WBD539 Audio Transcription

A Progressive’s Case for Bitcoin with Jason Maier

Release date: Wednesday 10th August

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Jason Maier. 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.

Jason Maier is a teacher and progressive Bitcoiner. In this interview, we discuss his inspiration for writing a book setting out his case, as a progressive, for Bitcoin. The public narrative and FUD around Bitcoin are antithetical to progressives, yet, its utility is aligned with progressive ideals.

“Bitcoin has the potential to help with these progressive ideas; but in order for that to be successful, it doesn’t mean that all of the libertarian or conservative ideas have to be wrong.”

— Jason Maier

Interview Transcription

Peter McCormack: Good morning, Jason.

Jason Maier: Good morning, Peter.

Peter McCormack: How are you?

Jason Maier: I'm great, couldn't be better.

Peter McCormack: Thank you for coming in to do this.  There isn't a show I've been more excited about making recently than this one, so put a bit of pressure on you.  But you got in touch with me recently, dropped me an email.  We get a lot, we get a lot of people ask to come on the show.  We read through them all and consider them all, but you came at just the right time with just the right topic, because I was even talking about it last night at this Meetup; I don't want Bitcoin to be a partisan issue, Bitcoin's for everyone.

You dropped in and said, "Hey, Pete, I'm working on a book.  It's called A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin, and I want to help orange pill progressives".  So I was like, "Great, come on the show", and here we are.

Jason Maier: Sure, yeah, and it's been a wild ride since.  I didn't ask to come on this show, I just asked to talk to you.

Peter McCormack: Oh, yeah, that was it, sorry, apologies.

Jason Maier: No, well I'm very grateful to be on the show though, because it's a project that I really care about, and I'm excited about it.

Peter McCormack: I was to you, I said, "You've got to come on the show".

Jason Maier: And I said yes!  So, here we are.

Peter McCormack: And, how many podcasts have you done?

Jason Maier: This is about 0.01 podcasts I've been to, yeah.

Peter McCormack: The first one.  Well, we are absolutely honoured that you'd come on our show first.  I'm looking forward to your book, I know my brother is.  Did you actually talk to my brother?

Jason Maier: Yeah, we had a very long conversation, he was super-helpful and very thoughtful, so it was great.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so he's excited by this, and yeah, there's no shortage of people you want to talk to in Bitcoin who are perhaps libertarian, or maybe more conservative, and naturally so Bitcoin does feel more of a conservative/libertarian idea, and that has led to some issues with some crappy reporting.  You see these just hit piece articles where it's, "Bitcoin is used by white supremacists" and, "Bitcoin is used by the ultra-right", and all that kind of bollocks and nonsense, and we haven't seen particularly helpful stuff come from some senators on the left.  Elizabeth Warren hasn't been great.

Jason Maier: Yeah, I've heard!

Peter McCormack: Yeah!  And so, when somebody approaches this topic, it's who I want to speak to the most, because Bitcoin is for everyone.  So, people aren't going to know you, Jason, so we should introduce them to you.  So, do you want to just give us a bit of your back story?

Jason Maier: Sure.  So, I am a maths teacher, that's my day fiat job, and essentially the venue for which I got into Bitcoin.  I originally got a conviction about Bitcoin because I was excited about the maths and the computer science behind it, and I'm relatively new to the Bitcoin space; people don't know who I am.  But when I got a conviction for Bitcoin, the smartest and weirdest person that I know is my best friend, and he got me into Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: How; how did that happen?

Jason Maier: You know, it was funny.  He sent me this text and it was, "Hey, what are you doing with your stimulus cheque; are you going to buy some Bitcoin?"  I was like, "What the hell are you talking about?"  It was just a text message, and I'm very risk-averse generally, that's my default.  I grew up in a poor family.  I have some financial success right now, I'm comfortable, and my default is risk-averse; I'm not going to take risks.  So, I kid you not, I got that text from him, I decided to buy $20 worth of Bitcoin, and then it was like, "Well, now I own Bitcoin, I need to know all about it". 

I remember, my son was in my bath and I'm just sitting there watching videos about like, "What's a blockchain?" and stuff like that, so that was my introduction.  And, I got this conviction, not through any sort of political lens at all, but through the idea that this is a solid mathematical invention, this is a computer science invention, and then I wanted to learn more, I was just ravenous, I just wanted to learn as much I can about Bitcoin.

I realised as I went through and the deeper I went, I was having to cut through a bunch of political arguments that I just do not agree with, or it seemed really fringe actually, like you find out some people don't want the government to exist at all, and that's a pretty fringe idea, that's not mainstream at all.  And if you dive deep enough into the Bitcoin space you start thinking, "Oh yeah, everybody thinks that the government shouldn't exist or should be super-small, or something like that".

I just wanted to learn more and really, I was fine, because I had a conviction about Bitcoin, I wasn't going to give up because there was some sort of libertarian or conversative bent to it; but a lot of the people that I care about, that I work with, that I love, my family, friends, weren't necessarily of that conviction.  And I realised that a lot of the resources that exist out there, I couldn't really like, "Hey, you could read this book, but skip chapter six because it's a little weird"!  So, like they say, if you want to read a book and it doesn't exist yet, you write it.

Peter McCormack: And, how many books have you written in the past?

Jason Maier: This one, this is it.

Peter McCormack: What a first!  Well, we'll get into that, because it's quite the endeavour.

Jason Maier: Yeah, absolutely.

Peter McCormack: Have you talked about Bitcoin in class yet, in your maths class?

Jason Maier: That's a great question, so yeah, that answer's yes!

Peter McCormack: And they're all like, "Sir, for fuck's sake, we've known about this for ages!"

Jason Maier: No, absolutely not.

Peter McCormack: What age?

Jason Maier: So, I teach high school, so a range from 9th to 12th grade.  So, this past year, there was one class where, I mean people knew, I had a poster up in my office, and one kid asked a question.  They're pretty good at asking questions to get you off topic, they don't want to learn the day's lesson!  So, they asked me a question, then another one, and I said, "Listen, guys, I can talk to you about this forever", but their questions were very 101 level like, "How do you know it has value?  What if it just disappears?  What if there's a hack?" that kind of stuff.  I'm very happy to talk with them about it.  About two-thirds of them were super-excited.

Then, my other class, I actually mentioned to them at the end of the year, I was like, "I have this project I'm working on, this book"; this was well before I contacted you.  They were over the moon, they were so excited about it, so they'll probably listening to this when it drops and excited for me.  But again, I think even teenagers right now, unless they have some sort of reason, they seem comfortable in the digital space, and they don't have any worries; I don't have any worries about them adopting Bitcoin in the future, because they're living in a digital world.  But there's still a lot of education.  You can't take a look at a 15-year-old and assume they get Bitcoin.

So, that was surprising, the questions that were coming to me from my students.  And I spent one day, that was the full period, so we spent an hour talking about Bitcoin.  I said, "This can't happen again".  I justified it, because there was maths and computer science in it, and I was the head of the maths and computer science department at my school, if word got out that I had some sort of justification about "wasting" a day!  But that was great.

So, those moments, where I get to talk to people for the first time, are really rejuvenating for me, to explain it in a way that they haven't thought about before; because everybody's heard of it, they don't know what it is necessarily, or they're just new to it and they have questions.  And I'm a teacher and I like teaching people things, I like trying to find the way through to that person, and if that means I have to explain it in this way or that way, I really pride myself on my ability to do that as well as possible.  And as you know, Bitcoin has so many angles that you can look at it from, that whoever I'm talking to, I can find something.  I'm going to try to find the thing that's going to give them a conviction about it.

Peter McCormack: And, why is that important, to find that conviction with people, because essentially you're saying, "Bitcoin's apolitical", but at the same time, you are focusing on one particular group of people?

Jason Maier: So, certainly Bitcoin, at the protocol level, we know is apolitical, it doesn't favour anybody, it doesn't disfavour anybody, but there does exist a culture.  There exists a culture within the Bitcoin community, and I'm not even talking about Twitter; Twitter's its own thing.  But just even in educational resources, if I want to learn about Bitcoin, I'm going to go down this rabbit hole of clicking on this video, clicking on this video, and the best you're going to get is somebody who claims that, "This isn't political", but then they sort of wink and nod, "Small government", that kind of stuff.

I just found the resources that I really wanted for myself and the people that I care about to get that conviction, they were going to get turned off, and it's really unfortunate that we're in that political environment, that if you say the wrong thing on either side, then that person's going to say, "All right, well this isn't for me".  I just want to be able to have a resource, "Here, this is the first book that you read.  It's not the last book that you read, but this is going to give you some sort of conviction about the technology and about the future, and about how this can actually help people and make the world a better place.  And as soon as you have that conviction, you can go and listen to any other resource that you want, you can listen to podcasts, you can read books, and you're not going to have this worry about, 'Am I going in with the wrong people?'"

Peter McCormack: Well, this is why I massively support what you're doing, I'm going to back what you're doing, once your Kickstarter's live, which we will mention in the show.  I'll be your first backer.  Have you decided your packages yet, by the way?

Jason Maier: Yeah, so I'm excited, because by the time this episode airs, Kickstarter's live and I'll have a link on it on my Twitter, but you'll have it on the show notes, I'm sure.  You can pre-order the book, but there's also a level where you can pre-order the book for yourself and for a senator.  So, I'll sign it, inscribe it, send it to all 50 Democratic Senators, so I'm excited about that one.  So, I think people will be interested in grabbing the book for themselves and then buying it for a sitting US Senator and say, "Hey, this is important, you need to learn more about this", and of course there's a mixed bag, in terms of people who support it.

Peter McCormack: And, how much is the book going to retail?

Jason Maier: I'm thinking about $20.

Peter McCormack: And how much is that package for the senator?

Jason Maier: $50.

Peter McCormack: $50, yeah.

Jason Maier: So, you get two books and they're both signed. 

Peter McCormack: We'll do ten of those, we'll jump in.  The reason I'm so excited for this is because there are certain people I don't have a resource to send them to.  I mean, there are resources and there's good resources, but there isn't this kind of specific book.  I know Alex Gladstein, he's fairly good, he's not really a libertarian as such.  He tends to focus from a human rights side of things, which is useful.  Then Samantha's article I sent you, who wrote the letter to Elizabeth Warren, was very good.

Jason Maier: Yeah, she and I spoke, and she's great.

Peter McCormack: She's great, and I thought she was going to do something similar, write a book like this.  I'm actually considered a conservative in the UK, but here in America I'm considered a woke liberal.  But I do have friends in the UK who I think would also benefit from reading this book.  So, I will be buying a bunch of them, and I think it's super-useful.  I also think anyone who, even if you aren't somebody who appreciates the progressive side, that you should embrace this, because ultimately at a time that is so decisive, actually something that isn't partisan, that can help people come together, I think is good.

Jason Maier: Right.  And so it's good to point that out.  The thesis of the book is, I want to get people who are not into Bitcoin into Bitcoin, and everyone should support that, because if we want it to be a global money, it should be for everyone.  It's not to change people's minds.  If you're listening to this and you're a conservative and you're into Bitcoin, I'm not intending to change your mind.  You can be a conservative, I'll be a liberal, we'll both be into Bitcoin, we'll both have probably more common ground because of that than otherwise.

But then, if there's actually a welcoming community so liberals and progressives and left-leaning people can get into the space more easily, then we can actually have a competition of ideas, like you think that this should happen, I think that this should happen, and the ways that Bitcoin intersects with society and with government and with policy, it doesn't make sense; first of all, if we want Bitcoin to be a global money, it can't just be libertarians who live in Texas, right, it's not going to work. 

Even if you could, it's not a good recipe for coming up with good policy, good initiatives.  You can't have only one side of the political spectrum, and you can't have, in some ways, the most extreme side of that political spectrum, being the only voice, because we need a competition of ideas, we need somebody to say, "Hey, this is the way Bitcoin should intersect with this policy or this".  I think that my goal is to get more people having a voice, feeling comfortable in the space so we can actually have that dialogue.

Peter McCormack: And do you know what, there'll be people listening who will discover your book, who themselves might be conservative and their wife might be a liberal, or their parents might be liberal, or somebody within their family and friendship group, and they've probably maybe struggled to convince them.  This is an opportunity to do it.  Because actually, whether you are conservative, liberal, neutral, whatever you are, I find that bitcoiners very rarely disagree on protocol-level things.

I mean, some of the techies might disagree on what the next BIP might be, but we've all kind of come to the agreement that we want this thing to be decentralised, we want 21 million, pretty much most people; we want to retain all those qualities.  Where we tend to argue is actually on the political side of things, because some people want no state, some want a small state, some believe that's natural.  But at the moment, we don't have small states.

Jason Maier: No, we don't.

Peter McCormack: We have the state as it is.  Bitcoin is growing and flourishing and it's best for everyone if we introduce as many people as possible.  Just for you though, on the monetary side, is money something you've spent time understanding in the past, or was this part of the rabbit hole?

Jason Maier: Absolutely not, and I think that this is a great opportunity for people on the left side to learn a little bit more about money.  I grew up without a lot of resources, I didn't even have training in terms of proper investments, like absent Bitcoin, and it blew me away to learn what money is, how money is created, what does it mean that the Federal Reserve has a monopoly on money creation and things like that.

The reason that it resonates is because everybody who considers themselves a liberal, progressive, on the left side, feels that the system is broken, they feel that it's wrong.  They look back to 2008 and nobody thinks that we fixed it.  And learning about the current financial system through Bitcoin is an excellent way to understand why the current financial system feels wrong to so many people.  And of course, liberal people have their ideas, we have our theories about why that is, but the more you know about the current financial system, the more you dislike it.  And it goes beyond a superficial, "Billionaires are greedy and ridiculous, and banks are greedy and ridiculous"; that's all true, but there's also a lot more to it than that.

So, my journey to understand what money is, as an actual technology tool, began when I really started getting into Bitcoin, it wasn't before then.

Peter McCormack: And outside of the maths, computer science thing, obviously if you're a maths teacher, that side of things is going to be super-interesting to you; but is there anything that particularly grabbed you, was there a moment, an orange-pilling moment, where you were like, "Wow, I understand this", like it means something for you?

Jason Maier: Yeah, I mean a thousand times.  I think maybe the very first one of those was when, I remember the moment I learned that there's only 21 million and that's all there could be.  For me, the conviction came from the sense of digital scarcity which has never existed before.  I think a lot of people obviously think, "All right, I can copy and paste emails and cat memes, and that stuff, so it's digital, it can't be scarce".  To learn how and why that's true was a moment, that's for sure, and there's been a thousand since.

Peter McCormack: And did you have any moments where, or any particular reservations where you thought, "Hold on", when you thought through the implications of what Bitcoin is and if Bitcoin became a predominant form of money, were there things that worried you, concerned you?

Jason Maier: Yes and no.  I think that as I learned more about Bitcoin, I became to believe that the current financial system as we have it right now, as it exists, is not sustainable in any real way.  I mean, we can see it happening now.  So, I worry about a transition from what we have now, which is flawed and broken and not good and not treating people well, most people, to a new system, because I do think that that transition poses dangers.  I think there are vulnerable people out there who will not navigate that transition well, and it's impossible to know when it happens how long it takes, what it looks like.  So that worries me, switching to a new system.

But on the other hand, I don't know that we have another choice.  I'm not willing to say that Bitcoin is completely inevitable, but it's very close and I personally have a belief that it is.  But you think of it as a life raft and not the iceberg.  So, the goal now is just to get as many people educated, and the people that I care about knowing about this thing, and reaching as big an audience as I can, so that when that transition happens, then people are ready and they understand what's going on.  And that's one of the motivations behind the book, because I think there's an audience out there who doesn't take Bitcoin seriously, and who's being told by politicians and the media that they shouldn't, and it's bad, and we all know these pieces that come out.  I just need to reach those people.

Peter McCormack: And have you managed to orange pill many people yourself?

Jason Maier: I mean, not on the scale of you, right!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but you could, you could end up with more.

Jason Maier: Well, yeah.  Looking forward, for sure.  I have orange pilled as many people as I can who are in my direct circle, and I love it because each one is a different argument and a different justification, or a different way of thinking about Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: And becomes research.

Jason Maier: And becomes research for the book.  The book essentially is a collection of the most poignant, effective arguments to get somebody who is left-leaning or progressive to actually buy in and want to learn more.  So, I'm still at the level where I've orange pilled a lot of people that I care about who I'm close to, and I keep tabs on them.  I check in with them like, "How are you doing with the price going down?" and that kind of stuff, but certainly not at scale.  But I realise it's something that I enjoy doing.  It's absolutely thrilling for me to see that lightbulb moment for somebody who hasn't really sat down to think about it.

Peter McCormack: And your wife, has she been like, "Shut the fuck up already!"?

Jason Maier: No, she's great, she's absolutely great.  I did give her some resources to look at when I decided I wanted to start diving into this.  She's been absolutely great, she's my best friend and she's the smartest person in the world, and she and I go back and forth about Bitcoin, and she'll push me on issues and say, "What about this?  Are you sure about that?"  So, this is a great anecdote.  The other day, she saw that the price was down and she was like, "Okay, are you buying more?"

Peter McCormack: Yeah!  She's onboard, she gets it.

Jason Maier: That's the kind of wife you want, yeah.  She's like, "Absolutely, you need to buy more.  We have some money coming in next month.  Why don't you just buy it now while it's low?"  So, it's what you want.

Peter McCormack: Oh my God, she's perfect!  Has she got a sister?  That's awesome, man.  I just want to touch on something you said, because you started talking about something that I think about, this transition to a new financial system.  It's something that's worried me a lot, it's something I've thought about a lot, because I haven't seen anyone really map it out, "What is this transition?  What does it mean?"  Obviously, there's multiple outcomes: Bitcoin sits alongside fiat currencies; fiat currencies become a little bit more; maybe government policy becomes a little bit more responsible; maybe the size of government shrinks because they can't spend the way they've spent, but it still sits there alongside fiat currencies.

But there is a scenario where Bitcoin ends up replacing fiat currencies that some people have considered, and we're going to have a considerable transfer of wealth if that happens, and all types of people are going to be affected in all types of different ways, and it could be a chaotic and bloody transition, and one I've tried to think through, but haven't been able to map out; but just does make me nervous.  It doesn't even matter what I think, it will either happen or it won't.  But when it does happen, how do we best prepare for that transition, and how do we, as people, try and help each other through that transition?  How much time have you spent thinking that through?

Jason Maier: Some.  I don't probably have all of the answers that you want, and you said, "A lot of people".  The truth is, it will affect everyone, it can't not if it goes that way.  It's true, the transition could be difficult.  Here's the way that actually I get through this.  An hour ago, automatically on my phone, I bought 55 cents worth of Bitcoin, it happens automatically.  You can't buy 55 cents worth of a house, you can't buy 55 cents worth of Apple stock, or something.

So, there's an opportunity to get people onboarded in a way that is not prohibitive, and can actually allow people who don't actually have a lot of means right now, probably pretty quickly save up to their average share of Bitcoin.  If you divide 21 million by the population, it's not hard to get to that point now, and you don't need a ton of resources that do that.  And so, getting as many people as possible to do that is one key. 

It's also true that our current system means that the more money you have right now, the more influence you have about money works and how much money you get and all of that stuff; and I just don't worry as much about Bitcoin in terms of the people who have a lot of money, and certainly there will be some in Bitcoin terms who have a lot.  They don't get to influence the protocol, they don't get to change it to be more beneficial towards them, and so really the secret hopefully is to just get as many people educated about it as possible.

Your two paths are absolutely true.  We could be in a world within our lifetime where Bitcoin is the thing, and it happened without even realising it.  Most people will just look around one day and be like, "Oh, yeah, Bitcoin is everywhere", it's the thing.  Or, I think there's a less likely option, where the government has a check on it now, there's a competition and a better kind of money.  So, the government and the fiat money exists, but in a checked way; there's actually a way to keep it operating well.  And, either one of those is better than what we have now, I think, as long as we can transition slowly.  That's my dream, right, is that all of a sudden, our economy doesn't collapse and we don't go into a huge amount of turmoil, and people just look around. 

I was thinking about this the other day.  There is a moment in which I looked around many years ago and was, "Oh, everybody is on their phone and they're looking at it", and that's just the way it is now, and that wasn't like that.  And I couldn't pinpoint the moment that happened; all of a sudden, that changed shifts.  And I think that that is the best case for Bitcoin, in however many years, that people all of a sudden they're sort of, "Oh, yeah, Bitcoin is in the rails of my bank [or] in the apps that I'm using [or] in my paycheque", and it just sort of happens without people realising it.  That's the best case.

Peter McCormack: Well, we've already had one of those transitions for Bitcoin now, where you just don't meet people who haven't heard of it.  I mean, I'm sure if you go maybe to the jungle in Brazil and you find some tribe, they will, but there's never a scenario where I get in an Uber and I'm talking to the driver and he says, "What do you do?" and I say, "I've got a Bitcoin podcast", and he says, "Well, what is Bitcoin?"  You just don't meet people anymore.  So at some point, we've transitioned to a world where everyone has pretty much heard of it.  They don't necessarily understand what it is, but that's no small thing, right?

Jason Maier: No, it's huge.  I mean, like everyone else, I had my false start introduction to Bitcoin.  I'd heard of it, I didn't have a conviction, and you go back and you kick yourself, right?  It was 2012 and I could have…!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I know!

Jason Maier: But you're right, everyone's heard of it now.  But what's not surprising, but a problem, is that a lot of people who've heard of it think that they know what it is, they think that they understand what the pros and cons are, but they just haven't had the time or the reason to look into it.  A lot of the people I interact with, I'm in the States and there's just not as much of an urgent reason to really dig into it yet.

Peter McCormack: Well, there's not so much of a need for people to have Bitcoin here, the same in the UK, the same in Germany.  There is a need, but it's not like the need that people have in other countries, with the high double-digit, triple-digit inflation, people living under authoritarian regimes.  And I found with going to places like that, people naturally get it more, because I guess we've never had that urgent need to understand money, even with inflation rate of 2%, 3%, even with all the fuckery from the government, life from day-to-day doesn't change that drastically.

But when I went to Venezuela, that's not the case.  Your money's melting in front of you, and people naturally had to find a way to store their money.  That's why they use five different currencies there; that's why people want the dollar, because the bolivar is junk.  So, they had a reason to discover it.  It's a little bit harder to convince people.

Jason Maier: Yeah, and there are reasons why somebody who lives in a developed, western country would want it and need it.  The use case is completely different from somebody who's living in a place where their bank account could get frozen immediately, or aid going to that country gets skimmed off the top.  There's lots of reasons, there's just different reasons.  And I think that the thing that gives me hope is that in America, or in England, or anywhere else, we will need it for sure.  And one of my friends said, "I worry about Bitcoin, because I don't think that people are bright enough or dedicated, or they don't have the technical knowledge to understand it, and it can never take off, because what if people don't get it?" 

The beautiful thing is that you don't necessarily need to understand why something is better money to gravitate towards it, as you were saying in the Venezuela example.  If you have money that's broken, then you will find something else and you'll find the better thing, and you don't need to know what a BIP is, and you don't need to know what the Mempool is; you'll figure it out.  So, I have faith in our ability as a society and in our government or in our country to make that transition in that way, because we're on the same curve as Venezuela, we're just in a different spot.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, some people find that hard to believe.

Jason Maier: Well, I never really understood inflation until I really started looking into Bitcoin.  I remember when I started learning about Bitcoin, "They're always going on and on about inflation, it's not a big deal, it probably hurts rich people more than it hurts poor people", all that stuff; it's all wrong, and we can go into details about that if we want.

Peter McCormack: Did you listen to my interview with Avik Roy?

Jason Maier: I did, yeah, and it's fascinating, because it's not just the compounding effect.  You have inflation is going to compound and hurt people who are more vulnerable and less wealthy.  But it's just the sheer fact that if you have somebody who's struggling day-to-day to get by, week-to-week, paycheque-to-paycheque, 100% of what they are bringing in needs to go towards necessities.  So, if everything is more expensive, then you don't have any choices.  You have to spend more on those things, or you have to make choices about what not to buy.  And an affluent person doesn't need to do that.  They're not spending 100% of their salary or their income on food and shelter.  They get choices about where they put their money.

Avik, your interview with him and the article that you were talking about was absolutely fascinating, because you have these vulnerable people out there.  And even if you want to give the Fed some sort of credit and say, "Well, we're targeting 2% and that's not a big deal", well it really is.  That is a big deal for people over a span of time, and the fact that we're not at 2% right now, we're over 9% is a huge deal.  It's not something that I've had to deal with in my adult life.  I've not had a job and had to pay for things and deal with 9% inflation.  That's not a problem that we've ever had to deal with, so that's new.

Peter McCormack: And there's another consideration with that.  We were at this Meetup last night and I was on a panel, and somebody asked me about my children, my consideration for my children, and it just kind of clicked for me in that moment that when Avik talks about this compounding impact on the poor, even 2% doesn't feel too much, but year after year, it makes a huge difference; this inflation has a compounding impact on children.  So, anyone with children just needs to be aware that that child's going to spend probably up to 18 years with you, but perhaps you're going to be supporting them at college afterwards; you might be supporting them for 25 years. 

Now, if you're not affluent, and maybe you're middle class, lower class, but if you're not affluent, you might not be somebody who's able to leave particular assets for your children.  And even if you want to, at the point where they're leaving school or university and want to get on the housing ladder and start life for themselves, over that 25 years, they have no assets, so it has a compounding impact on their start in life, which is something I hadn't even considered.

Jason Maier: Oh, yeah.  It's happening everywhere all at once, and nobody who's starting out in life right now can afford to buy a home if they're starting on their own, unless they have some sort of help, and I think that it's clear that problem has gotten worse.  This all ties into the money and has a connection to Bitcoin, obviously, because you're holding onto money and it's melting away; what do you do with it?  You have to buy an appreciating asset.  So, there's a lot of people who don't need houses, because they already have a couple, who are buying homes, or corporations who are buying homes, no real reason to buy homes, except that they're trying to preserve their monetary value.

Peter McCormack: Well, it's a bit more than that.  Someone like a BlackRock, they have access to capital at such a low rate that they can go and buy the scarce asset; I'm saying BlackRock, I'm not sure it's them, but I'm pretty sure they bought tens of thousands of homes.

Jason Maier: No, it's true.

Peter McCormack: It is BlackRock?

Danny Knowles: It is BlackRock, yeah.  I mean, I think a lot of the big hedge funds do it.

Peter McCormack: Can you find out how many homes BlackRock owns?  I'm pretty sure they started under the OneWest thing with Mnuchin.  There was that big transition of wealth from homeowners to BlackRock.

Jason Maier: No, it's true, because if you don't have any good options, what do you do?  I remember talking with friends of mine, "Yeah, so-and-so, some famous football player, just bought this ridiculous house, and it's like --"

Danny Knowles: It says here about 80,000.

Peter McCormack: So, BlackRock owns about 80,000 homes?

Danny Knowles: That's what it says here, yeah.

Peter McCormack: What's the article?

Danny Knowles: It's in The Atlantic.  That's of June 2021 as well, so it's probably slightly more.

Peter McCormack: So, they've probably got like 150,000 homes now.

Jason Maier: And every home they buy is one less home available to somebody who needs it, and it drives the prices up for the houses that they don't buy, and it's just impossible to get a start.  This is where people look at the system, and this system is not working.  I can even go to college and work really hard and get a good job, and I still can't afford a house.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so you don't have to be a progressive to realise this; you just have to be a reasonable person to understand that we live in a system of money and in that system of money, certain people have more access to capital; and with more access to capital at such a low interest rate, they can go and buy up the properties, and it's just not a fair system.

Jason Maier: It's not a fair system.  And again, this goes back to my point, I'm not trying to convince, "If you believe that BlackRock buying homes is unfair, then you need to be voting for Democrats", or something, that's not true, but there are a lot of people out there who are voting for Democrats, who know that there's a problem but can't name it, and that's the target.  If I can open up their eyes to have a fuller picture of what the problem is, that's my target audience; I want them to be convinced.

Peter McCormack: Well, I think that's an important point, is that you're not here to convert Republicans into becoming Democrats; you're here to give people who are on the left some ideas regarding this.  So, I'm going to ask you a question and it's going to sound like a simple question, but it's good to hear how it's explained; how would you explain what a progressive is and what a progressive cares about?  And perhaps add into that maybe, I don't know what you think, but personally I think the progressive side, there's been a small group that have damaged the reputation of progressives?

Jason Maier: Sure.  Well first of all, I think that's true on both sides.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's fair.

Jason Maier: And I do think that first of all I'd say, the group of progressives is very heterogeneous, and there's no one definition.  I could go back to my own first principles, and this is actually a very good point.  The title of the book is, A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin, it's not The Progressive's Case for Bitcoin, and there's an important distinction there.  I'm giving you my thoughts about Bitcoin through a progressive lens, and hopefully you can learn and run with it.  But I'm not trying to speak for all progressives.

I can say that from a first principles point of view, I think that I want to go about living my life in a decent way and treat people well with dignity and protect, through society, protect the most vulnerable people in society; so that's a first principle.  We talk a lot in the Bitcoin space about collectivism versus individualism, and it's an interesting conversation, it's an interesting way to think about the world. 

We are a social species.  We're animals that have evolved, quite literally in our DNA, to be around other people and to cooperate.  And from a very first principle, there has to be a balance of individual versus the group, and people can have conversations about what that balance is.  I'm not saying that you forsake everything and you make every sacrifice for yourself for the betterment of the group, but you don't have the human race without people getting together and helping each other and working together towards projects, and that's essentially what I think about in terms of my political position.

There's a lot of things that exist right now because of the financial system that we're in, and there's a lot of policies I support, because I have that fundamental thing; I want to make sure that the people in our society who are most vulnerable are protected, and that might be through an economic lens, it might be through a social justice lens, and that's how I think about myself as a progressive.  If I live my life that way and I get to the very end, and maybe on my deathbed I found out, "Hey, you know what, that was all wrong, you shouldn't have done that", I can still probably die happy, because I'm trying to help people, I'm trying to be a good person, and I'm trying to make sure -- that's a mistake I'm willing to make, if it turns out to be wrong; I don't think it is.

So, I think that what's interesting about that first principles, "What does it mean to be a progressive?" and, "What does it mean for me to be a progressive?" is a very interesting dynamic, because all of my thinking and all of my thought process for most of my adult life has been without Bitcoin, and it has existed in a current system that is flawed and inefficient and unfair.  And so, I support a lot of ideas that exist now to try to help that system.  And I am open to the idea that if we change the system, if we change the water that we're swimming in, then maybe I can still hold onto those first principle values of being a decent person that helps the most vulnerable in our society, and it doesn't have to look like it looks now.

I don't know what it looks like, because we don't know what the endgame here is, but that's an interesting dynamic for me.  I've thought a little about, if we proceed to this Bitcoin standard, or there's this fiat/Bitcoin parallel track, like you mentioned earlier, do I need to have 100% lockstep all of the same beliefs, in terms of policy and decisions, that I do now; and I'm open to thinking about those.

Peter McCormack: And have you thought through that transition to a Bitcoin standard might naturally lead to a significantly smaller state, and therefore significantly less options for the state to be able to help the most vulnerable in society; and it might mean that some of the ideas with regards to progressives might not come from central policy, it might have to come from voluntary organisations?

Jason Maier: It's possible.  I don't know that that's necessarily the solution, but there's nothing necessarily inherent about a small state that means that my world view is impossible.  This is why I say, I don't need the libertarians to be wrong necessarily.  If we have some sort of check on our government and say, "Okay, well our federal government has to get smaller", or any government has to get smaller, because we have this Bitcoin thing, then they just have to make better decisions about what the hell they're doing with their money.

Let's fight a few less wars, let's give fewer subsidies to fossil fuels, and I think that's why it's important to have progressive voices in there, so we can have a debate of ideas like, "We have this pot of money now, we can't just print any more.  We need to use it and if we go into debt, we have to be very careful", and all of those things.  And then, I don't want libertarians being the only ones making those decisions.  I think that liberals and progressives should have a voice in that.

So, I do think that you can still help people, and you can still have safeguards for very vulnerable people, safety net for people, and the federal government doesn't have to be as big as it is now, and it becomes this dog whistle for a lot of people, "I want a smaller government".  Really, if you're a progressive or liberal person not into Bitcoin, then you're probably hearing them say, "Okay, what kind of things do you want to chop; what do you want to get rid of?"  A lot of times, it's things that protect people who need the help.

It becomes this surface level, "I want a small government".  "Small government's bad because it doesn't help the people".  It can go a little deeper than that, and I think that's a conversation that is worth having.

Peter McCormack: I agree, definitely worth having it.  I do just point to the fact that in the UK, when we went into a period of austerity under a Conservative Government, which was a government I think at that time I did vote for, the austerity, the headlines were that it really affected the most vulnerable in society.  They removed our version of welfare for people who were maybe disabled and couldn't work; they created this thing called the Bedroom Tax, wasn't it, whereby if you had social housing and it was, say, a two-bedroom home, and you're one person living in it, they taxed the other bedroom.  They did lots of things that wasn't good policy, where I felt they could have cut from other areas.

Jason Maier: Sure, and I think that's critically important to have multiple voices in there, and then you're not always going to get your way, but I do think that it takes work, and I think there's a lot of people in the Bitcoin space who say, "I'm just going to plug in this Umbrel node and the world will get better".  It takes work.  You actually have to actually engage with people, you have to bring them in, you have to educate them, you have to make sure they understand why.  And the last thing I want is to get into a position where the government is, "All right, what do we do?  Now we have to actually tax people and we can't just print the money". 

I want all kinds of voices in that conversation, including voices that agree with me, who think that taxes should be a certain way, or the welfare state should be a certain way.  Those are conversations that need to happen, and it's going to take work.  You can't just say, "Bitcoin's inevitable", and then just dust your hands off and walk away.

Peter McCormack: How do you feel about the voices that will come to you with certain claims that I've had to deal with over the time, because I am, to some people in America, considered a lefty?  Some of the arguments that come up to me, the strongest ones are that taxation is theft under the threat of a gun, and that nobody should benefit from the fruits of others' labours.  Now, they tend to be people more for the close-to-no-government position, which is a very tough thing to argue against, because in some ways I understand the argument.  I think it comes from an ethical place, where it's like, "I should not be forced to give anything I've earned to anyone else".  I disagree with it, because I think we will coordinate, but it is a difficult argument.

Jason Maier: Well, not for me.  I think it's silly.  A lot of people would like to think that all of their successes are their successes, and that all of the money I earn I should keep, and you shouldn't decide what to do with it.  It's very appealing on the surface.  Nobody is an island, right, and if you have a successful business, part of the reason it's successful is because there's a road that gets you there and there's regulations that keep the business safe and all of that stuff.

If you live in a society, and I'm thinking even more globally, we have a government system right now that's a nation state system; but just as a general rule, if you're benefiting from society, and maybe you have good ideas and you work really hard and you make a lot of money, that's fine.  But it's not necessarily wrong to say, "All right, well as a collective, we're going to tax you for those profits and then try to do good for the society". 

We can have all sorts of debates, like how much is the right amount to tax; and how much should we be giving to people who have fallen on hard times, or who need help?  Those are reasonable debates, and I think there's a spectrum of right answers, and different people come to different conclusions, and that's why maybe you vote and then you figure out, policymakers come to those conclusions.  But the idea that taxation is theft under the threat of violence, it's a very fringe idea.  You walk out of this room, people aren't going to say that.  That's some people in Bitcoin saying that.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, it's less fringe in Bitcoin.

Jason Maier: Yeah, for sure.  And I'll just say plainly, it's absolutely a fringe idea, and I don't need to say that it's right or wrong, it's a fringe idea.  But the idea that, "I'm doing it all myself and I'm an individual and I've made this company and I've done this work", nobody's doing stuff by themselves.  Even if you think you are, you're not.  You live in a society, you live in a civilisation, and I just think the decent thing to do is to try your best to allocate yourself appropriately.

Peter McCormack: Have you prepared yourself for the response to this, because people in the Bitcoin space have strong opinions, and they're happy to share them, sometimes in a kind way and sometimes not in a kind way?

Jason Maier: Yeah, well the goal for me from the very beginning is to upset as many bitcoiners and as many progressives as possible.  We're going to have a nice conversation here and I have a long list of things I want to talk to you about, and I'm not going to get to one of them, or maybe two.  So, the progressive people who are listening are going to be upset, because they're going to be like, "Hey, you didn't mention topic A [or] topic B", and by the way, if I wrote my book like that, it would be 1,000 pages long, so I can't do everything.  But certainly, I'm okay upsetting bitcoiners. 

There's a nice, small, vibrant community of people who are into Bitcoin who agree with me and who support the work that I'm doing, and who want to help people, and who view the world through the same lens as me.  And if you don't, that's fine; again, I'm not trying to change your mind.  Maybe we sit down and have a beer and we talk about it, but it's not, again, die on a hill.  And I'm not going to get onto Twitter and have long-form conversations in a short-form medium.  So, if people disagree with me, I'm sure they will, please reach out and talk to me, let me know, say mean things, whatever, that's fine.

Peter McCormack: There is a growing interesting in this topic.  I don't know if you saw, I put a tweet out about it the other day?

Jason Maier: About…?

Peter McCormack: The fact that we're meeting to talk.

Jason Maier: I did.  My buddy sent that to me, he said, "Is this you?"

Peter McCormack: Can you look it up, because the interesting thing about that is, I think it was liked over 1,000 times, I think it was.  And the interesting thing about that is, I have noticed over the last year or two, and I think it's because as Bitcoin grows, it's reaching more people, and therefore it's going to reach more people from the left, the right, everything, and they're going to come into Bitcoin.  Some people, their political ideology might change; they might become disinterested in politics, or perhaps some people who were previously on the left will move to the right, but there are people from the left who have a growing interest in this. 

I think this is something that I've been trying to help people recognise and say, "Look, this is going to grow.  We shouldn't see these people as the enemy, we should see them as people we can engage with and talk to them about it".  Have you found it?

Danny Knowles: Yeah, just found it, yeah.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, "There are some very good progressives coming to Bitcoin with new and interesting ideas.  Next week, I am interviewing someone writing a Bitcoin book for progressives.  I think this is important work".  Look at that, I mean 1,090 likes.

Jason Maier: Yeah, so I have 1,000 friends out there!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, and some quote tweets --

Jason Maier: 1,091!

Peter McCormack: Go on the quote tweets, Danny, and see if anyone is a dick.

Jason Maier: They were, because the screenshot that was sent to me included the very first --

Peter McCormack: "Progressive is a sugar-coated word for communist.  The dude is a poser like Nic Carter.  Bitcoin is literally the antithesis of every left-wing ideology.  Bitcoin and the progressive movement can be mutually exclusive.  Is Bitcoin about to go woke?  Sounds very progressive to me".  Okay, keep going, "Clown and a dick.  All Bitcoin work is important work, friends and enemies", okay they're quote tweets, but that's typical.  But I think if you go into some of the comments, some of the comments were good and people are welcoming it.

Jason Maier: Yeah, and I think the point you make is right, that for many years Bitcoin has existed with this very closeknit, very homogenous group of people who all agreed with each other, and I'm not even saying that's wrong.  I think in order to survive some of the attacks that Bitcoin has undergone, it needed to have that solidarity.  And so, these libertarians who are fighting for the death for Bitcoin to make sure that it exists and it's the way that they want it is really helpful.  But the umbrella's growing.

So, if you think that you're going to be existing in the year 2030 thinking, "The government shouldn't exist", and anybody thinks that there should be a government is too far left, you're not going to have a good time.  You're not going to exist in the Bitcoin space being able to make the same arguments that you were able to in 2014.

Peter McCormack: They might be able to make the argument that it will be smaller, because that is a more realistic outcome I think.

Jason Maier: Sure, yeah, and there's lots of things that might still match up, but you're not going to reach the same audience.  There's a lot of people who are coming into Bitcoin, and for me that's the point.  It can't just stay this same small group.  If we want it to actually achieve the things we hope it achieves, it has to be a bigger group and it has to be a wider discussion.  So, I'm not trying to replace any of the ideology or the political viewpoints of anybody who's come before me, I'm just trying to make sure that there's a lot of new people who will be coming into Bitcoin in the next five, ten years, and who need a resource and need to feel welcomed into the community, and that's what I'm trying to do.

Peter McCormack: And to be honest, the one comment that really irked me there is where he said, "Bitcoin is antithetical to the left-wing ideology", and I think the reason I have a problem with that is, the way I see it, both conservatives and progressives are actually collectivists, and I think anyone who denies that needs to look at the stimulus cheques that Donald Trump was writing, and that even under a Republican Government, you will pay tax, and under that it will be redistributed.  Yes, it's a different era on the spectrum, but I find that a difficult comment; and also difficult, because you can't use that as a broad brush against the entire progressive ideology, but you can look at certain issues like wealth inequality.  Bitcoin's good for wealth inequality.

Jason Maier: Sure.  Well, we hope.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, we hope.  But if it is, and it does, and it should do; it should, because we know with access to the money printer, the rich get richer, we have that wider wealth gap.  So, we would hope under Bitcoin, it does lead to a more equal society, not in a Marxist way, but just in a fair, military system.  But I think what that person has missed, that's just one argument and there's plenty of arguments.

Jason Maier: Right, I'm writing a whole book about it.  So, wealth inequality is something, absolutely bitcoiners care about, and/or mention as a staple argument, and it is absolutely something that progressives care about.  There are lots of other examples too where Bitcoin has the potential to help with these progressive ideas.  In order for that to be successful, it doesn't mean that all of the libertarian or conservative ideas have to be wrong. 

I think that there's a lot in Bitcoin that might take the best from one side and the best from the other, and I'm just focusing on my side, my viewpoint and the people who I'm talking to, who have a hurdle that they have to get over, and trying to make them feel why, "There's really a reason why I need to learn about this, and it helps the world.  And if I'm involved with it, then I have a voice and I can have a presence in the community".

Peter McCormack: And why do you think for progressives that Bitcoin isn't an immediate answer for them?  Why do you think some progressives struggle with it to begin with; what do you think it is about it?

Jason Maier: Senator Elizabeth Warren?

Peter McCormack: Well, yeah!

Jason Maier: And I mean, I'm being flipped, but it's really that they haven't gotten a lot of information that's accurate, or really explores through a progressive lens, what are the benefits of Bitcoin.  So, if you first exposure to Bitcoin, well everybody's first exposure to Bitcoin is they've heard about it and it's just some silly thing.  If your second exposure to Bitcoin is, "Hey, it's a silly thing and it's also ruining the environment and it's just for rich people to get richer", or something like that and all of these untruths that are out there, then you're just going to have a hesitance.

I can speak for myself that when I first started to think seriously about Bitcoin, it was an open-and-closed case, "It's for criminals and it's bad for the environment".  I can tell you from my own personal experience as a progressive person, who cares about the environment, just being able to say that Bitcoin is bad for the environment flooded me with all of these happy brain chemicals, because I got the guy across the table from me like, "What are you going to do now?"  It's an open-and-closed case.

Then you start to realise, it's actually much more difficult and much more intricate, and there's a lot of layers to it, and you have to dive deep.  You can't just rely on these tropes of, "Okay, I'm on the left, so anything that's bad for the environment, I'm just going to hate, whether or not it's true, whether or not I've looked into it myself", and similar things happen a lot.  But I can tell you, when I said that to the other person across the table, I felt very proud of myself!  But that's where people are right now, on both sides.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, interesting.  And for me, one of the most fascinating things that's happened over this last year or two is how that narrative is starting to change for Bitcoin with regard to the environment.  I always think that first starting point of, "bad for the environment", is how relative this is in terms of percentage, and the arguments for Bitcoin versus gold and what gold has done to the environment, and then energy uses for things like tumble dryers and Christmas lights; you get into all of that.

But one of the more fascinating things is the advancement of mining, not only to integrate with the grid, which we've seen most recently with ERCOT, and I'm not sure how that will be possible with other grids around the world, but it is an interesting thing.  But a couple of shows we've made recently, particularly the show we made recently with Adam Wright, who's looking to put miners on landfill sites to turn Bitcoin into methane, I mean you actually have an argument to say, "Actually, no, here we can give you an example where Bitcoin is good for the environment".

Jason Maier: Right, and I view it in sort of a three- or four-step process.  Step one is, any liberal or progressive that I talk to who says that Bitcoin is wasting energy or it's using too much, they don't even say it's using it too much, they say it's wasting energy, it's because they don't understand the value proposition of Bitcoin.  So first and foremost, you have to understand why it's important to be able to have an honest discussion about the energy use.  And just as a thought experiment, if you say, just as a thought experiment, "Tomorrow, we can cure cancer, but it will use a lot of energy", well what's the next thing?  Yeah, let's cure cancer, but let's think about how can we make that energy better, how can we make it more efficient, how can we make it more green.

So, if you can take a look at Bitcoin and say, "Well, it actually has a very positive social component, it actually helps make the world -- the value proposition is worth the energy it's using", then you go onto the next question, which is, "How can I make it as efficient as possible; and are there incentives built into it to make it efficient?" and we know that there are; and, "How can I make it as green and renewable as possible; and are there incentives that will lead it down that direction?"

Then, the fourth step is, "Well, Bitcoin actually does more than all of that.  It provides opportunities to help mitigate some of the other damage that's happening, and can actually improve the environment, or make it more likely that other users of electricity are using green energy, because Bitcoin miners have supplemented the buildout of renewable sources.  So now your clothes dryer is running more percentage on solar and wind", or something like that. 

So, I think it has to start from, "What's the use case?  Why is it important", because all of us, I've heard you say in the past, "I care about the environment, but I'm a hypocrite".  The truth is, we all are, "Well, if you care about the environment, then you're a hypocrite"; that's not a functional viewpoint.  It's really more important to think about it as a scale.  If you care about the environment, what can you do in your everyday life to make it a little bit better; what can you do in your sphere of influence to make it a little bit better, and devote yourself to using energy in a way that is important for things.  If it's important for you to fly across the country for whatever reason, then you're going to do that.

Peter McCormack: I mean, we got rid of our private jet!

Jason Maier: That's a good step; you're inching!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, we used to have one each, me and Danny! 

Jason Maier: That's the progress that we need!

Peter McCormack: We'll come back to energy, but what is that starting point then, because essentially it's going to be the starting point of your book?  What is the value proposition you're trying to get to people?  I asked you earlier on, "What was that 'wow' orange-pilling moment?"  Honestly, one of my biggest wow, orange-pilling moments happened in the last year, and I've been making this show for five years. 

But we sat down with Jeff Booth in Austin, and Danny isn't going to know what I'm going to talk about, and he explained the distortion of money to me, and how that creates malinvestment, and how that puts people in the position where they don't know how to understand the value of things.  That to me was one of the most important things I've ever heard, despite the fact I learned how to use Bitcoin to get my mum her cancer treatment; despite the fact I was able to send money to somebody in Japan, who I can connect our bank accounts.  All those things have all been important things, but that thing for me really stood out, that understanding the distortion of money that you have no control of, and we're seeing that now.  We're seeing this real devastating impact of the distortion of money over the last few years.  But what's your starting point?

Jason Maier: I don't think there's one sentence.  I do think that Bitcoin has the potential to make the world more fair and just equitable and peaceful.  So, I think that the example that you just brought up with the distortion of money is an important one, absolutely.  You can trace price controls on money, which is what we're dealing with right now, is price controls on money and who has access, etc.  Of course, it has horribly damaging side effects and knock-on effects to a lot of people in society, especially the most vulnerable people who do not have access to a bank, and I'm not even talking about internationally; in America, people who live in banking deserts, where they need to go to cheque cashing places, and things like that.  They just don't have access to the system.

The value proposition of saying, "All right, let's not manipulate the money anymore, let's not manipulate the cost of money, let's not build an entire system that's based off that manipulation", that is a great starting point.  And then we can follow that thread, because now what we're going to do is, we're going to make the world more fair.  Nobody has necessarily a head start in this new system, and we can make the world more just, and we can actually use Bitcoin for things we can't use fiat for. 

All of those things build up into an argument that makes it worth it to say, "If we take this seriously and we learn about it, and we all work hard to make sure that the vision of our future that can be better is better, then it's absolutely worth it", because the other option is to just use the system we've got until it crumbles, and I think everybody's worse off.

Peter McCormack: Well, fairness is an interesting word as well, because we know policymakers, whether they believe it or not, have tried to make the world fair, and there's often that debate about equal opportunity or equitable outcomes.  Now, I think generally speaking, equitable outcomes are ones that most people disagree with; but equal opportunity, there is fair argument to say, "How do we create equal opportunity?" 

But the world is not a fair place.  We are born into different geographies, different parents, we have different access.  But the great thing about the fairness of this protocol is when you talk about fairness, what we're talking about is a single set of rules that everyone has to play by, and no one can manipulate those rules.  So, it doesn't matter whether you're the left or the right, it's something very hard to argue against; because, if you're arguing against it, you're basically arguing to create a set of rules to either benefit you or other people, which is bullshit.

Jason Maier: It kind of is.  And then, as an American, this has been going on for 50 years, and I've benefited from it in ways that I don't even know.  So, as an American citizen, who has had an opportunity to work really hard, to go from essentially working levels of poverty, to having a successful career and a happy life, part of that is because of the US dollar as the world reserve currency, and that gives America a lot of benefits.  And as somebody in my position, I've benefited from that.

I don't know that my next jump is, "Well, taxation is theft".  I'm benefiting from the system, and a lot of people are, well a lot of people are benefiting a lot more than me, and there's people who are struggling.  So, a more fair system is absolutely important and of course, there's a lot of people who will get onto a Bitcoin interview and they'll say, "I'm really for equal opportunity, but not equal outcome", and that seems so a tautology, "People aren't equal".  I get that, but we're so far away from equal opportunity, it's not even funny.  People are really just being suppressed, and it depends on your gender, your race, your sexuality, all of those things that people are going to kill me on Twitter for even mentioning.

Peter McCormack: Don't check the YouTube comments!

Jason Maier: I will not.

Peter McCormack: "Fuck this guy!"

Jason Maier: But that's important, that's an important lens through which to look at that.  There's a lot of people right now who don't have equal opportunity, so that conversation is almost hollow in the sense that, well yeah -- it's not a very brave opinion at all, "I'm for equal opportunity".  We're so far away from that in the system, it's actually horrible.  So, if I can latch on to a system that I think moves us in the right direction, then I'm going to be all for that.

Peter McCormack: Is there a particular framework that you've put around progressive ideas and attached Bitcoin to, to try and tell this?

Jason Maier: Yeah.  So, maybe I'll just mention the structure of the book.  There's ten chapters in the book, and seven of them are content specific, "This is how Bitcoin helps in this specific category".  And there's three chapters that are introduction, but also, "What is Bitcoin?  Why is Bitcoin important?" and it's meant to be a zero-to-one resource.  So, if you really haven't thought about Bitcoin deeply, then you'll read through the first couple of chapters of this book, and you'll have a general sense of how it works, and what are the potential benefits from it.  Then we go into detail about each one of the different categories of how Bitcoin helps. 

So, the book as it exists, or as it will exist, is meant to be something you can hand to somebody who has just heard about Bitcoin, but doesn't know anything else, your co-worker, your family, your friend, who has some progressive-leaning politics.  They'll get to know more about Bitcoin from a technical -- not technical, but from how it works and why; and then specifically, this is how it helps, or this is how it could help, and by the way, we need your voice in the system to actually make it help people.

Peter McCormack: I'm looking at the chapter list here, and what I find quite interesting is that you've gone for, "Why Bitcoin is good for the environment", before, "The untold cost of the US dollar hegemony".  And the reason I think that's really interesting, I'm just going to take a stab in the dark here, that this is the biggest complaint you've potential dealt with, so you're dealing with it first?

Jason Maier: Absolutely, so that's the thing.  And in fact, in my interviews with people about the book, I've just stopped asking them, "What's the most crippling piece of FUD out there?" because we all know that right now, it's the energy argument.  So I've just started asking, "What's the second most…?"

Peter McCormack: What is the second most?

Jason Maier: Well, in here, everybody has different answers.  So, it could just be the perception that Bitcoin is useless and it's just a tool to get rich people richer, something like that; or that it's just made-up money and doesn't really exist, and those kinds of things.  So, there isn't a uniform second-place FUD that attacks the progressive angle.

Peter McCormack: Just deal with the environment.

Jason Maier: It is the environment.  And for sure, that resonates with people, their hearts and their minds.  And if you just scratch the service, then Elizabeth Warren's points, okay yeah, it's using a lot of energy and it's useless and therefore, we should stop it.  So, digging deeper into it, here's the thing, it takes work, and it's a complicated series of arguments to say, "Why is Bitcoin okay using the energy it uses; and why is it going to make the environment better; and why is it helping?"  That's not easy, that's the hardest one, and that's probably why it's the biggest piece of FUD right now, and it takes work.

There's a lot of bitcoiners out there who are doing that work and are actually engaged in that conversation, and there's a whole lot of bitcoiners right now who are just, "Yeah, I don't care about the environment and it doesn't matter, and all of this stuff is just made up and climate change isn't real".  You're not going to get to the 60% or 70% of Americans who believe all the scientists that say that climate change is real and manmade and it's affecting us; you're not going to reach those people if you're taking this -- I'll say it, they're probably taking a principled standpoint; they believe that.  But in my mind, as somebody who's trying to do this work, it seems lazy, "I'm just not going to worry about that thing that 70% of people really care about a lot, because I have my node running and I don't care about anything else".

My viewpoint is just different.  I'm going to actually try to reach those people, and those are going to be difficult, intricate, complicated conversations.

Peter McCormack: I think the environment one is the most difficult and intricate one, and I've definitely had an evolving opinion myself, as somebody who has made those claims about the environment.  I completely agree with you about the science, I agree with the scientific consensus.  I also can see the UK is about to have its first ever day over 40°C, which is, what, 106°F? 

Danny Knowles: I think it was 104°F.

Peter McCormack: 104°F; that's the UK, right.  We don't usually get above 30°C.  I can see that as well, and I've read about the impact this has on agriculture in parts of the world.  But I also fully recognise that there've been a lot of predictions that have been wrong as well, and I also recognise that curtailing the use of fossil fuels has an implication, and we have to consider that.  It's a big, complicated picture, and I'm trying to wrestle with it and understand it.

We're seeing problems with the energy grid in Germany at the moment, because they've decommissioned all their nuclear power stations and they've pushed for wind and solar, and that's caused issues.  So, it is a complicated issue.

Jason Maier: Well, let me just push back a little bit, because the idea that there's been a lot of models that were wrong --

Peter McCormack: Sorry, I said some predictions.  No, the models themselves, I've found an article that actually, the majority of the models have actually been correct.  And there was an article we found that was so good that, didn't one win a Nobel Peace Prize or something?

Danny Knowles: I can't remember that, no.

Peter McCormack: Have a google of that, look at, "Climate models and Nobel Prize", I'm sure it will come up.  But there's been predictions that haven't been helpful.

Jason Maier: Okay, I mean, I'm not necessarily an expert on every prediction, but I just think that there is a very uniform and consistent set of models that predict what we expect the atmosphere -- all of that stuff.  I think what's happening is scientists, by their very nature, offer confidence intervals and percentage of error, and all that stuff, and that's just used against them.  They're just trying to be as accurate as possible, and it's not as if people are like, "Oh, well, it doesn't make sense".  We think that the environment, the atmosphere, is going to increase by 0.8° and it turns out to be 0.6° or something; that's not wrong.

Peter McCormack: No, it's more the ideas -- I mean, there are various things that have been shared around recently, but there's some predictions to do with countries being underwater at certain periods of time and things.  There have been some predictions that have been flat out wrong, and have come from places like the UN.  And by the way, I'm on your side, but I'm trying to recognise that as well.  Did you find it?

Danny Knowles: Yeah, I think so.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, this one, "Work on Earth's Climate and Other Complex Systems earns Nobel Prize in Physics".  That's not the article I was thinking of.

Danny Knowles: I think it's probably the same one.  I think it's from some models from the 1970s.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  Let me ask you, what's your view on nuclear?

Jason Maier: I mean, again, this is the other thing that you mentioned that I wanted to respond to, which is moving away from fossil fuels is not like a snap-your-fingers thing, and I don't know any reasonable people who are claiming that we should just get rid of fossil fuels immediately, because that is going to cause a lot of damage.  I think that responsible nuclear is absolutely the way we have to go, if we need a baseload supply of energy and we have intermittent renewables.  I mean, if you can do it in a safe and not harmful way, then absolutely, I don't see necessarily -- and my mind can be changed away from that, but I'm not against nuclear necessarily.

I hear this argument sometimes, "Well, if we just stopped using fossil fuels, then it will be damaging to everybody"; nobody's saying to just get rid of fossil fuels immediately.  Just get rid of them as quickly as is prudent, without starving people to death.

Peter McCormack: Well, I think one of the difficulties is, is that some energy grids have been moving towards more renewables at the cost of using more fossil fuels, but at the same time there's been decommissioning of nuclear plants.  I've been going down the nuclear rabbit hole; we're going to try to get somebody on with this.  I was listening to Marc Andreessen on Rogan, and they were talking about nuclear.  But it can be 10 to 15 years to build a nuclear plant, and a lot of that feels like regulation, etc.  But I'd be more interested if you agree, and I agree with the --

Jason Maier: Yeah, I do, and I also have faith with humans to figure this out in the fullness of time.  I think that we'll get there.  All of the incentives are in place to make progress.  There's been, through the years, through the decades, a lot of pushback against renewable energy for lots of reasons, but you see sentiments changing, and I think all of that bodes well for the future and hopefully, we can do it as quickly as possible.  But I think we'll figure out all those details, I really do.

Peter McCormack: And have you tested this chapter against people, the arguments?

Jason Maier: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: And what range of success have you had?

Jason Maier: Mostly just astonishment that there's more to it, that the idea that just because you're using energy doesn't mean -- human beings use energy to live in a civilised society, and thinking more clearly about the incentive structures within Bitcoin to have efficient machines.  So, inefficient machines get unplugged, and to support the building out of renewables is something people just do not think about that all. 

So, when I broach this topic with people, just everyday nocoiners, they just walk away like, "Wow, I never even thought about that".  And that's just a door opened that was closed before.  And they're not, in that moment, full Bitcoin maximalists, they're just thinking about it in a different way.  So, it's just one more touchpoint.

Peter McCormack: And once that door opens, that means you can then advance to the next point and start talking to them.

Jason Maier: Oh yeah, and I love it!

Peter McCormack: So, what's your next thing?  Imagine I'm one of your friends and I'm like, "Fuck you, Bitcoin's killing the environment", and you explain to me it's good for the environment, I'm like, "I never thought about that", where do you go next?

Jason Maier: It depends on the person, and this is how I started talking to you today, which is that's what I really care about.  Anybody who I've orange pilled right now, or talked to about Bitcoin, is somebody that I know and I know what they care about.  So, I tried the environment thing with the person who sits at my office next to me.  Did not fly at all.  She was too far down the Elizabeth Warren Twitter feed; didn't work.

The minute I mentioned that Bitcoin provides an opportunity for somebody, a woman in Afghanistan to get rid of the financial patriarchy and to actually have some economic freedom, that resonated.  So, it's a different argument for different people, and I have just found it exhilarating and difficult and challenging to find, "What's the argument that's going to work for this person sitting in front of me?"

Peter McCormack: So, once you've got her on the financial patriarchy in Afghanistan, then she might be a little bit more open with regards to the environment?

Jason Maier: Sure, yeah, absolutely, because now there's a use case.  And going back to my original point, if there's no use case, I mean this is literally the sentence that she said to me, "How dare you boil our oceans for fake money".  You can't laugh, but you just have to patiently explain all of the details.  But if you find that one thing where it works, "Okay, now there's a use case, this is actually useful and important", then you can have those more meaningful conversations about the other things that are a little bit more sticky.

Peter McCormack: Did you ever think about perhaps in the book, do you remember when -- I don't know how old you are?

Jason Maier: I think I'm your age.  I'm 42.

Peter McCormack: I'm 43, okay, so you would remember when you were kids and you had those books and you get to the second page and it's like --

Jason Maier: Choose your own adventure?

Peter McCormack: Yeah.

Jason Maier: Yeah, I loved them.

Peter McCormack: "Are you going to take the sword or kill the snake?" and you kill the snake and go to that page.  Did you even considering opening, say, allow people to choose their opening like, "What do you care most about?"

Jason Maier: I mean, I do think that the book has been written in a way that each chapter is sort of self-contained, not completely, because there's overlap in some of these issues.  But ideally, you'll sit down and you'll read the book from start to finish.  If you don't do that, you can skip to the chapter that you personally care about, and in it will be arguments that have worked for me to convince progressive people in the past.

Peter McCormack: Well either way, in the book after the environment section, you do go for the dollar hegemony.  Why do you go for that next?

Jason Maier: I think that there's a lot of appreciation for the fact, among progressive people, that the United States' role in international affairs, and in finance in particular, and the way we comport ourselves internationally is not right.  And again, I think like a lot of these other things, I think they know that that system is not fair, is not good, and they haven't necessarily had the vocabulary to assign anything to it, "We're going around the world and we're being the world's policemen, and we can manipulate trade agreements and all these things"; that's all wrapped into it. 

But to really understand the history of how we got to that point and why is something that really resonates with progressive people, because they understand that the United States is going around and we're essentially an empire right now, and we have all of this influence all over the world.  And to understand how we got to that point, a lot of that's ill-gotten.  Sure, it's benefited Americans, but I think that there's plenty of progressive people who view that as something that shouldn't be.

Peter McCormack: Okay.  We're not going to go through chapter by chapter.

Jason Maier: Whatever you want to do!

Peter McCormack: Well, I think what will come out of this, other people are going to want to talk to you, and I want to leave some scope for you to talk about other sections to other people.  But is there any other particular chapter that really stood out to you that you really enjoyed working on?

Jason Maier: Yeah, I mean the idea of Bitcoin helping poor and marginalised communities is something that is profoundly true, or has the potential to really be true; and speaks to progressives in a really -- it will go after what they care about.  And I think that, again, this is the financial patriarchy in Afghanistan, but this is understanding the financial system in America and how there have been groups of people who, through decades and centuries, have been oppressed and suppressed and not part of the financial system as it exists.  This is something that progressive people really care about.

What's fascinating to me is that there is a, and this was not known to me until I looked for it, there's an absolutely thriving and vibrant black community in Bitcoin, and it is all centred around people who care about Bitcoin and understand that the current system is not serving the black community in lots of ways, and it's all centred in educating, get people started, learn the basics, as a way to opt out of the system that has been so damaging for so long for this particular community.  It's been absolutely inspiring to learn that, and it's not showing up on my feed. 

I go on YouTube and I read a book, or something like that, it's not popping up; I had to look for it.  I'm not part of that community, but just talking with people already in preparation for the book, that's been a fascinating avenue that is just not covered for the most part.

Peter McCormack: Are you speaking to -- it's Isaiah Jackson, isn't it?

Jason Maier: Yeah, Isaiah Jackson.  I have his book, and I haven't talked to him.  I have talked to some other leaders in the black community on Bitcoin, and I would be happy to talk to Isaiah, for sure.

Peter McCormack: Okay, I'll connect you to him, because he's great, he's a great guy, and he would definitely give up some time for you.

Jason Maier: Yeah, that would be absolutely helpful.  I do want to incorporate and -- what I want to do with the book partially is to showcase and honour the work that people are out there doing.  I mean, you talk -- I don't know how many names I should mention, but there are a lot of people out there doing the nitty-gritty work.  It's easy to say Bitcoin helps people in Africa, because they live in oppressive regimes and this is freedom money, but there's people actually going to Africa and teaching people how to use hard wallets.

Peter McCormack: Anita.

Jason Maier: Yeah, and so that's not easy.

Peter McCormack: Have you spoken to Anita?

Jason Maier: I have, and it was an absolutely amazing conversation.

Peter McCormack: She's incredible.  We're seeing her soon, aren't we?

Danny Knowles: In Bedford, yeah.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, she's coming to Bedford.

Jason Maier: That's great, yeah.  I mean, my talk with her was absolutely inspiring, because she's not just saying, "Theoretically, this might help people", she's actually rolling up her sleeves and leveraging the skillsets she has to actually make the world a better place.  And I'll go back to what I said earlier, which is simply you don't get to just plug in your Umbrel node and then walk away, "All right, I made the world better", you actually have to talk to people and get people onboard and teach them.

Peter McCormack: So, how far into the book are you in terms of writing?

Jason Maier: So, I had a very unexpected and sudden influx of talking to the leading voices in Bitcoin, thanks to you.

Peter McCormack: You're welcome!

Jason Maier: So, my calendar, since I spoke to you the very first time, has been essentially filled with preparing and having interviews with people for the book, and who are absolutely supportive of the idea and can see the value in it.  The entire book is sectioned out and plotted out.  I'm about halfway done writing it, so I'm feeling good about the progress.  I'm a teacher and I could do minimal work on it during this school year, this past year, and then the summertime, we're recording in the summer, so now this is my time to work on it.

Peter McCormack: Have you got a target completion date?

Jason Maier: I've recently let my term as head of our department expire, and part of the reason was, I wanted to have a little bit more time to focus on this book.  So, the goal is to have it mostly done by the end of this summer, and then to edit it and to work on it and get it typeset and all of that by next summer.  So, if everything goes well, it will be out next summer, and it will be in people's hands.

Peter McCormack: And, have you got anyone supporting you on reviewing it, editing it?

Jason Maier: I've had a couple of suggestions in terms of editing and getting copy editors and all that stuff, and I have my close buddies who are going to be looking at it, make sure I don't make a fool out of myself.

Peter McCormack: Well, it's quite the undertaking to write a book for the first time.

Jason Maier: It absolutely is, and it has been, and I'm committed to doing the best job that I can.  And I said this to somebody the other day, "When I wake up, I think about this book before I think about breakfast", and it's just something I'm passionate about.  Sometimes I just get into a tunnel and it's like, "Oh, it's dinner time", "Are you kidding?  It's been ten minutes", "No, it's been six hours!"

Peter McCormack: And are you planning to narrate an audio version?

Jason Maier: Yeah.  I think that the vast majority of my Bitcoin education has been audio versions, and it has to exist in that form too.

Peter McCormack: And so what do you hope comes out of this?

Jason Maier: I think that the biggest possible answer is that this might be the first book like it, but not the last, or not the last project.  I don't know that I'm necessarily well-equipped to be the voice for the progressive movement within Bitcoin, I don't think that I am, but I think I am a voice and I think that if nothing else, I hope that this book will give people a green light to produce whatever work they think will help.  So, I would be thrilled if this book gave people an open door towards contributing in their own way about becoming a more active voice in the Bitcoin community from a progressive lens.  So ultimately, I just want the word to get out, and if there's people who can do it better or alongside me, then I'd be all for it.

Peter McCormack: And is there anything I've not asked you about, or you wish you'd have brought up in this for people to hear?

Jason Maier: Almost everything!  I mean, it's been a great conversation.  I think that that's a really -- we don't need to shoehorn anything else in.  I'm excited about the book and spreading the word to an audience that is not plugged into Bitcoin right now.  I think that the target audience for this is the 40% of Americans right now who consider themselves progressive or liberal-leaning, and they just need to learn about Bitcoin, and they need to know it's okay.  Because right now, either they don't think anything about it, or they think it's wrong, or they think it's a Republican thing, or something like that.  So, my hope is that I reach as many of those people as possible.

Peter McCormack: Well listen, you have our 100% full backing.  When the show goes out, the Kickstarter will be ready.  We will be the first people to support your Kickstarter.  I'll buy a bunch of the books and get that out there.  Anything you need, you reach out to me, we'll help connect you with people, and we'd love to have you back on the show when the book's ready, because I think there'll be a bigger part of the story to tell.

What I'll be interested to see is what this means for you.  I mean, I've watched my friend, Troy Cross.  Ever since he's come out and started doing interviews, his life's changed, he's working on other things.  There is the potential that this has a meaningful change to your life.  You come to conferences, you become a guest on other podcasts, you become part of panels.  There is a potential for that to happen, and it will be interesting to follow that.  But you have our full support.  You can reach out to Danny anytime and ask him for anything, me for anything, and we back you, everything you're doing.

Jason Maier: Well, I know there's no guarantees, but I'm aware of that potential and my boss probably isn't listening to this, but I do have my sabbatical request written up!  So, if I need to take a year off to write myself and to make sure I do this project right, then I will.  But yeah, I appreciate your support.  It's already been phenomenal to be here talking with you and for the connections that you've helped me make, and for the connections of those people to help me make to more people.  So, it's been absolutely -- the last few weeks of my life have been something I never expected, so thank you.

Peter McCormack: Well, it's all earned.  You made the decision to put yourself out in the arena and do this, so you only need to look to yourself for that.  I did write one other thing down.  I wrote, "Book two", and in my head I was thinking, "Maybe you'll write the Bitcoin book for teenagers".

Jason Maier: That's not a bad idea.

Peter McCormack: They won't fucking read it!

Jason Maier: No, I'll make it a 20-second video, and they'll watch that!

Peter McCormack: A TikTok dance!

Jason Maier: I think that what I write in the book, which is simply that Bitcoin itself isn't one way or the other, it's not progressive and it's not conservative, but the culture is.  And the hope, by writing this book, is that the next one can be The Apolitical Case for Bitcoin, because I think that's the message and we're not there yet, because what we have is half of the people not feeling welcomed into the space.  So, once we have that, then the next book can be The Apolitical Case for Bitcoin, happy to write a book about teenagers; they're just a delight.

Peter McCormack: Have you got one?

Jason Maier: I have almost, thank you for reminding me.  I would not be allowed home if I didn't mention I have an 8-year-old and a 12-year-old.  And we have a mini-Australian Shepherd at home, and the dog's name is Toshi, named after Satoshi, and so my kids are both, "Make sure you mention Toshi, our dog".  So, I did!

Peter McCormack: I've got 18 and 12, and all different challenges.  But listen, all the best for this.

Jason Maier: Thank you very much.

Peter McCormack: I love what you're doing here and you have my full support and like I say, I think we need this.  We have a lot of very good speakers around libertarian ideas, which have totally changed me.  I'm a different person because of them, and also US conservatives, again they've really helped me and influenced me.  I now feel like this is needed and I'm glad you're the guy doing it, and I look forward to reading the book, and good luck.

Jason Maier: Thank you.  So, you'll link the Kickstarter, I'll have it linked on my Twitter.

Peter McCormack: What is your Twitter?

Jason Maier: It's @cjasonmaier and I'll have a link there.  But I'll be also pushing out ideas from the book as we go, and that's a good way to be in touch with the progress and my thinking about things.

Peter McCormack: And we'll share it out and we'll make sure everyone sees it.  Okay, good luck, man.

Jason Maier: Awesome, thank you, Peter.