluded from discussions about climate change, yet they will be expected to front the response in the coming decades.
They are being told they are too woke, ignorant and lazy by those under whose watch democracy has been allowed to crumble. And whilst there is a dearth of ethical and inspiring leaders charting a path for this disillusioned generation, there is a significant amount of vitriolic noise in the media, exploiting the fear in return for eyeballs, clicks and likes.
Gen Z’s hopelessness is manifesting itself in a mental health crisis: compared to other generations Gen Z has lower feelings of emotional well-being. The response of older generations is that Gen Z-ers are snowflakes - they need to toughen up. This is cruelly counterproductive as Gen Z is least likely to seek help: they are 3 times more likely to consider suicide than other generations.
Into this void of despair comes Bitcoin. There has been a timely reappraisal of the “Bitcoin fixes this” meme over the past year. Obviously, Bitcoin is not a panacea for all of the world's ills. But, it is a technology that is providing hope to those developing material mitigations to some of the most deep-rooted problems in our society.
Trey Walsh strongly believes that Bitcoin provides hope for the environment, for a more socially-just economic system and for democracy. It offers this as politicians and decision-makers continue to peddle obvious self-serving fantasies. As Trey asserts, “Gen Z deserves the opportunity to be presented with the stories of hope in Bitcoin.” This is why we should be working for Bitcoin: it provides “hope for a generation found hopeless.”
00:02:14: Introductions
00:04:07: Being a progressive bitcoiner, and the gun debate
00:16:06: Educating politicians
00:21:45: Trey's background
00:26:17: Hopelessness among children
00:32:22: Politicians get co-opted into the system
00:34:20: A broken society for kids, and importance of education
00:39:46: Impact of good teaching staff, and teacher strikes
00:42:23: Mismanagement of government spending
00:51:20: Flipping government incentives
00:54:55: Decline of New York and San Francisco
01:01:05: Bitcoin bringing hope to Gen Z
01:06:21: Views on nuclear energy
01:07:45: Final comments
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Mentioned in the interview:
Jim Jefferies: Gun Control (Part 1) from BARE Netflix Special - YouTube, Oct 2015
Americans in Their 30s Are Piling On Debt - WSJ, Feb 25th 2023
Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? - TED Talk, Jun 2006
Energy bill help drives UK borrowing to February record - BBC, Mar 21st 2023
Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2023 Update - Tax Foundation, Jan 26th 2023
$3 Billion Mass. Tax Surplus to Be Returned to Taxpayers - NBC Boston, Sep 2022
Total Deficits, Primary Deficits, and Net Interest Outlays - Congressional Budget Office, Feb 2023
San Francisco is decaying - Michael Shellenberger, The Spectator, Feb 2022
Terawulf First Fully Nuclear Powered Bitcoin Mining - Bitcoin Magazine, Mar 6th 2023
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