The Story: Pococurantes don’t care about others, the future, or the truth
Dr. Aiden Gregg is an associate professor at the psychology department of the University of Southampton, where he lectures and conducts research. Dr. Gregg has done a lot of thinking and research about psychopathy, sociopathy, anti-social personality disorder and related ideas.
In this section of the interview, Dr. Gregg further explains psychopathy, and his idea of “redrawing the lines” of psychopathy, sociopathy and anti-social personality disorder, in an idea he calls “the pococurante” – a person who doesn’t care about the truth, other people, the future, or even himself in the future. He also talks about the data from Dr. Kent Kiehl’s MRI experiments with psychopaths, how they might indicate an explanation under Freudian theory, with a lack of an ego to negotiate between the sensible and baser desires of a human.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The Story: What are psychopaths, sociopaths, and anti-social personality disorder?
Dr. Aiden Gregg is an associate professor at the psychology department of the University of Southampton, where he lectures and conducts research. Dr. Gregg has done a lot of thinking and research about psychopathy, sociopathy, anti-social personality disorder and related ideas.
In this section of the interview, Dr. Gregg explains his perspective on psychopathy, how it can be like looking into an abyss, how psychopaths may lack something that ordinary humans have, the link to myths like vampires and reptilian aliens, the history of “moral insanity”, the vagueness of the term “psychopathy”, the distinction between signs and symptoms of a disease, definitions from Hervey Cleckley and Robert D. Hare, Jon Ronson’s book on “The Psychopath Test”, and psychopaths in society.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The Story: Using Dash to get by with Joël Valenzuela
Joël Valenzuela is known for his work with the Dash Force public outreach program, delivering presentations, planning conferences and other events. Valenzuela writes for Dash Force News and also oversees the content creation and distribution. Joël is also known for being a man who lives solely off cryptocurrency – specifically Dash.
In this interview we discuss Joël’s background, growing up in Mexico and living through the peso collapse and revaluation of the early 90s, how that gave him perspective on sound money and helped him to understand Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, the connection with gold and silver, the current state and future of Dash, the technical foundations of the user-friendly Dash Evolution wallet and the challenges with its development, and how commercial and central bankers are reacting to cryptocurrency.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
Hamilton Souther is a medicine man, given the title of “master shaman” by his mentors in the Peruvian Amazon. For 17 years he has conducted ceremonies with the sacred brew ayahuasca, and used scores of other plants to help seekers find their way to forgiveness and empathy.
In his 20s, Mr. Souther started to have a spiritual awakening, having visionary experiences, leading him to search for answers in shamanism, and looking for deeper understanding of healing and the human psyche.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
Sam Neffendorf is an expert in meta-health, a strategy for putting various health traditions and EFT, a healing technique that combines principles of acupressure and hypnosis. In this interview, Sam gives Kurt an overview of how meta-health can help people take control of their own healing, putting data from various sources into context.
Many people have the experience of going to their doctor and feeling like they’re not being taken seriously, given a prescription and ushered out of the office before the doctor’s next appointment in 12 minutes. Even so, it would be a mistake to dismiss western medicine entirely, as their diagnostic methods are the most advanced in the world, and the pills they prescribe can help in many extreme health situations.
There are also many things to learn from other medical traditions, such as the long and thorough consultations from homeopathy, guiding people towards knowledge of their own habits and helping them realise what is really beneficial for them, in addition to the treatments.
Here Sam explains how we can discover our own patterns of stress that often precede the symptoms, how life can be seen as a series of cycles involving stress and regeneration, and what to do when we get trapped in a part of this cycle. Join us on a personal health journey on this episode of The Paradise Paradox!
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The Story: How to let people feel good in your presence
Sometimes we use words without thinking too much about their meaning, without putting the intention or the weight behind them which they might deserve. We say “You’re welcome” without feeling that someone is welcome, or “good bye” without remembering the original meaning of the phrase – “God be with ye”. Similarly, French people say “Adieu” and Spaniards say “Adiós” without thinking of them as blessings.
However, in some parts of the world, people do mean what they say. In Thailand, the common greeting and farewell is “sawatdii”, which is actually the Sanskirt word “svasti” meaning “goodness”. Every hello is a blessing in Thai, and when you hear Thai people say it, you can feel the goodness.
How can you use your words to bless people, to let them feel welcome in your presence, to increase their comfort? How much of a hello is your “Hello”, and can you introduce yourself and reveal a little of your soul? Let’s talk about it in this episode of The Paradise Paradox!
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
In 2016, a young man known as John Galton was facing serious drug charges with his partner – looking at decades in prison for drug charges. They’d been producing a kind of highly potent cannabis oil known as “dabs” or butane hash oil. It seemed the court didn’t want to make a distinction between the manufacture of dabs, and of more addictive and dangerous drugs such as heroin – and perhaps wanted to set a strong example.
John and his partner decided to flee to Mexico and live in Acapulco with the community of expats there, making a living in different ways – writing articles online, growing food, running a restaurant from their living room, and setting up a form of decentralised conference called Anarchaforko.
A few weeks ago, John Galton was tragically shot dead, and a friend of his was also injured with three bullet wounds. The question of his death is complex, and in many ways it’s not ours to discuss.
However, the other question which it raised for many is, how safe is Acapulco? Every year many libertarians go to Anarchapulco to explore freedom in its many forms. Are they in any danger? And how can they best protect themselves?
In this episode, Kurt interviews Luis Fernando Mises to ask his opinion of Acapulco and Mexico, the four parts of Acapulco. Kurt explains some basic safety precautions that people should be aware of when in Latin America. We also discuss the practice of “shaktipat”, when a devotee receives spiritual energy from a yoga guru, why Luis invests in Ripple, our love for Mexican food and the search for the perfect quesadilla.
Join us on another beach-faring, sun-catching, freedom-seeking episode of… The Paradise Paradox!
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The Story: How to build a company based on communication
Since 2015, hundreds of people have gone to Acapulco every year to celebrate liberty, and discuss how to make the world more free. Some of them decided to never leave, and some decided to keep coming back. In this episode, Kurt is joined by Acapulco expatriate Michael Nimetz, and Anarchapulco performer, MC ELAmental.
If you’ve ever worked in a large organisation, you probably know that the rule is “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” That’s why Michael is presenting a workshop on his method of “Ethical Emergence” at Anarchapulco this year 2019 – all about how to improve communication in organisations, fostering relationships between individuals and departments, enabling people to best use their skills and form synergy with others’ skills. Nimetz has used this method in the construction industry, improving the efficiency so much that it reduces large projects by many months.
Our other guest, MC ELAmental is performing at Anarchapulco’s Turtle party. MC ELAmental makes conscious hip hop, and is an advocate and activist creating eco-friendly products by hand, such as T-shirts with natural dyes using berries and other plants – in harmony with nature and even helping plants to grow.
Thanks to Michael, ELAmental and to you for joining us in this interesting conversation.
We really appreciate all of your contributions! Every cent and satoshi we receive lets us know that we’re doing something worthwhile, that you are entertained by our program, and that you’re starting to question what you know more and more. Please be generous. Donate to The Paradise Paradox. Or buy some stuff on Amazon using this link. Or buy some of our great T-shirts here.
The other day I sat down with my friend Chris Guida, long term Bitcoin enthusiast, software developer and all-round nice guy, to discuss some questions about cryptocurrency that people had raised on the Internet. DO we regret investing in cryptocurrency, after it’s fallen so far? And, was the 2017 rise in cryptocurrency nothing but a pump and dump scheme?
Let’s hear what Chris has to say.
Scroll down to watch the episode
Do you regret investing?
Firstly, do we regret investing in cryptocurrency? Both of us started buying years ago, so the answer was a clear no. However, there are many people who didn’t have the good fortune to buy so early. Chris says it’s likely that the crypto market will come around again – just like with a traditional market, there’s a boom and bust. It’s easy for a lot of folks in the media to say that bitcoin is dead and will never come back – but [literally hundreds of pundits have said that before](https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/), and it hasn’t stopped crypto yet.
Was it a pump and dump?
We also discussed whether the crypto bubble of 2017 was a pump and dump scheme, a manipulated effort by whales and market makers, pushing money in and loudly and taking it out quietly. Wherever there are markets, it’s almost guaranteed that people are trying to work them in their favour, but in this case it’s unlikely that there’s one grand conspiracy to push up the price. The price, and the bubble, is a result of a lot of individual actors, buying, selling, holding, and saying the truth or saying lies about what they’re doing.
Please join Chris and Kurt for a crypto exploration on this episode of Cryptonomics. Thanks for listening, liking on Facebook, subscribing on YouTube, and on BitTube, for sharing this episode, and for being cool. Stay grateful!
Last week, Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business wrote an article about cryptocurrency, explaining how it’s all about greed. It’s true, crypto is about greed, but that’s not all it’s about. Cryptocurrency is a movement and technology with many people involved, some with idealistic motives, and some more nefarious. Roubini’s piece is littered with truths, half-truths and mis-truths, as I break down in this episode of Cryptonomics.
Here are a few key quotes from the article with my responses:
Scroll down to watch and listen to the episode.
The libertarian ideology
“But it has also become the byword for a libertarian ideology that treats all governments, central banks, traditional financial institutions, and real-world currencies as evil concentrations of power that must be destroyed.”
I’m not sure if Roubini was trying to portray blockchain enthusiasts as a bunch of radical anarchists. The sentence does lack nuance… but other than that, yes please, destroy central banks, governments and fiat currencies.
Everyone on the blockchain
“They would like the entirety of social and political life to end up on public ledgers that are supposedly ‘permissionless’ (accessible to everyone) and ‘trustless’ (not reliant on a credible intermediary such as a bank).”
This is kind of right, but not exactly. For many libertarians, the idea that their entire life would be on a blockchain is horrifying, but having the facility to put things on a blockchain, where they’re very difficult to remove or censor, is a great tool for liberty.
A few white men
“A few self-serving white men (there are hardly any women or minorities in the blockchain universe) pretending to be messiahs for the world’s impoverished, marginalised and unbanked masses claim to have created billions of dollars of wealth out of nothing.”
Whether a technology is built by white men, Zimbabwean tribe children or grey Tibetan apes, can’t tell us its utility or validity. In the following paragraph, Roubini contradicts himself by writing:
“a small group of companies – mostly located in such bastions of democracy as Russia, Georgia and China – control between two-thirds and three-quarters of all crypto-mining activity and all routinely jack up transaction costs to increase their fat profit margins.”
At once blockchains are scary because it involves white men, and because it involves people who might not be white men. Well, I’m not scared.
It’s not just about greed
“But one need only consider the massive centralisation of power among cryptocurrency ‘miners,’ exchanges, developers and wealth holders to see that blockchain is not about decentralisation and democracy; it is about greed.”
Miners might have a lot of power when it comes to processing the transactions of a network, but they can’t just invent new monetary policy as a central bank can do. Developers can change the code, but they can’t guarantee that anybody will continue to use their currency. It’s true that these systems are centralised in many ways, but they are still less centralised than central or commercial banks, and still more democratic than any government.
It’s really easy to see people making money, point the finger and say “they are greedy”, reducing the motivations of strangers to a single word. It takes imagination and empathy to wonder about their idealism, their purest intentions.
Blockchains are not for traditional companies
“So it is no surprise that whenever ‘blockchain’ has been piloted in a traditional setting, it has either been thrown in the trash bin or turned into a private permissioned database that is nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet or a database with a misleading name.”
Enterprising individuals are building new kinds of organisations and communities, like Dash’s decentralised autonomous organisations. These organisations are less hierarchical – they don’t even necessarily require CEOs. When an old-fashioned hierarchical company takes a blockchain structure and tries to implement it, we shouldn’t be surprised that they have no use for it, just as we wouldn’t be surprised that a horsebreeder would find no use for a motorcar.
Conclusion – Look for value first
A lot of intelligent people are also very critical people, and that means when they hear a new idea, they start picking it apart before they even get the full picture. That’s a useful skill to have as an engineer, statistician or economist, but it must be set aside when one wishes to put on the hat of futurist, visionary, or friend. The future, like visions and friendships, are things created, and so we must be creative to glimpse their potential.
As I said in my commentary for this clip with Kosh Eek, it’s easy to think that those who bought bitcoins years ago were just lucky, but the reality is subtler. They were curious enough to listen to information from unusual sources, about the problems of central banks and fiat currency, and to imagine how things were related. To those few, Bitcoin was like the “Rose That Grew From The Concrete”, a beauty, albeit bruised and misshapen, inspiring wonder about how it came to exist. They didn’t look for the flaws first and run away, but instead looked for value and then put the flaws in their proper context.
In these changing times, analysis without curiosity might leave one suddenly waking up in an unfamiliar world, desperate and afraid. A calm and open mind is receptive to new information, to changes, the dance of life and play of consciousness. Have the courage and quietness to see the future; reveal the path of opportunity; look for value.
