WBD433 Audio Transcription

The Fourth Turning Revisited with Brandon Quittem

Interview date: Monday 6th December

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Brandon Quittem. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.

In this interview, I talk to Brandon Quittem, a writer and advisor for Swan Bitcoin. We discuss what we can learn from previous turnings, Bitcoin’s role as a life raft in these uncertain times, and whether Bitcoin could fundamentally end these cycles.

“Theoretically Bitcoin is a monetary system to last 1,000 year instead of 50 years, what does that do to society? What if this institution doesn’t decay, what if it lasts, what if we can build on top of it a greater, more collaborative society? That’s entirely possible.”

— Brandon Quittem

Interview Transcription

Peter McCormack: Yo, Brandon, how are you doing, man?

Brandon Quittem: I'm doing great, Peter.  Thanks for having me.

Peter McCormack: Thank you for coming.  Thanks for flying in for this, dude, really appreciate it.  We did an interview just a bit over a year ago.  It proved to be super popular.  At the time, it was one of the biggest shows I'd ever done, top ten, I think.  It was a topic a lot of people were talking about at the time; Fourth Turning.  So, I think it's a good time to revisit it, so thank you for coming back and doing this; I know you've done a lot of prep.  But how have you been anyway, you been well?

Brandon Quittem: I've been great, yeah.  It was a very easy question, "Do I want to go to Miami in the winter?"  Where I live, it's quite cold, there's snow on the ground, no sunshine.  So, easy yes for me and I'm very passionate about this topic.  It was actually a personal thing for me last year, chaos, lots of transition, lots of change, and I'm sitting there like, "What's going on?"  So, I just went in the cave and started reading and learning and trying to figure out what's happening.  And out of that process came The Fourth Turning.  I read it a couple of times and that thesis seemed to be the best tool to view the change.

After internalising that idea, first I fought it.  I was like, "It kind of sounds like horoscopes for intellectuals in a way".  And the deeper I got, I realised that it does feel like this emergent human thing.  It feels like ground up, this is how humans operate.  And it is just a model, the map is not the territory.  However, it felt so useful.  And having a sense of these cycles gave me some peace in a sense that, okay, the world looks pretty grim, but I don't think it's going to end.  We've been here before; there are so many parallels to the 1940s. 

That kind of gives you some cautionary things, but also, like I said, a little bit of peace for the future.  We'll get through this.

Peter McCormack: Well, anyone who hasn't heard the last one, they won't necessarily need to go back, because I think we're going to revisit part of it; but the reason I wanted to cover it with you again is because we made that show, so much more weird and crazy shit's happened since, it felt like a good time to go back in and use that as a lens back into The Fourth Turning. 

I was going to save this bit until later on, but actually let's do it now.  Danny mentioned, because I'd forgotten about it, I raised The Fourth Turning in my interview with Eric Weinstein and he didn't want to talk about it; he's very critical of it.  The point he made is, he's got this thesis of snap-to-grid.  What is it, Danny?  Yeah, so there's a theory or something happens, and then people just attach themselves to it, rather than dealing with the fact there might be new information, or whatever.

So, he himself isn't a fan of this, he didn't want to talk about it, and I guess there are other critics of The Fourth Turning; you've probably read them yourself, you've probably dealt with them.  But could you summarise the main criticisms and what your view is on those criticisms?

Brandon Quittem: Yeah.  I would say, let's see; I get two main criticisms: one is from the bitcoiners, and in our beautiful arrogance we say, "Now Bitcoin's here, the cycles are over".  To be honest, my first read through the book, that was my thesis, "Yeah, but technology changes things".  Then I went a little bit deeper with the materials, spent more time listening to one of the authors, Neil Howe, and then it became clear that this is just a human thing and we talked about it earlier. 

Yeah, the technology changes, but human nature doesn't change very much, so it's really about looking at the mood, and I think that's the important part.  It's not predicting exactly what's going to happen, it predicts how humans in a group respond to catalysts.  I think that's my answer to the Bitcoin thing, "Yes, new technology, but there was new technology in the 1940s, there was new technology in the Civil War and the Revolutionary War and a lot of things have changed.  Yet, this process continues".  So, that's criticism one.

Another one would be, "It's just like horoscopes for intellectuals".  What that reduces down to as an argument is that, you're just looking for patterns that don't exist.  I am a little bit sympathetic to this, which is why I wouldn't say I only use one lens to view the world; that's obviously a mistake and that's not the territory.  And so, yeah, I think there's credence there but again, the people who make those critiques, they have only a 20% understanding.  And I was there, I know exactly what that feels like, and I've yet to meet someone who grasps the material well enough in order to make thoughtful critiques, very similar to Bitcoin.

The deeper I went, the more I started to see these patterns playing out, it started to make sense, cancel culture made sense.  Why is humanity trying to collectivise right now?  Why is everything political?  That all makes sense through this lens.  And I guess to counteract my own position there, you could say, the more I learn about it, the more my identity attaches to this thing.  So, I sort of have a little reputation attached to this book, which was not really intentional, it's just what happened.

So, yeah, that's what I would say, and I'm still bullish on the thesis, but it's only one tool in the toolkit.

Peter McCormack: Okay, so how much do we know about the author, Neil Howe?

Brandon Quittem: So, he's a long-time historian, he's a classic DC intellectual author guy.  He and his co-author, the late Bill Strauss, their big book was called Generations, in the early 1990s.  Presidents said it was the most influential thing they read, and so they have a long-term history.  I guess they were given credit for calling it The Millennial Generation.  So, deep thinkers in that world.  Now, Neil works for Hedgeye, which is kind of a funny tension point.  He's not very bullish on Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: Explain Hedgeye?

Brandon Quittem: Hedgeye Risk Management is an investment shop.  I don't know exactly what they do, but you send them money and they invest for you.  He's the demographer, or the guy who studies demographics for them.  But I'm blanking on the guy's name, oh shoot.  The CEO is very intense with bitcoiners.  Someone needs to look this one up.

Peter McCormack: Danny, who's that; CEO of Hedgeye?  He'll find it for us.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, anyway, so Neil's a demographer, he's bearish on Bitcoin.

Danny: Keith McCullough?

Brandon Quittem: Yes, Keith McCullough.  Everyone on Twitter knows this guy.

Peter McCormack: Oh, that guy.  Yeah, hold on.

Brandon Quittem: He came unhinged with Bitcoin.  And he owns some and he trades around it, but he just had a little tussle with the Bitcoin community.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I remember him, yeah.  Wasn't he one that bought and then sold it?

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, Quad 4.  That was his model, why he sold.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I remember.  Okay, well, whatever.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, so Neil's a classic DC guy.  I would say bitcoiners would call him a statist.  I would say he has much more optimistic views of government than bitcoiners do.  So, that might be the one tension point, or difference in ideology that matters.

Peter McCormack: They call me a statist, so I'm okay with that.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, I mean if you're still left of the Bitcoin mass, you're a statist!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, well I say I'm a reluctant statist, but we can get into that later maybe if it's part of it.  Okay, so I think, like you say, the audience of the show's bigger than when we made this last time, so a lot of people wouldn't have heard it, they might not have read The Fourth Turning.  Do you want to just do the TLDR?

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, definitely, I think it's important.  And to preface, it's really hard to do a TLDR, so I'm going to do the shortest version, and then try to drop little breadcrumbs along the way, and we'll make a picture by the end.

So, the book was written in the late 1990s, right around the same time as The Sovereign Individual.  I consider them very good companion pieces.  And the main thesis is that humanity goes through cycles, roughly every 80 to 90 years.  At the end of that cycle, people look around and they say, "All our institutions are crumbling".  So think government, think economics, think healthcare.  All the exterior world starts to crumble and we decide, "Wow, we actually need some institutions, we need some order in society", so humanity collectivises at that crisis moment, usually a war, then we sort of reimagine the world.

It has many effects.  One of the effects is that it tilts the gameboard back to the young people.  So essentially, wealth consolidates over this period, institutions decay, and then we just rattle the cages and reset the gameboard, giving some hope back to the young people; and they need hope in order to drive humanity forward.  So, that's the key point.

Previous fourth turnings would be the Civil War, the American Revolution and the period between 1929 and 1945.  So, that's the best example for where we are today.  You had the stock market crash, FDR's New Deal, all these new centralisations of power and government that we'd never seen before, World War II and then, on the tail end of that, Bretton Woods, redo the financial system.  Out of this, we had IMF, World Bank, NATO, FDIC Insurance, so many different things that were crazy at the time, and we're kind of going through that same thing right now.

So, if you look around, our institutions are failing us, inequality's high, populism rising, you can feel collectivism coming in, cancel culture is essentially a response mechanism to, "There's a big problem.  We've got to fix it and if you're not with us, you're against us".  So, they just cleave off the non-believers.  Climate change is going to be the same way; big problem, got to collectivise. 

So, it makes sense, but it comes at a high cost.  There was a lot of communism, and young people were pursuing that in the 1930s as well.  And you flirt with losing markets, and you flirt with losing the emergent organisational properties that I think makes a society good.  So, it looks like we're trending towards China right now; that's because we are.  Doesn't mean we're going to go that far, there's different forces at play, but I think that's the main risk.

Then, the other thing to mention here is that there are four stages in one full cycle.  You can think of it like first, second, third, fourth; spring, summer, fall, winter; or he gives fancy names like the High, the Unravelling, the Crisis, etc.  At the end of the cycle, we redo the exterior world; halfway through the cycle, we redo the interior world.  So, the second turning is the Awakening.  That's when we have religious movements, that's when we have the Civil Rights movement, psychedelic 1960s.  That's essentially young people realising everywhere around them is boring and lame and white picket fence, and young people rebel.  That's the baby boomers.

Another thing that matters here is the line, "History creates generations, and then generations create history".  What do I mean by that?  Let's say we're all millennials, we all grew up in one period of time, so we're a generation that was forged by history, we were all born at the same time, we have the same hopes, wishes, dreams, we're all parented the same, context the same.  So, we create a generation with similar characteristics.  Individuals are unique, the group is not unique and very predictable. 

Then they turn into adults.  Young people go to old people, what do they do?  They rebel against their parents, and you can sort of follow that generation and track them over time, depending on what stage of life they are, and predict the mood, predict how they will respond to catalysts; that's the key.  So, "History creates generations, and generations create history".  You can just build that principle from the ground up, and then each generation is given an archetype, like a hero, nomad, etc, which is again just a useful union human thing that we do.

So, you add all that up together and it's about, how does humanity respond to a catalyst; that's kind of the key point.  That's probably enough to start.

Peter McCormack: That is a good start.  I don't really want to cover first and second turning now.  We might cover first turning towards the end, because that's where we're heading towards, a new dawn.  But I definitely want to cover third and fourth turning.  I think both of those are interesting points, because essentially we are now within the fourth turning, right?

Brandon Quittem: Correct.

Peter McCormack: And in the book, Neil talks about that in 2005; we were discussing earlier, we think it was probably more like 2007, with the start of The Financial Crisis, that being the trigger point.  But I think it's useful to talk about what happens in the third turning, that period of time, what is happening?

Brandon Quittem: Definitely.  And I think we should actually do all four.

Peter McCormack: We should?

Brandon Quittem: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: Okay.

Brandon Quittem: I'll do it super quick though.  So, the last fourth turning was World War II, New Deal, stock market crash.  We redid everything, chaos, World War, everything like that.  Then, right after World War II, we had the first turning; that's the High.  We're sick of fighting, white picket fences, inequality is low, people are generally happy and we just don't want to fight anymore.  The boomers who were born during that generation, they grow up and they rebel against this sterile white picket fence, there's no music, there's no culture.  So, they rebel, that creates the second turning, the interior world's reimagined. 

Then it carries over to the third turning, which is a period called the Unravelling.  That's where economically, things were okay, the getting's good, we deregulate, this is the 1920s, it's Champagne, nobody cares.  Then the fourth turning strikes around 2008 and we realise, okay, the world's burning, institutions are failing and it's time to actually do something about it.  In the third turning, nobody cares.  Problems were happening, but nobody looks at politics, nobody really cares about economics, because it's just working fine.

The fourth turning catalyses all this civic engagement.  That's a really key point today, there's going to be civic engagement.  In the fourth turning, we get rid of religion and we replace it with civic engagement or politics.  That's why everything's political right now, because collectively we realise there is a big problem, so every election matters and we all focus in on politics.  So, it gets really tense and it causes problems, but I think it is a natural response to trying to fix the big things.

Peter McCormack: Okay, so let's talk about the third turning though, I think that's an important focus point.  So, I'm taking a quote from the book, "Today's third turning problem, crime, race, money, family, culture and ethics, will snap into a fourth turning solution".  When we talk about a fourth turning solution, we're not talking about that these are going to be positive solutions, we're talking about the societal response to them, which they think is a solution.

So, as an example, if we talk about race, which I know you haven't gone hugely into, but we were just theorising the race issues of the third turning, one of the inflexion points was the riots in LA following Rodney King, the acquittal of the police who beat the shit out of him, the war on drugs, the prison system, the three-strike rule; they've been pretty punitive towards black communities.  So, there has been a race issue.

We've seen that manifest itself as a crisis in this fourth turning with BLM, Black Lives Matters.  Is that a fair summary of one of those key points?

Brandon Quittem: Yes, definitely.  And you touch on a really important point, which is that this thesis looks at opposing forces in a pendulum.  Is capital strong; is labour strong?  Are we individualist; are we collectivist?  Are we globalist; are we isolationist?  I think that's just important framing for all these things, because your point was, in the third turning, there were a lot of race problems, but the response is nobody wants to fix anything.  So, politicians downplay all the problems in the third turning, and they will just try to minimise any issues, sweep it under the rug, "Here's another glass of Champagne, go on your way".

Then, in the fourth turning, that shifts and instead of minimising problems, politicians lean into the problems.  That's where you get Make America Great Again, Hope and Change, Build Back Better.  All of those slogans embed the ideology that there's a problem and I'm your saviour, I'm the politics guy, I'll come and save the day.  So, with race, it's the same deal.  Prior, we would say there's no race problems in the 1990s; obviously there were.

Now we're seeing that even the slightest thing that could sort of smell like racism is the most racist, horrible thing imaginable.  So, politicians lean into that and again, the pendulum's swung back the extreme opposite way; everything's racist now and politicians use that as a tool, because people want to latch onto problems right now, that's just the mood we're in.  So, they just slurp up all the popular support, populism's everywhere in the world like now, and that's just how the fourth turnings go.

Peter McCormack: But as politicians pick up these ideas and lean into them, they are still non-partisan issues, right, there is still conflict in politics around these issues.  So, is it parties are particularly picking specific issues, and there's a reason why the opposition party -- we're talking about the US and a two-party system -- they are always opposed?  There doesn't seem to be anything that Democrats and Republicans agree on right now.

Brandon Quittem: I mean, they agree on money printing!

Peter McCormack: Well, they do and they don't, Brandon, because you say they do because, under the Trump Administration, they were printing money, he was sending out stimulus cheques; but now that Biden has his Infrastructure Bill and wants to print money, there are Republicans who are coming out against this, they are opposing this.  They're saying, "Look at inflation, look at these inflation numbers under the Biden Administration", not realising that actually, it takes years, this is years of money printing that's led to the inflation now.  So, I think they're being a little bit disingenuous.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, I mean I think your point's valid that there is opposition to these ideas, but I think the key point is that the centre of mass in politics shifts a little bit.  The noise is always there in the fringe, but I think that the centre, yeah, where all the mass is shifted towards collectivism, and I think if a Republican was in charge, we'd still be printing money, maybe a little bit less, and it would go to a little bit less social justice warrior-ish items, but we'd still be printing a ton.  We can get into money printing…

Peter McCormack: But I think then the Democrats would be challenging and opposing this.  It's a bit similar to how prior, very early on in COVID, the Democrats were very much against vaccines.  Now, they're very much for vaccines and the Republicans, well, I wouldn't say very much against it, but there's been some challenges regarding specifically mandates, which I do agree with.  What I'm saying is, there's a lot of flip-flopping between these parties now.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, I agree, 100%.  And I think your point about -- I think Kamala Harris is the best example.  She was tweeting, "Don't take the Trump vaccine, this is horrible, we've got to do it the right way.  I will never take it, neither should you".  And then six months later, a year later, she's saying literally the exact opposite of her position, and there's tons of examples like that.  Our administration has done this tons of times.  Like, "Don't wear a mask, they don't do anything".  "Okay, now you have to wear a mask".

We can list endless examples, and it all comes back to the fact that we don't trust our institutions anymore, and they don't deserve out trust.  The media is more or less useless or harmful, government feels like a disaster, who's in charge here?  The banks.

Peter McCormack: Even international institutions.  All trust has been lost in the World Health Organisation, I mean there's multiple things you could point to, but specifically do you remember that interview with the guy and they were talking about Taiwan, and they just cut them off.  Do you remember that, Danny?

Danny: I don't remember that, I'll have a look.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, look that one up.  Anyway, let's go back to the money printing.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, so I guess the tricky part here is that, if I'm a central banker -- we can demonise central bankers all we want, and there's probably good reason.  But in reality, I think they're acting on their own incentives and they don't have a choice.  The interest rate's at the zero bound, we have too much, we can't pay it off, and this happened in the 1930s as well.  What happened?  A giant expansion of the monetary base.  That gets our percentage of debt-to-GDP down a little bit, which we need to do.

Now we have aging demographics, so increased liability is coming in the future, so even more pressure.  And they essentially have three choices.  They can go into austerity mode, which there's no political capital for; we can go into increase the GDP, which could happen if we had a white swan event where we invent nuclear fission, or some crazy technology that changes everything, unlikely; or we go into a period of soft default, where we just increase the money supply, which devalues the real value of debt for everyone, and it just resets the financial system.

So, a decade or two of financial repression, and if you hold hard assets, you're going to do okay; if you hold financial assets, bonds, etc, you're going to do pretty poorly.  From their perspective, it's print money or have a revolution, and that's a pretty easy choice for politicians.  The downside of this is we're going to see inflation, so we're going to be gaslit the whole time.  Bitcoiners have been calling this out for years, but you can't even say the "I" word on Twitter; you get called a crazy person.  Now the Omicron variant is to blame, not that we increased the monetary base by 40%.

Peter McCormack: Or that inflation is good for us, that article that came out, I can't remember what it was called, the article, "Inflation is good for you", that moronic article.

Danny: In the Intercept.

Peter McCormack: Intercept, yeah, in The Intercept.

Brandon Quittem: Exactly, yeah.  They're going to gaslight us the whole time.  And so, what does that do?  If you're ahead of the curve, you can ride this out and do okay, but most people don't have time to look at this stuff, so they're going to be hurt pretty bad.  And I think bitcoiners make that point often.  But I think there's something here that bitcoiners miss, which is that it actually might end up being a good thing for the little guy. 

Peter McCormack: Okay.

Brandon Quittem: I think you might like this one, but Neil Howe calls it, "Equalising forces".  So, the general thesis is that right now, we're going to go through chaos, right, and the big guys with all the money, they have more to lose.  The little guy has nothing to lose, no wealth.  So, the big guys need to navigate this a little bit better and during fourth turnings, we have to tilt the gameboard back to the little guy.

So, yeah, inflationary decade's inevitable, we're going to go through all the kind of stuff.  Financial assets get rekt, but the outcome is, at the end of the fourth turning -- okay, the little guy's going to get rekt all through the next decade and they're going to really struggle.  But if they can get through this period, theoretically we're going to reset financial asset prices, we're going to reset the gameboard.  And in the first turning, let's say the 2030s through the 2050s, I do predict a period of increased economic equality, more economic equality, more opportunity.

I'm not going to put a lot of weight on this thesis, but this is what happened every time during fourth turnings, so there's a little bit of optimism for the little guy if we can get through the hard part.

Peter McCormack: Okay, I mean it's tough to justify though, it's tough to sell that.

Brandon Quittem: I agree.

Peter McCormack: Okay, so the money printing part, is this the crisis moment of the fourth turning, one of the crises?

Brandon Quittem: It's a good question.  It feels like it, it feels like the big one but at the same time, I don't know.  I foresee we have about five years or so until the peak.  So, it's really hard for me to put any confidence on the prediction right now.  I could see China encroaching on the West and we have some sort of conflict over different ideological points. 

China is saying essentially, "We're ready to take our role as a leader and we played the long game and we're here", and the US doesn't really like that, and so I could see some tension there.  I could see tension over the monetary base.  I could see a US Civil War happening, like a states' fracture, your neighbours fighting each other, similar to the Revolutionary War or the Civil War or the Spanish Civil War; that's all possible.  I hope that doesn't happen.

Peter McCormack: Well, let's work through them, because how does this model fail, how does the fourth turning model fail?  There is no giant end crisis; there is no war; there is no reset?

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, good question.  I think Taiwan will be an interesting point to go through this.  It's like, does there need to be a war or not?  I think the answer is that you don't need a war, but what you do need is a catalyst strong enough to collectivise the people in order to actually make a big change.  Humans are lazy, we don't act until we absolutely must.  So, war is usually the catalyst that we need.  I don't know though.

Peter McCormack: Because it could be another financial crisis, but significantly worse than 2008.  2008 essentially, the banks were bailed out, we kicked the can down the road and actually, if you look at the money printer in 2008, it pales into insignificance compared to what's happening right now.  I do forget the numbers, I've brought them up a few times, but I'm pretty sure $800 billion was the bailout figure for 2008.  It's been trillions this year, so could a massive global financial crisis, massive financial depression, can that be an end fourth turning event?  Does it need to be something that triggers that moment where the institutions are rethought and rebuilt?

Brandon Quittem: So, I think you're right about 2008 being small.  I think it's a blip, it doesn't even really matter.  I think that it's hard for me to say.  My gut feeling says that it's not going to be only a financial thing, I think it's going to be much, much worse than that, sadly.  And yeah, the money printer's going to go exponential for the next decade, and that's going to cause problems.  But the government essentially knows this, and they're trying to manage the situation. 

So, they come out with things like central bank digital currencies, and this is the curse of the central planner.  They see a problem and they're like, "I love problems, I'm going to solve this".  So, they just get their hands dirty and try to fix everything from the ivory tower.  So, central bank digital currencies are essentially recognising that there is a problem, and all that we need to do is give the smart people more power and then we'll solve it harder and faster and better.

So, I see that being a tool that might actually work in the short term.  That's what happens when you're trying to wrangle with these complex systems, is central planners think they understand the economy, and so they make all these hasty decisions, which backfire; all these unintended consequences. 

That's how I see central bank digital currencies.  They're going to be able to directly send money wherever they want, they're going to have way more control, we're going to give up all our freedoms, and I think people are going to be okay with it.  That's the scary part here, is that individuals in a fourth turning, especially the millennial generation, they're okay giving up freedoms for the greater good, you can just feel it on the internet.

Peter McCormack: Because they don't understand the consequences?

Brandon Quittem: Because for them, they see the world as a huge crisis moment, and the only way to get through a crisis moment is to make collective sacrifice for the good of everyone.  It's a pretty rational position.  But if it goes too far, we have a lot of problems.  Like, the virus; temporary.  Giving up our liberties; that's permanent.  So, I fear for the millennial generation, which I'm among, because that is the mood, that's what they want, and it's really hard to fight against that.

So, Bitcoin kind of comes in here as an immovable rock.  It's a strong force that, it doesn't matter what the millennials think, what they feel about collectivism, Bitcoin's not going away.  It actually fills our two biggest problems: (1) the financial system breaking, (2) from the fourth turning perspective, we need strong institutions, we need order back to society, and that could look like central bank digital currencies, social credit scores, eat the bugs, whatever, Great Reset model.  Or, it could look like a new financial layer, Bitcoin, which is like a new government, new institution that's immovable, that cannot change.

I think millennials will latch on to that, because it actually fulfils their needs, most of them just haven't realised it yet.  It is a fair system.  Millennials love things to be fair and equal.  So, to me, that's the optimism here, is we're going to go through a financial crash; it could have war involved, I hope not; it could have civil war, I hope not; but this Bitcoin thing is sort of a life raft, it's a pressure release valve to get people onto a new system before it gets too bad, and I don't think we've ever had anything like that.  This is outside the system.  This is Bucky Fuller's, "To obsolete the system, you have to build something new".

Peter McCormack: Well, it is a new institution, but it's a mostly incorruptible institution.

Brandon Quittem: Correct; that's the important part.  And if we look back -- okay, Svetski always critiques me and says, "Bitcoin will destroy the model", and there's some potential there, because the difference is, all of our financial systems and all of our political institutions throughout history, they only last 30, 50, 70, 80 years.  They're human run, they're very, very politicised.  That's what always happened with the money.  Satoshi quoted this, "You get the money and you get corrupted and you abuse the trust".

Theoretically, Bitcoin is a monetary system to last 1,000 years instead of 50 years.  What does that do to society?  What if this institution doesn't decay; what if it lasts?  What if we can build on top of it a greater, more collaborative society?  That's entirely possible.  But then you have to be conscious of the risk which is that, what if Bitcoin grows up and then it gets neutered by the state?  We stop running nodes, we let supply concentrate in banks, we give up KYC for everything and, okay, they let us have a $100 trillion asset, but the important properties of Bitcoin decay over time, as we just give up the good parts of Bitcoin.  I think that is possible.

Peter McCormack: Okay.  How much of the fourth cycle, the fourth turning cycle, do you think is linked, intrinsically linked to economics; is it an entirely economic model, or is it entirely linked to an economic model?

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, good question.  I think that it's not an economic model.  I think that it's about how humans respond to their environment, what is the mood at the time?

Peter McCormack: But is the underlying mood created due to the financial situation?  How do I best word this?

Brandon Quittem: I get what you're saying.

Peter McCormack: I'm going back to that, "Tough times creates strong men; strong men create good times", etc.  So, post-World War II, there was a lot of debt, a lot of rebuilding, tough economic times, but after the rebuilding there was abundance, so good times.  So, I'm wondering how much money and time preference plays into the cycle?  You don't think it does, though.

Brandon Quittem: No, I mean it definitely does.  I think economics is as powerful as any force in society.  So, what I would say is, the mood and the environment upon which we act is part of economics, it's part of just generally politics, it's part of family life, it's how our parents are raising the kids, are we religious or are we not religious; all of that combined creates the mood.

So, I'm on your team here with economics being super powerful, and probably even more powerful, but I don't think that economics alone describes everything with how humans respond to the world.  So, what would be a good example?  Let's take the dotcom crash, end of the internet boom in the late 1990s, we crashed there, but it didn't really matter that much.  It was a symptom of the excesses of the third turning.  It's like, "Oh, yeah, we gambled too hard.  A couple of boomers lost their pensions and their retirement accounts, but nobody cares".

Peter McCormack: Fuck it.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, move on.  Then, in 2008, okay now that's what we would define as a transition point.  In 2008, the Financial Crisis, the world's ending, everything is in conversation now, all the politics change.  You can see a very different response to a similar catalyst.  Maybe it was bigger in 2008 and more global, but we responded differently.

Similar in, let's see, the 1910s, I think the Germans sunk the Lusitania boat, however that's pronounced, and nobody really cared.  Then you go to Pearl Harbour.  Okay, Lusitania's in the third turning, Pearl Harbour's in the fourth turning.  As soon as that happened, it's global war tomorrow.  Why is that?  Because the people actually didn't want to go to war in the third turning, because we don't recognise the problems yet.  In the fourth turning, we're ready to go to war, it has to be decisive, we have to make a bold action to save the world.  So, everyone was in support of the war.

Similar to going to the Middle East.  Nobody wanted to go to war in the early 2000s.  We had to have 9/11, then we had to have our politicians lying about weapons of mass destruction, just to convince us to go to the Middle East where now, if let's say --

Peter McCormack: Taiwan?

Brandon Quittem: Taiwan, yeah, China, something bad happens globally, I think the appetite would be greater.  But it has to feel existential, right, it has to be a real catalyst.

Peter McCormack: Okay, let's talk about Taiwan, because that's a good lens for this, because certainly we've seen China completely destroy many of the freedoms that people enjoy in Hong Kong.  Hong Kong is now not what it was.  I think, when did British rule end?  Something like the 1990s when Chris Patten left.  Is it Chris Patten?  I'm trying to remember things from my childhood. 

But I went to Hong Kong a couple of years ago, had a great time.  I wouldn't be going there now, because of everything I've heard.  They're replacing local Hong Kong laws with Chinese laws, and it's now just part of the Chinese state.  Now, the rhetoric is Taiwan is next, and Taiwan itself is expressing concerns this is going to happen.  And I think the one interesting factor for the West is with regards to the Taiwan Semiconductor Company.  There is this global chip shortage, and I'm not sure what the catalyst is, or whether China just wants to reclaim what it thinks is part of sovereign China, or it's because it feels like it needs to protect its own supply chains by having control of the Semiconductor Company.

We also have potential build-up of troops on the Russia/Ukraine border.  So, there are two scenarios there that have potential for wars that multiple countries would get involved in.  My only thing there when I consider, might war break out, is that it feels like the stakes are too big for a global war now.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah.  I mean, from China's perspective, they're ready to take their place.  And Xi said, I forgot what it is, but he classified himself on the same tier as Mao.  So, he's essentially saying, "I'm a supreme leader, I'm the man".  If I'm him, thinking through his lens, I want to leave a mark on the world.  What's one way to do that?  Unify all of China, claim more territory.  So, Hong Kong and Taiwan, in my mind, it feels like they're going to be China; I don't think there's any way out of that at this point. 

Okay, the petrodollar's fraying around the world.  The US is not in the same position as we were after World War II; we're way, way behind.  And US foreign investment is declining, Afghanistan made us look horrible.  Lyn Alden had a great tweet, which is essentially that US trade deficits flow to China primarily, and China doesn't buy US Treasuries anymore with that extra money, they buy hard assets.  So, we're essentially funding China to take a stronger position geopolitically, and China plays for keeps.  They use the Confessions of an Economic Hitman model of the IMF and stuff, where they'll give loans to, a recent example, Uganda.  Uganda couldn't pay their loan, so China says, "Great, we own your airport now".

Peter McCormack: There you go, yeah.

Brandon Quittem: So, they're doing this all over the world.

Peter McCormack: Soft imperialism.

Brandon Quittem: Exactly, they're doing it very fast.  And so, I don't even see -- I mean, I think our allies might not be our allies forever.  China is the trade partner for most of the world now, they're the largest commodity importer.  To counter all this, China also doesn't produce any innovation.

Peter McCormack: It steals that.

Brandon Quittem: China just takes what the West does, steals it and scales it, and they're really good at it, and they're ruthless.  So, yeah, I don't think China's model is a good model, but I think it's a scary, competitive model for at least the short term.  Innovation has to happen somewhere for our species or we're going to screw this whole thing up, and certainly not coming from China.

With regards to timing, I think with Beijing Summer Olympics next year, they're not going to do anything before that.  But next fall, next winter, what's stopping China from making steps.  And they're probably slowly do it, like they're doing with Hong Kong, and pretty soon it will be too late.  With TSMC chip fabs, that's very scary.  Normies are aware of supply chain crises and normies know that chip shortages are bad, they see the car prices go up, and whatever. 

Okay, America's responding.  We're scrambling to put chip foundries in the US, Arizona, Texas, etc.  It's going to take a decade and they're probably not going to be very good for a long time.  It's the most capital-intense thing that humans do today.  It's really hard, it's also really bad for the environment.  All the inputs pollute really bad, and we'll see how the ESG crowd balances that one.

Peter McCormack: That will be rationalised though.

Brandon Quittem: I mean, hopefully.  Or maybe we just export all the bad stuff to Mexico, I don't know.

Peter McCormack: I still don't see international conflict over Taiwan.  Maybe I'm being naïve, I just don't see it.

Brandon Quittem: I agree.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but one scenario that does keep coming up, you've mentioned it here, I've heard other people mention it, is potential for civil, I don't want to say "war", because I don't know how it plays out.  I don't want to predict something that sounds ludicrous to some people, but there has been a lot of talk about Texas seceding. 

But also, I've heard a counterpoint whereby maybe in the next election, Trump comes back, Trump wins, well he probably wins if he comes back; would California, Washington, would those Democrat states say, "We're not going to be part of this".  Is this something that's realistic that you're thinking about?

Brandon Quittem: I think it is realistic.  It's not in the central government's best interests, and so I don't assign a very high probability of this happening in any short period of time.  However, the mood is right for this.  You can feel the difference between the coastal elites and the middle of the country rural people; they genuinely hate each other.  The coastal elites take the position that, "We are the smart, educated people, so our opinion is true and it's right.  The Trump supporter, anti-vaxxer rural people are all racist, bigoted dummies".

The rural people are like, "Hey, we're really not like that", and so there's a huge tension.  A recent poll, maybe five years ago, 28% of Americans said that they support secession, and that was five years ago.  It's probably gone up a lot since then.  So, let's say a third of the population is supporting that; that's a large amount.  That's roughly the same as the Revolutionary War, what the Patriots wanted compared to the Loyalists.  So, the conditions are right.

Then you have all these, okay, COVID is a tension point, you have Bitcoin mining and energy as a tension point, other political things.  So, federalism in America is coming out now.  Florida's Governor is saying one thing, New York's saying the opposite; Texas, California, opposites.  And so, yeah, I think that the tensions are real.  Will it be some sort of north versus south big buddy war?  I don't think so.  I think it will be more like a chaotic fog of war, decade of isolated incidents and escalating violence, and eventually just having to redraw the lines on the map.  Again, I would give this a lower probability.

Peter McCormack: What do you mean by "redraw the lines"?

Brandon Quittem: Like, who's part of the United States?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's what I thought you meant.

Brandon Quittem: Are there separate states, or are there not?  I don't know.  To me, I'm very supportive of states' rights.  I think that's the most important thing that America has going.  Innovation comes from competition.  You need separate silos to compete with each other in order to produce good ideas, and you also need a frontier, which is another angle.  You need some place where the innovators can go where they don't feel stifled. 

That's why all the brain drain's coming into the Bitcoin space and the greater decentralised, whatever we're going to call this space; it's because the old world's dying and it's boring and it's lame and there's just a tight box around it.  Then you come in Bitcoin land and you can have radical ideas, you can bounce them off other people, and that's where the real innovation goes.

Peter McCormack: So, travelling around the US, states' rights is something I'm most envious of the US, living in the UK.  I can't move anywhere else in the UK and materially change my life because the rules are different.  I can go to Scotland and there are slight differences, and I can go to Wales and there are slight differences, but there are no fundamental differences.  There's no different approach to taxation or there's no different approach to marijuana laws.  We are the same wherever you go.

Whereas, you come here and if I wanted to move to the US, I'd have a choice.  If I moved to New York, I have to deal with XYZ; if I move to Texas, I have ABC.  I have those options on different taxes, different laws, different ways of life, and it's quite different.  It goes back to one of those things Balaji talks about, where that vote with your feet is actually much more powerful than the ballot now.

You talked about the brain drain into Bitcoin, but there has been a brain drain out of Silicon Valley, and certainly people moving out of San Francisco who are moving to places, let's be honest, they're red states.  They're moving to Florida, they're moving to Texas, maybe a few to Wyoming, but you're seeing that.  What I don't understand, because you're American, you might know a bit more about this, if Texas made that decision, what could the federal government's response be; can they block it?  Do we even know how it works?

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, it's a good question.  I think the opposing forces are, what does the Constitution say; and then, what does the executive branch, who appears to dismiss the Constitution very confidently, have to say?  The OSHA Law, trying to make all Americans be vaccinated to go to work, that's probably not constitutionally acceptable.  So, what the government did is they tried to find a sneaky back-door way to use OSHA to enforce it.

The tricky part is, are we going to enforce the constitutional rights, or are we going to let the government squash it?  That, I think, is the scariest point here.  It's also tying in, the Fed and the government are going to merge; corporations and government are going to merge.  That's very scary.  If government and corporations are friendly competition, that's good for the people.  But if they team up, the little guy's in bad shape.  Then, two of the main power sources are consolidated and we look really bad.

It brings me back to, I think I stole this from Novall originally, but there's only two ways to coordinate society at scale: cooperation or coercion.  Cooperation would be free markets; coercion would be force.  Do you want BTC; do you want CBDC?  And I think that is true, and the central government wants power, it's in their best interest, but it's not the best interest for the people.  If we don't want state enforced violence forever, then we need to push back on this, we need to preserve markets.  We need to preserve this financial institution that is Bitcoin that is non-discretionary and can't be politically captured.

Otherwise, great, we get through another fourth turning, we put a Band-Aid on it, we build new human institutions with slightly different colours, and then in another 80 years, we're going to be doing the same thing again; or, we take this Bitcoin path, and maybe this fourth turning doesn't lead to war, if we want to be optimistic for a second.

Peter McCormack: Definitely.  I am optimistic.

Brandon Quittem: I think Bitcoin could serve as that institution and prevent the war, before things get too bad.  As people wake up, they're just adopting a new system, rather than getting so bad that they feel the need to fight.  And we're seeing, for example, El Salvador.  I love this example.  So, whatever we want to say about Bukele and his authoritarian tendencies, he's bringing freedom money into the country.  So, even if he screws up, he just empowered his people to not listen to him anymore.

Then, what about the IMF?  The IMF shakes their finger at Bukele and says, "We're not going to give you a loan if you keep messing around with this Bitcoin thing", what does Bukele do?

Peter McCormack: He says, "Eat a bag of dicks!"

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, he should post back at them.  And then he goes, "Do you know what, I'm going to crowd fund".  This is the important part, "I'm going to crowd fund $1 billion by selling a volcano bond", just middle finger to the IMF.  The US is like, "Well, tensions are rising with El Salvador".

So, the old institutions, they just hate it, they can't stand this new power rising, and I think that's the thing that we need to latch on to.  And you're seeing it with young people.  The young people who are post-woke, let's say, they're looking for new sources of truth, new avenues.  Why is Jordan Peterson massive?  Because young people, mostly males, sort of feel disenfranchised by the current system and they go to a system that feels more true and more real. 

That's what Bitcoin is.  The façade is gone.  The ledger's open and come play in the new future.  That makes me very excited, and I think the nation state game theory's going to explode.  And I think one more thing on this rant is, I think the most under-priced, or under-appreciated aspect of the whole, let's just call it "crypto space", is the fact that Bitcoin and energy and forming symbiosis.  Some people are aware of that, but the second-order and third-order effects I don't think have really hit the consciousness of the market yet.

What's happening is these two industries are going to merge, because they have economic incentives to do so, and simple economic incentives lead to positive externality on society.  So, every time a Bitcoin miner and an energy producer merge, what happens?  The Bitcoin miners are paying people to work, they're generating tax revenue, they're stabilising the grid, they're reducing the energy costs for everyone nearby.  So, what happens?  Bitcoin's co-opting local governments and they're saying, "Guess what, you're on our team now".  It's not co-opt in a playful term, it's really economic incentives.  They realise it's in their best interests to protect Bitcoin, and there's unlimited opportunities of this.

Okay, volcano bonds, that's the sexy one.  But you go into Uganda; Uganda has a unique example in some hydro, there's some geothermal around Africa, and it makes sense to plug Bitcoin there.  So then what?  Governments all around the world are going to say, "No, you can't do anything to Bitcoin, we love it.  It makes it better for our people".

Peter McCormack: Well, that's just happened for Sweden.

Brandon Quittem: Sweden said, "Yeah, we're ESG, don't bring that stuff here".

Peter McCormack: No, they said we should ban Bitcoin mining, and this came up in my last interview with Nic Carter; one of the energy companies -- Danny, can you find that?  One of the energy companies in Sweden came back and said, "No, we need this, it makes us more efficient". 

I've just brought up a quote from Harry Sudock, because what you've been talking about with Bitcoin and energy just reminded me what he said, "What Bitcoin does, it demonetises the political class and empowers the productive class".  I think that "empowering the productive class" is a really important element.  That's what better money does for people.  It takes the people who are just rent-seeking in our political structure, and says to them, "I'm sorry, you don't belong here, because you don't produce anything or create any net economic positive impact".

Brandon Quittem: Love that, love Harry too, he's great.

Peter McCormack: Fucking amazing.  He just comes up with these.  I said to him, "Do you plan these?"  He said, "No, they just come into my head"!

Brandon Quittem: That's beautiful!  And to be honest, I've been spending all my mental energy on Bitcoin in mining. 

Peter McCormack: Interesting.

Brandon Quittem: I used to think it was just like a thing that was part of Bitcoin that didn't really matter, so I just totally, totally underestimated it.  Now, I'm completely obsessed and leaning into an energy revolution.  Energy is foundational to our species.  It is the absolute base commodity for everyone.  If you want food, if you want energy to move around, to heat your house, to cool your house, all of that comes from the base.

So, if Bitcoin is like a free market catalyst, or a free market subsidy, it makes your capital investment cheaper, it makes your ROI faster.  It literally stabilises the grid and reduces prices.  So, if we scale that for 100 years, what does our planet look like?

Peter McCormack: Well, it's one of those positive externalities that Satoshi could no way have planned for.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, that's true.  He said, "One CPU, one vote" and now we're saying, "Let's mine Bitcoin with a volcano!

Peter McCormack: All right, we're going to come back to Bitcoin.  Just one other thing I want to talk to you about is, when we recorded last time, it was 20 November, so it was about a year ago.  We were a good seven months into a global crisis of sorts.  But since then, the last year, it's expanded to be mandates.  We're seeing mandates with regard to passports, we're seeing mandates with regard to vaccines, and this is splitting society. 

We have those who are fully supportive; you said, people who would give up freedom for security.  We have people who fully support mandates, fully support locking down half of society.  Well, I mean in Austria, you cannot leave the house, unless once a day for exercise, if you've not got a vaccine.  And I believe, and again it will have to be fact-checked, I believe that by maybe February next year, you will have to be vaccinated; if not, you will be fined.  And if you don't pay the fine, you can go to jail.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I'm not extreme right, I think that's fucking scary and that can fracture society.  These kinds of decisions could lead to revolutions and they could lead to civil wars.

Brandon Quittem: I agree, I think you've framed it well; it's very, very, very scary, and it happened fast.  It was incremental, but if you look back just a year or two years from now, life is very different.  Let's go through this a little bit, the mandates, and how it ties in.

The centre of mass in politics is left-leaning, compared to what it was, let's say, a decade ago, and their position is, "We're all in this together.  It's the big, grand war against COVID.  If you're not with us, you're against us.  The ends justify the means", these are the phrases, and we just have to act.  The right says, "Well, we shouldn't trust government, we shouldn't trust pharma.  Our long-term rights are more important than short-term security".  So, how do we break this down?

I think charitably, the central planners are just reacting to their incentives, and we can say they're overreacting.  They're trying too hard and doing too much, "You can't just stand there, you've got to do something".  But what does that lead to?  That leads to unintended consequences.  Their intentions, let's be charitable, let's say their intentions are pure.  The outcomes are going to be really bad.  So, I don't care what your intentions are, your outcomes matter, and so I think that's the most important thing to focus on here, is what are the actual outcomes.

From my perspective, it looks like a money grab, a power grab; it looks like taking advantage of a situation for your own individual gain, never mind the cost; it looks like guarding information; it looks like free speech is questionable; it looks like science is now religion.  These are very dangerous paths, and I think we should be vigilant about this, because we shouldn't give up our rights for some vague sense of security that doesn't even appear to be working.

So again, politics is now -- we've got rid of religion.  Fourth turnings, it hits an all-time low, and we replace it with something.  We always have that God-shaped hole in our heart.  We're attaching it to politics, so it's no surprise, and it's become so big.  And to your point, the division here is massive.  Families do not see each other for Thanksgiving.  Families are destroyed, don't talk to each other.  What's going to happen if the tension boils over and the state pushes too hard and then the opposition says, "Okay, it's time to fight"?

It feels like right now, everyone's digging in their heels more and more and more, it doesn't feel like anyone's budging an inch.  So, if that boils over, we could actually get into war.  I hope not.  And the politicians are exaggerating the pain again and again for their own benefit, so they're adding fuel to the fire.

I think one more point here that's just really, really important is with regards to Fauci and science.  So, some Congressmen, I think Rand Paul and a few other people, are essentially saying Fauci should step down, "You're doing things poorly", whatever, "Step down".  And Fauci goes on and says, "You can't criticise me.  If you criticise me, you're criticising science itself, because I speak for science", which is the most terrifying, dangerous, also ironically the opposite of what science is. 

Science is an error-correcting method, science is a process for uncovering truth.  There's no such thing as, "Science is settled".  You can't trust science; it's the complete opposite of that.  You test science, you don't trust it.  So, yeah, he's saying, "I'm the holy scripture", when in reality, he's making judgement calls about public policies, telling you how you can interact with your friends and family, who can buy food, who can travel.  None of that is scientific.

So, to me, these are very concerning things.  Where do we go from here?  I don't know.  It feels like a "post-truth world", where humanity seems to be unable to find truth and the narratives, we're so focused on these narratives and they seem to be just not zeroing in on truth.  Our sense-making ability is just going haywire, and the people with the least amount of scruples are willing to sacrifice everything to move the herd around.

Peter McCormack: This post-truth world is interesting, because I'm wondering what are the incentives here?  Are people disinterested in truth, and are they more interested in their echo chamber?  I'll give you a lens for this.  Just this last couple of weeks with regards to Australia, Australia has been something that a lot of people in Europe and America have very strong opinions on with regards to their response to COVID.  I'm not picking a side here.  They made a decision as pretty much an island country to lock down their entire borders and try and prevent COVID getting in.  They had a relative amount of success.

Just for the people listening who are losing their shit right now, I'm not saying I support this.  All I'm saying is that was their strategy, and they did quite a job of keeping COVID out, and as part of their strategy they had some things that felt very authoritarian.  Danny here, based in Australia, we had to write to the government to try and get him out to come and work; it was a difficult process.  Luckily, because he is British, we were able to do that, but other people just cannot leave the country.  People coming in are put into these camps.  Now people look at them and Tim Pool calls it a concentration camp, whatever.  But they've had this process of trying to prevent COVID within the country.

Over the last couple of weeks, stories have come out about these regional aboriginal communities, which have had outbreaks of COVID now.  I've tried to find the truth on this.  There have been claims of forced vaccinations, people being taken away from their families and put into these camps; Howard Springs, this what they call a concentration camp. 

Now there are opposing voices coming out, and I was speaking to Claire Lehmann from Quillette about it, somebody who Tim Pool has gone hard at, and she's trying to say, "What you're saying is not actually what's happening.  These communities are of people where there could be 30 people living in a house.  They have higher comorbidities.  An outbreak of COVID is more dangerous". 

What's happening is, I can't remember if it's the police or army, but were going in offering support and saying, "Look, if you're not vaccinated, here are vaccines.  If you're positive COVID, you should probably come to Howard Springs to protect your families".  All I find is, trying to find the truth, I find extremes.  Trying to honestly say, "Look, I think I've found some information, what's going on here?"  "Oh, you're a communist, you're supporting the left".  There is punishment for trying to find the truth, there is reward for supporting your echo chamber, and I find that really challenging, Brandon.

Brandon Quittem: It is challenging, and it's directly from The Fourth Turning thesis also, which is that we've identified that it's crisis time, and we have to get together, pick a team, and we'll go into battle.  It doesn't matter if there are consequences, there are, but the ends justify the means.  So, people select a team and they go headstrong towards that team.  No one's looking for truth.  Politics is our religion, our identities are tied to what side we're on, and so you see all these divisions and they're real.  And you're right; nobody's looking for truth, and that makes it really hard to figure out how to go forward.

In a way, it feels like a simulated war.  There's a quote I have here somewhere, I think it was maybe a William James quote, where it's essentially the thesis is, "You need war, because war achieves something in society and it leads to productive outcomes".  So, in a sense, humans naturally go to these conflict points, not intentionally, but the outcomes are that we collectivise, we make radical change and on the other side, theoretically, we're better for it.  It's like we were hardened through this crucible, and the long term's better.

I don't know how to solve that tension.  I feel it in my personal life with friends, with family, tensions growing.  It really sucks.  And I've had some one-on-one long conversations with someone with very different political views to me, and the funny part is, we're actually a lot closer than people think.  I think this is generally true in politics.  We attack the straw man of each other, rather than, "We're 70% overlying, and let's just find the differences where we disagree". 

It pretty much came down to the fact that I think we're responding a little bit too much to the threat, and they're saying, "No, this threat's really big.  We need to do whatever we can to solve it".  I think that's pretty much the divide here.  I think people are mostly trying to do the right thing.  But again, "The road to hell is paved --"

Peter McCormack: "With good intentions", yeah.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, so it doesn't matter what you think, doesn't matter what your intentions are.  Hayek had an amazing quote.  It was like, "We don't have an issue with problems, we have an issue with solutions", which is so beautiful.  It's just the central planner instinct, and they feel justified in their actions, and they feel like they're doing the right thing.  That's the scary part; they can totally defend their position. 

One of my favourite authors, Aldous Huxley, he also warned of the central planners in Brave New World, and interestingly, he wrote that in the 1940s, I think.  Then he wrote another book a decade later called Brave New World Revisited.  This is him just going, "Yes, I wrote that dystopia.  Here's how to prevent essentially my dystopia from happening".  One thing stuck with me, which is that central planners view society as if we're insects.  You can just have the queen bee and all the worker bees just operate in this hierarchical, rigid, super-linear fashion.

However, humans aren't like that.  We're more like wolves who operate in a pack, because of collective benefit.  One wolf can't take down a moose, but a pack of wolves can, so they work together for a shared interest, because incentives are aligned.

Peter McCormack: Just like Bitcoin.

Brandon Quittem: Just like Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: Okay, let me give you another angle on this that's quite interesting.  So, I had a huge argument with my brother about a year to 18 months ago.  We were discussing Trump, and I'm not a huge Trump fan, but I took the Trump side just to challenge my brother.  My brother historically has been quite left, quite progressive, obviously cannot stand Donald Trump, and I took the other side and just kept challenging him, just kept poking a little bit.  It became this huge row.  What's been really interesting is my brother, we've been orange pilling him, me and Danny and a couple of other people, over the last 12 months, and it's worked; he's become super orange pilled. 

Now, I'm not saying he would defend Trump, but the topics we used to row about, we can now talk about in a civil way, because through the lens of Bitcoin, I think he's realised the problems with central planning, which he didn't realise, I think, before.  By the way, he'll listen to this and maybe tell me I'm wrong.  But historically, he believed in central planning.  And I think, through the lens of Bitcoin, he's realised central planning is completely and utterly flawed.  But that came through orange pilling him through Bitcoin.

His first thing, he read Satoshi's whitepaper.  He still cannot get his head around, "This was nine pages.  The entire thesis for a new global system was theorised in nine pages".  Since then, he's just been going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.  The majority of his outlook on his world, government and institutions has changed; it's a fascinating thing. 

But, Bitcoin did it, which takes me back to Bitcoin with you, is that you've talked about Bitcoin can be the thing that brings us together, that crosses the divide, that crosses the aisle that hopefully brings solutions, that maybe stops us heading into crisis.  But why is that?  And is it because, I think the biggest lesson I've taken from Bitcoin is time preference, and I wonder how much of the fourth turning cycle also is down to time preference?

Brandon Quittem: Good question.  First, I want to address what you said about Bitcoin.  It is this weird catalyst, this weird chaos agent, that gives you a new lens on the world.  And you have to earnestly interact with it.  You can't have just, "I read an article in the New York Times" version of Bitcoin, you have to really get dirty with this thing.  And after doing that, you realise okay, the problem that Bitcoin solves is really big, and I didn't even know it existed.  It's totally sub-perception.

Then you go weird, "Okay, what else do these Bitcoin people say?  Oh, they talk about that too?  Oh, maybe that's of a similar problem, okay".  That's the rabbit hole, right, you start uncovering this.  Then you're surrounded by this fraternity of truth-seekers, who have a similar interest in getting to the bottom of things.  Then you play off each other and now you're in a community.  There's negative parts of communities and identities, but there's a lot of positive things here.  And it leads people to the truth, and then it attracts more truth-seekers.

We don't get everything right, but at least the rules of engagement are, your ideas matter more than your reputation; the quality of your thought, not the quality of your credentials, and that's a much better place to build the world on.  We need to lean into that.  If you look at Bitcoin as an institution, it is that.  It automates what central planners do, and it prevents the unintended consequences that central planners automatically lead to.

Peter McCormack: It's a bit like, everyone kisses Elon Musk's arse, and we all told him to go fuck himself, "Just fuck off!"

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, that's a perfect way to describe bitcoiners.  Your credentials don't matter, it's the quality of your thought.  You can be an anonymous space cat on the internet and people will take you seriously, because of your proof of work.  How opposite of that, in politics today, we select for mouthpieces who can look good and regurgitate the talking points, and sway public opinion to get elected.  We're not optimising for the people who build things, who take risks, who do the work.  It's totally backwards.

Peter McCormack: We're rewarding the productive class, as Harry said.

Brandon Quittem: Exactly right.

Peter McCormack: Interesting.  So, how does Bitcoin save us from crisis?

Brandon Quittem: The one point we mentioned already was, it's a pressure release valve.  So, before it gets too bad, most people naturally will look for a solution once the problem's real, and a lot of them are going to find Bitcoin, a lot of them already have.  You see developing countries adopting Bitcoin in mass, because they actually need it, and that really pisses off the credential and class of the New York Times who are like, "I know about economics".  So, that's one way.  You have a real problem, you identify it, Bitcoin's here for you when you're ready.  So, that theoretically saves people from getting to desperation.  That's the emergent micro that builds up over time.

Peter McCormack: Can I add something in there?

Brandon Quittem: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: So, one of the interesting points in that is, people look to leaders or opinion leaders or thought leaders with regards to various issues.  What we're seeing is some of these new thought leaders in this new post-mainstream media world are coming towards Bitcoin.  So, we've talked about Eric Weinstein, he's flirting around the edges of Bitcoin.  I did a thing with him, now Breedlove's done a whole thing with him.  He's definitely interested in Bitcoin and interested in bitcoiners.

We watched Jordan Peterson the other day get orange pilled by Saifedean.  I mean, the energy moment with him, when he realised you can move energy around the world with Bitcoin, was like watching him go, "Wow, fuck, I need to think about this!"  We're starting to orange pill important opinion leaders, which are the people who can bring more people into realising, "Hey, this might be the solution", because people like Jordan Peterson and Eric Weinstein, they're always looking at the problems in society, they're commenting on them.  They're going onto Rogan or they're going onto Lex Fridman, whoever's show, and they're talking about these issues.  We're now arming them with Bitcoin.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, it's a beautiful thing.  I mean, Jordan Peterson's probably the most important bitcoiner, I think.

Peter McCormack: I think I agree.

Brandon Quittem: And, at least for this stage that we're in.  I think Michael Saylor and Bukele have a unique spin.  It's the corporate model and the state model.  But Jordan Peterson's model is, the people who already value personal responsibility are so ready for Bitcoin, they just don't know it yet.  It's a lot easier to orange pill his followers than it is the progressive left wing of American politics.  It's going to be an uphill battle.  You're going to have to fight them along every single step.  All of their priors fight Bitcoin.  But Jordan Peterson's the opposite.

Peter McCormack: Well, yeah, but I think we've missed a trick with that, because we have this ESG fight and we've all focused on the E.  But actually, Bitcoin really supports the S and the G, the Social and the Governance.  Dan Morehead at Pantera wrote this whole piece about ESG and people missing the S and the G part; everything has been focused on the E, because it's an easy attack vector.

This has come up in a few interviews recently, that I am worried about Bitcoin becoming politicised.  We talk about Jordan Peterson and Eric Weinstein, but also there's this new class of politician who is becoming orange pilled.  We started with Lummis, we had Warren Davidson, we've now got Ted Cruz, which always surprises me. 

But also, we're getting reached out by people who are Congress hopefuls, who are campaigning on the campaign trail.  A lot of them are starting to adopt Bitcoin and talking about sound money, because they realise they've got to serve their constituents, who are having their savings and purchasing power destroyed by inflation.  They're realising Bitcoin's an answer.  So, there's this whole group now.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, I think you touch on something really important, which is that Bitcoin has something for all political flavours.  The left actually loves Bitcoin, they just don't know it yet, and it's packaged up in this brutish, aggressive, in-your-face tone, which is like a holdover of the early times in Bitcoin's history.  I think Bitcoin now is starting to attract more normie, friendly voices.

Lyn Alden can speak to anyone and command respect, whereas insert X hardcore bitcoiner from the early days, they probably can't get the message across.  So, the message was never actually even being wrestled with.  So, I think there's a whole progressive bitcoiners' thing on Twitter that's growing.  I think that's a good thing.  Bitcoin is fair money.  How could you not be supportive of this institution that doesn't require politicians or bankers?  How is Elizabeth Warren not obsessed with Bitcoin; her tirade against the banks, well here you go?

Peter McCormack: I had the exact same conversation with Nic Carter earlier.  She went after Mnuchin, and she went after the link between Wall Street.  She was basically saying there's an arm of Wall Street within the White House.  But I think what it is, is they've been misled by the FUD.  They've seen the top layer of FUD, or they've seen a bunch of people get rich, and they don't like that wealth disparity.

I just want to bring out this Parker Lewis quote that's brilliant.  So he said, "Liberals are going to love Bitcoin when they figure out what it will do for lower income families, but Democrats will hate it.  Conservatives will love Bitcoin when they figure out what it will do for the budget deficit, but Republicans will hate it".

Brandon Quittem: That's funny; there's a lot of truth to that.

Peter McCormack: There is.  But I do worry about this Bitcoin becoming another political weapon, and we are definitely seeing more of the right, people in Congress or the Senate, who are interested in Bitcoin.  There certainly is a sway to the right.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, it's absolutely true.  And it makes more sense on the nose for the right.

Peter McCormack: Of course.

Brandon Quittem: But I think the problem that the left needs to overcome, and I don't think this is even overcomeable, but I think it's kind of a tension point, is the left wants strong government generally, the right wants less government.  So, the left would be more in favour of the idea of Keynesian Economics, where you manage the economy, and they're just, "Yeah, we just need the smart people at the top and then we're good to go, and we just have to protect all the evil billionaires from getting too much power, and reissue wealth so everyone's fair".

Bitcoin is essentially recognising the fact that we shouldn't have people in charge of the money, and that is a radical idea generally, and extremely hard for the left to grasp, because they're always the intellectuals and, "Don't worry, we'll solve it by jamming all the people together".

Peter McCormack: But they want redistribution of income.

Brandon Quittem: They do.

Peter McCormack: And that's a hard thing to get over.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, it is.  I think over the transitionary period with Bitcoin -- you know, the faster Bitcoin's adopted, the more carnage there'll be, and I think there is a risk there.  But, okay, we exported all of our manufacturing jobs.  We're not going to just turn that ship round and produce labour jobs, reasonable middle-class jobs, we're not just going to do that in a day.  It's going to take a decade, two decades, three decades.

So, yeah, we can argue about sound money and if that's moral, or whatever, but the alternative to sound money is the state steals from people.  On paper, redistribution I can get down with.  Sometimes it's unfair, and you don't want to have your neighbour starving.  I can get down with that in an intellectual sense.  However, what that leads to is a cartel for the rich and powerful making rules for them at the expense.  They don't care about the little guy.  They throw the little guy scraps so he shuts up.  It's bread and circuses.

There's a difference between the idea of what you want philosophically, and then what humans do with too much power, and I think that's the fundamental thing Satoshi identified: power gets abused, humans do that, even with good intentions.  So, I think we have to bite the bullet here and separate money from state and go through the hardships that comes.  We're already going through the hardships by the way; without Bitcoin, the world's messed up. 

We can't pretend that Bitcoin's the iceberg that sinks the Titanic, it's not like that.  Bitcoin's the life raft; the Titanic's already sinking.  So, I think we need to lean into the fact that less human oversight is actually better.  But again, that's a radical idea, that's markets.  Also the left is kind of concerned about markets, because what they view as capitalism is not working.  Wealth inequality, that's not from markets.  Markets and distribution of decision-making, that's what creates the wealth in the beginning.  So, it's a big, tangled mess, but I think it's time to bite the bullet.

Peter McCormack: Could the fourth turning war be a war on money, or a war for money, property war?

Brandon Quittem: I think so.  I think the state will try to centralise power and create a CBDC.  So, okay, two things.  One, China could encroach.  Their version of a monetary reset might be different than the West, that could create tension.  Also, I could see the West, Europe and America creating CBDCs, and then maybe people don't actually want that, because it actually is bad.

Peter McCormack: Communicating that's going to be hard.

Brandon Quittem: I agree.  People are going to love CBDCs at first.

Peter McCormack: They're going to love it.  I've tried to talk to people about this, tried to frame it for them, tried to make them understand what this actually means.  I mean, I don't even like the loss of physical bank notes.  I despise the thought of going to a world of just digital money, unless it's Bitcoin.  But I hate that idea.

Brandon Quittem: I think hat's a really important point.  CBDCs are going to be popular through the fourth turning lens.  The mood is, "Let's collectivise, let's make radical change, let's make it fair again", and CBDCs will be pitched that way.  Secretly, or maybe not secretly, I hold out the hope that the American political establishment, or members of that, will identify Bitcoin as the right solution for America long term, and I actually think that's true.

I don't think we want to copy China, because we're fundamentally different.  And the things that makes the West good are different than what makes China good.  So, if we adopt their version of social credit scores, centralised control, I just think it will be incongruent with the people here.  And I think that that matters.  So, I'm holding hope out for individuals to bump into Bitcoin through their own incentives locally realise that this is good for them, and have that emergent process happen in America. 

We're seeing mayors, we're seeing governors, senators, congressmen, energy companies, corporations, individuals; it's happening.  Now, is that force strong enough; will it build enough momentum in order to actually compete with the central planning class?  The more the clown world continues to screw up, the more bitcoiners we get.  And it's a one-way street.  You don't come to Bitcoin and then go, "Yeah, never mind, I would like to go back to wage slavery, please"; it never happens.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I think this is why the argument, or the push back against altcoins, is also super important, because right now, altcoins, shitcoins, they're certainly winning the war on narrative against Bitcoin right now, because they're fun and they're exciting and they're sponsoring Miami Heat Stadium and shit like that, and you can get rock jpegs and you can go to parties and there's a lot of money going into this and it's all exciting.  Bitcoin's kind of boring, "We want to separate money and state", etc.

But I think, at the same time, we have to really stand our ground with this, and I think Parker Lewis and the people in Texas are doing a really great job.  They've identified we can make Texas the Bitcoin state, and they are arming themselves and they are arming politicians, they're arming Governor Abbott, they're arming Ted Cruz; they're arming people with why this is good, why this is good for the energy sector, why this is good for Texas. 

I feel like that seed, and I know there's multiple seeds in the US, there's one here in Florida and one in Wyoming, etc, and all over the place; but that seed that's been planted there by Parker Lewis and growing, to me it's the opposite of what's being done with the Chris Dixon, a16z crowd up in Silicon Valley, where they're trying to push all kinds of shit, Worldcoin and all that fucking bollocks, Web 3.0, token bullshit.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, couple of points.  One, yes, the whole greater crypto space, it has more mass appeal.  Normies do not have the priors to understand why Bitcoin's important.  Most people get into the space for something other than Bitcoin.  If you're in the West, you're looking at technology, you're looking at "blockchain saves everything", and that's a really good funnel for Bitcoin actually.  Not everyone, but a lot of people who end up finding Bitcoin go deep enough to appreciate what it is. 

So, I think it's important to recognise that the greater crypto space is going to be a top-of-the-funnel thing for Bitcoin.  And I go back and forth on this.  Should we try to scold people, or should we just try to steer them in the right direction; where are we at on that spectrum?  And I don't think forcefully telling people works.

Peter McCormack: It doesn't work, dude.

Brandon Quittem: Even if we're right, the student is ready when the teacher appears.  They're not ready for that message.  So, it's almost like, build content bridges to show that, or do a better job of speaking to people outside outr ecosystem, more normie content, and I think that's happening.  So, that's one way to look at it.  Another thing is, bitcoiners are probably going to be looked at as wrong for a while, and that's the hard part here.

Peter McCormack: We've got used to that.

Brandon Quittem: I think so, but not from the greatest -- cultural thing, yes; but I think there's going to be a point where the whole crypto thing is big in the consciousness and it looks like Bitcoin doesn't matter, but all of that is hype and fast money, and there's maybe some kernels of truth there, but it's mostly inflated by hype and fiat money and end-of-the-debt-cycle gambling, which is common during this period.  But in the long game, Bitcoin users are sticky; that's the difference here.  There's no sticky users to these blockchain projects.

Peter McCormack: No, that's very true.

Brandon Quittem: They come and go.  People adopt Bitcoin the West because they recognise what it is, but most people outside of the West adopt Bitcoin because they need it.  You can't tell someone in Nigeria to go sign up for ESG blockchain DAO to save the world Kitties, they don't give a shit about that.  They care about solving a real problem in their lives and Bitcoin solves that, Lightning Network solves that.

So, maybe Bitcoin grows a little bit slower during the hype, but the users don't leave; that's the difference.  And it gets stronger every time, and planting the roots, and it's actually okay that it's like that, because we don't need Coinbase users as much as we need self-sovereign bitcoiners who care about what this thing is. 

Again, going back to the previous point, we can't lose the principles of Bitcoin just for some shiny bull market nonsense.  We need to stick to our principles, because this thing is special, it is unique, it is sovereignty as a service, it's property rights for everyone, it's a non-governmental monetary system.  This is so unique and the greater crypto space does not understand how unique it is.  They think copy/paste proof of stake and you're good.  That is nonsense.

So, my cold arms would be, we need to protect this thing.  I think Bitcoin Sign Guy has my favourite quote, "We need to provide cover fire for Bitcoin until it gets through the door".  We need to bring this Trojan Horse into the future to where it really can't be stopped.  Arguably we're there, but I think that really is the key.  Preserve the principles, get it to the point where it's too big to fail, and then it doesn't matter what happens in cryptoland.

Peter McCormack: Well, I think cryptoland needs a bit more pain as well.  I don't think 6.2% inflation is enough pain for people.  I think people need a lot of more pain.  We talk about the cycle, maybe not ending, we don't want it to break; but in some ways, the cycle breaking is good for the Bitcoin versus crypto disparity in that, the crypto people go through far more pain in a crypto winter than the Bitcoin people.  It was a crypto winter of 2018 that made me go Bitcoin only, and a lot of other people have been through that.  So, in some ways, I do want a crypto winter, because I want to lead more people to Bitcoin.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, I think the NFT winter is going to be diabolical when they realise that you can't market sell your jpeg.  No, someone has to pick the one you have and then sell it, and it's going to be a race to the bottom and it's going to be bloody out there, no doubt.  But I don't think we should cheer for it.  I think a better approach is, "I told you so"; that feels good.  But I think it's actually a net positive.  I think it's more important that we think about this and just separate Bitcoin intellectually, philosophically, however you want to do this. 

Bitcoin's unique, the rest of the stuff is competing against each other and that's fine.  There's nothing inherently wrong with it, there's maybe some morality here and there.

Peter McCormack: It's not Bitcoin.

Brandon Quittem: It's not Bitcoin and it's better that way.  So, there might be an NFT bear market that's horrible, while Bitcoin's up 200% in the year.  I think that's the right approach going forward.  Bitcoin is what it is, we know what it is now, or maybe we don't; it feels like we do, but that's very arrogant to say, because at previous points, we thought it was something else.  So, I humbly submit we're probably wrong about Bitcoin, but we're closer to right!

Peter McCormack: Well, I think it's quite individual what Bitcoin is to different people.  I don't know what it is to you; to me, it's a whole bunch of things.  But God, this is going to sound hyperbolic and cringe, but it's a bit of a teacher, if you know what I mean.

Brandon Quittem: Absolutely.  I mean, people call it a messianic object from the future.  Just calling it a teacher's pretty pedestrian!

Peter McCormack: Yeah okay, fair.  I know it's going to come across as cringe, and my crypto listeners are going to be like, "You fucking maxis", but it is a bit of a teacher.  All I can tell you is, my life before Bitcoin is very different to my life after Bitcoin in terms of thinking about money, life, health a bit, my health could be better; but it is a bit of a teacher in that way.

Brandon Quittem: I agree, and it's very, very emergent.  You're interacting with this thing that can't be changed, and so your only choice is to submit to this thing.

Peter McCormack: Submit to Bitcoin.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, which sounds kind of creepy and weird, but I mean it in that it really does happen.  Bitcoin teaches you things just through interacting with it.  If you hold the asset, you're incentivised to think long term.  So, just that alone is enough to teach you to lower your time preference.

Peter McCormack: Isn't it weird though?

Brandon Quittem: It's extremely weird.  Why is this whitepaper and software so powerful that people rearchitect their lives around it?  That's madness.

Peter McCormack: Well, it's because money is the lubricant for trade.  It's the way we interact with each other.  Money is the base of society, right, and when it's corrupted, you have to spend it quick.  You live a different type of lifestyle when you have a hard money, a sound money where you have to think long term; you have to think about everything long term.  I mean, it's weird, but it kind of makes sense.

Brandon Quittem: It does make sense.  And a lot of people critique Saifedean and The Bitcoin Standard for extrapolating what time preference does to culture.  And okay, I get why you make that critique.  Maybe he took a couple of cheap shots at things he doesn't like personally that maybe it's not a strong connection, maybe not.

Peter McCormack: I have opinions on that.

Brandon Quittem: Of course!  However, if you look at just the Bitcoin community, individuals make radical change, so that's happening.  So, maybe he took some liberties, but you can't argue with the facts on the ground, which is that bitcoiners are getting in shape, they're thinking long term, they're having babies.  It is a radically different culture, and it's not just attracting the people that are naturally into it. 

I was left-leaning politically my whole life until Bitcoin, embarrassingly left, compared to how I feel about things now, and it radically changed that perspective for me.  It gave me an out.  I was a nihilistic intellectual lefty making phone calls for Bernie Sanders' campaign in 2016.  Live for the moment, trade all your things for experiences, comically, looking back.  And Bitcoin gave me a new lens to see the world, and it actually integrated different parts of myself, different identities, if I go back in my life.

In college and after college, I was frat boy, business guy, sales douchebag, make a lot of money, exterior world.  Then I got to the end of that cycle and I was like, "I don't want to be this, so I went the complete opposite way.  I went hippy, traveller, nomad for five years with the wife, just backpacking around the world, literally complete opposite.  Then I came back to Bitcoin, pendulum swing comes back, swung back and maybe a little bit more in the middle.  I can integrate the markets, capitalism, external side of me, and I can integrate that like, "It's not all about material, have a good life, experiences, relationship" side, integrate those two, and that's what Bitcoin is. 

That's why I say there's something for everyone, because depending on what you see in it, what you need, it presents itself differently.  That's my personal story, you extrapolate on everyone, and so again, sound money or lower time preference, it has dramatic impacts on people.  Then you multiple that by this fraternity of people who have similar values.  In my mind, I've always felt slightly as an outcast.  Yeah, I can chameleon into little subcultures.

Peter McCormack: That's why you found Bitcoin.

Brandon Quittem: Correct.  That's why I found it when I did.  In the future, people will find Bitcoin, they don't have to be outsiders, but earlier that's the strength.  But also, I'm very highly disagreeable, also common with bitcoiners, but I guess the point I'm driving to is then you have this community that sharpens your thinking, that pushes you to go farther, people I respect.  So if I write something, I want it to be good, and there's this social pressure to be the best version of yourself, because you have a community.

Humans are tribal, I don't think we should deny that; it's in our evolutionary DNA and we see it play out and people say it's a bad thing.  I don't think it's necessarily bad, I think it's just how we are.  And it can be bad, it can manifest itself poorly.  But the reality is, tribes hold you accountable, they build you up, they make you feel good, they tell you when you're screwing up, they lift you up when you need it.  That's just super, superhuman.  So, no wonder why you see people on Twitter being like, "I found my family".  I definitely feel that.

Peter McCormack: Well, that's also true.  It's really interesting in that you can go anywhere in the world, and because I'm on Twitter, "I'm in [I don't know] Atlanta.  Any bitcoiners here?"  Yeah, ten people will come down and you don't know each other, but you know you're going to get on.  You might not agree on everything, but you're generally going to get on, you're going to have a great conversation, you're going to go and have some food, have a beer and hang out and it's just going to work.

Maybe there are other communities like that, I just don't know of any that exist like that.  It's not like I could go to Atlanta and go, "Hey, Liverpool game's on, any Liverpool fans?"  Oh fuck, Danny, what's the score in the Liverpool game?  Big game right now.  I've double-booked us for Liverpool v Everton, the Merseyside Derby, by the way.  But you could turn up and they could be a bunch of knobs and you wouldn't get on with them.  But I've just found when you travel around, there's a lot of people that you can really get on with with this.  It's kind of weird.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, you're speaking of something important which is that this is fundamental values overlap.  Football is superficial.  You like a team, whatever, you might love it, you might consider it not superficial.

Peter McCormack: It's not to me, man.  I just bought a football team.

Brandon Quittem: Congratulations!

Peter McCormack: Thank you.

Brandon Quittem: But compared to base values, how do we relate to government, how do we relate to our family, how do we relate to our food, the base, base stuff bitcoiners overlap on.  It doesn't matter if you eat meat or you're a vegan or you're left or you're right, or whatever, maybe there's some tension around there.  But really to your point, you can throw a text up and say, "Any bitcoiners coming for a drink?" and you're going to instantly get on with everyone.

What I think a lot of people miss here is that, I host meetups, by the way, in Minneapolis, we have a really great group.  Shoutout bitcoiners in Minneapolis.  But what's funny is that we don't talk about Bitcoin that much.  You get together and, yeah okay, we see the world through that lens, but really you're friends with shared values and you're talking about Bitcoin-adjacent things more often than people think.

Peter McCormack: Interesting.  What's the score?

Danny: It's tomorrow!

Peter McCormack: Oh, for fuck's sake!  Phew, I thought it was tonight.  Who are we clashing with tomorrow?

Danny: The Mayor.

Peter McCormack: Oh, for fuck's sake, Mayor Francis, bullshit!  Okay, a couple of other things I want to talk to you about just before we finish.  Talk to me about the real supercycle.

Brandon Quittem: Okay.  So, this is kind of just a cheeky point, but the supercycle theory, I think Dan Held popularised it, which is essentially that we're not going to have a bear market, we're just going to keep grinding up, because it's time.  I think there's some credence to that and the way I would frame this theory is essentially, Bitcoin hasn't really changed that much in the last ten years, but the context around Bitcoin now is way different.  It's sort of taken its place as a macro asset, we've upgraded the level of buyers, it's been de-risked.  All these things could lead to a future where the world's burning down and Bitcoin's rising.  I think there's something to that.

What I'm saying with the real supercycle, again cheeky, is essentially that all these cycles seem to be overlapping at once.  Okay, we have the fourth turning, so demographics lead to a crisis; we have the long-term debt cycle, so we have to redo the financial system; we have the sovereign individuals who are transitioning from the Industrial Age to the Information Age; we have the Age of Aquarius, which I don't know much about, but it's essentially a 2,000-year cycle that apparently, we just transition to; we hit peak globalisation about a decade ago, that's now reversing; foreign trade as a percentage of GDP has already peaked; we essentially stretched our economic expansion through fiat money to its limits and now populism's in control; what else?

Individualism versus collectivism.  I think we're approaching the peak of collectivism and will start to swing back maybe in a decade or two.  So essentially, you lay all these up together, and they're all cresting at the same time.  That's pretty gnarly, and I couldn't pretend to know what that means, or whatever, but it leads me to believe that it's going to be a big one, it's going to be more volatile than usual.  If all the cycles overlap, that gives me a little more confidence also that something's coming.

Peter McCormack: Right, come on, Bitcoin.  And then, last final thing, let's finish on something cheery.  Okay, we go through the fourth turning, whatever, what have we got to look forward to in the first turning?  We'll be alive during this, right?

Brandon Quittem: Definitely, yeah.

Peter McCormack: What have we got to look forward to then?

Brandon Quittem: So, for timing, each turning is about 20 to 22 years, this one started in 2008, so roughly by 2030, you'd expect us to be wrapping up.

Peter McCormack: Interesting, because when I last spoke to Lyn Alden, we talked about inflation and she said it's going to be an issue for about a decade, she thinks.

Brandon Quittem: Definitely.  And that's also Bitcoin's 21st birthday, on 2030!

Peter McCormack: Spooky!

Brandon Quittem: So, what do we have to look forward to?

Peter McCormack: That's also the year Bedford FC, which is the team I bought, gets into the Premier League!

Brandon Quittem: Wow, nobody's ever heard of that!

Peter McCormack: It's nine promotions.  That's fucking spooky, isn't it?

Danny: That's very spooky!

Peter McCormack: Don't mock me, this is important.

Brandon Quittem: I know it's a big deal for you.

Peter McCormack: Dude, come on.

Brandon Quittem: Okay, so what do we have to look forward to?  So, the 1950s, this is the period of the last first turning.  We just got done fighting, this is white picket fences, a period of rising economic progress of the middle class for about two decades leading up to about 1970, that was peak middle class.  And so, yeah, there's probably going to be a situation where we reset the gameboard.  Institutions are strong, hopefully they don't look like China, hopefully they look like something from --

Peter McCormack: Bitcoin.

Brandon Quittem: -- the West, hopefully from Bitcoin.  And if that's true, then we should see some light at the end of the tunnel.  But I think the idea of a Bitcoin renaissance, which I think Brady probably popularised, essentially a sound money world, we're going to have a lot of positive things come from that.  I believe that that's true, if Bitcoin does what we think it's going to do, but I think it's going to take a lot longer than we think. 

It's really hard for me to even think through this next decade and think about the cheery stuff because think about, okay, we're eight years from the end of the fourth turning.  That would put us around the late 2030s.  So, we had a recession in 1937; we went to World War II; we came up with the IMF, the World Bank, the Bretton Woods system; empires rise and fall; totally massive changes in that last five to ten years.  So, I predict a similar level of volatility, or more now. 

So, I'm scared of that period, but if we look forward, we're going to figure it out.  Humans are not going to end our reign here.  And if we do it right and we're right about Bitcoin, Bitcoin will be the base layer of a new, bright future, and I'm optimistic about that.  That's why I'm here, that's why I don't care about NFTs, even though they're probably going to be massive, because humans like things like that.  I care about the long-term mission and I view my life successfully if I do whatever I can to help do this thing for our species.

What does it look like?  I think, going back to Harry's quote again, you're shifting the power back to the producers and away from the political class, and it's going to be an emergent thing.  I foresee centralised governments being less relevant, The Sovereign Individual thesis.  We're already seeing that game theory play out.  Bitcoiners are highly mobile capital with ideological principles and we're ready to come build wherever you'll have us.  And enterprising young countries, like Bukele, like El Salvador, they're going to observe this and they're going to attract the talent.  We're going to come there and we're going to make it succeed.

Now that El Salvador attaches itself to the bitcoiners, we have this incentive, even if it's a basic instinct, but we can't let El Salvador fail now, because it makes us look bad.  So, it's emergent incentive alignment, energy everywhere is going to be attached to Bitcoin.  Those countries are going to support it, other countries are going to fight it, and that just pushes the miners out of the hostile environments, and puts them into a more long-term aligned relationship.

Peter McCormack: That's the game theory.

Brandon Quittem: That's the game theory.

Peter McCormack: I'm sure we're going to look back on China's banning of not only Bitcoin, but Bitcoin miners as one of the biggest geopolitical mistakes of the last century.

Brandon Quittem: I totally agree.  Just like when they went all-in on silver, and just like when they got rid of all their big ships, because the merchant class was getting too powerful and they gave the seas to Europe, massive blunders.  And that's the China way, "We're doing it our way, we're not doing it your way", and that's our opportunity.  They pushed it out; we should lean into this hard.  We should throw away the idea of CBDCs and we should lean into Bitcoin.  It's extremely American, it's good for American people, it's good for the West, western ideology, it's good for the long term of our species.

We need markets, we need competition, and this is what, in my mind, is our best chance of saving markets.  And we don't have markets, it's over.  It's not going to end immediately, but it's a slow decline to being over.  Going back to China produces no innovation, they can't do it.

Peter McCormack: It gives me hope for my children, man; it gives me hope for my children.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah.  Are we just the soldiers going through the transition and will hand it off to our kids once it's nice?

Peter McCormack: I think that's what might be happening, dude.  I'm trying to orange pill them.  My daughter's orange pilled as fuck. 

Brandon Quittem: That's amazing.

Peter McCormack: She's like, "How do I get more Bitcoin, dad?  Can I have some Bitcoin, dad?  When do I get my Bitcoin, dad?  Can I have Bitcoin, dad?"  Yeah, okay, wicked.  Listen, Brandon, I knew this was going to rock, man.  Have I missed anything you wanted to talk about?

Brandon Quittem: I don't think so, I think we kind of meandered through it all.

Peter McCormack: I feel like we can do this every year, make an update, where are we; are we in a worse place or in a better place.

Brandon Quittem: Definitely.

Peter McCormack: Dude, I love your work, it's great to see you.  We should go and have some dinner now, but appreciate you flying in for this.  It definitely worked better in person, and just tell people where to find your posts all about this, because I think we'll put it in the show notes, but people should follow you and go and read it.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, absolutely.  First, thanks for having me, really appreciate it.  You've got quite a team here, it's been good getting to know you guys, appreciate it.  Again, yes, agree.  In-person stuff is a totally different feel, a lot more personal, which is cool.  Where can you find me?  Twitter's the best @Bquittem. 

All my writing is on my personal website which is just my name, brandonquittem.com.  We referenced an essay I published a year ago, Bitcoin and the Rhythms of History.  You can find it on my Twitter and on my website.  I also wrote a lot about The Mycelium of Money, comparing Bitcoin to a living organism.  That one's quite mindblowing itself.  And I work for Swan, so if you are looking for an easy, safe way to buy Bitcoin, swanbitcoin.com.

Peter McCormack: Cory would be proud of you right now!

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, do a little self-shill there!

Peter McCormack: It's okay, man, you'll be getting away with that one.

Brandon Quittem: Yeah, but I mean it.  I think normal people should be just dollar cost averaging on Bitcoin and we make that as easy as possible.  We also have a whale business, so if you want one-on-one support, talk to Stephan Livera about your cold storage, get some handholding, we do that as well.  It's a fast part of our business.  What most people don't know is the boomers are starving for Bitcoin.  They're not already, but they're trickling in.  So, we're capturing that market, so send your parents to Swan; we love your parents.  That's enough for Swan, that's enough for me, appreciate it, Peter.

Peter McCormack: All right, man.  Listen, let's go eat. 

Brandon Quittem: Let's do it.

Peter McCormack: Cheers.